《City dungeon》 1. Planetfall My name is Marcus Knight. I''m 29 years old, living in Munich, Germany. I''ve been single for most of my life (despite all my efforts to change that). I recently underwent a huge change in my life¡­ well death¡­ You¡¯ll understand when you read on. So, I was playing my favorite city simulation game when fate called at my door with a lightning strike! Seriously, it wasn¡¯t even storming or anything! Sitting on my veranda enjoying a cup of tea and playing a game the lightning went into my laptop and therefore myself as well. It wasn¡¯t a pleasant way to leave this world but there are other much more hurtful ways to bite the dust I think. As it became dark around me, and I was starting to think that I should have paid more attention to going to church, a female voice called to me. ¡°Young one, I see that you have no strong affiliation with any gods of your former world and so have been cast away into the void. Fortunately for you I have found you and want to help you. I am Tiria, the goddess of dungeons. And I am in need of a new dungeon core for one of my worlds. So even if you don¡¯t want to be a dungeon, I will reincarnate you as one. Any questions before I send you down?¡± I thought for a moment before I answered. ¡°Could I become a city building dungeon?¡± Silence answered me and it took quite some time before the goddess suddenly laughed. ¡°Haha, that is quite some innovation. I never had a dungeon that wanted to be the core of a city for the mortals. Hmm this has the potential to change the way some of the other gods think about me¡­ a dungeon under my tutelage going the way of light and order. Although you could easily also erect a dominion of darkness and terror if you work for the orcs or other dark creatures. I really like the idea..I will have to create a complete new skill path for you but eternity is somewhat boring sometimes and it will give me something exciting to do.¡± I seem to have hit the jackpot with this one here. Perhaps I can make my hobby into my future career. ¡°Excuse me please if I overstep myself by asking another question here, but could you tell me how developed the world you will drop me into is, oh mighty goddess?¡± A little bit of flattery can do wonders sometimes and I will use every chance to better my future life. ¡°It¡¯s a young world with small kingdoms. There¡¯s magic of course, and the usual races you might know from the fantasy games on your former world. I will drop you down into an undeveloped part of the world near an elven settlement. There you can build your home and try to grow into a splendid city. Make me proud, young one.¡± Then a blinding light hit me and I felt myself falling like a meteor down to a blue and green world with a big grey moon just like earth. Three continents could be seen, with the middle one much larger than the others and big mountain chains filling the central part of it. If I guessed right I was on my way down to this place. A bit away from the mountains, with a heavily forested region that bordered to big plains without any trees. A great river flowed down from the mountains, through the forest crossing the plains and ending in the sea some thousands of miles south. Stolen story; please report. Next to the river would be a nice place for a settlement, but it should be a bit higher to lessen the chances for flooding the place. I felt that I could change my descending a bit and changed my flight course accordingly to my wishes. There should have been some fear in me because of the impact but I didn¡¯t feel it, trusting in the goddess that she wouldn¡¯t kill me outright by throwing me on the planet. I passed some clouds and then birds on my way down and shortly before impact my speed decreased. I could see small figures in some distance at the edge of the forest when I reached my landing place. The river had cut a valley through some hills and on top of the highest hill I arrived in all my glory. Watching myself from the outside was a bit disturbing first, but I learned fast, and what I saw didn¡¯t impress me. I was a glowing blue crystal the size of a marble floating 3 feet above the ground. I could see all around me, my gaze penetrating the vapour in the air, watching the former mentioned figures moving in my direction. I really hoped they were peaceful and didn¡¯t kill me on sight just because I was a dungeon core. In the meantime I could check my skills and abilities for building my first town.
Name: Marcus Race: City dungeon
Level: 1 Mana: 100
Int: 10 Wis: 10
Cha: 10 Luck: 10
Skills:
Earth Newbie 0% Water Newbie 0%
Air Newbie 0% Fire Newbie 0%
Mind Speech Adept 1% Architecture Beginner 1%
Range of influence 30 feet
I wasn¡¯t really impressed but hey, I¡¯m a newbie so it makes sense that I am just starting with the basics. First I should try to widen my influence and then observe how much mana is used for it. I focused on making my territory bigger and felt mana begin to leave me quite fast. When I was almost out of power I found that I just got 3 feet more range and now there was new info behind my mana score as well.
Name: Marcus Race: City dungeon
Level: 1 Mana: 5/100 1/h reg
Int: 10 Wis: 10
Cha: 10 Luck: 10
Skills:
Earth Newbie 0% Water Newbie 0%
Air Newbie 0% Fire Newbie 0%
Mind Speech Adept 1% Architecture Beginner 1%
Range of influence 33 feet
This could take quite some time if I wanted to get a big place for myself. Suddenly I felt a surge of power near me and a cloud of mist manifested only a feet outside my influence. There stood a humanoid with pointy ears, tanned skin and hard looking golden eyes glaring at me. An elf. I was astonished with this first meeting of another intelligent species. ¡°And what do we have here? Seems, Tiria made a mistake this time by sending a young dungeon down to us!¡± And then he drew his sword out of its scabbard and went nearer. 2. First encounter ¡°Hey stop it! I¡¯m not your stupid run-of-the-mill dungeon core out for conquering the world. I am a CITY DUNGEON!¡± The elf halted mid-swing and looked at me with a dumbfounded expression. ¡°A what? Never heard of! I will vanquish you evil creature of a dark goddess and send you back to the hell you came from!¡± He raised his blade, ready to strike when I again felt another surge of power coming my way. I tried to get a bit of this energy and almost felt myself shatter from the influx of mana. That was really a bad idea here. The pain was like the ugliest hangover I ever had mixed with some clubbing of my brain with a baseball bat. To relieve the stress somehow I tried to make my core bigger and felt relief washing over me when I grew almost an inch in height. And to my surprise my mana was almost full again. But back to business. There now stood a female elf right beside the idiot who wanted to obliterate me and held his arm back much to the guy¡¯s surprise. The woman was taller than the man at 6ft in comparison to his 5ft 9in and her golden hair was the most beautiful color I have ever seen. No advertisement ever came near this full gold, shining in the sunlight. She had green eyes like jade and fair skin. Leather armor clung to her curvaceous body and if I were still a human male I would fall to her feet and beg her for a date, that¡¯s for sure. In short, she was a goddess! ¡°Mind what you do here, Andarin! Don¡¯t waste precious resources when we are short on them. Especially now, you dumb oaf! Get lost! Now!¡± Ok, perhaps her speech wasn''t perfect, but I didn''t mind. She saved my sorry ass, I mean crystal, and so she was still good on my side. Looking to me and dismissing the male elf without another thought she went nearer and walked around me. ¡°Hm, I¡¯ve never seen a blue dungeon core. Intriguing, what are you little one?¡± ¡°My name is Marcus and I am a city dungeon at your service, milady!¡± It was never bad to flatter a beautiful woman. She jumped back a few feet with surprise on her face. ¡°You can also speak. What other wonders do you have for me? A city dungeon you say? That¡¯s also something I never heard of. Please tell more.¡± Oh, this woman seemed to have the brains. Perhaps the male elves were like ant soldiers- only good for fighting without the necessary brain power to lighten their hollow skull? ¡°As I said, I am a city dungeon, the only one of my kind. My purpose is to build the biggest and most beautiful city in the world, and, in this way to better the lives of my inhabitants. Although I was sent by Tiria, she has decided to improve her reputation with the other gods by creating something for the betterment of the peoples on this world. That would be me!¡± Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. A smirk crossed her lips. ¡°You¡¯re quite full of yourself, aren¡¯t ya? Now, let me get this straight. You say, you can create a city instead of a monster spawning dungeon down in depths of earth?¡± I wanted to nod but that¡¯s somehow difficult when you only have a crystal as body. ¡°Yes that¡¯s right. Please don¡¯t destroy me only because I¡¯m a creature of Tiria!¡± She smiled now and had a bit of mischief in her eyes. I liked her smile, really brightened the day. ¡°I would never do something like this. I have need of someone like you. My people have been driven away from our old homestead by numerous goblin and lizard tribes." Anger and grief battled in her beautiful face when she continued, "they even now seek to destroy us. I will offer you a partnership in giving you citizens and you will provide a home and defenses for us to hide behind. How does this sound to you, little one?¡± The `little one¡ä really didn¡¯t sound good to me and I would have to work with her on this but I really liked what she said. ¡°That sounds good to me. But I have to warn you. I¡¯m new to this whole city dungeon thing and need a lot of mana for this to work.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s no problem for me. Everyone here will give you as much mana as you can take if you can offer us a home to live in. Perhaps you could start with a tree, in which we could live?¡± I didn¡¯t think of trees when I thought of my city but I had to compromise at the start for now. ¡°Sure, but do you have perhaps a seed? If it was a seed of the biggest tree you know of, it would better the result surely.¡± She was in thought for a moment and bit her lip. How particularly girlish of her. Then she produced an amulet out of her cleavage. I was almost sucked in the beautiful view, when she suddenly gazed at me with suspicious eyes. ¡°Did you just now peek at me? You¡¯re a dungeon core, aren¡¯t you?¡± She must have really good instincts and if I could have sweat, there would have been buckets full of water under me. ¡°No! I mean, yes! Dammit, you¡¯re beautiful and in my former incarnation you would have been the peak of my wet dreams! Hell, what do I say here, damn mind speech!¡± She looked at me and fell laughing to the ground. Even the male elf behind her grinned across his face that it seemed the grin wanted to split it. It seems my mind speech must be focused to one person alone or everyone around hears it, but for being amused about my misery there will be payback, you sucker! After some awkward time for me she stood again and then laid the seed with a chain connected to it down before me. ¡°You are a strange one and I think I will enjoy messing with you quite a bit. Here take this seed. It¡¯s from the hearth tree from my previous home. Magic is connected with it and you should find it quite welcoming to any magic you use to grow it.¡± Then she went to me and took my crystal in her hands. WOW, that was a nice feeling. ¡°Take my mana for growing it, but be gentle please!¡± She was a real handful and made my skin itch, if I had one. Then I focused on the the seed before me. It looked like a acorn with a white casing and was the size of a baby fist. I tried to send my mana in the seed and feel its interior. There was life and a strange will in it that resisted at first against me but then it gave way. Mana flowed into it and then I felt it breaking its shell sending roots into the earth. I heard a gasp from my two companions but concentrated back to my first project. This little sucker really took my mana away without a care, and only half a minute later I felt the flow of mana lessen from the lady. Looking back to her I saw a pale smile on her when she dropped to the ground on her bottom. ¡°The hearth tree really grew so fast within so little time. Andarin, gather everyone! We have to give Marcus all the mana we can gather. With the hearth tree back we have a chance against everyone trying to drive us away again!¡± Andarin just took a last look at the now almost 3 feet high tree sapling and ran back to the forest where more figures with packs on their backs emerged. I took a look at my status and was quite surprised.
Name Marcus Race City dungeon
Level 2 Mana 1/300 1/h reg 1/minute from citizen
Int 11 Wis 11
Cha 11 Luck 10
Skills:
Earth Newbie 1% Water Newbie 1%
Air Newbie 0% Fire Newbie 0%
Life Newbie 3% Mind Speech Adept 2%
Architecture Beginner 1%
Range of influence 33 feet
Number of citizens 1 (providing 1 mana/minute)
3. Introductions My level went up and I even got another skill in life magic. Now, that¡¯s nice and really welcomed now that I have to grow a tree to its maximum size whatever that was. Perhaps I could modify it a bit by trying to harden its bark against fire and other kinds of attacks? ¡°Hey, Marcus! Do you mind to tell me a bit about yourself? You said something about being reincarnated into this world. Are you something like an old soul travelling around the universe?¡± ¡°Nope. As far as I know, that¡¯s my first reincarnation. And I could retain my memories as far as I know. Wait for a moment, I have to check some things.¡± And then I tried to remember how my computer worked, or some other rather high technology and remembered¡­..NOTHING! What the fuck is this. We never discussed something like this Tiria. And just as I was thinking, a thought from outside myself hit me. `Did you think, I would leave you with all that knowledge? I left you with all your memories intact, but the understanding behind it is now missing. If you want it back, you will have to rediscover all that knowledge. Surprise me, little one!` I almost heard her smirk when she said little one. I hate it! Coming back to my crushing reality I looked to the girl on the ground. ¡°It seems, Tiria has taken all of my technological knowledge and I will have to rediscover it for myself. So I will have to learn from scratch and would really value any knowledge you can share with me here. For starters it would be good to know your name and how your people calls itself.¡± She stood up and dusted her clothes off. Then she folded her arms under her chest and smirked at me. ¡°I was curious how long it would take for you to ask me about my name. It¡¯s Kalla Andusien by the way, just call me Kalla. The rest will call me Princess but ignore it for now. My old kingdom has been shattered by our attackers and perhaps some other groups of elves out there have survived the onslaught and will come here when they hear about us. This world is called Nathos and holds 5 continents, plenty of smaller islands and different races. I know of at least 50 sapient races, whereat sapient is a word to be discussed in this matter. These plains are called the forsaken hills, because there was once an old civilization here that has been destroyed by a cataclysm nobody knows the cause for. Ever since the place has been forsaken. The forest is just the old wood. It has stood since the beginning of the world and some trees in it are thousands of years old. My own people was called Driaden elves from the name of our old hearth tree but now we are nameless until our new tree has been given its own name by Alvera, the goddess of all elves.¡± That was a long monologue from her and I soaked in all the knowledge like a sponge.. Her name was Kalla. Nice name. I had once a character named the same in a good old DnD campaign a friend of mine was the gamemaster of. Strange, this I could recall clearly. It was not a relevant issue it seems. ¡°The bad guys that chased you away from your old home, did they have a reason for it like being hunted by your people or are they just evil guys trying to level any competition in the neighbourhood?¡± After this question she gave me the bad eye. ¡°They haven¡¯t been hunted by my people only because they entered our domain. But almost always when they did, they attacked our outpost and smaller villages. They have to been united by a strong leader we haven¡¯t heard of, because they amassed against us in never before seen numbers. And they even consisted out of two races that normally didn¡¯t mingle much.¡± Ok, so she said, that they have hunted them but for a good reason and now I had to deal with the attackers. But hey, I¡¯m a nice guy and helping a beautiful damsel in distress made Me all shivery. There will be a price to pay, that¡¯s for sure, but with the elves here I could have exactly what I wanted to strive forward in this world. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°Oh, by the way, how does your people think about humans?¡± She was taken a bit aback by my questions. ¡°Humans? They are a people that roams the great plains and woods of the world without rest. Nomadic and barbaric are words I would describe them the most, but they have honour in the fight and are a force to be reckoned with when their tribes unite to fight a common foe. They have horses they train and breed all their life and I have to admit that they are really good in mounted combat, even better than anybody else I know.¡± So the humans on this world hadn¡¯t developed yet into farming communities and were more like the Mongols of old earth. Perhaps I could gather some of them and persuade them to stay with us and be the first real heavy cavalry this world had ever seen. Tiria didn¡¯t have taken this knowledge from me and I valued it high. History on old earth can teach you many things if you know to learn from and not repeating it.. ¡°I was once a human too, you know, but my people was very high developed in technology, not so much in social things. Perhaps we can work on it. If ever some humans come here, would you let them live here?¡± Kalla thought for some time, in which her people came nearer that I could clearly recognize individual faces. My eyesight was never better, I had to say. They were easily 600 feet away and I could see their faces. Eyes like a hawk, my eye specialist would be proud of me. ¡°I think, there could be some advantages in a mixed city and if it¡¯s your wish then I will bow to your wishes. We need you more than you need us, but please confer with me when you make any decisions that could change my people¡¯s future.¡± ¡°Sure thing. I will get on your nerves more times that you will appreciate, believe me.¡± She laughed a bit and smiled this ice melting way that any real man finds hard to resist. Damn this new body. In some of the books I read, there were dungeon lords, who could create their own bodies. Perhaps I can something similar for my own city. Even if I only could move in my sphere of influence. Hm, thinking about it, the tree I raised, would be quite large so I will have to enlarge my place by quite some margin. I will need to convert some of the energy I gain into broadening my range. ¡°I will first let your tree grow to its maximum size if my mana allows it and make a home in its branches for your people. And then I will see what I can do to make it as resistant to fire, magic and weapons as possible. If this is alright with you?¡± Surprise was clearly recognizable in her face. ¡°If you could do this, it would raise our chances of driving our foes back. But I think it would be more mana efficient if you made the changes as fast as possible, because later on you would need tremendous amounts of power for a full grown tree. Even if this means that growing the tree will cost you more power after the changes.¡± I nooded inwardly and took a look back to the sapling, watching it closely. The little thing had a strange kind of energy around it and seemed almost to have a kind of awareness, that watched me. I let a small margin of regenerated mana flow to the tree and watched its grow to determine where I could use fire mana to strengthen its structure. But I almost at once realized that I would have to make some test with another tree first. I didn¡¯t want to destroy this single sapling I had. They seemed to be a rarity I couldn¡¯t waste easily. ¡°Ehm, Kalla, before I try anything with the hearth tree, I would rather experiment with other trees first. I don¡¯t think, that it will take much time but I don¡¯t want to stress my luck, if you mind?¡± Strongly nodding Kalla looked at me and then went to welcome the first elves that made it to us, gazing disbelieving at the young hearth tree and my glorious existence shining behind it. I tried to understand what they said, but Kalla and the others were outside of my range of influence and my mind speech didn¡¯t seem to reach outside. And even if I could hear some words travelling to me with the small breeze coming from the woods, I had no understanding of the elven language. The new elves regarded me with suspicious looks and had a heated discussion with Kalla. Some yelling and then some hard and loud words from Kalla later they followed her to my crystal. I immediately saw my mana reg rising. These guys seemed to have quite strong mana reserves and were leaking much of it into my influence. ¡°Marcus, please be friendly to them and assure them of your friendly intentions.¡± For a moment I really to consider to allow myself a joke on Kalla¡¯s behalf but then stopped myself because there would surely some repercussions for her. ¡°Hi there! My name is Marcus and I am a newly created city dungeon at your service. My first goal is to grow your hearth tree sufficiently big that you can consider him your new home. In exchange I want your help and a bit of your mana for growing a city to live in, if it¡¯s not too much to ask for.¡± My speech let them standing with their jaws down and it really looked ridiculous. I couldn¡¯t stop myself from laughing out loud. ¡°Hahaha, you look super stumped. Never heard a crystal talk, eh? Even Kalla didn¡¯t look so disbelieving like you bunch.¡± Their jaws closed with an audible snatch and I could see some angered looks. Kalla threw a warning gaze at me. ¡°Sorry, sorry, didn¡¯t mean to be unpolite. Please excuse my bad manners. I¡¯m new on this world and didn¡¯t think about my words clearly. I will do my best to ensure the survival of your people as long as you reside inside my influence.¡± Now they thawed up to me. An older elf by the look of some dimples around his otherwise youthful appearance came only 3 feet to my body and watched me closely. He wore a mostly destroyed robe out of green linen with some golden marquetry on it. Blue eyes the color of the sky and brown shoulder long hair made a stunningly handsome looking guy out of him. I was sure, that he broke some hearts in his younger years. ¡°Now there you really did quite the catch, little Kalla. I¡¯m Galen Niska Malloren, Mastermage and at your service, Marcus. Let¡¯s build a city together.¡± And then he laid his hands on my body and infused me with his mana. I was in a new world of pain! 4. First creation This sucker claimed to be a mastermage? NEVER EVER. He almost fried my precious body with unrelenting mana. If this guy was good at handling his power then I wouldn''t want to get a connection with their big shots. Again I had to enlarge my crystal and then I let his mana flow directly into expanding my influence. It went up to 80 feet right away before I felt his mana weaken and then stopping. ¡°Why is the tree not growing? Are you cheating me, dungeon core?¡± The anger in his voice was easy to discover. ¡°Cheating? You idiot almost blew me up! Is there nobody here that is able to control his mana flow for me to adjust to it and let the energy do something useful? You may be a mastermage with all your spell but let me say to you, you suck at mana manipulation.¡± The old elf was taken aback by my verbal attack and went pale. ¡°Excuse me please. I didn''t think, that mana would be an issue for a dungeon core.¡± ¡°With how many dungeon cores have you ever talked? It seems to me, that my fellow evil brothers and sisters are not on the talkative side.¡± Looking down to the ground Galen was ashamed of himself. ¡°Now, now, dear Marcus, I think you said your part and i''m sure that he regrets his doings. Please forgive him and let us work together again. Tell me how much mana you can take and then I will search for any person in my people that doesn''t overcharge you by giving you mana.¡± I took myself a bit back and calmed down again. I will have to train this guys for a more delicate mana use. And then I checked my status, only to discover that I now could accumulate 1000 mana. Hey, that was huge, but remembering my last encounter with an elven mage, there seemed to be some people with much bigger mana capacity. ¡°I can take 1000 mana without a problem but anything more really hurts if it''s pumped into me in one go, so please send only elves with a lesser mana pool. I had enough pain for my first day, thank you!¡± The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Sure thing, darling. Perhaps Galen can charge up some mana stones and connect them to you, so you take the energy easier without any chance of you exploding and littering us with your glorious self.¡± ¡°You''re enjoying my misery here, aren''t you? But the idea with the mana stones sounds interesting, perhaps I can learn to craft them myself sometime. Dungeons shall be able to create everything in their influence if I am not mistaken.¡± Galen nodded and said. ¡°You are right with that. But I only have 2 small mana stones because I lost my laboratory when we had to flee so suddenly. I will give you one of my stones and hope to get it back again, yeah?¡± He seemed a bit unsure and then got a gem the size of walnut out of his robe. It looked like a blue diamond but wasn''t clearly it because it hadn''t the same glow. He put the stone down and I sent my senses out to the stone. Now how do I dissolve materials in my influence like in the stories back on earth? I wished to dissolve its structure, but nothing happened. I sent my mana into it,only to discover that the stone sucked it up, much to my anger. Then I tried to surround it with my mana without letting it inside and that seemed to do the trick. I felt the stone suddenly in me, as if having a kind of bag in my mind and I saw a description besides it.
Small mana stone (bad quality)
Contains 120/300 mana Creation costs 300 mana per size category and quality
I tried to take it out again and in the next moment the stone was back again. And I had a new field in my status, called creation. My status also showed that I had 203 mana left from the last action. ¡°Hey, could you find somebody with at least 600 mana? I have an idea I want to check out. If it works, it could really give our mages some serious extra firepower.¡± Galen looked to Kalla, seeing her nodding and went to the approaching croud, checking the people for their mana capacity. After only some seconds he came back with a child holding his right hands. A nice blond girl with twin tails and fear in her eyes. Hesistant she came closer and then put her hand on my increased crystal. ¡°Don''t have any fear, little girl. Just send your mana to me and I will make you a nice and beautiful stone to play with.¡± She winced for a moment hearing my voice in her mind and then I felt mana flowing into me. But this one didn''t push it into me like the other brutes but in a steady stream, calm and measured. ¡°Hey, you''re quite talented with mana. You have much better control about it that any other I met until now.¡± Pride and joy filled her face and Kalla smiled at her, meanwhile Galen pressed his lips together. Yeah, suck this, bastard! After having absorbed all the mana the girl could give me, I started to use it for creating my first mana stone. I observed my energy collecting on the ground and then condensing itself ever denser. Seconds later a stone much like the other was on the ground, shining with an inner light. Galen took it up and envious giving it to the small girl. ¡°And how did it turn out? Was it good?¡± I asked curious. ¡°It had the double capacity like the one I have given you. That''s outrageous. Wait a moment. If I give you more mana and you can boost your mana capacity again, you could make an even bigger stone. Right? RIGHT?¡± An unpleasant fever was in his eyes and he came near me with only inches seperating my body from his face. ¡°Yeah, yeah, I will make one for you, but only after you have learned to control your mana. Even with my higher capacity now I wouldn''t be able to take your monstrous amount of mana into myself without a chance of shattering myself. Bear with it a bit longer and now back off. I have work to do, growing that little tree a bit.¡± 5. The tree and the stone After Galen took some steps back, Kalla asked some of her followers if they had any tree saplings with them and not surprisingly there was a good collection of everything the ordinary forest had to offer. I decided to test with an oak seed, because it had the most similarities with the hearth tree when looking at it with my mana senses. I checked if I could infuse it with fire mana only to see it burning before my eyes. Ok, next one please. After that I decided to try mixing different elemental mixes to counteract the effects of fire mana, but that became increasingly harder. Water mana was the direct opposite of fire and the two mana kinds fought against each other in the seed, making it explode spectacular and much to the fear of Kalla. I thought that I perhaps would need a kind of catalyst to make it happen. Wait, what is a catalyst? ''I thought that a little bit knowledge here and there could help you with your work, little one, so here is the gift of the day'' came the voice of my creator. Thanks a lot, I thought and got back to the job. Infusing life magic in between the fighting water and fire magic did the trick. At least my seed didn''t perish suddenly. Now I only had to grow it abit. ¡°Hey, Kalla, how big can a hearth tree become?¡± ¡°I know that our old tree had a diameter of more than 30 feet, why?¡± ¡°Please take the changed seed 80 feet away from me and plant it there. If this goes like I want it to, then I will create more of it and use them as a first defence line and additional hometrees.¡± Kalla took the tree just to the edge of my influence and planted it there into the ground. Then I send my life magic into the small seed with additional fire and water mana to strenghten the effect. It took only moments for a sapling to grow. Its bark was dark brown, almost black with a little bit of red in the mixture. I took a look at its description and was pleased with myself.
Mana-infused Dungeon tree Resistent to fire and water magic
That''s what I talk about. Now that I had a template to work with, I could start with my modification of the hearth tree. I sent my mana into the sapling and wanted to modify it. But the same awareness I could sense before, now stood in the way and tried to fight me. ¡°Don''t fight against me, all I want to do, is to make you stronger against your foes.¡± As if it had understood what I said, the resistance suddenly ended and my mana flooded the small sapling changing its properties. The Bark had changed from white like birch to the red-brown color of autumn leafs. And the leafs themselve were almost blood red. The elves looked at the changes with awe and after checking its properties Kalla''s jaw hit the ground. ¡°Marcus, you made the hearth tree resistent to water and fire magic.That''s amazing.Could you make it also resistent to axes?¡± Thinking about how hard it was to change the tree as it was now, I was quite sure that my abilities were not enough for any further changes for the foreseeable future. Perhaps after my skills leveled up to beginner or adept. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°Sorry, Kalla, but I think that''s out of my league for some time, but I will try as soon as possible. And now let us make a home for your people.¡± In the meantime Galen had organized all the elves with a maximum of 1000 mana in a lineready to send their mana to me. My passive mana regeneration went up like crazy from all the elves in my influence and I was sure that I would level up again today. I connected my energy to the tree and let him grow in size. After 5 minutes the sapling had grown to 10 feet, depleting 10 elves in the process. All of them were let to the side and fed to regain their strength as fast as possible. ¡°Marcus, wouldn''t it be better to level you up also? If you had a greater mana capacity more of us could give you our mana.¡± I really liked this princess. Always considerate of my well-being and her people. Hopefully in this order sometime in the future. ¡°If you want I will not object. With all the people here my passive regeneration goes through the roof. I think about creating some walls around this place. The possible attack in the night makes me anxious and with a wall between us and any foes I would feel much better. I will take the mana for another level. That should bring me to 1500 and the next level up to 2100 if I read my progression right.¡± She reflected for a moment. Galen harrumphed and then spoke. ¡°It would greatly improve our performance and ifMarcus could create bigger mana stones for all the mages we could gather our mana in the stones for him to use without a chances of blasting him to pieces.¡± Hey, there are signs and miracles to be witnessed. The old geezer had a good idea and swallowed his pride and in the same stride offered a way for him to get his mana stone. Perhaps I had to reconsider his uses for me again. Kalla thought about it for a moment. ¡°I will send some scouts back into the woods to check how much time we have until the goblins reach us. But we should bring Marcus level up twice at least. And then he should try to create the strongest mana stone possible for the mages to give him their mana. This should boost construction time the most. But all mages have to keep half their mana at all times in case of an attack.¡± I had to admit that the beautiful elf was a better strategist than me. So the next mana infusions were used for leveling me and then create a strong mana stone. The stone was the size of a marble and made of the same blue crystal like myself. The instant it was lying on the ground Galen grabbed it and I only waited for him to say my precious, to make his face expression perfect. ¡°Galen! That''s for all mages to use, so go around and let them charge it up. You can keep it for yourself after the work is done. But if it suddenly disappears before that, I will give Andarin your sorry ass for practice. So be a good boy and do as I say.¡± He did look a bit ashamed. She seemed to have hit the nail when she spoke about the disappearance. I returned to the hearth tree and with my greater capacity it became much easier for the elves to share their mana with me. When the sun began to settle, the hearth tree was 40 feet high and it became more difficult to grow it. The mana stone had been returned and sucked dry by me more than 20 times and the elves had build tents around the new hearth tree with patrols wandering outside of my influence. I created stones between their tents and used my fire mana to heaten them up for improvised bonfires to use for making food. I took the chance to look at my status when everyone took a rest for the evening.
Name Marcus Race City dungeon
Level 6 Mana 50/2100 1/h reg 80/minute from citizen
Int 11 Wis 11
Cha 11 Luck 10
Skills:
Earth Newbie 2% Water Newbie 9%
Air Newbie 0% Fire Newbie 9%
Life Newbie 10% Mind Speech Adept 5%
Architecture Beginner 1%
Range of influence 80 feet
Number of citizens 135(providing 80 mana/minute)
--------------------------------------POV unknown---------------------------------------- Damn Princess! After all the work i put into destroying her and her family she has again the luck of the gods shine on her. I will destroy you and your traiterous family for good! 6. Reality sucks -------------------------------------POV Marcus------------------------------------------ I enjoyed my first evening in this world by listening to the elves, trying to learn some words and grammar, but without any help i didn''t have much success. Sure my skill mind speech let me understand everything in my range of influence, but i would really like to have some language skills in case i ever got back a kind of body. Shortly i thought about disturbing Kalla or Galen but both were tired from working the whole day. Luckily i didn''t feel any kind of exhaustion. So i directed my attension to increasing my range again. With the passive regeneration it was easy widening the outer edge. After half an hour i had 10 feet more and channeled my mana into the earth itself to create a kind of earthen wall around my citizen. A wall of stone would be awesome but when i tried to create it, there was a notification.
You don''t have the necessary materials for creating stone buildings.
That was a surprise. Where did the materials for the mana stones come from then? I looked around a bit and then stumbled over my inventory. And there i saw something that made everything clear.
Inventory (max 32 cubic meters)
Crystal (for growing dungeon core) 300 gramm
Ok, that was a problem. Obviously i had used my own crystal mass for the growth of my body to create the mana stone. I want it back! NOW! But the old geezer would rather sacrifize one of his hands than giving back the stone, of that i was sure. I had to regain it another way. Perhaps my citizen could find materials for me. But now i had to create the wall with something other. And i had an idea for just that. I absorbed a bit of dirt, then compressed it as hard as possible and positioned it back into place. The result wouldn''t stand to a serious siege, i had to admit, but it was much better than just piling dirt up. Then i had another idea. I asked around if anybody had something like vines that i could plant. After having questioned a third of the elves i got a little kid that had some seeds of vines. She even gave some of them to me and i could begin my next project. I planted the vine seeds at different places in the ridge and then again used my magic. But this time i used fire and earth magic combined with my life magic to make the vines resistant to fire and harder to destroy with toos and weapons. To my delight it went exactly as i wanted but i got only a resistance again and not immunity At least it would be much harder to destroy the vines. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Now that i had all tools at hand for my project, i began to build my ridge with abandon. Some elven guards that walk around the place watched bewildered as i put compressed earth blocks onto each other and creating a moat at the same from the removed material. That was my project for the rest of the night and when the sun began to rise the next morning there was already a 5 feet high circular ridge with an opening in the west to the riverside. Kalla and Galen took a look at my work and turned back to me. ?You worked hard tonight, i see. But wouldn''t be stone better for a wall?¡° ?You are right, Kalla, but i can''t create stone out of nothing. When i tried to with my creation skill, it said, that i hadn''t the necessary materials. Actually i found out, that i created the mana stone Galen uses out of the material Tiria gave me for growing my body when i level up. I only have enough for one level up and then you guys have to find some for me if you want a bigger core. I can work with what i have right now, but in case of an attack i don''t have big reserves to spend for any emergencies.¡° Kalla and Galen showed signs of concern. ?Ok, first i want breakfast and then we can try to find a solution for that. We will have to send out scouts for gathering and finding harvesting spots. But everything after we have eaten.¡° Just as she said it, a young boy came to her carrying a basket with freshly baked pita bread and some jam. Not a big choice here, but if you had to flee your home, you don''t have much choice i think. Then the boy came to me and offered me his mana without a care in the world. How nice. So well-mannered. I liked him. And he even had more than 600 mana to spare. They should train him as a mage when the time came. ?I will return to my ridge then and with the mana of all you guys, it should be minimum 8 feet high at the evening. I also want to strenghten it with some enchanted vines i created. That should give us an edge against any attackers, but i don''t have an idea for the gate. I don''t have wood here, that i could use. Perhaps some of you could bring wood back from the forest?¡° I expected the elves to have murder in the eyes for suggesting to fell some trees, but Kalla and Galen only shruggered and sent a party of 30 men guarded by 10 archers back to the forest. I will have wood, hoorray! New materials to build with. But until they came back, i had to make my ridge bigger and then let the vines grow. Checking my status i was pleased with my progress.
Name Marcus Race City dungeon
Level 6 Mana 690/2100 1/h reg 60/minute from citizen
Int 11 Wis 11
Cha 11 Luck 10
Skills:
Earth Newbie 7% Water Newbie 9%
Air Newbie 0% Fire Newbie 10%
Life Newbie 11% Mind Speech Adept 5%
Architecture Beginner 1%
Range of influence 80 feet
Number of citizens 95 (providing 60 mana/minute)
The men that left for the woods, didn''t seem to have strong mana regarding my reduced mana regeneration. Now back to building. I had my work cut out for me now and the elves began to search the surroundings for food and went fishing in the river. Some of them brought back reed and clay from the river shore. I thought about ways to use the new ressources during slaving away at the the defences. This will be a long and boring day. In my old simulation games it was so much easier! Reality sucks. 7. No pressure Some of the women began working with the reed to make primitive baskets. I observed them with a small part of my mind. It''s nice being able to do multiple things at the same time. I checked this new ability of mine and discovered that I could be at 4 different places at once without having any problems. If I tried to split my mind any further, there was a serious headache awaiting me. So I watched the women working while I worked at three places along the wall. I tried to communicate a bit with the other elves but they were very coy and reserved when I made a connection to their minds. I will have to soften them up a bit more with my hard work and a wonderful place to stay at. At the moment they didn''t even have a roof over the heads or walls that could keep the wind at bay. I wouldn''t be very talkative either if I had such hardships to endure. My workspeed went up several times when the elves again poured their mana into me and the mana stone was refilled by the mages. The wall grew to an amazing heigth of 4,5 metres when the sun began to go down behind the horizon and i could now start to grow my vines. The little plants should hold my wall together and strengthen it from within. I only had 14 seeds of them but i thought that this would be more than enough for my needs. When everyone sat down for supper I send my mana to the vines and let them do their work. Sure, I had to clarify with my magic where they could grow and where not but that was a lesser problem. And actually the best thing was their low mana usage. The hearth tree needed more than ten times the amount these little plants needed. This work took most of the night. 3 am in the morning, I began my next project. The lumberjacks had brought 20 trees back with at least 10 metres lenght and 30 centimeters width. After I checked if i could take parts of them into my inventory, which by the way worked out splendiousl, I analyzed the wood. Then i tried to create a solid sheet out of it which worked only half perfect. The wood was not very hard and had not much resistance to any blunt force. Perhaps I had to increase my creation skill more? Or I needed some carpentry skill? I didn''t know and so I only cut the trees into long beams. At least I would make a good lumber mill with my abilities. The mana expenses were negligible. After that I made holes in the wall where the beams went into sideways so that the could be pulled to the outer side into obverse lying holes. It wasn''t the best way to close a gate but until we had metal and a blacksmith who could make a drawbridge, that was my best alternative for it. I also made some holes at the ends of the beams where bolts could be put through for bracing them against pulling them back. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. It wasn''t pretty and also not easy to open or close, but it made the place a bit safer for my citizen. When Kalla awoke the next morning and saw my work, she was very pleased with it. The wall looked like a massive green obstacle and even though the vines seemed to be easy to climb, they were not easy to grab. The enclosed circle now was 60 meter in diameter with an 2,5 meter thick and 4,5 meter high wall around it. ?Now we have a chance at beating these bastards if they try to attack us here. I''m not sure if the gate is practical with opening and closing needing 10 men working hard but at least we can close it. I think, we should work on some houses now, so my people have a roof over their heads. Therefore we will need more wood and also some stone for buildings on the ground.¡° She gazed at the hearth tree. ?And you should begin to form some cabins in the hearth tree for us to stay in. If it reaches 20 metres height it should be able to support 4 or 5 of them.¡° I only sighed when she said that. ?Ok, but it gets increasing harder to grow it. I have the feeling, that it needs something I can''t provide it with.¡° Kalla looked at me and smiled. ?That could only mean that the tree is ready to conceive its blessing by the goddess. That is good news and the men and women will be very happy to hear that. We will have to arrange some gifts to the Lady and then prepare a feast. It will light the mood and give them hope for the future. Some of them have lost most of their families to the goblins and lizards.¡° She clapped in her hands and got the attension of most of the people around her. ?Marcus just told me that our new hearth tree is ready for its blessing. Alvera will name it and we will have a new place to call home again. Gather food and herbs for the feast and let the craftsmen build a small shrine for our Lady.¡° Joy erupted in the crowd but one young elf stood up lifted his arm and after some seconds the crowd became silent again. ?My Lady, I don''t want to be the bad guy here but what will our goddess think about a hearth tree inside the influence of a creature of Tiria?¡° Kalla looked troubled for a moment and reflected about the answer. ?I think, that Alvera and Tiria will find a way to make it work. Marcus himself said, that Tiria wants to work together with the other gods for the betterment of all inhabitants of this world. So I believe that Alvera will look down on us with benevolence. No, I am sure of it. Marcus will also work hard to grow the hearth tree into the biggest and strongest home any elven clan has ever had.¡° Applause and happy shouts filled the air with her announcements and everyone began their work with joy afterwards. ?Nice speech, but next time please don''t put so much pressure on me. I will do my best to help you, but the biggest and strongest tree around has to have some competion, right?¡° A mischiveous grin danced around her lips and in her bright eyes. ?I believe in you,little one!¡° 8. A Feast for the goddess After the elves began their work and dispersed around the place, I settled back to building homes for the people. But Kalla was right in saying that I should concentrate on the Hearth tree. So I began to send my mana to it and encouraged it in growing cabins out of its body. These first buildings would be near the trunk because of their weight, but later on when the tree was bigger and its branches were thick as a man was tall, I could create a veritable tree city like the Ewoks in Star Wars. Hey, I can remember Star Wars, high five. Perhaps there was a way to create Lightsabers with magic? That would be cool and i could have my own Jedis as city guards. Concentration please! Can''t be daydreaming here all the time. The tree was becoming quite tenacious when I tried to nudge it in the right direction and I had to use massive amounts of mana for it. The elves were more than pleased with giving it though because they saw the cabins growing. I searched for a moment for Kalla and found her talking with some craftsmen about a shrine for Alvera. ?Sorry for disturbing but I have a wish. Would you be so able to create a shrine for Tiria also? It doesn''t have to be very big, but I think she would be very pleased if she also had a place here.¡° Kalla and the other elves stood silent for a moment, and then of the craftsmen, a young blond man with a lean build and cockles on his hands, said ?I think, that could be a good idea, and later we could think about creating a temple for all the gods. I heard that you want to make this city a place for more than just us elves. So it would be better to have a central place instead of worshipppers having to travel far away.¡° I was very pleased with his answer. ?Hey, what''s your name? A bit shy now he mumbled. ?The name is Dorien. I''m a carpenter and sculptor.¡° Hm, this one was passionate when he talked about creating things and apart from that he seemed to be a shy one. I could work with him and perhaps tease him a bit. ?Nice to meet you, I am Marcus and pleased to work with you. I will observe your work in the future. By the way, I will observe all of you at working, as I want to learn some craft skills. It seems that I can''t create things the same way other dungeon cores can by simple wishing them into existence with mana as the only ressource. That would be awesome, but as it stands, I will have to work with the ressources at hand. And as I am a kind of an immortal I think I can become one of the greatest craftsman ever.¡° The men and women around us were excited about it. An immortal pupil could propel their craft to never imagined heights. Most of them offered right away to teach me their craft but as it stood, I had some other work to do for the time being. Mostly Dorien and some stonemason would be useful for me in the next weeks and perhaps even months. Their crafts could help me to build my city of dreams. Sure, sometime in the future I would also need to learn to forge, make potions or even spells. But now I only had to build a vertiable fortress to defend my people until they got their feet back on the ground. Then we could concentrate our forces to enlarge our city and its influence. I excused myself and went back to my other projects. The wall with its vines was now are a solid piece of hardened earth and wood. Especially the vines were nearly indestructable with only axes and some fire magic at hand if you thought about what goblins and lizards had at their disposal in modern fantasy stories. I just hoped my efforts were not in vain. I heard the elves laughing again and it was warming my imaginary heart that they had gotten their hope back. Two days ago they were a broken people without a home. They brought fish back from the river, gathered wild growing berries and three archers even came back with a deer from their hunt. I asked a young elven woman if she could give me one of the berries and without a thought she laid it on the ground for me. I took it into my inventory and inspected it closely.
A raspberry.
Hm, I always liked raspberry jam for breakfast and I think elves would like it also, but perhaps I could do more with it later. I mean, I was able to modify the vines and a magic tree, how hard could it be to make some upgrades to a simple food plant? Right? Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. For a start I just wanted to plant it outside the wall as a small food supply. Therefore, I had to enlarge my influence again. So I channeled my passive regeneration into it. Now I got almost one meter per minute. As a side effect the elves that were working at the river, would also be inside my influence and therefore increasing my mana. I didn''t know if fish would also give me mana but I would know in the evening when my range had connected with the river down the hill I was on. In the afternoon more and more elves came back into the walls and began the preparations for the feast. I wished I could smell their cooking. Most men had to swallow their saliva when they smelled the wonderful odors coming from the cooking fires. Dorien and some other craftsmen had created a crude figure of Alvera and were now working on another one when the young man called me suddenly. ?Ehm, Marcus, would you be so kind and tell me how Tiria looks?¡° I had watched them work all morning long with one of my subminds and had now the beginnings of an understanding of carpentry and sculpting. ?Just give me some of your tools and a block of wood and I will try to sculpt it myself.¡° Dorien looked sceptically in the direction he thought I was talking from and answered. ?Ok, here they are, but be careful with them. Getting new ones could become a hazard around here.¡° He laid them on the ground and I absorbed them easily. Then I recalled Tiria before me and began my work. As I discovered, I could create a kind of room inside my mind where I had a body again and called the tools and the wood to me. I remembered the motions of the craftsmen and tried to imitate them myself. I had worked with wood only sparsely in my former life, so I didn''t have much of an advatage there. At the start it was hard to move the right way and I had to be careful not to damage Dorien''s tools, but it went better after some time. I must have been really absorbed with my work because only after somebody knocked on my crystal body itself, did I look back to the outside world. Kalla stood before me and watched my crystal with a wooried look. ?Marcus? Are you there?¡° ?Hm? Yeah, what is it? I''m working on a sculpture and it''s somewhat hard to get it right.¡° ?Oh, I was worried because you didn''t answer anything at all when people asked you something. They all became quite worried about you.¡° If I was able to blush then I would have been a red crystal now. ?Sorry, I was totally absorbed in my work here. That has never happened to me before, so I apologize for any inconvenience i have caused. Please tell the other my apology, but I feel I have to get this right.¡° Kalla smiled and I saw Dorien some steps behind her looking smug. ?It seems you got the crafter fever, eh? No problem here, happens all the time to me.¡° ?Thanks, Dorien. I think I will be done in an hour or so, then you can have your tools back.¡° I went back to sculpting and worked on the details of Tiria''s face when suddenly I got a new message.
You got the skill Sculptor!
Hey, that was fast. Thanks, my lovely goddess. `I have to reward you, if you work on a shrine for me, little one`. I heard her voice in my mind. So she was watching me. Now, that I thought about it, that made perfect sense, because I was something completely new and could improve her reputation with the other gods, perhaps even did so already. My figure was almost ready and I only had to do some finishing touches. That done I got a new message.
Figure of Tiara
Made by Marcus, the city dungeon, as his first work. +5 for Cha, Int, Wis for 8h once a day for praying to the figure.
