It took no longer than a minute before all of the blood had surrounded the orb, creating a much larger red sphere around it. The fact that I couldn’t see the core itself anymore slightly unnerved me until I noticed a small hole in the surface of the blood sphere. The small opening became larger, as if the liquid was sinking into the orb, spinning around it and being siphoned inward. Soon, the floating red ball started shrinking until I could see the core shining a bright red light underneath it.
By the time all of the blood had seeped into it, the orb was emanating a light brighter than that of the setting sun, sending long shadows over the wreckages of the wall and the dragon’s body. I was forced to turn around as its brightness peaked and a wave of warmth rushed over me before it settled again. When I turned around to look at it, the pillar was retreating into the ground, the guild core now pulsating with a deep red color and surrounded by a golden corona.
A new notification popped up in the periphery of my view and I pulled it forward immediately.
* * *
The guild core of the Guildhall - Divine Realm: Mount Olympus has absorbed the essence of Typhon, king of monsters.
The guildhall’s defenses are 1000% more effective against dragon attacks.
The guildhall’s defenses are 100% more effective against raid boss attacks.
The guildhall’s defenses are 100% more effective against monster attacks.
Enhanced guild core construction projects have been unlocked.
You have unlocked 2 new enhanced guild core construction projects.
* * *
The bonuses to the guildhall’s defenses were definitely a great boon, especially the one that pretty much guaranteed the guildhall would be able to fend off any other dragon attacks. However—and perhaps this was just my wishful thinking—I didn’t think we would have any monsters attacking us any time soon. If Typhon wasn’t able to destroy us, no other monster would dare attack us.
But killing the strongest of Greek monsters was bound to attract the attention of people outside our realms. I knew for a fact that the Norse monster Jörmungandr was considered to be equal to, or even stronger than, Typhon and there were probably a whole host of beasts I had never even heard of. After all, the world wasn’t as small as Cronus would have had us believe.
What was most important right now for us and the guildhall in general was the fact that a whole new category of construction projects had just been made available to us. Curious to see just what wonders the blood of the one hundred-headed dragon could bestow onto us, I pulled up the new list of available projects.
* * *
Available Enhanced Guild Core Construction Projects:
Monster Slayers’ Union (0/1)
Dragon Ghost Protector (0/1)
* * *
Not having the slightest clue what either of those two things were, I focused on the first and absorbed the information provided.
* * *
Name: Monster Slayers’ Union
Resources Needed: 400x Lumber Units (4000 MP)
80x Mythril Units (8,000,000 MP)
40x Steel Units (400 MP)
20x Iron Units (200 MP)
Construction Time: 4000 minutes (2,400,000 MP)
Description: It is a gigantic honor and responsibility to rid the Apocosmos of the monsters terrorizing its citizens. The monster slayers’ union is one of the few hubs that create quests and contracts to hunt and kill especially dangerous monsters. While the quests will eventually become available to everyone who visits the union, the right of first refusal belongs to the guild of Zeus.
* * *
There were so many peculiar things about this building. First, there was the swathe of different materials and the incredible cost of mythril units. There was no doubt I would pay the price in MP, as much as it might sting, but I needed to let Artemis know that we should find a place to mine, or at least trade, mythril soon. Then we had steel, which would fall under the purview of the blacksmiths. We still didn’t have any so far, though I had no doubt we would soon be getting lots of them.
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Having a place to put out regular quests for adventurers would probably be a major pull for our settlement. Dungeons attracted people from all walks of life with the promise of riches and magical items. The vast majority of those people were opportunists that would either die young or survive long enough to eventually quit the dungeoneering life. A quest-generating establishment, however, was something that professional adventurers frequented, and wherever adventurers went, so did business and power. This single building was probably going to be the biggest boon in terms of growing our city and making it the most prosperous clan hall in all of Greece.
Without waiting to see what the second building was going to be, I bought the necessary resources, paying the more than eight million MP necessary for them, and had them placed on the north side of the valley. I wasn’t going to start building it yet, since I wanted my people to be part of this, especially since we were going to be one of the very few settlements to even have such a construction.
Feeling happy about how this had turned out, I opened the newly unlocked construction projects again and focused on the second one.
