ã€ŠReconquest of the lost continent [Kindgom/city building LITRPG]ã€‹


 Prologue

    Year 1546

    In the year 1546 since the Great Treaties, the portals to the demons¡¯ world which had been long closed opened again. Each of the twelve continents had to defend against armies of ravaging and bloodthirsty demons led by powerful demon lords. The world fell into chaos and each continent became isolated as every race struggled to survive. The invasion of the demons came to be known by many names, such as the Red Tide, the Great Calamity, the All-burning Hordes¡­

    After 20 years of war and death, as suddenly as they had opened, the portals closed. The survivors looked at each other relived and thanked their gods for their good fortune. Kingdoms could be reconstructed and hopes could be found back in their lives. But as trade resumed and the reconstruction took place, the first ships to reach Lalcqia, the continent of the Lizardmen, discovered a terrifying truth. Not all demons were dead or gone. Where the lizardmen once ruled, only demons now thrived.

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    Year 1566

    Only one thing united the different pantheons of gods: their hate of demonkind and the corruption it brought to their realms. At first, they had been pleased by the chaos brought by the invasions. It had appeared to them as the seeds for a new opportunity, a way to change the stalemate in which the world had been for a thousand and a half years. But once they witness the lizardmen¡¯s gods simply disappear out of existence, they remembered the taste of fear.

    The heads of all the different pantheons convened and, after long and strenuous discussions, agreed that a common action had to be taken. Reaching an accord, they would summon twelve heroes for all eleven remaining major races, they would give them their blessing, and task them with the reconquest of Lalcqia.

    The gods collectively proceeded with the ritual and then left to go back to their own domains, each already planning. For there were twelve races but history had proven that only one could be the hegemon of a continent.

 1 - Humanity heroes

    Year 1566, spring.

    Luca had been an above-average student until his life plans met a car that sent him straight to a hospital and left him with a bill so high he had to stop studying to work. Even worse, most of his body never recovered and he lived his life in what he considered a broken shell. Depression struck hard. Really hard. So much that he was relieved when another car finished the work the first one had left incomplete. He embraced death eagerly and so he felt somewhat surprised when he opened his eyes to find out he was still alive.

    ¡°Not again¡± he grumbled to himself. The ceiling above him was white and bright. From a hole in the wall, light pierced through the room and brought with it a smell of stone and dust. Luca paused. A hole, not a window. What kind of hospital room didn¡¯t have a window?

    He opened fully his eyes and attempted to straighten up, expecting his body to react and stop him. Instead, he was up in his bed and looking around in a second. He was not in his body or his body had been repaired.

    ¡°What the fuck?¡±

    His mind began racing through all kinds of possibilities. Maybe he had been in a coma for so long that medical technology had had the time to progress so far that it could fully repair a broken body. Luca looked at his hand, then his arms and torso. Yes, it was his body, but twelve years younger. Exactly as it had been before the accident.

    He was wearing linen clothes, light but comfortable in the warm temperature of the room. There was a small wooden table beside his bed but that was all. He searched the wall to see electrical outlets but he saw none. He looked up to the ceiling but he didn¡¯t spot any lights there either. There was no trace of technology whatsoever.

    Deciding looking around would not help him understand his situation and excited to see if he really was back in his old body he got up and went for the door. As he was about to open it, the door burst open and an old man in odd priestly clothes burst in. He looked exhilarated.

    ¡°Praise be the Goddess of arts and industry, the messages were real !¡± The old man shouted as if in ecstasy. He then looked at Luca in a daze for a few seconds. ¡°Yes, yes! That must be him.¡±

    That was odd. The clothes of the priest had something medievalesque to them. Luca couldn¡¯t pinpoint it but there was something that bugged him with them. They were obviously made by hand and the dye was far from perfect but at the same time, it had a unique quality. As if it was clothing that had been hand-made specifically for the man in front of him. Well, maybe he has his personal tailor or something Luca thought.

    ¡°Excuse me, sir, I¡¯ve just woken up here and I¡¯m somewhat lost. Would you mind telling me where we are? And do you, by any chance, know of how I wound up here?¡±

    The priest looked at him haphazardly before recollecting his thoughts and composing himself in a more dignified manner.

    ¡°Hum. Yes of course. You are currently in the kingdom of Dawnheart and more precisely in its capital, Dawnheart, in an inn that used to be quite popular before the Great Calamity struck.¡±

    This nonsense didn¡¯t help Luca at all.

    ¡°As for why you¡¯re here, you have been summoned to our world by our great Goddess, Techna, Goddess of arts and industry and patroness of our kingdom.¡±

    This was even worse. Why did he have to face a delusional and senile man when he woke up? Well, better get on with it and try to find someone more healthy of mind.

    The priest seemed to see he wasn¡¯t convinced in any way and so added. ¡°Please think ¡®Status¡¯ in your head and you¡¯ll see you¡¯re not in the world you think you are.¡±

    Luca did as told, the faster he got over it the faster he would be out and able to use his regenerated body. But then blue boxes invaded his vision and the world as he knew it came to an end.

    <hr>

    3 days later

    At first, Luca had been overwhelmed by his Status page and all the information his system provided. Luckily, now that he was back from his frenzy, Artus, the priest, proved to be a tactful interlocutor. He let Luca time to go through everything he was discovering and answered his questions patiently. After a few hours, Luca was still in shock and Artus left him in his room alone, saying he¡¯d send a few people to help take care of him and would come back himself soon.

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    So apparently, Techna, for that was the name of the goddess Artus served, along with every other human deity had summoned heroes to the human kingdoms to help take back a continent that had fallen in the hands of some demons from another world. The goddess had informed her high priest, that is Artus, of her plans through a divine message he had received as he was praying. The message told him the mission that she tasked Luca with and where she had summoned him.

    Immediately, Artus rushed to the room of the inn where the goddess had summoned Luca and, once he saw that the message was true, he had been ecstatic. Hence his comportments. Apparently, it was common to have false visions when you spent ten hours in continued prayers and Artus hadn¡¯t been sure his was an authentic one. Or maybe the gods just liked to play jokes on their followers. Who knows?

    That was the general context. After that, Luca spent three days getting comfortable with the fact he now lived in a world with magic and with a system that apparently everyone had. But he, unlike any other 20 years old adult (his system had a precise count of his age and he was indeed younger than when he had died), was level 1 and classless. That was how Artus identified him through some kind of skill.

    The realization took time and Luca spent most of his time in his bed, brooding and thinking about what all of this meant. The few times he went outside, he was straight down scared of what he saw. The capital of the Dawnheart kingdom was a medieval city but at every corner fantasy and magic bloomed. Every object was both familiar and unknown: he saw water floating in the air as a mage did her laundry, he saw the innkeeper light her oven with sparks coming out of her hand, he witnessed a man carrying a full tree on his shoulder as if it was light as a feather¡­

    For yes, there was stats. And lots of them. Strength, vitality, dexterity, wisdom, intelligence, health points, mana points, stamina¡­. His status was full of them and, apparently, his were quite low. Classes, artifacts, and skills were the main way to up your stats and he had none of them. But he had something no one else had, or at least no one except for the other heroes he had yet to meet. The [Universal Translator] unique skill which allowed him to understand all native languages and writings. The [Legendary Otherworld Hero] blessing that came with being summoned from another world. It guaranteed that, at level 10, when he¡¯ll choose his class that class would become a legendary grade class. Plus, it brought the class more flexibility than the usual legendary class which were already very flexible¡­

    Now Luca was lying in his bed as he had been for the past two hours, thinking and rethinking about what he should do.

    Apparently, his arrival had caused quite an upheaval. His location had been kept secret but the king and his court were discussing how to handle him. Messengers had been sent to the other major human kingdoms to confirm other heroes had been summoned and to try to coordinate how the kingdom dealt with them. After all, a hero was both a blessing and a curse. It had the potential to become immensely powerful and to topple all the careful equilibrium of kings and kingdoms.

    Today however the king would see him for the first time. An escort was due to arrive anytime soon and in an official ceremony, the king would announce that their patron deity had blessed them with a hero. This would at the very least bring spirits to the people after the 20 years of Great Calamity. Even now, the countryside was far from safe as bandits and monsters roamed. A hero could at the very least help bring peace and security to the kingdom.

    Lost in thought, Luca almost didn¡¯t hear a carriage stop in front of the inn and armored men come out. A minute later, four heavily armored men bearing the insignia of the royal house, a heart hiding behind a rising sun, came in.

    ¡°Sir Luca, our king invites you to the palace to proclaim your existence to the world and offer his assistance in your sacred quest.¡±

    Luca smiled awkwardly. He didn¡¯t really know how to deal with all these formalities. Twelve years without the ability to interact with people had left him awkward around people and now that the euphoria of finding himself in a healed body was gone he was left being somewhat timid.

    ¡°Well, let¡¯s get going then.¡± He said in a strained tone.

    They got out and into the carriage. The carriage started moving and headed for the palace in the center of the city. As it moved, Luca looked out the windows, admiring the architecture of this world he was to live in. As they got closer, a crowd started to form around them and city guards were forced to keep the people at a distance. There were cheers coming from the crowds.

    ¡°Here¡¯s our hero!¡± ¡°Praise be to the goddess!¡± ¡°Look, look, here he is!¡± ¡°He looked at me, he blew me a kiss !¡± And so on.

    Luca felt deeply stressed. He had spent the last twelve years of his life in a crooked body, with little to no social contact, and in a deep depression. How could he handle being the center of attention now? Things were getting blurry and when the carriage reached the palace and he got out, he felt as if it all was a dream.

    The king waited for him in front of the palace on a wooden platform erected for the occasion. He embraced Luca with both arms and told him things he didn¡¯t understood. Seeing his discomfort, the king didn¡¯t insist, led him by the arms in front of the crowd, and started a speech. Luca couldn¡¯t discern a word of it, he felt as if he was going to puke. Right as he started to pass out, the words of the king rang with an acute clarity they had lacked before.

    ¡°And so our Hero has been sent to us to defeat the forces of evil! He will destroy our enemies inside the kingdom and in the whole continent, and then he¡¯ll sail over the seas and reclaim to the demons what we have lost! He will be the sword that fights for the realms of men and the shields that protect us from our end! He will be the warrior that defies all odds for humanity to strive!

    Yeah, that¡¯s not gonna happen Luca thought. And then he passed out, seeing in a blur the surprised faces of the crowd.

 2 - To live is to learn

    Year 1566, spring.

    A few weeks had passed since the ¡°accident¡±, as Luca referred to it, and he was slowly overcoming it. Yes, it hurt whenever he would walk about and see maids and servants turn around and chuckle. Or when he learned he had been nicknamed the Green Hero or the Failure. But still, life went on and it had improved over the weeks.

    First of all, he never went back to his inn but was instead lodged in the royal castle. The king, despite being very angry about his poor display, decided to keep him close to him and hide him. Apparently, all the human¡¯s kingdoms were in negotiations to decide what to do with their heroes and whether or not they should meet. For the time being, it was decided the heroes should train inside the cities they arrived in or at least not venture too far outside the walls.

    This was fine by him, he had no intention to go off adventuring and killing things. Which left him with a dilemma, what would he do? The kingdom would not cater for him forever and it was clear they expected him to help in fighting back the wilderness. Plus, his [Legendary Otherworld Hero] blessing was nothing to scoff at: whatever he would do, he would excel at it.

    So why stick to fighting? Luca had looked at the wording of the blessing time and time again, wondering how he could use it to its fullest benefit.

    [Legendary Otherworld Hero: As you reach level 10 and chose a class, you will be only offered legendary and unique choices. Furthermore, as you come from another realm, your class will have the potential to adapt concepts from your world and further change throughout its evolution, proving more versatile than legendary classes usually are]

    And one thing he had noticed was that there was nothing specifically about fighting class in the blessing description¡­

    He hadn¡¯t remained idle during this time either. Most of his time not spent brooding or hiding away in his chamber was spent in the royal library, where he read all sorts of books to try and understand the world he now lived in. That was how he got his first skill, [Reading], which became his first source of experience.

    [Reading (common) lv10: Allows you to read faster and better understand the subtility of any writing. Can be leveled up through recurrent practice or by deciphering complex books. +100% reading speed. Base reading speed is equal to WIS+INT]

    His [Reading] skill was already level 10, which for a classless utility skill was the maximum that could be attained. Each level-up granted him a tiny amount of experience, which was enough to bring him to level 2.

    From what Luca had gathered from his reading on classes, skills, and levels, everyone chose a class at level 10 which would rank from Common to Mythic, depending on the life one had lived and the experience one had already gathered up. You could always refuse to choose a class at level 10 and wait for better options to be offered to you, but this was a dangerous bet as after level 10 you¡¯d only level up through your class. Furthermore, skills were classified into class skills, which could reach the level of your class, and classless skills, which everyone could pick up but were capped at level 10. So not having a class effectively meant you could not progress in any skills at all.

    Most people would pick up all the common classless skills during their childhood and when they reached their fifteenth year they would choose a class for which they had been prepared. Leveling up would then be easy until level 30 and most people reached level 40 before they died. Beyond that point, leveling became difficult as the experience cost rose and the challenges one needed to overcome became harder and harder. Very few people went beyond the class specialization which happened when you reached level 50.

    Time alone to think was what needed Luca, and he had got plenty of it. The king paid him very little direct attention, probably thinking he was a failure, and he was free to plan to his heart¡¯s content. And now he was ready and had an idea of what to do going forward.