That was some serious advantage for only praying to my goddess once a day. I hoped she was pleased with my work. I went back to Dorien and gave him his tools and my work. He examined it closely and offered some advice which I eagerly absorbed. ?For your first work this is quite good.. I look forward to working with you, Marcus. You show promise. Now, let''s put the figure in the shrine and get back to the others. The feast will begin soon and I don''t want to miss anything.¡° He went to the hearth tree where most of the elves were gathered. Some had to watch the surroundings on the wall but they threw a look back to the centre every now and then. The elves began to sing and dance around the tree, calling Alvera''s name in mostly every sentence. It wasn''t as if I could understand anything they were saying, but the name of the goddess had a ring to it, I couldn''t shake off. After half an hour a light descended from the stars. Bright white light illuminated everyone and blinded us. When it disappeared, there stood a elven woman, 2 meters tall with a curvious body and a nice chest, I had to say. ?I thank you for your prayers and your hard work, my dear elves. I have heard them and have come to give your new Hearth tree my blessing and a name. It''s a bit novel for a dungeon core to grow a hearth tree but I talked with my sister Tiria and after some discussion with her I was pleased about this new city dungeon of hers. You all have my blessing for living and working with him and building a new city for everyone who wants to live peacefully within its walls.¡° I felt her look on me for a moment, but then she turned her gaze back to the tree. ?I will call you Gillian. Grow and be a home for the people that live in your shadow.¡° She took two steps back and turned around to walk to me, stopping only a meter away. ?I want to thank you, Marcus, for sheltering my chosen people. Take these crystals to help you get even stronger. I have a message from Tiria for you as well. Youshould designate your first city guardian soon. Chose wisely, little one!¡° When she said the last two words, she grinned. Tiria, you have failed me! 9. Lady Chara The goddess had gifted me with almost 10 kilograms of crystal, more than enough for some levels, I hoped, as I haven¡¯t seen a screen with a list of costs for upgrading my crystal body. ¡°I would appreciate it if you wouldn¡¯t choose one of the remaining of royal blood. I need them to lead the people. Oh, and I saw a human tribe wandering in your direction. They should arrive here within a month if nothing disturbs them. I wish you the best for your city and all that live within it and perhaps we see each other another time in the future, Marcus.¡± Then there was a bright light again and after it disappeared so was the goddess. Kalla and the other around her looked at me curious. ¡°What did she mean with city guardian?¡± Kalla¡¯s question hit me unprepared. I thought that city guardians were people like city guards, but apparently they were something completely other. Trying to find an answer for it, I got a new message.
City guardian A powerful defender of the city core. He/she/it can be a mortal, construct or elemental and gets several advantages for becoming a guardian. - Immortality as long as the city core survives and approves of the guardian - Access to part of the city core¡¯s mana - Access to City core¡¯s skills - A Buff that strengthens the guardian¡¯s abilities, health and mana pool, depends of the city core¡¯s strength - Instant communication with the core within its territory - Revival if killed within the core¡¯s influence and possible revival if killed outside, but the guardian¡¯s core is brought back to the city Core
I was stunned by all the abilities of a city guardian. If I wasn¡¯t the city core, I would want to become a guardian for sure. The elves awaited my answer and after collecting my thoughts for a moment I gave it to them. ¡°As it seems, a city guardian is the equivalent of a boss monster of a dungeon core. He gets immortality, some buffs for his health, mana and other abilities and access to my skills and mana as well. Oh, and I can revive him when he dies within my influence or if his core is brought back to me if he is killed outside my range. And some smaller benefits too.¡± They were shocked to their bones if you looked at them. No word was said, no muscle moved. And then they caught up to what I had said. ¡°Immortality? Are you for real? And you can revive them? That¡¯s unbelievable. I want to become one! Please!¡± Kalla was the first to approach me, but the rest didn¡¯t take much longer. The whole dissolved into pure chaos when they all tried to make an impression with what they could provide me with, but just when I thought I had decided which person would become my first guardian a small but at the same time powerful voice resonated in my mind. ¡°Hi there. I¡¯m Gillian and perhaps it would be best, if you would make me your first guardian? It would be perfect for the elves if they didn¡¯t lose their Hearth tree again, wouldn¡¯t you agree?¡± Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. That came completely out of the nowhere. The tree had become sentient. Now that was a serious blessing for a tree. Perhaps she, and the voice was clearly female, could become something like the Ents of Lord of the rings. My answer wasn''t heard by anyone other than the tree. ¡°You took me by surprise, Gillian. I admit that being able to revive you, would a serious boon for the settlement but for my first guardian I would like to have someone a little more mobile, you know. As you have to admit you are many things but mobile is not on the list.¡± Even if I couldn''t see her face, I got the impression of a putting child from her. Wow, another problem in my city. A pouting child tree! I thought. ¡°You are right there, but I hoped that you would consider me also. Perhaps I can become the next one? I don''t know if and when you can select an new guardian.¡± ¡°I will consider you, but I have already someone in mind. The other elves will be angry with me, I think, because I don''t choose one of their most powerful. I want to choose a special child as my first guardian because the girl showed some promise with her mana manipulation.¡± ¡°The older elves won''t be happy with it. Your guardian job promises them immortality that they can''t reach with their mana capacity...¡± ¡°Stop! There''s something I don''t understand. What does mana have to do with how long they live?¡± A moment of silence went by and then a surprised Gillian said, ¡°You don''t even know that? Ok, listen! The span of life of a person or monster depends only to a little part upon natural causes. It is the mana capacity and the person''s affiliation with mana that defines how long somebody can live. Elves have a very good affiliation with mana, humans vary strongly but most are pretty weak and creatures like goblins have almost no connection to magic with some exceptions as their leaders. Dragons range on the other side. They are magic and therefore are almost ageless. But if you find a human mage with a very good affiliation with magic, he can live longer than most elves. So all the people on this world who can cultivate their mana,cultivate it aswell as they possibly canin order to lenghten their life span.¡± That was much to digest. Understanding it meant understanding this chaos that raged before my eyes, where the older elves almost kneeled before me to make them my guardian. ¡°Silence! I will only choose someone I can nurture into a great mage for defending my city and all of you and most of the older elves didn''t show much ability in handling their mana. You have a big mana pool but that does nothing to really control it. I only have seen one person here that was capable in controlling her own mana, and that was that girl over there. Come here, little one!¡± Haha, now I have someone, I can call little one. Thinking about it, I should perhaps talk with someone about a possible inferiority complex of mine. The girl stepped forward and looked fearful at me. She was a real beauty, even now, and as soon as she reached adulthood she would be a babe. Hehe, and she would be mine! Most of the elves looked jealous at her but let her pass. I examined her more closely than last time and was pleased with what I saw. She had blond hair, green eyes and a petite nose. Curiosity and fear battled in her eyes and they changed from looking on the ground and sneaking looks at me. With her 1,3 meters she had to grow some more and if I had to guess, she wasn''t older than 13 years. ¡°What''s your name, dear?¡± ¡°I''m Chara, sir. Why do you want me to become your first Guardian? I cannot do anything right. My brother always says, that I am clumsy and only anger him when he looks at me.¡± ¡°That''s not very polite. I chose you because you are good at manipulating your mana and I think, that I can make you into a very powerful wizard, capable of defending this city and all my citizens. Will you make me proud and become my city guardian?¡± She pondered only briefly and then nodded with enthusiasm. ¡°Yes, Lord Marcus! I want to be a city guardian.¡± I felt my mana suddenly surge and envelop the girl. I saw it sinking into her skin and attuningwithChara''s own mana. Then I felt a connection developing between us and her surface thoughts hitting me. Please let him like me! Will I be powerful? What if everyone hates me now? Can I play with the other kids anymore? I almost wanted to laugh but that would hurt her badly, I knew. So I only gave her a mental hug and tried to comfort her. She relaxed and smiled with a grin as bright as the sun. Yep, she will be the biggest heartbreaker in the region. The elves watched the whole scene and the older ones let the shoulders sink and seemed disappointed. Seeing that I had to comment it. ¡°Don''t be sad. I think I have some ideas how you can train your mana better and get more years to come. It all connects with howwell you are able to channel yourmana andhow efficiently you can use it. And now welcome our new city guardian, Lady Chara.¡± 10. Work never ends All elves bent their heads at Chara and the young girl blushed to the pointed ears. Kalla took her hand and smiled at her. ¡°I think, we will have much to talk about in the future. If you need anything, ask me right away and don''t hesitate to entrust me with any problems you have. As soon as you have learned this mana manipulation skill Marcus talked about, I would like to learn it too and i''m sure that most of us would also be your pupils. Galen and the other mages will teach you their craft to make sure that you are able to defend Marcus and this city as well.¡± Chara looked up to the princess and was awed by the beautiful woman. I was wary of the sudden change in Kalla''s behaviour. If anything was clear to me now, then it was that I was no match in diplomacy and manipulating people for the princess, and for most of the older elves as well. They had too many years to learn skills I lacked. My next guardian will be someone who can teach me these skills and hopefully many more. Until then I will learn every crafting skill the elves could provide me with. By the way I had one skill already that I could give Chara right away. I tried to send sculpturing to my guardian and was pleased with her surprise obvious on her face. ¡°Hey, Lord Marcus, did you just give me a skill?¡± Hm, her manners would be something she had to train a bit. As if Kalla had heard my thoughts, she knocked Chara on the head. ¡°Show a bit more humbleness before your lord, young lady! If he allows you to speak so nonchalant with him then it''s ok, if not, await punishment from me or him.¡± She looked to my crystal and nodded to it. We had an understanding here. Training the first guardian was almost as important to the elves as it was for me personally. Chara had a big future but only if she reigned in her impulses and her mouth. I was confident that Kalla could manage the girl, but I will watch her lessons, just to be sure that my girl isn''t influenced in the wrong direction. ¡°Ehm, Marcus, what did she mean when she asked you about a skill you gave her?¡± Kalla asked me. ¡°Oh, that''s easy. I learned the scultor skillwhen I created the figure of Tiria for the shrine and just passed the skill over to Chara. I hope that it also goes in the other direction too, that would be awesome. I think I said that I can give my guardians my skills, didn''t I?¡± ¡°Sorry, but when you said immortality earlier I somewhat didn''t listen to anything other anymore. So she can learn everything you have learned provided you allow her to learn the skill?¡± ¡°Yeah, seems so. I think,i can train quite the workforce here with my guardians. But I will have to check if they only get the basic skill or if I have trained the skill they get the imroved version. As I have only the sculptor skill right now and it is also not trained, I cannot check the theory until later.¡± ¡°I understand. Do you know, when you will be able to get your next guardian?¡± ¡°Sorry, no clue. I will try to ask Tiria about it, but I think it will be connected with my growth as a city similar to how dungeon cores get their bosses when they get more floors.¡± Kalla nodded and then turned to her people. ¡°Ok, now that we have the blessing of our goddess and a new city guardian, let''s celebrate our future here. I wish you a wonderful feast!¡± And the elves started the party in earnest. I had already observed that the rate of male to female was off, but I didn''t know why, so I just asked Galen who was standing near my crystal and watching the party. ¡°Many of our warriors died defending our home and our escape. So we have to accommodate for the next 100 years with this situation. The women will have to share their men with one or two other women. But if you think that would be heaven for the men then you are mistaken. Elven women are strong in character and know to use the tongue well enough to cut any man''s pride low. So three of them would make any man shudder in fear. Harems sound funny but they aren''t. Each woman wants her part of you and you have to provide it or suffer the consequences. If you have any ideas, how we can solve that problem then don''t hesitate to tell me. I have now 2 wifes and both are bothersome if they join in taking me down.¡± ¡°You should work on your communication. Almost every sentence you said, was ambiguous.¡± Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Galen was taken aback for a moment and then laughed out loud enough that some elves looked his way. ¡°Haha, I forgot that you have been a man before. Take the words as you want. They are true either way. And now excuse me, my two women have signalled me to join them in the party. I will be back in the morning for your idea of teaching me something.¡± He walked away to two stunning ladies standing beside the Hearth tree, where the women each took one arm of his and talked to him at the same time. Poor guy, if he didn''t remember what one of them said and she asked him about it, he would have hell to pay. ¡°Ok, Gillian, want to grow a bit? I have mana to spend and the elves provide me with it quite liberally.¡± The voice of the tree was still a bit pouting, but at least she talked with me. ¡°Why not? I can''t partake in the party and don''t have to do anything just now, so let''s start building. I will strenghten my roots first if you don''t mind. The nutrients in the ground aren''t the best. Your mana provides me with most things, but it would be better if I could gather the most of what I need without relying on you too much.¡± ¡°That''s a good idea, Gillian. Perhaps I can expand my influence this way also to the ground below. I couldn''t before and it somewhat angers me. I mean, how will I be able to build cellars for my buildings or tunnels for delivering things underground if I can''t force my way downwards. Cities are above ground as wells as underground.¡± ¡°You are right. If I can help you with that, I will do my best. Just give me some mana to work with and I will dig down to to river to get some water. If you could dig a pool besides my trunk, I will transfer drinking water there for the elves to drink from. Oh, and by the way, you should also do something for providing the people with a place to do their business. It kind of stinks when the wind turns my way.¡± I didn''t know what she meant for a moment and she seemed to recognize it. ¡°They shit bricks just outside your influence, you dummy! Build a place where they can get the waste away from the city for god''s sake!¡± Oh, now I know what she meant. So the elves went outside to do their business. They would have to walk more than 140 meters to get away from my eyes. That was my maximum reach at the moment. Per level I got 20 meters more, and I didn''t know if this progression was linear forever or if it went up later on. 60 meters from my body the hill ended in a steep cliff that went 30 meters down to the river. The elves had to climb up and down the hill I was on, if they wanted to get fish or to wash themselves. The hill was in the inner part of a river loop and surrounded on tree sides by water, which was the reason why I chose the place. And I have an answer for the question if fish give me mana. They do, but not much of it. When I watched my mana, I also recognized a significant increase in the mana production. The goddess had given the elves some alcohol and they made use of it with great enthusiasm. The side effect of it was that their ability to contain their mana was reduced. I could make use of that by building taverns with lots of beverages to drink in my future city. Alcohol rules everywhere! Gillian gave me a mental knock on the head when my thoughts drifted away again and I had to concentrate back to to the present. I remembered pictures of toilets from my old world but I had no clue how they worked. Running water did the trick, of that I was sure, but the rest of the system was an enigma to me. ¡°Hey, Gillian, how much water can you transfer from the river into the pool?¡± I got a mental shrug. ¡°How much do you need? It all depends on how much mana you can offer me for growing my roots. With 1000 mana per hour I can get down to the river in less than a day and get 1000 to 1500 litres every hour or so, I think. Do you need so much or more?¡± That wasn''t a small amount I could work with. ¡°Does the water enchantment help with gathering the water? I mean I enchanted your seed when we decided to grow you here.¡± Gillian laughed and I suddenly saw a transparent elven girl standing at the tree waving at me. She had green hair, brown eyes and tanned skin. Wearing a dress from what looked like bark she walked to my crystal and touched it with her ghostly hand. I felt it the same way like when Kalla touched my body. ¡°Hehe, figured out at least making an astral body. Now I can travel around a bit and we can have better talks. You should try it also when you have time for it.¡± The option of an astral body didn''t occur to me until now, but I had to admit that it would be nice to walk around a bit, even only with an ghost as my body. I will let one of my subminds work on the problem for now. For now I will try something new. If I can''t directly dig into the ground by just absorbing material I will just remove the ground in layers. My test grounds were down at the river where I tried to dig a channel to the hill by absorbing dirt and then putting it back down into the river. When I reached to the hill and reached solid stone I tried to absorb the stone, but I discovered that stone needed much more power to cut into. In comparison to dirt the needed power was almost 20 times as large. The elves gave me more than enough mana for Gillian and my new project at the same time. Knowing now what to do I began to remove dirt from the hill to get down to the stone and then I cut stairs into it. At the same time I noticed my sculptor skill rising. My inner artist went wild at it and I began to use my mana to make the stairs more beautiful by cutting patterns into them, only to discover that I had a long before me to become a kind of Picasso with stone. Discouraged I returned to simple but pragmatic steps. Gillian watched my progress with her astral body and smirked at my failed attempts to be creative. ¡°Nice try, Marcus. The steps will it make easier for the people to get up and down, but you should add a handrail to avoid injuries.¡± If I could face palm myself I would have done it. With a sigh I watched my work and tried to find a way for adding the handrail. I had cut down all the material. So I had to create the handrail out of stone blocks with sculpturing. How stupid of me to remove all the material. ¡°Perhaps you should use the vines again. You could let them grow into a kind of canopy for shelter in case of bad weather.¡± My depression did hit a new record. This newly born tree child knew better how to help my citizen than I. I grabbed some vine seeds and began my work. 11. New projects The vines followed my lead without any problems. I had to put some dirt back to the places where they should put down their roots but that was only a minor hindrance. After planting the seeds they began to grow like crazy and by the end of the night I had a nice canopy over the stairs leading down to the river. At the same time I created some kind of tube running besides and a bit under the stairs which should transport any waste with running water down to the river. I gathered the removed stone in my inventory for later use. The elves had ended their feast some hours ago and rested for now. I think they will have a strong headache after the party and was happy that I will never again have such problems again. On the other side not being able to have a good time with a beer in my hand and talking to some friends is somewhat depressing. To distract me from my thoughts I started first building inside the wall. It will be the first rest room and after counting the numbers of my citizen it was clear that I had to create a big one for them if I didn''t want the classical waiting line here. I used the stone in my inventory for the walls and then let the vines create the roof. The whole work took less time that I thought because cutting the stone with my mana was quite easy although it used a hefty bit of it. I examined my work from all angles and added small windows high in the walls to lighten the place inside. The elven craftsmen would have to add the doors for some privacy inside. After that I only had to connect the toilets with the pool which I still had to build. Some elves were lying on the ground where I wanted to create the pool, so I had to wake some of them and ask them to move to another place. I planned to line the pool''s walls with small stones and some clay to keep the water inside. After the tired men and women left the place I began to dig a 2,5 meters deep hole 10 meters away from Gillian to give her enough place for growing. ¡°Can you still reach the pool from your place, Gillian?¡± ¡°No problem, Marcus. The new building looks nice and I think the elves will like it very much if they hadn''t to go down to the river for relieving themselves. You should make the pool big enough for bathing, so make a part of it more shallow.¡± ¡°Yeah, I know. I wanted lo line the pool walls with small stones because that would make it easier to clean it and also not so slippery as if I would use just clay.¡± Gillian nodded and watched me digging. ¡°What''s your next move then? The people could use some homes. I will still need some time before I''m big enough to house them all, even with all the mana they give you and therefore me.¡± This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. She grinned when she said the last sentence. ¡°I will create more building all around the walls. For now they will house the elves but later I want them to be places for the craftsmen to work. After some time I will have to expand the walls and then I will tear them down to build a big crafting hall, but that is in the distant future.¡± ¡°Sounds nice but do me a favor please. Build the forge outside the wall, yes?¡± ¡°Yes my dear. I think I will create a second wall made from stone as the next bigger project. As I can build it now 140 meters away from my crystal there should be more than enough space to build in for future development.¡± Gillian nodded and then looked a bit inquiring at me. ¡°Where do you want to take all the stone from? You would have to hollow out half of the hill for any decent wall. You should also not forget that such a big wall would need many defenders,much more than you have now at your disposal.¡± ¡°I know, but in a month the humans will come our way and I want to persuade some of them to stay here and make this city their home. They will need space and I don''t think that they would like to live in the trees like the elves. I also want to hollow out the hill to create a kind of safe harbor for boats after I dug a channel to the river deep enough for smaller ships to cross.¡± Surprise hit Gillian when she heard my plans for the hill. ¡°That sounds interesting, but leave some space for my roots to grow, will ya?¡± ¡°Sure, I also wanted to use your roots to stabilize the cave. I will carve out some cellars bellow the buildings of the inner wall for storing our food supply and any materials our citizen might need in case of a siege.¡± ¡°So you think, that the goblins and lizards will make an appearance again?¡± ¡°Sooner or later they will discover my city and then they will try to take it, so I have to be prepared as good as possible and make them regret to ever mess with me.¡± She sat down before my crystal and smirked at me. ¡°You sound quite bloodthirsty to me, almost like a dungeon.¡± ¡°Everyone who threatens me and my city can go to hell and suffer for all eternity! I will protect my citizen with everything I have, even if I have to destroy whole nations for it.¡± Gillian nodded and hugged my crystal lovingly. ¡°Thank you for protecting me and the elves. I haven''t thanked you till now for helping them and me. It would have taken me decades to grow big enough to become sentient and the elves would have a much harder time without your help. So thank you, Marcus!¡± I was happy for her words but they made me blush inwardly. Sure, some of the elves had thanked me before but the honest and pure Gillian made my resolve stronger than ever. I recognized now better that this was no game anymore and all of my decisions would have real life consequences. Chara had woken up minutes ago and was examining my work with the pool and sent me her thoughts. ¡°Good morning master. What are you building here?¡± ¡°It will be a pool for getting water and bathing and the other building I created this night is a rest room. Gillian mentioned that you lot had to go quite the distance for doing your daily business and so I wanted to make it easier for you all.¡± Chara blushed and looked to the ground ashamed. ¡°That is nice of you. I think everyone will be very pleased about it. I saw the stairs and the canopy as well earlier. To make it out of vines has a nice touch to it, it looks lovely. You are quite ingenious.¡± And she hit my sore point without faltering. Thanks a lot, hopefully Gillian didn''t hear it. 12. Lessons and a mistake Actually Gillian didn''t hear what Chara said and I was thankful for that. I was quite sure that the tree girl would never stop to chew my ears off after that. I worked on the pool and the tube system under it leading to the rest room when Kalla came over and watched my work. ¡°Hi Marcus. Chara came by and told me about the new additions to the town. I''m thrilled about being able to bath again without having to go down to the river and risk being exposed to anything living in the water, but didn''t you forget something when you planned this nice pool of yours?¡± I tried hard to find any problem with my construction but failed to find anything. ¡°Ehm, not that I could think of. What do you mean?¡± Kalla rolled with the eyes and threw me a dirty look. ¡°On your home planet men and women obviously bathed naked together, didn''t they?¡± Oh, that she meant! I totally forgot. My silence gave her all the answer she needed. ¡°That''s all I wanted to tell you, have a nice day. I will be going down to the river to help with gathering food. Just that you know, elves don''t have mixed naked baths together except when they are couples or becoming one.¡± Then she turned around and went down the new stairs talking with some other people about their well-being and such stuff. ¡°As I see, you have already gotten the gist of it. My wives nagged all morning at me to get your attention. I''m also here for the first lesson you wanted to give the mages about mana manipulation.¡± Galen stood at the tree and watched the goings-on in the town. He grinned knowingly and then searched for a place to sit before my crystal. He folded his legs under himself in this unhealthy locking buddha style and then watched my crystal. ¡°If you don''t mind I will separate a part of my mind to get on with the changed pool plans. Will there be no other mages coming?¡± I asked Galen. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°They wanted to let me test your method first, before spending their precious time on a method that possibly not work for them.¡± The sarcasm in his voice was clear to anyone. ¡°They do not trust me on this matter?¡± ¡°Don''t be disappointed, Marcus. You have to understand that they take you for a creature not even old enough to walk and nonetheless someone who wants to to teach them new things about something that they studied for their whole life. I will listen and look forward to learn something new because I have reached the end of my wits with what I could find on my own. I have only 50 or 60 years to life if nothing changes and I feel the changes in my body already start to make me slower. So show me your idea.¡± I reflected for a moment about what he said and had to admit that he was right. If a newbie would have told me how to play my favorite game, I wouldn''t have listened too. ¡°For starters I want you to tell me what you feel when you try to watch magic around you.¡± ¡°What do you mean? I can feel weaker and stronger concentrations of mana around me, but I can''t see it. As magical species I think you have an advantage here.¡± ¡°Hm, ok let''s do it this way. I will create mana concentrations around you and you will detect them and try to tell me how strong they are. I will tell you the exact amount of mana they contain and from there we will try find a way of measurement for you.¡± I began to create concentrations of my mana with 100, 200 and 400 mana each and Galen told me his finds. In the process I found out, that inhabitants on this world had access to their status screens, and therefore could tell how much mana they had. They could tell how much mana a skill might need or a spell, but the exact mana detection wasn''t something anyone trained, because getting as much as possible to live a bit longer was more important than anything other. After a while I changed the amounts and told Galen the exact value when he correctly told me which concentration was bigger or smaller. He was getting better over the rest of the day but I also had other things to do. The pool had to get bigger if I needed gender related baths, so i just dug a bigger hole and layered it with more clay and stone from the river. The part for the women was bigger because there were many more women than men in my population and I also knew that women like to have someone to talk to in any occasion. I had a sudden idea I wanted to implement but I would need an enchantment for that and I didn''t know to create them without using a living thing and changing its complete nature. So I searched for another mage and found one of Galen''s wives sitting besides a fletcher working with some arrows. ¡°Sorry to intrude but I need some help with a problem of mine.¡± The brown haired woman looked up from her work and found the spot I talked from after she felt for a concentration of mana. I found out that that was the way they discovered where I was when I talked with them. And only people trained in the ways of the mage were able to do it. ¡°Hello Marcus. I''m Nala, nice to meet you at least. What can I do for you, my dear?¡± She was a nice person as it seemed. Well-mannered and with a petite build she was the image of a lady. She rested her hands on her lap and turned all of her attension to me. ¡°Well, I need some training in enchantments because I want to create one for heating the water in the pool. It would make the place much more pleasant to stay at, wouldn''t you agree?¡± Nala''s eyes lit up and she told me all of her wishes for the baths with abandon. The image of a lady disappeared and a devil rose. What have I done! 13. First enchantment ¡°That is a wonderful idea, Marcus! Let me tell you my thoughts about it and give you some hints for improving the overall design.¡± ¡°Ehm, all I wanted was to get an introduction for enchantment. We do not have much place to build now and I have to concentrate mostly on defences, so I can only build a somewhat basic bath, but I will ask you when I create the baths in the next city ring.¡± She pouted for a moment and let her head sink a bit. Then she looked up and smiled again at me. ¡°You''re right of course. I''m sorry but the escape and then the unpleasant stay under open sky without any protection made me a bit jumpy. I will try my best to help you with learning to enchant things. The basics are quite easy to learn and you have already begun with the plants you used for building here.¡± She pointed to the vines at the wall and nodded. ¡°They are a good work but they miss a real enchantment. What you did was amazing and cannot be reproduced easily by any mage. I think it has something to do with you being a city core and therefore a creature of pure magic. If you want to enchant an object, you first have to imbue it with the different kinds of mana that are used in the enchantment. For example if you want to create a burning iron blade you have to use fire and earth mana. Fire mana I don''t think to have to explain but the earth mana is used because of the material of the blade. Iron belongs to the earth. So if you enchant something you have first to check which mana reacts to the material.¡± She waited and gave me time to understand everything and perhaps ask about something I didn''t understand, but I was quiet. ¡°Good, it seems you understand that. So let''s get on with it. After having imbued the object with mana you have to manifest runes into it by using more mana and a bit of magical essence. We call this essence vis. It generates around places of power like dungeons or powerful creatures like dragons. I haven''t seen vis around here but I think that it will only be a question of time until it generates.¡± Now that was interesting, but it also created a new problem. I didn''t have any vis for an enchantment. ¡°There is also a way of creating vis in a laboratory by creating a vis crystal with massive amounts of mana. It''s a hard and not very thankful work but if you don''t have a place to get some then that''s the only way for it. I have a little bit of vis I will give to you but only if I can help you directly with the enchantment. I want to make sure that you get it right.¡± No trust here, that hurts. ¡°I will teach you all the runes I know but being honest, magical research for new runes was not high on anyone''s agenda until now. Everyone wants to live as long as possible and increasing the mana pool is the only known way for that. It could change with you creating city guardians. Without the need to increase the own life span mages will have time to research and discover new runes and perhaps better ways for living longer.¡± I agreed with her on that matter and with Chara I had my first immortal mage. I told her to come over so she could also learn with me. Nala had me imbue small pebbles with my mana to prepare them for enchanting, while Chara was observing me and after some time she tried it herself. It wasn''t as easy as I thought because different objects of variable sizes could only take so much mana before they disintegrated, quite violent. I wondered first why Nala had distanced herself from my experiment but after the first exploding stone I knew why. Chara was more gentle with her work and after my first grenade like explosion she was very careful with charging her stone. ¡°Hey Nala, do the objects keep their charge for a while?¡± She frowned and folded her arms before her chest. ¡°Yes, they keep it for at least 2 weeks and then gradually loose it over the next 4. Why?¡± I grinned inwards. ¡°I thought about charging some bigger stones and hide them all around the place and if someone attacks us I will overload them, creating a strong explosion. Do you think it will be enough to kill anyone around ground zero?¡± She paled visibly and looked with dread at me. ¡°That would be a cruel and brutal weapon to use and normally any mage wouldn''t be able to do that because you have to be near the object but for someone like you it would be perfect. I only wouldn''t want to be near the place by any chance. The splitters of the stones or whatever you use would devastate anything in their path. Bloody hell, that''s an awful way to kill, Marcus!¡± The idea came to me when I compared my memories of some movies and what happened with my pebbles. I didn''t understand what made the mines detonate but the effect seemed to be similar. I could create a magical minefield around my city that only I could use because of my incorporal state. Haha, I will turn everyone that attacks my city into mincemeat! ¡°I will only use these mines to protect my city, Nala. Nobody needs to attack me but if they do, I will use everything in my arsenal to destroy them. Is there more to enchantment I need to know or can we start with it after I don''t destroy my targets now and then?¡± Nala looked inquiring at me and then only shrugged. ¡°I hope you will use the power only for defending the city, but any knowledge can be used for good or bad. Let''s see what you will do, my friend. Now back to topic. There are advanced techniques for enchanting, but you will have to find someone more skilled than me and there are not that many around and not one in your city. The only thing I know about that is that you need mathematics for it. So that would be your next lesson after enchanting. Galen should be able to help you with that. Look forward to it.¡± I had all my memories from my previous life and I knew that I hated math. The grinning face of my last teacher in that matter came back haunting me. He always said ¡°You can run from math but wherever you go, math will find you,so get used to it.¡± The old geezer was right and I hated him for it more than ever. Bite the dust, sucker. He always made my life miserable with each test. And now I would have to learn math from the beginning again. Galen was still hard at work with improving his mana detection. If anything goes wrong and I can''t help him with increasing his life span I will get him as a city guardian as well. His massive amounts of mana would be useful for strengthening my forces. And perhaps we could research together new ways to create magical wonders. After I had reached a point where I could reliable discernif an object couldn''t take in any more mana my teacher and Chara accompanied me to the pool. I had made it two times bigger where the women bath would be drew a wall up between the two parts of the bath. I used vines again to create a canopy. My usage of stone forced me to get even more of it earlier than I thought. The harbor in the hill will come into being in a few weeks if I cut stone as fast as I did now. Nala examined my work and told me some improvements. For example she wanted an area that wasn''t as deep as the other part, where you could just lay down and enjoy the warm water. Perhaps I wasn''t clear enough before but I hadn''t thought about creating a spa for my citizen yet. When I said it loud, she threw me a look that would have been able to smelt steel. Galen, you have my pity with that woman. I don''t think that he would have much pull in the family if his other wife was as strong-minded as this one. If I had any choice with a partnership I would prefer a gentle and nice lady, but with me being a core that could become somewhat hard to reach in the future. Maybe I could ask Tiria if there were any female cores out there, but looking back I was sure that I will be the only city core for quite some time. After all I''m an experiment of the goddess and will have to prove myself before she would create any new ones. As far as I understood the elves most dungeon cores were not sapient in the same way as I am. So Tiria would have to find another suitable lost soul out there in the void. Until then I would be alone in the world. Although I had my elves and with a little bit of luck some humans too. The more the merrier was the saying I think. ¡°Nala, I will create only a small area for relaxing. I don''t have so much place here,please understand that. The big bathhouse I want to build in the second ring will have all the amenities you mentioned and some more if I can work out how they operate. I have memories of my old world but I can no longer understand anymore their workings. Tiria took that from me to give me not to much of an advantage. Even if it hurts, I have to admit that with some of that knowledge I could create quite some problems here.¡± If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Nice of you to acknowledge my wisdom, little one. I heard Tiria''s voice clearly in my mind again. Please Tiria, give me back at least my elementary school knowledge of math. I don''t want to start from scratch again. I pleaded to her. I felt a breeze in my mind and suddenly there was some of my knowledge back again.
You have learned the skill mathematics.
I thanked Tiria and promised to create a bigger and more beautiful figure for her in the temple I wanted to build for all the gods and goddesses. I felt her approval of that. ¡°Marcus, I will take your word for that and hold you responsible if you don''t deliver.¡± If Nala wouldn''t have smirked like she did I would have taken that as a threat. Chara walked around the place and turned my way suddenly. ¡°Marcus, I have an idea! I have found some soap herbs down at the river. With some life magic you could grow them in plant pots for the people to wash themselves with them.¡± I thought about it for a moment. ¡°I think, I can do better. If you could find me some good smelling herbs with medicinal usage as well I could try to combine them with magic to create a new herb with washing and medicinal use as well.¡± Chara washooked with the ideaand ran away to find some of the healers. ¡°Nice idea there, but wouldn''t it be hard to combine them together with magic? Not that I wouldn''t be thrilled by the idea. It would better for the overall health of the population and also the mood. The women will be crazy about bathing and in the future your bathhouse could become quite famous with something like that.¡± ¡°Hehehe, you don''t know half of what I have in mind for my bathhouse. I will create an onsen!¡± Nala''s face showed her obvious confusion. Seems that there was a loss of translation here. ¡°What''s an onsen? I never heard of something like that. I sounds nice, I think?¡± ¡°Do you know of hot springs? The water is very hot and is good for skin and muscles alike.¡± Excitement filled Nala''s voice when she answered. ¡°Oh, that sounds lovely. I heard that one of the elven clans up north near the mountains had something like that. My mother visited the place once and was always telling us how wonderful the water felt on her skin. Although she said that the water sprang from an underground volcano. As far as I know there is no volcano here. So how do you want to create something like that here?¡± Ok, I haven''t thought about that matter yet. I will have to study geography also. My teachers would be stunned about me if they somehow could see me now. ¡°I will think about that and find a way. There is always one. Now back to the enchantment. I want to try something. Perhaps I can invite you into my personal workspace. It would make it easier for me to work together with you lot. Please sit down and relax your mind.¡± Nala sat down and closed her eyes. Meditation technique was important for mages,so I was sure that she had the skill also. Then I sent a string of mana to her head. For a moment she resisted it and then it connected with her own mana. I created my personal workspace in my mind again and pulled the mana string into it. I recreated the pool in my mind and called the infused stones from my inventory when I felt Nala entering the room. ¡°Is that you, Marcus? Don''t mind me, but I expected a younger looking person. You made an impression of a youngster to me. But I now see a grown man before me. Or is that just an image that you show me?¡± I didn''t know how to answer first. I wasn''t even sure if I could change my appearance. In my former life I was 1,8 meter tall with 83 kilograms of mostly muscle and a bit fat. Too much burger and chips do their part to your body, you know what I mean. My dark brown hair and grey-green eyes were dominated by a slightly broken nose that I got from a collision with a branch when I was cycling downhill in the alps. Not one of my fondest memories. I bled like a cut pig. When I arrived in hospital I looked the victim in a horror movie. Overall I was not handsome but also not bad looking, just the normal guy. My clothes were blue jeans and t-shirt which earned me an interested look from Nala. ¡°Nope, that''s me. Welcome in my workspace. I wasn''t sure if this would work out, but I am pleased it did. We can do our experiments here without any danger of hurting anyone outside, I think at least.¡± I could feel her mana as a kind of separate reservoir that I could tap into. ¡°And I can also use your mana here, as it seems. That''s awesome.¡± Nala was also excited about my workspace. ¡°Can I try something, Marcus? I have a good memory of my old laboratory and want to recreate it here. Dungeons can create things out of mana and perhaps I can do it here too with you as a kind of catalyst.¡± ¡°Sure, just try it but I have to tell you, that I had to lend Dorien''s tools last time when I created something here. So i''m not sure if it will work. As you perhaps remember, I am not a dungeon core and many of the abilities that they have, I do not.¡± Nala only nodded and concentrated hard. I felt a tug on my mana and gave it to her willingly. I was curious if she could do it. I watched my mana go down fast and her mana pool dried up too quickly, but surprisingly a complete laboratory out of a mad scientist''s dream appeared around us. A light headache hit me and suddenly Tiria stood in the middle of the room. ¡°I can''t believe it! You cheated! I hadn''t expected you to just invite someone into your mind and use your core''s powers that I locked from you. I will have to change that immediately! But for discovering this little bug in the system you can keep the laboratory. I even gift you an enchantment circle for your start with the skill. Thank you for the surprise,little one and have a nice day.¡± Then she just vanished into empty air and let Nala and me standing with our mouths open. We needed some time to gather our thoughts again and regain our composure. ¡°That was a surprise. Sorry, that I locked you out from getting other useful equipment.¡± I wagged my head and said.¡±Don''t mind it. I didn''t know that it was possible and Tiria herself wasn''t aware of it herself. I got a whole magical laboratory in the deal. On my papers we are good. Just imagine what we can do in here. That absolutely the best gift ever!¡± She smiled and then began do roam the place to check if everything was here that we needed for the work. ¡°Tiria has done us a big favor. I forgot some things but she must have added them for a complete and stacked workplace. Most mages would give their right arm for something like that and if Galen hears about it or any of the other mages in the town, you will have to erect a wall around your crystal to get them off you. We lost most of our equipment when we escaped from our old home and miss it a lot.¡± She stopped at the enchantment circle on the ground in the middle of the place and studied it, tracing the line and the engraved runes with her eyes. ¡°I don''t know most of these runes here. Please invite me frequently to study them. They would help me to level my enchantment skill and I would be able to create better things for our new home.¡± ¡°Oh I will invite you here quite often. There is much work to be done and you will have to train me. I don''t think that I will be master enchanter over night. I''m pumped to start with the work. Let''s get started!¡± We went to the enchantment circle and I laid down one of the infused stones. I tried to access Nala''s bag, where I assumed the vis was stocked. Nala frowned for a moment and I felt her approval. The vis appeared in my hands. It looked like a rock crystal as big as a man''s fist and glowed slightly. Nala took it from my hands broke a small part of it off. As easy as it looked the material was obviously very brittle. I would have to handle it with caution. She went to a boiler and threw the crystal into a test tube, then heating it until the crystal became liquid suddenly increasing its glow to the strength of a lamp. Then she quickly dashed the substance over the stone where it solidified quickly totally enveloping the stone. ¡°You have to be quick with the liquefied vis because it evaporates fast without an infused object. Now we have to add the runes to the stone and finish the enchantment. For engraving we use this quill here. It helps with concentrating mana.¡± I looked at the oversized quill made from an unknown bird feather and just shrugged. ¡°I have a very good control of my mana. I don''t think that I need the quill for writing. Just show me the runes I have to engrave and where to apply them and I will try it.¡± She was first reluctant to change the process but then gave in and showed me what I had to do. The stone I was enchanting looked like a six-sided die with 10 centimeters lateral length. On each side I had to engrave runes for fire and earth alike. ¡°Engraving runes is very tiring work because the solidified vis is a substance almost as hard as diamond. Therefore most mages write bigger runes to ensure correct lines. The more runes you can engrave on the object, the more power the enchantment gets. So try to be careful with getting the lines correct. For starters draw them bigger and later you can make them smaller as you get more proficient with your skill. And watch your mana usage. If you use too much and have not enough for ending the rune, all your work will be wasted and the object will be destroyed. More powerful enchantments can devastate your laboratory without any problems.¡± I checked my mana and discovered that I only had 50 mana left to work with. I changed to the submind working with Galen. ¡°Hey Galen, I need you to help with something for a moment. I will connect my mana with yours and invite you to my inner mind. Don''t try to resist please and come with me. I have an awesome surprise for you. Nala is also already there and working with me on a new project of mine.¡± Galen looked sceptical but shrugged and then began to meditate. I did the same trick with him that I already used on Nala and moments later he joined us in the lab. He looked around, discovered Nala and my smirking glorious self standing at the enchantment circle and I saw almost saliva running out of his open mouth. ¡°Bloody hell! Marcus, is this for real? Wait a moment, is this really you? I mean, you look a bit other than I imagined you.¡± I was a bit angered now. Did all of them think I was a child? ¡°Yeah, dammit. That''s me. Shut your trap and help me with your mana. I try to enchant this stone over there and need some juice for it. So thank you for your help.¡± Then I just tugged on his mana and felt it flow into me. This time however I was in control of the it and it didn''t just overload me. Man, this guy sure had a massive mana pool. I turned back my stone and concentrated my mana on my fingertip. A shiny needle appeared and I engraved my first runes into the vis. I watched the mana usage and discovered that each rune needed 50 mana points. With Galen''s massive mana pool I could engrave much more runes into the stone than we first discussed. I concentrated harder and made the runes much smaller now. I heard the other two gasping behind me but I ignored them until my work was done and all sides of the stone were covered with golden glowing runes. When I finished my work the stone lit up shortly and then I watched the vis sinking into the stone taking the runes with it. After that the stone changed its appearance to something that looked like marble and I could feel heat emanating from it like that one time I was standing beside a smith at a medieval market. The temperature was quite high and I was pleased with my work. This stone would be enough to heat the whole pool. ¡°That was impressive, Marcus. Your mana manipulation is unbelievable. I want to learn it more than ever now. Get me back outside. I will train like never before if I can do things like that with it.¡± Galen disappeared moments later and I watched him working harder than ever with a determined look on his eyes and also a grin. Damn learning maniacs. And for worse, I was damned to do the same! 14. Downgrade
You learned the skill Enchanting.
Yeah, baby! Now we''re talking. Nala went to my newly created heat-stone and examined it closely using different tools from the lab. I watched her doings and waited for her opinion. ¡°That''s a really nice piece of work but you were also unbelievable lucky. This base material of the stone is of very high durability. That''s the reason I told you to only apply fewer runes to each side and not the mass you did. The complexity of the rune structure and the number of the runes engraved depends on the material you use, to be precise the durability and quality of the enchanted object. And as I watched now it also depends on the ability of someone to use mana efficiently. I will attend your teachings too. Looking at the results of careful mana usage it is obvious to me now what someone can achieve with mana manipulation. I don''t understand why nobody did discover the connection between enchanting and this special skill.¡± I thought back to my former world and remembered some examples of obvious facts that look completely logical when you have enough information, something like the earth being a globe. Hey, Tiria let me keep this knowledge! ¡°So I have to consider the overall ability of an object to hold runes by accounting quality and durability of an object I want to enchant. I think I can work with that. Thank you for teaching me that. Now that I have this heat-stone I will try to think of methods to use it also for defending our town. Maybe we can use it for heating water to boiling point and then dump it on attackers.¡± Nala flinched a bit and I realised that she was much more delicate than I thought. Everybody had a weak point. She seemed to be a pure crafter and researcher and not much of a frontliner. ¡°We will continue our lesson later then, but now I want to work on my ability to control my mana.¡± She disappeared like Galen did and I saw her standing up and walking over to her husband, joining the lesson there. ¡°Good, we can talk now,little one.¡± Tiria stood suddenly in my workspace and looked at me somewhat pissed. ¡°Do you even remotely understand what you have done?¡± I could sense her anger and took a step back and then kneeled down. ¡°I am very sorry, my goddess but I do not understand what I have done to incite your anger.¡± Tiria watched me shortly, then she sniffed at me and sat down on sudden created chair. ¡°Ok, to summarize it, all the gods on this world and some others have taken notice of you and your ability to change the future of complete planets. You have to understand that my dungeons are nothing that could create bigger changes in the political and economical infrastructure of a world. Sure they provide a challenge to adventurers and sometimes threaten some regions with their monsters but they cannot influence the development of whole nations to a larger degree. You instead are able to create a city with researchers, crafters and soldiers. Such a city in an underdeveloped world can change everything. Even now these two mages you are teaching will initiate a change in the perception of some skills that will lead to big innovations. The other gods have noticed that and are hammering on my doors to also give their peoples their own city cores or limit your powers. I already have erased most of your knowledge and now I have to limit your ability to manipulate mana. You will still be a journeyman in it but you will have to level it to old heights on your own.¡± Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. I was stunned by her revelations. Never would I have guessed that my work would give her such problems. ¡°I will have my revenge on these idiots nonetheless. When you reach grand master of your skill you will be even better than you are now, but it will need some time and training to do so. I hate politics and therefore only created my dungeons to keep out of it, but now all the big shots will try to get favors from me and try to influence me. If I had known what a mess this would create I wouldn''t have given you this body, but I stand to my creations and you''re just doing your job. I will adapt and try to get as much out of it as possible. Just do me a favor and don''t start building an empire right away. The other gods would release hell on me if their power would be cut down by a creation of mine.¡± I reflected about it and came to a conclusion. ¡°If I gather many different races in my city and demand that no god is favored in my influence, would that help you?¡± She gazed sharp and piercing at me and contemplated for a minute. I sweat a lot under this gaze and feared that I had angered her again. ¡°That could indeed help somewhat. You will have to build a temple right away as your first building in this second ring you mentioned before. I will tell the other gods to deliver figures of them to you to set them up in the building. I will also tell them to create the blueprints of it for you to build. It will take them some time to reach an agreement and this will give you enough leeway for building your defences. You only have 3 weeks before enemies will be at your walls, so man up and raise your power,little one. You may have caused me some headache but know that I am pleased with your progress.¡± I sighed after getting this countdown. Not much time to work with but I had to do anyhow. ¡°That would all have been much easier to do if I had known magic before.¡± ¡°Oh you think, there is no magic on your homeworld? You''re quite mistaken. Earth produces much more mana than most other worlds in the universe but the humans there did cause a big upheaval some thousands of years ago and were punished for it. All their mana and knowledge was taken from them and their numbers were reduced. Your people have regained some of its former power but it will take much more for them to regain their magic.¡± I was shocked by that revelation. ¡°You mean, that there is magic on earth? Where did it go?¡± ¡°That is something you don''t have time to think about for now and I won''t give you the details now. Survive your next millenium and perhaps we will talk again about it. Oh and guard your core closely because the attackers will try to seize you for their own. As the only city core you are quite the precious loot, you know.¡± Then she vanished again and I was alone with my thoughts.
