《Building a spirit temple》 Ch1 - What? Leif slowly opens his eyes, admiring the clear blue sky and enjoying the soft and fresh grass he is laying on. He knows that he has to stand up, he knows that something is wrong. Only a few more minutes, it''s so refreshing. Then it hit him. He jumped up and looked around. That isn''t his bed! This doesn''t feel like a dream at all! It could be a lucid dream... It doesn''t feel like a dream, he still decides to test that, first by trying to fly. That doesn''t work, so he pinches himself, that hurts and he is still here. Not being able to wake up, he decides to look around. He is standing on a big plateau on the mountain site. On one site is dark pine forest going till the border of the plateau and a part is steep sandstone mountain cliff going higher than 8 meters, on the other site the view is truly impressive, spanning over a vast valley containing only forest restricted by imposing green mountains. Spotting a river in the distance, he closes his eyes and feels the cool wind on his skin. He can hear a few birds in the distance. Its a bit strange how even and flat the plateau is, and how there is not a single flower anywhere. As he is in awe he starts to wonder where the hell he is and how he got there. There is neither a road nor any tire tracks to be seen, only a small path that leads to the plateau and further up the mountain, but it seems like it did not find use in a long time. "Where am I? And why am I even here?" he asks loud. "Good Question" a high female voice answers behind him. He turns around as fast as he can and did not expect what he sees there. The girl with butterfly wings staring at him is 20cm tall and hovering in the air. "That''s why I''m here to explain it to you" she proudly exclaims with fists on the hips. "What.." begins Leif before she disrupts him. "No questions!" [ Welcome to the Templa System ] He jumps back in surprise as a blue screen hovers before him. [ Your class is Abbot (unique) (Lvl.1) ] "Congratulations! You got a wonderful class!" the girl says. "Whats an Abbot?" he asks. "You don''t know?" she says confused. He says "No", wondering if that is common knowledge here. "Well, there has to be a description" she says more hopeful than confident. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. He thinks about a description and one suddenly appears. [ Class: Abbot (Lvl.1) ] [ You are the head of the temple. You build and manage the temple. ] That is a lot of responsibility, he thinks. "It''s mentally exhausting to appraise something for the first time" She is right, he gets a small headache. "Okay, now just try to open the main menu" He thinks about it and a new screen appears, that lists multiple options. "Looks like you got it. Time for me to go" "Wait, what am I supposed to do here?" "What? Well build temples of course!" she says smiling and disappears with a plop, only leaving a small cloud of glitter, that slowly gets blown away by the wind. Leif sits down and takes a moment to process, what just happened. He calms his fast beating heart and thinks about the next step. As the Adrenalin wears off he starts to get hungry and looks around. There is nothing to eat here and even if he finds mushrooms, he will not know if they are eatable. He opens the menu again and looks if it could be of help. He notices the inventory button and presses it in his mind. He is a bit disappointed when he opens it and it only contains a two items. The first is a canteen filled with water and the second are brown blocks. He thinks about the description and it actually appears. [ 21x Nutribar ] [ A small and uninviting looking bar of nutrients. It tastes as good as it looks: bland and dry ] It doesn''t look good, but it will do. He thinks about taking them out of the inventory and the items disappear from the inventory and materializes in his hand. The sun already begun setting, so walkt over to the forest, to find a better place to sleep for the night, but before he reached the first pine a red screen pops up. [ Warning ] [ If you leave the dedicated area, you will lose your protection. ] Before he could come to a stop he already placed a foot in the forest and a second red screen appears. [ Warning ] [ You are entering an area that has monster and beasts with higher level than you. Danger level: very high ] The moment he reads this massage, he jumps back, and the red screens disappear. That is bad. Beasts would hopefully avoid him for the most part but there is certainly a reason why monsters are called monsters. It''s reasonable to assume that they eat humans. He gives up on going into the forest for now and gets back to the middle of the plateau. A small red dot gets his attention and he clicks on the ''Daily Login (0/7)'' button. The first daily gift is a tent! At least he doesn''t need to sleep outside today, even if there are surprisingly few bugs. He immediately takes it and tries to get it out of the inventory. It doesn''t appear in his hands, before he could make the first step to look for it, he trips and falls. Turns out the System spawned the tent directly in front of his feet. He sets it up a bit annoyed, and no second to early, as it soon gets pitch black. He opens the menu, but can''t see it, it seems like the screen doesn''t produce light. Deciding that without a light source he couldn''t do anything, he goes to sleep Ch2 - first quest A