    First, he would need to level up through the practice of common classless skills. But he didn¡¯t intend to take any random skills as he had an idea where he wanted his class to be headed. So he would have to learn [Writing], [Drawing], [Arithmetic], [Geometry] for a start.

    Second, he needed to go out. Luca paused in his thinking. That prospect terrified him.

    But he needed to. Yes. He needed to.

    In the last weeks, Acai, a priest of Techna had been assigned to him to help him navigate through this new world. He had been given a room next to Luca so Luca only had to go out and knock to get him and inform him of his plan.

    ¡°I want to get to the crafting district¡±

    Acai¡¯s eyes lit up at that. The last weeks had been beyond boring for him, spending all his time around books and as a priest of the goddess of arts and industry, he loved the crafting district.

    ¡°Sure thing. You finally got tired of all those books eh? Told you you should go outside. Here, let me get ready and we¡¯ll go in a minute.¡±

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    Acai donned his red and brown robe which showed his priestly status, washed his face with a bowl of water and he was ready to go.

    ¡°So what made you change your mind? Finally realized you¡¯d never man up with them books?¡± Acai teased him as they walked outside the palace.

    ¡°Huh.¡±

    ¡°Still not very talkative are you?¡±

    ¡°¡­¡±

    ¡°Well at least tell me what you want to see and why. Maybe I can help a little.¡±

    Luca didn¡¯t want to be that socially inept. But this new world, the shame he felt as he fainted in front of the whole kingdom, and the sheer oddity of having a perfectly functioning body made him feel very much out of place. Yet, Acai was right, he had to try and talk.

    ¡°I¡¯d like to see carpenters first. And woodcarvers and such.¡± Luca paused and took a breath. ¡°I want to see and learn their way of crafting.¡±

    Acai stopped in his tracks. They were right outside the palace but no one had recognized Luca yet as he was wearing a cloak that obscured his face. A few people still protested as they almost bumped into them.

    ¡°You¡­ You know you mustn¡¯t take a crafting class right? I know you¡¯re not excited about fighting, but it would be such a waste of your Hero boon to use it on a crafting class. At least pick a magic class if you like wood and paper so much¡­ It would be terrible for the relationship between the church and the kingdom if the hero failed to be a hero you know. I won¡¯t help you get a crafter class ¡±

    That was unpleasant. For all his friendly talks and manners, this was a reminder Acai¡¯s role was as much here to spy and control him as to help him find his way.

    ¡°I know! I swear I won¡¯t take a crafting class !¡±

    Acai looked at him with dubious eyes.

    ¡°What do you want me to do? Pledge an oath to Techna?¡±

    That seemed to please Acai. Oaths to gods were binding in this world, especially for Heroes who had been summoned by said gods. Acai hesitated a bit then said with regret. ¡°Yes please do.¡±

    That hurt. He didn¡¯t feel especially close to Acai, but that was the man he had spent the last weeks with, the one he was the closest to in this world. A cruel reminder of how alone he was. But he had a plan, he would not be alone forever. And so he pledged.

    ¡° I, Luca Yilon, hereby swear not to take a crafting class I would be able to learn through visits and teachings of the crafting district. May Techna, goddess of arts and industry bear witness and strike me down with her might if I betray my words or intention.¡±

    ¡°May Techna bear witness to your oath¡±

    Luca felt something tighten around the heart of his being and a notification informed him he had taken an oath to Techna. A quick look at his status showed him the details of his oath, with its exact wording being recorded. He sure hoped he hadn¡¯t messed up, but this should be fine with what he had in mind.

    ¡°Should we go now?¡±

    The rest of the trip passed in silence, as Luca had nothing more to say and Acai was in a very uncomfortable position.

    <hr>

    The following weeks passed in a blur as Luca drowned himself in learning so as not to think of his life and his solitude. He would spend every morning in the library, reading about different crafts and techniques, then after lunch, he would visit different parts of the crafting districts, observing how crafters worked and sometimes asking questions to help better understand what they did.

    Never once had he revealed he was the kingdom¡¯s hero but eventually rumors had started to circulate about the hooded man with the priest visiting the crafters. But most crafters were more interested in their works and happy to explain the basics without giving too much care about who was asking. Of course, they never revealed the more important trade secrets, but they told enough to Luca to help him theorize what they did.

    As night would fall, they¡¯d come back to the palace and eat a quick dinner. Afterward, Luca would practice his skills to exhaustion, through drawing, writing, and calculating. As his skills capped at level 10, he reached level 5. Overall, he kept himself so busy he didn¡¯t feel his solitude too much, but it was still there, lurking in his mind. And now he had to find other classless skills to level. Plus, he didn¡¯t have much time left, Acai had told him the kings had come to an agreement and a meeting of all the heroes and kings would soon be held.

    [Drawing] and [Writing] had both been common skills and leveling them had granted him enough experience to reach level 3. [Arithmetic] and [Geometry] on the other hand were uncommon skills that had both granted him one level through practice. Now, if he wanted to keep grinding, he needed to work on some rare skills as they would give the more experience. It was time to test another of his ideas.

    It had been a few hours since night fell outside and Luca had finished to level up [Arithmetic]. Leveling the skill had not been too hard as he remembered enough of the mathematics of Earth to write complex demonstrations and or make and solve difficult problems. The system recognized his work only if he wrote the demonstrations or explained them to someone. He needed to express his knowledge in some ways for the system to boot in.

    His room had a table with papers and inks, which he had abundantly used to practice his skills. He took a new piece of paper and got to work. This was going to be more difficult as he wanted to try and design an object. He would start by making the blueprint for woodwork as those should be easier. He started drawing a basic chair, calculating the right proportions, choosing the type of wood and the way the wood would need to be prepared so as to be both resilient enough and easy to assemble.

    The first attempt was a failure, the back of the chair being too big compared to the feet. He tried again but this time he realized the bars he intended to use for the back of the chair were too heavy. He started again. And again. And again.

    As dawn finally came and the first rays of the sun poured into his rooms, Luca finally collapsed in exhaustion, his first blueprint done. As he closed his eyes, he was rewarded with the chime of the system and three notifications appeared inside his waning vision.

    [Congratulations! You have conceived and drafted a [Sturdy chair (common)]blueprint. You have been awarded 10 exp.]

    [Congratulations! For designing a blueprint by yourself you have been granted the [Conceive (rare)] and [Design (rare)]skills. You have been awarded 400 exp.]

    [Congratulations! You have reached level 6. Experience to level 7: 107/640]

    Luca smiled as he drifted away into sleep.

 3 - A council of Kings and Heroes

    Year 1566, summer.

    The carriage was moving fast and they would soon reach Primeval, capital of Astella first among the human kingdoms and favored kingdoms of Aris, god of war and honor. From what Luca had read, his own goddess deity, Techna, didn¡¯t have the best of relationship with Aris as their domains were fairly opposed. And the king of Dawnheart kingdom had done his best to prevent the meeting of the kings and heroes to take place in Primeval, which is why it had taken so much time to organize. Ultimately though, the king had to accept his fate as Astella was the strongest human kingdom and the only one to have been blessed by the summoning of three heroes.

    Luca had been informed they would leave two days after he successfully drafted his first blueprint. During the two days, he had worked on a few other blueprints, successfully bringing his [Conceive] and [Design] skills to level 5. As the skills leveled up, drawing up blueprints became more intuitive, he could feel what would fit and what wouldn¡¯t. Furthermore, he could also feel the two rare skills relying on his other classless skills, working in a synergy which bade well for his future class.

    It was a two-week ride to Primeval and he had been given his own carriage to share with Acai. Their relationship had gradually gotten better as Luca opened up. He could now talk longer when they were together and he enjoyed asking Acai questions about the world and the life he lived in. Books were great but they could not provide the insight and the meaningless yet essential details that made up conversations and concrete life experiences. On the other hand, Acai was getting interested in Luca¡¯s work. He would sometimes comment on the crafters¡¯ works or discuss about crafting theories with the hero. Acai was after all a priest of Techna, even though he didn¡¯t want Luca to become a crafter he loved talking about techniques and works.

    So Luca spent most of his time in the carriage talking, looking outside at the fantasy world he now lived in, or designing new blueprints and leveling. He had now moved away from woodworking to smithing and jewelry, but he had yet to draft anything better than common quality. He would also sometimes be invited by the king to travel alongside him and they achieved a somewhat cordial relationship.

    The king was a powerhouse with a level in the 70s and an epic royal class. At his level of power, people could usually live for centuries, but he was relatively young as his father died during the Great Calamity and he had reached his current level through war and blood. He obviously didn¡¯t have much consideration for Luca but after a few conversations he understood that his hero was more of the intellectual type, which would at least be good for the diplomatic nightmare they would get into. So they talked and prepared for how they would present themselves. Luca would be presented as the Dawnheart kingdom hero and, officially, was preparing himself to become a kind of archmage.

    Luca of course didn¡¯t tell the king he had other plans.

    <hr>

    The first few days in Primeval had been hectic. Luca had met with all the eleven other heroes, most of whom were plainly just dumb brutes drunk on their blessing. Seven of them had already unlocked their class all choosing combat classes. The other heroes were level 9 and on the verge of choosing their own class.

    Then the days were spent in a big council where kings argued on what would be the best kind of action. The gods had been clear that the heroes were sent to reconquer Lalcqia, the Lizardmen continent, from the hands of the demons and that the other species also had received heroes with the same task. The issue was the human continent of Speria was still recovering from the demon¡¯s invasions. Very few resources could be allocated to an oversea conquest and many monsters had leveled during the invasion, resulting in unstable situations in all kingdoms and a need to stabilize the countryside.

    Thus, it was argued that the heroes should level up by adventuring before going overseas. Not everyone agreed with this idea and some high priests claimed it was defying the will of the gods not to rush to Lalcqia and that the time lost in Speria could allow the other races¡¯ champions to take a precious lead. Moreover, not every kingdom was happy to have heroes running around in their backyard and the sooner they were gone the better.

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    But they eventually reached an agreement. Heroes would create parties among them and with some natives, they would level up to level 50, which given how powerful their class would be was not overly hard and could be achieved in a few years, and then they would sail to Lalcqia to fight back the demons. The kingdoms agreed to create a common fund to help the heroes install colonies and frontiers town on Lalcqia to hold the land.

    It took a week to reach that point, after which the heroes held a special meeting where they discussed forming a party. It resulted in two parties being created, one with all the heroes who had already chosen a class. They were a more hot-tempered bunch and Luca felt little love for them.

    A second party was formed with the four remaining heroes, Luca himself refused to join any party. Needless to say, his decisions were heavily looked down upon. But during the week he had seen his share of bullying and he had retreated into his mutism.

    This reunion was held the day before and now Luca was walking toward Helena¡¯s room. Helena was the leader of the second party of heroes and Luca felt she was fairly reasonable. Someone he could maybe work with.

    He knocked on her door. Helena called him in. He opened the door and saw that all four heroes were there. He breathed in. Gotta do what¡¯s gotta be done he said to himself.

    ¡°Hi,¡± Luca said uncomfortably.

    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s you! Changed your mind about not joining our party?¡± Helena said with a big smile.

    Everyone looked at him with eager eyes. He felt himself redden at their attention but kept going;

    ¡°Uh. No, not exactly. I was more here to¡­ I have an offer to make.¡± He blurted out. Then stopped, looking at them to see how they reacted.

    ¡°Oh, ok, what is it then?¡±

    Luca had thought again and again about how he would present things. So he said the next words very quickly before he could stop himself: ¡°I will choose a leader/administrator class, I think it has great potential and I don¡¯t want to fight directly. I want to lead and develop the city you guys will establish when you go to Lalcquia. It would give you guys a better base to adventure and develop from and to come back to when you need to heal and rest. And also, I would¡­

    ¡°Wow, wow, slow down.¡± Jordi cut him. He was a tall and skinny man who had already announced his intention to specialize in a ranger class. Usually rather discreet, he had an obvious distaste for the other party of heroes, partly because he didn¡¯t seem to like bigger groups, partly because they were obviously a terrible bunch to be with.

    ¡°For starters, what¡¯s a leader/administrator class? You don¡¯t expect to lead us right?¡± Jordi continued. The three other heroes agreed with his questions, nodding and looking at Luca for answers. At least they didn¡¯t outright reject him, they had the good sense to hear him out. Which is why Luca had hoped to work with them.

    ¡°Leader classes are classes which give bonuses to management and to subordinates.¡± The heroes didn¡¯t look happy at that. ¡°But of course, I don¡¯t expect to lead you guys and to have you as subordinates. My bonus would be more for the city and the people who would colonize the continent, not a fighting bonus but a crafting, farming, or training bonus mostly. That¡¯s why I would specialize in administration.¡±

    ¡°And what bonus do you expect to gain?¡± Helena asked. She was a tall blond woman who wanted to become an Archmage. Luca liked her as during the meetings she had proven to be very clearheaded, thinking before acting and gathering data before making any decision. That was probably why the three others had agreed so easily to be led by her.

    ¡°Crafting bonus so as to make better gear, architectural bonus to build faster and more efficient building, discipline, and training bonus to train better militia¡­ I don¡¯t know exactly yet, the hero blessing should allow for a crazy bonus down the line. Did you guys notice how everything works around stats? A smith has a productivity stat which determines the number of items he can craft by hours, the productivity stats of farmers determine how much more than a base yield his lands can produce¡­¡±

    ¡°Ok, I see, so you want to spread the bonus of your class to a whole town and maybe more, and you think it will give us an edge for the reconquest? Is that it? ¡° Helena asked.