You have learned the skill Mana manipulation.
I checked my status again to see the changes.
Name Marcus Race City dungeon
Level 6 Mana 370/2100 1/h reg 120/minute from citizen
Int 16 Wis 16
Cha 16 Luck 10
Skills:
Earth Newbie 10% Water Newbie 10%
Air Newbie 0% Fire Newbie 14%
Life Newbie 19% Mind Speech Adept 10%
Architecture Beginner 3% Sculptor Newbie 7%
Mana Manipulation Journeyman 1% Enchanting Newbie 15%
Mathematics Newbie 10%
Range of influence 140 meters
Number of citizens 136 (providing 120 mana/minute) 1 City guardian
Inventory 32 m3 (1m3 used)
I got better again and my mana regeneration went up by quite some margin. Perhaps my city guardian and Gillian did this. I will have to check it out. Now back to work and I will have to talk with my pupils that I got a downgrade as I didn''t believe for a moment that they will not notice my lesser skill with manipulating mana. 15. Hard words Galen and Nala sat beside each other in front of my core and tried to detect the amount of mana correctly when something seemed to disturb them. ¡°Marcus, I don''t want to be smart-arse but did you loose concentration just now on purpose?¡± I sighed and thought about how to break the news to them. ¡°I had a visit from Tiria just now and got a downgrade because my enchantments seemed to be too powerful because of my mastered mana manipulation skill. She set it to journeyman and told me that some of the other gods were quite jealous of my powers, therefore we have to be cautious as some of them might send agents to steal my core. For the foreseeable future I will be the only city core and most of the powers on this world seem to be willing to fight for me and the advantages I can offer to whoever holds my core. Oh,and she gave us a countdown for the attack of the goblins, saying that we have three weeks for preparations.¡± Galen and Nala looked at each other and then stood up, searching for Kalla. ¡°She''s down at the river if you search for the princess. I have already broken the news to her and she is on the way to us right now for an emergency meeting. There are some ideas I want to try for our defences but I have some questions first and depending on the answers I will have possible ways to better our chances of rebuking the small green critters that are coming for our throats. I also want to try a possible cheat for giving you the mana manipulation skill but it will depend on how far Tiria is prepared to give me leeway for it, and I want to increase my level as soon as possible to get new skills. Somewhere in my skill tree has to be something to better our chances and I''m sure that there will be at least one skill when I reach level 10.¡± The two mages looked at me and grinned suddenly which gave me goosebumps seeing it. I had a premonition of what they were planning, but if I wanted to get stronger as fast as our future was demanding then I would have to put up with some pain and level the hard way again. ¡°Ok, Galen, bring it on. I know what you''re thinking and I admit that it is needed, so just give me all of your mana and I will adapt to it like last time.¡± The old mage didn''t need any more stimulation and put his hand on my core and I was again feeling intense pain when his mana put me on the edge of breaking apart. My body grew again using the crystal in my inventory, but this time I leveled not once but twice in one row. The pain was intense enough that I regretted my decision right away and when Nala put her hand on my grown crystal I wanted to stop her with my whole being but I wasn''t strong enough to raise my voice and could only watch in horror her hand touching my body, sending also her mana into me. My vision became narrow and turned to black and white. I lost my sense of time and space completely, surrounded by grey void and loud screaming noises that seemed to say something to me, but I was so fixated to escape this mess I got into that the meaning fled me. I got back my consciousness after what seemed days to me, but looking at the sun and the elves that stood around me with worried expressions I recognized that only two hours must have gone by. Kalla called me repeatedly and with growing fear in her voice. ¡°Marcus,please answer me! We need you, just don''t give up!¡± I saw Galen and Nala standing aside with some elves closely watching them with weapons drawn and a new screen awaiting my attention.
You have reached level 10!
New Ability unlocked: City buff
You can summon another city guardian
New Title: Crazy Evolver
Nice, but I have to solve the problem in front of me first and then check the new additions out. ¡°Hey, sorry to have made you worry about me, but I have told Galen to help me get some levels. As it seems I hadn''t made myself clear enough because Nala also gave me her mana and that was more than I could take easily. The last hours have been a personal hell I don''t want to revisit, so just release the two and then let''s get back to business. We have some work to do and I need them for an experiment that could solve some problems.¡± Kalla nodded to the guards and they took a step back, putting their weapons away. Most of the elves still watched the pair cautiously but went back to their business after the imminent crisis had been ended. An elven woman with red curly hair that reached down to her bottom and a nice female build went to the released pair and drew them into a hug. ¡°I''m just a day away and you cause such an uproar here! It seems that I will have to watch you two more closely for some time and see to it that you stay out of trouble.¡± She turned around to and made a curtsy showing her ample cleavage hold back by a leather outfit that hug her athletic body like a second skin. ¡°Lord Marcus, my name is Kitara and I am Galen''s second wife, leading scout of our settlement and at your service. If these two have caused you misery please share their punishment with me as I stand to my husband and co-wife in every situation.¡± The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. I was impressed by her behaviour and asked myself what I would have to do to get such a babe for myself, and this old geezer had two of them. The world wasn''t fair! ¡°There are no hard feelings from me, Lady Kitara, as my own stupidity lead to this situation. I will try to be more precise with my words next time to avoid being almost thrown into the void again.¡± Galen and Nala had the decency to flinch when I said my sentence. I wasn''t especially angry with them but a little punishment wasn''t beneath me. ¡°As you offered so generously your help I will take you by your word to help me with an experiment of mine,¡± I said and then focused back onto Galen, ¡°Galen, I have a question relating to your marriage with these two ladies here. Is there some magic in the connection or is it only something on the paper? I mean, would a spell targeting you also somewhat affect any of your wives?¡± Bewildered Galen hesitated to answer my question,¡± I don''t understand your intention with this. Can you clarify what you want to try?¡± I gathered my thoughts and saw that most of the elves around us showed strong curiosity turning their heads so they could hear the discussion better. I had used my mind speech like a loudspeaker until now and changed it to some selected few persons now, limiting the circle of people down to Kalla, Galen and his wives. ¡°OK, I want to try creating a new city guardian, but there will be a twist. If this marriage is magical in its core I think I can use this to create not one but three guardians in one go. I''m quite sure that Tiria will give me her thoughts about it but I''m not violating the rules the rules directly, at least I think I don''t. Are you up to it?¡± Galen and his wives shared some concerned looks and I saw the redhead nodding slightly when Galen turned back to me and said,¡± Alright, Marcus, first the connection is magical in its core, because we give our promises to our goddess and she approves them or not, creating a magical force enforcing our vows. So there is perhaps something you can use to do whatever you are trying to do and make all of us into city guardians, which I will certainly approve.¡± That''s the spirit I need for this undertaking, and watching Nala and Kitara nodding their agreement even if the second one a little bit hesitant, I used their feelings of guilt towards me by sending each one a magical invitation to my inner mind. Galen and Nala sat down immediately but Kitara was bewildered first and after watching her partners beginning to meditate, copied them and accepted my invitation. Kalla watched the show and guessed that I was up to something, having a somewhat jealous and grumpy expression. I was sure that she would have liked to become a city guardian too and so I said, ¡°Princess Kalla, would you like to watch the experiment? All you have to do is sitting down and meditate. I will send you an invitation and by accepting it your mind will make a connection to my inner mind where the show will happen.¡± She looked suddenly a bit frightened and I almost feared that she would refuse but then her expression changed and with determination in her voice she answered, ¡°Go ahead, Marcus, I will join you and the others. In fact I thought you couldn''t have another city guardian so soon but it seems that your growth enabled you to enlist a new one and if there is even a remote chance for more of us becoming your defenders, I will take it.¡± I wanted to tell her right away what has happened but only answered, ¡°Just sit down and enjoy the show. We will discuss everything inside.¡± She followed my advice and my invitation took her also inside my mind where the other three eagerly awaited me and studied the lab in the meantime. As soon as Kalla appeared I joined them surprising the elven princess with my looks. ¡°I took you for someone a bit younger but I guess that doesn''t make any difference now,¡± Kalla just shrugged and looked around the place with curiosity in her gaze, ¡°That''s a really impressive laboratory that you have here, even better than anything I had myself at my former home. Although I would like to explore the place for some time and try some things, I think we have some other issues to keep our attention.¡± I nodded and smiled polite to my guests, pointing to a place with a table and 5 chairs made from stone, ¡°Let''s sit down and discuss, what I have in mind and then you can give me your thoughts about it. I know we could have had this talk outside too, but I like the feeling of my body and looking you in the eyes when talking makes it so much easier for me to express my intentions.¡± Galen and the others only grinned and sat down on their chairs. Kitara examined the place with her eyes and then turned to me, ¡°Lord Marcus, I had a long journey and no chance to catch any refreshment,so would you be so kind and offer me something to drink?¡± I frowned and just wanted to create a cup when I realized that this wouldn''t help her in any way, ¡°Kitara, I fear that will have to wait. Only your mind is here with your body resting outside, so any refreshments I could offer you here would be completely useless. I hope this won''t take too long, but knowing your needs we will take a short break if this takes longer than an hour. Is this okay with you?¡± She smiled and I was taken aback by her beauty when her whole aura changed, ¡°You are so kind, my lord, but I can wait for this conversation to end. I''m curious what you want to try with us and what benefits it will pop out for me and my partners.¡± Her smile was disarming and I had to gather my senses before I could answer, ¡°I will try to connect to your magical ties with each other and bind you all with my magic as my city guardians. I should have enough mana now for this to work out, but a little bit of residual risk is still given. I would understand it if you or the others wouldn''t want to try this experiment of mine, but with the possible gains of two additional guardians our forces would get much more powerful.¡± Galen took Kitara''s left hand and explained what I already said when I chose Chara as my guardian, ¡°The best advantage of it would be the immortality we could gain. You know that dungeons can fortify some monsters and create bosses that they can revive when these are killed, right?¡± After seeing her nod, he continued his speech,¡± Marcus will be able to do this also as long as we are in his range of influence and even if we are killed outside of it, there is still a chance for coming back from the dead if someone can bring our cores back to Marcus here,¡± He threw a curious look at me,¡± By the way, is this similar to the magic cores some bosses drop when they are killed?¡± I was at a loss here and raised my hands defensively, ¡°I''m sorry, but as Chara hasn''t been killed until now, I have no clue about it. But when I concentrate on her I feel something inside her skull connecting with me, so perhaps that''s the place where her core is located.¡± Galen shortly pressed his lips together, thinking about it and then continued, ¡°I also heard that Marcus can bestow his own skills onto each of his guardians and even buff their abilities somewhat depending on his own strenght and give us access to his own mana pool. Naturally this also works the other way.¡± Kitara frowned and looked at me, ¡°This almost sounds too good to be true, so what is your gain in this?¡± I leaned back into my chair and felt the eyes of all my guests on me when I answered the question, ¡°You are right, there has to be some hooks attached to being a city guardian. The first one would be that you are bound to me and have to follow my orders. The second is the fact, that I can take over your body and use it as long as I like with or without your consent. I am a benevolent guy and wouldn''t do this without a good cause but you have to accept this if you want to become immortal. And last but not least is the fact that I always can release you from your duties when you violate my rules or betray me in some way. I haven''t said this publicly because some people that want to become guardians themselves would perhaps try to put you in a bad light and therefore hamper my growth as a city with their intrigues.¡± Kalla squeezed her eyes, anger in her voice when she addressed me, ¡°You haven''t said that you could take over the guardian''s body when you selected Chara before.¡± I only shrugged and with a plain expression answered her, ¡°You are right but I guessed that all of you knew that dungeons are able to guide their bosses directly by possessing them. You all seemed to know so much about dungeons and I think that I did Chara a favor when I chose her because she can become a very powerful mage sometime in the future with the right guide. I won''t use her as a body substitute only to experience the world again with my former senses, but I will use her to defend myself,so suck it up, princess and let''s go on.¡± 16. Fireball anyone? The princess''s eyes flashed and anger distorted her beautiful face for a moment before she could reign her emotions back in, her years in diplomatic training showing in this moment. I watched her closely, challenging her with my eyes and waiting for her response when Galen and Nala both harrumphed to get our attention. I looked to the older elf and his wife when Galen started to talk, ¡°This wasn''t very polite, Marcus and you know it and I think that Kalla just was unprepared for your sudden change in attitude even if I already assumed something like that because nothing is for free and you have to gain some advantages for selecting mortals like us as your guardians. I wouldn''t be against becoming one knowing all the package includes. In regard of what the near future holds for us I even think that it would be perfect for me and my wives to ally with you because in case we are killed in the action you can revive us again, and knowing this I will be in the mids of the maelstorm hammering your enemies with everything I got.¡± I nodded happy and saw Kitara and Nala also agreeing. Kalla let her shoulders sink when she realized that she was on the wrong side of the conflict and added, ¡°I apologize for my attitude and will no longer argue about it but I have to admit that I thought of you as an easy going guy until now and it''s hard to just change that. You didn''t show any hard decision making and just followed the flow so I was surprised to suddenly get confronted with this new side of you. Is there more to follow where this came from?¡± I leaned back in my chair and relaxed, releasing the tension in me now that the situation defused a bit, ¡°I had a visit from Tiria just now and she told me some shocking news and hampered me also somewhat,¡± Guessing by the shocked looks ofKalla and Kitarait wasn''t commonplace for gods to visit this realm,¡± I wanted to discuss it with you guys because there will be some decisions to make and I wanted you hear your opinion of some ideas I had. First Tiria limited my ability to manipulate mana down to a journeyman, so I will have to train this skill back to old heights and therefore Iwon''t be able to create such strong enchantments again like I did with the heat-stone, ¡°the disappointment on Galen''s and Nala''s Face was obvious. ¡°Second she told me that all of the other gods on this world and some others wished for their own city cores but she wouldn''t grant them their wishes painting therefore a target on my back because they all will now try to seize me. I told her that to prevent that I will welcome all races in my city and build a massive temple for all the gods, so you will have to live peacefully with your enemies inside my walls as long as they keep to the rules,¡± all the elves seemed to have bitten in a lemon by the looks of their grumpy faces. ¡°The goblins and lizards are on their way here to catch me before that happens which brings us to point three. They are on the war path and will arrive in three weeks in front of my walls which puts some serious pressure on our combined efforts.¡± The elves were shocked if I interpreted their pale faces right and the slight trembling of Nala''s hands which were taken quickly by Galen and Kitara. Galen''s first wife took me for a strong woman before but the prospect of another devastating fight against their former enemies hit her harder than I thought. Kalla just closed her eyes shortly and then looked straight into mine, ¡°Alright, tell me what ideas you sport. You seem quite relaxed regarding they are about to seize your core and destroy what you have build till now.¡± I concentrated and before us appeared something from old japan which nowadays is called a caltrop made from stone and I had to thank my extensive movie watching for getting this idea. Figuring out how to create them and their possible uses was quite easy after remembering the scenes where they crippled infantry and cavalry alike by just throwing them in their way. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I pointed to the item and gave them an explanation about it, ¡° As you can see, this little sucker isn''t very big but that makes it also easy to hide it in high grass. Distributed around the walls it will slow the enemy, hurt them and give our archers and mages enough time to cut down their numbers in the first engagement, but after that I think the enemy will adapt and try to clear them, ¡°I paused for a moment and raised two fingers. ¡°So for my second defence I will create something that dungeons are famous for, namely traps. I will spread pitfalls all over the place with stone spears on the deep end, which will only trigger when a specific weight is on the upper part. To channel the enemy to the traps I will create a new plant which will become a bigger headache with my reduced mana manipulation but I will try it nonetheless. My plan is to create a bush with thorns on it that delivers a poison with deadly nightshade on it that makes the victims go nuts. I will have to make the bushes resistant to fire and hacking to avoid them being cut down easily after the enemy learns of their abilities. For all these things I will need massive amounts of mana and therefore you all will have to give me as much of it as possible. And then I have a last idea but I need some information about the elves first.¡± After my long monologue they were silent and digested all the information I just gave them with Galen being the first to search my attention again, ¡°That was much to take in and I will try to come up with some additions to your plan also but lets discuss first what you want to know.¡± I smiled and looked to Kalla who still examined the caltrop before her,¡± Kalla, how many archers do you have and are all elves proficient with bows?¡± Annoyed she looked at me, ¡°I think there are about 30 archers altogether in the city and no, not all of us can use a bow just because we are elves although most people seem to think that we are born with one in the hands, ¡°Looking down on her hands somewhat frustrated she continued, ¡°Most of us are not even strong enough to fire 10 arrows in a row much less hit anything standing more than 10 meters away standing motionless.¡± I pressed my lips together and thought about it for a moment before I created an image like a hologram in front of me on the table, showing a crossbow I had last studied on wikipedia because of an interest in the middle ages and their weaponry. ¡°That''s a crossbow and the biggest advantage of it is that it can be used by weak and mostly untrained persons to hit things with some punch behind it. It has a slightly worse shooting rate than a bow but if 3 people work together and use more than one crossbow they can strain and fire almost as fast as a skilled archer and with enough crossbows you can even fire a massive salvo first and then let the better shooters take over. We could slaughter one to two hundred enemies at once with this.¡± Galen examined the weapon closely from all directions, his eyes darting from one detail to the next when Kitara caught my eyes by raising one hand like a school girl back on earth. I had to smile when I saw her gesture and she answered also with a grin. ¡°Is this a weapon from your old world and how is it possible for you to create it if Tiria deleted your knowledge about it?¡± I shrugged and took a more comfortable position on the chair,¡±She indeed deleted my understanding of most of the things I knew back there but if you have seen its function you can reverse engineer anything with enough time. The crossbow isn''t very advanced and I had watched some elaborate designs so I was able to rediscover its workings quite easily, which will possibly cause Tiria to limit me again, but I hope that she will wait long enough with it that we are able to build a stronger defence.¡± ¡°We will have to give the plans to our craftsmen,¡± Kalla said with new found enthusiasm,¡±and see what they can do and how fast. We also will need more wood and sinews for the bowstrings. Marcus, can you take some of them here and show them this design?¡± I nodded with reluctance and answered,¡± I could, but I would prefer to only have one of them in my inner mind. There is that guy named Dorien that is a carpenter and he could use the design to create a prototype which the others could copy and mass produce. I also haven''t seen any of the mages use their battle magic to assess their abilities which could help me in figuring out a better defence plan. For example, how far can you throw a fireball or how big would a firewall be?¡± Galen, Nala and Kalla looked completely blank at me and after some seconds Nala asked me, ¡°What is a fireball?¡± 17. Possible mistake? Now I was the one who stared blankly at them not believing that the epitomes of all fantasy novels on my former world didn''t know what a fucking fireball was. I knew that this world was pretty young and all races didn''t have much time to develop intricate magical knowledge but what did they do with their mana all their time? I mean there has to have been someone who used magic in new ways advancing to more than just using his affinity with some special kind of magic and hurling a flamethrower at an enemy, right? My surprise and complete disbelief obvious I answered the question, ¡°A fireball is a contained ball of fire magic that you throw some distance before it explodes violently burning and smashing everything in its radius away. I thought that something like that would be a standard spell here with all the mages and mana using civilians around.¡± Galen and Kalla looked at each other and then let their shoulders sink, looking somewhat ashamed and discouraged Galen met my eyes saying, ¡°I''m sorry to disappoint you but because of our inability to guide mana exactly the way we want it to, such spells as you call them are hopelessly beyond our reach,¡± His eyes lit up with excitement now, ¡±but now that you teach us your skill we could perhaps learn to create such things like a fireball and anything else you have seen in your old home. Although that brings us back to our former topic namely our rise to city guardians.¡± Oh yeah, there was that thing, I almost forgot about it with this shocking revelation of their primitive magic research. But I will not let them off the hook so easily. ¡°Alright, but you have to show me now what you did with all this mana that you have amassed. I mean there has to be more than just the equivalent to a magical cudgel and hoping that your enemy does not have a bigger one at his disposal, am I right?¡± Galen drooped, confirming my biggest fears when he said, ¡°That''s more or less the way it''s been as long as I can remember. We train to get access to more affinities to widen our repertoire but although I tried to form my mana in different ways I always failed hurting myself in the process. After some time I just surrendered and concentrated on building up my mana pool to be the guy with the biggest cudgel as you so eloquently phrased it.¡± Poor Galen, I hit right into the guts. If this whole planet was so bad with magic I will have to invent most of the spells I always wanted to cast. That''s absolutely bullshit, I want to be transferred to a more sophisticated world, right away, goddess express now please! After my inner rage monologue I again watched the miserable old elf in front of me and pitied him more than ever. He might have two wonderful and enchanting wives but his people was hunted down and killed because they didn''t have powerful magic to defend against an enemy that could propagate much faster than the elves. Quantity had its own quality as someone on earth had said, I think. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. My work would not only help them to survive, it would also give them the ability to express all their potential hopefully. I gathered my thoughts again and gestured the three elves to come with to the enchantment circle where I hoped to get some help from the runes to find the connection and use it for my magic. I took Nala''s and Kitara''s hands and they took Galen''s forming a circle in the enchantment circle. Then I sent a little bit of my mana into Nala and Kitara and watched its distribution in their bodies, hoping that a little bit of it went to Galen somehow. Knowing that Galen''s mana pool wasn''t completely full there should flow a bit to him as well and by following the traces I was quite sure that I could find the connection Alvera created when the three took their vows. After some seconds I recognized a little bit of my mana flowing to Nala''s heart and then to her left arm down to her hand where it stopped shortly as if it hit a resistance and then going on to Galen''s hand. I focused harder to see where exactly it connected with the old elf but unfortunately I couldn''t find it, which only meant that I had to repeat it until I got it right. For the next hour I constantly send mana to both women but I wasn''t able to find the connection, frustration building in me and some curses escaping me when suddenly Kalla said, ¡°Marcus, perhaps you have to look at Nala and Kitara simultaneously?¡± This girl surprised me again and again, what a shame that I couldn''t turn her into a city guardian without angering Alvera and disregarding that Kalla didn''t seem to be willing anymore after she heard about the disadvantages of being a city guardian. Summoning one of my subminds which just looked like a smaller version of myself floating a hand above the ground, I focused again on the project. My mana went again to both women but this time I could watch them simultaneously and then I sensed for the first time the flow between all three of them and it was an epiphany to me. There was an enchantment I could watch, weak and easily overlooked but the runes creating a magical string connecting all three of them and binding them. The runes made no sense for me but as I was just a noob at enchanting that wasn''t really surprising. Now that I could see the magic I could try to use it for my goals. I ignored the possible wrath of an elven goddess for hijacking her work and grabbed at it with all my mana trying to convert the three elves into my guardians. The magic resisted me and tried to shake me off but I persisted and fought for control with my whole being, my subminds returning to me and helping in the fight. Golden light enveloped Galen,Kitara and Nala blinding me temporary and I suddenly felt them connecting with my consciousness the same way like Chara when I became a heavy hit against my head as if someone hit me over with a baseball bat. ¡°You little imbecile! I just look away for a moment and you cause a major fallout with Alvera! You really pulled some prank here that I will erase at once,¡± Tiria stood above me and had her fist upraised with energy crackling around it, the elves cowering back from her trying to find a place to hide, but right when I felt that she would release the magic to smash me into the ground a new person appeared next to the angry goddess. I had already seen Alvera but back then she was cheerful and had an aura of benevolence and happiness around her. This time I felt like I was squashed by her power and my thoughts all stopped from pure fear. ¡°Please wait dear sister, I want to speak with your underling for a moment and if he gives me a good explanation for this incident I won''t demand satisfaction for it, ¡°Gazing at me and giving of the feeling of a predator watching its prey she smirked and said, ¡°Now my little Marcus, let''s have a talk. You have been a naughty boy for hijacking my holy magic and you will now answer me for your transgression.¡± 18. Anger was the goal? Something in me just ticked out now. These damn goddesses think they can boss me around the way they like without giving me any clear orders and then visit me like they own the place! Enough is enough, I didn''t know where this rage came from but I used it to get rid of the fear the two divine beings infused me with. ¡°What transgression? You yourself told me to protect your people and do my best to help them grow and that''s exactly what I have been doing by choosing the strongest mages around and by the way, it would have been a jackass decision to only give one of them immortality, ¡° I had a run now and pointed to Tiria, ¡°And you just threw me into this business with no clear orders or rules given and then come crying about how I made all the other gods come to you disturbing your holy rest, then painting a target on my back because you didn''t want to create others like me. If any of these guys ordered his people to seize me, he or she can forget a place in my temple, that I can assure you of!¡± Both of them looked completely shocked at me, their wrathful auras gone like the wind and stared at me like they had been knocked over by a truck. Alvera was the first to gather her senses again and I feared that I now would pay for my words when she just grinned and turned her head back to Tiria, saying, ¡°Look here, the young core shows his fangs and grows a spine. I feared that you would be too soft and kind-hearted for this world and therefore didn''t have enough aggression in you for bringing the hammer down on your foes.¡± Ehm, what? I''m being screwed here by the ladies, right? Tiria watched me with an amused and also a bit angered look, ¡°So you like rules and orders? And I am guilty for not giving them to you? It has been some time since one of my creations went up against me. I will stop to put any further limits on you and just let you do what you like. The other gods will cry about it but I think I will enjoy the show of you trying to stand your ground against their forces. I will tell them that everyone of them who tries to seize your core will be banished from your temple, but will this also apply to the god''s people?¡± My gaze hard as stone I answered, ¡°Hell yes! Everyone who thinks to break my rules in MY CITY is banished from it together with his people. I don''t need any of these guys here if they just want to disturb my peace.¡± Both goddesses grinned now and gave each other a high five. ¡°Mission accomplished! This idiot Gammorren with his goblins and lizards will never get access to the city now, as we will take your words as a vow. I was bothered about them living in the same place like my elves. Bring your hammer down on them as hard as you''re able to and use their bones to build your city,as I hate them with passion,¡± Alvera was quite agitated about the topic, but regarding the fact that so many elves had died by the goblins hands I would also be in her case, ¡°Take this crystal for growing again. As I understood Tiria, you need some other kind now that you have reached level 10. This should be enough for you to level 5 times more and you should make use of it as fast as possible. Your new guardians should provide you with enough mana for it. I''m also interested how fast you can make them throw fireballs at their enemies, so do not disappoint me please. I did not create my people with good mana affinity for the goblins to kill them because the elves haven''t had enough time for discovering some secrets about magic. I will leave you now and let Tiria take over from here. Heed my advice and do not let anybody push you around, even if it''s a god. You are more powerful than you think. Just use your imagination and this wealth of memories you have from earth to change this planet.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. After her speech she winked at me and then a blinding light appeared again. When I could see again she was gone and Tiria sat on one of my chairs with the elves standing some meters away clouded together with open fear in their eyes. She pointed to a chair besides her and with a turn of her hand glasses filled with something looking like a Coke appeared on the table. ¡°Sit down and let''s talk for a moment, Marcus,¡± I sat down and took a sip, immediately recognizing the wonderful taste of pure sugar running down my throat, ¡°As Alvera said, you should be more aggressive with your actions if someone tries to hamper you. I was surprised that you just accepted everything I said without a word of anger. I won''t do it again and to hell with the others always lamenting about this and that. Just remembering what a shitstorm hit me after I created my first dungeon core, gets my blood boiling. I won''t give back your knowledge to you or give you the same powers like a dungeon core to create things out of pure mana, but you have the advantage of being sentient which is something that my dungeon cores have to work hard for. It takes normally hundreds of years before any of them can be called intelligent and that''s a big advantage. My intelligent dungeons are the most powerful and dangerous creatures on any world I have spread them, but this world here isn''t old enough that any of them has become old and powerful enough to pose a threat on the local life.¡± She leaned back and the chair changed like it was made from gelatine. She followed my gaze and smiled, ¡°With enough training and studying you will be able to change matter the same way like a dungeon core but that''s something in the far future as even the humans on earth haven''t discovered how to do it,¡± She looked to my guests and gestured them to sit down at the table too. An additional chair rose from the ground and with some hesitation they took their place. Tiria smiled politely and turned her gaze on Kalla, ¡°Princess, I know that you will have some resentments against things Marcus will do but I can promise you, that he will do his best to guard his city and all of its inhabitants as long as they work together with and not against him, so I recommend that you remind the other elves to behave in the future and not make the mistake to treat my core as a kind of tool. He is in charge here and even if they are nobility all power originates from Marcus in this city and that''s something that won''t change as long as he''s alive.¡± She looked to Galen and smirked a bit,¡± You and your wives will be Marcus heavy hitters for quite some time and I hope that you also understand that he is now your boss, not the princess over there. If anyone tries to order you around or Marcus, just hit him with the biggest cudgel around and imbue some humility into him or her. Oh, and if Marcus shows sign of being weak again, just remind him to be ruler and not a weak wimp. He''s a little bit too kind-hearted and needs to man up a bit but I think that the coming fight will mature him more than anything else. Do you understand?¡± Galen and his wives nodded serious and bowed their heads afterwards. I was still in shock about the fact that the two goddesses just messed around with me to put me in the right place, ¡°So this heavenly wrath and punishments were just means to make me angry?¡± I couldn''t deny that I was still a bit furious about her. ¡°Oh yes, my dear. My creatures are beings of power and have to show the world that they will smash everything and anything standing in their way. You still can be polite and friendly but if someone shows any kind of bad behaviour just put him into place and leave a corpse behind. Do it twoor three times and even the biggest dumbass out there will get the meaning, and if they forget about it, just repeat the procedure with some more victims. You have to build a legend around you, something that inspires awe and fear into your subjects and enemies alike. And now I will teach you something about using your mana to change living things more precisely.¡± She rolled her eyes and shook her head in denial,¡± After watching your latest work with the tree and the vines, I was horrified that you just poured magic into them hoping for a good result. You could have destroyed the tree easily and only pure luck has stopped the disaster.¡± I was quite proud of my work and now she said it was pure luck? That''s humiliating. 19. Lesson in magic Tiria looked musing to the others around the table, ¡°You can all watch the lesson, not that you would be able to do this yourself as you aren¡¯t dungeon or city cores yourself, but maybe Galen and Nala here will somewhere in the future be able to do this because of their connection to Marcus as city guardians.¡± With a turn of her hand two seeds appeared on the table but I couldn¡¯t identify any one to my shame. ¡°Now, Marcus, these two here are a rose and a nightshade seed. You will create a new plant out of these two by combining them and drawing out the thorns and the nightshade poison. I will guide you through the process, so listen closely and don¡¯t do anything beyond my instructions. Focus on this one first,¡± Her left index finger pointed to the right seed that was a little bit bigger than the other, deep black and its shape looking like a drop of water. ¡°That¡¯s the nightshade and I want you to focus as hard as possible on it. Try to magnify it with your senses until it fills all of your view.¡± I did as she said and focused on the seed, making it almost jump into my view. The hull was rough and with small holes in it leading to the inside. ¡°Good, and now take a look inside following one of the holes inside the seed. There will be a path that leads you deeper into the plant. That¡¯s a mana channel by the way, you are using to connect to its core¡­..Good, I see you can follow instructions quite clearly, so now explain to me what you see and feel.¡± I saw the core clearly before me and it was amazing. Colours in every shade swirled around it and through the seed. Mostly shades of green and blue but also some red and a bit of black. I told Tiria what I saw and she seemed satisfied with my words. ¡°The green is life magic connected with its ability to grow. The stronger this colour is, the faster it can grow by providing life mana. Blue represents water mana and if you provide it with water mana, it will strengthen its ability to survive longer without water and by changing some of its shades perhaps even add a healing power to the plant, but depending on its other colours it possibly will resist you changing its true nature. The red colour connects with its need of warmth and its ability to resist heat. That¡¯s basically what you did with the tree and the vines instinctively. You strengthened the fire mana in the plants to the point where they could resist smaller heat sources easily. Now they could stand in a desert and the heat wouldn¡¯t burn their leaves or they could survive even in the coldest surroundings because their fire mana would keep them warm enough as long as there is enough magic around, ¡°She took a short pause and let the knowledge settle. Galen and the others sat on their chairs and watched a hologram above the seeds showing what I saw. All of them were silent and totally focused, not seeing Tiria¡¯s knowing smile. ¡°What you want to strengthen in this seed is the black colour representing death mana and mostly any poisons any living being produces. As soon as you discover more of your old world¡¯s knowledge again you will find ways to find new ways to change plants more directly and change their abilities but until then you will have to manipulate their mana to get results. Not always will you get what you wanted but there has to be some challenge in life, don¡¯t you think? Now, let¡¯s change the object.¡± I withdraw from the nightshade and concentrated on the rose seed. Its hull was more smooth than the other one but I could now easily see the mana channels leading inside. I felt a bit idiotic for just pumping mana in the plants now without knowing anything about what I did. When I reached the core I saw much green shades again, but not so much blue and red and no black at all. Instead there was some brown shades there, I hadn¡¯t seen in the nightshade. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°Alright, my young student, there is something new here, right? The brown represents earth mana and in general that means sturdiness and defense. In case of a rose that¡¯s thorns. Most plants will accept earth mana imbuing quite easily, likewise life and water. Air mana, which is yellow by the way, takes a bit more power to imbue because it¡¯s opposed to the earth mana. And as you surely already guessed fire mana causes the most resistance, because plants generally are not very fond of fire, which should tell you that all changes made through mana imbuing depends on the object or creature changed. If you strengthen fire mana in a creature that¡¯s already affiliated with it like a salamander for example, then it takes much less work for getting the effect permanent. And stop this idea of creating a dragon right now. The last dungeon that tried to create dragons this way was incinerated by its own creations. Fire mana makes most thinking creatures extremely aggressive, so if you don¡¯t want to get your city abolished, refrain from using to much fire mana for anything that¡¯s able to move faster than a slug.¡± Hey, I didn¡¯t think about dragons!.... Ok, perhaps a little bit, but only for the far future. I felt Tiria¡¯s gaze on me and dropped the thought immediately. Damn mind readers! ¡°Now let¡¯s change the rose seed a bit by draining the death mana from the nightshade and imbuing it into your new creation. Concentrate back on the nightshade and pull at the black mana, preferably taking it completely with you through the mana channels to the rose.¡± I grabbed with my mind at the black strands in front of me and wrapped them in my mana, noticing that it was without any colour. It resisted my pull and I had to invest more power straining me more than I thought possible from a small seed. After fighting against my grip for some seconds I felt it come loose and following me through the mana channels outside. Along the way I felt it draining mana from me constantly. Tiria¡¯s voice almost broke my concentration when she suddenly snapped at me, ¡°Don¡¯t let it wither! You have to provide it with your mana to keep this ability of the nightshade alive as long as it hasn¡¯t taken root in its new seed. That¡¯s the reason why most dungeons only start manipulating things after they have reached sentience and a very big mana pool. That¡¯s your biggest advantage right now, because your guardians and the elves provide you with enormous amounts of mana. Young cores are almost always half starving because they don¡¯t get enough energy from their territory which leads to inspire adventurers to explore the dungeons and be killed in the process. Most sentient creatures possess a much higher mana density than anything else, which makes them such a wonderful appetizer for the dungeons. Giving their mana willingly to you is therefore something that makes you a very powerful existence among my creations. Some of them on other worlds have already shown interest in your progress and bug me about giving them updates now and then.¡± In the meantime I had moved the strands of death mana to the rose¡¯s core and waited for Tiria¡¯s next instructions. She really liked to talk a lot if the topic was about her cores. Sometime I should use that habit of hers to get more information out of her. Oh, little one, believe me, we will talk a lot in the future! You are much too interesting for leaving you alone. Did I already mention, that I hate mind readers? I only heard Tiria giggle beside me, smirking and ignoring the unsure looks of the elves. Tiria became serious again and continued with her lesson, ¡±Now form a mana thread between the death mana and the core and prepare to use a lot of mana in the process.¡± Following her command I created a connection between the two pieces and watched them interact with each other. The core sent out its mana, with all different colours intermixed, and the death mana piece sent its black mana from the other side. She had said that it take some serious mana from me but I wasn¡¯t prepared for my energy falling almost rock bottom. In my sudden mana deprived state I grabbed at my guardians energy and draw from them without reservation, making Galen, Nala and Kitara go pale immediately. I also felt Chara falling to her knees because of my actions, but at the moment it didn¡¯t bother me at all. Imbuing the rose seed with the death mana of the nightshade took more power than I had available personally and my guardians had to pay the difference. Tiria watched the whole action with eager eyes, smiling brightly when the rose seed took in all the death mana and returning its own mana threads to its core. I was tired as never before since I became a city core and a slight headache disturbed my concentration on the core, making me lose the view on the core. ¡°I didn¡¯t know that I could have a headache with being a core,¡± I said accusingly at the goddess. ¡°Hmph, you can think, so you can hurt. Nothing changes just because your body consists of crystal. Your small seed over there is now a very dangerous plant and you should warn your citizen to not come into contact with its thorns after you have let it grow outside your walls. Although you should perhaps strengthen its earth mana a bit more too to make it sturdier and the thorns a lot bigger in the process.¡± I nodded only knowing that that would also create a new headache but wanting a good and efficient result I would man up and get the job done. Suddenly I new idea struck me and Tiria squeezed her eyes almost shut. ¡°Sorry to ask you that suddenly, goddess, but would I be able to subjugate a dungeon core into becoming a city guardian?¡± 20. First disciple Tiria looked somewhat unbelieving at me and shook her head, ¡°I can''t believe that you would try to enslave one of your brothers and sisters.¡± I defended myself at once, ¡°Enslaving? Brother? Sister? Are you kidding me? If I understood anything then if I ever encounter any of them, they will try to kill me and absorb all of my land. So I think it would be much better to serve me instead of being annihilated. In some of the stories back on earth there have been cities build above dungeons to gather their resources and to train soldiers and adventurers in them. All I would do, is making the dungeon my bitch and using it for my purposes.¡± The goddess looked like I had slammed her with a mace and then shook the head again. ¡°I wanted to make you a bit more hard and less kind but not turn you into a slaver of my creations, but to answer your question, it is possible for you to subjugate a dungeon core. If you want to go down this route then I would recommend a young dungeon with a level not higher than 10. Once it''s under your rule it can''t break your power over it again, but you will have to share your own mana at the start with it to develop its power and abilities. The other gods will throw an tantrum when they hear about it, as you will then be able to create ressources with mana alone. I will have to think about it, but as I already said that I wouldn''t limit you anymore, I can only hope that you won''t make my life too hard and use the dungeon''s abilities with care.¡± Yeah, sure, if I ever get my hands on a dungeon core and can subjugate it, I will use my everything to get all I need from it, and if some of these nagging gods want to disturb my fun, I will have to find ways to make them shut up. There are no bigger resource spots around as far as I can see and trading seems far off until this world develops a little bit more sciencific or magical tech. Tiria watched me and sighed, ¡°I see, you will make my life interesting. There was a curse on your world, wishing you to live in interesting times, ¡°She smirked only, ¡°I should have listened to it, but now the damage is done and you will have to deflect what the other divines throw your way. Maybe I will help you here and there but don''t count on it. I will take my leave now and let you continue with your work, so make me proud and entertain me, little one!¡± I knew, that she would say it again, just to annoy me. Her body lit up again and with my returning sight she was gone and left me with four shaken elves behind. Kalla was the first to get out of her stupor and looked me straight into the eyes. ¡°Where do you want to find a dungeon? And especially now that we have an army coming our way?¡± I hesitated to gather my thoughts frowning, ¡°The dungeon thing is something for the time after the assault and after I had time to train Galen, Nala, Kitara and Chara manipulating their mana enough to develop some simple spells. I guess that I will have to learn more about runes and mathematics to create spell weaving and complex magical structures. As I see it,we will concentrate our mages training on creating a ranged area spell first to smash the goblins and their allies to pieces and burn their sorry asses to ashes. We also should let some of them survive so they can return to their tribes with my message not to mess with me again or suffer the consequences.¡± Excitement and simple blood thirst appeared on my elves faces and they smiled at each other and me. Maybe I have created a monster here but the goblins started it and I will wipe them from this planet if I get the chance. Nobody needs these suckers anyway so why not go all the way when I get the chance, but the dungeons on this world will surely revive the species as they stand quite low in the food chain and therefore make an excellent starter race. I realized suddenly that my wish for peaceful city building turned into warmongering and with regret I remembered the history of earth and that with every big city there always came some big fights about it. Rome is a prime example for it. I just hope that I can make the history take another turn on my new homeworld. Certainly I will never allow slaves here, with the dungeon core a small exception until I have trained him enough to reach sentience and be a loyal servant to me. Yeah, I know, it''s a bit hypocrite but you have to smash eggs to get a good dough. Sue me! ¡°I will send you back now, and I want my guardians to meditate now as I will need more mana for enhancing my nightshade rose. Kalla, please don''t forget to tell your people not to touch them. Oh, forget what I said, and tell them that they should harvest them careful for the thorns and the poison. They would make any arrow much more deadly than everything we have now at disposal.¡± Kalla''s eyes grew with the idea reaching her and the grin split almost her face, ¡°Oh yeah, that would be absolutely devastating against these green menaces. I will tell the others about it, but how long do you need for growing them?¡± I thought about the time needed for growing the vines and the tree and answered, ¡°Give me two or three days and then the first bushes should be ripe for gathering. I will need a lot of mana for it and after that I want to create the traps next. With a little bit of luck Galen and the others will have a working spell in the next week which will then be taught to the other mages. I want them to train the spell until exhaustion and get their skill up with it, lest they don''t incinerate themselves or us. We should also work on the crossbows to give most of our citizen a chance to strike back, ¡°I took a glance to my new guardians, ¡°You know what you have to do, so I send you out now. I will imbue you with my mana manipulation skill, so you can start working. Make me proud!¡± With a thought I sent their minds back to their bodies and called for Dorien, the shy carpenter. He was working on a bow and almost destroyed his work when I spoke beside him. I wanted to chuckle seeing his spooked face but refrained from doing so. The poor guy was already shy, I didn''t need him to be reclusive also. ¡°Hi Dorien, I have a project running that I''d like to have your opinion on it, so would you be so kind and sit down and meditate a bit? I want to invite you to my workplace.¡± Curiosity and fear battled in his eyes and the tool in his hand was in constant movement as he was thinking about my offer, ¡°Why do I have to meditate to go to your place? That doesn''t make any sense, my lord.¡± So he was the cautious one, eh? Others would have jumped for the possibility to see my place. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡°It''s inside my mind, so it could be somewhat hard to get there with your body. Don''t be a baby and just take my invite. I need you to check a new idea of mine and see if it''s feasible with our means.¡± He was still hesitant but sat down and closed his eyes, tension visible in his muscles. ¡°You should meditate and not work out. Relax and enjoy the ride.¡± I sent my invitation to him and after some seconds I felt his mind make the connection to me. He appeared beneath my table with the hologram of the crossbow above it and his whole demeanour changed rapidly seeing my idea. His eyes lit up and he walked around the table studying the contraption before him, completely ignoring me standing only some steps back. After I gave him enough time for a close look, I cleared my throat making him jump back and looking frantically around himself. His eyes went wide when he saw me standing behind a chair and watching him. He looked down and bowed his head, ¡°I am sorry, my lord, I didn''t want to disrespect you. I just can''t take my eyes of something that interests me. And this strange weapon looks really intriguing.¡± I only nodded and sat down on my chair, never taking my eyes of him, ¡°So what do you think about my crossbow? That''s the name of it, by the way.¡± ¡°It''s awesome! But it would be hell to create it now, as I think that there will be many things to build before we can think about crafting this little wonder there. After we have a proper tool shop and a good crafting station we can build them and figure out what materials we need for each part, but now I have to say that it would be impossible. Sorry to disappoint you, Sir.¡± Okay, that wasn''t what I thought, but he was honest and I will have to think about other things to bolster my defences. ¡°Thanks for your advice, Dorien, if you have an idea for creating a crossbow earlier, just come to me and we will discuss about it. I need every input I can get.¡± I smiled grateful which made him smile also and then sent him back outside. Shrugging I returned to my work with the seed and let my mana bolster the earth mana in the core very slowly. After all I didn''t want to destroy the work I already had invested in my new weapon. It took me more than 5 hours to get the seed as strong as possible and challenging my downgraded manipulation skill. It was so much easier before! Returning to the outside world I went as far away as possible, noticing that my maximum range had increased a whole 100 meters when I reached level 10. Before it only grew 20 meters, so it seems that I have reached the town stage when I was in the village stage before. I was thrilled to reach my city stage better sooner than later, but as I understood Alvera I had reached a point where I needed a new kind of crystal to grow and I was quite sure that this stuff didn''t grow anywhere near. Chara came down to me and watched me working, closely watching how I sent my mana into the seed after I had planted it. ¡°It''s such a big difference watching it and somewhat understanding what you are doing, now that I have the right skill for it. Would you allow me to try it myself with the next bush?¡± I smiled inwards and answered, ¡°That''s a good idea, Chara. It will help you raising your skill and I will watch closely to help you with the control. Give me just a little bit of time, until this bush has reached its first harvest time.¡± After half an hour, which Chara used for meditating and moving her mana in her limbs to increase her control, the nightshade rose was 1 meter tall and small black fruits the size of a walnut hung from its branches. Sadly there were only 20 of them that I could use for growing new bushes, but I only shrugged and went on with the plan. After Chara took a fruit very careful to not hurt herself at the 4 centimeters long thorns, she went 4 meters sideways to plant it into the ground. I concentrated on her and took a front-seat in her mind, which startled her first when I slipped into her mind. ¡°That''s odd, Marcus. I can feel you beside and inside my head. It''s not quite uncomfortable but also not natural.¡± ¡°You will grow accustomed to it very fast, dear Chara. I need to watch what you are doing and that''s the best way to help you. Now let''s start the show. Concentrate on the seed and try to create a mana thread connecting you and it.¡± Chara gathered her mana in her right hand and tried to send it forward. First the mana resisted to go beyond her skin, but then with a sudden rush all mana she had gathered rushed outwards to the small plant. I took the liberty and reached for the energy enveloping it with my own and then bringing it back to my charge. Chara could absorb it easily enough again. ¡°Okay Chara, let''s use less mana to repeat the same thing again. Do you remember the feeling of your mana leaving your body?¡± She nodded and her gaze was very determined, ¡°Now use only a tenth than before and repeat it. When you try to make things grow, use less mana first because you could else incinerate your target with your mana.¡± Chara repeated the process of gathering mana, but now with only a very small amount and sent it out again. I watched it flow to the seed and divert somewhat. This time I just used my mana to guide it a little bit, until it connected with the plant. Chara was a smart girl and didn''t stop to provide the thread with energy, so she now had a stable connection. ¡°Nicely done, Chara. Next time try to keep the thread more focused because you only want to connect with your target and nothing else. But for your second try, that was a very impressing performance, ¡°I could see and feel her proud smile. She was still a child, even if she was on her way to become a young woman, and praise could do very much for her confidence, and it didn''t cost me anything. ¡°You now have a connection to the seed. Try to feel its mana and how much it can use to grow. Start with only a small amount of mana again and then increase it slowly until you feel that the plant can''t take any more.¡± Chara followed my instructions splendidly and her mana thread transferred a miniscule amount of mana to the nightshade rose, which began to send its roots into the ground and reach for the surface with its first green sprout. Chara now sent more energy to it and the plant grew faster, but as I watched my charge''s mana pool, I saw it depleting very fast, much faster than mine when I grew my rose bush before. Maybe that was the difference between a lower and a higher skill in mana manipulation, which meant that I would also need much more mana now to help the hearth tree grow. Thanks again for this special gift, Tiria! I sent my own mana to Chara to restock her energy checking at the same time what I took from me to fully charge her again. Disregarding some mana loss because she didn''t stop with her work, it took me more than double the mana to recharge her. I was sure, that with my former better skill I would have used much less energy for the same task. Chara was still focused on her task, when I stopped her at least, ¡°It''s enough for now, Chara. You have depleted all your mana pool and didn''t even recognize it. That could be very dangerous in some occasions, so always try to keep a small reserve in case of an emergency. Just send me a thought and if the situation allows it, I will give you a hand and restock your mana pool, okay?¡± Chara smiled and nodded excited about her first successful exercise with the mana manipulation skill and said, ¡°Thank you, Master. I will work hard to make you proud of me. Would you like me to help you further with the growing of the bushes?¡± I thought about it shortly, ¡°No, my dear, I want you to try to create a small globe of fire some distance away from you. Use a mana thread first and then try to form a ball with the thread itself. After you accomplished that, fill it with fire mana and try to hold it until you have only half of your mana left. If you have done that, send me a message and we will try something new. Go to Galen, Nala and Kitara and show them what I have shown you, but let them work with some vines instead. I need my seeds for now.¡± Chara turned around and I disconnected from her mind and continued with my work again, very satisfied with the young elf''s progress.
