Meanwhile, In a meeting hall on a mountain top, most of the same delegation of gods from earlier we're still watching the events of the Divine Intervention play out, when suddenly one of them burst through the door in a hurry. The gods around the room were pointing and yelling about something on the screen, but the new god's entrance distracted them from their argument for the moment. He caught a glimpse of something that looked like a mortal covered in golden flames on the screen closest to him but didn't comment. Not wanting to interrupt, the god waited for the conversation to completely die down before he finally decided to speak up.

"Um... ?"

"What is it, Callus?" Aliyah condescendingly asked, clearly annoyed by the man's sudden appearance.

"I think we might have a small problem..."

"We don't have all day. Get on with it."

"Well, you remember how you asked me to use my powers to send useful people towards the boy?"

"Yes, and I also remember you assuring me that you could handle it. What happened?"

"I-I think I might have screwed it up somehow."

"Somehow?" Aedalwin growled.

"I really don't know how this happened, I'm sorry! I may have used a tiny bit too much energy casting that attraction spell on him. I'm worried he's going to run into just as many bad apples as good ones... if you catch my drift."

"..."

"Shit. How bad is it?" Festus muttered under his breath.

"On a scale of one to ten, I'd say about an eight."

"Gods damn you, Callus!"

"I already said I was sorry! Jeez, you're all acting like I did this on purpose... you know that I'm new at this! Unlike you folks, I'm just a minor god for crying out loud! So come on, give me a freaking break here!"

"I will not let you blame this on your inexperience! We're not talking about some little screw up like the last time you f*cked up, this could destroy everything we've worked for!"

"Plip-plip-ploppliplip!"

"He's right, you need to be more careful, moron! This spell you cast, I'm assuming it's irreversible?"

"That's correct..."

"Ugh! We don't have time for this! We have other problems we need to deal with first! You're responsible for making this mess, so you'll just have to clean it up yourself!" Aedalwin shouted.

"What's he talking about? What other problems?" Callus asked the rest of the group.

"We've lost contact with Artemia. Judging by the fact that we can't sense her anymore, we believe that her entire existence might have been snuffed out." Aliyah explained.

"You can't be serious."

"We're always serious boy, that's the difference between us and you."

"We need to drop everything and find her right away! We can worry about my spell later-"

"No! WE will worry about finding her. You will fix the mess that you caused. We cannot have the boy thinking that we set enemies upon him on purpose! You will make it up to him or so help me, Callus-"

"Okay, I get it, I get it! F*ck me!" Callus shouted as he stomped out the meeting hall.

¤   ¤   ¤

“Good morning, King Adam! I have the report you asked for.”

“Hey Rylix, that was fast! I hope you didn’t push yourself too hard getting all of this done for me.” I said as I stood up from inspecting the plant I was looking at. I had been working with some of the elves that morning on getting our farms going now that everyone had settled in over the last few days. I had managed to create a rather fertile area of soil on the other side of the river for farming by using a spell I got recently called Earth Manipulation. I had even dug out a few irrigation ditches to carry water to the farms that would be located a bit further out from the river, but I hadn't realized how far away the farms were from the initial village. Making the trip around the circumference of the banks took over an hour if you didn’t just swim across. I had gotten more than a few complaints about the distance, so I decided I'd build a small stone bridge over the river to make going back and forth a little easier for everyone. Apparently though, EZ-Build had some other ideas... When I actually went to place the bridge, a massive two-lane stone bridge popped into existence, which was about three times the size I initially wanted, but still got the job done. Since then, the growth of our farm area had generally gone unimpeded.

“Please, it was nothing. It really didn’t take me that long to procure the information.” Rylix said with a courteous bow. “More importantly, how are things going here?”

“That’s hard for me to answer, what do you think Kyjil? You know more about this stuff than I do.”

“We’ve cleared enough land for twelve farms so far, nine of which will be for food production and the other three for Magentium seeds, as we discussed at our meeting earlier. Normally, it be too late into the season to plant anything, but we should be able to still make the fall harvest by utilizing the elves’ nature magic and our king’s earth magic.”

