Chapter 273. Growth.

I was now in a position where I just had to wait. My minions were slowly regenerating, and I’d start to summon back the lowest tier ones soon. The respawn mechanic that the system had created for them made it so the higher the tier and rank of the minion, the longer it would take them to regenerate.

Resource income was coming in at a steady pace. It looked like my other trading partners had also worked out a deal with the consortium as I spotted new caravans heading toward their factions. With the income flowing, I started to upgrade the remaining buildings to rank four.

I started with the crafting center, hoping that at rank four it would finally start to produce some useful items. Out at the tariff station, I also ordered a watchtower, curious to see how it operated, and at the same time hoping that it would help keep the random threats in the area away.

Time passed, and when my team was resummoned, I sent them out to patrol the unexplored areas of the map. While the general area had been unlocked when I had purchased the map from the Norber guy, my team needed to lay eyes on it directly. The map was supposed to be out of date, so there might be something out there that I wasn’t picking up on. After all, the dungeon was noted as a location of interest, but it wasn’t in the exact same spot it had been marked on the map I’d purchased.

Roadwork was ongoing as well and the first stretch was finished, I started the same team on the next portion, working my way slowly out from the cavern. As the buildings upgraded, new things began to unlock. Bringing the sorcerer’s station to rank four gave them a wider range of spells to work with, upgraded their existing spell, and even unlocking a spell for me to use.

Sorcerer’s hut, rank 4.

Your sorcerers have access to the following spells.

1. Bursts of Flame. The Flame Burst spell has upgraded to Bursts of Flame. When cast, your sorcerers fire off a trio of flame bursts. These bursts can be targeted at multiple opponents, but for each burst that hits the same target, the damage over time aspect of the spell is increased.

2. Dragon Scales. This spell taps into the kobold’s link with their more powerful kin, hardening the existing scales on their body and giving them an armor rating similar to chainmail. The Dragon Scales spell also grants minor resistance to elemental effects.

3. Regeneration. This spell creates a minor healing over time effect on the targeted kobold. The spell lasts for 10 seconds and there are diminishing returns if cast continuously on the same target.

Challenger Spell Unlocked.

Your sorcerer’s hut has unlocked a new spell for your use, further upgrades and other discoveries may add additional spells or enhance the ones you already possess. These spells can only be cast inside the headquarters and have a limited number of charges that will slowly replenish over time.

Arena Challenger Spells.

1. Bursts of Flame. Mirroring the spell your kobold sorcerers use, Bursts of Flame can be cast at a target within view of any of your minions, summoned creatures, or allies. The spell has a maximum of 3 charges and new charges regenerate at a rate of 1 charge every 5 minutes.

It was quite an upgrade, and by reaching rank four, the number of sorcerers had increased to match the number of squads produced by the barracks. The sorcerer kobolds also were equipped a bit better now. I was happy to see that they wore the same leather armor as the warriors did, though they still only had a steel dagger for personal combat.

I didn’t have a charge of Bursts of Flame to test out yet, but I saw the icon for it greyed out in my headquarters interface. A countdown timer and the number of charges I had available was superimposed over the icon, so I’d know how much longer I had to wait. It wasn’t the most powerful spell in the world, but it would give me a chance to support something other than just send my summoned minions when danger reared its ugly head once more.

While the barracks had already been at rank four for a bit, I was still seeing the results of its upgrade. As the population increased, more kobolds showed up for training inside the barracks. Now, instead of five kobolds in each squad, their number had increased to seven. One of the seven was even a bit larger and better equipped than the others.

As the first of the bigger kobold warriors was trained, I got a system notification about it.

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Your Rank 4 barracks has replaced all the losses you’ve sustained and is now expanding each squad of warriors to a total of 7. Any supplementary forces attached to your squads, such as those gained by your sorcerer’s hut, will be in addition to the warrior total for each squad. Going forward, replacements for existing squads will be trained and deployed before any additional squads of troops can be mustered.

