Randidly sighed and leaned back in his chair. Almost listlessly, he adjusted some of the piles of schematics he had sitting in front of him on the desk. “Tatiana, do you take joy in making more work for me?”

She chuckled and shifted her weight. “I’ve wondered that same thing about you for years, Randidly Ghosthound. The Kharon police force is relatively underleveled and understaffed for what this city is growing to be. Since you are going into the Dungeon anyway, this is a good chance to work on the city’s foundation. Take them into the Dungeon; there are only about a hundred of them. You don’t need to train them personally in how to be a police officer, but having them there to fight against monsters will make things easier for you anyway. If the police are stronger, they can handle threats more easily. What’s the problem?”

The problem, Randidly supposed, was that he could use Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil to effectively exterminate every monster in the Dungeon within only a few minutes of arriving. All from the comfort of his own root structure that he would create in the same moment. His ability to deal with large amounts of low-Leveled foes was almost unfair.

Such a display would earn him more experience than he wanted to get right now, of course, but it was also much more convenient method than relying on helpers. Plus, if the police force of Kharon was in the Dungeon, Randidly would need to be pickier about what Level Dungeon he chose for this. Or he would need to devote a little bit of extra attention to keep them safe.

Still, I planned on taking some of my Riders into the Dungeon anyway, so I could extract the raw resources… Randidly rubbed his chin. I can likely leave the police force’’s safety in their hands. At the same time, it does present another opportunity to raise the level of Kharon’s image use… the police force could be a powerful symbol to encourage further growth…

Randidly sighed. Sometimes his action of founding a city seemed to be the biggest roadblock to his training, but he knew that it was a cheap price to pay to help the Earth. Randidly ultimately raised his head and nodded. “Alright, I can handle that. Anything else?”

Tatiana smiled sweetly at him. “That depends. How much time do you have right now?”

Growling, Randidly shooed Tatiana out of his small hut before she could provide him some other thankless task to consume his time. Then he looked down at the table in front of him. Due to the recent count of how many children swarmed across Kharon’s parks in its current ‘education’ system, Randidly was forced to vastly overhaul some of his plans for the Academy; accommodating this high a number of students was a not one of his original goals.

Of course, the fact that they aren’t all the same age makes it slightly easier, but this number isn’t something that you can just cleverly plan around… Randidly frowned down at the papers on the table, crisscrossed with recent revisions. With this many prospective students, we need space. And more importantly, teachers…

Randidly had made steps to address the second problem, but now he began to worry that it wouldn’t be enough. Ten thousand kids… how many teachers did you need for ten thousand kids…? The more Randidly grappled with the issues of the Academy, the more he realized he only had hazy memories of his own education. And certainly, from what he could remember, it was nothing special.

Having a hundred educational staff, one teacher for every one hundred students, was probably the bare minimum. Beyond that, Randidly had sorta imagined that there would be multiple focus areas within the school that resembled majors in a university. Those different specializations required additional staff. Plus, Randidly wanted the students to come through Kharon Academy to get enough focused attention to develop…

Which probably put the absolute minimum number of teachers somewhere closer to 500. Randidly scratched his head and grimaced. A strong headache was brewing as he considered other options. It seemed pretty bad if he would need to take out a classified ad in the newspapers of other Zones to recruit teachers...

Perhaps it was because of their generous spirits, but teachers were a profession that did not have a high survival rate through the arrival of the System. More likely, they spent their time trying to protect children from the suddenly appearing monsters and lost their lives.

I wonder if I could make a specialized Rider to teach…? Or even a Soulseed… bah, both seem like bad ideas...

Tsking quietly to himself, Randidly used Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil to bring a handful of dirt into his hut and place it on his shoulder. Then that dirt began to stir and several thin roots extended out of it. Very quickly they had thickened to the size of human fingers. They pick up pieces of paper and pencils and rapidly began the process of adjusting the designs he had already made.

Randidly wouldn’t be able to do this with complex projects, because of the focus required for each revision, but while he now worked to simply make his plans larger, the relatively small amount of processing power he put behind each root arm could manage it. Randidly’s metallic left and fleshy right arm also moved to work on the task. For almost a half-hour, the only sound within that hut was the sound of rustling papers.

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Piles shifted from one side of the desk to another as he poured over the designs and marked areas that would need to be addressed in more detail. For things like student housing, he simply added more buildings and floors.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 292!

On the one hand, what Randidly was doing right now had some surprising benefits; expanding the size of Kharon Academy made some of the other problems he had with various traps disappear. With more size, he had more leeway in terms of design inefficiency for the Engraving. Some of the more frustrating bits of Aether construction were relatively simple with more space.