You have learned the skill Teacher! Your pupils learn any of your skills 10% faster per skill level.
Nice and a quite useful skill for someone like me also. For the next 5 hours I only focused on creating my first obstacle course. 21. I like buffs After I had grown more than 100 bushes to a solid height of 1,5 meters the sun began to settle down and the elves returned from the river and the forest with fresh fish and meat. There were also some women with vegetables found around the hill and down at the river. Examining their clothes I sighed because almost no one had any decent armor or clothes and I would have to find some hemp or even cotton if possible, so the tailors had something to work with. The little game that had been hunted until now, wouldn''t provide much leather for a nice set of armor. I would have to find a way for them to protect themselves, but with all the other problems I had at the moment, I wasn''t sure if I could help them with personal clothes at the moment. Hell, I even hadn''t a decent roof for them to sleep under. Feeling an intense gaze on myself I searched for the origin and saw Gillian standing on the wall watching me work. I think she was angry because I didn''t choose her as a guardian but I needed some heavy artillery now and if I guessed right, I would be able to create my next guardian at level 15. I went over to her with just a thought and greeted her cheerfully. ¡°Hi Gillian, as you can see, the first line of defence is almost finished and after that I want to build the pitfalls to stop some of our attackers. I know, that you are angry that I didn''t choose you for my next guardian but I think that at level 15 I will be able to create a new one and that will be you, so please just have a little bit of patience with me again. I just need enough mana for the level up and then we can work it out, okay?¡± She remained silent and just stared at me with a plain expression, making me extremely nervous with it. Then she jumped down the wall and went to her tree sitting down before it. ¡°I will meditate now and you will send me an invitation! You showed all the others your astral body but me and we also have to talk about some things, ¡°She closed her eyes and her body dissolved before my eyes. Not wanting to anger her any further I invited her to my inner mind where she arrived moments later, looking around the place until she discovered me watching her from some distance, ¡°Are you afraid, I would bite you?¡± Smirking she sat down at the table and pointed to another chair obverse herself, ¡°I want to discuss your plans for the next days and as you already said yourself myself turning into your next city guardian. I have gathered enough mana to level you up myself just now, and after some of the elves have given you their mana we should have you leveled up in no time at all. Watching you teach Chara to manipulate mana and grow plants with it, I think that I will be able to help you with your work more directly by taking control over the vines, ¡°She had a smug expression on her face when she saw me surprised, ¡°I''m somewhat of a wood elemental and with a bit of training and enough mana I will be able to make the vines moves the way I like. If you could change the vines on the outside of the wall or make some of your nightshade grow there I would also be able to manipulate them. Imagine the goblins trying to get over the walls and be attacked deadly poison the moment they touch the obstacle.¡± I was pleasantly surprised of the idea and reflected on the possibilities of an elemental guarding the centre of my town. With Gillian watching over my core using the vines as a kind of hands to strike down enemies, I would have to make the vines a bit stronger and perhaps I could also add some special effects to them. ¡°I don''t think that it would be wise to add nightshade to the vines inside the wall because the elves would hurt them now and then and I don''t want them walking around frenzied and getting respiratory paralysis. We should ask the elves about any useful plants near the town and then I can look into imbuing their abilities into your personal vines.¡± If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Excited by getting her personal defence Gillian chattered on, ¡°Yes, and if you could give me a big mana stone for personal usage, I would perhaps be able to create my own wood elementals to help with the fight. I will be able to summon them after I have reached a certain height, but I could do it even now with enough mana to spare.¡± ¡°You know that I create mana stones out of my personal crystal mass, right? If I use it for other things, I wouldn''t be able to reach level 15 and make you my next guardian. So what shall it be, Gillian?¡± The young tree girl wasn''t happy about my words and pouted for a moment and I chuckled when I saw her biting on her lips thinking over the different paths available to her. Not that she would get to choose any of it. I wanted to level up as fast as possible to get a bigger mana pool and a new defender for my core. Perhaps I could help her with my own mana to summon these wood elementals she talked about. It would certainly help with the numerical disadvantage we had against our foes. ¡°I want to be a guardian first and maybe later, when the situation has cooled down a bit, you could give me a mana stone. That would be the best course of action for now, I think.¡± I smiled and added, ¡°It''s the only course I approve, Gillian. I have to get stronger and defeat the goblins and their aids with everything I got, and anything else has to stand back concerning this matter, even your wishes.¡± Surprised and a bit scared Gillian looked at me, ¡°What has happened with you? You were an other person last time we spoke, much more kind and without this severity.¡± I just shrugged, ¡°I got an eye opener from some people and realized that this world isn''t the nice and peaceful place I knew from home, and to survive here I would have to crush some eggs to make my enemies think twice before attacking me. Let me be clear now, Gillian, I will be boss and give the orders. You will have to follow and give advice but never try to force me into something. I am able to reclaim your guardian status and will do if you anger me enough. Did I make myself clear?¡± She seemed to shrank in my gaze and looked down to the ground before she nodded slightly. I didn''t want to be an ass but she was a bit too much demanding and I had to put her in her place before any problems arose. I had enough of them already. ¡°I will do as you say and put your safety and the city first. But please don''t disregard the elves in the process.¡± I shook my head vehemently, ¡°Never will I neglect anyone who I promised to help, unless they betray me, but I don''t think that Kalla or any of the others would do something like that. At the end of the day I am their home and protector. Now let''s start with you and the elves giving me the mana and level me up. After I have reached level 15, I will make you mine, ¡°Gillian blushed crimson red, ¡°Hehe,nice color, and then we will try to give you some personal arms, dear Gillian.¡± I felt her mana rush into me and I used it to grow my crystal again, noticing my maximum range increasing again by 100 meters.
New city buff! Barkskin The skin of your dedicated defenders gets hard as ironwood bark without limiting movement Cost: Initial 1000 mana Upkeep: 2 mana/minute per defender
Wow, now that''s a game changer! Wait, when I reached level 10 I got a screen with the message that I also got a city buff. I should really check my messages better!
Fertility You can designate a race inside your influence that gets a boost to fertility, increasing the chance of members of the race to propragate by 100% Cost: Initial 1000 Upkeep: 1/h per target
That wasn''t the big hammer I wished for, but in the long run it would spur the interest of other elven communities and increase my own elven population much faster. I hoped that the next levels would give me more options as well, making me curious and wanting to get the next levels as fast as possible. 22. Discovery of magic One of my subminds had cut solely stone using as little mana as possible and training my mana manipulation skill at the same time. As a result I didn''t have much stone at my disposal as I had used most of my power for growing the bushes, but it would be enough for some pillars I wanted to build to support the roofs of the future crafting huts. I will tear most of them down in the future, but right now I needed a place for the elves to sleep and I couldn''t trust on the weather to keep so warm and dry it had been for the last days. The lumberjacks had brought back enough wood that I could create enough beams and latches for my first roof. Using unseasoned wood for this purpose wasn''t the best course of action but I needed the roofs now. Maybe I could use some fire magic to dry the wood in a much shorter time frame than usual. First I absorbed the trees into my inventory and then changed to my inner mind where the wood already awaited me. I would have to be very careful to not burn it with my magic. Sensing the trunk with my mana I could see water mana flowing around it and I sent a bit of fore mana into it, watching the water battle the fire and losing in power gradually. It took only 5 minutes and 200 mana to dry the wood enough to be used for building. At least I hoped that I did it right because I never before did it. I send an invitation to Dorien again, seeing that he wasn''t sleeping already. Moments later the young craftsman appeared in my workspace. ¡°Lord Marcus, what can I do for you? Oh,... this tree looks almost seasoned enough to build something with it.¡± ¡°Now, would you enlighten me and tell me the right conditions for it, please. I want to construct a roof above the place you and your friends sleep on and I need good building material for it.¡± Hearing my words his eyes brightened and he began to explain me the ins and outs of the right wood for the necessary task when suddenly I got a new message.
You have learned the skill Carpentry.
My smile must have been too obvious because he suddenly stopped his speech and looked at me, ¡°Is everything alright, sir? I didn''t say something funny, or made a mistake, didn''t I?¡±, His former confidence disappearing so fast as it erupted when he started talking about his work. I shook my head still smiling, ¡°No,you did everything right, Dorien. I just got the message that I learned carpentry and am happy that from now on I will have another skill to work with.¡± Dorien looked dumbstruck and unbelieving, ¡°You just learned the skill? Just like that? I needed almost 3 months to get the message.¡± That answered a question I wanted to ask my citizens all along but always something other pulled my attension away. ¡°Yes, it seems I can learn many skills much more easily than other people. Perhaps it has to do with my former life or the fact that I am a core, but it surely makes my life easier. But as you are much better than me in the profession I will bother you furthermore as an advicer for sculpting and carpentry.¡± He bowed his head to me and answered humble, ¡°As you wish, my lord. I will help with my knowledge as long as you will have me, but seeing how fast you learn I think that you will be the master in no time at all.¡± I only grinned and returned the talk back to my project and we discussed with the help of a hologram how big the beams and latches had to be and where I should put down the pillars. ¡°My lord, in view of the siege we will be under, wouldn''t it be better to build everything out of stone?¡± ¡°You''re right of course, but I will create roof tiles out of the stone and that should make the roofs fireproof enough that we will be secure from any tries to burn us down. By the way, do you know, how far away the winter is and how hard it will be? I mean, should I insulate the walls and the roof as soon as the siege is over or do I have enough time to build more houses outside the wall and some cabins in the hearth tree?¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. He pondered for a moment and used his fingers to count something, ¡°I think you should have at least 5 months until winter comes. We get around 2 to 3 meters of snow over the whole winter and it gets quite chilly at its peak. So you have some time for getting us enough warm homes and provisions to last it. But first we should survive the goblins, don''t you think?¡± He was clearly right there, but the information was important none the least. With Dorien''s advice I began to cut the tree into usable beams and latches after I had dried it a bit more. Then I did the same with the other trees and sent Dorien back to sleep as he showed clear signs of being tired with all his yawning he tried to hide behind a hand. After 3 hours and spending mana like crazy I also had cut the stone for my pillars the way I wanted and set them down in the determined places, startling some elves from sleep when the stone blocks appeared suddenly beside them. The woken people watched with awe when I build the new hut around them and put down the beams and latches into the prepared notches. I didn''t use nails or splints as I could cut stone and wood easily with mana even if it used more power than doing it with tools. I had to admit that using tools was more fun, but I didn''t have much time for finishing my project. If I could do things manually in the future I will surely do as it gave me more satisfaction, and I think that it would also help me increase my skills faster, but I will have to check that more closely. My roof tiles were a bit primitive but they would serve their means, and when I laid them down on the latches, the elves were so happy about a roof over them that their excited voices woke other sleepers. I had watched the elves over the last few days and they didn''t seem to be too unhappy to sleep under the night sky, but now they showed obvious joy that they had a dry place to sleep under in the future. I know, I should use the time to bolster my defences but I needed also a happy and well rested people to fight the goblins and wet and freezing men and women tend to fight worse than optimal. Also there would be many wounded as I didn''t think I could make the goblins just give up with my minefield,the nightshade roses, pitfalls and the poisoned arrows alone. And wounded needed a place to be tended to, preferable dry and warm. As soon as the elves left the roofed place for work in the morning I started to build the walls for the buildings out of stone I had cut in the rest of the night. Galen and the rest of my Guardians were training hard to increase their ability to control their mana and I watched them with one of my subminds sometimes giving them help with my mana sight. They could already form a bubble of mana but it wasn''t able to hold any fire mana yet. I mused about their struggle to create the spell, but as I watched them, I noticed that they only used their minds to form the bubble and no special gesture or words for the procedure. Jumping to them I watched Galen closely as he tried to add fire mana to the bubble he had created. I almost could sense the fire rune I knew from enchanting forming inside the bubble when it erupted again with a bright light and some heat accompanying it. ¡°Nala, is there a rune that is connected to control?¡± I asked Galen''s wife standing beside her disappointed husband. Surprised by my sudden question she turned to my voice and frowned thinking hard about it, ¡°There is a rune that can bind an element to an object, but I''m not sure what that has to do with casting magic.¡± I would do a facepalm now, if they could see it, but just sighed, ¡°Okay, I think what we need to do is not only create a mental image of a fireball, but tell the magical energy what it has to do. Runes could help with that, so we will have to find the runes and their pronunciation to go with the spell we want to create. A kind of magical language as I would call it. When I just watched Galen creating his bubble and imbuing it with fire mana I almost could see a fire rune appearing inside the bubble.¡± Galen frowned and concentrated again his mana, his skill to create the mana bubble increasing fast. Just as he sent his fire mana inside the bubble he spoke the word for fire, ¡°Igniate!¡± and instead of bursting like before he hold a bubble of fire 5 centimetres in diameter above his right hand. I sensed his mental strain to keep the bubble stable but we all could see the fireball clearly, even the other elves around. They all stared at it and couldn''t believe their eyes. Seconds later Galen lost concentration and the fire erupted from the bubble burning the hairs on his arm slightly, the air smelling shortly like burned elf. Despite the pain it should have caused I saw Galen grinning and his eyes sparkling. ¡°That''s it! Marcus, that is the right direction you gave me. Now we only have to find the words to better contain the fire mana and give it direction.¡± Hmph, he is only able to create a dimlight and thinks he can create a spell on the fly. But hey, as he had said we are on the right way. ¡°Galen, you should also form the rune with your fingers and somehow include a gesture for the bubble itself, I think. Nala, what''s the word for control, please, and can you write it on the ground please?¡± I asked her with excitement in my voice. What shall I say, magical discoveries make me fussy. ¡°As far as I know, it''s ''Regis'' and before you ask I don''t know the word for throwing.¡± Something nagged my mind and I tried to nail down what it was, when I had the epiphany I searched for. The magical words sounded somehow like old Latin. I had learned the language in my childhood at the christian school I went to. To my dismay Tiria had also deleted my understanding of it, but the memorieswere still there, and if I could make the connections I could perhaps regain some of my knowledge. I understood suddenly why Tiria crippled my memory because with it I could kick everyone''s asses quite easily. Sure, some words sounded a bit off, but with a little bit of experimentation we could find new words, I was sure of it. ''As I see,you have discovered some of the secrets hidden on your old world. There are more of it. Have fun finding them!'' I heard the goddess voice in my mind again, serious and with gravity this time. 23. Being a parent is hard I would have given my right arm to get my memories back, if I still had an arm. I would have to work with what I had and hope for the best. ¡°I think I could help with some of the magical words, as it seems that they resemble an old language from my old world, ¡°I said excitedly to my guardians, ¡°But with most of my memories damaged, I will need time to gather the fragments and make some sense out of them. For now, let''s see if you lot can use some gestures to strengthen the bubble and then throw it somewhere. I will watch your work and so be able to tell you if there''s any progress.¡± ¡°You said that your old world had no magic you knew of, but now you say that one of your old languages has some connections to our magic. How is this possible?, ¡°Galen''s confused look reflected my own irritation about Tiria''s disclosure. ¡°I know, I know, but Tiria has just told me that my old world holds more secrets than I thought possible. I will search my memories for any fragments of usable knowledge but don''t expect anything world changing right off the bat.¡± I said, depressed by my own limitations, which I didn¡¯t cause, by the way. My guardians resumed their work and I watched Galen trying to draw the control and fire runes with his fingers in the air, while he formed a bubble in the same space and ended the whole process as if he were trying to form a snowball. I was more than surprised when I saw his mana collecting inside his hands to be bound by the two runes into a small fireball. He didn''t show the same strain like before and now he could keep the magic steady without much concentration. I watched him look with disbelief himself at the bowl of fire in his hand and then a grin split his face. ¡°I did it! Marcus, look! I created a fireball as you described.¡± I hated to disappoint him but I had to say it, ¡°Sorry, Galen, but that''s only a part of the spell. You have to throw the damn thing and destroy something with it. Only then is it what I call a fireball. Go ahead, try to throw it, but please don''t hit something I built. I don''t want to watch the hearth tree burning, okay?¡± His indignant gaze hit me and then he turned around to search for a target. After a moment he looked at an old and rotten trunk some 20 meters away from him and threw the fireball at it. I had thought that it would fly like everything else and fall down to earth, and obviously Galen did too, but the thing went flying straight into the sky where it exploded after around 100 meters with a loud bang. ¡°Galen, how much mana did you use for the spell?¡± Nala asked. ¡°Around 50 mana, I think. Let me try again and see if it flies straight in the line I throw it.¡± I watched silent and enjoyed the show, as did most of the other elves around us. The mages with awe and jealousy in their eyes followed every movement Galen did. When the fireball flared into being above his right hand he targeted the trunk again and this time threw it straight at it without adjustments as if it was an arrow. The fireball flew true and hit its target, exploding in a nice light show and throwing parts of the trunk in every direction. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. I examined the impact like the rest and was quite impressed with the destruction caused. Most of the rotten wood was obliterated and still smoking. The former 40 centimeter in diameter trunk had a big hole in it with splinters lying some 5 meters around. ¡°I would definitely call that a success, Galen. Look, how far spread the damage is and if we could somehow add a lingering fire effect, like if you emptied a can of oil on something and lit it up, then the spell would be even more devastating. But this will do nicely against goblins. We saw that your reach is around 100 meters before, but I think that you could increase that easily as soon as your manipulation skill increases.¡± Galen made a smug expression and seemed very pleased with himself, his wives rolled their eyes at me. ¡°Wonderful! Don¡¯t you know how long he will nag us with that?¡± Kitara wasn¡¯t very thrilled about me praising her husband it seemed. ¡°We will have to cut him down to normal size for the next 2 weeks if you give him too much attention, Master. Come on Nala, let¡¯s show him that he isn¡¯t the only one who can kick some butt. I felt a sudden mana surge besides me and could just hear Chara mumbling, Regis Igniate, when she threw her own fireball at a target. I could have been mistaken, but the spell looked somewhat bigger than Galen¡¯s and when it impacted in a dirt pile almost 150 meters away Galen¡¯s face went slag and pale. ¡°Dear, how much mana did you use for the spell?¡± he asked the young girl. Chara smirked and shrugged, ¡°Just about 200. I wanted to see if it would cause more destruction if I channelled more energy into it. I don¡¯t know, Master, but there seems to be a difference, don¡¯t you think?¡± She folded her hands behind her head and her eyes sparkled with mischief. I will have to watch the little devil closely in the future if I want to keep a lid on her pranks. HHer fireball had obliterated the dirt pile and left a crater with 2.5 meter diameter behind. If I could build thin stone pillars all around the place that my mages could blow up, they would explode like good old fashioned grenades, I thought. In this way we could slaughter masses of enemies with much less mana and I could perhaps add some oil too into the pillars to add to the destruction Some quote from a movie meandered through my mind, ¡®I love the smell of napalm in the morning¡¯. What¡¯s napalm? Damn memory block! No hard feelings, I had to move on. All the elves looked aghast and delighted at once to my small firecracker. I would have to cut her down also and turned my attension to Nala, ¡°Nala, would you please do the same as Chara and use also 200 mana for the spell? Use also gestures and words for it, as I want to test if your fire affiliation makes the spell stronger or not. I assume that your¡¯s a bit higher than Chara¡¯s?¡± Nala pitched and said grinning, ¡°You bet. I have increased my fire magic to journeyman already, so there should be some difference.¡± I watched closely as she began with the spell and could see the difference immediately, as the mana looked much stronger and denser than Chara¡¯s. Launching the spell in the same direction as my younger guardian I watched the fireball eagerly when it suddenly explode in the air with only burning the grass on the ground and a loud bang. Thinking about the reasons for the air bomb I looked to Chara and Nala, ¡°Tell me please your skill value with mana manipulation, as I think that could be the reason for the difference in range.¡± Nala was crimson red with embarressment and almost whispered, ¡°I¡¯m at rookie 15%, master.¡± Chara looked smug and held her head high, ¡°I¡¯m beginner 2% already, master!¡± Okay, time to give her an attitude reminder. I concentrated on our connection and send a mental smack to the young woman like I imagined Gibbs from NCIS would do. The poor thing almost fell over rubbing her head with pain in the eyes when I hit her. ¡°Don¡¯t be such an ass, Chara. You had a head start by being a city guardian earlier and being instructed directly by me. As it stands, I¡¯m quite disappointed in you for only reaching 2% beginner. Train harder and expand your mana pool, young lady. I don¡¯t nedd any slackers, understood?¡± Maybe I was a little bit hard to her, because I could see tears forming in her eyes, but I had to disrupt any behaviour that could turn her into a narcissistic smug. I had enough of them in my former life and some of my nieces and nephews had turned into them too. This one won¡¯t become one even if had to use a sledgehammer to imbue her with good manners. Chara drooped and whispered, ¡°Yes master, I didn¡¯t want to be rude to lady Nala. It won¡¯t happen again.¡± Damn, it¡¯s hard to be a parent. I wanted to pad her head and take her in the arms but that would demolish my goal, so I only said, ¡°Good, be polite and work hard and we can forget about it. Now get back to work and try to help the others with their mana manipulation. If you are lucky that will also help you with your own skill and maybe give you the teacher skill also.¡± She nodded and went to the mages standing by, waiting eagerly now for any instructions my guardians could give them. I watched Chara for another moment, silence making my other guardians somewhat awkward, and then turned back to them. ¡°Nala, I think you wanted to show me the spell again?!¡± 24. Sometimes its better to shut up The elven woman watched me with a frown for a moment then shrugged and began to cast the spell again, this time aiming shorter to avoid the same mistake like before. Her spell detonated 80 meters away and left a smoking hole with pebbles flying in all directions. I guessed that the crater alone was 4 meters in diameter, which was a clear indicator for the approved theory that a higher skill with fire magic increased the damage significantly. ¡°Good work, Nala. Now try to teach Kitara and Galen also. I want you to train the spell and then help Chara with the other mages. With a working spell to use, it should be easier for them to get the manipulation skill. With a little bit of luck they all will have it when the goblins arrive. The fireballs should be a nasty surprise for them, but we should also try to train our close-combat experts to use magic in any way possible.¡± The three guardians only nodded silently and then began to train. I left them and went back to the fields around the walls, where I started growing more nightshade roses and digging my first pitfall traps. ¡°That wasn¡¯t a nice thing you did to Chara.¡± I hadn¡¯t realized Gillian approached me, as I was focused on my work. Sighing I answered, ¡°I know that, but it was necessary. In my former life there were enough self-righteous idiots around me that hadn¡¯t been properly educated by their doting parents. They demanded to be treated like kings and queens. They were always acting as if they were superior and better off, and I won¡¯t tolerate anything like that from my guardians. They should be well mannered, polite and helpful. I want my guardians to be teachers for my citizens, paragons for everyone living in my domain, and powerful combatants who instill fear in my enemies. If they behave like arrogant nobility I will smash them down once and if they don¡¯t change, they will lose my support and power. I like Chara, so I will teach her properly before any bad habits settle in.¡± I knew that I was an ass, but sometimes it¡¯s better to be hard once than to be soft too much and have to erase mistakes later. My own mother was always a hard teacher and I¡¯m thankful for it, because it taught me to respect my fellow men. Gillian sat down on the ground Buddha-style and put her head on her folded hands, ¡°You are right in teaching her, but don¡¯t forget that she¡¯s had a hard time too. She lost her grandparents to the goblins, has to adapt to a new environment and be your guardian, all at once. I will keep a vigilant eye on her and try to help you guide her. Believe it or not, but hearth trees have helped the young elves since time began and everyone of us gets a package of guidelines for young ones when we awake, even if I seem like a teenager to you too.¡± Smiling regretful, obviously thinking back to our own recent discussion she waited for my reply. ¡°Good, help and guide her. Chara has such a great potential and I want her to be happy. I will talk to her later about me being so hard. Now let me alone for a while as I have to finish my welcoming field for our guests.¡± Gillian remained silent and after some minutes without any words spoken she stood and went back to the settlement. I let one of my subminds work on cutting stone and the three others dig holes in the ground while I also used some of my mana to increase my range again. The sooner I was able to feel someone stepping into my domain, the better. In the evening I wanted to gather enough mana to reach my next level and see if I could get another city buff. Perhaps I could also ask Tiria about a way to buy any specialties like in some dungeon stories. A shop to buy things with points would be cool, but so far my goddess didn¡¯t implement anything like it, to my dismay. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I also needed to finish the roofs for the shelters inside the wall and the baths for my citizen. My heat-stone produced enough warmth for men and women side, and until now I didn¡¯t use it for anything. When this situation with the goblins ended I wanted to create more heat-stones to create a network of hot water running inside my town to heat the buildings, much like the old Romans did. I would tear down my inner wall and create a garden there, which would hopefully delight Gillian and the elves. Outside of it there would be a circular marketplace with the most important buildings assembled like the crafting hall, the temple, bath house, maybe an adventurer¡¯s guild after I got the dungeon core and a well defended fortress with my core inside. It would need so much work but I was thrilled to begin with the work. The only problem to solve was destroying the green pests and then I was free to build as I wanted. I just hoped that the gods saw reason enough to create a temple that would blend in with my vision of the innermost parts of my future city. As it seemed I will also have to grow some big trees for the elves to live in and connect them somehow to Gillian, to create a second layer of living space above the ground. I will have to change some oak trees for that project, but with my new knowledge this shouldn¡¯t be too much of a hassle. One of the ways to destroy my enemies was the use of my makeshift minefield, so I would have to imbue many stones with mana to the brim and only at the last moment overcharge them. Also I had the grenade idea with using fireballs to detonate devastating shrapnel all over the battlefield, but with the low range of my casters I will have to build my blast traps much closer to my wall than I was comfortable with. Galen and I will have to test them and their effective radius to make sure that we don¡¯t accidentally hurt or even kill our own. Friendly fire was never good for morale. I wasn¡¯t sure if we could find oil anywhere near, so I will have to forget about setting my enemies on fire for a while, but I will use it sometime in the future to traumatize them enough and prevent them from striking against me again. After I had spent most of the remaining daylight on digging pitfalls and growing bushes, I returned to my core and watched the elves for a while chatting and enjoying the company of their partners. I had a guess what would happen if I used my fertility buff in the near future and I will be near Galen to see his face when he looked to his wives. It will be priceless, and thanks to my wonderful memory I still will be able to remind Galen of it in hundreds of years to come. I almost pitied him as I watched the elven women trying to get the attention of their husbands, sometimes quite aggressively, and with the poor guys torn between two and even three wives. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it myself if I was still human, but as it stands I will watch the show and make pictures for the posterity. You never know, their children might ask them when and how they came to exist, and I will be sure to tell them. ¡°I¡¯m almost sure, that you have some nasty ideas again, right Marcus?¡± Kalla stood beside my core and I was impressed and also a bit scared that her womanly instincts were so accurate. I feared for the well-being of her potential husband-to-be if he ever went astray with his thoughts, as this devil of an elf would surely detect any improper thoughts. ¡°What do you think about me, Kalla? All I thought about was using one of my city buffs in the near future and if I do, you should have a partner to keep the dynasty going, you know.¡± I said with the calmest tone I was able. She lifted her left brow and asked curiously with a little bit of insecurity sneaking into her voice, ¡°What do you mean? And what is a city buff by the way?¡± Oh, I found her Achilles heel! Curious I asked her, ¡°Kalla, is it possible that you don¡¯t want to do your dynastic duty and produce an heir as soon as possible?¡± I got her. That was her weakness; now I would only have to dig in the hole in her armor and tease her a little bit more. She went almost pale and then blushed, ¡°I will do my d-d-duty, but first I have to find a willing mate and as it stands, there isn¡¯t much choice around here.¡± I grinned and enjoyed her evasive maneuver, but I had an answer for it, ¡°You know, I have a kind of spell that targets all members of a race in my city to heighten their chances for concepting a child by 100%.¡± Perhaps I shouldn¡¯t have teased Kalla so much, because she looked incredulously at me and called out, ¡°You can what? Our women can get pregnant easier with a spell of yours?¡± I suddenly felt most of the eyes of the women staring down on me and I thought ¡®SHIT¡¯. 25. An addional builder Kalla and everyone inside the walls now came close to my core with eager eyes and some strange light sparkling in them. I felt like prey hunted down by some predators. The women scared me with their desperate and hungry eyes. ¡°Does this mean, that you can double our chances of having children?¡± the princess asked speaking especially loud. Okay, the secret was out and I could use the chance to increase my reputation with my citizen. ¡°Yes, that''s exactly what it does. It''s one of my city buffs, the other one gives my defenders a skin like ironwood, which should be somewhat helpful in a fight, don''t you think?¡± Galen and his wives with Chara in tow stood by my core now with the old guy the speaker for them, ¡°Master, what do you need for these buffs to enact them?¡± ¡°Both need 1000 mana and some upkeep with the fertility buff using much less mana to prolong the effect. I''m not sure if an enemy also gives me mana when he enters my domain, so I will be a little bit restricted with spells if the goblins don''t spare some mana for me. Nonetheless I will be able to keep the defence buff active for all of you to reduce any casualties. And before any of you want me to activate the fertility buff now, please consider that we need to build up our defences first.¡± Dorien suddenly rose his right hand and after most of the elves looked his direction, said, ¡°Lord Marcus, I know that you have to build many things but some of us will die in the battle and perhaps we can give our wives at least a child to remember us with using your buff. All of us will give you any mana we can spare if you can give us this chance, even the children.¡± I was surprised that the otherwise shy craftsman spoke up but when I watched the elven women looking to their husbands with unspoken fear for them in their eyes I understood that they needed this, and I had to admit that if I was on the verge of being extinct by my mortal enemies I would grab any straw to fight for survival. So I sighed and used my spare mana to activate the buff right away. Looking at their faces they at once felt the change and I suddenly felt Gillian trying to connect with my mind. ¡°Yeah, Gillian, what''s up? Do you also want to propagate like the rest of my citizen?¡± Okay, maybe I wanted to mess a little with her, but I wasn''t prepared for her next statement. ¡°Don''t start something you cannot fulfil! You could have told me that you had such a spell up your sleeve. As a hearth tree I have also a way to increase the chance of my elves to conceive child. Working together we could give almost a third of them a sporting chance of new kids. The only problem is that they will do nothing else than fucking each other for the next 10 hours. Time that will be lost for your defence plans.¡± I saw Kalla looking at the hearth tree and knew what her request to Gillian would be. ¡°Okay fellows, please just do me the favor and have sex outside my wall, preferable down at the river somewhere. At least I will be able to work on the shelters this way with you out of my way. As I understood it, Gillian will also give you her blessing, so use your chances. Now get lost and have some fun.¡± Most of them had the decency to blush at least when they went outside and down to the river to find a secluded place for their fun. Galen was towed away also by his two wives, but he seemed quite happy about it. If they somehow happened to get children I was curious if the kids had any kind of connection with me as their parents were my guardians. That would be very nice. Additional guardians without having to designate them and using my little slots for them. Tiria won''t allow me something like that, but I at least could dream, couldn''t I? If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Now that most of the elves had went outside with only some children left, Chara one of them, I could resume my work with the shelters. I called to Chara to follow me to my next project and waited for her, watching her eyeing me with care and caution. ¡°Come here, Chara, I won''t bite. I''m sorry that I have reprimanded you so hard before, but I absolutely dislike the way you behaved earlier. I know that you are young and want to show off, but as a city guardian you have to be an example for the citizen, a fair and nice noble of some kind that doesn''t ridicule anyone just because the other has little skill with something you have more of. You are lovely, intelligent and some day you will be a very beautiful lady but I also want you to have a beautiful personality. My citizen shall adore you and try to follow your steps. If that means that I have to discipline you here and there, I will do without remorse, but never forget that I like you and I took you as my first city guardian to show it.¡± I saw tears swell in her eyes and she sniffed more than a bit. The poor thing thought perhaps that I would abandon her and I wished more than ever that I had a real body to embrace her and pat her head a bit to show my affection. But hey, perhaps I could use the same mental technique I used for punishing her to send her my feelings. Opening the connection to her I tried to embrace her with my affection and love. I didn''t have any children back on earth and maybe will never have as being a crystal being, so Chara was a good alternative. Sending my feelings for her down the connection I felt her fear and insecurity, the need to please me and not being abandoned. The dam of her feelings broke and she cried falling to her knees, releasing all the pent up tension and grief from loosing her grandparents, the terror of the escape and the fear of being hunted down. Gillian stood at the tree and watched the scene with an approving nod and smiled at me. I gave my little guardian a bit of time to gather herself and went back to building some pillars. It became easier to cut the stone with mana every time as my sculptor skill increased and I could even add minor details to the stone itself. Nothing fancy like built in pictures, just some basic reliefs, but with enough time I would be able to create some nice things, that I was sure of. ¡°Thanks, my lord.¡± I heard Chara speaking silently. ¡°No problem small kitten! Join me and help me build some pillars. I will give you access to my inventory and you can use my workspace to cut the stones with mana. It''s hard work, but it will train your mana pool hopefully and also your other skills. Hm, thinking about it, I will copy all my known skills to you now, so work with them. They should help you with the project. If you are done with a pillar stone like this one,¡± I floated to an already created one, ¡°try to take it out of my inventory and put it over there. If you have any problems, call me, okay?¡± She still had red eyes and sniffed a bit but she seemed much happier now to me and started the work right away. I wanted her to use my workspace because I hoped that my guardians would also be able to use my building powers to increase the overall work speed. And if that also made them renowned architecs and builders it would also increase my own reputation in this world. With part of my mind I watched Chara working in my workspace, concentrating hard on the stone before her, using only her mana to cut the stone the same way I did. She had a much smaller mana pool than I did now, but her regeneration was amazing when she had to rest. I used a bit of my mana to replenish hers and felt her thanks through our connection. I was quite sure what I would feel from my other guardians, so I didn''t open their connection to me right now. Restricted to this crystal body it was hard enough to know that they were having fun, so I didn''t want to also feel it. I wasn''t a big womanizer back on earth but I had the run in with the fairer sex here and there. Now that were memories I didn''t have any use for, so could we make a deal dear Tiria, and you take them and give some useful information back instead?....No answer, thanks for helping! I appeared also in my workspace and cut some stones to give my girl some company and together we worked in determined silence. She was talented in her use of mana. First her cuts were somewhat crude and broke pieces of the stone but after 2 hours she had it down to lasercutter. Sure, she burned through her energy faster than a racing car through gas, but it increased her skill nicely and if that helped me to train an additional builder, then the loss of some mana was well invested. Regarding her finished work I was content and took her outside to put the stone in place. She concentrated on our connection and felt her grabbing the pillar stone, enveloping it with her mana and then pull it out. It felt strange atfirst, but I will adapt. The stone appeared exactly at the right spot and I patted her mind softly, getting a strange kind of purring back from her. ¡°Good work, Chara. Let''s get back and finish the rest of the stones. You will create the whole pillar yourself while I create the rest of the shelter. In the future I will let you create complete buildings alone, so work hard and make me proud.¡± ¡°That would be nice. Can I build my own castle some day?¡± I wasn''t sure why, but I dreaded the idea of a hello kitty castle in pink in my city. 26. Rise of the paladin? Chara was quite serious about creating her own place, and as long as she behaved herself I couldn''t deny her request, ¡°If you work hard and we survive this siege, then sure, why not? Let''s finish with the shelters and then I want you to train the fireball spell again.¡± Eagerly she continued with cutting the stones and I resumed with my work also. I was working on my second roof when I felt the gaze of someone I had almost already forgotten about from my first encounter with the elves. It was that guy named Andarin. He watched me, or should I say, he watched the stones I was moving, as I was sure that he wasn''t able to see me directly. . Due to the fact that every other mature male elf was occupied at the moment, I was bewildered that he stood on the wall instead of being down at the river having some fun. This mystery had to be solved at once, so I divided my attention leaving one of my subminds to continue with building as I floated to the lonely elf. ¡°Hello Andarin. (I don¡¯t mean to intrude, but) I''m at somewhat of a loss why you are here and not down at the river rolling around with a lovely maiden right now. Could you enlighten me?¡± I used a bit of mana to highlight myself to give his eyes a point to focus on. His expression was almost depressed with a hint of anger underneath. ¡°No girl would want to bed the idiot of the city, even if I am the best with a sword around here.¡± There was so much suppressed acid in his voice that I winced inwardly. His eyes were dark and filled with a deep regret. I could tell this conversation was quickly becoming more than I expected. If he blamed me for what happened when I first arrived, then I might have an enemy among my own people; never mind about the goblins swiftly approaching my walls. ¡°I have invested all my stats into strength and vitality to be a shield for my people, (but with the new methods you have shown,) all the girls only look at the guys with strong mana and quick fingers. I stood strong when the goblins hit us with everything they had! I put down more of them than any mage. I let them hit me instead of my fellow elves and still I''m the one that gets shunned! And why? Only because I might not be the brightest candle in the lot? Bah.¡± His shoulders and head sank, ¡°I also almost killed you, thereby destroying the only piece of luck we had since the escape, which didn''t help me at all with my people. They regard me as a brute and dimwit who can only hit things with his sword.¡± Poor guy. I wasn''t his biggest fan either, since he had attacked me at first sight, but I could understand his motivation. From what I could tell, all previous dungeons had been dangerous and power-hungry; he was only trying to protect his people when he attacked me, and now he got the cold shoulder for it. At least it seemed like he was accepting his mistake instead of blaming others. I had watched the elves for some time now, and as a result of it realized that they didn''t value close combat highly, making Andarin somewhat of an oddity. On the bright side, I had an idea that would make him an oddity that I had use for. ¡°Look Andarin, I admit that I wasn''t thrilled about you attacking me, but regarding the story with your people I understand your reaction. You really were just trying to do what was best for your kinsmen. You know, the mages won¡¯t be able to repel this attack all on their own though. As it stands I have use for someone like you as there will be a high demand for close combat fighters in the siege. Bows and spells will only take us so far until the enemy reaches the wall and then we will have to fight them with sword and knife. Even with my barkskin city buff we will have heavy losses if the defenders can''t use their weapons. What do you think about training the other villagers? This way you can regain some of that respect and also serve in making our village safer from attacks.¡± I could see his eyes start to brighten up at the thought of this. I went on before he could say anything, ¡°But first I want you to increase your level and invest your stats into intelligence and wisdom. Perhaps we can persuade your goddess to make a paladin out of you if we make you a little bit smarter and wiser.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. He seemed puzzle now and asked, ¡°A paladin? What is that? And why do you want to help me even though I tried to kill you?¡± ¡°Hey no hard feelings from me. You only did your best and tried to protect your people, which is exactly what paladins do. They protect their people and do the bidding of their gods. Infused with the strength and magic of their gods paladins heal and encourage their allies. They also have the power to smite enemies with holy magic. Is there nothing like that on this world?¡± He shook his head and looked at me with hope. ¡°No, I have never heard of something like that before, but it sounds exactly like a dream come true to me.¡± Then the light in his eyes diminished again, ¡°But how can I increase my level around here? There are no enemies to be found and even with my skill with the sword I couldn''t take on a whole group of goblins alone.¡± He had a good point there, but I had a solution for it, ¡°I need some reconnaissance done anyway on the strength and composition of our foe''s army, so I would like you and a few other fighters of your choice to seek out and destroy any small groups you can find. Just remember that you shouldn''t be discovered by the main army, so you want to choose people who are able to move stealthily. Detect the goblin scouting parties, kill them, level yourself in the process, and then return. In the meantime I will gather information about how someone becomes a paladin on this world. Maybe I can have a small talk with Tiria and Alvera, otherwise I will just improvise something. Your companions should learn some sword skills from you during that time and it would be awesome if you could maybe learn a few things from them as well. Does that sound okay?¡± Andarin''s face brightened up and he fell down to one knee, ¡°My lord, I will do as you say and smite your enemies where I find them. Please help me find the strength and the good will of Alvera to destroy her enemies and spread her word to everyone who hears my voice!¡± ''You know that it isn''t as easy as you think, right? No temple, no paladin! You need a holy place to channel the necessary divine power for creating a holy warrior and as far as I can see, there is no temple in your small settlement, little one'' Tiria''s voice told me in my mind. ''Oh, I don''t know. A hearth tree seems like a good start, don''t you think? If I could increase her shrine a little bit more then with a ceremony we could sanctify the ground enough to classify for the ritual, don''t you think?'' I felt surprise and then a bit of anger from Tiria, ''Are you nuts? This will give her a place of her own right beside your core and a shrine bigger than anything I have! I won''t stand for this!'' The goddess jealous? I would have laughed right then if I didn¡¯t know that she would have punished me at once, so I just tried to soothe her, ''My dear goddess, you should know that I will reclaim the place again later and then build a big and splendid temple with a wonderful and awe inspiring statue of you, bigger than anyone else''s. They can whine as much as they want, but in my city your shrine will always be the biggest and prettiest around. So please just give Alvera this one time boon. I need someone like Andarin to be her paladin. If you regard it another way, I''m somewhat of a paladin myself. After all, I represent you here and try to give the whole world a better view of who you are. What do you say?'' She seemed reluctant at first, but with every new sentence I spoke she swayed more to my side. I could tell that she still held some reservation though as she said, ''You''re right, but don''t forget what you said. I will hold you true to your word and want a central place in the temple where everyone can see me. I will talk to Alvera now and see what we can arrange for your new idea, strange as it seems.'' I turned my attention back to Andarin and saw him still kneeling before me. ¡°Stand up, you will be a paladin and the only person you have to bow your head to will be your goddess, just don''t forget that this is my city and my rules still apply here.¡± He stood up and an unburdened grin split his face, making him look much younger and more handsome than before. His former self reminded me of someone who had bitten into a lemon, but now he was like a kid at Christmas. ¡°You still have to level up and come back, preferably with the whole team alive and kicking, you hear? As soon as the rest are back and rested we will gather your team and then you can get to work.¡± He seemed unshaken by my words, ¡°I will do as you say, but I will never forget who saved me from desperation. Even if none of the ladies want me, I will still serve my goddess and have you as a friend.¡± The idiot didn''t realize that I would be using him in the frontline to save my bacon. Oh well! 27. Discovery Andarin looked at me with eagerness and hope, waiting for me to say something, so I wondered if I could help him with strengthening his muscles somewhat with mana and then suddenly remembering our first encounter when the guy appeared out of thin air right beside me with a rush of mana, ¡°Andarin, there is something that makes me wonder. How did you arrive so fast beside my core when we first met?¡± The elf frowned shortly and answered, ¡°Oh, that''s just a skill called mana step. By using my complete mana pool I can teleport some distance. You can use it for a pre-emptive strike or to escape a bad situation, but as I said it uses all my mana in the process. If I had a bigger mana pool, I would be able to use it more often, but I have invested most of my time into increasing my weapon skills. I could train my mana to increase the amount but that needs more time than I like to use for magic skills.¡± So magic was something like a muscle. More training produced stronger magic. It made sense somehow, but I hadn''t seen anything myself until now. I mean, I used my magic constantly so shouldn''t be there some improvement? Maybe my existence as a kind of magical creature hindered me developing my power this way. ¡°Have you ever tried to infuse mana into your muscles? Just let it flow through your body to make him stronger?¡± I asked my future meat shield. He seemed bewildered by the idea and frowned, then he crooked his head to the side with a thoughtful look in the eyes. I hoped his brain didn''t get damaged by using it too hard. He took his time thinking about it and I waited impatiently sighing inwardly about this loaf of a guy. ¡°You know, I have tried that as a child sometimes but I never got it right. There always seemed to be too much or too less mana in my limbs and often I would hurt myself pretty badly, so I stopped experimenting with mana, but I got a skill for my training called mana manipulation.¡± I floated there and I was sure if I had a jaw it would have hit the ground right away. This guy of all possible candidates had the one skill that all the mages needed so badly and he had never used it for all its versatility because he was a dumb idiot! And to add injury to insult his parents hadn''t recognized this wonderful skill the guy possessed. If he had trained it properly and others alike the goblins would have run in a wall of steel and magic instead almost wiping out the elven tribe. I had to remind myself that until humans on earth had developed the scientific method innovation wasn''t very widespread. I mean look to china. They developed black powder but it took hundreds of years to produce the first guns. It seemed, that I still had my historical knowledge but I wasn''t able to remember what black powder made so powerful and how it was produced, not to mention how it worked. Perhaps I could use a kind of very small pebbles, then charge them with mana until they were short before explosion, fill them into a tube and fire a projectile by overcharging the pebbles? ¡°Sir, you are so silent, what''s the problem?¡± Oh right, I forgot Andarin totally. ¡°I want you to do something for me right now. Try to remember what you did back then and I will watch you with my special sight. I will try to guide you through the process and help you find the right measure for your power. We will see about the next steps after that.¡± He seemed content and sat down to concentrate, closing his eyes and steadying his breath. He relaxed his whole body and I watched his mana slowly moving from a place a liitle bis under his heart to his limbs. ¡°Only try to guide the mana to your legs first, Andarin.¡± He did as told and I watched his energy moving down into the muscles and bones, accumulating there more and more. I watched closely how his body reacted and tried to get a feeling like I did when using enchanting to determine when an object reached saturation. It was similar with him and I felt that he reached the point quite fast, ¡°Stop the flow now and let me watch what happens.¡± I had to admit, that the elf was an obedient pupil as he stopped the flow immediately. Slowly the saturation of his legs declined and I tried to get a feeling for the amount of it. ¡°Now let it flow again but use less mana now and reduce it steadily until I stop you.¡± The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. He sent the mana flowing again and as I said reduced the amount slowly almost overcharging his limbs, a little bit of pain showing on his face. After some seconds I said, ¡°Now keep the flow steady at this margin and stand up slowly.¡± He had problems to keep his concentration on the flow but managed it somehow, standing with closed eyes on the wall. ¡°Familiarize yourself with this feeling and the flow of energy to your legs. Burn it into your memory!¡± I gave him more time to get comfortable with the mana in his legs. The tension in his face and body lessened and became more relaxed with every moment until he suddenly opened the eyes with a grin on his lips. ¡°I can feel it, master. The mana gives me strength I have never felt before and it is amazing. But I won''t be able to keep up for a long time, lord Marcus. My mana pool isn''t big enough for more than 10 minutes I guess.¡± I thought, that this wouldn''t be a bigger problem at all, ¡°You know, Andarin, the more you train with your mana the more it should increase your power. So you should train your mana as often as possible by using this technique and keep on getting stronger. I would also appreciate it if you used mana for other things as well, for example hardening your skin or perhaps sharpening your weapon.¡± He looked interested with my ideas, ¡°I don''t know how you come up with all these ideas, but I will try to fulfil your wishes and also come up with some of my own, but how will I know when I have reached the right amount of mana?¡± Oh, that was easy! I smirked inwardly, ¡°Did you feel pain before?¡± He bobbed his head, ¡°See, that was the point when you overcharged your body. Try to increase the charge slowly and at the point when you first feel pain, stop and find the right point with a reduced charge after some time. Then you only have to remember how much mana you used to reach the perfect saturation and you will have a new way to enhance your fighting style. Okay?¡± Andarin looked like a person with a religious enlightenment right now and was glued to my non-existent lips, ¡°Yes, sir. Regarding the team I will be part of, who will you send with me? I''m not good with sneaking around and would need some training to do that.