single bird sings in the distance as Leif gets up. To his disappointment he is still in a tent and not in his room at home. It seems like this is his new life from now on. He steps out of his tent to stretch and look around. At least the scenery is beautiful. He eats a Nutribar and drinks some water. The canteen was still somehow full, so he looked at the description. [ Enlarged Canteen (uncommon) ] [ This canteen is not a normal canteen. It is modified to hold fluid 10x of it''s size. ] That is useful, but he sill needs to find a water source soon. It would mean going in the monster filled forest, and that could wait at least a bit. First he should look at the last features that the System offers. The tab is called ''quests''. [ Abbot Questline: Pray ] [ Beeing a Abbot take strong faith. Show your faith by praying to any Supreme Being and hope to get its attention. ] [ Reward: Simple Small Shrine Set (common) ] What an unspecific quest. It doesn''t even tell what Supreme Being are. He has never been religious, what made it even stranger that he got such a class. "So, just sit and pray?" He half expected for a girl with wings to appear again, but nothing happend, so he simply proceeds to do that. He prayed for a while and was close to giving up when he heard a ding sound. As he opens his eyes he sees a new screen. [ Quest Completed: Pray ] [ You prayed to a Supreme Being. If your prayers where heard is unknown, for now you can only hope. ] [ Reward: Simple Small Shrine Set (common) ] Before he can finish reading the first massage a second one appears. [ (New)Abbot Questline: Shrine ] [ You acquired a Simple Small Shrine Set (common)! Time to put it to use. Build a shrine and get chosen by a patron. ] [ Reward: New Function/New Questline ] He takes out the set and is immediately annoyed. He has to build it together by himself! There is even an allen key included! A few parts are missing and a screw fall in the grass and is lost forever, but by midday he has a finished shrine and he can finally finish the quest. The shrine is rather small and just made up of four wooden beams holding a small wooden roof. In the center is a stone cube with a square piece of wood in the middle. Well, he sill needs a patron. How do you get a patron? Leif doesn''t know, so he decides to kneel down again and just pray, hoping something or someone will hear it. It is afternoon already as he hears the ding sound. As he looks at the shrine the wood block in the middle as it slowly transforms into the shape of something bizarre. It''s a spiky and not really round ball. [ Quest Completed: Shrine ] If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.[ You build a Simple Small Shrine Set (common) and a Small Water Spirit Seedling (Lvl.1) made it his new home. ] [ Reward: New Function ] [ New Function Unlocked ] [ You unlocked: Simple Personal Overview ] So that''s how a spirit looks like. It''s level 1, so it can improve, probably with more followers. While he wonders what the water spirit could do, he got a new quest. [ (New)Abbot Questline: Join Us ] [ What is an Abbot without a Supreme Being? You found a Simple Small Water Spirit (Lvl.1), but you have yet to choose it as your caretaker. ] [ Reward: New Questline ] That spiky ball is a supreme being and supposed to become his master? He dislikes the idea of serving someone, but it does not seem as if he has a choice. He kneels down again and pleads to be accepted. And it surprisingly doesn''t take long until the statue in the middle starts to glow and he gets his answer. [ Quest Completed: Join Us ] [ Congratulations! The Simple Small Water Spirit (Lvl.1) knowledge you as its caretaker. ] [ Reward: New Quest | [ (New)Abbot Questline: Faith ] [ Collecting prayers is the most important thing for a spirit to grow stronger, but you alone can''t do much. Have five different people pray on your shrine. ] [ Reward: New Class Level / New Spirit Level ] [ New Questline Unlocked ] [ You unlocked: Job Quest ] [ Notification: Blessing ] [ You where granted the Blessing of The Simple Small Water Spirit (Lvl.1)] [You Receive: Simple Small Water Magic ] He has skills? Water magic is exactly what he needs. He immediately wants to try them out. Meeting other people would be nice, but there won''t be many people coming past here. With a bit of concentration he can create a 2cm sphere of water. He drinks a bit of the water but it tastes like nothing and he tries to fill the canteen a bit. It works pretty well, but after a half minute he gets a headache and has to stop. It''s enough to survive, but he needs to find an other solution soon. He looks at the other Questline he got. [ Job Quest: First Job ] [ Building a temple can be hard. Make it easier by choosing a Job and earn new skills. ] [Reward: New Questline ] New skills sounds awesome. But how do you get a job? He goes back in the menu and finds a new button called ''Simple Personal Overview''. [ Simple Personal Overview ] [ Name: Leif ] [Species: Human ] [ Class: Abbot (Lvl.1) ] [ Job: None(choose) ] [ Skills: Multilingual/Simple Small Water Magic/Basic Description ] It seems like he has another skill, but it doesn''t look useful right now. Maybe later, if he ever meets a person out here. The rest isn''t really helpful so he chooses a job. Farmer sounds helpful to get food, but it would take its time to grow stuff. Hunter would get food immediately, but