    ¡°Yes, yes, that¡¯s it.¡±

    ¡°I think we can work with that. But concretely, what would you do and what would you expect of us?¡±

    They were done for business.

 4 - A Legendary class

    Year 1566, summer.

    They wound up discussing late into the night and planning again for a few more days. Officially, it was announced that Luca had joined their parties. But they agreed that Luca wouldn¡¯t have to adventure but would prepare for the expedition overseas. First, he would unlock his class and see what bonuses and specializations he could get. Then he would recruit civilians for the expedition and try to find the best people in every field as well as people who would be ready to start a new life.

    As the continent was recovering from the war against the demons, talented people were a very sought-after commodity, but there were plenty of orphans to pick up from the streets and who would be willing to bet on another life overseas. The number of orphans was quite alarming as the fertility rate of women was extremely high and pregnancy, in this world of stats and numbers, barely stopped women from working for a few days. So the recruitment plan of Luca would have two sides: find high-level civilians, and recruit and form a number of orphans. After all, the expedition wouldn¡¯t launch before three years and when 15 years old was the age of adulthood, he had plenty of time to prepare young adults.

    His third task would be to prepare the expedition proper: arrange for ships, decide the location, plan the building of the town, scout information about the continent, and so on¡­ For all this, the four other heroes would give him some of their earnings gained through adventuring. This had been a tough point to agree on but ultimately Luca convinced them that investing their money early on would prove greatly beneficial in the long run.

    The days spent planning and thinking had been some of the best days in Luca¡¯s recent life. These were people who came from his world, who found it odd that the loo weren¡¯t automatic, that their strength or their concentration wasn¡¯t determined by their effort but by some stats, that people found it more efficient to kill each other with swords than with long-ranged weapons¡­ He had been so engrossed in his planning that he almost didn¡¯t realize how the pressure he felt ever since he had been announced as a hero gradually lessened.

    Now he was back at Dawnheart and he needed to get his class. And his class better be good or it would all be for naught.

    During the ride back he had succeeded in drawing an uncommon rank blueprint of some woodworks and jewels. This gave him a trickle of experience, but he needed to do more if he wanted to level up at any decent pace. He had ideas for a couple of new skills which would benefit him.

    The first one was to try and write a complex book. He started by writing dissertations, using his memories of social sciences and philosophy from back home. The first works produced nothing, but as he finished writing his own explanation of Weber¡¯s theory on the origin of capitalism, in an adaptation to the new world he lived in, Luca was rewarded with the chime of the system¡¯s acknowledgment.

    [Congratulations! You have conceived and written an original masterpiece [The Spirit of Capitalism (epic)]book. You have been awarded 1000 exp.]

    [Congratulations! For composing a book with new and original ideas as well as defending them with talent, you have been granted the [Composing (theory, rare)] skill. You have been awarded 1000 exp.]

    [Congratulations! You have reached level 8. Experience to level 9: 1070/2560]

    That felt good! And the experience bonus was amazing: Luca quickly checked the skill description.

    [Composing (epic) lv1: Helps you organize ideas and better see the links between concepts and realities. Can be leveled up through recurrent writing of theories and intellectual innovations. +1 Int +1 Wis]

    This would help him immensely for his class. It was also very valuable that the skill granted him direct stats, which then help all of his other skills. Luca knew from what he had read that the composing skill ranged from rare to legendary, but to have it above rare meant you wrote something deeply original. Thanks, Weber for the tip. He wondered what else he could plagiarize from his world, and also for how much he could sell it to the royal library¡­

    <hr>

    As it turned out, political essays were not in fashion in this world where absolute monarchy reigned. This was both a good and a bad thing as the librarians had outright refused his works but he wrote a few other epic rank books plagiarizing political essays from Earth. Reaching epic rank was easier when there was no real concurrence on the topic. With the bonus experience he gained, he was on the verge of level 10. Luca had stopped writing as there was two more skills he wanted to gain before choosing his class and all the experience would be wasted if he trained them once he was level 10.

    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    The first of the two skills was [Tinkering]. He felt that if he wanted to help crafters classes he¡¯d need, at some point, to understand what they worked with by himself. Of course, he couldn¡¯t learn specific crafting skills as those were class restricted, and even if he could, he had taken an oath not to become a crafter.

    That didn¡¯t stop Acai from eyeing him suspiciously when he lead him to a public workshop where he practiced making some of the simplest designs he had drafted. It took him a few days to gain the skill and to make it reach level 10 but as far as he was concerned that was worth it. He now understood much better what crafters were working with and he felt more keenly the difference between materials.

    By now, pretty much everyone in the crafters¡¯ district had guessed that the hooded person was the Vomiting Hero, but the excitation around him had calmed down. Still, there was always a few orphans following him around, sometimes poking or making fun of him.

    As he had finished leveling up the [Tinkering] skill, Luca went on the last part of his plans. He knew he was gonna hate it. He and Acai got out of the workshop and he rapidly spotted an orphan, around twelve years old, pointing at him. Luca sighed deeply and went to him. The orphan, seeing that, had a look of fear in his eyes but as he was surrounded by other orphans he had to save face.

    ¡°Hi there !¡± Luca said in a falsely joyous tone. ¡°I¡¯ve noticed you guys pointing at me a few times and I was wondering if we could get to know each other¡±. Huh, that was lame.

    ¡°Whad¡¯you want? Ya can talk now? Sure ya not gonna pass out?¡±

    ¡°Ok let¡¯s cut it. I have an offer for you.¡± Luca said. Acai snorted, the socializing part didn¡¯t last long. ¡°I want to teach you guys so as to level a [Teaching] skill, I¡¯ll do it for free and you¡¯ll get skills from it too. I¡¯ll also feed you guys while at it. What do you say?¡±

    ¡° Ya teaching? ¡° The orphans snorted at the absurdity, obviously they didn¡¯t think much of him. ¡°What ya gonna teach? Everyone knows ya ain¡¯t got no class nor know nothing !¡±

    ¡°[Arithmetic] and [Geometry], in an advanced capacity. I can also teach you guys to read and write if you don¡¯t know how to.¡± From what Acai had told him, the education of the people had greatly suffered from the Great Calamity. Whereas before [Reading] and [Writing] skills were extremely common, most orphans now lacked the barest education.

    ¡°Ya serious?!¡± The orphan exclaimed. Around him the other orphans were getting excited and shouting could be heard.

    ¡°Yes I¡¯m serious, I can teach up to twenty of you at the same time. Now if you¡¯re interested come to the palace at dawn tomorrow. You can bring however is interested. That¡¯s all.¡±

    On that, Luca and Acai left. He would need to wait to see if they bite.

    The next morning, a crowd of more than two hundred orphans were waiting at the gate, to the obvious discontent of the guards. Luca would never be allowed to let them in. He was already on thin ice inside the castle, the king not being very happy to have what he now called the lazy hero.

    Luca located the orphan he talked to the day before and signaled him to come closer.

    ¡°I thought I told you no more than twenty.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, but everyone wanted to get in.¡±

    That felt good to Luca, he felt as if he could be useful to people. But there was no way he¡¯ll teach all those people at the same time. Just seeing them all looking at him right now made him very uncomfortable.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry but I can¡¯t take more than twenty people inside. So go and choose them. I¡¯ll tell the guards to let you through.¡±

    ¡°Really dude?¡±

    ¡°Yes, really. And if I¡¯m going to teach you, you¡¯ll call me sir and not dude. Now what¡¯s your name kid?¡±

    ¡°Yorru¡­ sir.¡± And with that Luca felt really smug.

    Eventually, Yorru picked nineteen other kids and they came inside the castle with two guards following them. Luca lead them to the library, which he knew had ample free space, and the librarian had agreed to let him teach in one of the empty rooms. There he took out papers with the local alphabet written and started to teach, thanking Techna for his [Universal translator] unique skill.

    Yorru was the smartest of the kids but it still took a few days before he got a good grasp of the alphabet, which in turn resulted in Luca getting the [Teaching skill]. In fact, once he let go of his bad pronunciation and provocative attitude, Yorru proved an endearing kid. He was twelve years old and had lost both his parents at the end of the war. Ever since then, he lived off the streets, taking what he could when he could. But he was smart and once Luca gave him the opportunity to learn, he knew it was his chance to get out of his situation. For now, he learned with a rare eagerness and, along with the other orphans, ate what Luca could give them using the stipend he received from the kingdom.

    A month passed before the [Teaching] skill reached level 10. Then, on the same day, Luca finished his rewriting of Rousseau¡¯s Social Contract, effectively awarding him 1000 exp. point and unlocking the level 10 and his class options.

    He was presented with a few options: some crafters class, a teacher class, and some researcher classes, but there was only one that appealed to him. He would be a [Legendary Scholar].

 5 - A Scholar

    Year 1566, autumn.

    There was a lot to take in as the system informed him of all the details of his new class. First came the description which had made him know this was a perfect fit.

    [ Congratulations! You have chosen the (legendary) class: Legendary Scholar. You dabble in every form of knowledge and every craft, allowing you to theorize and improve them with great talent. You can draft blueprints for all crafts provided you understand the intricacies of the craft, you learn theoretical knowledge at great speed, and have a better intuition to create new concepts and ideas. You¡¯re understanding of the world will always grow allowing you to shape it to your will. Each level grants you +2 WIS +2 INT and +2 CHA, it applies retroactively]

    That was a polyvalent theorist¡¯s class. With it, he could eventually boost every kind of craft, but more importantly, he could create. For that was what Luca dreamed of. He didn¡¯t want the glory of battles, but that didn¡¯t mean he forsake all glory. He wanted to create a city and eventually a country that would reach the heights of perfection. For what was the fame of one man compared to the fame of a nation? Of course, he hadn¡¯t even told his fellow heroes about that dream.

    But he was convinced that it was only through knowledge that one could shape the world and make real changes. He would not be a puppet of the gods or of the kings, he would be a founder of civilization. And this class acknowledged his dream.

    And then came the skills. As a legendary class holder, he would get five class skills plus two at level 50. Every five levels he would get some subskills. He could also create class skills with his own actions but they would rarely be legendary skills.

    The first skill he got was [Polyvalent Blueprinting].

    [Polyvalent Blueprinting (legendary) lv1: Your Blueprints cannot be copied but are easier to understand to any who sees them and has the skill to work from them. Your intuition when drafting is heightened and you can draw works of extreme complexity. +1% to intuition and +1% to complexity. Intuition base value is equal to WIS, complexity base value is equal to INT]

    Now he would be able to draft a higher than uncommon blueprint. But the real value of the skill was in that it wasn¡¯t restricted to any specific type of blueprint, meaning he could effectively draft anything from jewelry to castle and city!

    The second skill was [Immortal Library], the description was quite simple and it went straight to the point.

    [Immortal Library (legendary) lv1: Everything you read or write is copied into an imaginary library that you can access in your mind at all times. You can also allow others into sections of your library at your will. Time spent in your mental library goes slower than time in the real world, but you cannot act in or see the real world while inside. Number of people allowed in the library: 1*WIS. Time dilatation: 1+ 0,1*INT]

    This was a cheat skill for teaching as he could eventually host a great number of people inside his mental library. Already the bonus of the class gave him 20 wisdom, which were added to his 10 initial wisdom and the 5 his [Composing] skill gave him, allowing for 35 people inside. And this would be multiplied by the levels he would get in his skills. With that, he could effectively educate hundreds of people in a very short time frame. Though the kingdom would not be happy to learn that he had pretty much copied all of its library to open it to the public. In this medieval world, even though printing had already been invented, books were a rare commodity.

    The third skill he had quite expected but it was still a complete cheat skill.

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    [ Genius Theorist (legendary) lv1: You¡¯re understanding of the world and of the logic of things is heightened. You can easily learn new sciences or areas of knowledge. This skill can have as many subskills as you have specialty +1% learning speed. Base learning speed equals CHA+WIS+INT. Current subskill 2]

    The subskills were [Mathematics] which itself had [Arithmetic] and [Geometry] as subskills, and [Linguistic]. Both mathematical subskills were no longer classless and capped at 10. He could also now expand into other fields of mathematics.

    The last two skills were much less expected but would bring him a great edge, as they both built upon the previous skills.

    [Profound Teacher (legendary) lv1: your deep understanding of the world allows you to give better and more pertinent explanations to those you teach. You can teach skills you don¡¯t know provided you understand the theory. People you have taught have a chance to have higher rank skills than what they normally would have gained and will progress faster in their skills as long as your theory proves relevant. This skill is linked to [Genius theorist]. +10% teaching speed. Base teaching speed is equal to CHA]

    [ Virtual Modelization (legendary) lv 1: You can visualize and project blueprint or other types of plans, allowing you to test your hypothesis or the possibilities of your projects. Complexity of the modelization depends on your knowledge, the skill level, and your INT. Current projection processing capacity: 35 MB per second Projection processing capacity is equal to INT+Skill Lv.]

    Luca felt elated. The class was perfect for what he envisioned. He would never be individually strong, but he could make others incredibly stronger. He needed to see if his teaching skill could work on heroes, but there was no reason it wouldn¡¯t. And he could prepare so well for the expedition, effectively fast training hundreds of people in all types of crafts. There was just so much to be done and he could not wait!

    So he got out of his room for a walk. He needed space to process all that just befell him. If he played his cards right, and if he could trust his fellow heroes, they would be far more powerful than the other parties of heroes. And the colony they would establish would be unequaled. But for now, he was still a powerless hero who depended on the goodwill of kings for his everyday needs. And his specific king would not take kindly to the news that his hero was effectively powerless in combat.