¡± ¡°Do not trouble yourself with my problems. I will ask the princess to find suitable candidates with someone who can train you in the arts of a ranger. Now get back to training your new technique, I have other things to do right now. Oh, and don''t be surprised if you hear loud bangs from the direction of the forest. I want to test an idea I got some minutes ago.¡± With that said I left him and went to the border of my domain and began to create a tube made of stone with one end closed. After that I took some pebbles and crushed them between some flat stones I made, remembering a video I once saw about old mills and mill stones. It took surprisingly much mana to turn the pebbles into grit, but I was very satisfied with the result. With the grit ready now I imbued mana into the substance and got almost at once an explosion. It wasn''t very strong, but it propelled my grit all around the place, frustrating me more than just a bit. It seemed that every crushed pebble counted separately as an enchanted object and that was a problem because I surely didn''t want to imbue every tiny part to create my black powder substitute. There had to be another way to do this! After having thought about the problem for some time I just wanted to facepalm myself. Why should I use grit if I could use clay! It was a coherent substance and could easily be parted into any wished size. I had some of it still in my inventory and formed it like a bullet. Then I imbued it carefully with my mana and discovered that clay didn''t use much mana to reach saturation. Filling the clay bullet into my tube I targeted a small muck hill and overcharged the clay. I expected to see an explosion erupting from the other end of my tube, but not that the whole tube shattered into fragments of sharp stone splinters, shredding everything in 3 meters diameter. I was so glad that I didn''t have a fleshly body right now. Okay, so a stone tube wasn''t strong enough to contain and direct the explosion, so I would have to use a stronger material. Sadly I didn''t have any other stuff at my disposal right now. I went back to the shelters and rummaged through the materials of the craftsmen, looking for anything I could use, when I saw Kalla walking inside the walls. As she sensed my presence she changed directions immediately and walked to my position, looking curious at my doing. ¡°I know that we have told you that we will do our best to helpyou with building your city, but why do you search the property of my subjects? Couldn''t you just ask them?¡± Sighing I turned my attention to her, ¡°Excuse me, but it seems that they are quite occupied at the moment. By the way, why aren''t you?¡± Blushing a deep red she stared to the ground, ¡°I have no partner right now and didn''t want to take the fun from any of the couples,¡± She squinted her eyes,looking sharply at me, ¡°You haven''t answered my question.¡± ¡°Yeah, I haven''t.¡± I resumed my search and enjoyed the simple fun of teasing her. I ignored her stare for a minute, humming a melody and then said, ¡°I''m searching for a material that I can form into a pipe and that is much more sturdy than stone. I just blasted a stone pipe some minutes ago because the material wasn''t strong enough for the explosion happening inside the pipe. You don''t know if someone here has anything I could use?¡± Frowning she looked at me and thought about it, ¡°Perhaps one of the smiths has any metals you could use, but without the proper tools you would be hard pressed to form it into a suitable shape, even with your use of mana. The only other alternative would be ironwood, but if I remember it correctly the last ironwood tree was halfway back to our former village, but maybe some of our hunters have seen another one during their hunts.¡± I was sad that I couldn''t continue with my project right away and had to wait until any of the hunting groups would be unoccupied again, but there was still another pressing matter I had to talk with my adorable elven princess, ¡°I know that it sounds strange now, but I have a pressing matter to discuss with you, Kalla. You remember Andarin, right?¡± She nodded, bewildered by my sudden change of topic, ¡°I have discovered an interesting skill he has and want him to get some levels to balance some of his stats. He will be one of my pillars for the defence against the goblins, as I urgently need someone who can take serious punches and still stand upright. So I want you to collect a team that will be able to infiltrate the forest, find small packs of goblins and hunt them down.¡± Pure disbelief andpale she faced me, ¡°Andarin? You mean Andarin, the dumbest male in many miles around? Are you for real?¡± 28. A new view I knew that Kalla would be shocked, but her complete disregard of a man who threw his body between danger and the escaping elves did somehow disturb me. ¡°Princess, Andarin defended you and the other elves against the goblins with his body and his sword even if all of you despise him for being so weak with magic. Just to let you know, I have him shown a technique to strengthen his body way beyond everything any normal elf could reach, and he was able to learn it only because he has tought himself the mana manipulation skill, which is something even your brightest mages haven''t done. I admit, that he did it by pure chance, but nonetheless he did it. Now tell me, if you still find him useless.¡± I wasn''t able to hide my anger very well and some personal grudges from my former life came to bear in this moment. Who wasn''t regarded poorly by some others who thought themselves better than the rest? My school life was so hard and filled with anger because of these social bullies, and now I had the same problems here. ¡°Kalla, I have decided that I will make it mandatory that all citizen in my city will have to learn basic mana skills. There will be a school open for everyone to learn what he or she needs for becoming a mage if the person wants that. I may be not able to avoid some bullying because someone isn''t so capable with increasing his or her mana pool but everyone will get the chance to pull himself out of misery.¡± The young elf looked at me like I had knocked her over, ¡°Excuse me Marcus, but what exactly is a school?¡± Now I was at a loss for words. They didn''t even know what a school was? I had to remind myself, that this world was the counterpart of earth''s bronze age. I saw Andarin''s sword and recognized it as a bronze weapon. Metal technology was just developing, so perhaps I could help with that also. At least I knew that iron came after bronze on earth and that iron was something contained in red rocks. Hm, back to topic. ¡°A school is a place of learning where people with knowledge about a topic teach others, usually kids about it, therefore increasing chances for future generations to develop new lore and technologies. They learn to read and write, basic mathematics, their people and the world and also new languages.¡± Kalla listened to me fascinated and her eyes showed that she tried to imagine such a place. ¡°With such a place we would be able to reach new heights in no time, ¡° She said with a dreamy voice, then suddenly frowning, ¡°But the people who teach wouldn''t be able to do their usual work, so wouldn''t that be a problem?¡± I sighed and prepared myself for a long explanation of what a specialized job is, and what advantages it carried compared to the usual jack-of-all-trades. There existed some crafters, Dorien was a good example, but they all learned many other skills too. The same was commonplace on Earth until the late middle ages, where scholars could learn all the knowledge the world had to offer in their lifetime. As beings with a much longer life span than humans elves were prone to learn many more skills and develop them too a much larger degree, but I wanted them to specialize more so they would expand their knowledge more. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Kalla wasn''t convinced at first but when I summarized all the advantages of having higher skills in comparison to having many skills with a much lesser degree, she began to understand my point of view. I would have to invest time and money in a good education system, but I was sure that I would reap endless benefits from it in a very short time, relatively. I had endless time at my disposal, and with my guardians I had already people I could use to teach different skills quite easily as I was able to give them my own and with enough time they would all become masters with them, even if I had to force them to master the skills. I spoke until shortly before dawn with Kalla about schools and my own experiences with them and totally forgot the time over it, when the princess suddenly yawned and then blushed. ¡°Excuse me please, Marcus, but I''m very tired. I would recommend to ask Kitara about a good team for Andarin. I still cannot believe that he will be so important for your plans, but if you think that he will be a good asset for the town, go ahead. He is yours.¡± She slightly bowed her head and went to one of the three shelters that I had completed in the night. The sun rose over the horizon and illuminated her body in golden light, letting me enjoy a wonderful new morning to continue building my city. ********************POV Ildara**************************************** I sneaked through the dense undergrowth of the Great Forest, always fearing that the near goblins would detect my presence and warn the horde of my approach. My elders had sent me forth to investigate the loss of contact with our brethren in the south some weeks ago. Their hearth tree was a sprout of our own and had matured enough to hold a sentience only a decade ago. The whole tribe was young and not very big so we helped them sometimes with tools and weapons from our crafters in exchange for materials found down here in the south, like ironwood and some special herbs used by our potion makers. I was quite terrified when I encountered the first goblins and lizardmen after I entered the former territory of the Driaden tribe. Almost running into a patrol of them I could save myself by diving into a pond and keeping down as long as possible. With my high endurance that wasn''t such a big problem, but if the reptilians would have cared more about their surroundings and checked for any footprints they would have discovered me. Luckily they were so full of themselves that they neglected the sounds I made and went away shortly after. Since that time I investigated their troops and what they did to my kin. My uncle lived around here and I couldn''t imagine how these stupid goblins were able to destroy a complete tribe without suffering heavy losses. All my discoveries pointed to some help from the inside, but that was impossible. Which lunatic elf would ever help our mortal enemies destroy a hearth tree? I saw three goblins some 30 meters forward standing near an old and half-dead oak looking away from me. I checked the wind and was happy that it blew in my face, so they wouldn''t be able to smell me. I have to admit that the sense of smell was much better than mine but regarding the fact that they were also much more animal-like that wasn''t very surprising. Their greenish pelt speckled with brown spots made for very good cover in the forest, and their apelike faces had a big sensitive snout and big fangs on both jaws. I have seen apes called baboons and the goblins resembled them somewhat. Goblins didn''t have so long tails and walked upright, their hands had sharp claws and they were average about 1,4 meter tall. With their good night vision and superhuman smell they were excellent hunters but their hearing wasn''t very good, which was good for me, as I sneaked closer to them to hear their wicked voices talking. ¡°Gammorren telling going south. We kill elves and find big treasure. Shaman saying, catching big crystal, city dungeon.¡± The animal-like voice of the goblin to my right spoke of something I dreaded the most and also gave me some hope. My kin was alive, but they were hunted and what was this crystal, this city dungeon? 29. Hunting season I waited for some minutes in hope that they would talk some more but they kept silent. They just stood there waiting and sweeping the forest with their eyes. I hoped that perhaps one or two would leave and therefore giving me a chance to sneak up on one and subdue a goblin to question him later about the happenings but my luck didn''t trigger. Carefully I distanced myself from the group and searched for an opportunity to capture one of the green pests. It had rained days ago, so the ground was not very wet anymore making my job much harder. All my senses were hard pressed to detect any danger when I suddenly noticed tracks on the ground before me, and they were definitely not from a goblin or a lizardman. Whoever observed the goblins was a humanoid a little bit heavier than myself and about my height. The tracks led south through the undergrowth and the person didn''t work hard to disguise his or her tracks. Such a sloppy job, almost as if done on purpose. I did my best to destroy any traces of me and the unknown idiot or maybe traitor. After half an hour working I discovered a lonely goblin doing his business against an old oak only 30 meters away from me. He stood with his back to me and his posture told me that he didn''t fear any threats coming his way, his weapon, a primitive spear with a stone top, leaning against the tree. I smirked and crawled carefully through the dense bushes using any cover I could find. His tracks showed that he had walked the path right before me to this tree and maybe he would walk it back too. Sneaking myself into a bush using all the experience gathered of my hundred years as a scout no noise disturbed the goblin''s call of nature. I stood motionless and breathing as shallow as possible, waiting for my prey to walk by. The foul smell of his piss and dirty body wafted in my direction, making me feel like throwing up. I concentrated and blended everything unnecessary out, a technique I learned decades ago from my uncle, a renowned mage in my tribe and his new one as well. Even if I wasn''t as gifted with magic as others, he tought me meditation and concentration, teaching me the necessary gifts to enhance my life span enough that I would at least last for another hundred years. I really hoped that he was still alive. The goblin had finished his business and grabbed his spear, walking in my direction. He didn''t wear any shoes and also no armor, only a shoddy loincloth with a crude leather belt, his pelt enough to protect him from the weather. Not that it would help him much against me. I''ve hunted his kind since I was a little girl, killing my first goblin when I was 12 years old. My hate for these pests knew no boundary as they had killed my little brother when I was 9 and after that I trained with the scouts and everyone who could teach me any weapon skills. I was good with the bow, the blowgun, poisons and the sword, but my passion was with my daggers. Close and personal was my goal, hunting my prey and playing with it, making it fear for its life and flee from me. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Some would call me cruel but I did my job to protect my people and kill any threats before they became too big to be dealt with easily. I didn''t hunt game, that''s the task of the hunters, no my prey is, was and will always be the thinking kind, mostly on two legs but not always. I had lost my companions on the way, paying for my determination with my love life but I wouldn''t want it any other way. I was the huntress and I was the protector of my tribe. The goblin walking without knowing of his mortal enemy near him was my prey. It aroused me more than my occasional encounters with some boys searching for a quick release of their desires. I might be a bit deranged but I will enjoy kicking this goblin''s butt and drawing information out of his ugly head. He was now only 2 meters away from me and still didn''t show any signs of alarm. I knew that his keen nose would detect me once he passed my position, so I attacked as long as I had the advantage of surprise on my side, my daggers a blur as I went for his shoulder, trying to disable him right from the start. The goblin was completely surprised and unable to react in time to deflect my blades as they cut into his flesh, ripping through sinews and making him drop his spear to the ground. Before he could cry out I was hammering my elbow into his throat,silencing him this way. Falling backwards he tried to roll away from me but I followed his every motion. They all moved the same way and I had studied them for decades. A mere pawn would never surprise me. He tried to get back on his feet, but I kicked him hard, hitting his knee and getting a satisfying noise of breaking bones in return. Pain and fear lit his eyes, and that was the moment I had to be careful because when they are cornered they always try to attack with their fangs and jump for your throat, trying to take you with them to the grave. Not this time, little bastard! I ducked under his jump and grabbed one leg, using his weight and power against him. Throwing him around I smashed his head against a solid looking branch and knocked him out effectively. The forest was silent again and I stayed still, concentrating on every noise around me, hoping that none of his friends, if goblins even had friends, heard the fight. I was fortunate because I didn''t hear anyone coming my way, but I knew that I would have to be fast now. First I administered first aid to the goblin as I didn''t want him to suffocate. Then I bound his limbs and gagged him, making sure that he wouldn''t be able to call for help as soon as he awakened. My next course of action was the hard part because now I would have to search for a place where I could interrogate him and take him there without leaving any tracks the other goblins would be able to follow. Years of hunting my prey had taught me the necessary steps and half an hour later I was in a small cave behind a waterfall, that I had discovered years ago. I made sure to search for any signs that the cave had been discovered but there were only tracks of small animals,so I felt quite secure. I bound my prisoner to a big stone pillar and gathered some water to wake him up, watching with glee as his eyes looked for an escape. Then he discovered me standing in the shadows and he whimpered, ¡°You''re the dark elf!¡± It''s nice to be recognized for my work, isn''t it? 30. I hate fanatics ****************************POV Marcus******************************* I enjoyed the morning sun for a moment and then went back to work on my field of slaughter, as I called it. I wanted to create the targets for my fireball squad first. Detonating a fireball into another explosive target could wipe out enough enemies in one go that they might rethink their attack. As they would be quite close to the wall at this time, I hoped that I would have killed a good part of them already at that time. I sent a thought to Chara to come to me half an later, as she was my only free guardian at the moment as I was sure that Galen and his wives would need some time to gather enough strength for the rest of the day. That half an hour should be enough for me to craft a decent test object for her to blast. First I build a pillar of stone again with 2 meters height and set hollow orb onto it, the size of a human head. Then I used clay again and filled the inside with it, charging the clay with mana to the brim, registering that it took 300 mana. I would have to increase my level if I wanted to charge all my clay bombs. Chara walked to my newly created contraption and studied it closely, ¡°Master, what is this thing? I sense mana in it, but I can''t make sense of it.¡± I was very satisfied with my work and said smug, ¡°That, dear Chara, is an experiment of mine that will hopefully break any will to fight left in the goblins when they reach the walls. Let''s get back to the wall and then you will throw a fireball at this orb. If everything went the way I want it to, then it will blast its surroundings into meat paste.¡± She looked dubiously at me and frowned, ¡°I don''t want to be impolite but you sound more like a villain to me than a nice and sane person. I thought that you only wanted to build a city and not create weapons of mass destruction.¡± Her words washed over me like cold water and erased any satisfaction and happiness for my new weapon, ¡°You are right, Chara, but as history has proven more than one time, I have to defend what''s mine because of the greed and stupidity of other people. Most of the old cities on my former homeworld had a very brutal and bloody history. The more power a city has the more enemies it attracts. That''s a fact I could easily pass upon.¡± We had reached the wall and Chara climbed the vines easily without getting hurt. As it seems my plants didn''t affect my guardians at all, which is very useful information. Chara turned around on the wall and guessed the distance, ¡°Should be around 50 meters, I think. The others should be able to hit it easily. Shall I cast my spell now?¡± I looked around me and with only some kids and adults around I saw no reason to stop my little firecracker, ¡°Go ahead and blast the thing. I want to see if it does what I hope for.¡± Chara concentrated shortly and then threw a fireball at the orb with great precision. Maybe I shouldn''t have imbued to it with so much mana, because the blast was so strong that it vaporized the pillar, a good part of the ground it stood on and 10 meters around it. The air blast hit Chara with enough strength to threw her of the wall down to the roof of a shelter, making her roll dangerously close to the edge. Splinters of the orb and the pillar hit the wall and shredded the vines, burying themselves deep in the wall. The bang was so loud that everyone in 5 kilometers distance should have awoken from it. The unfortunates close to the center were deafened, and even I could feel the vibrations in my crystal. A mushroom cloud arose at ground zero and I watched the spectacle with horror as I was sure that I had unleashed hell on this poor planet. Explosives with so much potential for destruction could also easily destroy my beloved city. I would have to develop some counter measures in the future to disarm any such objects if I wanted to live peacefully and secure. Chara shook her head and tried to stand up, but her balance was off and after almost dropping down from the roof she just crawled over to me with pure horror on her eyes. Her gaze examined the place of the blast and I could see, that I have destroyed a part of the child in her. Fear and disbelief dominated her expression and I felt remorse for what I had done to her. I sent her a mental pat and my honest felt regret for her unwilling flight lesson. To my surprise she grinned slightly madly which caused a shiver down my imaginary spine. Maybe I created a real firecracker here. Well, I will never have to search for a demolition man or woman anymore. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. I knew rationally that I couldn''t spare her the horrors of war and killing other beings, this world was such a primitive and brutal place, but I also knew, that the sooner she prepared herself for what was coming the better her chance for survival was. That didn''t make me a lesser jerk for destroying her childish soul and replacing it with a battlemaiden. The other elves came running up from the river with their clothes in massive disorder, some with weapons drawn, others prepared to use magic. Galen and his wives came running too, their looks alarmed and sending me demands for information if there was an attack. After their gaze wandered to my test zone, they gave me reproachful looks and I had to admit that I felt a little bit of regret to have disturbed their fun. ¡°What the hell has happened? This looks like the front court of hell! Did you cause this, Lord Marcus?¡± asked Kitara with an eager tone in her voice. ¡°Ehm, yes, I tested a new idea of mine and it turned out a bit more devastating than expected.¡± ¡°A bit? A bit he says and everybody in 10 kilometers distance has been knocked out of bed by this blast.¡± Nala seemed a bit more agitated than her co-wife. Maybe I disturbed her morning fun? ¡°That was quite the explosion, Marcus. Could you repeat it next time with a little less juice? It seems the wall has gotten its part of the force and Chara looks also a slight deranged.¡± Galen wasn''t as agitated as Nala by a big margin. He almost looked excited about my next test. ¡°Next time? Are you all nuts? He almost blasted our new home to pieces with his crazy ideas. Even Gillian lost some leaves because of the explosion. Can''t you see that he gets crazier from day to day?¡± The person talking didn''t register with me. An elf with short blond hair, middle aged I thought, with a rather plain face and ragged clothes. He had a somewhat zealous look in his eyes and spittle flew from him as he held his speech. I took it easy and answered calmly, ¡°Hey fellow, I don''t know you yet good enough to remember your name, but you can always leave this place if you''re unhappy with the way I handle this place. Do I have to remind you, that you came to me and not the other way round?¡± The guy was startled first, but got back fast, anger and something other in his eyes, I couldn''t place right there, ¡°We didn''t have much choice then, as our leaders decided to collaborate with you, but I think I speak for all the others that we''re not happy with this situation at all...¡± ¡°STOP!¡± I interrupted him rudely now, ¡°Everyone who thinks the same like this guy here, speak up now before he creates a bigger mess than he already did.¡± The man wanted to say more, but Galen and my other guardians felt my anger and moved in to hinder him influencing more people. ¡°See? He sends his minions to subdue us! He''s just a dungeon core in another face. Don''t let yourself be blinded by his promises and shake off his chains before he can cement his hold on you.¡± I had to give it to him, he knew what to say in such situations. If I wanted to keep on the good side of the elves I would have to do something about it fast, as I saw some sceptical elves watching my guardians. ¡°Galen, Nala, Kitara, step back. Chara, go to my crystal and stay there for a while.¡± My guardians didn''t look happy with the situation but obeyed me, ¡°Now to you, who still hasn''t told me his name, you are free to leave whenever you want. I will even try to give Gillian enough mana to create a new seed for another hearth tree, but only after I have dealt with the goblin incursion, that your people has brought upon me. If you should choose to stay here, get it into your head, that this is my town and that I rule here. Kalla and other chosen man and women, advice me for the needs of their peoples, yes peoples, there will be more than just elves, but the last decision will always be mine.¡± ¡°So you will just get more races here and our opinion will be worth less with every new stranger! Our children will be dominated by your will and that of humans, orcs and even perhaps goblins. You won''t destroy our future, you vile follower of a goddess who has plagued this world for ages.¡± I watched the other elves and felt their fear and uncertainty of the future pull them to my opponent. ¡°Okay, so who gave you this buff for more children? Who gave you a home and a shelter? Who will give your children and their grandchildren a place to live and learn? You? Or I?¡± The man looked angered and turned to the crowd with outstretched arms, ¡°He tries to persuade you with empty promises. What did he give us, that we couldn''t have done without his help? A wall? Some shady shelters? We could have done that all without relying on his help.¡± I interrupted him again, ¡°Oh yeah, and what about the hearth tree? Could she have grown so fast with only your help? Would your goddess have blessed your tree already? When have you spoken the last time with her and received her help with anything?¡± Now I could hear murmer and some elves distanced themselves from the guy in their midst. He wasn''t pleased to see that his support dwindled and threw angry gazes at the dissenters, ¡°It could just be a big fraud staged by him and Tiria! Whoever can guarantee us that it was real? I....¡± Suddenly I felt Gillian''s presence like a pressure subduing the man and everyone around him, ¡°SHUT UP! I am the best proof ofAlvera''s blessing. Do you question this fact, traitor?¡± Gillian stood visibly before the man with green glowing eyes and a regal posture. I could feel the massive strain it caused for her and tried to offer my help, but before I could do something, I felt divine energy gathering around Gillian. Gillian''s voice became stronger and was imbued with Alvera''s power when she now stared at my opponent, ¡°What is it? Do you still want to deny that I got the goddess blessing?¡± The sentient tree made even me shiver with the power she emitted, the idiot before got much more than me and I saw him wet himself, which made me chuckle inwardly. I was curious how he wanted to object to her? He didn''t at all, as he just let his head hang down and dropped to the ground as if all energy had left him. The other elves watched him with disgust now, but moments ago they had almost given him their vote. Hypocrites, all of them. I will have to keep my guard up and protect myself better from now on. Kalla and the other elders seemed shocked how this scene had developed and turned their pleading eyes to me. I withdrew myself back to my core to think about what happened and ordered my guardians to stand guard around my body. I didn''t want some fanatic idiot to get any fancy ideas, 31. First Fight I sat in my workspace and reflected on the last minutes, trying to understand the motivations of the crowd and how I could have dealt with it easier. Just then I was interrupted by a thought from Galen, ''Master, I have Kalla here, who wants to talk with you. I would also want to have a word with you as I think I have discovered something strange about Cusian, the guy who opposed you.'' I didn''t sport the feeling of a talk with the princess right now, but Galen had spiked my interest, so I sent him an invite, watching him appear only seconds later. ¡°The princess wasn''t happy that you refused to talk with her, but I told her that I would try to sooth your anger. For now she has gone back to the people and will try to win back some trust. You should have warned us at least about your experiment, not that I wasn''t impressed with the result. It could save our bacon with a weapon like that at our disposal.¡± I remained silent and Galen didn''t press me which I appreciated very much. Having an old geezer like him with all his life experience and therefore knowing when he has to shut up, reassured me that I made a good choice selecting him as a city guardian. After some minutes of pleasant silence I looked at him and nodded, ¡°Now, you had discovered something?¡± Galen smiled and took a deep breath, ¡°When I searched for any threats beyond that idiot I used my mana sight on Cusian, because his behaviour irritated me. I have known this fellow for more than 40 years and he was always a rebel, but this aggressive role of a leader didn''t fit him. So I searched for something extraordinary and I was successful. I sensed some kind of mind magic influencing him, but it dissolved extremely fast. Whoever manipulated him into attacking you, he was very skilled and can do things with magic no one else is able to.¡± That surprised me and I was angry about not checking the guy, but it meant that we had a powerful enemy in our ranks, one I had to discover fast if I wanted the be the victor when the goblins attacked us. I nodded to Galen and sent him back outside, following him only seconds later. ¡°Nala and Kitara will guard my core, Galen and Chara be ready to strike at once when I detect our hidden friend. He is in my territory and therefore I should be able to sense his mana signature, now that I''m aware of him.¡± I had gathered the signature from Galen''s memories, the connection to him as a guardian useful again. Then I searched my entire domain with my mana, using almost my complete mana pool in the process, searching for this wicked feeling mana Galen had sensed. In most of the dungeon stories I had read on Earth dungeons could always feel their complete territory, but I didn''t and that was unfair. I had to use my resources to find anything, build anything. Dungeons had it so much easier than me. Suddenly I felt something at the edges of my domain and flew at once in the direction trying to catch whatever it was. At the same time I ordered Chara and Galen to follow me as fast as possible and take Andarin with them. He might be useful in a close combat fight. As I shot over the grassland I saw an elf with long brown hair running away from the city at full speed straight to the forest in the distance. Coming closer I saw that he was in fact a she and her body was covered in a full body leather armor made from boar skin. She held a bow in her left hand and on the right side a long dagger, almost a short sword already rocked with her long strides over the grass. I didn''t recognize her at first glance, but I hadn''t paid much attension to the common elves besides Dorien and some of the crafters. Soon she would leave my influence and I had to find a way to stop her somehow. Maybe it was impossible for dungeons to influence their territory when hostiles were near, but here was a clear advantage I had over them, because I could manipulate my terrain. I dug a hole right under under her next step almost 3 meters wide and half a meter deep, using most of the mana I had left. I told Nala and Kitara to dump their mana into me which they did at once. The elven maid lost her footing and crashed into the ground and I used the dirt I just had dug and dumped it on her, calling more from inventory and burying her like I did my father at the beach in my childhood. I heard her swearing and trying to get out of her misery, but with every second the weight on her got bigger and made it harder to get air into her lungs. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Andarin came running like the wind now, his body enhanced by the use of mana. He had drawn his blade and grinned like a madman coming to slaughter the innocent. Maybe it wasn''t such a good idea to make him a paladin, he seemed to enjoy fighting very much, more than necessary. I didn''t have time to reflect on this thought because the earth I had thrown onto the woman flew away with such power behind it, that I would have been hurt quite badly if I''d still had a body. The woman glowed with mana enhancing her muscles and her eyes flashed with anger, ¡°Stupid core! You should have let the elves and goblins just kill each other and then you would become the core of a mighty empire with me as your ruler, but now you have awoken my wrath and I will teach you some manners. First I will kill your toy soldier over there and then I will show your pathetic elves their place. ¡° ''Nice speech there, lady, but I have used the time to thread a mana fibre into your body to siphon some energy from you.'' I thought, ''Villains talk to much!'' I had to admit that she was powerful. Although I sucked on her mana pool like crazy, filling my own quite fast, she didn''t seem to care and ran to meet with Andarin, drawing her dagger and screaming loud enough that everyone in a kilometer distance could hear her clearly. No elven woman should be able to do something like that! I concentrated harder on her to get a reading of what she''d hidden, but her fast movements made it hard to get any information. Andarin and the gal clashed and their weapons screamed out like mistreated animals. The metal of their blades wasn''t built to withstand their enhanced strength and deep impressions were left where they connected. To my biggest surprise Andarin could hold his own against this mysterious foe. I used my own powers to support him any way possible by creating traps for the woman''s feet or dropping heavy boulders on her, making her rage even more. ¡°This is an honorable fight between me and him, core, so stop messing around. I will fight you later.¡± Is this girl for real? That''s my land, my people she attacked, and she had also done so with very unfair means. Coldly I answered while I threw some stones at here, ¡°Shut up, bitch! You played dirty first, now stop complaining if I do too. As soon as you lay dead at Andarin''s feet I will mop you up and dissect your sorry corpse to discover your secrets!¡± Now she got really mad. She attacked Andarin like a madman, ignoring her defense completely. Not that her opponent would have been able to use that for himself. She was so fast and deadly that any attempt to attack her would result in a blade between the ribs. Andarin was pressed harder with every moment and his movements became slower with his mana pool depleting fast. So I had little hope that we could win the fight, when a small fireball came suddenly from the city, hitting the crazy woman in the back. Throwing her attack wide to the side and giving my fighter the chance to strike right into the sweet spot into her stomach, he drove the blade through her and then gave her a solid headbutt. She gasped when the blade ran her through and tumbled back when Andarin knocked her down, pulling his sword out of her. I was sure that she was done for, but she jumped more than 10 meters away and then her body dissolved into a kind of blue mist, getting more than 5 times bigger. A second fireball came flying and smashed into the mist, followed by a loud and animal-like scream. The mist solidified and revealed a green reptilian-like body with wings that measured 5 meters each and a 4 meter long tail that was almost as long as the rest of the body. The fascinating fact was that these wings were not like that of bat but more like a bird, with feathers that looked slightly metallic and quite sharp at the edges. One of the wings was obviously damaged as more than half of the feathers were missing, looking like someone had burned them away. Her reptile head was surrounded by bone spikes and her teeth were 20 centimeter long daggers. A deep wound in the stomach disrupted the otherwise glimmering green scales and bled dark red blood onto the grass. This elven woman was a fucking dragon! Okay, I knew some women whose character wasn''t quite off this one here, but I had never seen the real thing. She was beautiful.... and quite angry. She drew a deep breath and I wanted to yell at Andarin to run away from her, but then nothing else happened. ¡°My magic, you stole my magic! You bastard, I will get back at you for humiliating me before these damn elves.¡± The dragon jumped away from Andarin again and tried to get some distance to get airborne, but Andarin followed her, not so fast anymore but he too was low on mana. Again a fireball came flying, followed by another stronger one, but this time the dragon was fast enough to dodge them by throwing herself to the side, even if that meant that she lost some momentum. Andarin struck out with his sword and hit as hard as possible at her tail, cutting off half a meter with blood spraying everywhere. The dragon screamed out in pain and ire, turning back to the attacker when another fireball almost hit her head, missing it by a hand''s width. Her reptilian eyes went wide and she seemed to realize that her death was imminent now. Although she bled like a pig and was hurt severely she moved with uncanny grace and surprising speed away from Andarin, giving him no further chance to hit her again. I saw another person running at us from the direction of the forest, with a drawn bow and releasing arrows in fast order. The dragon saw them at the last possible moment and turned her head to the left, but two of the arrows pierced her near her right eye, eliciting another scream of pain from her. With great effort she accomplished to get airborne, crying out with every wing beat and dying the grass under her crimson. ¡°I won''t forget this, Marcus! I will come back and destroy your city! You will be my slave!¡± Sure bitch! Come back and we will wipe the ground with your sorry ass. She was hurt quite badly but even then she was competent enough to avoid the fireballs and arrows targeted at her, rising into the sky fast and getting distance between us and her. Chara and Galen reached us a moment later and looked at the approaching woman, who I now could clearly see. Galen''s face, although he gasped for breath, lit up and he ran at the female with outstretched arms, ¡°Niece, I feared to never see your face again!¡± The woman hugged him tightly with closed eyes and tears forming. They stood silent for some moments and nobody said a word, Andarin watching the sky and the departing dragon. Galen turned around, his right arm still around the female elf''s shoulders, ¡°Allow me to introduce my niece, the lovely Ildara.¡± 32. Next couple? I checked the babe before me and was impressed by her well-toned body. She had a nice bust, an hour-glass figure and was 1,7 meters tall with a heart-shaped face surrounded by dark brown hair that reached down to her shoulders. All in all a dream to come true for every healthy man. Andarin saw her and his jaw dropped down. If his tongue could have rolled out like in some cartoons, I would have made a picture. He was the embodiment of a love-struck puppy and the lady completely ignored him! Her eyes were looking at Galen and him alone. What had this gigolo done, that so many women were after him? I had the sudden wish to hit him, but reigned the impulse in. He was obviously very proud about his niece, ¡°This lady here has done more for the security of her tribe than any other elf her age and she is also the best huntress I know. The best proof for this is the fact that she found us here although a horde of goblins and lizardmen is between us and my former tribe.¡± Ildara blushed and looked down to the ground, ¡°You''re exaggerating. These dumb creatures would never be able to find a trained hunter, and they are completely focused on their crusade against you and some strange city core they mentioned every now and then. You don''t know what they meant with that, do you?¡± Galen smirked and nodded in my direction, ¡°Use your mana sense and tell me what you feel over there. Your answer awaits you there.¡± She squinted her eyes and frowned with obvious strain. She seemed to me as if her magical education wasn''t very advanced. Not that I would complain about it, because her skill with the bow was amazing. To hit a moving target almost 100 meters away and hurt it, that took quite some skill. ¡°Ehm, I sense a presence but I have never felt anything like it before. What is it?¡± I answered her happily, ¡°Hello, dear Ildara, my name is Marcus and I am a city core, the first of my kind. Nice to meet you!¡± She looked at me surprised and bewildered, ¡°Is that some joke or one of your tricks, uncle?¡± Galen looked somewhat hurt by her accusation and shook his head, ¡°No, Ildara, that''s no joke and don''t be so impolite. Marcus has offered us his protection and his abilities in exchange for our help to build his city. It''s a kind of symbiotic connection where everyone gets something from the other.¡± He pointed to the town, ¡°As you can see, he even has grown our hearth tree enough to get sentience already.¡± Now I got the admiration I deserved! Her eyes went wide when she recognized that the tree in the center of the wall was a hearth tree and how big it had become already. ¡°I know that the attack on your tribe was only 5 weeks ago, so how is it possible that your hearth tree is already bigger than the old one? That doesn''t make any sense, no that''s impossible!¡± Galen patted her on the head, ¡°Use your head! As Marcus already said, he is a city core, similar to a dungeon core, but where the dungeon core summons monsters and tries to destroy anyone in his territory, Marcus here creates a city and tries to make it a home for anybodywho wants to live there and who obeys the rules.¡± Ildara got the complete story from Galenfrom whenI''d met the elves and when we arrived at the wall she examined my work closely. I had already told her about my other projects like the nightshade roses and the pitfalls. When Galen told her about the fireballs, she was very excited and wanted to see him throwing one, which the old geezer did without breaking a sweat. Damn poser, who taught you this nice spell? When I told her about Andarin and my plans with him, she threw an interested look to him. You would have to be blind to not recognize his feelings for her and Andarin blushed crimson when their eyes met, but Ildara gave a friendly smile and seemed interested to talk with him. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I was happy, that at least one woman showed some affection for him, maybe there was some hope for guys like him. ¡°Ildara, I know that you have just arrived but I need some information about our attackers. How many of them are coming and what weapons do they use? When will they arrive and from where exactly?¡± My questions disturbed the family reunion with Galen and his wives but I needed what she had seen preferably yesterday. She nodded and with steel in her voice answered my questions, ¡°I followed them through the forest and questioned some of them. They are more than 2000, mostly goblins. There are only 5 or 6 shamans to guide them, but the horde is united under a leader they call Ja''karr. I''ve never heard of him before but he must be remarkable if he accomplished uniting all the goblin and lizardmen tribes. ¡°Guessing by their average speed I would say that they will arrive in 5 days, more or less a day. The should come from the forest and if they follow the normal strategy just flood you with their masses. Your wall is nice but they will overcome it easily with their dead bodies and just climb onto them until they can reach you. They have some sling and spear throwers but that''s their whole ranged arsenal. Your pitfalls and bushes are nice, but I don''t think that they will be enough to stop this horde.¡± Her gaze hit the spot where my latest experiment happened and she paled, ¡°What has happened here? This fireball Galen has cast, would never have been able to create that!¡± I was smug and enjoyed her expression, ¡°That was my latest try to even the playing field. I''m quite content with its outcome. Some of my contraptions are quite destructive and I will use the goblins as test subjects for them, even when this last experiment was a little bit too strong for my taste.¡± Chara snorted, ¡°A little bit? You almost blew the wall to pieces. Whatever or whoever would have been down there would have been blasted to oblivion, and everything in 50 meters around it too.¡± Ildara looked bewildered at my young guardian and asked, ¡°Who are you again? You seem too young for this discussion? Shouldn''t you help some adult with his work?¡± Chara took a deep breath and became crimson red with outrage. I knew that she would offend Galen''s niece with her next words, so I interrupted her fast, ¡°She''s one of my city guardians because of her skill to manipulate mana and so are Galen, Nala and Kitara.¡± Disbelieving she turned to Galen, ¡°You''re the slave of this guy?¡± Judging by Galen''s angered expression he didn''t like her question very much, ¡°Say that again and I will hit your sorry bottom until you cry for mercy, child! He is my boss and I get a kind of payment that is more than you can imagine. Inform yourself what it means to be a city guardian and I already know that you will come to Marcus, begging him to make you on of us.¡± She laid her head to the side and squinted her eyes looking curiously at Galen, but the old elf didn''t say any more. ¡°When did you find outabout the attack on Galen''s tribe and followed the goblins?¡± I asked her. She shrugged and turned her attension back to me, ¡°3 weeks ago I wanted to visit my uncle and get some supplies from the fletcher of his tribe, but when I approached the hearth tree I ran into a couple of goblins. The fight was fast and hard but I''m good at killing theses pests and left the place almost unscratched. After that I saw the destroyed hearth tree and the leftovers from the fight, searching for any survivorsI discovered some tracks leading south.¡± She paused and viewed the gate I made, examining my work with curiosity. ¡°I followed the tracks and killed any smaller patrol I found and eventually I captured a lone goblin to question him for some answers. It was he who told me about this city core and that you have fled here. I also got the name of their leader and their troop composition. The rest is history, as they say. I saw the dragon transforming and know now who gave the goblins the means to attack your tribe last time, so the question about the traitor has been answered.¡± I thought about what she had said and agreed with her on the traitor. She seemed quite strong and reliable so I would be delighted to have her join my city. Maybe she could be persuaded to become a citizen if I could talk Galen into it. I saw Kalla and some of the other elders walking in our direction and waited for them to arrive. The princess knew Ildara obviously because she hugged the other elf the moment they met. ¡°It is good to see a familiar face, Ildara. Do you bring good news for us?¡± Kalla''s face showed her deep fear about the future and then her gaze flickered to me and I saw her uncertainty. Ildara grabbed Kalla''s shoulders and shook her head, ¡°I''m sorry, butmy newsis grave. The horde will arrive in about 5 days and they are numerous. They have a strong leader and are motivated like never before. I will help you asmuch as possible, but even with your city core and his defences I think that this will be a hard fight.¡± I had to interrupt here and take the offensive, ¡°Talking about some help, I would need it right away. Would you help Andarin and his squad here level up by killing some scouts and other smaller prey? I need him to gather some stats to promote him.¡± The young elven woman viewed the swordsman standing beside me and examined him more closely now, with me noticing her appreciating look when she took in Andarin''s well trained body. Yeah, he might get laid by this girl and perhaps even more if he played his cards the right way. Andarin bowed deeply and said, ¡°I would be honored to serve you and learn fromsuch an esteemed huntress.¡± Oh boy, your speech could be interpreted in more than one way and Ildara and the others did notice that. 33. New upgrade Oh boy, your speech could be interpreted in more than one way and Ildara and the others did notice that. I saw Kitara walking over to me and addressed her, ¡°I need you to gather a team for Andarin to level him by hunting smaller goblins squads. He should be more than strong enough to handle smaller groups by himself if even a dragon had to go all out facing him. I want Ildara to be in the team, so you should build it around these two.¡± Kitara nodded and bowed her head to me, then turned around and left to gather some people. Ildara watched the exchange and seemed fascinated by me giving commands to Galen''s wife like a village elder. ¡°They follow your commands as if you rule them. Will that happen to anyone who lives in your city?¡± ¡°My guardians serve me directly and I expect my commands to be obeyed. Regarding the other citizen I want them to follow the laws, with one law above all others. Do nothing to others which you don''t want to be done to you. It''s an easy rule but hard to follow. This city shall be a beacon of civilization and learning, but it will also destroy anyone who wants to enrich himself with its power and riches. All others can live in peace and enjoy trading with us.¡± She looked around, watching the other elves going about their business and studying my town centre, then pointed her gaze back to me, ¡°You have given yourself a high standard to follow. I hope you''re successful, but I doubt that it will be smooth sailing after we have beaten the goblins. The potential you represent will entice anyone around this world to get you and rule over you. The gods themselves may fight for dominion over you. At least until Tiria creates another city core.¡± I sighed, ¡°I fear, that won''t happen in the next few years, if I understood my goddess''s wishes the way she meant them. I will be the only one for the time being and I fear you are right on the topic of a possible fight over my core. My hope lies in the building of a temple for all the gods of this world so they have no reason to attack this city and risk of being banned along with their chosen people.¡± Ildara frowned and then sat down. She grabbed her backpack and rummaged shortly in it, pulling some jerky out and then snacked on it. With a somewhat full mouth she just wanted to say something when Galen smacked her on the back of her head, ¡°It is quite impolite to talk with a full mouth, niece. I thought I have taught you some manners.¡± Rubbing her head and looking apologetic at her uncle she smirked and then swallowed the jerky down, ¡°Please excuse my manners. I haven''t been in company for some months and even then it was with some other hunters. What I wanted to say, what do you expect from leveling Andarin here exactly?¡± The young elf raised his hand, ¡°If I may tell her, lord Marcus?¡± Why not? If he made a mistake, I could still interrupt him and as a paladin he would need some leadership skills too, so he should start as soon as possible, ¡°Go ahead, Andarin.¡± He cleared his throat and smiled shyly at the young woman before him, trying to keep his eyes in secure places, ¡°Lord Marcus has suggested to make me into a holy warrior of Alvera. My function would be to guard her people and enlighten others to her teachings. The city core gave me a new technique to strengthen my body far beyond the normal, but I need more mana and stats relating to it to become a paladin. I had invested most of my stats into strength and endurance, some also went into dexterity to enhance my coordination with my weapon skills, but almost nothing went into intelligence and wisdom.¡± He looked ashamed to the ground, ¡°I''m not very bright and therefore wasn''t able to receive my lord''s gift right away, so now I have to train and the goblins are perfect targets for this, as we will also weaken their army at the same time. So please lend me your strength and counsel, lady Ildara!¡± He bowed his head to her and awaited her answer. She hesitated for a moment and looked seriously at him, ¡°That''s a paladin, huh? Sounds quite amazing to me and it would sure as hell be useful in the fight against the green pests to have someone with the power of the goddess at our side. I will guide and fight with you, Andarin. Perhaps you could teach me this skill your lord taught you also.¡± He looked up and grinned like a child who had found the candy jackpot, ¡°I''d be delighted to teach you all I know.¡± She smiled also with a knowing look, ¡°Oh I''m sure you would be. Lord Marcus, if you don''t mind I will walk around and check this place out until we depart. Just call me when the team is ready and I will come running.¡± Winking at the young and eager man before her she said, ¡°Show me around, Andarin!¡± She stood up with a grace that reminded me of a cat and linked arm with the to-be paladin. Then they walked away without waiting for an answer from me and I just shrugged and turned to Galen and the others. ¡°Okay, I want you all to help me build booby-traps like the one Chara lit earlier.¡± My guardians were all suddenly nervous and reluctant. No one eager to start I just ordered all of them to follow me to the to-be field of slaughter and showed them the ropes to build the contraptions. After they had created their first one I filled the first with only half the mana I used before and this time ordered Galen to do the detonating, but only after we had evacuated the place. After all I wanted no unneeded injuries or even casulties. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Kitara had gathered the team in the mean time and waited some distance away with Ildara and Andarin reaching them shortly after. I sent Kitara a message that they should get some cover for the experiment and they went behind some boulders. Galen then threw his fireball with deadly precision, someone had trained hard it seems. The explosion wasn''t as impressive as the first one but still left an impressive crater and shrapnel shredding the immediate surroundings. I saw Ildara and the others going pale and disbelieving the destruction shown to them. After dirt and grass lumps stopped falling down the new crater and inspecting it closely. Ildara turned to me, ¡°I didn''t believe you last time even though I saw the crater, but now I almost pity the goblins when they come close enough to be slaughtered by this weapon. If that doesn''t break them, nothing will. I know that it would for me. That''s the sickest way to die I could imagine, and I dread what other things you could do with something like that.¡± My guardians with exception of Chara only nodded and reflected about my newest addition to my arsenal. ¡°Come on, guys, the goal is to annihilate the goblins and break their will forever more. I want them to shiver in fear by even mentioning this city and therefore I have to show them hell on earth when they attack us. I mean, nobody said that we wouldn''t defend, right?¡± Kitara suddenly showed a murderous grin and smirked, ¡°You are so right, mylord. I will enjoy the payback for destroying our former home and losing so many of our friends. Would you mind showing me the skill you taught Andarin? I think I could release some destruction too with some more punch behind my strikes.¡± Hehe, that''s the right attitude, my dear. Galen looked dubiously to her and shook his head, ¡°Darling, please don''t forget that we are still his future teachers and not just his death squad. Killing is needed but not the essence of our vocation.¡± Kitara seemed angered when she answered him, ¡°I will take their lives and make them fear this city. When they think about us they shall remember the slaughter we brought upon them and piss themselves. I know that you mean well but revenge will be mine. To hell with them!¡± Wow, the nice lady has turned into a killer right before my eyes, but at the moment I needed her just like that. After we''ve mobbed the goblins there''ll be time to cut her claws back to normal. I just hoped that our enemy didn''t have some nasty surprises themselves for us. Andarin and Ildara talked a little bit with their new team and then bid their farewell to us, walking briskly to the forest while the rest of us continued to fortify our position. While Galen, Nala and Chara built more booby-traps I began to teach Kitara the body enhancement skill, while my subminds began to create the first caltrops. I also wanted a moat all around the wall filled with spikes made from stone, but I wasn''t sure if I could accomplish it in the given time. Kitara was a natural and learned to enhance her body very fast after she understood the principle, and she had a much bigger mana pool to start with. After all she was the wife of one of the strongest elven mages and learned some tricks from him. With the skill she would be able to hit like a truck and use a much stronger bow to lard her enemies with arrows. Teaching and creating the caltrops took most of the rest of the day and my guardians were tired after the work. They went back to the town centre and met with their friends and relatives to talk about their day. Most of the elves who didn''t have a crafting skill just gathered food either by fishing or gathering herbs, roots and fruits that grew along the river. Three young men had even constructed a makeshift float and got on the other river side, searching there for more stuff. The river ran quite fast here and they had to work hard to not drift away too much, but it paid off as they caught many small reptiles and frogs, not that I''m a big fan of frog legs, but if you have some hungry mouths to feed you can''t be picky. My elves were delighted about their catch. Gillian awaited me and offered me her mana and some other elves did too, as my mana pool grew fast with every new level. When they dumped their energy into my core I grew again by a whole level. That''s a nice boost again.