But of course, there were significant drawbacks to this expansion. Not only would more resources be required, but the amount of work to build the thing would probably double from just a 50% increase in size. In addition to the functional issues of making Kharon Academy larger, there were the practical implications. A larger Academy needed not only more teachers, but more custodians, cooks, cleaners, and real estate for all these people to live. And with these other areas taking up more space, the space dedicated to teacher housing needed to be fully updated and expanded as well…

In Randidly’s mind, this was still a powerful draw. But it needed to have the right sort of flair and ambiance for that to pan out.

Still, while Randidly worked on this exhausting task, he also paid attention to the behavior of his right arm. During the revision process, he experimented with allowing the mini-brain that had formed in his elbow when he reached 1000 Reaction to guide his actions. It clearly didn’t possess very much intelligence, but with a clear goal it could act independently from his main body. It was something that Randidly would keep in mind in the future.

Congratulations! Your Skill Spriggit’s Tinkering (R) has grown to Level 173!

Congratulations! Your Skill Engineering Savvy (R) has grown to Level 193!

Of course, once Randidly started working on the Kharon Academy, he quickly was drawn more deeply into the intricate layout of the entire complex. Randidly’s emerald eyes began to sparkle as he realized that some aspects that he had originally left out from the plans, such as the garden maze, a sprawling library, and a stadium might as well be added back into the Academy due to the increased size.

They always say to aim high… Randidly pointedly didn’t think about how much all these fixtures were going to cost in raw materials alone.

Congratulations! Your Skill Engineering Savvy (R) has grown to Level 197!

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 293!

The rustling of papers around Randidly intensified. He cleanly manipulated the root arms to sift through the dozens of plans. Gradually, a clearer picture of what the Kharon Academy was going to become emerged from the chaotic mess of papers. And while Randidly saw the shape-changing, he started thinking generally about the teaching philosophy.

The distinctions for the various specializations are the real problem… having a more Class-centric organization would make things too segmented. Plus I want to make the Kharon Academy rather unique anyway. So perhaps rather than choosing what you want to study… you chose what you don’t want to study.

Randidly chuckled and wrapped his knuckles against the table. No, that doesn’t make any sense. But on the other hand…

The oppressive images of Kaan Swacc came to Randidly’s mind. His eyes began to glow as the beginnings of an idea formed in his mind. What if instead of taking classes to build up strengths, they are framed as a way of countering weaknesses…?

Randidly’s thoughts began to race. His root arms set down the pencils and he began to pace around the central table in his planning hut. Considering the layers of his underground labyrinth, there should be an equivalent number of weaknesses in Kharon Academy. And once you selected the weakness you wanted to address, the teachers could offer their own solutions to deal with those weaknesses.

In Randidly’s mind, it was also a better way to prepare the children for the realities of the world. In the grand scheme of the Nexus, they were weak. Only by constantly working to address those weaknesses would survival be possible.

As Randidly began to settle on weaknesses in his mind, his hands moved to the design of the labyrinth. With better themes, the plans were changed once more. The root arms dragged over piles of papers that had been taken to the ‘done’ pile, reopening their design.

Congratulations! Your Skill Spriggit’s Tinkering (R) has grown to Level 199!

Congratulations! Your Skill Engineering Savvy (R) has grown to Level 205!

Eventually, Randidly was pulled from the heady intoxication of finalizing his plans by Grim Intuition. Someone was coming up to his island. A more focused look revealed the figures of Mareen and Ed Dugg standing on a floating platform.

Abruptly, Randidly realized why they were here; the construction of his home was scheduled to begin today. Rubbing the back of his head, Randidly organized his papers as best he could, made some notes so he wouldn’t lose his train of thought later when he returned to the task, and then walked out of the hut to meet them at the edge of the island.

When he arrived, Mareen smiled. “Mr. Ghosthound, good day. Did you have any chance to work on the plans for your house this week?”

Randidly kept his face stoic. “Unfortunately not.”

“Honestly, that’s for the best,” Ed Dugg grinned and produced a sheaf of papers that were covered in detailed drawings of a rather sprawling home. “Hehehe, I’ll tell you something that I learned after years of working in the construction industry; the first time you build a home, you vastly underestimate the number of water pipes you will need in a building… so I took the liberty of drawing up a preliminary plan…”

Randidly barely even glanced at the papers. His eyes were focused on Ed. Mareen asked if the plans were alright and Randidly nodded and told her to begin work as soon as possible. Then he turned to Ed. “And Mr. Dugg… considering your experience in the field, I’d like to ask for your advice on an unrelated project…”