    Of course, he could always show the king his worth for the kingdom by teaching his citizens, improving their skills, or maybe drafting high-value items. But that would be a dangerous bet for if the king found him to be too valuable he would not let him go. The whole situation with the hero now was that the kings wanted to build goodwill so that when the heroes would become unstoppable powerhouses the kingdoms that had helped them would benefit. But at the same time, they¡¯d rather the heroes didn¡¯t stay too close to home. No one wanted a one-man army next to his throne. For in this world as in the other, history had showed loyalty was a very fickle thing.

    Luca had reached the palace outside-wall and was looking at the city before him. It housed about three hundred thousand souls in buildings of rocks and wood. Large streets were illuminated by magical street lamps but in darker areas small streets branched off, leading into the unknown. City rats hopped off from dark spots to dark sports while high-level people went their way. This was an unfair world, a world where levels and stats determined everything.

    During the day, people went to and fro, carrying their business, shouting, laughing, and crying. It was a perfect fantasy world where it seemed one could always achieve his dreams through skills and class. Food was abundantly produced by farmers and crafters with skills made objects of a quality that could not be dreamed of in modern Earth. Magic alleviated most problems, you could cure most sicknesses and even old age wasn¡¯t that hard with enough points into body stats.

    But it was also a ruthless world, a world ruled by the strong. Every morning guards would find people dead on the streets, killed for a bit of experience or simply out of greed. Leveling in crafters class needed important investments while leveling through killing was always a dangerous endeavor. Once someone reached level 50 their position was secure as their skills held great value, but before that, it was mostly do or die. And for all those the war had left alone death and misery came by more often than not.

    This was a world where everything could still be done. But first, he needed to prepare. So Luca went back to his room and wrote letters to the four heroes with whom he would share his fate. It was time to plan.

 6 - A Party of heroes

    Year 1566, autumn.

    As they were pretty sure their correspondence would be spied on, the heroes had agreed to regularly send meaningless letters to each other and to have a code for when Luca would obtain his class. On that date, they would all converge to Dawnheart to meet him and adjust their plans depending on the class he got and the skill that would come with it.

    As he waited for them, Luca brought back the teaching hours from a full day to only the morning hours, and he spent all of his afternoons and evenings reading in the royal library. His reading skill had been merged into his class, effectively capping its level to Luca¡¯s level plus ten. It took him a few days to bring the skill to level 20 but by then books passed by him in a blur. The best thing was, he didn¡¯t have to be afraid of missing something as everything was then stored in his mental library.

    He especially focused on books containing knowledge that could be useful to the class of the other heroes. The sooner he used [Profound Teacher] on them the better. Helena¡¯s case was both the easiest and the most difficult one: as she would specialize in arcane magic and complex casting, books and theories about her specialty abounded. But at the same time, they were the more obtuse to Luca as they were completely alien to everything he knew about the world. Nevertheless, he worked diligently on the theory behind magic to be able to discuss it with the party¡¯s leader.

    Jordi¡¯s case was strange too, but then whose wasn¡¯t? Luca was going to teach them about their class even though he had never put a foot in their fields and knew next to nothing about the realities they faced. Last time, Jordi said he would be a kind of ranger, maybe with beast or druidic magic. So Luca got into reading about plants and nature, the cycle of seasons, the climates, anything he thought could be useful.

    The last two heroes were both women. Iria had been summoned by Hetia, goddess of home and love, which had in turn led to her decision to become a Hetia paladin, or in RPG terms, both a tank and a cleric. This is something the other party of heroes felt was very funny as Iria was less than a meter and a half tall and had very little weight or muscle to her name. And so Iria chose to join the other heroes¡¯ party. For her, Luca studied theology intensively while reading all he could about paladins and knights in general.

    Lastly, Jane wanted to be a swordswoman. Why? Luca still didn¡¯t understand. But then, there was very little he understood about Jane. Even in the few days they spent together, she rarely said anything intelligible, preferring to talk in aphorism or not even talk at all. So for her, Luca read poetry.

    <hr>

    About two weeks after he sent his letters, the first of his party arrived. It was Helena who came first. She was with a party of about twenty adventurers and had already reached level 20. They went straight to the castle where the king obliged by hosting them. After a small ceremony, she said she and her party were tired from the travel and would like to be allowed to rest. The king obliged and gave them rooms. As soon as she was alone Helena went to Luca¡¯s room to ask him the question that had been harrowing her ever since she received her letter.

    She opened the door, cast a look around to check there was no one, added a spell on top to be sure no one could hear her, and then asked: ¡°So what¡¯s your class?¡±

    Luca was happy to see her again. Of all the other heroes, she was his favorite. He liked how she took time to think and to listen to everyone, being both very present but not taking all the space. She inspired him respect and knew how to make him at ease. So he quickly put her up to date.

    ¡°That¡¯s a great class you got Luca! Entirely support type, but combined with our hero class and our future colony, definitely completely cheated. Seems like you were on betting on not fighting and using the blessing on civilian class.¡±

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    Luca beamed at that. In the last two weeks he had told no one about his class but having someone to talk about it to and who understood his choice was a great comfort. He was confident in his choices but being alone was still hard on him.

    ¡°So what about you? What¡¯s the detail of your class? What¡¯s its name?¡±

    ¡°[Arcanist Archmage]¡± she answered smugly. ¡°Sounds great doesn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t have legendary in it though¡­¡±

    ¡°You know that ¡°Arch¡± in Archmage means above and beyond right? So technically it¡¯s better than legendary. You know that right, you scholar?¡±

    They both laughed at that before Helena went on.

    ¡°So basically what it does is allowing me to craft spells and charge rituals to create extremely powerful magic. I should soon be able to pretty much throw nuclear bombs around. The downside though is that I have no physical stats and cannot fast cast. So I¡¯m pretty vulnerable. Want to know my skills?¡±

    ¡°Of course, I want to know your skills !¡±

    And they went on talking and theorizing throughout the night. The following day, after a late morning in bed, they started theory crafting about magic and the arcane. Things were much clearer with Helena as her class gave her insight and concrete situations the books lacked. On the other hand, she sometimes lacked a good understanding of the theory and benefited from Luca¡¯s help. After a few days, his [Profound Teacher] skill had leveled up twice, granting him two levels. The bonus experience for leveling legendary skills was just absurd.

    By then, they had already discussed most of the things they wanted to discuss about the class and needed to wait for the other members of the party to join them to plan. Helena spent the rest of the time practicing her skills or reading in Luca¡¯s mental library.

    The others arrived soon enough and once the official formalities were done, they meet in Luca¡¯s room to plan. After getting everyone up to date and the others¡¯ skills and classes: Jordi was a [Druidic Ranger], Iria was a [Legendary Paladin of Hetia] and Jane [A Swordswoman of the Legends], they got on to business.

    ¡°So here is what Luca proposed we do.¡± It was Helena, as the leader, who explained the plan. ¡°You guys should first abuse his metal library time dilatation and his teaching skill to train. In my case, my [Arcane comprehension] skill, which was already legendary, has been enhanced and gained +1% arcane efficiency with each level, while other skills have gotten up to +10% efficiency just due to his teaching.¡±

    That was a lot if you considered how much each level would add, and everyone in the room knew that. Jordi grumbled a bit at how weird it would be to be taught by a bookworm but that was all.

    ¡°Then, once you guys have taken all you could from his teachings, we would depart as a party to found a city on the coast. It would be a two-week journey and we would install ourselves in a minor kingdom that has no heroes covering for it. We¡¯d build a small city where we could do two things. One: prepare the resources for the expedition, Luca wants to try and draw the ships that will take us, but we¡¯ll also need to amass food, steel, and various objects. Two: Luca will be able to teach and prepare the people that will come with us. We can form a small army, train crafters, prepare administrators, and so on. What do you guys think?¡±

    ¡°What about the cost?¡± Iria asked.

    ¡°We¡¯d fund this with what we gain from adventuring. As we had decided last time, all the gold we can take through loot will be useless once we depart from the continent so we might as well invest it now.¡±

    ¡°And how do you think the kingdoms will react to it?¡±

    ¡°They won¡¯t be happy, but since it is purely for the sake of leaving the continent they should let it be,¡± Helena answered. ¡°Also, we¡¯ll keep Luca¡¯s class a secret, all of those he teaches will be under oath.¡±

    ¡°Well I don¡¯t know about you guys but I¡¯m in.¡± Jordi said. That was his type, he thought alone and then would reach a decision. Once he had chosen, he would not budge. Trusting his instincts he said.

    ¡°I partake in the decision¡± Jane announced.

    ¡°All good for me too. Though we¡¯ll need to finagle the details.¡± Iria said. ¡°But maybe we should let Luca spend more time here, let him learn from the local high-level crafts. And what about poaching some crafters from here? We¡¯re literally in the capital of crafting and I¡¯m sure we could entice a few high-level individuals with Luca¡¯s boons.¡±

    At that, everyone turned on Luca. Well, I guess I¡¯m screwed.

 7 - Convincing crafters

    Year 1566, autumn.

    ¡°You know, you need to learn to speak to others. And by others I mean people not from Earth, people who live in this world. Otherwise, you¡¯re just a creep with an urge for power.¡± Iria said.

    She and Luca were walking together to go to the crafter¡¯s district to convince some high-level crafters to work with them.

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that without saying anything. I¡¯m not trying to be mean, I¡¯m just reminding you of some facts. I know it¡¯s not easy to adapt to this world, heck I even got all religious to adapt. And yes, you¡¯re coping somewhat well with all your planning and reading, and learning and scheming, and so on. But all this, it will only have value if you value people. If you go meet them.¡±

    ¡°Did you rehearse your speech?¡± Luca asked balefully.

    ¡°A bit. My goddess told me you needed to be reminded about love. And Hetia is great about relationships! But anyways, I really mean it. You might not realize but we trust you, we¡¯re investing a lot in your plans because we believe you have what it takes to make it happen, but for that, you need to work on a more profound level with people.¡±

    Luca didn¡¯t know what to say so he was relieved to see they had arrived. ¡°We¡¯re there. You¡¯re ready?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, watch and learn.¡±

    They had chosen to first poach a woodcarver and went to the second best in the city, Enrik. Neither one of them ever met him but he had a good reputation and, most importantly, he still yearned to progress. His shop was a five-story wooden building that had on display a great number of works ranging from common to epic quality, though those were rare and far in between. Behind the building was the workshop proper where Enrik and a team of about twenty masters and apprentices worked. Once they identified themselves as heroes to the receptionist, he immediately led them to where Enrik was working.

    Enrik was a man that appeared to be in his fifties, which in this world meant nothing as stats allowed you to far outlive your appearance, with brown hair, brown beard, brown eyes, brown skin, well brown everything. As if the wood he had worked on all of his life had infused him with his colors and his life. As they arrived, he stopped what he was working on and gave them both a strong handshake with a rugged hand.

    ¡°Welcome, welcome to my humble shop. To what do I owe the honor of having the fabled heroes come see me? Perhaps I could make something for you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d love you to buy some of your crafts, everything we¡¯ve seen this we entered has been a delight for our eyes¡± Iria promptly answered with a smile.

    ¡°So what would it be? A shield? Parts of a spear? Maybe a chest?¡±

    ¡°But sadly we¡¯re not here primarily to buy¡± Iria continued. ¡°Could we perhaps have a meeting in a more private place?¡±

    Enrik looked a bit sad at that but he agreed and led them to his office, which was a very small room in which he evidently spent as little time as possible.

    ¡°So what is it you want to talk to me about?¡±

    ¡°What if we told you we could help you break your bottleneck and eventually create a legendary grade masterpiece?¡±

    Enrik darkened at that. Every crafter dreamed of creating as high-ranking and as perfect as possible works. But all eventually reached a bottleneck, a point where they didn¡¯t know how to progress. They could pray to Techna as much as they wanted, they could spend sleepless nights working again and again, they could travel to see new things, very very few found a way to break through. For Enrik, he had once already broken through, succeeding in creating epic grade woodworks, and though he would still progress he would likely never make any legendary work. Even the first woodworker in the city couldn¡¯t do any. So that wasn¡¯t a light subject to breach.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    ¡°Do you come to tease me, heroes? I might not have the bonuses of a legendary class but I have my honor and what you speak of is no light subject.¡±

    ¡°We would not make fun of you on such a subject. We have a way for you to break through and create things never seen before.¡± Iria answered with the utmost seriousness. ¡°But to tell you more, we need you to take an oath of secrecy, an oath before the gods.¡±

    Enrik¡¯s brows furrowed as he evaluated his options. An oath before the gods was no small thing, but it was pretty common still. He didn¡¯t have much to lose by taking the oath but he had no special reason to trust them. And Iria knew that as well as he did, as a paladin of Hetia she had a high charisma relative to her levels and rapidly understood people, she knew she needed something more to convince him. So she used all her eloquence to push through.

    ¡°I know we haven¡¯t yet proven we¡¯re worth your trust or that we can achieve anything. But you know that Luca here, the hero Dawnheart has received has had yet to go on any adventure. And he was chosen by Techna herself. We can¡¯t tell you his abilities now, as they must be kept under the strictest secret. Heck even telling you he has abilities is telling too much. But think about it, this is the way your goddess has chosen to answer your prayers. Luca wasn¡¯t sent here to be a hero warrior, he is to be your hero, the hero of the crafters and the workers, the hero of the goddess of arts and industry! So please, trust us, swear not to say a word of what you¡¯ll learn here and I promise you on the name of the deity I serve, Hetia goddess of family and love, that you will not regret it.¡± As she finished her speech she looked at Enrik squarely, unflinching and full of trust.