Name Marcus Race City dungeon
Level 13 Mana 10/9100 300/h reg 180/minute from citizen
Int 23 Wis 23
Cha 23 Luck 10
Skills:
Earth Newbie 20% Water Newbie 20%
Air Newbie 0% Fire Newbie 18%
Life Newbie 35% Mind Speech Adept 19%
Architecture Beginner 7% Sculptor Newbie 27%
Mana Manipulation Journeyman 5% Enchanting Newbie 25%
Carpentry Beginner 17% Teacher Beginner 19%
City buffs Barkskin Fertility Plant growth
Range of influence 300 meters
Number of citizens 136 (providing 140 mana/minute) 4 City guardians
Inventory 4096 m3 (1m3 used)
I got a new buff, so let''s see what it does.
Plant growth
The spell makes plants grow 10 times faster than normal in a 100x100 meters field. Usage: 500 mana Upkeep: 50 mana/h By reducing the growth speed you can widen the area targeted.
Could be useful later on but right now I needed military buffs. Hopefully my next levels would give me something I could use against my enemies directly. For now I had to get back to the grindstone and build more defences, what a royal pain. 34. An alien arrives ********************************POV Kitara********************************* I love master! He gave me a skill that could make me an equivalent to Nala at least. I won''t just be an addition to Galen and his first wife for the rest of my life. Back in the tribe I watched them with dreamy eyes as they were our strongest mages and their power could take down any possible attacker, but when we were attacked even they couldn''t turn the tide. Sure they killed almost 60 goblins by themselves but after they had depleted all their mana it was up to me to guard them. I had worked hard to get Nala''s acknowledgement to be the second wife. Nala has always been the more practical of the two and realized fast that in a close combat it would be important to have someone guard Galen and her against their enemies. I accepted this role because it was the only way to get near Galen beyond just being a tribe guard. He was always outstanding and all elves looked up to his powerful mana pool, but now with master''s teachings I realized that I was blinded by pure power. Since I have worked with Marcus, he has shown me so many new ways to use mana that I still can''t believe that he just gave us this knowledge. When I approached Nala 5 years ago with the idea to become Galen''s second wife she was reluctant at first but I knew that she needed someone whom she could trust with her life if anything dangerous happened, as it later did. And it helped also that she liked women as I''m not an ugly face to look at. I spent years to train my mana pool and my hunting skills to become the most dangerous hunter in the tribe, as I feared that Galen would have been disappointed with me if I neglected my magical training. Nala helped me to make him accept me as his second wife much easier than I would have thought, and it was also her who trained me in my third role as an information gatherer. Lately I was shocked that Marcus just gave his knowledge away so easily and I will have to speak with him about this if I want to secure his power in this world and therefore also my family''s power. He doesn''t understand fully just how much power he possesses and how much greed it will generate in any ruler out there as soon as they see his city growing. Marcus learning speed is abnormal and his ability to teach his skills to others is too. Sure, as a guardian it is too easy because Marcus can just copy his skills to us, but I have watched the other mages and they have started to learn the mana manipulation skill so easily. Normally to learn a skill someone would need weeks if not months, but here they will be able to learn it in days. I''m quite sure that it''s a side effect of his domain. It is only a question of time until someone who visits this place and learns a skill realizes the accelerated skill-gain and passes this on to his boss and then we have a new problem. Many will come to us with honest intents but there will be also the spies of other powers. We will have to discover and root them out. I already have learned to gather infos from unwilling prisoners,some might call it torture but I''m sure that master has some other ways too to get what he needs from our enemies. After all Tiria gave him a dungeon core body as a base and I heard that they are quite crafty to get information from their foes. With my new body enhancement skill I will be so much more dangerous than before and I think that there is even more to learn. Marcus said that it might be possible to apply mana to my arrows too to give them some extra punch and I want to test that as soon as possible, but for now I will have to wait and check the forest for any spies first. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. I still can''t believe that the dumb Andarin discovered the mana manipulation skill by himself by trying to enhance his body. It speaks for master''s insight that he discovered my fellow elf''s ability and used it for strengthening his forces even more. We will have to be careful who learns it. In the long run we won''t be able to keep it secret but I will make sure that we use our advantage as long as possible and milk it to our best ability. Marcus should give the skill only to his most loyal subjects and make them pay for it, maybe with a kind of mana tax they have to give him regularly. Yeah, that sounds good. This way he could become much more powerful many times faster. I have seen the crystal he needs to grow even stronger and that is the only problem right now. Even though I have travelled most of the Great Forest in many miles around I have seen any other crystal like that. We might have to trade with the dwarves to gather this resource even if I don''t trust the midgets. They always try to pull a fast one on you if you''re distraught. Ildara and her team have left going straight north, but I''ll follow the river some way west and watch for any suspicious tracks and things that don''t belong here. The reed here was taller than me and I had to use my hearing to discover any threat so I enhanced it a bit with mana. Hell! That hurt like someone had beaten me with a rolling pin. Every noise was so much louder now and I had problems to distinguish single sources. It was just overwhelming and I had to turn down the volume quite a bit by reducing the mana flow by more than a half. I felt something warm flowing down the side of my face and touched it with my left hand, shocked to see that it was blood coming from my ears. Maybe I should be more careful with this skill. Master had warned me about it but I was too eager to test it. My years with Galen and Nala should have taught me better to be careful with magic. Suddenly I tensed because there was a noise that didn''t belong here. Reed was broken very silently some 20 meters before me and without my enhanced hearing I wouldn''t have noticed it. Whoever tried to sneak up on me there wasn''t a beginner as a hunter. I used more mana to make myself faster and stronger and drew my two daggers from their sheaths. I had oiled them only some days ago to prevent any noise from the hard leather and I was very happy about it right now. My eyes darted around to find a place with some higher ground, but the reed hindered me now more than it helped. My hearing told me that my opponent was alone, which told me that it wasn''t a goblin at least. They never hunted alone being pack hunters to the core. The other must have realized that I discovered him when I hesitated in my steps because he gave up his sneaking and came running at me now breaking through the reed like an angry bull. I tensed up and prepared my stance to welcome this danger with some low blows when the creature broke through and I could finally see him. Round ears, a human! What the hell did a human near our town? He has drawn his weapon, longsword made from an unknown metal. His eyes met mine and he hesitated, coming to a stop and letting his sword sink. He seemed as surprised as me and we stood there in an awkward silence watching each other carefully. ¡°Ehm, hello!? My name is Darius Sunstrider and I''m a scout of my clan.¡± He bowed without letting me out of his sight. I bowed my head also and answered, ¡°My name is Kitara Niska Malloren, guardian of Marcus and the Hearth tree Gillian. You are trespassing our territory so I have to ask you for your intent.¡± Darius looked surprised and somewhat fascinated, ¡°Your territory? I thought that you elves live in the Great Forest and almost never leave them, and who is this Marcus?¡± With a bit of anger in my voice I threw his question right back at him, ¡°I asked for your intent! Make yourself clear right now, young human! My tribe had some bad luck lately and we are quite careful of any newcomers right now.¡± He sheathed his blade with slow and careful movements and then raised his hands defensively, ¡°I don''t mean you any harm. We come in peace and want only to discover the reason for a sudden spike in magical power in this region, as we assumed the appearance of a new dungeon here. To prevent any danger coming from it, we came to subjugate or destroy it as fast as we could.¡± I sighed relieved as I understood now why the humans have come here. Even if they are whispered to be a nomadic people, only an idiot would call them weak. They use mounts for fighting and their weapons are very advanced, even more so than the dwarves''s. The first people to call this world home they are rarely challenged for when they gather to strike down a bigger foe, even the dragons try to avoid them. ¡°Then I have a surprise for you, because the dungeon isn''t the kind of creature of Tiria that you assume it to be. The goddess created a new kind of core, called a city core, that creates not a dungeon but a city instead. A city for all people who want to live in peace in it and enjoy the core''s protection.¡± The poor human lost control of his facial muscles and his jaw hit the ground. What a funny fellow, I will have to tease him some more later and enjoy his dumbstruck expression. I should use my former idea and give Marcus a boon here. ¡°The only conditions to stay in his Marcus'' city are to help him defend it and pay a mana tax for him to build his place.¡± I hope Marcus won''t punish me for my idea. 35. Politics are annoying **********************************POV Marcus****************************** I was working on digging a moat around my wall when I felt Kitara entering my domain again and sending me her thoughts, ''Master, I have found an interesting person near our city. He''s a human and was searching for your mana signature from the time when you descended from the sky.'' Oh nice, new blood for my city. Ehm, that sounded somewhat strange, perhaps I should say new servants? Hm, not much better but it has some nice ring to it. ''Guide him to the wall, I don''t want him too close to my core. Something else?'' I felt her embarrassment through our connection, ''Yeah, I told him about a mana tax for our citizen if they wanted to stay within your domain.'' She wanted to tell me more but I was angered by her surging forward without my permission, ''You did what? It may be a nice idea but I don''t remember to have given you the right to decide such things by yourself. Get back here and excavate the moat not with magic but with pure muscle power and don''t dare to use body enhancement. Keep your mouth shut and don''t even dare to think about doing anything other than working your butt off!'' This lady had forgotten who''s boss and has to be taught some manners. Next time she maybe did something much worse if I didn''t make myself clear now. I was so furious with her trespassing the rules that I couldn''t concentrate enough to continue with my work and Galen and the others recognized my anger too. They came running to me and Nala was the first to address me, ¡°Lord Marcus, what''s wrong? You emit so much enmity that we could feel it easily through our link to you. Did something bad happen?¡± I snapped at her, ¡°Yeah, your stupid co-wife happened. She found a human sneaking around and told him something she should have asked me about first, and now I will have to adapt to not be seen as a weak ruler who isn''t able to reign my subjects. Damn it, this stupid girl!¡± Galen and Nala threw worried looks at each other and remained silent for now. Chara watched the scene and sat down beside me, waiting for Kitara to close on us with the human right beside her. It took her some minutes to reach us and my guardians waited in awkward silence around me while I tried to think about a way to make everyone pay a mana tax without splitting my mind into too many pieces and letting them come too near my core. Maybe I could use some of the unused crystal from my village stage, I still had 2 kilograms of it in my inventory, to create some pedestals where my citizens could offer me their mana. I would have to connect them somehow to my core, perhaps with a thin crystal thread. With my small amount of material available these pedestals would still have to be close to my core, but I could create a small fortress around it in the future. The gathering or trading for crystal will have to take priority in the coming weeks and months. I will also have to designate some tax collectors who watch who has paid and give them some force to press their will on others. Damn it, it was so much easier in the games I played and much less political. It seems that I didn''t think it through when I proposed my wish to Tiria back then. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. My city will need some guards beyond my guardians and therefore I will need a place for them to stay, enough food to feed them and pay them for their service, which means that I will also need a kind of currency. Maybe the others know about that, in the end they have traded with other tribes and the dwarves already. If I have a currency I will have need of a treasury because I don''t want to pay attension to anyone who wants of brings me money. That could have been eased if I had a city guardian with inventory access designated as my minster of finances but even that would only work as long as my city is relatively small and could be handled easily. After I have grown more I will need a complete ministry with officials and paper work, laws and policemen enforcing them. Being a dungeon didn''t sound so bad right now thinking about the consequences of me being a city core. At least the mana tax would be dealt with quite easily. Kitara and the human had reached us now and she threw a gloomy look to her partners and began to dig in the moat, much to the surprise of the human man following her. He squinted his eyes briefly and wariness sneaked into his expression when he noticed my presence. He bowed deeply before me and addressed me politely, ¡°I come as a peaceful messenger of my clan and greet the ruler of this place. My name is Darius Sunstrider, a scout and warrior of the Sunstrider clan.I won''t hide that it was my intention to find the strange mana signature of what my elders thought was a dungeon core, but it seems that Tiria has sent down some interesting new addition to this world.¡± The young man was around 1,8 metres tall with dark brown hair trimmed to shoulder length and a shaved faced. With a sharp gaze like an eagle and green eyes, clear lines on his face and high cheek bones, he looked like a noble. Under his well-cared leather armor he had tanned skin with the tone of a latino from old earth and strong muscles from training and his journeys without any visible fat anywhere. On Earth he would be eye candy for most women and I think he knew that. I sensed some mischief and boldness from him, but at least he had some manners, even though not much, ¡°I''m Marcus, the city core in charge of this place. I welcome you and your clan to my domain as long as you as you wish to trade and remain peaceful. Be warned that I will not look kindly on people who want to disturb my town and perhaps even threaten it. I have enough of that already on my plate with an army of goblins and lizardmen marching to destroy the elves under my protection and snatch my core for their own purposes.¡± Darius looked alarmed and eager to ask more questions but I interrupted him at once, ¡°I know that you have many questions, but my time is scarce at the moment and I have to bolster my defences, so if you and your clan don''t want to help us against the green menace, you will have to wait for a longer talk after we have defeated our foe.¡± He bobbed his head and looked straight at me, ¡°I understand this, so if you don''t mind I will hurry back to my people and look for their counsel. Maybe they will decide to teach the goblins a lesson about who rules the plains.¡± I felt the unspoken words in his last sentence. At least I also trespassed into their territory as he so clearly said. ¡°I will welcome you and your clan and all of your friends with open arms if you decide to join this fight as our allies, but I have to warn you about possible enemies you will make if you fight with us. Gammorren and a dragon have made it clear that they want to subjugate me, so please inform your elders about that too.¡± Darius bowed his head slightly, ¡°Thank you for the information you didn''t have to offer. Regarding the dragon I can reveal to you that we have our own problems about our own problems with the reptiles, and Gammorren has never been a big friend of my people after we struck down any attempt by his worshippers to gain a hold in our plains. My elders will want to have a talk about you building this place here, but I think they look into this matter with delight and search for an alliance.¡± His look wandered to Galen''s wives for a moment and I knew that he was looking for trouble as Galen''s eyes squinted, and then looked back to me, ¡°I will hurry and come back with their decision as soon as possible. This should take only 3 to 5 days, so if you hear our battle horns over the plains you can count on our assistance with the green pests. My clan will not attack you without a clear declaration, of that I can assure you. We honour our words and traditions.¡± I felt Galen''s thought reaching me, ''That''s true. Humans of such an esteemed clan have never broken their word, so we have at least some security there.'' ¡°I wish you a secure journey and hope to hear good news from you in the future. It would be nice to have some other people to talk to also. My means are limited for now but I hope to trade with your clan and other humans in the future too.¡± Darius nodded and turned around, jogging with long steps and a powerful stride along the field. ¡°It''s strange that he was alone. I thought that a human scout would never leave his animal companion behind.¡± I heard Nala say. In the next moment I heard the human scout whistle and a loud roar answer him from the other side of the river. Turning my gaze to the sound I was shocked to see the animal this guy had as his companion. No wonder that the humans ruled the plains without any noticable resistance. 36. Peace talk It looked like a hybrid between a tiger and a comodo dragon with the head and fur of an indian tiger and the body of the varan. It broke through the reed at the river with powerful movements that ate the distance to its rider easily. Darius winged himself on its back with a fluid motion and the creature turned around with the grace and speed of a cat. I guessed its shoulder at 1,6 metre and its weight at close to a ton of muscle and claw. Watching this monster made me realize that the humans on this world ruled supreme on any wide terrain and maybe even in thinner forest areas. There were some other weapons at the sides of the creature, some spears and a short bow with arrows on the other side for a quick access. The saddle was built for an easy access to any weaponry the rider wanted and it made one thing absolutely clear to me. Don''t. Mess. With. Humans. An attack force of 50 riders would be enough to kill my settlement easily. I guessed that there were many more where Darius came from. ¡°Damn, what a beast! But now we have other things to do.¡± I said,stoppingmyself from staring at the departing human as I sent an invite to my guardians. There was some talking to be done. I waited in my inner mind, and a moment later they all arrived at the table. I could see that Galen and Nala were pissed about my treatment of Kitara. Maybe I was a little bit to hard on her, but she made me angry with her impulsive action. ¡°I called you here to make something clear. Even if you have the best idea in the world, you will have to talk about it with me first. If it''s good, and I won''t deny that Kitara''s idea is good, I will gladly do my best to put it into effect. The important part here is that that will happen after we had a talk.¡± Galen got his hand up and I stopped my monologue, ¡°I acknowledge your need for instilling a kind of hierarchy here, but I''m not a big fan of your treatment of my wife. Please don''t get this wrong but if you still treat me and my wives this way in the future we will have to part ways with you, even though you offer so many advantages. I know, you are young and have much to learn, but disrespectful treatment of your subordinates will only result in insurgency.¡± They were silent and I had to stomach his words for some moments before I turned to Kitara,¡± I am sorry for my treatment of you and I will try to reign in my anger. I liked your idea very much and hope that you will have many more such sudden inspirations, so please forgive me for treating you so badly.¡± Kitara could have been a proud and hurt woman right now and after Galen''s lash at me she would have had the perfect opportunity to strike back at me, but she just smiled and reached her hand to me, ¡°We both made a mistake here, Marcus. I spoke without thinking, something Galen and Nala have told me here and there, and you punished and humiliated me right before a possible ally, ¡°She knew where to drive the blade into the wound, ¡°So I will forgive and forget if you do the same and we both try to better ourselves in the future. I will tell you if you walk down the wrong path and please do the same for me.¡± I took her hand and shook it with heartfelt relieve. This could have exploded quite badly into my face and I would have lost my support from the elves right before the big fight. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. My other guardian watched the scene and I knew that Galen and Nala would be extra careful in the following weeks but that will remind me to watch my manners. Being a diabolical tyrant wasn''t in my job description and I should have gotten that without this wake-up call. My life in the last weeks have been a rollercoaster and I will have to adapt and remember the manners my mother taught me in my future dealings with my environment. ¡°There''s something I also wanted to talk about, ¡°Chara interrupted our moment, ¡°I have watched you doing some amazing things outside but you have never cast a spell like we did. Is it because you can''t or because you haven''t tried?¡± Now that surprised me. Did I limit myself because I always remembered the stories I read back on Earth, where the dungeons couldn''t do anything as soon as there was an enemy in their territory? I had taught my guardians to cast spells, so why didn''t I try it too? ¡°She''s right, ¡°Galen added, ¡°You should be able to cast spells in your domain. Most dungeons can use some simple spells to defend their core if threatened, so it should be possible for you too, and even more so because you are somewhat different from them.¡± ¡°That was a very good idea then, Chara. I think I have narrowed my mind too much because of some old habits from Earth. Any other ideas or thoughts? Anyone?¡± I looked around and the shook their heads, ¡°Good, then let''s get outside and test the theory. As soon as I reach level 15 my mana pool would be massive and I could throw some serious fireballs at our enemies.¡± ¡°You shouldn''t focus on attack, Marcus,¡± Nala interposed. ¡°I think it would be better to develop some kind of magical defence against physical and magical attacks. The goblins may not have many casters, but we have already been attacked by a dragon, so it would be better to have something to hamper them, and there''s nobody else around with the necessary knowledge and inventiveness to create such a spell, Don''t you think?¡± Nala had a good point there, I had to admit. My mana pool made me the strongest magical defence for my citizens, even though I could easily destroy many enemies with offensive spells, but my mages needed levels and training for their skills. The others left my inner mind and I followed them outside to go to our crater filled test area. The place looked like a mad scientist had unleashed his meanest inventions to the world here, so a little bit more destruction wouldn''t hurt anybody anymore. I reflected on the fireball spell and how I wanted to do it without having a voice or hands to cast the spell. ¡°It might be harder to cast the spell, master, but I think with your better mana manipulation skill you should be able to cast the spell without the components we need to cast it.¡± Galen said with an excitement in his voice. I grunted briefly and concentrated on forming a globe of fire mana and the necessary runes in it for the fireball spell. My first try disintegrated quite fast because I couldn''t hold the necessary concentration on all the spell components. Luckily my guardians had enough distance from me to not get injured by the sudden explosion. I used only 30 mana, so the earth only got scorched a little bit. ¡°Okay, it seems that I''m able to cast spells outside, but it''s really straining. Next try.¡± I used two of my subminds to help with the casting. One held the globe, the other drew the runes while my main consciousness focused on providing the mana and the targeting. This time the fireball formed correctly and flew true blasting away the muck hill I had targeted. I felt pride and amazement with my ability to cast the spell and looked to my guardians to get some praise. ¡°Nice fireball, Marcus. I expected something with a little bit more force behind it,but not bad for your first successful spell.¡± Galen said. This arrogant and smug bastard! A week ago he wasn''t even able to project his magic farther than 5 metres and here he stands demoting my awesomeness. I wanted to tell him my piece of mind when I saw him smirk and wink at me. ¡°Payback is a bitch, Master. Get used to it.¡± 37. Kalla is dangerous I was at a loss about what I should say to him, but then just swallowed my pride and answered, ¡°I''ll get you back for it. I''m counting points you know.¡± He shrugged and grinned, ¡°As am I, master. I will return to training and building some more traps now. We all should. Our enemy is at our door step and we have to be ready for a hot welcome.¡± We all returned to our duties and worked for the rest of the day in peaceful silence. When evening arrived and my elves came back from the river with their catch, they all gathered around Gillian and ate their meals talking to their friends and family like the goblins were not an issue at all. I registered Galen and Kalla talking agitated about something but didn''t want to eavesdrop. Whatever they talked about, Galen looked like he had bitten in a lemon, while Kalla came walking to my core. ¡°Marcus, could you invite me inside? I have to discuss something with you in private.¡± Why not? I could use some distraction from the looming doom above my proverbial head. I sent her the invitation and seconds later she sat down at my table, smiling at me. ¡°I had a talk with Galen about the recent events and I think we need to talk about your attitude changes in the last weeks.¡± I wanted to interrupt her but she raised a hand, ¡°Please let me end my piece and then you can add yours.¡± I closed my mouth and she nodded. ¡°I have watched you closely and saw your dialogue with the goddesses myself, so I know that they manipulated you to be more aggressive and dominant. As far as I understood your past your old world was a quite peaceful and safe place to live in, and this new place is the direct opposite of it. Add to that the coming siege and all the limits Tiria has placed on you, I think you''re under massive stress.¡± She paused and waited for me to answer to her speech. I collected my thoughts and sighed before I drew a deep breath, ¡°It''s as you said. Everyone wants things from me, dragging me in this direction, then in the next moment another person pulls me in another direction. I fear for my own survival and freedom, should the goblins be successful with their attack., and to add insult to injury Tiria and Alvera want me to man up and be someone I''m not. I enjoy building things, watching them grow and inventing things. This world is demanding me to be a ruler over life and death, to make decisions I never wanted to have to make, and to become a politician which I hate. All of this because I had the stupid idea of creating a city instead of a dungeon.¡± Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Kalla had watched my rumbling and outbreak with a sad smile, and now leaned over the table to hold my hand, ¡°I understand your point and I know that it''s hard, but for good or for bad we have to stand together now and make the best out of it. Although you made a mistake here to think that you have to decide everything by yourself. That''s something I had to learn too, you know.¡± She had a sad look in her eyes and I could sense some memories lingering in her thoughts when she said those words. ¡°Bearing the weight of leadership is hard and demanding, sometimes calling for more than you can offer, but Marcus, you don''t have to do it all alone. Use the resources available to you.¡± She pointed at herself and then around the place. ¡°Me, your guardians, even the other elders. We will all help you with this task. This is our home now too. All you have to do is be strong for us. Be strict, but not tyrannical. You can be a benevolent ruler and also a strict one. Enforce your laws and decisions with fairness and the right degree of force.It might take some time to learn what that is, but I told Galen my piece of mind already and he had to admit that Kitara would have gotten a much harder punishment from me than she received from you. Such decisions that could influence the whole city are only to be made by you. Gather the ideas of your subjects, ask your aides about their opinions and then decide, and that is the most important part of it: Live with your decisions. Don''t regret them, just accept the consequences and learn from mistakes. Staying in the past doesn''t help you in the future, only when you learn from your past can you pave your way to greatness.¡± Wow, she knew to do a pep talk. I was impressed how mature and wise she now seemed. The funny girl, the coquettish woman had disappeared and the noble stood before me, dazing me with her aura. I looked down to the ground and felt somewhat stupid now, ¡°All I ever wanted was to build a great place to live in. My past life wasn''t great, I was just an ordinary guy trying to master his own life and sometimes doing a quite bad job at it. Now I have to be so much more, and I''m not sure if I''m strong enough for it,¡± I raised my head, looking Kalla into her beautiful eyes, ¡°But now I will try to do my best for all of you. I was stupid to not ask for help from you and the others. I''m not very good at delegating power and tasks.¡± She smirked, ¡°Don''t think you''re the only one with these problems. I had to learn it too and it''s a constant struggle to improve my abilities. Just be open to your trusted allies and guardians. Don''t be an ass, or a blockhead. If we make mistakes, tell us about them in a constructive way and make us regret them without using a sledgehammer to correct our ways.¡± Kalla sighed and then laughed, ¡°I admit, that sometimes even with my training I have the overwhelming wish to strike the idiots and the offenders down and rip their sorry heads off, but then I take a step back and think about ways to make them eat their own shit with me grinning behind their backs about their misery. Believe me, that''s much more fun than just hitting them with something solid.¡± I had to laugh about her now, but was frightened at the same time thinking about her cunning and perfidious mind. This was a woman you didn''t want as an enemy, but as an ally she would be an excellent resource. One I had not made use of, but that would change now. ¡°I think, we should have a talk every morning and evening about the city and other things from now on, wouldn''t you agree, Kalla?¡± She nodded with a smile and her beauty was breathtaking that moment, ¡°Yes, Marcus, that would be the best for now, I think. In the future we should gather a council of aides to gather information and make them decide smaller issues by themselves. The bigger the city becomes, the less time you''ll have to care about the smaller issues. Thank you for your trust.¡± She stood and reached for my hand, pressing it firm and with a serious face. ¡°Let''s meet tomorrow morning again and talk about the next project.¡± She disappeared and left me alone in my inner mind contemplating about what just happened. Even if everything she said made perfect sense, she got more from this deal than me, I think. This cunning woman was more dangerous than I thought. I would marry her, if I could, just to make sure she stayed on my side. 38. Revelations and a dooming future I resumed my work after the talk with Kalla and then began to distribute the caltrops all around the place with some places left out for the elves to move through. Later that evening I was given enough mana to level up again and got a new city buff.
Healing aura
The core can cast an aura of healing that heals 10 HP/minute with a radius of 50 metres. The aura only heals allies and citizen of the core. Usage: 1000 mana Upkeep:200/minute Doubling the range increases the cost 4 times
That was a very nice buff for longer fights where I could call my wounded fighters back to get some healing and then send them back to kill my enemies. I had hoped for something like a summoning ritual to call forth some elementals to do my bidding but I was also happy with this buff. When I have more time I will dissect the buff to discover its runes and then invent a healing spell for my citizens to use individually. I had only one level to go now before I could make Gillian my new guardian and the curiosity was eating at me, so I stopped my mana use for some time to gather the necessary power, which only took me an hour and a half because some small works had to be done, like growing the vines around the walls. When I had enough power for my next level I felt a sudden rush of excitement and used the accumulated energy to get my next level and sure as hell my next message awaited me.
You have reached level 15
You can designate a new city guardian to help with governing your city.
Although that was nice enough the next message blew me away.
New city spell!
Create Vessel! The city core can create a golem-like being that can be possessed by a soul or when unpossessed do simple work when commanded by the core or its guardians. Usage: 10000 mana Upkeep: 50 mana/hour or nothing when possessed Vessel can be modified if the core has enough knowledge about golemancy and the necessary materials.
