A few minutes later, having showered and prepared myself mentally for a long day of upgrading buildings and managing resources, I got into my daily attire and met with my beautiful goddess again before going to make our guildhall a better place.
"Don't be too late tonight," I said, kissing Aphrodite, who was laying on a couch half-naked.
"I don't have anything special planned," Aphrodite replied. "Just meeting with a few smiths to see if we can have them work for us."
"That would be great." I opened the door. "Have fun."
She blew me a kiss before I closed the door behind me and took in the beauty of the valley in which our guildhall was built.
The colors of Mount Olympus never ceased to amaze me and today was no different. The blue of the sky mixed with the orange of the sun hitting the clouds from above was a perfect contrast with the vibrant greens of the highest trees in the distance. It was awe-inspiring. But more than that, I felt proud of how our city was doing.
I pulled up the main interface and tried to prepare my agenda for the day.
* * *
Place of Power: Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm
Name: Mount Olympus
Level: 4
State: Idle
MP: 326,879,019,498
MP Generation: 23,000 MP/minute
Population: 1,270
Lumber: 166,487
Iron: 123,771
Food Rations: 142,518
Level-Up Requirements: 40x Level 4 Houses (Met)
8x Level 4 Farms (Met)
Academics and Research Institution (Met)
200 Citizens (Met)
100,000 Food Rations (Met)
100,000 Lumber Units (Met)
100,000 Iron Units (Met)
Level-Up Cost: 1,000,000 MP
Level-Up Time: 11,520 minutes (32 minutes left)
* * *
I had a little over half an hour before the guildhall upgraded to level five. I couldn't wait to see the new buildings that would become available. After a few months of running this place, I was beginning to get excited about even the more mundane parts of city-building.
For example, the number of citizens that could fit inside our city was directly connected to the number of houses, which was--of course--limited by our guildhall level. What's more, each individual house could only hold a certain number of people, which was also related to its own level. And the houses' maximum levels were also bound to the level of the guild.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
All this meant that once the guildhall was upgraded, I would be able to level up all the existing residencies and build more of them, raising the number of citizens we would be able to welcome exponentially. Pretty early on, I understood that the people living here were the key to our success as a guild.
Of course, having billions of mana stored up was a huge advantage too, but I was always looking at the long game. And I didn't mean that in the foolish way that mortals did. Being a god meant that you would have to plan ahead for centuries. And building strong foundations, making sure that the MP was preserved for important upgrades in the future was the smart thing to do.
At the moment, the core was generating 1,000 MP a minute by itself and while each of the two mana generators had an initial output of 10,000 MP, their upgrade had increased it to 11,000 each. But still I wanted more. So much more.
Happy and anxious to see how busy I would be for the rest of the day, I headed for one of the hills overlooking the whole city. It would be a great place to get an overview of all the buildings, so that I would be able to place the new constructions in the best way when the time came.
As I walked there, I pulled up my divinity status to see if I had gained any additional levels.
* * *
Divinity Level: 10 (Minimum 2)
Followers: 43,928 / 45,000
Divinity Points: 10/10
* * *
The whole "slaying a world raid boss" announcement had pulled many people to us, and many of them became followers of mine, with quite a few trickling down to my two companions as well. And having followed Aphrodite's advice, I hadn't seen a negative day--when the amount of new followers was less than those turning away--for almost a month now. Things were finally picking up for my faith.
Even though I hadn't yet gained an additional level, it was good to see that I was slowly raising my divine influence. With a smile on my face, I opened the list of the currently available building projects.
* * *
Available Construction Projects:
Tent (80/80)
Storage Shack (2/4)
Farm (16/16)
Lumberyard (1/1)
Mining Camp (1/1)
Blacksmith's Workshop (1/1)
Melee Fighting Barracks (1/1)
Ranged Fighting Barracks (1/1)
Walls (1/1)
Mana Generator (2/2)
Magic Thunder Coil Defenses (2/2)
Warmage Academy (1/1)
Academics and Research Institution (1/1)
* * *
The storage facilities were the only option where I hadn't constructed the full number of buildings available so far, and that was only because the need for more of them hadn't yet arisen. Once I maxed out the level of the two I had built, they were more than enough to hold all of our resources--at least those we needed in order to upgrade the guild.
When I reached the top of the hill, I got a better view of the people working in the city, but the most important thing wasn't visible to anyone. The resources that sat waiting in the storage buildings would disappear in less than half an hour, when the guild core of Mount Olympus finished its next level upgrade.
Building a warmage academy so early in our guildhall's life hadn't seemed like it would provide too much of an advantage, but since we had the available resources and people to work on it, I couldn't see how it would harm us either. Most of our people were getting much more value out of the melee and ranged fighting barracks, but I saw the warmage academy a little differently.
Aside from the fact that our spellcasters needed somewhere to train as well, mages and sorcerers were attracted to places where they could deepen their studies and perfect their craft. Without a warmage academy, I would be ensuring that only fighter classes would ever apply to join our city. And I didn't want to risk being outmatched by another guild who happened to have a better balance across the different classes.
The last building that I'd had to construct to make this possible was the academics and research institution. But we still hadn't come across anyone that was qualified to work there, and thus the research options were still locked to us.
* * *
Name: Academics and Research Institution
Level: 4
Researcher: 0/12
Available Research: ???
???
???
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 5
Level-Up Cost: 3200x Lumber Units (32,000 MP)
1600x Stone Units (16,000 MP)
Construction Time: 1,920 minutes (1,152,000 MP)
Description: Knowledge is the ultimate currency in the world of the Apocosmos. This institution is focused on discovering long lost truths, deciphering the meanings of past events in order to provide insights into the future, and pushing the limits of understanding. Through time and perseverance, the institution can provide permanent boosts to all facets of life in the Apocosmos.
* * *
I could only hope that Aphrodite would soon be able to find someone to join our city who would be able to work there, so we could reap the benefits of the building. Otherwise, it would just sit there empty, the only reason for its existence being that it was a requirement to level up the guildhall.