    ¡°You speak well little lady. Fine, I¡¯ll take the oath. But don¡¯t make me regret it.¡± He breathed and recited the words. ¡°I, Enrik Woodspent, hereby swear not to talk to anyone about what I will learn and bear witness to today. May Techna, goddess of arts and industry bear witness to my pledge and strike me down with her might if I betray my words or intention.¡±

    ¡°May Techna bear witness to your oath¡± answered Iria.

    ¡°So what now?¡±

    Iria turned to Luca, it was his turn to speak.

    ¡°Out of my five legendary skills, I have four that can help you. But for them to be useful I¡¯ll need you to help me in return. Basically what my class allows me to do is to better understand things and then share that understanding with others to help them improve their skills. As in legendary levels of improvement. The other thing I can do is draw blueprints of very high quality and at some, I¡¯m pretty much guaranteed to be able to draft legendary levels blueprints. But in order for that to work I need to understand the craft I work with deeply.¡±

    ¡°Sounds like you can¡¯t do much for me now then.¡±

    ¡°No wait, that¡¯s the explanation but let me show you the actual skills !¡± And with a thought Luca projected his [Profound Teacher], [Virtual Modelization], [Genius Theorist], and [Polyalent Blueprint] skills outside so that Iria and Enrik could read their description. Both had the [Reading] skills and were done in less than a minute.

    Enrik whistled at that. ¡°Guess the king and the nobles won¡¯t be happy with them skills. But man, your lady friend was right, if you can make your class work you will be our hero, the heroes of the crafters.¡±

    Enrik was hooked, now what was left was to negotiate the details of the agreements. The discussion took about thirty minutes and eventually, Enrik agreed to leave with them once they would go to Lalcqia, if their agreement had proven useful to him before that. But he refused to leave his business and follow them to the coast. For now, Luca could come and visit him to discuss his works, observe and make suggestions. They would both share their knowledge so that Luca could level his skills and deepen his understanding of woodwork while Enrik would benefit from the [Profound Teacher] and eventually from high-ranking blueprints.

    Enrik had also agreed to introduce him to other high-level crafters and vouch for him. So in the following weeks, Luca was busy getting to know smiths, tailors, alchemists, architects, and crafters of all trades. Most of them took the same deal as Enrik but a few refused while others agreed to directly move into the town that would be built on the coast in preparation for the expedition.

    During that time, Luca also worked his skills on the other heroes and once it seemed they wouldn¡¯t progress any further through talking and teaching alone everyone went their way. It was agreed they would adventure for one year while laying the stones for their big project, recruiting orphans or would-be settlers, and finding a location to install their camp.

 8 - A helpful assistant

    Year 1567, spring.

    ¡°Everything going well for ya, sir? ¡° an ironic voice called out to Luca as he was on his way to the crafters¡¯ district to learn more about runes formation.

    Six months had passed since his first meeting with Enrik and he had gotten a lot more used to his new life. He would spend his day observing various crafts, discussing with crafters, or drawing blueprints. There was no books he hadn¡¯t read in the royal library anymore He could now make rare grade blueprints in most trades in a very reliable manner and was on the verge of breaking through to making epic grade blueprints.

    The crafters had gotten to like him as they had all benefited from his insights and his skills. For he was a crazily fast learner and an exciting student, challenging their knowledge and coming up with new ways or new ideas every so often. This of course rewarded him with experience gains and skills level-up, making him now level 20. Of course, the king and his advisor had now understood he would never be an Archmage and that he had his secrets. They also knew he was spending all his time with the crafters but he had refused to explain what he was doing and as he had the support of four heroes that were already level 40 and would soon reach higher heights, he was pretty much left alone.

    Which brought him to his current situation, Luca turned to see who had called him out. It was Yorru, the orphans with whom he had leveled his teaching skill.

    ¡°Well as a matter of fact yes, things are going rather well.¡± Luca felt somewhat worried but he knew nothing could happen to him in plain daylight.

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m happy for ya¡­ Cause you see, ever since you stopped teaching us halfway, things have not been so good for us¡­¡±

    ¡°Us?¡±

    ¡°Yes us, the orphans ya taught and then left to themselves. We thought ya cared about us but once ya unlocked your skill and your hero friends came by ya just stopped teaching and caring, didn¡¯t ya? So we went back to what we were doing before, and it¡¯s not doing so good to be a street rat right now.¡±

    Luca did feel guilty about that. He had a plan to help the orphans but things got delayed and right now he was busy leveling himself and learning crafts for his class. He didn¡¯t know what to say or what to do.

    ¡°So, sir, (Yorru insisted on the word) I was wondering if maybe, now that you got all these friends in the crafters¡¯ district ya couldn¡¯t do a little something for us ya know. As payback for helping you level your skill. Not much, maybe just leaving a word or something, proposing us as apprentices, telling them we¡¯re not bad people ya know?¡±

    Yorru was pleading by the end of his speech. Luca looked at him and saw he was starving. His clothes were dirty and torn, barely able to fit the growing teen. Under them, he could see the boy¡¯s ribs. His eyes were yellow with fever and he looked positively desperate for help. Luca hesitated. He had so much to learn about runes but yet, something in the boy stirred deep pity in him.

    ¡°Look, there¡¯s no way they¡¯ll take you in that state. Here, take this money, go wash and eat something, buy some clothes, and then come see me this evening at the palace, I¡¯ll find something for you.¡±

    ___

    As night started to fall and Luca headed back to the palace, he saw Yorru waiting for him in front of the palace¡¯s doors. The boy looked much better than he did this morning having bought a fresh change of clothes and eaten something. Luca let him in and brought him to his room. He asked the maids to prepare a second bed for the night. He had thought all day about what he could do and thought maybe he could both help the orphans and help himself in this situation.

    They took dinner and Luca asked questions to the boy who was clearly intimidated. He had an idea for him but he needed to get to know him better before he did anything. Then as they finished dinner he said.

    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°Here¡¯s what we¡¯re gonna do. If you swear an oath to keep secret everything you see and hear while you¡¯re with me, I¡¯ll take you with me everywhere I go and teach you more advanced stuff. You¡¯ll be kind of my personal student and my assistant. This should allow you to gain a great class at age 15 and meanwhile, you¡¯ll help me with my work. For the other orphans, go find them tomorrow, I¡¯ll talk to the crafters I know so that they take them in apprenticeship for me. But they will have to follow me when I leave the city and when I¡¯ll go to Lalcqia.¡± Luca paused to let the information sink in. ¡°I¡¯ll let you the night and the day of tomorrow to decide, now go back to my room you can sleep there. I¡¯ll be in the library working.¡±

    Yurro hurriedly got up and left, Luca thought he had seen tears in the boy¡¯s eyes, but that must have been his imagination. How unjust was a world where orphans had no one to take care of them while he was pampered for doing nothing, just because of some hero blessing?

    Two days later, Luca had placed all nineteen orphans in apprenticeship and now had his personal assistant. It felt weird moving around all day with the boy but Acai had stopped accompanying him for quite some time and having someone to bounce off his ideas with was good. The boy had taken the oath and would spend a few hours each day in Luca¡¯s mental library. Luca would also take time to personally explain things Yorru didn¡¯t understand, using his [Profound Teacher] skill to prepare a good future for him.

    <hr>

    The first epic-grade blueprint Luca made was of a flute. He and Enrik had been working on instruments for quite some time with the help of more specialized crafters. Musical instruments were not hard to make, but their quality had a tremendous influence on the effects of the music played with it and it was very hard to come by rare grade or higher woodwind instruments.

    So he had got to work, modeling different shapes and different combinations of woods through his [Virtual Modelization] skills and then taking insights from Enrik to make changes. It had taken more than thirty trials before he found the perfect harmony he sought. Every detail was accounted for: the size of the holes in the flute, the distance between them, the total length of the flute, etc. He ended up choosing a combination of three types of woods, one imbued with fire elements to make the music more powerful, one with air elements to better attune the sound, and one with earth elements to give the instruments enough resilience. In this world, it wasn¡¯t uncommon for high leveled musicians to have the strain of their skills break the instruments.

    He had to carefully balance each of the woods so that their elements would work in harmony and not destroy each other. But the result was grandiose.

    [Congratulations! You have conceived and drafted a [Flute of wind, earth, and fire (epic)]blueprint. This blueprint cannot be copied. You have been awarded 1000 exp.]

    [Congratulations! For designing an epic blueprint of a woodwind instrument by yourself you gain the [Woodprint blueprint (epic)] subskill to your [Golden Blueprint]. You have been awarded 1000 exp.]

    [Congratulations! You have reached level 23. Experience to level 24¡­]

    He had finally done it. He was no longer only a teacher or a theoretician, he was a real inventor! He looked at the blueprint to see what he had created.

    [Flute of wind, earth, and fire (epic) blueprint: A flute that harnesses three elements to create powerful and stable music. +25% to sound purity +25%to sound diffusion. Can be used to cast fire, earth, or wind magic through music.

    Stats¡­]

    He would bring it to Enrik tomorrow, this was one step closer to their common dream of crafting legendary items.

    In the following months, Luca successfully created a dozen of epic grade blueprints which the crafters he worked with were then glad to use. Sadly, in this world, a blueprint would be destroyed after one use and the system prevented Luca from making copies of any blueprint. He had tried but every time the paper on which he was making a copy crumbled as he neared completion. This was even more frustrating since every blueprint he had made remained forever in his mental library where he could consult them as he pleased to prepare for other works.

    The end of his year in Dawnheart came by and now Luca had to leave to join the other heroes. He had made a lot of friends with the crafters community and it somewhat pained him to leave them, but what had to be done had to be done. He decided to let the orphan apprentices stay a bit longer to practice and they would join him later, but Yorru would go with him.

    Iria came by Dawnheart to pick him up and escort him during the journey. After a last audience with the king, they left the city. Jordi had already picked the location they would build their first town, and in two years they would go to Lalcqiua to fight back the demons and establish a new civilization.

 9 - A town before the beginning

    Year 1567-8, winter.

    The trip to the coast took about two weeks during which Iria took a few breaks to hunt powerful monsters or do actions her goddess asked her to do. Like all the other heroes, she had a party of about twenty people with her who were about level 50, which was higher than her but her powerful class meant she could pretty much already take them all at once.

    The adventurers who followed her knew there was this disparity in power yet would do their utmost to stay with her and follow on her adventure. They all had rare classes but through adventuring and special circumstances, they could maybe one day evolve their class to epic or legendary rank, thus becoming practically immortal.

    Luca never got close to them, but he did spend a lot of time talking with Iria and getting to know her better. In this fantasy world, there was something uniquely comforting in the company of fellow earthlings. He spent a good part of the trip drafting architectural blueprints, planning, or teaching Yurro. He had grown quite fond of the teenager who had an eagerness to learn only matched by his own.

    The country they went through offered spectacles beyond anything Luca had ever imagined. He saw fountains going up in the skies, mountains made of sand held together by trees going hundreds of meters in the sky and whose roots had an ability to hold all things close to them through gravity. He discovered monsters, from the classical wild beast to more mythical creatures such as trolls, sphinx, or things that had no name on Earth. It was a world of wonder outside the city, a world of the unknown and maybe he could understand those who chased the thrill of adventure. Maybe, just maybe.

    One night their camp was attacked by vampiric rats and he understood why he didn¡¯t want to fight directly. The smell of blood and the visions of crazed eyes rodents jumping at him to suck on his life didn¡¯t leave him for days. When he tried to talk about it to Iria she just laughed it off telling him to man up a bit. Even Yurro didn¡¯t understand why he was so shaken. This was just normal life in the wild.

    When they reached the coast, Jordi was already there installing thousands of refugees, would-be settlers, and orphans into tents with the help of Helena. They were glad to see he had arrived and the four of them immediately went inside a tent at the center of the camp for a meeting, Jane being due to arrive in only a few weeks with a caravan of people.

    After the greetings and the sharing of general news, they got down to business. Helena was the first to breach the subject.

    ¡°Ok, if it¡¯s fine with you two, let¡¯s get to planning. I didn¡¯t expect things would be this messy this fast. Luca, we said it¡¯d be your job to organize a town here in preparation for our departure, so how do you want to proceed?¡±

    Time to shine thought Luca. ¡°Can you guys tell me first what you have already done and what I¡¯m dealing with?¡±

    ¡°We currently have three thousand five hundred and two people, a mix of orphans which we brought with us, people who heard of our project and want to emigrate for various reasons, and refugees from villages that have been destroyed by monsters,¡± Jordi said. He had been the first to set camp as he had found the location during one of his trips. ¡°As you might have noticed during your travel, the kingdoms have yet to recover complete control of their countryside which leads to lots of people losing their homes and moving around. New people come in every day and we are feeding them and housing them as best as we can but we are clearly being overrun.¡±

    ¡°Ok, what about our resources? Do we have lists on them and people managing them?¡±

    ¡°Someone in my party is managing the distribution of food but as things are going we have enough for one more week before we need to start importing food. As for construction resources, I ¡®ve sent groups logging and another establishing a quarry. For the water, we have a river which runs by and is purified by life mages.¡±

    Luca thought for a bit on what to do and the others waited in silence. ¡°I think I¡¯ll need to take a look around to see what we should do. Can you guys send all the people who have managed our resources so far for a meeting here tonight, I¡¯ll have a plan ready by then. Iria do you want to come with me to look around?¡±

    ¡°Yeah sure thing. See you guys later !¡±

    At that they all left to do, Yurro was waiting for Luca outside the tent alongside some of Iria¡¯s party members. They spent the day surveying the land, talking to a few people to get a feel of what was going on and what they could expect from them.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    Jordi had chosen a location in a bay where a river met the sea on the northwest side of the continent. The Lizardmen continent was up north, while their continent was closer to the southern pole of the planet. It would be a three-month journey to reach it but it was pretty much as close as they could get without encroaching on major kingdoms and existing ports. The location wasn¡¯t perfect, but it was protected from storms by the high cliffs which encircled the bay and if dams were built in front of the sea they would be protected from any inundations. The river that brought them water wasn¡¯t big by any account but it could surely provide water for tens of thousands of people. Lastly, the soil was a bit sandy but stable enough to build upon.

