Year 1568, spring.

The money issue ended up being handled by the party officially taking a loan from one of the great banks of the continent. They had applied to the kingdoms for the fund that were promised for the colonization efforts but with no success so they took a one hundred thousand gold coin loan which they would have to start reimbursing in five years. The loan was oathbinded to Merial, goddess of wealth and trade so there would be no way out of it. The choice was not an easy one, but when Jane arrived with over five thousand people that needed to be cared for, there was little choice left. Apparently, they had followed her in search of “the light of hope” and who was she to discourage them from such a noble task?

At least the city planning part went well. In the days following the meeting, twenty-five building crews were established and the buildings were built in a few days. The good thing with the existence of physical stats was that building could be achieved really fast. The downside was that in a world with magic and monsters, buildings also tended to be destroyed really fast.

Luca got a lot of insights by directing the various constructions and he spent his off-time drafting new plans, better adapted to the materials at hand and the terrain. After two weeks, all the essential infrastructures had been built save for the city hall. They got on constructing the housing and less essential buildings. One month later, the town was up and running. It was far from being as efficient as Luca would have it but at least a small economy was getting on and he was learning every day.

So was Yurro who had taken his job to heart. The registration had been a bit hard at first, but after the intervention of Iria, most people complied and those who refuse were simply kicked out. There were now about seven thousand people living in their town which Jane had named Portsmouth. Apparently, it was a historical reference and she absolutely refuse any other name. Of those seven thousand, half were classless orphans, a quarter was made of adults who wanted to start a new life, and the last quarter was made of adventurers who were drawn by the prospects of leaving the continent.

By the end of the first months, Luca had built a gigantic hall that could house five thousand people sitting at the same time. In it, every morning, for five hours, he held class. That is, he allowed as many people as he could in his mental library and then would give classes on general topics such as mathematics and history. He had in fact written a few mathematics manuals and developed sub-specialties of mathematics by himself, giving him hefty chunks of experience and filling his personal library.

By now, he was level 30 but his leveling had somewhat stalled as his main legendary skills had all caped out and only epic or legendary level of experience rewards could still help him up. He had four legendary sub-skill. The first one he had gotten back in Dawnheart and it was heavily influenced by his relationship with the crafters. It was a subskill of [Polyvalent Blueprinting] and [Genius Theorist] and called [Practical Understanding], the skill description currently read :

[Practical Understanding (legendary) lv 40: You understand the applications of things and the contingencies of transferring ideas to reality. This allows you to better understand crafters and the specificities of their works while also allowing them to better understand the underlying theory of their works. + 400% to understanding speed. Base understanding speed is equal to WIS]

The second subskill was a subskill of [Immortal Library], it was called [Incorporal Writing]. Basically, it allowed him and any other people in his [Immortal Library] to write things there. The writings could not be taken out, but it effectively allowed people to complete his library or take notes while inside. It had proven especially useful for students who needed to write things to help them understand or for him when he needed to plan fast. Nowadays, the time went about one time and a half slower in his mental library than in the real world, which was by itself already completely broken.

But his third subskill was the one he preferred by far. It was not as broken as the two others, but it fitted perfectly with his current objectives.

[Project roadmap (legendary) lv 15: You can now create roadmaps for your different projects which can be shared with others and updated in real-time. Complexity of the roadmap depends on the skill level, your WIS, and your INT. Maximum roadmap complexity is equal to 0,5WIS+0,5*INT+Skill Lv.]

How he wished he had had that skill to plan and coordinate the construction of the town! But well, this was a recent addition and he was still getting used to it.

The first big use of his skill was to coordinate the clearing of the woods and the installation of farms. They had to move fast on it as spring was already there and it was obviously time to sow and start farming if they wanted to produce their own food by the end of summer. Luca had read a lot about farming during his time in Dawnheart, and had a lot of discussions with Jordi about nature and seasons, and the soil…

One of the issues they encountered was that they had no experienced farmers proper. It was to be expected as any experienced farmers would be a valuable resource for all kingdoms, especially now when the countryside wasn’t safe and there was a concerted effort to reclaim the land. So what they did was form a lot of orphans to farming techniques, but for the good Luca’s skills and knowledge were, they were still all about theory, and without practice things would never pick up. Luca was a bit nervous, but well better make mistakes now than after they departed.

The last of his legendary subskills was [Virtual Management], it had likely been induced by his leaderships activity and more generally his responsibilities.

[Virtual Management (legendary) lv 1 You can create system-recognized organizations and give quests to people in those organizations. The organization also reveals hidden stats and classifies data following your way of perceiving the world. The value of the quest scales with your skill level as well as the coherence of the organization. You can create one organization for every 5O levels of this skill]

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Now that things were more or less getting on track and that he had started mass-boosting people with his teaching and library skills, he could move on to the next part of his plan: shipbuilding. After all, his class was pretty much limitless and there was no reason he couldn’t design a ship. Well, no reason except that I have never been on a ship nor seen any back on Earth he thought, but still. The royal library back in Dawnheart had very few books about sailing as the kingdom was entirely inland and he had yet to meet any shipbuilder who would share his knowledge with him. He didn’t even know how to build a shipyard. But he wanted to be the one to design the ships that would take them to the Lizardmen continent, he wanted to arrive in Lalcqia on top of a ship he himself had designed.