“Wow, that’s great. I was a little worried we wouldn’t make it with all the time we missed. I’m going to take a small break and go over this report. Can I leave the rest to you?”

“Of course, sir. I will call for you if we need your earth magic again.”

"Perfect. Hey Rylix, before we get into the report, how was the training going with Rachel and Kenji?"

"Like you when we first met, they have the skill, but very little experience. They both need more practice using their respective abilities while fighting simultaneously. Kenji for instance is a fantastic swordsman and can hold his own against most regular people, but he forgets to use his warrior abilities far too often. It's going to get him killed sooner rather than later." That made some sense, considering Kenji was a samurai from feudal Japan and hadn't grown up with computer games that emphasized unlocking and utilizing different combat skills. I'm sure he'll figure it out, though. "Rachel is the opposite. She obviously has never been in real combat before, but her grasp of taming magic is actually quite impressive. With a few more capable creatures she could be a real handful."

"Really?!" Huh. That was kind of the opposite of what I expected. That just goes to show me how powerful magic is in this world...

I shook my head in surprise and unfurled the scroll as I walked back towards the bridge with Rylix in tow. “Tired, my king?”

“A little. There’s just been so much to do these last few days and judging from this report, it really doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop anytime soon.”

The report Rylix had given me was a list of how long all of our supplies would last, and the situation wasn’t pretty. Having such a large influx of people join in such a short period of time had put a major drain on our resources, particularly our food supply. To help alleviate the problem, I had forgone making anymore unique buildings and assigned any extra hands we had to our hunting/fishing team, but we we’re still barely making ends meet. That was the main reason why I had put such an emphasis on getting the farms started as soon as possible. If something didn’t change quickly for us, we we’re going to be in real trouble.

As we got closer, I noticed a dark-skinned elf kneeling near the riverbank while playing with some strange contraption I had never seen before. Her outfit was a rather revealing mix of black leather that was cut open in certain spots to reveal her perfect figure and accentuated her curves perfectly. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail this morning, and a few strands carefully ran down the side of her face as she worked. The item in her hands kind of looked like a needle and compass that you’d find in math class, but it had a giant copper vat attached to the side of it and a piece of glass near the base that seemed like a scope. Curious, I walked over as quietly as I could so I wouldn’t disturb her. “What’s that thing, Serulia?” I asked and the poor girl nearly leapt out of her skin when she finally noticed me.

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“My lord! You know you shouldn’t startle me! What I’m doing is super important, I can’t be distracted right now!”

“Oh really? So, what are you doing then?”

“Investigating the plant life at the bottom of the river for irregularities.”

"What's that instrument your using? I'm assuming it's important.”

“That’s right. The device in my hands is called a Mana Reader. Do you see the reeds growing by the water’s edge over there? Those are called Sweet-stocks. There chock full of nutrients and can even be used to make a simple syrup.”

“Wow, actually?! That’s amazing! Should I order some people to come help you harvest them?”

“Only if they can sense magic better than the Mana Reader, otherwise keep them the hell away from here."

"Why's that?"

"Sweet-stocks have a valuable secret to them, so I’d rather not let the UN-initiated screw up my work by harvesting the plant before they're ripe. Gathering untrained individuals as a labor source won’t help me speed up the process.”

“What kind of secret? I’m assuming it has something to do with that device you're using?”

“That’s right. The reeds are anchored by something called a mana bulb at the bottom of the river. The bulb collects magical energy as it sways along the bottom of the bank. Ripened mana bulbs are extremely valuable, but their basically worthless if you harvest them too early. The reeds should be left alone until the mana bulbs at the bottom of the river are perfect, which you can really only tell with one of these if you don't have Magic Sense as a skill.”