    Having collected his data, Luca went back to the central tent where about fifty people were waiting for him while chatting loudly. As he got in all conversation stopped and everyone moved to their places around a circular table. The more important people were seated while others stood. A few months ago, Luca would never have been able to talk about this many people, but his time with the crafter had helped him overcome his uneasiness and, though he wasn¡¯t comfortable, he felt he could do it.

    He took his place next to Helena at the table, Iria sat to his left and pressed his hand under the table in encouragement. He thanked her with a smile as Helena introduced them.

    ¡°For those who don¡¯t know them, here are Luca and Iria who are members of our hero party. Luca is in charge of all civilian affairs and will be the one to manage the colony once we set sail. He¡¯ll also install our town here for the time before we leave.¡±

    Helena sat down after that, motioning for Luca to take charge. He could feel her eyes on him. This was also a test to see if he could live up to his promises. Luca got up and cleared his throat.

    ¡°Thank you, Helena. I¡¯m not familiar with many people here but if you guys are the ones running the everyday affairs we¡¯ll probably get to know each other better in the coming days. Now, let¡¯s get straight to business. First, I¡¯ll need everyone to take an oath of secrecy about my class and the skills I¡¯m going to show.¡±

    The oaths were taken without much difficulty as everyone present was either already in on the secret of his class or tightly linked to their oversea project. Once the oaths were pronounced, Luca used his [Virtual Modelization] to project an approximative image of the terrain and the tents on it.

    ¡°Here¡¯s an image of our actual state of affairs. As you can see, we currently have hundreds of logs waiting to be used in the west of the encampment as well as a fair quantity of stones. Our food is stocked in the middle while we have people planting tents everywhere. The hygiene is disastrous and as we have no infrastructure at all people cannot start to work and are waiting for something to happen. The situation is bad, but we can fix it rapidly if we act in a coordinated manner.¡±

    All around the table people were looking at his projection. In a world of magic, it was nothing impressive but the level of detail was great he highlighted each feature as he talked, allowing everyone to easily follow his explanations.

    ¡°The first step is to clear all the tents for a square kilometer around our current headquarters so that we can build the essential buildings. I want to start by building woods and stones workshops as well as a few smithies for making and taking care of tools.¡± The model transformed before him to replace tents with the building he listed which were positioned in a square around the headquarters tent, a good one hundred meters away. The square had eight spots left open for a wide road, one at each angle and one on each side. ¡°We¡¯ll also need to build a warehouse to stock the food and a few bakeries and restaurants to allow for better food processing. For the time being, everyone will continue to sleep in tents as we¡¯ll focus all our resources on building essential infrastructure. Does anyone have any questions so far?¡±

    ¡°What about the blueprints for the buildings? ¡± Asked a man in his fifties.

    ¡°I have already drafted blueprints for all the buildings listed, they are all uncommon rank and can be understood by anyone with skills in construction. For the first days, I¡¯ll personally direct the construction crews. Any other question?¡±

    There was a few other details questions which Luca answered before he could go on with his presentation.

    ¡°We¡¯ll also need to standardize our human resources. I want a list of everyone in the encampment and we need to install patrols to intercept any newcomers and redirect them for registration. The list must state an approximative level and the type of class so that we can allocate human resources. We need to form construction crews tonight to be able to start working immediately tomorrow. Also, we¡¯ll need everyone to take an oath of secrecy.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll put the patrols in place and raise a militia.¡± Jordi volunteered.

    ¡°Perfect, I¡¯ll put my assistant Yurrol in charge of the registration but I¡¯ll need someone to take care of the oath with him. People should take the oath as they registered.¡± A paladin volunteered to participate.

    ¡°Now, for the last issue we need to deal with. How are we on money?¡±

    Well as it turned out, feeding and housing thousands of people would quickly run their economy dry. Rare monsters parts sold well, but they could only sell so many. As it was, they would run out of money in a month at this rate. They needed to get a basic economy started fast or stop their importation of food.

 10 - A new ship for a new world

    Year 1568, spring.

    The money issue ended up being handled by the party officially taking a loan from one of the great banks of the continent. They had applied to the kingdoms for the fund that were promised for the colonization efforts but with no success so they took a one hundred thousand gold coin loan which they would have to start reimbursing in five years. The loan was oathbinded to Merial, goddess of wealth and trade so there would be no way out of it. The choice was not an easy one, but when Jane arrived with over five thousand people that needed to be cared for, there was little choice left. Apparently, they had followed her in search of ¡°the light of hope¡± and who was she to discourage them from such a noble task?

    At least the city planning part went well. In the days following the meeting, twenty-five building crews were established and the buildings were built in a few days. The good thing with the existence of physical stats was that building could be achieved really fast. The downside was that in a world with magic and monsters, buildings also tended to be destroyed really fast.

    Luca got a lot of insights by directing the various constructions and he spent his off-time drafting new plans, better adapted to the materials at hand and the terrain. After two weeks, all the essential infrastructures had been built save for the city hall. They got on constructing the housing and less essential buildings. One month later, the town was up and running. It was far from being as efficient as Luca would have it but at least a small economy was getting on and he was learning every day.

    So was Yurro who had taken his job to heart. The registration had been a bit hard at first, but after the intervention of Iria, most people complied and those who refuse were simply kicked out. There were now about seven thousand people living in their town which Jane had named Portsmouth. Apparently, it was a historical reference and she absolutely refuse any other name. Of those seven thousand, half were classless orphans, a quarter was made of adults who wanted to start a new life, and the last quarter was made of adventurers who were drawn by the prospects of leaving the continent.

    By the end of the first months, Luca had built a gigantic hall that could house five thousand people sitting at the same time. In it, every morning, for five hours, he held class. That is, he allowed as many people as he could in his mental library and then would give classes on general topics such as mathematics and history. He had in fact written a few mathematics manuals and developed sub-specialties of mathematics by himself, giving him hefty chunks of experience and filling his personal library.

    By now, he was level 30 but his leveling had somewhat stalled as his main legendary skills had all caped out and only epic or legendary level of experience rewards could still help him up. He had four legendary sub-skill. The first one he had gotten back in Dawnheart and it was heavily influenced by his relationship with the crafters. It was a subskill of [Polyvalent Blueprinting] and [Genius Theorist] and called [Practical Understanding], the skill description currently read :

    [Practical Understanding (legendary) lv 40: You understand the applications of things and the contingencies of transferring ideas to reality. This allows you to better understand crafters and the specificities of their works while also allowing them to better understand the underlying theory of their works. + 400% to understanding speed. Base understanding speed is equal to WIS]

    The second subskill was a subskill of [Immortal Library], it was called [Incorporal Writing]. Basically, it allowed him and any other people in his [Immortal Library] to write things there. The writings could not be taken out, but it effectively allowed people to complete his library or take notes while inside. It had proven especially useful for students who needed to write things to help them understand or for him when he needed to plan fast. Nowadays, the time went about one time and a half slower in his mental library than in the real world, which was by itself already completely broken.

    But his third subskill was the one he preferred by far. It was not as broken as the two others, but it fitted perfectly with his current objectives.

    [Project roadmap (legendary) lv 15: You can now create roadmaps for your different projects which can be shared with others and updated in real-time. Complexity of the roadmap depends on the skill level, your WIS, and your INT. Maximum roadmap complexity is equal to 0,5WIS+0,5*INT+Skill Lv.]

    How he wished he had had that skill to plan and coordinate the construction of the town! But well, this was a recent addition and he was still getting used to it.

    The first big use of his skill was to coordinate the clearing of the woods and the installation of farms. They had to move fast on it as spring was already there and it was obviously time to sow and start farming if they wanted to produce their own food by the end of summer. Luca had read a lot about farming during his time in Dawnheart, and had a lot of discussions with Jordi about nature and seasons, and the soil¡­

    One of the issues they encountered was that they had no experienced farmers proper. It was to be expected as any experienced farmers would be a valuable resource for all kingdoms, especially now when the countryside wasn¡¯t safe and there was a concerted effort to reclaim the land. So what they did was form a lot of orphans to farming techniques, but for the good Luca¡¯s skills and knowledge were, they were still all about theory, and without practice things would never pick up. Luca was a bit nervous, but well better make mistakes now than after they departed.

    The last of his legendary subskills was [Virtual Management], it had likely been induced by his leaderships activity and more generally his responsibilities.

    [Virtual Management (legendary) lv 1 You can create system-recognized organizations and give quests to people in those organizations. The organization also reveals hidden stats and classifies data following your way of perceiving the world. The value of the quest scales with your skill level as well as the coherence of the organization. You can create one organization for every 5O levels of this skill]

    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    Now that things were more or less getting on track and that he had started mass-boosting people with his teaching and library skills, he could move on to the next part of his plan: shipbuilding. After all, his class was pretty much limitless and there was no reason he couldn¡¯t design a ship. Well, no reason except that I have never been on a ship nor seen any back on Earth he thought, but still. The royal library back in Dawnheart had very few books about sailing as the kingdom was entirely inland and he had yet to meet any shipbuilder who would share his knowledge with him. He didn¡¯t even know how to build a shipyard. But he wanted to be the one to design the ships that would take them to the Lizardmen continent, he wanted to arrive in Lalcqia on top of a ship he himself had designed.

    The other heroes had left a few weeks ago to go back to leveling and adventuring with their own party and had promised to send him shipbuilder his way or any books about sailing they could find. And now Luca had to wait. He was giving a class about economics in the gigantic gymnasium. Half of the people in the room had the blurry eyes of people in his mental library but the others were listening intently. People quickly understood they could gain system acknowledge benefits from his teaching.

    So Luca was talking about Keynesian economics and the importance of spending to earn more. He dearly hoped that Keynes was right about this because, even with their loans, they were spending like crazy. The class came to an end and Luca finished explaining why an open economy could endanger Keynesian politics by making money and value flee outside. He then closed his [Immortal Library] skill and all the people that were in a daze came to their senses. The gymnasium gradually got emptied and a man Luca recognized as being part of the militia came to him, informing him a man had arrived claiming he had shipbuilding skills.

    Luca immediately went to him and invited him to the headquarters which was still the big tent in the middle of the town. I¡¯ll have to build something eventually, but then shouldn¡¯t the city hall be the best building.

    ¡°So you¡¯re a shipbuilder? Did anyone send you?¡±

    Luca asked as they were seated. There was only Yorru, the man, and him. The man appeared to be in his thirties, neither tall nor small but very much energetic with eyes darting everywhere and his hands always in movements. The man was febrile but yet confident. As he sat, he suddenly stop all movement and looked at Luca with an intense stare that made him somewhat uncomfortable.

    ¡°No one sent me. I came by myself after hearing about this Portsmouth town and what you seemed to be building here.¡±

    That was unexpected.

    ¡°And so who are you exactly? What¡¯s your deal?¡±

    ¡°Name¡¯s Thirio, age thirty-two, class shipbuilder, rare rank, level 24. I¡¯ll be straight with you, I want to build the ships that will bring you guys to Lalcqia.¡±

    The guy was straightforward. Level 24 was decent but for a vessel that would cross the oceans for three months and travel in a sea where magic storms or sea monsters were common, you¡¯d want someone at least a level 40. Luca told him as much.

    ¡°I know, I know. You might think I¡¯m not the best. But listen to what I have to offer. I¡¯ve been working with and around ships all of my life. You¡¯ll hardly find anyone that knows as much about me about the ocean. I know my level is somewhat low, but I make up for it with knowledge. And also, I have new ideas, and new designs I have invented which can make the difference for faster, stronger ships. From what I¡¯ve heard, this is what interest you, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    Thirio was looking straight at him, unflinching. Testing him, taking a bet, and putting his hopes on him.

    ¡°And what exactly is it that you¡¯ve heard?¡± Luca asked a bit worried. With the oaths everyone had taken no information should have leaked, but with the scale of the town and the massive use of his skills, some things could not remain hidden forever.

    ¡°I heard you spent a year in Dawnheart going around speaking with crafters. I also heard that you spent lots of time in the royal library, building up knowledge. Heard you took a class, but no one knows exactly what it is. Something to do with support, but not a crafter class because you took an oath not to. I also heard you were ambitious and tried to recruit talents but also nurtured new talents as best as you could. Does that sound like you so far?¡±

    ¡°Maybe.¡±

    ¡°I heard your skills can help crafters improve, heard you¡¯re working with us and looking for synergies.¡±

    ¡°That might be true, might not be though. Say what about taking an oath of secrecy? Everyone takes¡­¡±

    ¡°Deal. What do I say?¡± Thirio cut him. Either the man is desperate or he is very trusting Luca thought. But if he was as knowledgeable as he said, work could be done with him.

    So Luca took his oath of secrecy and then briefed him on his skills and the synergies they could attain. He could see Thirio eyes shining as he explained about his modelization abilities or the bonus he could give to other classes through teaching and advising.