the warning gave a very high danger level which rises the question if he could even kill anything here and it would also mean, that he has to butcher it and prepare it. He doesn''t like that idea. Trader sounds better at first, but he has nothing to trade with and and also nobody that could sell him something. Cook is pretty useless, if there is nothing to cook with. Miner is also useless, because he has neither the resources to mine with nor could he do something with it. He thought about it and hunter sounds like the best option to get something to eat. He walks to the edge of the plateau to have a look at the forest when he sees something big in the distance. It is massive and slowly crawling past. It was more a blob with tentacles than anything else. So that is how a monster looks like. He imminently regrets his decision and sprints back to his shrine, where it felt safer. They all had their problems, so he choose farmer, because it was the safest way and would definitely give him something to eat in a few weeks. He could survive that, because starving is way better than meeting that monster. Ch3 - Farming [ New Job Unlocked ] [ You Unlocked: Farmer ] [ Farmer | You decided to grow crops! Plant something and never starve again. ] [ Job Bonus: Green Thump(Plant Groth Rate +100%) ] [ You Receive: Simple Plant Pot Set (common) ] Wow, now he has something to plant stuff in, but hes still missing some crops That could be really useful, but he still has nothing to grow. He remembers the Daily Login and checks it out. That couldn''t be a coincident. Today''s gift was a ''Box of Boom Corn(common)'' [ (New)Farmer Questline: First Sowing ] [ Time to produce some foot. Plant ten crops. ] [ Reward: New Skill ] He laughs and looks for a place to set the plant pot up. He chooses the space close to the tent but far enough away in case they explode. They probably don''t but in this world you can never know what could happen. Now he just had to set it up as fast as possible, because it is already late afternoon. He takes it out and sighs, because its another DIY set with an allen wrench. Even the potting soil is included. Sadly, the plastic bags for the soil start to dissolve when they are empty. It is easier than the shrine and after a hour it is finished. Thanks to his job he knows the basics of planting and gets right to it. He spreads the seeds and waters them with as little water as possible, because he has to save up. Yeah, he has to get some water soon, the water magic is to inefficient, but the river is to far away. Maybe there is a stream close up, but he doesn''t wants to risk it right now. [ Quest Completed: First Sowing ] [ You planted Boom Corn (common). Now you just have to wait and see what you get. ] [ Reward: New Skill ] [ New Skill Unlocked ] Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.[ You Unlocked: Farmers Eye ] [ Farmers Eye | Get more information on plants and their growth to farm at optimal conditions. ] He imminently made use of his new skill: [ Box of Boom Corn (common) | Bland Corn that grows extremely fast and is very resilient against nature.But everything comes with its price: The plant exhausts the ground as fast and makes the best field poor after only a couple harvests. ] [ Growth time: 1 Week ] [ (New)Farmer Questline: First Harvest ] [ Time to get food on the table. Harvest your crops. ] [ Reward: 10x Oca ] That is the only quest he has right now, so he has to wait. He decides to go sleep early today, because it was an exhausting day. The next morning he got quit used to the beautiful view and does a morning workout. If he is trapped here, he can at least get a bit more healthier. The crops really went wild over night and started sprouting already. As a Daily Login he got a wooden barrel today? There is even a bamboo ladle in it. It still smells like wine in there, but he doesn''t see any further use. With nothing better to do he decides to fill it with water magic. Even after half a day it is only 10cm filled. Leif is really exhausted, but still waters the corn and prays to the spirit, before he goes to sleep again. Today he wakes up when it is still dark and he can''t see anything. He can''t go back to sleep, so he just stares into the darkness, ignoring all the strange noises coming from the forest. When the sun finally comes out he feels tired again. The crops now nearly reached his height. The Daily Login gives him a donation box that can''t be opened. How boring. He puts it in front of the spirit statue. The sky is fills with dark clouds and it slowly starts to rain. He prays again and spends the rest of the day in his tent On day five he finally got something really useful: a knife. It wouldn''t be a problem, if he just goes a bit in the forest and imminently runs back, if he sees some monster, right? He walked a few meters in the forest without seeing anything and grabs a few chunks of wood and nothing happens. Did he overreact? Was it necessary to be this difficult? Then he sees something black moving in the distance. It is a black bear. At least it looks like one, but it is six times bigger. He panics, suppresses a scream and wants to run away, but that would being its attention, so he slowly backs away in the hope that whatever this ''Protection'' is, it would protect him. The bear looks in his direction and slowly starts to move, but the moment Leif enters the plateau