Now leading each squad is a kobold sergeant, these sergeants are more powerful warriors trained to a higher standard from the best specimens of your faction. When present, the sergeants grant all kobolds in line of sight of the sergeant a 5% increase to attack, and a 5% increase in defense. Sergeants will issue orders to the squads in combat, executing basic tactics and coordinating with friendly forces.

The total number of squads your barracks and population can support is 10.

It was nice to see my forces expand, though I did plan to supplement my kobolds at some point with the mercenaries on offer from the consortium. For the time being, I assigned one squad to patrol each of my trade routes, which had grown in number.

There was the route through the mountain toward the gnomes, the one through the forest to the elves, another to the consortium, one to the humans, one to Shoremarch, and one to patrol the route from the tariff station to where it met the Shoremarch road.

I decided to add an additional one to the Shoremarch route since it was the longest route, and furthest from my cavern. That way, if one squad was destroyed, I wouldn’t be dinged for failing to provide security given how long it would take a fresh squad to form and march all the way out there.

That used up a total of seven of my ten squads. I added two to the cavern, one guarding the defenses at each entrance. For the final squad, I noticed that something new had unlocked as I upgraded the tariff station. There was a new option in the interface to add squads as direct escorts for the tariff station.

They would loiter around the station providing security until a caravan was ready to move. Once the caravan was on the way, the squad would escort it the entire route back to my cavern. I still hadn’t seen one of the tariff station caravans arrive, but from the way the system wanted me to protect them, it seemed like they were going to be very lucrative.

The tariff station itself was looking less janky than it had been initially. At rank four, it was an actual wooden building with a trio of workers inside. It would now increase all tariffs charged on dungeon adventurers by 2%. In addition, I had a kobold warrior standing guard at the door. This was an additional warrior granted by the building and not taken from one of my existing squads, just like at the barracks.

More adventuring parties arrived at the dungeon, but there was a long gap between when one finished and another one emerged from Shoremarch to begin the journey there. The initial party of four had emerged from the dungeon, headed to the tariff station and then headed back toward Shoremarch. One party didn’t seem to be enough to trigger a tariff station caravan.

When my last structure hit rank four, I decided to save up and make some purchases at the consortium before saving for the rank five headquarters upgrade. The inventory they had would change, so I didn’t want to miss out on something that disappeared after the next inventory shuffle.

My first purchase was one of the structure addon tokens. Once purchased, it appeared in my headquarters interface. Sadly, it was greyed out, and when I tried to use it, I was hit with a notice that it would only work on rank five structures. I still wanted the other one in the consortium inventory, as well as the structure upgrade token. They would help jumpstart my progress once I hit rank five for my headquarters.

I almost passed on the mercenaries since they were only tier zero, rank five. But after seeing the forces that the factions in my zone could field, they might not be that bad of a purchase. When the resources were high enough, I purchased them, the system giving me a description of the group as they left the consortium fort and began to follow the trading road toward my cavern.

You have acquired the services of a squad from the Reckless Hounds mercenary company. Comprised of street toughs, retired adventurers, and some failed town watch, the Reckless Hounds provide a well-rounded, but not exceptionally talented, group of human warriors.

I got a look at them once the last of the ten-man squad emerged from the consortium fort. As described, they were all human, and each was equipped with simple gear. Six had swords and shields, two held long spears, and two wielded crossbows. They all wore padded armor with leather reinforcing the vulnerable areas.

As the system indicated, they were not an especially powerful group, and none appeared to be casters of any sort. Despite their limitations, they were a solid addition to my current kobold squads. For now, I assigned them to guard the cavern, planning to use them as my rapid reaction force while my minions scoured the map for anything interesting.

Before long, I had all the items on offer from the consortium and was starting to stockpile resources to upgrade the headquarters to rank five. Just like with the addon token, the spell scroll was locked until the headquarters reached rank five. I was also relieved to see that with the continual caravans coming and going from the consortium, I had paid down half of my debt to them. At least it didn’t seem like the Gavelox Trading Consortium charged outrageous loan interest rates like lenders back home might have done.

With my resource silo nearly full, I started construction on the rank five headquarters. There was also only about ten more days before the second stage ended, and I was excited to see what the third, and final, stage of this arena challenge was going to be.