That''s the good stuff! My own golems and I could possess them myself, gaining a body again even a crude one. I would have to test the possibilities with this new spell but if even a small part of my hopes could be done with it I got the biggest candy I could ever wish for. ''It''s good, that you recognize this gift I gave you, Marcus. Come to your inner mind, we have something important to talk about and I don''t want anybody else to hear about it.'' Tiria''s voice filled my mind and I felt a kind of sadness in it. Although I wanted to test my new ability right now, I wasn''t such a jerk to not listen to her when she wanted to have a serious talk. Appearing in my inner mind I saw her sitting at the table, which had changed to a big round table with comfortable wooden chairs surrounding it. "I have changed it to this after I saw a new movie from your homeworld and thought that you wouldn''t mind if I did that."? She waited for a comment from me but I only smiled and nodded. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The wood was a deep dark brown tone and shined with a stylish finish only seen when done by a master crafter. The chairs were made from the same wood and the padding was the most comfortable I''ve ever sat on. "Thank you for the table and the chairs, they look awesome. If I understood your message correctly I have to thank you for my last city spell, right?"? Tiria nodded and smiled gently, hesitating for a moment before she answered me, "Yes, Marcus, but that will be my last gift to you, as I will set you free after our talk."? She must have seen my irritation from my look because she grinned sadly as she continued, "You must see, you are a first-born. That''s a special title given to any creature that''s the first of its kind and therefore has a special connection to its creator. That was the reason why I was able to limit you the way I did. I received massive pressure from all the other gods out there to limit your power and abilities and I''m unwilling to follow their wishes anymore. There''s also the possibility that anyone of them might attack me to get access to you and use you for their own devices."? She stopped for a moment and let the meaning sink into my mind. Holy shit, she must have gone through a personal hell lately with my creation and the aftermath of it. On a cool and logical level I fully understood the consequences a city core like me could have on an underdeveloped planet and even on a civilized world like Earth for example, after all I was an avid reader of many fictions back on Earth concerning dungeons and magic. What made me somewhat angry was her last sentence that she might get attacked and killed for the only reason to get access to me personally. "Other gods would try to kill you just for being able to command me?"? She nodded, "You don''t fully understand your power and what you are able to do, but as soon as you rediscover your scientific knowledge and the connections between it and magic, you will become more powerful than any other creature I ever created because of your access to the mana pools of your citizens. Sentient minds that are not created by dungeons create much more mana than dungeon-bound ones, therefore offering you a nearly limitless ability to create things."? "But I''m not able to create things only from mana like dungeons can."? Smiling she answered, "That''s right at the moment, but as soon as you rediscover the knowledge from Earth and follow up on it a bit, you will get the same power all my dungeons possess. It''s built in into them but you will be able to do it also with the correct knowledge. That''s your biggest advantage over them. Knowledge makes you so much more able to do things. Use it to defeat anyone who goes against you, even if it''s a god. I can''t give you back your memories because releasing you will cost me dearly and the others will try to attack me almost immediately after that to save what''s left of our connection."? I was shocked about that and wanted to tell her to stop her actions, but she raised her hand and continued, "I know, that you want to help me, and you can by worshipping me after I have released you from my fold. That will keep at least some part of me alive if I was defeated. As a first-born without any connection to his creator you will be connected to the system directly. It''s the ruler of the whole creation and even the gods cannot go against it. You might not get so much goodies from it as from me but you will become something like an avatar."? Big question mark above my head. What''s an avatar? She grinned as if she read my thoughts, "An avatar is an immortal being that''s able to revive itself using stored soul power. Most of us gods have been mortals that died and been revived by the system as avatars and collected enough soul power to ascend to gods. There''re some old gods that were created by the system itself and going against them has led to some of the most devastating wars in history. The last one has almost eradicated humanity from existence and threw them back to Earth and some small populations on unimportant worlds like this one."? She drew my gaze to her eyes and all mischief and funniness had vanished in them, "What I''m telling you now is kept secret since thousands of years, but you have to be prepared to protect yourself and the humans on this world. War is coming. The humans on Earth are on the rise and the same powers that smashed them down last time will try to finish them for good. Gaia, the consciousness of Earth itself is freeing herself from the shackles they have bound her and her chosen people, the humans, are once again reaching for the stars. As soon as they leave the lunar shell they will regain their magical abilities and then hell will break loose. Last time humanity was defeated by cutting their connection to magic by shackling Gaia. Humans adapted and developed their sciences to get around without magic. It made them stronger than ever and the avatars on Earth have done their best without knowing it, to make humanity stronger than ever. If humans are defeated again in the coming war and Earth is destroyed, you might have have some of the last of your kind on this world and the duty to protect them from harm."? That was a bomb drop on me. My mind almost shut down. Fuck, that''s too much for me. I don''t want to be the last hope of humanity. "Don''t despair, little one as some of humanity old foes have turned coat after discovering that they had it much better with the humans than with the old gods. They will help us, yes us, I was a human long ago too, and distract some of the strikes against Earth, and lastly Gaia is a very mighty one when she can use all of the suppressed power after humans have broken free and reached the stars again. She has created magical realms like in Earth''s fantasy novels to create more space for her people, even as she was unconscious, and now she is more powerful than ever. As I said war is coming and we all have to play a part in it, especially you. Build you city, increase your influence and protect the good people on this world. Suppress humanity''s desire to rule over the other peoples because that''s the reason why all of them fought against Earth last time and unite them under your flag. And now I will release you and give you the freedom to do what you want. I have told you more than I should have and maybe I will get punished for that but it was worth it. Our connection will be broken and you won''t be able to talk to me and the others as easy as before, so build the temple soon, so we may speak again. Live long and prosper!"? She grinned and vanished from my inner mind, and I felt pain like I''dnever felt before, like somebody ripped my heart from my chest and put in a piece of lava instead. My goddess has forsaken me. 39. Ildara shows some teeth I felt somewhat lost without Tiria keeping watch over me but on the other side I was now free to do whatever I wanted. If I survived the siege. Thinking about it, Andarin and Ildara should be back around noon tomorrow and I wanted the holy ground ready for Andarin''s sanctification. The elves would have to do some praying, and I''d have to offer much more mana than I was happy with, but a paladin on our side could change our chances for the better. ****************************POV Ildara************************************ We had hunted goblins and lizards the last day almost without rest. Andarin''s stats had increased quite amazingly, as his wisdom and intelligence had improved, to a point where he can support himself with this body enhancement magic almost around the clock. In the last two encounters the rest of us didn''t do much more than watch him smash the green pests into bloody paste in mere seconds. I had to admit that they didn''t pose much of a threat with only 3 of them and all of them scouts, so Andarin might have overdone it a little bit. Not that I was disgusted in any way. Goblins deserve to die but it would be nice if I too was involved in the killing. I liked it to see their bloodlust turn into panic when they realized that I will kill them and they could do nothing against it. Andarin just killed them like vermin, not even enjoying their fear and panic. He just eradicated them and went on. We were around 10 kilometres into the Great Forest and the patrols had become quite numerous. Our team killed them fast enough that most of them didn''t even realize that death had come for them, but it was obvious that our killing spree would come to an end in the next few hours. The enemy''s units were getting bigger and sported some lizards with them here and there and these suckers were a bigger threat than goblins. They could take a beating and still return some pain to you if you weren''t careful. We watched just such a group emerging from the trees onto a clearing and Andarin wanted to attack them as usual with his speed burst, but I held him back. Something wasn''t right with this unit. They were spread out too far and seemed completely sure of themselves. I heard branches break in the undergrowth and a strange sound emanating from it. We all ducked deeper into the bushes we hid ourselves in. Andarin''s eyes shone brighter than before which told me that he had used his mana to enhance his eyes. He drew in a sharp breath, "Shit, we have to get back to Marcus. They have gathered some beasts, it seems. They will easily climb the walls with these creatures." I knew that humans used their strange mounts to rule over the plains and some of my friends had dabbled into beast taming but with only mediocre success so far, so I was very surprised when I saw 3 forest drakes breaking through the undergrowth onto the clearing with the biggest lizardmen on their backs I''ve ever seen. Forest drakes were brown-green scaled mini dragons with an almost non-existent intellect, no wings but very strong feet and deadly claws. They measured on average 6 metres from head to tail and stood 1,4 metres tall. With their strong limbs they could easily climb bigger trees and their many teeth poisoned their prey additionally, making them sluggish and weak if the first strike didn''t kill their prey right away. All in all they were a serious threat to Marcus and his citizens, and we''d have to get the message home as soon as possible if we wanted to find a way to survive this mess. We all sneaked back into the bushes and then turned south, moving faster than recommended, but the fear of being too late drove us beyond common sense. Andarin pushed us forward and each time a patrol of the goblins discovered us, he took them head on, risking increasingly more to get us out of the forest. He accumulated some injuries this way and I was worried by his recklessness. I closed the distance between us and grabbed his arm. He look back to me with a bit of anger and impatience in the eyes, "What''s up, Ildara? We have to move faster, so make it quick!" The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Wow, this new commanding voice was very intriguing and I was instantly turned on, but that will have to wait for now, "It will bring us nothing if you kill yourself just to get us back to the city, Andarin. The city needs you more than any of us, so calm down and let''s take more care from now on." He seemed unwilling at first but then he let his head and shoulders sink and he looked down to the ground, "I just don''t want anyone get hurt again, just because I was too slow." I took his face in my hands and made him look into my eyes, "I understand you, but if you are injured to a degree where you become more than a burden to us than an advantage we will be slower than before, so let us do some of the work too and use our smarts instead of our muscles, okay? I think, that''s also one of the reasons why Marcus has sent you out here, right?" I smiled and he returned my smile with a bit of guilt in his gaze, then he nodded. After our little talk that was mostly ignored by the others, at least they seemed to have ignored it, we went a bit slower and only attacked if we had to or if we had a good opportunity to weaken our enemies forces. When we were only a kilometre away from the edge of the forest we encountered a hunting party from the city when they were just stripped down a deer. They looked up with clear surprise and a bit of fear in their eyes. Andarin snapped at them, "What are you doing out here? The goblins are not far behind us and their forward scouts might even be near you right now. Grab what you can and get your asses back to the town!" First they didn''t seem like they would obey him, but then they grabbed each a still bloody piece of flesh and melded into our formation for protection. I was surprised how fast Andarin turned from the town idiot to someone who was obeyed by his juniors. When all this is over, we will have a talk and maybe I will settle down in this new city the core is building. I was just taking a look back when I saw a spear flying straight at my head. Only my heavy investment in my dexterity saved me from being sniped by an unseen enemy. I turned my head slightly sideways and the stone blade attached to the tip sliced my cheek a little bit, but the guy walking in front of me got the spear right between his shoulder blades. He cried out even before I could cry a warning and fell to the ground. I drew my daggers and ran directly where the spear came flying from, Andarin already beginning to turn around and go for the enemies himself. Two more spears came flying from the undergrowth directed at my fellow fighters, but they evaded them easily this time and I could now also see the well disguised goblins hiding in the green bushes. They were always sneaky and liked to attack you from behind but they were usually quite clumsy and easily discovered. I don''t understand how they developed their fighting techniques so fast. But right now I had other things to do. Andarin and the others attacked with everything they had. Cishen made use of his fire affinity and created a curtain of fire right before us to stop the goblins from targeting us. The downed hunter was grabbed by his friends and dragged away, and one of them broke the spear at the tip and pressed a bandage on the wound, keeping the still stuck blade steady to not increase the wound. If they were trying to save him, he must still be alive, I think. Andarin jumped over the fire with his new magic and drew his blade and shield in the process, coming down on the goblins like the wrath of god. He split one of them in the middle and then made a quick spin on the heel with the stretched out blade, separating the head of another foe in the process. I saw another goblin taking aim at him with a heavy spear, and threw my own blade with all the might and precision I had earned in many years of fighting. Just before the green pest could launch his weapon, my dagger hit him in the temple and threw his head to the side, the spear going left of Andarin. The force of my throw drove the blade deep into the skull and killed the goblin straight away. I heard breaking branches left of me and two lizardmen came running out of a thorny bush. Their scales ignoring the thorns, I realized that it was a mistake to think the bushes wouldn''t be a possible place to hide in. Huge and lumbering they towered over me with their almost 2 metres and around 300 pounds of muscles and claws. With the head of an anaconda and a humanoid shape draped in overlapping scales with hard and strong muscles underneath they were hard opponents. Even unarmed they had claws on their fingers and feet. Some other lizards broke through the undergrowth on the other side of the fight drawing Andarin''s and the others attension to them which left me with my two and an empty hand. The lizards each had big clubs with embedded stone splinters and enclosed me between them with surprising speed. Both threw an overhand strike at me and I jumped forward right into the legs of one them, which might have been a mistake. These guys were heavy and even if I had some muscles and many years of training they were in a complete other weight class. I escaped the first strike but instead of making one fall to the ground and then hitting him fast with some of my daggers, I bounced off his legs and rolled back somewhat dazed. Both of them again rose their weapons to smash my head into the ground. ''So that''s it'' I thought, when both were suddenly hit by multiple arrows in the chest and head, looking somewhat like a pincushion. A look the side showed the hunters had drawn their bows and were taking aim at the fast moving lizards. I shook my head to get my head free again and stood up, drawing two daggers from my boots and then sprinted a bit to the side to avoid getting in the way of our artillery. Andarin kicked one of the lizardmen into the belly, and the reptile flew out of the fight, but before he hit the ground, 4 arrows had sprouted from his arm, chest and leg. As I already mentioned, these guys could take a beating, and even hurt quite badly, the guy rolled to the side breaking the arrow shafts and jumping right back into the fight, but now aiming at the hunters. Knowing the position of their eyes gave them a bit of tunnel vision, I positioned myself to the side and then jumped right onto the reptile''s back with my daggers leading. They embedded themselves with a slick sound and I already withdrew them to drive them again into my foe. He cried out loud and coughed up some blood but still tried to dislodge me from his back. He never stood a chance though. I closed my legs around his belly and rammed my two daggers into his neck, creating a fountain of blood erupting from his cut arteries. He fell to the ground, but I had already loosened my grip on him and rolled to get back to my feet taking count of the battlefield. Crouching low with my daggers held before me I saw that my fellow fighters had taken care of the rest of our enemies easily after Andarin had again bisected another lizard with his sword. Damn it, I so badly want this mana enhancement technique he uses. 40. The return of the hero^^ ******************************POV Marcus********************************* I now had the power to turn Gillian into a city guardian, and I called out for her. Seconds later her ghostly body appeared before me and looked curiously at me, "You called? What is it?" "Are you ready to become my city guardian, Gillian?" I said with all the seriousness I could project in my voice. Her often mischievous behaviour disappeared suddenly and she bowed her head slightly to me. "I am yours to command, my lord. Your enemies are mine and your friends are mine too. I will guard your city and its citizens with all my power and will do so as long you keep your promise to the elves and the goddess Alvera." I nodded, "So be it!" My power flowed into Gillian and she changed. I felt a new connection blossoming in my consciousness and mana rushing into me, her mana regeneration strengthening mine by no small margin. Gillian smiled and laid her head to the side, "I got a nice boost to my stats and I can feel the new core in my body. Thank you for granting me your power, Marcus. I will train hard to make the vines at the wall an additional defence for us. And now that I''m a part of you I will be able to grow much faster than before, providing more shelter and protection for the elves." "That would help us big time, Gillian. Please help the elves with the prayers to Alvera and create a holy site in front of your body. We''ll need it for the sanctification of Andarin as soon as he returns." My mentioning of the young elven man made her frown suddenly, "Speaking of him, I can see him and his group running in our direction. They are accompanied by some hunters and some of the group look injured. Perhaps we should gather our forces to be ready in case of a sudden attack." Her elevated position as a tree gave her an obvious advantage when looking for any dangers. It would be good to make use of that and keep her tree the highest place in the city in the future. I sent my other guardians a warning to gather the troops and call back the people from the surroundings, accidentally causing a hectic scramble as everyone rushed back to the protection of the wall. The elves with the best shooting ability and all the mages manned the wall, while the rest of the people stayed down around the hearth tree and my core. The ones with the highest mana capacity stayed near me to give me their mana. The others meditated to gather as much mana as possible as they always used at least some of it just to make their every day lives easier. Even without the mana manipulation skill, magic could be used to make your body warmer or heal some minor injuries. I flew outside to watch the border of my domain myself, and was a bit disappointed once again that I couldn''t see outside of it. Perhaps if I created an ethereal body like Gillian''s for myself I would be able to watch the outside world again like in my former life. After only five minutes I saw Andarin and his group entering my domain and examined them closely. One of them was heavily injured with a spear tip embedded in his back, and Andarin himself had many small injuries covering his body. The rest of the squad was almost without any injuries, which made me feel somewhat angry. Their job was to protect Andarin and make it easy for him to level, not to let him do all the work, but perhaps I should hear their story first before I rip their sorry asses off. I used my new healing spell on them and held it focused on Andarin, watching their surprised looks as their wounds started slowly closing and the spear tip in the hunter''s shoulders slipped out and fell to the ground. ''There don''t seem to be any pursuers'' I heard Gillian''s thoughts and I relaxed somewhat. Then I went closer to the group and addressed Andarin, "As I see, you came back mostly intact, but why are you in such a hurry when nobody is following you?" He was surprised by my sudden appearance, but stopped at once and tried to sense my presence. Much faster than I expected him to, he turned to face me and answered, "Mylord, we killed many goblins as requested, but we also discovered something quite disturbing and alarming. The goblins and lizards have somehow managed to tame forest drakes for their army, which could easily bypass our defence. We decided to warn you as soon as possible, so you could adapt to the changed conditions." Okay, that was something I didn''t expect and surely didn''t want to hear, but he made the right choice in returning with the news, "Good thinking Andarin. Get yourself and the others back to the wall and then prepare yourself for the sanctification. Clear your mind and soul of any obstructing thoughts or wishes. In the meantime I will question your squad about your findings." If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ''Galen, gather all intelligence on forest drakes and how to defeat them. It seems the goblins have found someone who can tame these beasts like the humans did with theirs.'' I sent the old mage a message which he acknowledged with a short ''Hmm, let me see''. I turned to Ildara, who had watched my exchange with Andarin, and asked for her report, which wound up scaring me a little. The goblins had more numbers than I''d thought, better organization, and showed clear signs of improved intelligence. The more I heard, the more I thought that someone high up in the sky was using massive power to get my crystalline self in their grasp. Ildara wasn''t someone easily frightened, but she seemed worried enough that I could sense it in her eyes and voice when she reported their findings. "Ildara, do you know how hard the scales of forest drakes are? Do you think my splinters could kill them?" She reflected for a few seconds while we went back to the wall a bit more slowly than Andarin, "I think, they would wound them, maybe enough to slow them down somewhat, but only a lucky shot would kill any of them. The can take a beating and still fight on. We mostly evade them as soon as we discover them. Only if pressured or if they endanger a hearth tree will we attack them. Their skin is tough and thick, deflecting most arrows and thrown spears. To fight them you have to get in close range and try to hit them at their weak spots behind their legs and neck." That didn''t sound very promising, "How do they do against magic? Are they afraid of fire maybe?" She shrugged, "Not more than any other beasts, rather less thanks to their dragon heritage, but they do not possess more resistance against magic than any other. A concentrated attack could penetrate their skin and injure them badly, I think, but that would bind most of our mages to specifically target the drakes while the goblins and lizards would mostly be safe from our attacks." I got the same information from Galen seconds later with the addition of an interesting extra. The drakes had a weakness for something called Etnis, a herb growing deep in the forest, which drove the drakes somewhat crazy. The description reminded me a little bit of catnip and the reactions it created in my tomcat back on Earth. The poor guy has hopefully found a new can opener. Now I had the question that decided how much of my precious time I would invest in counter measures to the new threat, "How many forest drakes do the goblins have?" Ildara''s shoulders sank and her head bopped down, "Sorry, but we couldn''t find how many they have. We saw three of them, but I''m sure where there are three, there are more. You should feel proud of yourself that they consider you so powerful that they have to go all out." She smirked with a sad smile, because she could already tell that we will loose many of our people against these creatures. Her strange humour irritated me a slight bit, but I ignored it for now. They saw three for sure and were sure that there would be more, but I was also quite sure that even with their big army the goblins wouldn''t be able to support more than ten of these beasts. From the description I got from Galen they needed a solid amount of fresh food every day, and goblins didn''t seem to be big logistic geniuses. At least I hoped they weren''t, because then I would be in for a heavy fight. "How much time do you think we have before the army arrives in full strength, Ildara?" She looked up and frowned, "Maybe two days, but it could also be only one day. It depends how fast they move now their forward scouts have been killed. By the way, Andarin is a walking storm of death now that he has increased his mana pool. If it is possible I would like to learn this new skill of his as well. It would make my arrows much more deadly if I could use heavier bows." I laughed in spite of the looming future, "You are right, but with the right technique you could imbue your arrows directly with mana to give them a harder punch. Imagine an arrow with fire mana infused. It would melt right through most armors." Her eyes lit up like the sun and a wide grin plastered her face immediately. This girl really liked destructive skills, eh? If I could bind her somehow to Andarin and him to my city, I would have a nice couple of fighters. Add an additional healer wife for the two and maybe a rogue wife too, and I''d have a perfect adventurer team at my disposal. Poor Andarin might be a little overwhelmed from the womanly affection he might get, but that was his problem and not mine. "Ildara how hard is the armor at their feet? Can it be cut, I mean right at their soles?" She was bewildered by my question and spent a few seconds trying to recall her knowledge about the drakes, "I know that my father said that they feel movements in the surroundings through their feet, so the soles shouldn''t be heavily armored, why?" I dropped some caltrops from my inventory right beside her and she jumped in surprise. She looked closer at my constructs and examined them for their purpose, then a nasty smile erupted on her face. "That is so evil! The drakes would cut themselves up with these things. The goblins might evade them after they make first contact, but knowing these little pests they will attack with everything they have at first sight of the walls, and the drakes will lead their advance." I was pleased with her answer but something still nagged at me, "Will the drakes be out of the fight with their feet cut up, or will they just enrage and attack everything? I mean, they are wild beasts but they still have some dragon heritage, right?" "Sure, they will perhaps run amok and attack anything in their sight, but that would mostly be goblins and their allies, so what?" She shrugged and her eyes wandered again to Andarin''s back. She was right of course, but to make sure, I will have to tell the mages to concentrate their attacks on any drake that comes too close to the wall. My work was cut out for me too, as I had to create more caltrops for the battlefield and especially bigger and sturdier ones. Every drake that could penetrate that defence would have to become a prime target for my casters. My subminds began to create the caltrops while I started to create the minefield with mana infused stones all around the fields. I also made my specialized bombs stronger and covered them with more stone splinters inside for a maximized lethality, and then moved them a little bit farther away from the wall to reduce the risk of friendly fire. When I looked back to the city I suddenly recognized a flaw in my defence. Until now I was certain that all the attacks would be coming from the forest, but as far as my fantasy lore reached, lizards were excellent swimmers, so the river itself would also be a possible route for my enemies to reach my walls. The best strategy here would be to just cut as much stone as possible from the cliff to make it impossible to climb. With my stone cutting ability that should be quite easy, but it would also take a massive amount of mana. ''Galen, we will have to milk all the mana I can get from the citizens sooner than I thought. I need to cut the cliff down quite a bit. Correct me if I''m wrong, but lizards are good swimmers, right?'' The answer to my message took some seconds and I felt the old elf''s sudden understanding what I meant, ''Damn it, you''re right. I will gather the citizens and then mobilize the other guardians to help you with the cliff. There''s just one small problem with that. Where do you want to dump so much stone?'' ''Oh, for the stone itself, I have a nasty idea I can try. I don''t think the goblins will like it very much.'' 41.Return of an old gal Cutting the stone into pieces I removed 4 meters below the wall foundation and tried to make the cut stone as smooth as possible to inhibit any wannabe climbers. With the help of my guardians this project moved on very fast. Especially Gillian seemed very skilled in using her magic, which, considering that she was a magical creature, shouldn''t have surprised me so much. I gathered the stone in my inventory and then transferred some of it to my workspace where I began to fuse the stone back together into a humanoid figure standing some 4 meters tall. The stone didn''t seem to be the hardest granite, but I had to make do with what I had. I ordered the elves to dump as much mana as possible into me, because the stone cutting and the other projects needed massive amounts of the precious energy. Maybe I should designate some of them as specialized mana gatherer for me and my guardians. This would benefit them also because their meditation skill would rise much faster, resulting in an easier chance to become a mage. It was late in the evening when I was done with the prototype for my new weapon. The stone figure wasn''t very pleasing to look at with its rough shape and the dull grey stone it was made from. Massive hands with five fingers which ended in sharp claws completed the construction. I didn''t put much effort in the appearance because of my lack of time, but I would invest much more time in the next vessel, as my new spell called the thing. At least I hoped that it would function the way I thought it would. Maybe I should have also created some kind of big club or mace to widen my attack range? Let''s ask my trusted advisers. ''Guys, come to the workspace. I have a surprise for you and also need some advice.'' Galen and Nala were the first with Kitara, Chara and Gillian following shortly after. When their eyes fell on my big stone fellow I could almost see the question marks above their heads. Galen turned to me, ¡°Maybe I will regret the next question, but what in the world is this thing?¡± I smirked and enjoyed his bewilderment, ¡°That my friend is my new weapon. You know, I got a last present from Tiria when she severed the connection between us. It''s a new spell called ''Create Vessel'' which let''s me create a creature made from different materials which can later be modified if I increase my knowledge about golemancy. I can possess the thing and use it as a body to turn everything in its path into mush.¡± Their jaws fell to the ground and I chuckled like a villain seeing their faces, ¡°What do you think?¡± This time it was Gillian who gathered her wits first, ¡°That''s an obvious cheat! Most people on this world will have to throw all their power against this thing because most weapons would be ineffective against it. I don''t know how fast it is but even if it only can move as fast as a goblin, you could kill their whole army easily with it. Even the drakes would have a hard challenge with that monstrosity. And Tiria gave such a spell as her last present?¡± I nodded and Nala added to the conversation, ¡°Then she has to be in deep trouble with no chance of getting away alive. It must have taken her a massive amount of power to give this skill to you and any other future city core. The other gods must be cursing her right now, especially since they won''t be able to influence you directly anymore due to her severing the connection to you and thus any future offspring you might have.¡± The last thought made her look sharply at me and I said hastily, ¡°Forget that for the next few years. We have other problems right now and I don''t want to have kids for quite some time. They''re bothersome and I don''t want to have to deal with all the growing up issues.¡± I heard Gillian and Galen mutter something and was quite sure that they said something like me being a juvenile myself didn''t help also. Ignoring them I went beside my big golem and asked them all, ¡°Would you add some weaponry to this fellow, like a mace or a big club?¡± Kitara raised her hand and I looked at her with an uplifted eyebrow, ¡°Yes, Kitara?¡± She let her hand fall down, ¡°Are you proficient with the use of a weapon, Marcus? You didn''t make the impression of a warrior to me and you said that your former world was quite peaceful.¡± Okay, I didn''t take into account that I needed some weapon skills for using a weapon but with a game-like system in place I should have taken that into account, ¡°Nope, I''m not proficient in the use of any close combat weapon besides some training with a sword ages ago. As it stands I don''t even have any unarmed skills. Maybe you could take it over then? I mean you''re a warrior of your tribe and should be able to operate it somehow.¡± She shook her head, ¡°I don''t think that I would be able to do this. You''re the core and we shouldn''t experiment too much before the fight. Let''s take it to the outside and test it first before we go down this road any further.¡± If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Good advice! Let''s get the show running. I enveloped the stone figure with my mana and sent it outside the wall. Suddenly Gillian''s voice interrupted this nice talk, ¡°Guys, did you forget, that there''s a ritual awaiting you? I mean Andarin and the others are waiting outside for the start of the ceremony and I''m quite sure, that Marcus will need most of his mana for the creation of a holy place devoted to Alvera.¡± Damn, I totally forgot about it when I turned most of my attension to the creation of my newest weapon. One of my subminds had already used quite the formidable amount of mana for blessing the ground in the goddess'' name accompanied by the prayers of the elves, but the big finish was yet to come and would need most of my mana capacity. No big deal, I will just finish turning him into a paladin and then create my new vessel after I have gotten back the necessary power. My loyal subjects would have to be pressed dry a bit for their energy but everyone in my domain had to pay his dues to me, even the children. I will have to look into creating a mana corps quite soon, because after the siege I will need massive amounts of energy to create my dream city. Some of the kids will have a career as my personal mana generators. I will have to teach them some techniques in exchange for their services but I think that most of them will be happy to have this job. Now back to work. I returned with my guardians to the outside world and went over to Gillian''s tree to take a closer look at the site. A big circle surrounded by white stones, marble I think, enclosed a place inscribed with a big rune made from small wooden mosaic pieces. My submind had transmitted me the information that the rune was linked to Alvera herself and would change as soon as the place was blessed by her presence. The elves got the rune from Gillian and the crafters made the mosaic pieces from branches of the Hearh tree Gillian provided. So highly magic stuff it seems. Big mojo. Gillian''s ethereal body appeared besides me and pointed to the rune, ¡°You will have to infuse it with your power at this place while I will empower it over there. We will both be a little weakened afterwards for at least an hour, but then the goddess will give her blessing to the place and maybe even buff us too. It should give us some extra juice for the fight tomorrow.¡± I was impatient to start the whole thing to get back to work again, but the elves seemed like they would be done in the next few minutes, so I turned my gaze to some elves who were standing around watching the scene. ¡°Hey, you! Sit down and start meditating, I will need all your power in the next few hours and days, so make yourselves useful and gather as much mana as possible,¡± Just after I said that, I added a hasty,¡±Please¡± to the sentence because some the elves frowned when they heard my somewhat commanding voice. I will have to get some lessons from Kalla for getting the people do my bidding without sounding like a dictator. Let the people think they do my bidding out of their own wishes. I hate politics but I had to admit that the best politicians could manipulate the masses with a few words better than with a gun put to their temples. That would be a much needed skill. I should look into getting it from the system. The elves looked to Gillian for a moment then shrugged after she smiled and nodded at them and began meditating. ¡°The please saved you there, Marcus. They still think that Kalla is the ruling force here and it take some time to change the people''s view on this subject, so be gentle with them and give them time to accommodate. They will see the light sooner than later if you play it cool.¡± ¡°Patience was never my big forte, but I will try to better myself, and and use Kalla as a teacher so I can wield a rhetorical club instead of a real one.¡± She smirked at me, ¡°You learn fast. She will be an excellent asset for the town council in the future. Just make sure that she gets a good position and the elves will be satisfied.¡± The elves had finished their work and Gillian and I got into position. She nodded and I infused my mana into the rune. All the elves that had some mana available ran to my core and pushed it into my crystal. And man did I need that. Gillian had underestimated how much mana we would need for this venture. The rune sucked me dry like the sun the ground in death valley. I got a strong headache almost immediately. I had hoped to be beyond that after I changed my race to a city core but now it hit me like a truck. I hoped that Alvera would really appreciate my work here and would repay me with a big buff after. I felt Gillian getting weaker with every moment and decided to send her some of my mana to even the odds an bit, even some mana got lost in the process but I saw her smiling with a thankful look in her eyes a moment later. It didn''t help me much with my migraine but if it improved the outcome even for a little bit it was worth the effort. No pain, no gain, and maybe it would even improve some of my skills. After some really painful minutes the rune lit up like a firework and glowed in every colour of the rainbow and then the need for mana suddenly stopped. The rune had vanished and was replaced by a silver coloured metal plate with unknown runes at the side. I forced away any sudden greedy thoughts to immediately salvage the metal. I noticed a rush of power filling me and indeed my mana came back at an almost unbelievable rate. When I took a look at my status I saw that the regeneration tripled by some godly buff. Hehe, thanks Alvera! ¡°Hey Andarin. It''s showtime. Get inside the circle and get measured by your goddess. Let''s see if you fulfil the necessary conditions to become a paladin.¡± The addressed elf came over to me with a coy smile and caution in his steps. With a last look to his team mates and especially Ildara he went inside the circle and kneeled down speaking a prayer to Alvera. In the next moment I was almost blinded by the amount of mana filling the circle and sweaping outside, knocking me back to my core with some after effect that reminded me somehow of the last time I went drinking with some friends in Munich at the octoberfest, a local beer party in germany. We drank so much that my vision was tripling everything I saw, and the same effect hit me right now. Fortunately it only lasted for half a minute and then vanished gradually in the next half. After that I went back outside again and examined the changed young elf. His former blond hair turned silver and I saw the same rune that decorated the rune minutes before now inscribed above his eyes like a tattoo in blue colour. His eyes were now a deep blue like the ocean and his already handsome looks were also changed a little bit. Now he was a real eye catcher for the ladies. I felt an immediate urge to punch him for getting such an upgrade. He looked around and then gazed straight at me, ¡°Alvera sends her regards and a warning. Tiria has been attacked and has fallen from the godly realm. Her replacement could try to force himself upon you, so be prepared to receive some company in the near future.¡± Great! A new problem arises and I will have to deal with some upstart. Now, he killed my creator so he won''t get much love from me. Now I had a solid reason to grind dungeon cores and subdue or kill them. ¡°If he tries to come by to get me into his flock, I will show him that I''m my own man right now, and if Tiria is still around somewhere, please tell your goddess that she can send Tiria an invitation to come here.¡± He bowed his head and smiled, ¡°Acknowledged and she says that you might get a package sooner than you think.¡± I heard a loud crack behind me where I had created the figure of Tiria and turned around just in time to see the wood change its colour and consistency. It grew somewhat and began to move and moments later my old mistress stood right before me with an awkward smile and pain in the eyes, ¡°Hi Marcus, can I pledge for asylum?¡± Just as I wanted to answer drum sounds filled the air coming from the forest, followed by the cries of thousands of inhuman voices. What a terrible way to introduce yourself, Tiria! 42. And so it begins The former goddess looked somewhat changed. Her hair was longer and her former dark pride was now a rich golden brown that reached down to her bottom. The already dark eyes had changed to a deep blue with sharp and thin eye brows giving her a very expressive face. She was just half a head smaller than my former self and if I wasn''t completely wrong she was near my personal perfect image of a woman. If I haven''t been surrounded by beautiful ladies for the last weeks I may have fallen for her right there, but as it stood I was immunized right now by my guardians and the other elves. She seemed to await a response from me, so I answered her, ¡°Welcome to my humble home, Tiria. I''m glad to have you with us in our hour of need. Your knowledge and power will hopefully help us to prevent some casualties among the citizen.¡± I saw her smirk apologeticallyand look down to the ground, ¡°I fear, I won''t be much of a help. When I fell from the godly realm most of my power and knowledge was stripped from me. I''m just a starter avatar without any of my former powers. At least I chose healing powers and some fighting powers with sword, shield and basic elemental spells. The goblin army will help to strengthen me and restore some of my abilities frpm when I was a avatar long ago, and the fact that I can revive myself if some of them happen to be able to kill me gives me a big advantage I think. At least as long as I''m able to kill enough of them to absorb enough power for my resurrection.¡± My guardians and all the elves around us stood like stone figures after her speech. Most of them knew nothing about avatars and if Tiria hadn''t informed me about some of the abilities an avatar possessed I would have been shocked just the way they were. ¡°Do you at least still have some knowledge from Earth like basic science? Or any advanced magic skills?¡± asked Galen after some moments. I was surprised that he was the first to come out of his shell. Tiria turned to my oldest guardian, ¡°Only some rudimentary information is left. When I was defeated I lost all my power and with it sadly most of my knowledge. I will help you as much as I can because you lot are my best chance for survival. I could have gone to Earth but there would have been too many of my enemies just waiting for a strike to end me for good,¡°She shrugged her shoulders,¡°I think they''re more than surprised that I found a way to escape them, as Marcus'' city is the only spawn point on this world for any new avatars, they will have to have his good will to survive their first hours on this planet.¡± Okay, that surprised me somewhat, but right now I had other problems, ¡°I see that you have some basic equipment, so prepare yourself as it seems that we have some company outside the walls.¡± She raised her left eye brow, ¡°So the party is starting?!¡± My guardians looked disbelievingly at her, and Andarin, who until just watched the scene, said,¡°Party? You think that fighting for our survival is some kind of fun, Tiria? It seems, you will fight on the front line to relieve you of some strange thoughts. I see that you have a sword, so show me if it is just for decoration or if you''re more than just a fallen goddess who is no good.¡± I saw Tiria catch her breath to unleash her anger at him, but at the last moment she reminded herself that the young elf could now cleave her in two if she got on his wrong side. So the woman just nodded and went with him to join the fighters on the walls. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. We watched the two leaving with Ildara and the rest of the team following them and then I harrumphed to turn their attension back to me, ¡°I still need a substantial amount of mana to create my new weapon so please gather everyone who can spare the energy to give it to me and then I will show these suckers what I can do to them if they anger me enough.¡± My crual smile was reflected on Galen and Kitara''s face while the rest seemed a little bit concerned about me. Following my order they left me and searched for my mana batteries, while Gillian just sent all of her mana directly to me. I looked at her asking myself if she didn''t need the power herself. She smiled and said, ¡°Right now, you need the mana more than I do. You''re the first and also the last line of defence, so I thought that until the goblins reach the walls, where I will try to ensnare them with the vines, I will give you all I have to offer. What a shame that we didn''t have more time to gather more mana. This fight puts us in a bit of a predicament.¡± ¡°Yeah, it''d be much easier if I had the golem ready and all of my mana at full power, but we have to work with what we''ve got, so let''s just kick their butts hard enough that even their grandchildren have bruises left over from the fight.¡± ¡°Oh, you will leave some of them alive? I thought to eradicate them from the world and crush their bones to nurture the soil.¡± I was a little bit shocked by her cruelty but them remembered that elves and goblins didn''t mingle quite well. My walking mana batteries gave me all their power and my energy level shot up fast. So fast, in fact, that I could create my first golem after only 5 more minutes. I observed my borders frantically for any goblins to reach it, but Galen and the others told me that the little green suckers were just waiting at the forest line. I hate these mind games. Whoever lead them had a good grasp on psychological warfare. On the other hand, any moment without a fight only strengthened me and not these bastards.. When I had at least enough power for my new vessel I took him outside, much to the surprise of the elves. I had had him appear outside the wall because I was quite sure that climbing with this piece of massive stone would be a hassle and leave my wall in shambles. I triggered the spell and watched my mana drop like a stone. The stone changed before me, turning somewhat blue at some places like veins streaming throughout the body turning inwards where normally a heart would be. The crude face changed a bit too, and took a rough shape of my own face with the eyes lighting up like spot lights. The stone itself seemed to be almost liquid when the golem moved and turned its face directly to me, awaiting my commands. Okay, let''s get the party started! I sent my mind into the golem along a blueish thread that came from me and lead to the golem''s head. Seconds later I was able to see again for the first time since I changed my race. It was so cool! My vision was limited before to my domain only but now I could see much farther again, watching the forest where the cries and challenges suddenly dimmed. Well suckers, seems now your big mouths are about to be stuffed, eh? I took a careful first step and I think that my former life as human helped a lot to keep my balance. I checked my hands and the overall movement of my new body and relished in the feeling of having this new and strong golem at my command. Whoever had held the goblins back let them loose just that moment and they came running now with the big drakes in the front directly at me. I cupped my left fist in my right hand and then gestured them to come at me. What might have been frightening in my former life, now only made me feel a rush of joy and bloodlust. The show has begun, and the first combatants learned first hand that attacking me did hurt like a bitch when they entered the caltrop field cutting into their feet and then bodies. Spikes ran them through when they fell to the ground only to be trampled by the horde behind them that didn''t realise what had happened. Screams filled with pain and despair erupted from the goblins and still they came into my trap. The drakes ignored most of the caltrops but eventually some of them found the bigger ones and shredded their feet into bloody stumps. Their cries were much louder and I almost felt pity for the stupid creatures, but only almost. Enemies had to die and when they penetrated deeply enough for my minefield to get a nice payoff I sent my subminds to trigger the first round of the little buggers to turn the place into a gate straight to hell. Explosions never heard before on this world shredded the bodies of goblins and drakes alike, throwing limbs and innards through the air, plumes of blood raining down on the shocked goblins that survived the first wave. I didn''t recognize any lizardmen among the attackers,so it seems that my earlier epiphany about the enemie''s strategy had not been without reason. I turned around to watch the river for a moment, but until now it was still calm down there, so I began to walk towards my guests to welcome them warmly with some gifts. 43. War is ugly Walking forward towards the goblins and drakes I watched the forest closely for anyone who could classify as a commander but I wasn¡¯t able to discover anyone out there. Drums seemed to control the overall charge of my enemies and that implicated a better commanding structure than the elves had given the goblins. Whoever guided them had to be learned in strategic planning and tactics, so I concluded that the person in question had to be some offworlder like myself, maybe another avatar like Tiria. In contrast to her he might be a goblin avatar if that even was possible. Which would make the whole fight somewhat harder. Remembering what I knew about avatars they were hard to kill permanently which would make this adventure here a repeated fight over and over again if I couldn¡¯t eliminate the threat permanently. By exterminating all goblins on this world, which could be somewhat hard if you regarded their uncanny ability to breed like rabbits. Maybe I should invest into biological warfare combined with some magic to solve the problem once and for all. Could lead me down the dark path I wanted to avoid. All of these thoughts were moved to the back of my mind when the next wave of goblins and drakes moved closer to me now. They were frightened by the earlier massacre of their comrades but their leader nonetheless pushed them forwards. I let them come at me , for there were the pit falls awaiting them and all my nice poison bushes that took some punishment from the earlier explosions but still stood strong between the flood of enemies and my home. The green pests mowed through the bushes and after only some seconds the leading figures suddenly went berserk, attacking their next in line with crazy looks in the eyes and screaming like madman, biting and clawing everything around them with abandon. Complete madness broke out in the frontline of the goblins added by the pit traps when squads of still clear minded goblins fell into my pit traps where they were impaled on the ground crying and screaming in pain and fear seeing their comrades falling down on them driving them deeper into the stokes. My former self would have been terrified by all the killing and gore on the battlefield and even the elves were silent after witnessing the slaughter but right now these guys threatened my home, my people and me. I accelerated into a slow jog, taking large steps that shook the earth. The goblins that happened to pass all the carnage first now saw me coming at them and I somewhat enjoyed their scared looks and how they lost all fighting will when my towering 4 meter tall figure reached them with flailing fists smashing into their formation. My fists were as big as a pumpkin, a large one, and whatever resistance their weapons and armor gave them against an elf was completely useless against me. I waded through them like an avalanche throwing broken bodies and severed limbs in every direction. A drake came smashing into me trying to get a hold on me with his claws, so I offered it a hug and pressed the creature as hard as possible. The first vicious creature changed its tactic from total offense to desperate defense in a moment¡¯s time when it realized that I had enough strength to break its bones easily. It raked my body with its claws and I had to admit that it had some real punch behind these weapons. They left deep scratches all over my stony body but I had the overall advantage on my side. I squeazed it harder and a eruption of blood and gore came from the creatures¡¯ throat, followed by the drake getting weak and slack in my arms. I shrugged and let it fall to the ground while the goblins tried to hurt my body with their puny stone blades and mauls. On impulse I grabbed the drakes tail and swung it around a bit. It wasn¡¯t an actual weapon like a club but its claws and hard scales made up for the less than optimal handling when I turned around fast to create some clear space around me. The bodies of goblins exploded in paste on impact and that seemed to break the fighting spirit of the poor fellows around me. Terrified and mentally traumatized beyond hope a whole section of the army turned coat and fled back to the forest. For a moment I wanted to follow them and destroy them for good, but then I remembered that there was still an army trying to get to my walls. The bushes and pit falls had done their part and killed goblins in droves, but now the surviving pests had cleared this part of my prepared defenses and with a thirst for revenge and murder in their eyes the collected themselves again and then came running to the walls with arms in the air and screaming their war cries, filling the place with their green bodies. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I sent the command for the second minefield and the place turned again into bloody hell. Waves of compressed air and shrapnel rolled over the battlefield and turned everything in their path into primal carnage. The goblins on the edges of the effective killing zone were thrown into the air and smashed into the following army behind them, which were also turned heads over by the air wave. Small mushroom plumes showed where the mines had exploded and the ground was ripped into pieces with craters and upturned boulders everywhere. Earth, debris and limbs fell from the sky, followed by a rain of blood and gore all around the place. I had to give the goblins my regards because although the survivors seemed shaken to the core they picked themselves up and again began to cluster together for another go at the walls. I watched the scene for a moment before I ran as fast as possible to the small suckers to give them what has been coming for them some time. *******************************POV Galen********************************** I watched the whole scene from the wall preparing my new fireball spell to welcome my sworn enemies with everything I had when the place turned crazy. On a rational level I completely understood what carnage Marcus would release on the goblins but I wasn¡¯t prepared emotionally for the utter destruction the minefield would cause. My heart stopped for a moment when I saw the mistreated bodies of former living beings smashed into pulp by the explosives that my lord had created. I have killed more than most of my fellow elves but that scene was on a complete other level. Realization of future wars and the destruction they would cause to all involved hit me severely and that I would also have to fight in these confrontations with my life on the line. Besides me I heard many elves throw up after watching the scene unfold but I concentrated my gaze on my lord in his new elemental minion. The moving mountain of living stone unsettled me almost more than the carnage because I knew that there was absolutely nothing I would have been able to do against this thing. All my magical power and knowledge would evaporate facing the golem and I actually pitied the goblins for going against my master. He caused havoc wherever he sat foot and the goblins still threw themselves against him like wolves that tried to defend their puppies. They were either too stupid or very brave to go at him, maybe both, but I respected their unbroken will to fight him. Completely useless but that had nothing to do with my respect. I saw the army gather together again and called my men to attention knowing that the goblins had now to cross the second hurdle to get to the wall and wasn¡¯t surprised by my master¡¯s nasty biological weapon namely the poison bushes. I had gathered myself some of the dangerous thorns for our fletchers and knew of their properties when a not so careful guy had hurt himself with the poison. Four strong men had to hold him down until the poison had lost enough of its potency for the poor man to regain his composure. As I saw the goblins kill each other now I made a satisfied and cruel smile knowing that each of them that died wouldn¡¯t try to kill any of my people. Their cries and mangled bodies were a delightful noise to hear when I remembered the last fight against them at the lost village with my slain friends all around me and the goblins happily slaughtering everyone I held dear. Seeing them now on the receiving end of my master¡¯s wrath did smooth my anger and hate somewhat. ¡°I just hope that Marcus won¡¯t ever be angry enough at me to turn my way after seeing that,¡± I heard Ildara say beside me. I nodded, ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s really frightening to watch.¡± Tiria who stood only two persons away from me heard us and added, ¡°Believe me if I tell you, that this scene here is nothing to the fights and wars occurring on Marcus¡¯ homeworld. Even the gods are surprised again and again how much destruction and pain mortals can cause each other.¡± I gulped for a moment when I looked at her and saw her hard and distanced eyes looking at the battlefield before us as if she had witnessed much worse things, reminding myself that she was a former goddess and had seen all the cruelty and menace the world had to offer. If this fight wasn¡¯t even in the top ten, forget it top 100, then I never wanted to visit the places she had seen. The goblins cleared the second hurdle and pushed themselves again at us, but I knew that they just had entered the second minefield and screamed to my fellow elves to take cover. My gaze crossed the one of a goblin and when he saw me diving behind the wall, and the realization of what it meant. In the next moment a storm of fire and debris blew over the cleared wall and I knew that some parts of the goblins may have been mixed into the bloody mess that flew over us. Moments later I stood up and had problems to recognize the place before me. The landscape was turned over everywhere and the goblins laid flat somewhere back where the shrapnel hadn¡¯t reached them. Everywhere nearer the wall blood and gore with a destroyed body here and there turned the place into a picture straight from hell. I knew that my masters preparations only reached to this moment. From now on we would have to face the goblins head on and on knives edge. So let them come. My magic will turn them into ashes and I will make them regret to ever have come at me and my dear ones. Hell has enough place for all of them and my master will not be the only one to spill the goblins blood today. All around the wall the elves prepared themselves with bows and fireballs, illuminating the defensive ring with red and yellow. Today we will crush our enemies or die trying. 44. New places *************************POV Marcus**************************** I was rushing back to the wall when the elves unleashed their barrage of fireballs and arrows onto the raging mass of goblins running at them. The first wave of goblins just disappeared in a flash of fire and dirt thrown around by the power of the explosions. If you took into count all the punishment the goblins had taken until now it was a rather small body count the goblins had to pay but the fact that the elves could use such a spell now surprised the little suckers quite a bit. Still they closed the gap to the wall in mere seconds and there a new surprise awaited them when all the vines at the wall suddenly began to move and grab the green figures like toys, using the bodies like improvised clubs to smash other goblins. The goblins had attacked only a third of the wall until now and began to flow all around it now, pressuring the elves upon it with pebbles from slings and a crude shortbow here and there, eliciting painful cries from wounded men and women alike. I reached the wall shortly after and began my bloody work still using the dead drake to clear some place around me. Noting that only two heavily wounded drakes had made it to the wall and now trying to climb it I let go of my now quite mangled weapon and took a running start right into another drake ripping it from the wall and then smashing my fists into his hard scales. The poor creature didn''t take it so well regarding the fact that each of my fists had to weigh around a hundred kilograms. Blood splattered out of its mouth and the mistreated scales broke under my attack. I knew the creature was dying so I just threw the drake right into the approaching goblins and searched for the other one. It had just reached the summit of the wall when an angry elven paladin exploded into its face with a hard shield slap. Andarin had invested much of his stats into his strength before the leveling tour so it wasn''t very surprising that the drake''s head was thrown back opening his underbelly for any attacks. Two other elven warriors rammed their spears right into the throat of the drake, only to be stopped when the drake threw its body to the side jumping away from the wall and taking the spears from their hands with it. The creature fell to the ground on its back and seemed to be stunned for a moment, so I took advantage of that and jumped over to it. I guessed my overall weight at around 4 tons so you can guess what happened when I landed a good old body slam right on top of it. Yeah, it was messy and I liked it. Blood and gore covered my surroundings and I yelled my victory to the world when I heard Andarin yelling from above, ¡°Damn kill stealer! That was mine!¡± I took a look upwards, ¡°Come down and be my guest, small one! There is enough for everyone.¡± He just grunted and turned to the next crazy goblin who tried to mount the wall, so I turned also to my unfriendly neighbours and did was I was best at the moment, smashing them into bloody paste. The fighting had reached a point where my elves could hold their own on the walls even as they was pressured from almost every side, so I just began to use some of my subminds to attack bigger masses of enemies using fireballs everywhere on the battlefield to maximise the mana to damage ratio. I had to admit that the lack of lizardmen spooked me somewhat. Where did they go? The number of wounded fighters had increased so I used my healing aura to give my warriors some relieve. The other aura that enhanced their armor was already in place and helped them even more than I had guessed. My increased skill with earth manipulation seemed to have some influence on the damage mitigated. With most of the other elves used as mana batteries I had enough juice to hold the spell indefinitely and still throw some spells around the place. Suddenly I felt something hampering my power. It was like something was holding my arms and legs but there wasn''t anything visible so I concentrated to watch the flow of mana around me and then I saw it. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. There was a spell formation right under the whole place! I hadn''t had time to infuse much ground under my town yet, so I hadn''t discovered that someone seemed to have tunneled right under my home. So there they have gone with their forces. They still must have some drakes left for the burrowing. I regretted now that I hadn''t invested more power into expanding my influence deeper into the ground. The discovery didn''t do much to help me against this attack. I felt my power over the golem slip and it fell to its knees, the arms slumping to the ground, attacks from the goblins hailing down from all sides. Although they almost didn''t do any damage at all their numbers began to grind down the protecting stone. They would still need minutes to do any substantial damage but I didn''t know how long this spell could hold me down. ''Gilian, how deep do your roots reach?'' I sent a desperate thought to my newest guardian. ''So you also have it tough with this new spell? I think that my roots go down almost to the place where this spell originates but right now I don''t have the mana to defend the wall and dig deeper simultaneously.'' I felt her anger and fear through our connection. My consciousness left the golem suddenly and I felt myself thrown back into my core with my subminds also returned to it. Whoever had created this spell had to be quite knowledgable to target me so accurately. At least my city spells were still active and supported my people. But I still could send power to my guardians and so I gave Gilian all of it to give her a chance of breaking this predicament. My other guardians had also discovered that something was of when my golem suddenly went down. ''Marcus, what''s up with you?'' Chara''s concern could easily be easily felt through our connection. ''Yeah, your golem suddenly got slack and the goblins put quite a beating into it, giving us time to kill them easily with some fireballs.'' Nala had a smug in her thoughts and also some anxiety. ''The lizards have created a kind of magical circle right under the town that dampens my ability to roam around and somehow it also hit Gilian somewhat. I''m not sure how they did it, but I can''t imagine them to be so advanced in magic that they did this stunt by themselves.'' I felt Galen''s agreement, ''You''re right, that doesn''t match with my knowledge about them at all. They must have some outside help, maybe the dragon lady we had a run in with. There are some other possibilities also with Tiara now here, with her successor on the top spot right now. He would have the most to gain from capturing you, getting you back under his influence.'' He had a point there but right now I had other problems. ''Gilian, how long will you need to get down there with your roots?'' Some seconds went by when my big tree lady answered, ''Give me some minutes, but I think that they will try to attack my roots as soon as the lizards see them breaking through the tunnel.'' ''Then go under the tunnel and break through the ground instead. It might cost a minute more time but they won''t be able to do anything.'' Problem solved, good idea Chara! The girl develops a really intelligent mind there. ''That will do it, yes, I just hope we have enough time for it. The spell hinders my ability to defend the wall.'' Galen and his wives seemed quite confident in their ability to throw the goblins back when Kitara answered, ''Leave the walls to us and help Marcus! We can keep them at bay as long as Marcus can uphold the city spells. So hurry up and fuck these guys up, and when you got the chance bury them in these tunnels. They are such convenient graves for these suckers.'' I felt the spell formation trying to further weaken my ability to continue my city spells but I fought against it with my whole being behind it. The spell nabbed at the corner of my consciousness hampering my will and resolution but I steeled myself against its energy and fought back trying to manipulate the spell itself. The magic made a connection to me so why shouldn''t I be able to do the same thing with the spell formation? I snuck a mana thread alongside the existing connection and wormed my way inside the magic the tried to hold me down. Whoever cast the ritual may have knowledge to do it but not the necessary skill in mana manipulation to make the thing resistant to my attack. That''s the power of a core, you bastards! I felt the spell and its intention and was shocked when I learned its true purpose. It should teleport my consciousness alongside the crystal to another place I couldn''t specify. And the teleportation process had already been initiated! In frantic search for the part of containing my awareness in the core I searched the whole spell formation when I felt a sudden change in the spell. It had been weakened somewhere, disrupting the teleportation somehow. Gilian seemed to have made the first progress. The energy rerouted itself in the formation and started the process again, but by observing the changes I was able to detect the part where the capturing of my mind was located. With all my fury and rage I descended on this particular place and ripped it apart, feeling imminent release and freedom again. But I also felt that my time was running short. The teleportation would take the object where my main consciousness was located and teleport it to another place. Okay you suckers, I just hoped my golem was still around because I will give an unpleasant surprise. I grabbed for the golem and felt its body surrounding my mind again. It had taken quite some beating but it still stood strong enough to give some punishment. ''Guys, I fear that someone will try to capture me to another place in some seconds, but rest assured that I will still be able to support you here with my subminds, so don''t give up hope and fight on. I will return as soon as possible.'' Shortly after I felt the energy surrounding my golem body and light erupted around me. I lost any sense of gravity for a moment and a painful pull at my connection with my core but I endured it.
Congratulation! You have reached a new world.
You gain the title of world wanderer.