    ¡°But I don¡¯t know anything about shipbuilding so far so I¡¯ll need you to explain to me everything from the very basics. Then I¡¯ll be able to fill in with mathematics and physics, that is with knowledge of the world, to try and optimize your designs. I think my woodworking and architecture experience should come in handy too but we¡¯ll see.¡±

    Thirio seemed glad for the prospect and for he spent the following days explaining all he knew to Luca. Luckily, the legendary skills of the scholars kicked in and he was able to soak in information and ideas at an inhuman pace. They also got on to design a shipyard and started preparing materials for the buildings.

    Ships were amazingly expensive by all means, but a few letters with the kings of important kingdoms later and the necessary funds were allocated. After all, it would not do well to impair the godsent heroes on things relating directly to their holy task of conquering Lalcqia. The crafters got working on preparing all the necessary base components: tailors prepared sails with various materials which they would then propose to the duo of Thirio and Luca, ropes had to be made, nails and other metal pieces had to be forged and carpenters carved woods in various shapes.

    The most difficult part was finding resistant enough wood for the hold of the ship and the mast. They tried various combinations and had mages and smiths reinforcing them with metals and magics. Overall, there was a lot of experimentation but the whole town got on with the project and things fell slowly into place. By autumn, Luca was confident that he and Thirio could draft mid-sized caravels that could cross the oceans and the worked had built enough experience working on smaller-sized projects to start an important one.

    It was time to build new ships for a new world.

 11 - Rare class

    Year 1567, spring.

    [Congratulations ! A good quality [Caraval] of rare rank has been built following the blueprints you drafted with [Shipbuilder] Thirio. You have been awarded 5000 exp.]

    It had taken another six months for the first [Caravel] to be built as they had encountered issues during the construction, the most notable of which being a mast breaking down and setting back progress by weeks as they drafted and then crafted another more stable one. They had also expanded the shipyards and were currently building another five [Caravels] on slightly different blueprints. As Thirio always repeated, ¡°A ship was a work of art with a soul, there could be no two ships the same.¡±

    At the same time, the town of Portsmouth continued to grow and now had a stable economy. They had stopped making everyone take an oath of secrecy and though the class of Luca was still a secret, his skills were getting well known. The other heroes of his party had all reached the level 50 mark and their town was pretty much an independent power by now. The kingdoms were trying to hurry them to leave and they had set the date of departure for next year¡¯s spring. At the moment they were stockpiling resources and Luca was making a list of people they would bring with them¡­ As for the other party of heroes, they had already left.

    He had made tremendous progress in his drafting of ship blueprints and hoped to make an epic-rated one anytime soon with Thirio. Caravel could transport around seventy people comfortably along with about 200 tons of goods. He hoped they would have fifteen caravels ready for next year along with a major ship that could house hundreds of people. So that they could bring about three thousand people on their first trip.

    It was a pleasant afternoon and Luca and Thirio were discussing designs for their future capital ship in the shipyard¡¯s office when Yorru came in. He and Luca had grown somewhat close and by now he was pretty much Luca¡¯s official right-hand man, dealing with everyday problems and bringing up important issues to Luca. After two years with every morning spent in the mental library, Yorru was a very knowledgeable teen, and following his Luca around had allowed him to see all types of things. He didn¡¯t know exactly when his birthday was but it should be somewhere around next year¡¯s spring. Everyone expected him to gain rare class choices for his coming of age and there was wild speculation as to what his class would offer.

    ¡°Hi guys, I hope I don¡¯t interrupt anything important?¡±

    Thirio was going to say something as he hated outside interference when he was working; but then, Yorru¡¯s status was about as high as his and he knew he couldn¡¯t have Luca all for himself all the time. So he just grumbled something as Luca went and talked to Yorru.

    ¡°No, it¡¯s okay. Is anything the matter?¡±

    ¡°Nothing bad, it¡¯s just that today is Luke¡¯s fifteenth birthday, and got offered class choices. He has a few rare choices but he¡¯d like to have your take on them.¡±

    Luke was one of the orphans that had come to Portsmouth. He had gotten quite close to Yorru and was one of the best mathematics students in Luca¡¯s class which lead to him being noticed by Luca as well.

    ¡°Ok, I¡¯ll see if I can help. Where is he?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s just waiting outside, I¡¯ll tell him to come in.¡±

    Yorru fetched Luke and brought him inside. After they exchanged greetings. Luca cut to the chase, managing a growing town, though it was only a test before the real treat, had taught him to be even more efficient than he used to be.

    ¡°So what are your choices?¡±

    Luke was an odd guy by all accounts. His life as an orphan had toughened him up and there was something hard in his traits. To him, as to so many others, life had been tough and it had left some scars. But at the same time, he often had a dreamy look, as if not much could reach him. When faced with a particularly difficult problem or demonstration, he would clap his fingers as his eyes got lost in a world few could tread. There, he could stay for hours, trying solutions and demonstrations up until he found an answer. Sometimes, but that was rare, he would give up and ask Luca the solution. He would then have a slightly regretful tone, as if giving up on his chance to find the answer by himself hurt him.

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    ¡°Uhm, I¡¯ve got three rare choices.¡±

    ¡°Yes? What are they?¡± Luca prompted him

    ¡°The first one is [Advanced Teacher], the second one is [Abstract Mathematician] and the last one is [Problem Solver]. Do you want me to project their description?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, if it¡¯s all right with you.¡±

    Luke did, and all three of them looked at the classes¡¯ description. The first two were pretty explicit: the [Advanced Teacher] would help him understand new things and better explain things, probably giving bonuses to students down the line. The [Asbtract Mathematician] would give him tools to help him do maths and strengthen his intuition. But the last one was less expected and more enigmatic, it would help Luke find solutions to problems and shed light on mysteries. What the problems would be was kept unknown and the description was very vague.

    ¡°Ok, so here¡¯s my take on this. I think [Advanced Teacher] would be a good class if you want to be a teacher or just generally give your life to forming others. [Abstract Mathematician] would allow you to do mathematical research and would find use in more complex projects. For one thing, we could use here the help of a full-time mathematician. Drafting ships or buildings requires a lot of maths, and there are hundreds of other subjects where I could use your competence.¡±

    ¡°And what about [Problem solver]?¡±

    ¡°I feel it¡¯s more geared toward fieldwork. Maybe to help with concrete engineering or maybe it could be used by an adventuring team? There¡¯s more unknown to it but it could potentially be a game changer in specific situations.¡±

    ¡°Ok¡­¡±

    Luke was considering each option, not really knowing what to decide. Choosing a class was arguably the most important decision someone made in his life. You could change class, but if wasn¡¯t to evolve your class into a rarer similar class you had to reset your level, effectively making you the same as fifteen year old.

    ¡°I think you should take a few days to think about what you want to do. Maybe a common or uncommon class would be a better fit. Just know that if you decide to bet on one of those rare classes, I¡¯ll offer you a job and a place on my team. They all seem like a great fit for what I want to build.¡±

    <hr>

    Luke took a few days to think and ended up choosing the [Abstract Mathematician] class. Luca appointed him as an advisor and made him work on the shipbuilding projects, improving its efficiency. He also spent some time with him working on more abstract mathematics. With his high stats and the bonus of his class, Luca could do very efficient research on mathematics and even though most of it had no direct applications at the moment, it would eventually find its use as they would have more and more ambitious projects.

    He also went on a few trips with the Caravel, taking notes on how it sailed, how it dealt with waves and wind, how fast it could go, and how maneuverable it was. This in turn led him to have better insights for his next drafts and by the end of spring, he and Thirio finished the blueprint of their capital ship.

    [Congratulations! You have successfully drafted a blueprint of a [Ocean Galleon (epic)] in collaboration with [Shipbuilder] Thirio. You have been rewarded 10 000 exp. Additional exp. will be given if the [Ocean Galleon] is built with good or higher quality]

    They had drafted a four-mast, eighty meters long, and twenty meters wide ship. It would have four levels in the middle, with another two levels in the rear and one in the front for a total capacity of about three thousand people. They had ended up expanding the size much more than they initially planned to accommodate for the different sails. The would-be six different sails, two triangular ones: one for the front of the ship and another for the rear. The middles ones, which were larger, and had more triangular shapes would allow for great speed if the wind came from the sides or the rear but would not be very efficient if the vessel was to go against the wind.

    The hold was almond-shaped and would be made with wood that the woodworkers would smooth out, allowing for better wave penetrations and gliding capacity. With an estimated weight of 500 tons without any goods or people on board, they would have to rework the shipyard just to allow for its construction. But it would be worth the work as it should be able to carry more than 10 000 tons weight before becoming too heavy for smooth sailing.

    Then there were all the little details, which, as Thirio said, made the soul of a ship. A helm located at the rear and supported by waterwheels to allow for better tractions, winches on the side to help with the furling or the rising of sails, circulars stairs to move to and from the desk, a plumbing system to draw in seawater that would be purified thanks to a runic mechanism¡­ In short, it was a masterpiece in all its details. And so its realization would be both a dream and a nightmare.

    Luckily, they had lots of workers who had recently gotten a lot of experience on ship projects, and every other day new rare classes were unlocked by the students who had followed Luca for the longest time. The future was looking bright.

 12 - Final preparations

    Year 1568, spring.

    The galleon would be ready in a few days and, once they had tested it for a few more days to make sure there was no unforeseen issue, they would depart. Luca had written to Enrik telling him about his blueprint of an epic ship and two months later the woodcarver had arrived, bringing with him other masters of their crafts eager to work on the building of the ship. An epic rank project of this scale was bound to reward everyone involved with a generous amount of exp. The Dawnheart kingdom¡¯s crafters felt that maybe now Luca would make due on his promise and help them make legendary works. All those who had come with Enrik had agreed to travel with them to Lalcqia.

    For now, all five heroes had reunited inside the city hall, which Luca had finally built. It was a five-story square building of white stone with large windows giving a view of the outside. Nothing outstanding but a rare building nonetheless which gave a nice +20% efficiency bonus to all management-related skills and to people who worked in it.

    This time the meeting didn¡¯t only consist of the heroes. Jane had insisted that she brought her mate Nico, or as she called him ¡®her eternal lover¡¯, with her as nothing should be allowed to separate them. Nico was a bard from her original personal party and they had fallen in love while adventuring after Jane had saved him from some midnight frenzied lv 60 wolves or something. Luca didn¡¯t care for the details. Anyway, since Jane brought her plus one, everyone felt they could also bring whomever they were close with. So Iria, Jordi, and Helena came with some of their closer party members and Luca brought Yorru with him.  In and out, there were fourteen of them seating inside a round medieval-style conference room. All the catch-up had already been done in the past few days and now it was time to get down to business.

    As usual, Helena started the meeting. ¡°We should be ready to depart in less than two weeks so I think we should check up on how things have been going and on what are our immediate perspective. First, what do we currently know about Lalcqia?¡±

    Jordi was the one to answer as he had been tasked with the information operations. ¡°As you guys probably know, the other party of heroes has been gone to Lalcqia for about one year now but there has been no news from them so far. So they either lack the means or the will to contact our continent. But they are not the only heroes who have left for Lalcqia, there are reports that at least nine other species have already sent some of their heroes to the Lizardmen continent, the most successful being the Undead who have already formed a kingdom on its shores.¡±

    ¡°What about the reaction of the demons?¡± Luca asked. This was one of his biggest fear for if the demons proved too strong or well enough coordinated, establishing a colony would be practically impossible.

    ¡°They have been fighting back but seem to lack coordination and they are busy trying to install a civilization of their own. Reports claim there are multiple demon kingdoms but they are far from controlling the entire continent, most of which has already been reclaimed by monsters and the wilderness. Though there are probably demons with high level and dangerous class inside of some of those kingdoms.¡±

    ¡°Ok, what about our level and fighting capacities?¡± Helena asked. ¡°I¡¯ll go first and say what I¡¯ve got though, of course, I expect every one of you to keep what I¡¯ll say a secret. I¡¯ve reached level 53 and evolved my class to that of [High Arcane Archmage]. I¡¯ve got new ritual and summoning skills that allow me to cast long-lasting spells or invoke familiars which I can then level. The special stat I¡¯ve unlocked is Arcane affinity, but I won¡¯t go into the details of how it works as it would take us too long and would be of little use to you guys. My own party has an average level of 60 and we¡¯re confident we can take up to level 80 groups of monsters.¡±

    Everyone nodded at that. This was both impressive and reassuring. Next came Iria

    ¡°I¡¯m level 56 now and evolved my class to [Hetia¡¯s Paragon Paladin] which gave me additional buff and healing skills. I can also use some of Hetia¡¯s divinity to perform miracles. My special stat is Empathy, which some of you might already know as it is common to class specialized in serving Hetia. As for my party¡¯s strength, it¡¯s pretty much the same as Helena¡¯s.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m level 55, I¡¯ve evolved my class into [Deepwild ranger]. I can now commune with nature and receive quests from it giving me powerful subskills. Special stat is Symbiose. Party strength is the same. That¡¯s all.¡± Said Jordi

    And now came Jane¡¯s turn. Luca was already afraid of what nonsense she would say but she was surprisingly efficient with her words.

    ¡°I¡¯ve reached level 64 and am now a [Swordswoman of the firmament] and have mastered new powerful fighting techniques. I now develop more by being in tune with the sword and with my companions we are confident in taking level 100 groups of monsters.¡±

    Those that didn¡¯t already know Jane¡¯s level were stunned for a moment. She must be a crazily good fighter and party leader to have reached this level and be confident to fight level 100 monsters. Not that there was any roaming level 100 monsters left as these had either already been killed through a concerted effort of the kingdoms or owned a territory in which no one dared to challenge them.

