“Ah it’s really good to get away from the fields,” Johnathan said.
“Really?” Elijah asked. “Why? Do you not like farming?”
Currently, Elijah was working on building a road or a path from the village to the rejuvenating pond. After he met with everyone in the communal area, Elijah decided that would be the first task they tackled for the day. Of course, Elijah didn’t have everyone working on building a path.
Mainly, Elijah had the members of Kento’s clan working on building the path, but there were some villagers and goblins participating as well. Although the task was labor intensive, Elijah estimated they would be finished in two hours. At the moment, they were one hour and fifteen minutes into the project.
When they began, Elijah made sure to buff everyone with his Ruler’s Labor skill. This was a unique skill he received from completing the, If I Can Do It, So Can You quest. It paired with his Ruler’s Presence skill which boosted the abilities and stats of everyone within a fifty-meter radius from him by twenty five percent.
Skill: Ruler’s Labor
Tier: 0
Stage: Initial
Effect: When assisting in completing a task that doesn’t involve combat, the time and energy required for the task is decreased by 10%. This effect is applied to everyone that acknowledges you as their ruler standing within a 10-meter radius from you. This effect can be applied to a specific area for an hour by using stamina and mental energy.
Cost: 200 stamina and 500 mental
The villagers were used to benefiting from Elijah’s skills, so they didn’t have a big reaction when Elijah initially activated his Ruler’s Presence skill. Some of the goblins were surprised by the effect, but some goblins experienced it before and had reactions that were similar to the villagers. However, when it came to Kento’s clan members, those that were affected by Elijah’s skill were all surprised.
Elijah calmed everyone down and explained the effects of his skill to those that were experiencing it for the first time. The people that benefited from Elijah’s skill all looked at him with admiration. The only people that didn’t benefit from Elijah’s skill were the few members of Kento’s clan that didn’t acknowledge him as their ruler.
The clan members that didn’t benefit from Elijah’s skill looked at everyone else with jealous eyes. However, that jealousy went away during the hour they spent working on the path. They gradually felt some respect for Elijah as they saw him participating in building the path. That respect allowed them to acknowledge Elijah as their ruler and benefit from his skills.
“I enjoy farming,” Johnathan replied to Elijah’s question. “But I enjoy spending time in the woods even more.”
“So, you like spending time in the woods.” Elijah repeated. “Have you thought about becoming a hunter? If you want, you can join Elder Jamal and the other hunters while I assign someone else to pick up your duties on the farm?”
“No, no, no,” Johnathan quickly waved away Elijah’s suggestion. “I tried hunting before, but I found that I prefer to farm instead. It’s less stressful and I don’t have to worry about any beast suddenly trying to attack me. At the fields I can take it easy. I can work and have pleasant conversations like were doing right now.”
“So, what exactly do you like about the forest?”
Johnathan shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe it something about the plants or the trees that put me in a good mood.”
“Plants and trees,” Elijah mumbled to himself. These two things made Elijah think that Johnathan had an affinity with nature or at least the wood element. However, before he could inform Johnathan about his thoughts, he was interrupted by another villager.
“Chief! Can you use your skill again?”
Elijah checked the amount of stamina and mental energy he had before he used his Ruler’s Defense skill. Those villagers he used his skill on thanked him and continued to clear the path of thorny vines and bushes. Although the villagers had gloves that protected their hands, both the villagers and Elijah preferred to take advantage of the extra protection his skills offered.
In addition to the Ruler’s Defense skill, Elijah would occasionally use his Ruler’s Strength skill as well. Elijah used his skill to help his villagers remove plants with strong and deep roots. Also, there was one instance where they had to cut down a tree that they couldn’t go around.
Congratulations! Your Ruler’s Defense skill has reached the next stage.
Skill: Ruler’s Defense
Tier: 0
Stage: Late
Effect: Imbue up to four people with ruler’s defense for three minutes. Increases the vitality and defense of each person by 25%.
Cost: One person: 10 mental and 20 stamina, 2 people: 15 mental and 40 stamina, 3 people: 20 mental and 60 stamina, 4 people: 25 mental and 80 stamina.
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Congratulations! Your Ruler’s Strength skill has reached the next stage
Skill: Ruler’s Strength
Tier: 0
Stage: Late
Effect: Imbue up to four people with ruler’s strength for three minutes. Increases the strength and attack of each person by 25%.
Cost: One person: 20 mental, 2 people: 30 mental and 20 stamina, 3 people: 40 mental and 40 stamina, 4 people: 50 mental and 60 stamina.
“You might have an affinity to the wood element,” Elijah told Johnathan after he finished using his skill.
“Really?” Johnathan doubtfully asked.
“Sure, why not? If you want, during our next break you can try and connect to the wood element in the plants around us.” Elijah considered himself to be a good boss that gave his employees a decent amount of time for breaks. For every thirty minutes of work, they took a ten-minute break.
Doubtfully, Johnathan responded. “Hmm, alright. I guess I can try.”
“Boar,” Kento called out.