“That's too bad, we desperately could use more food…”

“So what?! Do you even know all the things we could use these Sweet-stocks for besides eating them? Even if you we’re the king of the entire world, I’d probably try to kill you if you attempted to harvest these before they’re ready.”

“Whoa, that’s pretty extreme coming from our resident plant lover.” I muttered sarcastically while rolling my eyes. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. That’s. How. Valuable. They. Are.” She smiled as she playfully poked me with each word to emphasis her point.

“Okay, I got it. Don’t f*ck with a girl’s bulbs.”

“Smart man. Remember Adam, only good boys who behave themselves get rewarded.” She whispered into my ear with a cute little smile and a wink while she pressed her body against my arm. My heart skipped a beat and I tried to keep myself calm but Serulia noticed, which led to her letting out a cute chuckle, clearly amused by how uncomfortable I was now. God, she’s a handful. I don’t think there’s anything harder to handle than a girl who knows how to use her looks to her advantage… but that didn’t stop me from being attracted to her, either. I suddenly could hear Terrix and the miners talking on their way back from the wasteland, so I said goodbye to Serulia for now and went over to welcome them back with Rylix. I couldn't wait to see what they found, but something else that I noticed was bothering me.

"Hey, Rylix? Can I ask you something?" I finally said once we we're away from Serulia.

"What is it?"

"Honestly, I think I'm just imagining things... but it kind of seems like the other girls around the village are more interested in me now for some reason."

""""HIIIIII, KING ADAM!"""" A group of young female elves enthusiastically shouted from nearby, practically on cue.

"Well yes, that's because they know you're with Rylea now." She quickly answered with a knowing shake of the head.

"What? Why would the girls be more interested in me if they know I'm taken?" I asked, rather confused by how sure of herself she was, but Rylix didn't seem to understand the question. She blinked and gave me her own look of puzzlement as the two of us stared at each other for a moment. "You really don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" I said while scratching my head, trying to put the missing pieces of information together. Rylix just sighed before pointing to something up ahead. "We can discuss this later. I think I see Gerrix, Kenji and Rachel practicing over there. Would you like to see their progress for yourself?"

"Oh. Nah, I think I'm okay for now."

"Judging by your tone, I take it that you're still hiding from Gerrix?"

"Pfft- I'm not hiding from him! I'm just not going out of my way to see him. Yeah, that's it." After I found out Gerrix was injured when I lost control during the fight with Geruda, I had immediately felt horrible. It had taken days for me to muster up the courage to try and apologize to him, but when I finally did, he said something that was completely unexpected. Gerrix actually didn't seem to care at all. I had offered him an apology, but the crazy bastard just wanted to spar with me until I got a hand on the strange power from earlier instead. He sounded absolutely nuts as he continued to emphasize the battle-crazed lunatic thing he had going on.

'Think about how strong you could be!' He shouted, shaking my entire body from head to toe out of pure excitement. He started planning what he called 'an extreme training session' for me out loud, naming thousands of techniques and exercises he wanted me to learn. Terrified of being over-trained to death, I fled for my life while he was distracted and had been avoiding him like the plague ever since.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"You know what-" I started to snap back at Rylix, but was interrupted by Terrix and the others, who had finally gotten into shouting distance just a few seconds earlier.

“My king! I have great news! I think we found it!”

“Seriously Terrix? That’s great!” Over the last few days, I had sent out the miners to the wasteland repeatedly in hopes of finding another clay deposit to increase our brick production, but we hadn't had any luck yet. It was so bad I was starting to think we needed to look elsewhere, but Mitch had talked me out of it. He eventually adjusted our strategy so the team investigated areas that held more moisture, and the group had finally found what they we're looking for. “How far in is the deposit?”

“It’s about two and a half kilometers in. We also found more of those weird rocks you told us to keep an eye out for around there. I sent Mitch to go tell Bagrin and Belgrin about it.”

“That’s awesome, I’m assuming they’ll want to come with us to check it out next time then?”

“Yes sir, I believe that to be the case as well.”