The other heroes had left a few weeks ago to go back to leveling and adventuring with their own party and had promised to send him shipbuilder his way or any books about sailing they could find. And now Luca had to wait. He was giving a class about economics in the gigantic gymnasium. Half of the people in the room had the blurry eyes of people in his mental library but the others were listening intently. People quickly understood they could gain system acknowledge benefits from his teaching.

So Luca was talking about Keynesian economics and the importance of spending to earn more. He dearly hoped that Keynes was right about this because, even with their loans, they were spending like crazy. The class came to an end and Luca finished explaining why an open economy could endanger Keynesian politics by making money and value flee outside. He then closed his [Immortal Library] skill and all the people that were in a daze came to their senses. The gymnasium gradually got emptied and a man Luca recognized as being part of the militia came to him, informing him a man had arrived claiming he had shipbuilding skills.

Luca immediately went to him and invited him to the headquarters which was still the big tent in the middle of the town. I’ll have to build something eventually, but then shouldn’t the city hall be the best building.

“So you’re a shipbuilder? Did anyone send you?”

Luca asked as they were seated. There was only Yorru, the man, and him. The man appeared to be in his thirties, neither tall nor small but very much energetic with eyes darting everywhere and his hands always in movements. The man was febrile but yet confident. As he sat, he suddenly stop all movement and looked at Luca with an intense stare that made him somewhat uncomfortable.

“No one sent me. I came by myself after hearing about this Portsmouth town and what you seemed to be building here.”

That was unexpected.

“And so who are you exactly? What’s your deal?”

“Name’s Thirio, age thirty-two, class shipbuilder, rare rank, level 24. I’ll be straight with you, I want to build the ships that will bring you guys to Lalcqia.”

The guy was straightforward. Level 24 was decent but for a vessel that would cross the oceans for three months and travel in a sea where magic storms or sea monsters were common, you’d want someone at least a level 40. Luca told him as much.

“I know, I know. You might think I’m not the best. But listen to what I have to offer. I’ve been working with and around ships all of my life. You’ll hardly find anyone that knows as much about me about the ocean. I know my level is somewhat low, but I make up for it with knowledge. And also, I have new ideas, and new designs I have invented which can make the difference for faster, stronger ships. From what I’ve heard, this is what interest you, isn’t it?”

Thirio was looking straight at him, unflinching. Testing him, taking a bet, and putting his hopes on him.

“And what exactly is it that you’ve heard?” Luca asked a bit worried. With the oaths everyone had taken no information should have leaked, but with the scale of the town and the massive use of his skills, some things could not remain hidden forever.

“I heard you spent a year in Dawnheart going around speaking with crafters. I also heard that you spent lots of time in the royal library, building up knowledge. Heard you took a class, but no one knows exactly what it is. Something to do with support, but not a crafter class because you took an oath not to. I also heard you were ambitious and tried to recruit talents but also nurtured new talents as best as you could. Does that sound like you so far?”

“Maybe.”

“I heard your skills can help crafters improve, heard you’re working with us and looking for synergies.”

“That might be true, might not be though. Say what about taking an oath of secrecy? Everyone takes…”

“Deal. What do I say?” Thirio cut him. Either the man is desperate or he is very trusting Luca thought. But if he was as knowledgeable as he said, work could be done with him.

So Luca took his oath of secrecy and then briefed him on his skills and the synergies they could attain. He could see Thirio eyes shining as he explained about his modelization abilities or the bonus he could give to other classes through teaching and advising.

“But I don’t know anything about shipbuilding so far so I’ll need you to explain to me everything from the very basics. Then I’ll be able to fill in with mathematics and physics, that is with knowledge of the world, to try and optimize your designs. I think my woodworking and architecture experience should come in handy too but we’ll see.”

Thirio seemed glad for the prospect and for he spent the following days explaining all he knew to Luca. Luckily, the legendary skills of the scholars kicked in and he was able to soak in information and ideas at an inhuman pace. They also got on to design a shipyard and started preparing materials for the buildings.

Ships were amazingly expensive by all means, but a few letters with the kings of important kingdoms later and the necessary funds were allocated. After all, it would not do well to impair the godsent heroes on things relating directly to their holy task of conquering Lalcqia. The crafters got working on preparing all the necessary base components: tailors prepared sails with various materials which they would then propose to the duo of Thirio and Luca, ropes had to be made, nails and other metal pieces had to be forged and carpenters carved woods in various shapes.

The most difficult part was finding resistant enough wood for the hold of the ship and the mast. They tried various combinations and had mages and smiths reinforcing them with metals and magics. Overall, there was a lot of experimentation but the whole town got on with the project and things fell slowly into place. By autumn, Luca was confident that he and Thirio could draft mid-sized caravels that could cross the oceans and the worked had built enough experience working on smaller-sized projects to start an important one.

It was time to build new ships for a new world.