Kento was walking alongside the group with a bored expression on his face. At the meeting in the communal area, Elijah asked Kento to join them in building the path. Elijah wanted Kento to use his astral sense to keep watch and alert them to beasts and other threats that might be nearby.
To Elijah’s surprise, Kento agreed to join them with very little persuasion from Elijah. Of course, Elijah didn’t complain. He was able to obtain someone to help him look out for danger and he took away time that Kento could be using to recover from his wounds.
Although Kento was bored by the task, he didn’t do a bad job. Kento called out many creatures that were hiding in bushes, on some vines and on some branches. Nobody would have died if these hidden creatures were given the opportunity to attack. However, they would have suffered some pain and wasted time and energy as well.
“Come on guys, let’s go!” Jacob shouted.
“Hold on, we don’t even now the level yet,” James said.
One of the villagers suggested that they bring the children along so they could continue to improve their understanding of the forest and potentially gain some experience in their jobs. Elijah and all the other villagers agreed with this idea. All of the children had the hunter job as that was the best job the villagers knew of, that was capable of increasing their children’s survivability in the forest.
When they first began working on the dirt road, the children were kept away from the occasional beast that appeared. That changed after everyone noticed the beasts were all below level eight. After a short discussion it was decided that the children would be allowed to fight.
Jonathan wore a proud smile on his face as he watched his two sons lead a few other children against a boar that charged out from behind a few plants. After the encounter with the bear the two boys didn’t become timid. Instead, they became more outgoing and had a greater desire for adventure.
The battle didn’t take long, and everyone enjoyed a short break while they watched the children fight. After the children finished killing the boar everyone went back to working on the path. A few of the villagers stepped forward to help the children with gutting the animal.
Removing bushes, cutting down vines, uprooting plants, and using astral energy to harden the ground. Bit by bit the villagers were closer to completing a path that connected the rejuvenating pond to the village. After another half hour passed, the path was completed.
Congratulations! You have led the building of a road within your territory. You can now authorize people to build roads within your territory.
Road: Dirt Road #1
Description: An ordinary dirt road capable of increasing an individual’s movement speed by 10%.
Congratulations! You have reached level 41 in the Chief job. +1% increase to all stats.
Congratulations! You have reached level 39 in the Ruler specialty. +1 to all stats, +1 to attack and +1 to defense.
“Everyone, thank you for your hard work,” Elijah announced. “Let’s fill up the barrels then we can all take a short break.”
The villagers carried five wooden barrels toward the rejuvenating pond and began filling them up. Part of the reason Elijah built the path was to give the villagers an easier way to transport water to the village. Elijah wanted to experiment with using the water from the pond in various different ways.
For example, there was cooking, farming, making tea and a few other ways to use the water from the pond. At the very least, Elijah could create a bathing area, so people could potentially receive the buffs from the pond without traveling to it. Once Elijah saw that the villagers were done filling up the barrels, he checked the ponds information.
Resource: Rejuvenating Pond
Tier: 0
Upkeep: 15,000
Description: Transformed by astral energy this…
Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000
Daily Usage: 40/50
Durability Recovery: (10) 1
The barrels were capable of holding twenty gallons of water. After some quick math, Elijah determined that ten gallons of water was equal to one person using the pond. When Elijah looked back at the pond Elijah saw more of the children happily diving into the pond.
Without a doubt, the pond would definitely be losing more than a few durability points today. A few of the adults joined the children in the pond. However, the majority kept watch with the goblins. For the next few minutes everyone relaxed around the pond, but their break couldn’t last forever. There was still more work to do and plenty of hours left in the day.
“Alright, let’s head out,” Elijah told Kento and his clan members. “I’ll show you all the copper mine and the astral mine. When you're done, you can return and take a dip in the pond.” Elijah didn’t mind losing some durability to allow everyone to benefit from the stat boost the pond provided. However, letting them use the pond again to obtain its buffs was a different story.
“I noticed you used all the containers on the water,” Kento spoke to Elijah as he rose to his feet. “What will you use to collect the copper ores?”
“Your clan seems pretty strong, so I’m sure you have a storage bag we could use.”
Kento’s eye twitched. “We don’t have any storage bags.”
Elijah smirked when he heard Kento’s lie. “Fine, fine, since you don’t want to share your storage bag, I can loan you mine.”
“You have a storage bag?”
“Yup,” Elijah replied with a smile on his face.
“If you have a storage bag, then why did you build containers for the water? Couldn’t you have simply absorbed some of the water into your storage bag?”
Elijah smile faltered but it quickly recovered after two second. “My storage bag doesn’t have the ability to store water.”
“Are you sure?” Kento asked with a confused expression on his face. “Based on what I know, all storage bags-”
“My storage bag came from the system, so it’s different from other storage bags. Now enough talking, let’s hurry up and get to the mines.” As he spoke Elijah turned around and began to walk away.
“Do system created storage bags really work like that?”
“Let’s pick up the pace!” Elijah broke into a run forcing Kento and his clan members to chase after him. He hoped this would put an end to any questions about the storage bag.