he looses interest and walks in a different direction. That was to much for him. He falls in the grass and take deep breaths. Okay, he leaned his lesson and will stay here. He spends the rest of the day carving something out of the wood. He really longs for something warm now. The corn he has is okay, but it gets monotonous without something else to that. Ch4 - Eating Together The next morning Leif screams with joy and scares a few birds. His prayers is answered and he finally gets a lighter. It''s not even one that needs skill to use, just a Zippo. He immediately wants to make a fire and starts collecting large stones from the rock face. He clears out a small patch of grass and places them in a circle. It would be a shame, if the plateau burns down. He places the wood, that he didn''t carv anything out jet in the middle and uses the shavings from the carving as a fire starter. The fire burns after a few tries and he just sits back for a moment to enjoy the warmth. But not long, because he couldn''t wait fore something warm anymore. He skewers a corncob and holds it over the fire until it gets a nice brown. After such a nice meal he makes a break to think about his new life. It sucks. He wants to go back home. Complaining is not gonna help, today the crops should be ready. He harvests them quickly and notices that the soil looks noticeable worse than before. [ Quest Completed: First Harvest ] [ You earned your first harvest. Time to enjoy the fruit of your labor and eat some Boom Corn (common). ] [ Reward: Box of Giant Oca (common) ] This one harvest will keep him fed for a while, so he decides to grow something new. These oca seem unfamiliar to him and he can''t remember seeing these before. He takes them out and they look like long red tuberous potatoes. They are longer than 15cm and one is even 20cm. He plants them and leaves a few over, because he slowly can''t stand corn anymore and the Nutribar are slowly running out. It is late afternoon when he hears a noise in the distance. When he turns around he is shocked. There are people coming! Four man in plate armor! Leif thinks that they could be bandits, but there were only four and the look friendly. Not just friendly, the armor they wear looks also really expensive. No bandit would walk around in such elegant decorated armor, especially not out here in the mountains. It is to late to run anyway, so instead of pointlessly trying to hide, he goes in their direction to greets them by waving. The first man in plate armor winks back and takes off his helmet. "Greetings! I didn''t expect to run in someone else out here and then even alone." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. He decides to try his best acting and to just play along. "Greetings back! I could say the same, the path does look pretty unused" "Haha! Yes, not many are crazy enough to go this route. The monster here are just terrifying." He already learned that the hard way, but it was still good to know. "You''re right. But you still took it. You guys have to be strong or desperate" "Don''t worry. We are strong. The route over Mirit is faster, but the war.. And the accident.. You know.." He does not know, but it would be suspicious to ask more so hr changed the topic. "Are you here for materials? The strong monsters must be expensive." "No, well, we pick up what we defeat, but we are happy when we make it to Ulin to sell our goods" Goods? They must be merchant, he has nothing to sell, but it would be good to have a look. "Oh? What are you selling?" "You know.. It''s dangerous to travel, so only the most expensive stuff." He could defiantly not afford that. "What exactly?" "Salt sells the best, you can''t really get it here on the inland. We also have delicate clockworks made in Zuri. Enough about us, what are you doing here? Sorry, but you dont look particular strong and you aren''t armed" He decides, that he should stick to the truth. "I''m building a temple here." The surprise on their faces was clearly visible. "That explains a lot. But how is this possible? It''s been over 300 years since the last temples where finished. I''ve never seen one so small" He said while looking at the shrine. Oh god. Well, that is interesting. He decides to act, like he knows what he is doing. "You got that right. This is only a shrine, but in the future there will be a big temple here." That man seemed happy. "That is great news, with a safer trade rout more people will use it. I haven''t introduced myself jet, haven''t I? I''m Ulrich, that''s Ansgar, Egon and Knut." "Pleasure to meet you, I''m Leif" "Same, hope we could stay here for the night, if you don''t mind" Leif smiled internally, he could use that. "Sure, I would be happy to share a meal with you and hope you would pray on my shrine" "Yes, we will cook for you and even if the protection of the spirit is weak, it will help us considerably" The walk to the fireplace together and they start to set up their cooking stuff they also took out strange big metal boxes, but Leif was to afraid to mess up their image of him to ask. They have a wonderful and warm meal together. It feels like he had not eaten something so great in eons. Turns out Ansgar is a healer and Egon a mage. It seems like only high ranking partys can afford healers, because the are always in demand and only longer routes earn enough to be worth leaving the safety of the city walls. Turns