Ultimately, I decided that I would be building all of them at some point so the plan was more about their placement in order to maximize their efficiency. I had already decided that the Mining Camp would have to be situated on east side of the mountain—the one we had climbed up. It was filled with openings into Olympus that would probably make for the best entry points for miners.
The Lumberyard would need to be placed on the west side, since that looked like it was covered with trees, but it also needed to be in such a place that it would not be too far away from the storage shack. The farms, on the other hand, would be placed right behind it so that my farmers would have everything they needed close to them.
Finally, though I didn’t have a specific location in mind for the Blacksmith’s Workshop, I knew I didn’t want it too close to the houses, so I decided I could put it close to the Mining Camp. This way, the smiths would be able to communicate with the miners about their needs in minerals and metals directly and avoid annoying other residents with their noise.
Before I started buying resources for each building, I thought I’d look into upgrading the storage shack. The cost of the materials and the mana workers was extremely low compared to my mana stash, so I didn’t see a reason why I shouldn’t be upgrading everything to its maximum possible level.
I looked at the storage shack and its information appeared in front of me.
* * *
Name: Storage Shack
Level: 1
Stored Resources: 0/1000
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 2 (Met)
Level-Up Cost: 80x Lumber Units (800 MP)
10x Iron Units (100 MP)
10x Misc Building Units (100 MP)
Level-Up Time: 120 minutes (72,000 MP)
Description: A simple, single-story wooden building meant for storing purposes. This building doesn’t provide for the most efficient use of space but it does offer some protection for anything that is stored in there.
* * *
I kind of wished I was able to preview how the building would look after I upgraded it, but I couldn’t see any such option. Right when I stopped searching for it, the semi-translucent frame of the upgraded storage shack appeared around the current one. Not only was this building taller but it also grew in surface area immensely.
My worries about the buildings overlapping with each other as they leveled up were instantly swiped away as I saw that the upgraded version of the building also pushed away all of the natural elements around it. It was as if the guild core was creating empty terrain for the buildings that were being created.
I hadn’t heard of such a thing before but I’d always wondered how this type of thing worked or whether it just required very careful planning. In fact, whenever we visited Hyperion, my father’s brother’s settlement, I’d always wondered how he was able to expand it so much.
My uncle’s settlement was constricted in the middle of a deep gorge and every time we visited, I thought there was no space left to grow into. And yet, every time there were bigger or even new buildings being built. This behavior of the place of power, however, explained it all.
I paid the price for the materials needed to upgrade the shack and quickly put another mana worker on it. A bit over 8000 MP to upgrade my storage didn’t sound too bad after all. I minimized the progress bar of the upgrade and opened the farm construction details next.
* * *
Name: Farm
Resources Needed: 4x Lumber Units (40 MP)
Construction Time: 60 minutes (36,000 MP)
Description: A farm that allows for a variety of small and medium sized animals as well as a small selection of crops. Owning a farm increases food ration production rate.
* * *
I hadn’t initially considered that farms would include livestock so I was more than happy with my choice of placing the farms behind the storage. I sure liked my fresh milk, eggs, cheese, and meat but I wasn’t excited to hear or smell them every waking hour. I doubted the farms would be created with animals themselves though, so this was another thing my believers would have to take care of.
I bought the sixteen units of lumber and set the workers up on all four of the farms. Since I needed two of the farms at level two in order to upgrade the guildhall, I wouldn’t let them complete the other buildings. However, I wanted to test whether the progress of the mana workers would bite into the cost of buying out the construction time with mana. Surely a farm that was already half-built would cost less to complete than building one from scratch?
The next projects on my list were the lumberyard and the mining camp. I selected the lumberyard first so I could purchase what was needed for its construction.
* * *
Name: Lumberyard
Resources Needed: 20x Lumber Units (200 MP)
Construction Time: 120 minutes (72,000 MP)
Description: A lumberyard is the focal point of a community’s woodworking business, be it imports, exports, treatment, or processing. Owning a lumberyard significantly increases lumber unit production rate.
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* * *
I found it kind of ironic that I needed twenty lumber units to build a place that would increase the rate at which the settlement would gain lumber, but who was I to judge the Dark Energy’s machinations? I spent the necessary MP to buy the materials and put another worker on it before I turned my head toward the location I had selected for the mining camp.
* * *
Name: Mining Camp
Resources Needed: 20x Lumber Units (200 MP)
10x Iron Units (100 MP)
Construction Time: 120 minutes (72,000 MP)
Description: The mining camp is the beginning and the end of every miner’s working day. This is where ores will be crushed, ground, roasted, smelted, refined, and cast. Owning a mining camp significantly increases metal and ore unit production rate.
* * *
By the looks of it, the mining camp was going to deal with a much larger variety of resources than the lumberyard but considering that ores, metals, and jewels were used to make most items and wood used for most buildings, it made sense that they sat on the same level. I wanted to build it as soon as possible so I purchased the resources and put yet another bodiless worker on it.
The outline of this building looked like it would be larger in size but not completely covered from the elements, which I guessed was purposeful as ores might even benefit from the occasional drop of rain, unlike wood.
The last building available to me before I force-finished two of the farms and upgraded the whole settlement was the blacksmith’s workshop. I pulled up the selection of available buildings and selected it from the list.