    ¡°I¡¯m level 35 and nothing much has changed with me except for me gaining new subskills allowing me to do what I do better. I don¡¯t have a party but by now I have more than fifty people working under me with rare classes or skills they have unlocked with my teaching and that synergizes with my own skills. I¡¯ve also been dealing with about two hundred crafters whose levels rank between 30 and 63, allowing us to create rare quality products in most fields. I¡¯m confident we can produce epic rank items in most of them given the right ingredients and enough time¡± Luca concluded.

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    ¡°Well, that¡¯s good. I¡¯m confident we have prepared ourselves enough to go to Lalcqia without putting ourselves in unnecessary danger. Now for the fighting and adventuring part, we¡¯ll need to coordinate our adventuring parties but I think we¡¯ll be okay. Luca what about you? How will the settling and the foundation of a colony go?¡±

    ¡°There are three things to take into account.¡± Luca started and then paused to make sure he had everyone¡¯s attention. He had come a long way from the rather timid self he once was and could easily talk and lead people now. After all, he was very confident in his skills. ¡°First are the ship. In about a week we will have fifteen caravels and one galleon, all paid for by the kingdoms. Together, they can carry about three thousand people and 13 000 tons of goods and materials. Second, are the resources. Our warehouses are full of all kinds of resources we might need, which includes rare materials, weapons, tools, food, grains, etc. We also have livestock and mounts ready to embark. Part of it has been financed by the kingdoms, and part of it comes from our own fund. Lastly, the people.¡±

    This was the tricky part and Luca took his time before announcing his plan. ¡°Portsmouth currently houses over 20 000 people, most of whom expect to emigrate with us. Obviously, we cannot take that many. So I propose to hold a selection to take only people we will need to get the colony started, the ships can go back to bring more afterward.¡±

    ¡°And what would the method of selection be?¡± Asked one of Iria¡¯s companions.

    ¡°I think we should go with two-thirds adventurers and one-third civilians.¡± Everyone nodded at that. Going into hostile land it was obvious people with fighting classes were more needed. ¡°As for who should make the cut, I think one of you guys should handle it. There¡¯s only one thing I¡¯d like to impose upon you: we must create an Adventuring Guild and all adventurers we take with us must be part of the guild.¡±

    This aroused a lot of reactions. Adventurers¡¯ independence was something that held most of them to heart. Lots of adventuring guilds existed and competed and what Luca proposed was basically setting up a monopoly on the adventuring guild business and at the same time forcing everyone to opt-in. Objections were shouted but Luca waited for everyone to calm down so that he could explain his reasoning.

    ¡°First of all, the Adventuring Guild I want to create would not be exactly like the Adventuring Guild in the continent. You can create sub-guilds in it. It is just meant to be a way to direct adventurers and ensure they are helping the cause. We are going to foreign and hostile lands, we can¡¯t have adventurers running amok. The second reason is, I want us to have a tight control of everything and everyone when first arrive to have maximum efficiency. This brings me to my second idea, I want to create a colony government with four departments and all civilians that come with us must become part of one of them. So everyone would either be attached to a department of the government or to the Adventuring Guild ensuring that we work in a coordinated and efficient manner. I would use my [Virtual Management] skill to put all of that in place once we would have established our colony¡±

    This led to more people reacting and opposing this idea. For a lot of the habitants of Portsmouth, going to Lalcqia meant having a new life and finding freedom. Of course, everyone would have to cooperate, they were going to create a frontier town. But that didn¡¯t have to mean giving up on your independence. The debate gradually got heated up until the moment when Helena cut in.

    ¡°Let¡¯s cut it. We have heard arguments. Does anyone want to add anything new?¡± As no one reacted she continued. ¡°This is a matter concerning the future of our expedition. As such and until we agree on another way of making decisions, it is up to us heroes to make the choices. Here¡¯s my stand on it. I think Luca¡¯s proposition is acceptable, provided it is only temporary and that we come back on it once we¡¯re in a more stable situation. For all that regards civilians, we heroes had agreed Luca would be allowed free reign and I don¡¯t think he has disappointed us so far. As for the Adventuring Guild, I think it is a good way to make sure the adventurers can contribute to the community. So I¡¯m for it. Jordi, Iria, Jane what about you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m in, as long as I¡¯m not asked to deal with all of this¡± Answered Jordi.

    ¡°Same here,¡± said Iria.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine with it too¡± added Jane in a bored tone.

    Luca was relieved. Now he could go on with his planning. They discussed how the adventurers would be recruited and it was decided the party of each fighting hero would have to choose 500 adventurers. As for civilians, Luca would use the registration to choose people based on their skills and levels.

    Four departments had been created and at the head of each, except for the last one, Luca appointed one of his favored students who had gotten a rare class thanks to his teachings. There was the Industry Department, which would be tasked with managing crafters and workers to produce everything the colony needed. Then came the Resource Department which would coordinate farmers, miners, lumberjacks, and workers of all other fields that focused on producing resources and raw materials. Then came the Department of Civil Affairs which was tasked with all administrative and governing affairs, including registering people, creating a communication network, eventual diplomacy¡­ Lastly, there was the Department of Military Affairs which would manage the militia and the eventual army. This Department would be under the direct management of Luca until he actually started to be of use. Above all the Departments would be Yorru who was appointed as the official second of Luca.

    Choosing the people who would come with them took a week and by the end when including their family, they had around five hundred crafters, two hundred farmers, about a hundred lumberjacks and miners, and two hundred various specialists.  Of these, about half were orphans while the other was settlers. All of them had beneficiated from Luca¡¯s class and skills and had skills that progressed at above-average speed with above-average efficiency.

    So when the system chimed in to announce that the galleon was over, Luca was ready. After two years in Portsmouth, he had a group of selected and trained people that had the potential to change the new world they were headed to.

 13 - A new world

    Year 1568, summer.

    The Santa Maria, as Jane had insisted the galleon be named, came in range of the coasts of Lalcqia. Everyone on deck shouted with excitation. For three months there had been nothing to see but the eternally blue expanses of the ocean and the very familiar scenes of the fleet of caravel that surrounded the capital ship. People who were not directly involved in the sailing of the ship got bored.

    There was only so much time one could spend in Luca¡¯s library before burning out. Crafters and adventurers took especially badly to the trip. The first ones because they had been prohibited from working during the duration of the journey so as to save the materials for when they arrived. And anyway, without their workplace set up, there wasn¡¯t much they could do. On the other hand, adventurers were at first very much excited, that is, until they realized they were stuck living in cramped spaces without any action for months. See hazards such as monsters or magic storms had all been handled by the heroes and adventurers found themselves as little more than burdensome passengers.

    To pass the time, Luca proposed to put the naming of their future colony to a vote. At first, he thought he would name it himself, but when Jane started referring to the future colony as ¡°New Hope¡±, he knew something had to be done. Everyone had been taken by the game, spending days trying out new names and when Luca walked around on the desk he could hear all names such as ¡°Heavendale¡±, ¡°Magnesia¡± or ¡°Eternal Glory¡± being passed around. He hoped the last one would not take.

    As for him, the trip was by no means boring. He did what he liked best: planning, writing, and drafting blueprints. He had over five hundred rare blueprints ready for when they arrived though he would have to adapt most of them to the materials they would find. Their current plan was to arrive at the mouth of a river called the Luria, near the southern end of Lalcqia. That place had not been colonized by Lizardmen for it had been home to a pack of lv 100 Tyrants, a specie of monsters dinosaurs. But the other heroes were confident they could deal with the monsters and they hoped that the location would have been left alone by the demons.

    The desk was getting crowded as everyone had been brought up by the cries of excitations and wanted to see the land themselves. Luca made his way to back the castle to join the captain of the ship. Captain Jon had been a good find of Jordi: the man was experienced, he had sailed the oceans for years and been to most continents. He knew the dangers of the sea and steered his ships with efficient caution. Over level 40, once he was presented with the opportunity to command an epic-grade ship he didn¡¯t hesitate and jumped on the opportunity.

    As he reached the captain, the man noticed him and smiled. ¡°Well my good sir, it seems we have almost arrived. I¡¯ve never had so smooth and safe a trip. That ship is heaven-blessed.¡± Captain Jon was always a bit too obsequious with Thirio and Luca, which contrasted with the aloof and authoritative attitude he kept with his crews and other passengers.

    ¡°It¡¯s been a nice trip indeed, though I¡¯m not sure everyone appreciates it enough. So where do you think we have arrived?¡±

    ¡°According to our calculations and the last time we checked our position with the stars, we should be in a one day-radius of Luria¡¯s mouth. I¡¯ll need to bring us closer to the coast to see if we can recognize any landmark but I¡¯m confident we¡¯ll be at our destination before tomorrow night.¡±

    The captain was right as they found Luria¡¯s mouth by the next morning. The ships furled their sails a few hundred meters away from the coast and they got ready to send the first adventurers on the land by putting pinnace into the water. But Jane must have felt it was a good moment to be melodramatic as she jumped into the air to land directly on the coast, easily crossing the distance with her extraordinary physical stats. She turned around to face the ships and in a booming yet mysterious voice started declaiming: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my sword beside the golden door!"

    Luca felt so awkward at seeing that. Jane had done it again. Three months on the ship with her had been a tiring experience. She always had to act strange and do things differently. Iria, who was next to him, noticed how he felt.

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    ¡°You know, doing that is part of the requisite of her class. She doesn¡¯t talk about it but she almost always makes everything appears either epic or dramatic. That¡¯s how she gets her strength.¡±

    ¡°But why did she have to choose such an embarrassing class to start with,¡± Luca complained.

    ¡°Who knows? Maybe it helped her find her way in this world, maybe it helps her cope with it. Or maybe she just purely enjoys it. Anyway, it suits her well. She¡¯s by far the strongest of us and could probably take Jordi, Helena, and me at the same time.¡±

    Soon after, the first groups of adventurers reached the land. It had been decided that only adventurers and heroes would land for the time being to scout for demons and get rid of the local monsters. That didn¡¯t please the crafters but they could do little more than grumble and complain. As for Luca, he had activated his [Project Roadmap] skill and asked groups of adventurers to mark the lay of the land for him. Even without setting foot on the continent, he could start planning his next moves.

    It had been decided the vote to decide the name of the colony would be held as crafters landed in a few days and it would officially mark the beginning of the colonization.

    The next day started uneventfully, up to the moment when a column of fire and magic rose from the jungle that occupied most of the coast after a few hundred meters. The energy emanating from it was terrifying, and so where the cry of rages that followed. The adventurers that were moving around on the coast immediately reacted by taking out their weapons and getting ready for whatever was coming. A few seconds later, trees were sent flying as a colossal dinosaur monster tramped through the jungle running for the coast. Hot on its trail was the party of the heroes, with Jordi firing arrows at the gigantic beast.

    The monster was obviously fleeing from them as his body was already battered and bloody, but a wounded beast of this size and level was still very much a threat to the common adventuring parties which had been lounging around the coast. They were already trying to take cover but some were going to be trampled on if nothing was done.

    That¡¯s when Jane, who was running behind the Tyrant, jumped in the air and drew her sword while shouting: ¡°[Drawing Technique: Blade of the Setting Sun] !¡±. For a moment, the whole world was illuminated and Luca¡¯s vision was blinded. As it returned, the beast was dead, its head cleanly severed from its corpse and laying a few dozen meters before it. Well, I see why Iria said she was crazily powerful. After that, the crafters stopped complaining about having to wait to land. In the next days, occasional signs of fighting could be seen from the ships but no additional monsters reached the coast. A few [Butchers] and [Scavengers] had been allowed to land to help process the monsters¡¯ corps into valuable resources but that was all. Then Jordi, Jane, Iria, and Helena came back with their parties informing them the region was clear for more than twenty kilometers and they could start to settle.

    As the pinnace brought people and resources to the shore, they held the vote for the name. Sunset Landing¡¯s ended up winning by a landslide, the name of Jane¡¯s technique having obviously made an effect on all those who witnessed it.

    Guess Jane still gets to name everything then, Luca pouted. But deep inside, he was glad she would be there to protect the colony. The encounter with the Tyrant had reminded him of how deadly the world they lived in was. And they had yet to encounter the demons.

    Well, it¡¯s time to use the [Virtual Management] skill, I¡¯ve been holding onto it for quite some time as the limit of one organization meant there could be only one try but this is it. Luca activated the skills and got a system prompt.

    [Do you wish to create an organization?]

    He mentally answered ¡°Yes¡±.

    [Please name and define your organization.] Luca did as much.

    [Processing your commands¡­]

    [Congratulations, you have created the [Sunset¡¯s colony] state, your organization currently holds one person and no lands, do you wish to invite people or claim land.]

    A few seconds later, all the members of the expeditions had been invited to the [Sunset¡¯s colony organization] and were then further processed into the Departments of the Adventurer Guilds. The land they were on was claimed.

    Luca was smiling widely as he looked at the [Sunset¡¯s colony] status.

    [ Sunset colony.

    Land: 20 square kilometers.

    Population : 3169 human.

    Ressources : ¡­

    Sub-organizations: Department of Resources, Department of Industry, Department of Civil Affairs, Department of Military Affairs, Adventurers Guild.

    Special effects: Pioneers and settler, +10% skill rate acquisition and progress, increased chances of unlocking pioneer or settlers class.]

    It was time to start establishing themselves, these numbers were only the beginning. And he had gotten to name the colony himself, though he didn¡¯t think anyone would have any issue with his choice.