out the boxes where compartments to sleep, he guesses that with these monsters you dont want to sleep unter open sky. So that''s why they found his tent strange.. Ch5 - a new companion He is still half asleep, when he hears the packing noises outside. He crawls out of the bed and hopes he gets a blanket soon. It''s warm weather right now, but how knows, when that will change. The pines do indicate a more northern climate. "You''re also waking up this early?" said Knut. Leif looks around and notices that the sun isn''t even half up yet. Seems like they want to use the whole day to cover distance. They must have really good stamina. He thinks about starting to train too. "Yes, I do have to say you guys goodbye." "Don''t worry. We just want to start preparing as soon as possible, but first lets have breakfast." Egon and Ansgar are cooking, while Ulrich studies a crudely drawn map. He guesses, that that''s the best you can get here, since maps contain highly valuable information for wars, more accurate ones are probably locked away and kept a secret by the government. "We are making porridge. We had a good nights rest, so lets celebrate with a few dried berrys" He threw, what looked like dried raisins in the pot. It is lacking compared to the oatmeal at home, but after a few days out here it tastes delicious. After the meal they all kneel in front of the shrine to pray to the spirit. After praying the threw a few red brown metal pieces in the donation box. Seems like they were familiar with the concept. After they got their temporary blessing the go on their way to Ulin. [ Money received ] [ +16 Copper ] A new stat appeared in his menu. It will come in handy in the future. [ Quest Completed: Faith ] [ The spirit grows thanks to the prayers ] [ Reward: New Class Level / New Spirit Level ] [ You Unlocked: New Class Level ] [ Chose a new job ] [ You Unlocked: New Spirit Level ] [ Your blessing was strengthen minimal] He doesn''t feel any difference with the blessing, but a new job will be really helpful. Before he could check out the new jobs, he saw in the corner of his eye, how the spiked ball got a bit browner, a bit less spiky and elongated towards the base. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.Now it looked even stranger. Leif decided that he shouldn''t worry about it and that it probably wouldn''t eat anyone. Focusing back on the jobs there were the old ones, but also a few new ones. A tailor would be great, he could definitely need some new cloths and it could be the a way to obtain something to sleep, like a sleeping bag. Architect sounds good for finally getting a roof over his head, but building something so complex is definitively out of his league. A cartographer sounds pretty useless while he is stuck here. He could probably sell the maps for a high price, but he would have to make them first. He wouldn''t get anything to tailor soon, so architect sounds the most useful, if it would help him build anything remotely close to a house. [ New Job Unlocked ] [ You Unlocked: Architect ] [ Architect | You plan buildings ] [ Job Bonus: Though Physique (Strength and Stamina increase 50% faster) ] [ You Receive: Crude Wooden Ladder ] [ (New)Architect Questline: Material Procurement ] [ Every building needs materials. Get 1m3 of wood. ] [ Reward: New Function ] He is dazed by the amount of wood, it doesn''t sound like much at first, but he knows it is. He would have to walk so much. Wait, he remembers his inventory. Well, that will make it easier, but it sounds still dangerous and tedious. At least the bonus is cool, every bodybuilder could only dream of something like that. He could already feel it. The ladder isn''t really impressive. It''s two beams connected by smaller wooden frames. Not a single nail in it. Before he makes his way in the forest he wants to check out his daily reward. It''s a dragon! He couldn''t belief his eyes at first, but after a second look it was more of a lizard with cat proportions, behaving like a dog. He jumped happily after seeing me and even made a sound that sounded like a bark. The identification doesn''t work. He decides to call him Ax and the beast dragon seems pretty happy about it. Leif starts petting him and Ax starts to grumble happily. With his new pet he becomes more confident and decides that he wants his first house as fast as possible. After a closer look the forest seems way more alive than, the last time Leif had a look around here. He was only looking out for big bests, not noticing all the bugs that could use camouflage. Ax even made a sudden jump and dragged something wriggling out of some green and swallowed it before Leif could see what that hairy thing was. He decided to stop looking and get as much as he needs. He already tried just taking a whole tree, but that sadly didn''t work, he can''t pick up pieces, that are to big or connected with something else, like the ground. Luckily there was a lot of wood just lying on the ground and after a three trunk that broke into pieces he has enough wood. [ Quest Completed: Material Procurement ] [ You obtained 1m3 of wood ] [ Reward: New Function ] [ New Function Unlocked ] [ You Unlocked: Blueprint Shop ] [ (New)Architect Questline: First Floor ] [ Every building starts with a foundation. Build your first blueprint. ] [ Reward: New Skill ] Before he does anything stupid he goes back to his camp first.