* * *
Name: Dragon Ghost Protector
Resources Needed: 100000x Gold Units (100,000,000 MP)
Construction Time: 4000 minutes (2,400,000 MP)
Description: The essence of Typhon, the one hundred-headed dragon, has been captured in the guild core and is available for use as long the core exists. By constructing one hundred golden dragon-head sculptures on the periphery of the city, the ghost of the king of monsters can be unleashed upon anyone who dares attack the settlement. This defensive measure will cost 1,000,000 MP to activate, lasts for one hour, and can only be used once per week.
* * *
Yet another defensive building, and this time it looked like it was bound to an ability-like feature. Thinking of what was to come, I knew this construction project would likely be very helpful but I could already see a couple of problems. The obvious one was the insane cost of the gold units. Each of them cost 1,000 MP to materialize and apparently each of the hundred heads required a thousand of them. One hundred million was absolutely getting into the territory of uncomfortable spending, but that wasn’t the only issue.
In order to build them, we would first need to repair the walls and that wasn’t going to happen soon.
* * *
List of buildings in need of repair:
House #21 (98% integrity)
Mana Generator (87% integrity)
Walls (68% integrity)
* * *
No matter how much I tried to find one, there was no option to have a mana worker repair any of the damaged buildings. This actually made sense in terms of the Dark Energy balancing large-scale battles and sieges. If a guildhall had enough MP, like I did, it could just continually send mana workers to repair its walls, fortifications, and defenses until the attacker was defeated. Requiring actual people to do the repairs made sure that this wouldn’t happen.
It also meant that the construction of this extremely expensive defensive measure would have to wait until our walls were completely repaired. In any case, it gave me enough time to add another task in the daily life of the miners, finding a gold vein under the mountain, or at least having Aphrodite put out the word among merchants that we were accepting gold.
Right on time, the cheers of people coming through the portal reached me. The celebrating group of Dion citizens was silenced once they turned around and saw the colossal corpse of the fallen dragon, the multiple headless necks looking like a jumble of ropes made flesh. Their astonishment soon became an explosion of excitement again as they rushed to the corpse, surrounding it the way flies do corpses.
Aphrodite looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. “Almost everyone in the town came to see the fallen dragon,” she said in the guild chat.
It only took a couple of minutes before the trained citizens of the guildhall returned along with Artemis and pushed back the crowds. Artemis jumped on one of the beast’s legs, and addressed the gathered crowds.
“Everyone who has experience in harvesting organs, scales, and monster parts in general, step to the right!” she shouted and a small group of people broke off from the crowd. “Each of you can select two helpers so that you can work faster. Every one of you will get the first picks after the harvesting is over.”
The small group of people cheered, but Artemis immediately raised her hands to silence them.
“Once the harvesting is done, the beast will be cut,” she continued. “Everyone can start cutting pieces of it. For every twenty pieces you cut for the guild, you can keep one for yourself.”
This elicited an even louder burst of cheers. This time, the huntress let it run its course before addressing the crowds again.
“The people who live here will come with me,” she shouted. “Your portions are guaranteed, but we have a lot to repair.”
Another group broke off from the gathered crowd and moved toward the center of the settlement. This group were all familiar faces.
“Alright. Get to it!” she shouted before jumping down. “There’s a big feast coming once we’re done.”
The men and women who had no harvesting experience surrounded those who did, shouting at them and pleading for a spot in their team in order to get more meat portions for themselves. Artemis walked away from the chaos that had ensued and started talking with the Mount Olympus citizens that had hidden themselves in the caverns below.
“What do you want them to work on?” she asked me in the guild chat.
“Start by repairing house twenty-one, the mana generator, and then the walls,” I replied. “After that, they can continue with the tasks they had before the attack.”
“You don’t expect them to finish everything today, right?” Aphrodite asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “We all deserve a break and a celebration. So make sure you get the best grillers and cooks and have them start preparing a feast with the beast’s meat. Everyone should be stuffed and drunk tonight.”
“We shouldn’t let the corpse lay there for too long,” Artemis warned.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Aphrodite replied. “I’ll make sure it remains fresh and no creatures will go near it.”
“If Aphrodite says she can do that, I think we can manage a break for a big celebration,” I said, smiling at the goddess of beauty who was standing opposite me. “It might be the very last time that there so few of us.”
“You call this just a few?” Artemis asked, surprised.
“I have a feeling we’re going to be flooded with people by dawn tomorrow,” Aphrodite said.