* * *
Name: Blacksmith’s Workshop
Resources Needed: 10x Lumber Units (200 MP)
10x Iron Units (100 MP)
Construction Time: 120 minutes (72,000 MP)
Description: The blacksmith’s workshop is what separates hamlets from organized village communities. Tools, weapons, and armor are only the beginning of what a smithy can offer to a settlement. Owning a blacksmith’s workshop unlocks weapons and armor research, as well as crafting equipment and tools.
* * *
Yet again, I purchased the materials and put a mana worker on it after paying the required charge of 7,500 MP. Having built, or rather started building, all of the available construction projects, I turned my attention back to the farms.
Another sound coming from the first tent drew my attention, though this time it sounded like a sigh. I guessed all this constructing wasn’t sitting well with Aphrodite trying to sleep. I quickly glanced to the other end of the valley and saw that Artemis was now close to the mining camp, sitting on a large rock and looking carefully at how the whole building was being constructed.
I forced myself to look at the farms again. By now, I knew exactly how easy it was for me to lose focus when the distractions came in the form of beautiful women, especially the goddess variety.
When I focused on the first farm, I saw that its progress was at less than one percent. What I wanted to examine was whether this one percent would be subtracted from the total construction time cost of 36,000 MP. This was a good opportunity to examine whether canceling the mana worker would return the unspent MP to the guild core or if I’d be able to assign them elsewhere.
I selected the instant construction option and was met with a prompt.
* * *
You can completely skip the construction process of the Farm at the cost of 10 MP per second.
Would you like to do so for a total of 36000 MP?
Yes No
* * *
The answer to my first question was, unfortunately, negative. It seemed that no matter what percentage of the building had already been completed by a worker—and I bet this included both mana workers and mortals too—the cost for instantaneous building was not reduced. It didn’t make much sense to me, but I guessed that there were probably lots of ways to exploit it. And it wasn’t like I could do anything about it right now anyway.
The next step was to see if I’d receive any of the pre-paid MP back when I canceled the worker. I selected “Yes”, the worker vanished, and the whole farm was built in a matter of seconds. I paid close attention to the amount of MP I had and noticed that the 36,000 MP were removed but none was refunded back to me.
So the mana I’d used on the worker were lost to me and the mana creature itself had already vanished. I’d anticipated such an outcome and the loss was minimal, but still, it was a good thing to test and know.
The farm was ready to receive animals, complete with separated spaces for each of them, including roofs and feeding and watering pens, while another part of the farm was reserved for crops. All in all, it looked like it might be able to provide quite a lot of resources. Not as much as what Artemis would manage if she went on a hunting trip, but we couldn’t always rely on game meat.
* * *
Name: Farm
Level: 2
Livestock: -
Crops: -
Job Slots: 4
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 3
Level-Up Cost: ??
Level-Up Time: ??
Description: A farm that allows for a variety of small and medium sized animals as well as a small selection of crops. Owning a farm increases food ration production rate.
* * *
That was interesting. It looked like the farm started at level two, which indicated that buildings that were unlocked when the whole guildhall was upgraded would start from the level at the time of their upgrade, rather than starting from one. And that brought me one step closer to moving on with the upgrade of the guildhall again.
I looked around me, marveling at the constructions that were starting to take shape and had just finished instantly constructing the second farm when I heard another sigh from Aphrodite. I would need to check on her, but at the moment I could only think that I was so close to upgrading the settlement to level three.
* * *
Place of Power: Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm
Name: Mount Olympus
Level: 2
State: Idle
MP: 327,509,996,611
MP Generation: 10 MP/minute
Timber: 0
Iron: 0
Food Rations: 0
Buildings: Divine Portal (0.01% completed)
House #11-#20 (4.23% completed)
Farm #3 (1.26% completed)
Farm #4 (1.25% completed)
Storage Shack (0.69% completed)
Lumberyard (0.70% completed)
Mining Camp (0.69% completed)
Blacksmith’s Workshop (0.68% completed)
Level-Up Requirement : 10x Level 2 Houses (1)
2x Level 2 Farms (2)
1000 Food Rations (0)
1000 Lumber Units (0)
1000 Iron Units (0)
Level-Up Cost: 1000 MP
Level-Up Time: 8 hours
* * *
I had completely forgotten about the fact that I needed ten houses finished so I quickly put the overview to the side and spent another whopping 324,000 MP to instantly upgrade nine more tents into houses. The cost was steep but I wanted to upgrade the hall and unlock more buildings as quickly as possible.
Having the required houses ready, I looked back at the rest of the requirements and spent 10,000 MP on each of the materials needed, namely food rations, lumber, and iron units. With all of the requirements for the upgrade met, I finally opened the upgrade window and got the notification I’d been working toward.
* * *
You have opted to upgrade the Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm : Mount Olympus.
The process will consume all resources and materials mentioned in the requirement, aside from the buildings, along with 1000 MP and will last 8 hours.
Would you like to proceed?
Yes No
* * *
I selected “Yes” and looked for an option to skip the level-up duration so I could start constructing even more buildings. To my disappointment, there was nothing I could do to accelerate this process. I would have to wait the full eight hours before I could continue strengthening the guildhall.
Another sigh from the tent, this time a bit louder, brought me out of my thoughts and I decided to finally go check on Aphrodite.