“Well, that’s amazing news Terrix. Our brick production speed should double thanks to you guys. Hopefully now we can start knocking some of the tasks off of our list of things to do.”

“Is there anything you had in mind to start with?” Rylix enthusiastically asked as she prepared a new scroll to write my orders down on.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I’ve got to say that I’m leaning towards making walls first. Having some sort of defense in place is important in case we ever get attacked-” I was interrupted by the banging of metal coming from the center of the settlement, which was a signal the scouts had devised to get everyone’s attention quickly.

“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!” I heard Gerrix shout from across the river.

Shit.

I broke into a run as Rylix, Terrix and Serulia whipped into action next to me. I could see Gerrix, Rachel and Kenji gathering the rest of the farmers and they eventually caught up to us after making sure that they were out of danger. The seven of us charged across the bridge into the square in front of my house where Salix and Jobe were issuing orders to the worried civilians.

"What's happening?" I shouted to them over the ruckus. "Boss! A group of beast-men appeared out of nowhere and are ripping the town apart! Salix replied. I would have fought them myself, but they've managed to secure hostages before we noticed. Apparently, some of the citizens overheard the raiders saying that this place belongs to them now! What should we do?"

"Seriously? I wonder where they even came from?" Rylix muttered to herself.

"Who cares?! Either way, we're going to fight them." I answered as confidently as possible.

"Now that's what I wanted to hear!" Terrix shouted.

"Good. It's time to get excited, buddy. Where are they right now, Gerrix?"

"They've taken over the area you designated for the market, sir."

"Okay, and how many?"

"About fifty of them. They've also set up a barricade on the nearest side." F*ck. That's a lot.

"Have the scouts and any citizens who are able to prepare for battle get ready at once. We're attacking in half an hour. Does anyone know what kind of beast-man where dealing with here?"

"They appear to have features that you'd associate with dogs or wolves, my king."

"Their definitely wolf beast-men." Elendria added from the side. I shot her a look that practically screamed 'are you sure' but she didn't seem any less confident in herself.

"How do you know that?" Jobe curiously asked before I could.

"We've dealt with them before. A small tribe live in the forest nearby. The have a habit of being violent and extremely territorial, and they always follow the orders of their Alpha. Despite that, they let us have a small area to ourselves when we first arrived in the forest a few months back due to the relationship our old leader had with the Alpha. They made an agreement to shelter each other's people in case of emergencies."

"What's an 'Alpha'?"

"Not what, who. The Alpha is the wolf-man in charge of the tribe. Like regular wolves, the wolf-men use pack mentality to determine their social hierarchies as well. If the Alpha says jump, the rest ask how high. A few small skirmishes about resources broke out between us initially, but things we're generally peaceful. It almost seemed like we had finally found a place to make our new home... but then the food problem happened."

"Food problem?"

"The animals that we hunted for food started showing signs of being heavily poisoned. The wolf-men blamed us for it, even though we elves were effected by the poisoned food supplies as well. Suddenly there wasn't enough food for all of us to survive, so the alpha forced us to go. My father really didn't take that very well and accused them of abandoning the deal they made. Then he might have done something kind of evil as we left."

"What did you do?" I asked the elven man, almost scared to hear the answer.

"Just a tiny bit of magical organ interference." Elen said nonchalantly, clearly quite proud of himself.

"Magical organ interference?"

"Let's just say, the male wolves won't be having babies any time soon." He stated with a wicked smile.

"SERIOUSLY?! No wonder their f*cking attacking us!"

"Well, they started it." Elen muttered, pouting like a child who had just been scolded.

"Has the Alpha issued any orders yet?" Rylix calmly asked from beside me.

"Nothing to extreme, Just exterminate anyone who approaches the market."

"What?!"

"That's crazy!"

"Oh my gods, we're going to die!!!"

The citizens who could hear us we're freaking out. Everyone in the village started yelling over each other, so I whistled as loud as I could to get their attention. "Listen up, everyone! There's no need to panic. I've got a plan."