So another planet, nice change of scene, but I still felt that I could get back to my core through the connection. It was shaky at best but still there and going stronger with every moment now that my position had stabilized. So going back wouldn''t pose a big problem. I stood up and took a look around. I was in a round room with thick carpets at the walls which were made of granite. A 3 meters high double door was 10 meters away from me with myself at the centre of the room in a spell formation that lost its illumination fast. There were 21 men and women in embroidered robes standing around me and watching me with surprised and frightened looks. So these guys had made my life difficult. Let''s get back at them. 45. Mages and chickens One of the guys with a bit more brass on his shoulders took a step towards me, arrogance in his eyes, and stopped when my gaze hit him. Not completely sure in his belief and with a somewhat shaky voice he said, ¡°Core, you are in your new master''s domain and will obey him and us, his loyal servants. If you comply he will be a generous lord, but if you resist he will break you, discipline and torture you until nothing of your will remains.¡± He stood upright after he said his words and seemed quite pleased with the bullshit he threw my way. The others around me also became more relaxed and confident after the speech. I still hadn''t moved after I stood up and waited for their next move. My best guess was that they would try some new spell on me after having confirmed that I wouldn''t resist them, so I just waited for them to be distracted and then make my move. I hadn''t have to wait very long because the old sucker before me nodded to the others and then they came closer to touch my body to begin their new spell. I still waited and watched their magic at work for some seconds. It seemed to be some kind of binding spell and I was impressed by their skill with the magic. Don''t get me wrong, it was just pure professional interest. Never would I allow them to finish the spell, I was just curious. I felt my own magic give me a kind of small domain covering most of the room and I smiled inwards when a plan formed in my mind. I once saw a scene in a movie where a similar scene occurred and I was curious if these idiots would react the same way. Just to be sure I took a look at my inventory and was happy that I still had access to it. So let all hell break loose. I dropped big boulders of stone all around these guys blocking their way to the door and limiting their ability to evade my arms. In the next moment I lifted my arms and then brought my closed fists down onto two of the casters still completely enraptured by their work. Their bodies exploded like watermelons hit by a truck and they sprayed all over the other guys around them shocking them into statues. The spell formation broke and the collected mana erupted badly into the scene. I had to admit that if I hadn¡¯t been in this wonderful golem body I would have gotten quite the beating, but my companions in this adventure didn¡¯t fare so well. I enjoyed the magical fireworks splattering their sorry bodies all around the room with lightning electrocuting some of them and spontaneous bursts of fire making a barbecue out of three or four of the lot, their flesh and fat giving of some strange noises. My old self would have been shocked with the scenes unfolding before my eyes but my new being just took it with a curious look and waited for the action to slow down. At this moment the guys around me ran like chicken without their heads, some even literally. I enjoyed the show and studied the effects of the rampant magic to learn some new insights. When the magic lost its juice some 20 seconds later there were only two women left, both heavily wounded and loosing blood fast from several wounds. They looked at me with dread and understandable hate in the eyes. I walked over to them and bend down to them making them shiver in fear. ¡°You know I can save your sorry asses but I need some information first. For a starter, where am I and is there a dungeon core near?¡± The left one with a heavily scarred face and burn marks from magical fire all over her body spit at me, ¡°No one will tell anything to you, accursed creature. The master will bend you and torture you for this transgression and I will be with him soon¡­¡± Before she could say anything more I gave her a backhand slam into the head silencing her forever. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Then cool and without any emotion in my voice I looked back at the last one, ¡°You wanted to say anything else or shall I send you to your master too?¡± The woman took a short look at her former colleague and then gazed back to my towering figure, took a gulp and spoke with almost shattering voice, ¡°You have been summoned into the master¡¯s first temple after his ascension for bending you to his will and removing Tiria¡¯s stain on you. And yes there are several dungeon cores near this place, some of them should still be loyal to the old powers.¡± She looked at me waiting for my next action so I gave her the help I had offered and tried to modify my heal spell so that it only targeted her. To my surprise it wasn¡¯t very hard to do that and moments later my mana streamed into her body mending wounds and alleviating her pain. My captive gasped for a moment and then smiled suddenly, ¡°You¡¯re a creature of your word. That is surprising as most cores betray and trick anyone to get their will.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a city core, not a dungeon! I have to honor my word if I I want anyone to stay in my city and help me with it.¡± She nodded and then stood, ¡°I thought you just a modified dungeon core but Tiria seems to have really created a new kind of core with you. As thanks for my life I will help you with your escape from this place and maybe get some goodies too. I myself just got paid for my help with the ritual so there is no love lost between me and the new dungeon god.¡± I wasn¡¯t sure if I could trust her words because they almost sounded too good to be true, but for now I accepted them at face value. ¡°So where are? Underground or above ground?¡± The female shrugged, ¡°We are in Tesija, one of the biggest dungeon cities on Aarees. The temple is build above ground just at the entrance to the dungeon to prevent any incursions from the underground. When Tiria fell from grace, her successor, an avatar called Thorm took over her reign and this dungeon was the first to follow him willingly so he erected his main temple at this place.¡± So I was in the center of power of my enemy. I just hoped that I could wreak some havoc before my golem body was destroyed, ¡°Do you think that we will get some company soon?¡± She thought for a moment and then shrugged, ¡°Possible, but with the high priest gone, Thorm has to get a new one and until then his line of communication is broken for at least a day. The other priests will take some additional minutes until they recognize that the place at the top is vacant, so if you want to do something you should get moving.¡± I just wanted to get going when a sudden thought hit me. ¡°What will happen with you?¡± ¡°I will try to get some space between me and this place. I got a teleportation scroll to leave this place but I still will get a bounty on my head. You can be sure that Thorm is watching us and screaming bloody murder.¡± ¡°Don''t get me wrong but I could use someone like you at my place. I still have access to my inventory, so I could try to stuff you inside and take you with me when I leave this place. What do you think?¡± She seemed surprised at my proposal, ¡°Are you sure that I can survive in your inventory? As far as I know it can only hold dead materials.¡± ¡°This can be tested quite easily! We just have to capture a guinea pig for checking the theory.¡± ''Or you could throw the mind of the mage into your inner mind and the body into the inventory. Sorry for the intrusion, Marcus, ¡° I heard Alvera''s voice in my mind suddenly, ''I can only speak for a short moment with you as this not my place of power and not my world but thank you for your work at the city. The goblins and lizards are in full retreat at this moment and this is my reward for your hard work. Get going, time is running and Thorm will only give you ten minutes if at all.'' Her presence disappeared as sudden as it came and I was alone again in my mind. ¡°Got a sudden inspiration from a friend of mine. There is a way by separating your mind from your body by taking your consciousness into my inner mind and your body into my inventory. I just have to warn you that my homeworld is a very primitive world with very underdeveloped magic and technology.¡± The wizard just smirked, ¡°I will take my chances with you because here I will be hunted down like an animal, that''s for sure. Shall we do it right now or do you want to do it after we have wreaked this place. I have still most of my mana and I got some spells I always wanted to test but never got a good place for them.¡± ¡°Hell yeah, be my guest. By the way, my name is Marcus, city core of Aegis, first and only of my kind.¡± I put the stone boulders around of us back into my inventory and went to the door. The female followed beside me and bowed her head shortly, ¡°The name''s Mariah Ulvantor and I''m pleased to make your acquaintance. Let''s trash this place and then run for our lives!¡± I opened the door and in the next moment got a front seat for an impressive show of destruction. 46. The team gets an addition I opened the door and in the next moment got a front seat for an impressive show of destruction. This lady didn¡¯t hold back and I watched her invoking runes all around her glowing golden and growing stronger with every moment. There were some guards scattered over the floor. Granite was the main theme here it seemed. Heavy oaken doors stood every 20 metres enticing my curiosity what may be behind them. The guards seemed surprised at the display before them and took much too long to react to the impending doom when Mariah released some kind of purple mist that streamed away from her fingers filling the floor extremely fast. I heard muffled coughing and even a weak scream from a guard near me but I doubted that the noise would reach very far. Visibility returned after 10 seconds and I was horrified of the effect of the spell. The bodies and equipment of the guards were in several kinds of dissolution with their fluids in big pools on the ground. Half destroyed bones sticking out of their bodies and stomach fluids running down on the perforated corpses displayed a horrifying sight. I looked down to Mariah with a raised eye brow, ¡°What kind of mage are you?¡± She smirked, ¡°The dangerous one! That¡¯s a spell I reserve for any fights inside buildings where I want massive damage in a short time with no one able to warn anybody else. It has a steep mana cost but it¡¯s worth it, believe me. Down here in this floor are the torture chambers for Thorm¡¯s enemies and also some treasure chambers as far as I know. Behind that door over there¡±, she pointed to a wooden door 40 metres to my right, ¡°Is a special case. I could only take a short look inside but I¡¯m quite sure that there is a dungeon core capture inside a special kind of ritual. If we could free it the core might release some havoc on this cursed place and give us some needed distraction to cause even more destruction.¡± I thought for a moment and then shook my head, ¡°No, if this core is an enemy of Thorm then I will have to free it and subdue it for my own needs. The dungeon cores have some ability I don¡¯t and that I desperately need.¡± Mariah looked somewhat disappointed at me and sighed, ¡°Allright, let¡¯s get the damn thing and trash the place as good as possible. I think we still have 5 minutes auntil all hell breaks loose and we have to leave for good.¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. We had arrived at the door during the talk and I tried to open it but was presented with some resistence. I shrugged and took a step back. Then I kicked and the wooded exploded into the room. I think it was never meant to hold back several tons of force. ¡°You know that you¡¯ll make an excellent storm trooper? I would have had some use for someone like you several occasions in my life.¡± ¡°Hehe, I have to admit that this body has some serious advantages but being so big isn¡¯t always a good thing.¡± This time I had to bend down to enter the room. Luckily the room itself had a high ceiling and I could move easily. There was a ritual circle in the room glowing a sick green I saw last in some games I played last on good old Earth. Steam rose from the runes and enveloped a red glowing crystal in the center that seemed to expand and shrink every second. ¡®Please help me! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh¡­!¡¯ A female voice screamed in my mind. Okay, this core seemed ready for negotiations. ¡®Will you serve me and help me build a city to protect anyone who wants to life in my domain?¡¯ I felt some surprise from my counterpart, ¡®Wait, you are the city core? You are the reason for all this mess!!!! Tiria would still be alive and a goddess if she would just have never created you. I will never bend down before you, cursed creature!¡¯ Perhaps the starting negotiation could have begun a little bit better. ¡®Keep your pants dry, lady. Tiria is with me now, even if she isn¡¯t a goddess anymore, but last time she didn¡¯t seem to be angry about it.¡¯ The dungeon core fell silent and surprise made a reappearance, ¡®She is with you? Where? I don¡¯t see her!¡¯ ¡®Of course you don¡¯t see her. She is back in my city. I discovered Thorm¡¯s plan just in time to change the teleportation to my golem body instead of my core. The high priest was very impressed with my fists when the connected with his head. Made quite the mess but the magical lightshow was kind of impressive.¡¯ I heard a chuckle, ¡®I don¡¯t have much choice right now, so I will obey you for now, but I will cancel my contract with you if I go with you and Tiria isn¡¯t at your place. Just be warned that I will loose most of my power and knowledge if we leave this world.¡¯ ¡®Will this also apply to the gal beside me when I take her with me?¡¯ She seemed annoyed by my mention of Mariah, ¡®You can¡¯t take her with you. She won¡¯t survive being stuck into your inventory. It¡¯s only for unliving things. I can survive in there because I¡¯m a core but she will die.¡¯ ¡®Nope I have a way of transporting her mind and body separately in my inventory and my inner mind.¡¯ ¡®WHAT? That¡¯s cheating! No wonder that Tiria got such problems when she gave you such an OP power. I want a refund!¡¯ ¡®So you will come with me?¡¯ ¡®Yeah sure! Just destroy this motherfucking ritual that binds me and I will submit myself to your rule as long as everything you said has been true.¡¯ I took a step forward and stomped down unto the runes at the ground. They shattered into green dust rising into the air and dissolving fast. The runes next to them also dissolved the same way and seconds later all that was left was the red dungeon core in the center. Blue runes appeared around it and flowed into the crystal changing its color from a solid red to a pleasant purple and then a dark blue in seconds. I heard an indistinct voice suddenly.
Dungeon core Sarah has been subdued by City core Marcus
The contract will be enforced by the system!
¡®What the hell just happened? You can create magical contracts you bastard! That¡¯s CHEATING!¡¯ Right this moment I was sure that this Sarah will cause me some serious headache. 47. Revenge is best! Right this moment I was sure that this Sarah will cause me some serious headache. ¡°We are kind of in a hurry at the moment so if you know some good places to gather some loot before we trash this place, then give me please some pointers,¡± I said to my newest acquisition. Sarah grumbled only shortly, ¡°There are some nice things down the corridor. I think it was the third door to the right.¡± I felt some personal interest in her voice but I only had some minutes left before the temple would become a madhouse, so I just shrugged and turned around after I had grabbed the core and walked back to the corridor. Mariah followed me right behind and began to weave her hands with strange red symbols appearing around her. ¡°Oh, nice spell there. Your little friend seems to go all out on this place. If I don''t mistake some things she''s casting a kind of delayed meteor spell with all her mana in the goings. This could really wreak this place and most of its surrounding but if I remember the maps right there is only a city of dungeon divers outside. Nothing important in my numbers.¡± I was somewhat concerned about the death of so many innocents, but on the other hand this wasn''t my homeworld and they supported this bastard Thorm, so they had it coming for them. I wouldn''t become a hero in their eyes if this world ever knew I was responsible for the tragedy but at the moment I wasn''t interested in any fans. ¡°How much time do we have until the shit hits the fan?¡± I asked my new subordinate. ¡°Hm, perhaps 10 minutes? Hard to guess, but I think it would around this plus minus one or two minutes.¡± I reached the door Sarah had mentioned and gave her my best treatment with a subtle kick to the hinges. It gave way quite easily and I could take a look inside making me somewhat disappointed. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Most things inside seemed to be some kind of eggs and strange glowing contraptions of which I couldn¡¯t guess their purpose. I glanced at Sarah¡¯s core, ¡°Tell me what exactly is so precious here?¡± With a snippy tone in her voice she answered, ¡°What are you, a dummy? These are dungeon creatures! We can take them with us and create a powerful dungeon right from the start. If we give them beast cores we can even send them outside and let them do our biddings. Sure they need massive amounts of mana to hatch but believe me that is more than worth the effort.¡± ¡°You know that I¡¯m a city core and not a dungeon, right? Although I have to admit that these little creatures could go a long way to secure my territory, especially after I have increased it to its actual maximum area. As long as they remain loyal to me and the city I don¡¯t object.¡± With that said I began grab the next egg I could reach. ¡°Give them to me! I can store them in my core as your inventory would certainly destroy them and would only leave them as quite tasty but nonetheless mostly useless scrambled eggs.¡± I was a little bit cautious that I might create some problem later on if I gave her such a power boost but I couldn¡¯t argue with her argument. My inventory would kill the living eggs at once if the living being wasn¡¯t able to separate its consciousness from its body so Sarah was my storage room for now. The system said that she was bound to my will so I had to give the old sucker some leeway. Until now it served me good and something that governed the whole creation had to have a way to enforce a contract. The egg touched Sarah¡¯s core and vanished without a trace. ¡°I hope that you will be able to take the eggs with you when I take you to my homeworld.¡± I got a kind of mental shrug from the dungeon core, ¡°I¡¯m quite sure that they will keep with me so get into motion, big stone head, and gather them. We have wasted enough time.¡± Her attitude will give me headaches, I¡¯m sure of it now. We will have a nice little chat later after the dust had time to settle and then I will lay out my rules. If she didn¡¯t comply I was certain that my stone fists could give her enough insight that my way wasand always will be the right one. I plundered the room as fast as possible and grabbed anything not integrated into the walls. Some of the things wandered into my inventory because Sarah said they weren¡¯t alive, so when I heard shouts and movement from outside I had the room mostly cleared. ¡°The spell is cast and I¡¯m completely empty of any mana, so let¡¯s leg it and get the hell out of this soon to be hell place, ¡°mumbled a pale and weak looking Mariah. ¡°Good, meditate, grab my invitation and I¡¯ll take your body with me.¡± I knew that we would get some company soon so I knelt down and covered Mariah¡¯s body with my own to give her some protection from anything flying in my direction, which was a good idea because moments later I felt spells and arrows connect with my granite back. Mariah closed her eyes and I sent her an invitation to my inner mind which she gratefully accepted. After feeling her mind enter my sanctum I sent her body into my inventory and stood up to get a last look at my attackers. Spells hit me like fired from a gattling gun and the HPs of my body fell fast but I couldn¡¯t resist to give the a finger and give them some choice words, ¡°Yo f*ckfaces, take a last look around and enjoy your last moments because you had it coming. And Thorm! I¡¯ll be back!¡± I sent my mind back to my homeworld with my last impressions being some voice screaming, ¡°My temple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡± Enjoy motherfucker! 48. Sweet Home Ala....ehem Aegis I felt my mind being sucked back down a narrow channel and strange colors flew all around me for some seconds before I knew that I was back in the place I belonged to. My subminds all snapped back to me like a dislocated shoulder and I felt complete again, as it should be. But then I also got a small shock because I felt the loss of some of my citizens, to be clear most of my guardians were dead, Gillian excluded. What the hell! They were all gathered in my inner mind where right now a nice shouting contest was going on. For a short moment I thought about just watching the show, but then I sighed and reminded myself that I had a job to do. By my counting it seemed that surprisingly no other citizen had died by any goblin or lizard hand which seemed like a miracle in itself. It seems that my city spells for protecting and strengthening my people had worked more splendid than I could have hoped for. They sucked mana like a monster but they pay their dues. My appearance in my inner mind did go completely amiss by the two parties that seperated the room between themselves. On one side there were my two new acquisitions and on the other were all my guardians except Gillian, which made me quite happy because recreating the hearth tree would have sucked. The mana neeeded to get it as large as it was now was already huge but doing the same again would have been a serious kick in not so pleasant parts of my my none existent human body. ¡°Ehem!¡± I harrumphed and the room suddenly got silent when all eyes went to me standing a little bit away from the crowd. ¡°I know that the most here do not know my new two friends here, so some introductions are to happen now, ¡° I looked at Maria and Sarah with a questioning gaze which they understood at least. With a little bit of a triumphant look Mariah went first, ¡°My name is Maria Ulvantor and I am or was a first-class wizard who my new employer took the liberty to take with him to this new place. Even if this meant that I would lose some of my power and knowledge I went with him as I''ve never seen a city core before and am thrilled to see his powers blossom.¡± My guardians watched her with some distrust in their gazes and then turned their gazes to the other person here, which I had to admit was a stunningly beautiful human female with golden curls framing a tanned face with high cheek bones, jade green eyes and all in all quite catlike features. She somewhat reminded me a bit of Taylor Swift back from Earth. Standing almost 175 centimeters tall she was equipped with a model like body which made me somewhat reminiscent of my own quite average one. Maybe I was a little bit conscious suddenly that all of my people seemed to look much better than me. I had to ask Tiria if I could change the way I envisioned myself in my inner mind. And if not then I still could create an awesome golem for me. Sarah had a smirk on when she opened her mouth, ¡°Hey there guys and ladies! My name is Sarah and I''m Marcus'' new enslaved dungeon core.¡± All eyes went to me. ¡°Hey I only bound her to my will by a contract almost like the one you guys signed when you became my guardians.¡± Sarah rose a brow, ¡°So they''ll get punished by the system if they hurt your rules?¡± Horrified looks now hit me from my minions, ehem, I mean my dear guardians. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°Thanks for this superb introduction, you ungrateful piece of garbage crystal!¡± I rose my hands in a gesture to excuse my behaviour, ¡°It''s somewhat more complicated and and as you all became my guardians before Tiria left the godly realm, your conditions have more leeway than hers as they are controlled by the system itself, which was never my intention, believe me.¡± ¡°Sure, I''ll believe your bullshit when Tiria herself acknowledges your words. By the way where is my former boss?¡± My crew also didn''t believe me fully as it seemed. Maybe I should hold some interviews later to clarify some things. Thanks Sarah for this, I will finds ways to get back to you for this. I turned my questioning gaze to Galen and made a requesting gesture with my right hand. His expression went sour for a moment and said, ¡°In the last wave she stood in front of the warriors and was hit several times and ultimately died in the onslaught.¡± I didn''t need to turn my face to Sarah to feel her rage heating the air around her. Just as I wanted to reason with her there was a sudden eruption of light between my guardians and Sarah. When it stopped the former goddess stood in its place and seemed quite excited and a little bit rugged from the fight. She stood with her face to me and just opened her lips, ¡°Oh Marc...¡± and was tackled to the ground by my new dungeon core. ¡°What the hell! Who?... Sarah!?¡± Tiria''s gaze hit me like a laser, ¡°You''ve got some explaining to do, mister.¡± I would have done that if she wouldn''t have been almost smooched down by Sarah which rose some suspicion from me that Sarah wasn''t in the normal range of man-female interchanges. ¡°Damn it, Sarah, get off me now. I''m not some cushion you can use as you please.¡± If Tiria wouldn''t have been getting angrier every moment I would have been amused about the situation so I just said, ¡°Get off her now, Sarah.¡± Even if my command was very softly spoken the dungeon lady sprang up like a spring and threw a very nasty look, followed by a relieved and questioning from Tiria on the ground who slowly stood up again and knocked nonexistant dust from her clothes.. ¡°So Marcus, if I understand the situation here you contracted Sarah to be your minion, right?¡± ¡°Minion! I''m not a minion of this guy, even if the system made me his servant.¡± Sarah exclaimed like a wounded lioness. I just threw a ¡°Shut up!¡± at her and like ordered she closed her mouth before more words could escape it. ¡°Interesting. Shutting her up never worked with me as far as I can remember. But after loosing most of my memories from being a goddess that isn''t quite surprising.¡± ¡°Just take it with stride and enjoy the benefits. As I see you know Sarah and have been friends some time?¡± my voice suggested some more information from her and the lady didn''t make me wait long for an answer. ¡°Yes, she''s from Earth like you, just some decades older. I think I got her around the fifties?¡± and her look went to Sarah. I gave the disobedient dungeon core a short nod and she opened her mouth again. ¡°Yeah, 1952 to be exact. Originally I came from Los Angeles in the USA.¡± So she''s an original american whirlwind, how nice. Now I just had to gather a russian version of her and I could relight the cold war between their dungeons and enjoy the sight. Nevermind, stupid idea. ¡°I don''t know why but I get some strange vibrations from you, master,¡± said Galen. Tiria watched me with a smirk, ¡°You can be sure that he just had a nasty idea. If you thought about a russian dungeon, just forget it, there is no one around as far as I know. By the way, did you get a look at Thorm?¡± I shrugged,¡± Just at his temple and his high priest seemed quite impressed of my fists. Mariah here left a nice present at his place before we vacated the building. Last words I heard of this sucker was some lamentation about me wrecking his temple.¡± My smile was more predatory than I had imagined because Chara went behind Galen with a fearful look on her young face. Tiria looked first at Maria and then back to me with some disbelieve showing, ¡°You destroyed his first temple just like that?¡± I signed with my dumb to the wizard-lady, ¡°She was, I just went with the flow.¡± ¡°Oh no, I won''t take all the blame and glory. I wouldn''t have gone all out if you didn''t offer me a nice escape by yourself. The meteor spell wouldn''t have hit the place without your promise to take me here.¡± ¡°A METEOR hit the traitor''s place?¡± and then the former goddess rolled laughing with tears in the eyes on the floor and couldn''t stop for quite some time which I took to speak with my guardians and Sarah watching her former boss on the ground. ¡°So the goblins attacked for some time after my departure and then just suddenly ran away as fast as they could? Any information on why they did?¡± In this moment one of my subminds registered the noise of several horns blown some distance away from the town. The surprised and then grinning face of Galen and his ladies made me ask them, ¡°You seem to recognize theses horns, would you enlighten me?¡± Kitara said, ¡°Master, the humans seem to have come and began some target practice. The goblin leader has now a whole new problem to solve. Whatever has been left of his forces won''t leave the forest anymore. Indeed I think that the trees will get quite some nourishment from the green pests.¡± 49. An old gal makes an entrance My reach wasn''t enough to watch the forest so I had to wait for the humans to come back to us for a report. I had another problem to solve first as almost all my guardians were killed in action, so I had to revive them. Having no clue how much mana that would need I checked for my mana reserves to find them almost depleted as my city spells were still active. The fighters and mages on the walls had been hurt quite bad but the most serious wounds were closed so I had a bit leeway for recovering some energy. I dispelled the protection spell and watched my mana slowly climb higher meanwhile I began to gather the corpses of the fallen goblins and drakes. I knew that the skin of the drakes was quite sturdy so I would keep them, but the goblins would be incinerated later on the edge of my domain. Training some fireballs wouldn''t be bad and maybe also teach the humans not to mess with me. Speaking of them I watched the scout I had seen last time emerge from the forest. His mount had some small wounds and he also looked a bit worse for wear but altogether he was still a badass of a ranger with his animal companion if I reverence back to my old dungeons and dragons times. At his side rode a older woman on a tiger the size of an APC. Its golden and black fur stretched over powerful muscles and gave a very distinct feeling not to mess with it. Not that I would ever had any intention to get on its bad side after taking a closer look at the woman. She seemed to be around 50 years old but all my instincts screamed at me to get the hell away from her. Power leaked from her like a river and her eyes looked right at me. I knew she had seen me as clearly as I had her and it terrified me to my core, literally. Tiria had seen her also as I had created a kind of television screen for my guests to watch the outside world. ¡°So she came, huh. That''s Kira Sunstrider, the dungeon horror. She killed almost every dungeon the humans got a hand on. Gave her quite the title and some power to make most dungeons piss themselves in fear.¡± When I gave her an irritated look she shrugged, ¡°Some knowledge is still around, so take my advice and don''t mess with her. She alone is enough to level this place with ease. Had she been here when the goblins arrived they would have turned around the moment they laid eyes on her. Kira is a force of nature on this world. Her mana well is deeper than almost anyone on this planet and she''s much older than she looks like.¡± ¡°Any further tips I could use for discussions with her?¡± Tiria grinned, ¡°She really likes sweet things and things to improve her mounts armor. As you lack any of these things you might be hard pressed for garnering any favours from her, so just try to be nice and polite and all will be good.¡± The painful screams of dying goblins from the forest became lesser over the time the two humans needed to reach my walls. The elves watched them warily but didn''t reach for the weapons as I ordered them to stand down and to not provoke the pair. I had asked Tiria about how much mana I would need for my guardians to revive but she said that this knowledge was erased from her memory. I had my guesses about her memory lapses but didn''t evolve it into an argument with her. Taking all her actions into count she was still deeply on my good side for all the sacrifices she made for me, the memory block for my scientific knowledge not counting. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. It had to suck losing her godly powers after this minor problem of creating my splendid core. I would have to ask her for the names of the other suckers who came after her to remove them from the temple. If they wanted to complain they had to come and get their noses get beaten bloody. Tiria''s enemies were still mine also as I was quite sure that they would still try to get their hands on my core for their selfish needs. Fuck them all. I was now a creature of the system and that had to count for something. The place was littered with the remains of the battle. Everywhere you looked there lied severed limbs and battered bodies on the ground. My nightshade roses were mostly destroyed but they had served their purpose so I would just gather their seeds for later use and not regrow them in the following days. The pitfall traps were full to the brim with broken bodies but the humans didn''t throw a look at them. They strode over the battlefield like it was most normal thing one could do which made me somewhat wary of them. You had to be somewhat cold and emotionally blunted to ignore all the gore around you. I would have to be very careful with this Kira. She had a tension in her body seeming always ready to spring into battle and her eyes thwarted from one to the next in the blink of a moment taking everything around her into account. Her short brown hair was cut like a soldier on Earth would have it and it reminded me somehow of Ripley from the alien movies. Her body was wiry with defined muscles and covered by a worn leather armor that had seen better days. Hm, there was something in my inventory that might interest this woman. Maybe I could curry some favour from her by offering it but I would have to do some fast crafting. ¡°Can anyone of you skin the forest drakes real fast? I want to offer them to Kira.¡± I said to my guests in my inner mind, making the battered bodies appear between them. ¡°You have to work on your social skills, Marcus, real fast. That''s no way to ask for a service from a lady.¡± said Tiria. ¡°Hah, I saw you slaughtering the goblins. You might be many things, Tiria, but a lady doesn''t disembowel a body with a savage glint in her eyes and smile like a madman at the same time.¡± replied Galen with a snort. ¡°Hmph, let be said, that I''m a woman with many facets and just hope that you won''t see all of them or you might change your opinion about your women.¡± She grinned seductively at him and like mothers protecting their pups Kitara and Nala went in front of Galen with a determined look and the mood in the room was suddenly loaded with tension. I gave Tiria a slap on the back of her head, Gibb''s style, ¡°Stand down and get back in line, Lady! Get me these skins and I will build you a nice place in the town in the future if you are nice.¡± She rubbed the place where I hit her and threw me a mischievous gaze, ¡°That''s a promise. I will hold you to your word, sweetheart.¡± and then she turned to the bodies, ¡°Any help would be appreciated.¡± I summoned some knives from my inventory. They may crude, taken from the goblins, but would do their job. Kira and Darius had arrived at my wall and I went outside to welcome my guests. ¡°Welcome to Aegis. My name is Marcus and I am the city core building and protecting this place.¡± Kira nodded shortly and showed me a predatory smile, ¡°Hi there, little core. Darius mentioned you were a strange one and I just couldn''t believe first what he was saying but now after laying my eyes on you I have to admit that I''m surprised and happy that he said the truth. No dungeon core ever welcomed me to its place.¡± ¡°I''m no dungeon core even if I''m somewhat related to them and even submitted one for my purposes lately.¡± She frowned, ¡°I haven''t felt the creation of a new core in the region, so where did you get it?¡± She emitted some bloodlust that made me and almost all elves on the walls cringe with fear. ¡°I was summoned by a trap of Tiria''s successor to his temple and snatched it there after binding it with a contract.¡± Kira squeezed her eyes, ¡°So Tiria has indeed fallen? Are you still her creature or the new guy''s one?¡± ¡°Neither hers'' nor his''. I only belong to the system now and am free to do as I want. But that''s a long story I will tell you later if you want. For now I want to thank you for helping with the destruction of the goblins and their allies.¡± Kira nodded, ¡°No problem there. They have messed with us enough times to spurn our wrath but I have to inform you that they might try to get back at you some other time. They seem to have got an avatar for their forces. The first of them I''ve seen for quite some time on this god forgotten world.¡± ¡°Yeah, I guessed something like that possible after seeing their surprising good organization and team tactics during the fight.¡± The old fighter woman tore her eyes wide open, ¡°You know about avatars?¡± Oh my, I might have made a mistake there. 50. An real old flame emerges ¡°Tiria has told me some stories about them before she fell from graze and it is possible that some new human avatars are born inside my city in the future as I seem to have a kind of spawn point here.¡± The old woman took a gaze to her younger fellow human, ¡°Get Torben here, tell him we got a situation here that needs his attension.¡± The young man turned his mount around with a slight pressure of his tights and spurned it then into an impressive speed burst over the former battlefield. Whenever they came upon a pitfall the catlizard, whatever its exact name was, jumped easily over the obstacle and ran with undiminished speed forward. I realized that this animal alone could have easily surmounted my walls without breaking a sweat. I had to make my new walls much higher and stronger. Luckily I had now a dungeon at my service for raw materials to farm or the region would have looked like Swiss cheese in no time because of my tunelling for stone. Not that this wouldn''t happen because I needed a dirt and waste removal system but with Sarah at my side I wouldn''t have to dig for more material than necessary. ¡°So knowledge about avatars is something special around here?¡± I asked Kira. She looked with a sour look at me, ¡°Ever since the cataclysm there was no new avatar on this world and now you show up and there seems to have changed everything. It isn''t something bad but we will have to station some of our people here to watch the new avatars closely to avoid being surprised by some upstarts.¡± ¡°Oh, that''s no problem with me, I would be very happy to accommodate some of your people in my city. This place shall become a beacon of civilization on this planet for all who want to live peacefully inside its walls.¡± Kira watched me as if to discover any lies in my behaviour, ¡°You''re a strange one but the boy already said that you seem to be a completely other kind of core than Tiria''s usual minions.¡± I had to break it to her better sooner than later, ¡°There''s something I have to tell you before any more is said and you discover it at an unlucky moment. I have contracted a dungeon core to my services.¡± Her gaze drilled into me and I was seriously frightened now. ¡°Explain ''contracted'' and do it better plain and clear to avoid any misgivings later!¡± Her voice ladden with malice. ¡°I was taken hostage during the siege by minions of the new dungeon god Thorm...¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°What!? What happened with this bitch Tiria? Is she dead? I wanted to do the deed myself!¡± That could turn ugly fast, ¡°No she isn''t dead and before you say anything more, I have to inform you that I gave the former goddess asylum in my city for now she''s reduced to a starting avatar.¡± It may have been stupid to tell her that looking at her sudden anger building in her gaze but as soon as she would have found out the trouble would have been much bigger. ¡°I have to say that your actions do not shine a good light on you, young core, but I will hear your words until the end before I bring judgement upon you.¡± If I could have sweat there would have been a pool under me right now. ¡°I don''t know what beef you have with Tiria and I''m not very interested in the story very much but she has pledged for asylum and I gave it to her so respect my choices because if you''re ever in the same situation like her because she tried to defend me from the dirty hands of other gods for their own devices I will help you also. I''m no big fan of the gods right now even if I''m forced to build a temple for them as my next action and I need the resources a dungeon can generate for building.¡± Kira seemed taken back for my words as she knew that she could easily slay me and my attitude towards her was no way the one she expected, so she just nodded. ¡°The contract I made with Sarah, the dungeon core, is such that she can''t go against my wishes and if I tell her to not kill anyone in her dungeon then she has to obey it even if it goes against everything she incorporates.¡± Kira frowned, ¡°So she can''t kill anybody if you order her to so? How does she survive then? I mean that''s the way dungeons feed, isn''t it?¡± ¡°They get some mana from their territory but mostly you are right. In this special case though she is bound to me and therefore gets all her mana from me, so you see that all her power originates from me and I have absolute control over her and her core as for me its just an item that I can move around like I want it to.¡± Kira had a predatory grin on her face, ¡°Oh I bet that she hates you with passion for that. Dungeons do hate nothing more than to have their fate in another''s hand. I''m not happy with the idea of having Tiria on this world and it will be another factor for me to stay in your town to watch over you and her. Yes, you heard right I will stay here,¡± Her grin had now the size of Joker in the old Batman movies. I wasn''t thrilled to have her in my city but on the other hand with her here the bad guys out there would have some problems getting to me and maybe be even frightened enough to just put the thought to rest to cause trouble. ¡°I''m happy to have you.¡± ¡°Yeah, I''m sure of it.¡± I somewhat didn''t like her smile. Just now two humans on their mounts came from the forest. One of them on the biggest bear I''ve ever seen. The animal must have measured 10 meters easily. And it was FAST. In no time the two were at us. The guy on the bear looked young, much younger than Kira but I felt power flowing from this guy, not as much as from Kira but the way she looked at him made me cautious. With a flowing move he dismounted over the bear''s snout and stopped right before me. He had a leather armour dark as night and with his black hair , strong masculine facial features and a lean body he was the epitome of any fitness trainer around, ¡°So that''s Tiria''s new pet?¡± ¡°I''m no pet and just so you know, Tiria released me from her grip to become a system creature to avoid giving the other gods any access to my powers. Now they have to petition to me directly if they want anything. After they helped the new dungeon god Thorm with her downfall I will make sure that they have to pay a hefty price for anything they want from me.¡± He looked dumbstruck, ¡°You mean to say that Tiria has fallen from godhood?¡± I just wanted to answer him when I heard the former goddess''s voice, ¡°Hi Torben! Long time no see. I thought you died some 20000 years ago in the cataclysm. It seems you have found a way to disguise yourself from the prying eyes of the old gods.¡± The human man looked now as if somebody had knocked him over with a sledgehammer. ¡°Tiria, baby, lets forget these irrelevant matters and look for a decent bed. I haven''t bed you for thousands of years and you owe me some sleep-over time.¡± Excuse me? What''s happening here right now? Kira and the others also seemed to be taken by surprise so I wasn''t the only one. 51. The new supervisor makes an appearance The obviously very old avatar looked at me with a sly smile, ¡°You didn''t know that this gal and myself have been a thing quite some time ago? You see, it was a strange time and I had to do some pretty harsh things to make the old gods look the other way when all went to shit.¡± Tiria threw her arms around his neck and leaned against his chest, ¡°What did you do? I was desperate after I lost contact with you and had to engage in some serious shit to make reparations for the war. The dungeons were my way of creating the lost resources for the winning races even if they had to offer some victims for my dungeons to grow the needed materials.¡± That made some sense. A war like the one she had described must have cost an arm and a leg and dungeons could create any material as long as they had a sample and enough mana. The thought that all the dungeons were just some kind of payment for a lost war hadn''t even registered before with me. ¡°So you had to become a goddess of dungeons as a kind of reparation for the war?¡± I asked Tiria. She threw me a smile, ¡°Yes, Marcus, and you were my first real creation without the pressure of the old gods to make amends for their lost power. At least some of them went down when Gaia and humanity fought against them. The next war may be their final one, at least I hope so. These bastards deserve nothing less.¡± Then she gazed at Torben. He seemed to get it, ¡°Yeah, I know, the story. When I heard that Earth was attacked by the combined fleets and gods, I knew that everything was lost and I landed my ship and departed with all its crew. Then we destroyed the ship and any advanced systems, magic and whatever could have led suspicious eyes back to this backwater world. The only problem then was myself as I was much too powerful to be missed by their gaze.¡± He drew a deep breath, ¡°So I killed myself over and over until I was just back to a starting avatar. Since then I committed suicide whenever my power level rose too much. I grinded my skills as good as possible without using my advantages from being an avatar but I lost most of my knowledge anyhow as did the humans on this world. We had to if we wanted to escape the wrath of the victors.¡± No shit he had it hard. If I''d been in his shoes I would have ended my life possibly a long time ago. Tiria nodded slightly and pressed him to her chest lightly. Small tears dropping from the eyes. ¡°Hey at least we''re back together and we can advance again together now that Marcus has opened a new spawn point on this world. And the best about this whole thing is that as a system creature he is mostly protected from the messing of these old suckers. Even them would''nt want to battle it out with a system administrator. By the way, ¡° She caught my eyes, ¡°Did you get a visitor from the system?¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Now I was taken by surprise, ¡°Nope, there wasn''t any new guys around the block as far as I know.¡± A new voice from left of me drew my attension as a guy in an immeculate suit like some kind of lawyer materialized right beside our small group, ¡°Ahem, that would then be me, I think.¡± Gazing shortly to Tiria and Torben with a slight nod he looked back to me, ¡°Marcus, city core number one, first of your kind, I''m here to welcome you to the system and to give you some guidelines for your future development.¡± Okay that could be interesting. ¡°As Tiria has given you a very powerful ability as her last action as a goddess I have to inform you that the system will offer you only somewhat weak new abilities until you reach your next tier as a metropolis core. Also you will have to reach a certain population to advance any further in your levels.¡± He took in my domain and continued, ¡°You have reached the town state but you only have less than 200 citizens in your domain. To reach any further you will need at least 1000 and then the same for every new level after that. After advancing to level 20 you will turn to the city status and then you''ll need 10000 for every new level. In return you won''t need special crystal materials for the growth of your core and have the protection of the system as the first of your kind.¡± He showed a predatory smile now and his eyes seemed to glow somewhat, ¡°All the gods who tried to force you to build a temple in your domain have been informed that any deals from Tiria''s reign have been nullified and if they want to have a presence here they will have to negotiate with you directly and offer some help for your expenses and work. I heard they were very dissatisfied with the current dungeon god and his try to snatch your core. Nice stunt you pulled with him, I have to say.¡± I liked this guy! Lawyers were dry and outright obsessive guys as far as I had to the displeasure to work with them but this guy was a real cookie. Come to the dark side for we have cookies, hahahaha. ¡°My name is Cris Estefelenapanis but you can just call me Cris. You can call me with the helpbutton in the menu. For now I will leave you alone to celebrate your victory.¡± Looking to the avatar pair, ¡°Have fun and enjoy the life now, Torben. You''ve been here far too long on reduced life support.¡± Torben was taken completely by surprise now. ¡°Yeah the system knew all the time about you but we, the administrators, thought to conceal your existence from prying eyes, so be nice next time when one of us knocks on your door. You too, Tiria, regard your debt to the old gods as paid in full for the creation of the dungeons and especially the new city core.¡± She nodded thankfully and smiled at Cris wholehearted. I liked her smile now much more than as a goddess. It wasn''t as awe inspiring but more from the heart, making her eyes lighten up with youthful shine and mischief. No one would believe right now that she was at least 20000 years old. With that said the administrator disappeared with a small lightshow and left us standing. ¡°Shit I wanted to ask him to give my memories back.¡± ''Forget it!'' I heard his voice in my mind. Damn mindreaders. I turned my attension back to Torben, ¡°So I think that you will stay with your tribe for some time with us?¡± He nodded slowly, ¡°Only those who want to stay and some who have to, like most of the children whose parents want to settle down. You''ll have to do some serious work to accommodate all the people in your town and provide them with enough food. At least we have still some knowledge about agriculture and some seeds to start with but the time will be a little tight for a good harvest before the autumn storms start.¡± ¡°Don''t sweat it, I have some city buffs for making crops grow much faster than normal, thanks to your gal.¡± Tiria pressed Torben''s arm lightly and smiled at me, ¡°We will help you as much as possible with our own magic. We have lost of our power and knowledge but the little we have left we''ll help you with, little one.¡± ¡°Hah, would you please stop it! I''m not little!¡± ¡°Yes, you are somewhat.¡± said my guardians in my mind and Kalla who had watched the whole scene from a safe distance. Traitors all the same. 52. Clean-up I had some clean-up to do after the fight. There were literally hundreds if not thousands of bodies littering my yard and I had to dispose them somehow. ¡°Hey Sarah, do you get some power when dead bodies dissolve in your dungeon?¡± The dungeon core looked at me and grinned, ¡°With this body count you can give me enough power to let me build 5 to 6 levels down. Maybe I could also create some strong ore deposits your people could mine even if I''m not so thrilled about this part.¡± ¡°Why? Does it give you any problems?¡± She ticked against her head, ¡°It somehow feels annoying when somebody hammers away against your walls. Like a slight headache.¡± ¡°Oh, that shouldn''t be a problem now with Markus as your master. He will take this part away from you and as a city core he shouldn''t feel this kind of pain anyway.¡± I watched the former goddess suspicious, ¡°You know an amazing lot about my existence as a core even after losing your memories?¡± The former goddess grinned, ¡°You know, it''s amazing what things are still here after my fall. I was sure that most of my memories would be lost, but there is more than I thought possible and this will give me a solid start for my future career.¡± It would have sounded normal if there wasn''t this strange manic grin on her face that made me somewhat uneasy. ''Marcus, I know I haven''t spoken this way before with you. That''s a core exclusive channel if get the meaning, but I think that Tiria has some screws loose. I don''t remember her this lively.'' Hey I have another voice in my mind! If I wouldn''t have recognized Sarah''s voice I could have opened my personal mind caf¨¦ with all the voices coming in and out my poor self. Hopefully my other mind shards didn''t develop their own voices. That would be somewhat schizophrenic. And I was quite sure that there wasn''t a psychotherapist out there for crazy cores, but it could be a lucrative profession or a deadly one. ''Give the girl some leeway. Living as a goddess had to have some constraints, I think. So let her get off some steam and if she''s still nuts after that we will have to get her down somehow.'' Sarah nodded slightly at me, ''Yeah, and thank you for saving me. You seem to be a good guy comparing you to some of the people I had to deal with in my life.'' she stopped for a moment and added, ''So what now, Master? Back to base building?'' Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I spoke to the gathered people with the discussion between Sarah and myself having only taken moments, ¡°Okay guys. I have to clean this place now and get back to building. It would help tremendously if the humans could stay tonight inside my domain to collect some mana and Sarah building. By the way we will have to find a good place for your entrance. You will have to start some dozens meters down because I need some place for the waste disposal under the city.¡± Sarah nodded, ¡°That should be a no-brainer. You can dump most of the garbage in my dungeon and I will summon some slimes to clean the water and use the rest for my growth. This way we get the best out of it.'' ¡°There will be no killing of people going down in your dungeon to train, right?¡± Torben added. The dungeon lady waved the question away, ¡°You have my promise. All damage will be non-lethal. If someone gets knocked out, it will be painful but not deadly. With Marcus giving me all necessary mana my primal urges as a dungeon core will be satisfied. Thinking about it, this is somewhat freeing and I could see some other cores trying to become your underlings too.¡± She threw me a thoughtful gaze and Tiria threw in, ¡°He will have to grow much stronger than now. You will take most of the underground space for yourself so another dungeon is momentarily out of question but later on, when Marcus reaches the metropolis or even state status there could be dozens of dungeons in his domain.¡± ¡°I fear that future. All the people that want their piece of me at the same time. I will need more mind shards for administration and city guardians.¡± Torben and the others humans looked grinning at me, ¡°I''m sure that there will be more than enough candidates for the job available. The humans want their piece of the job too and other races that take residence in your domain will also, I think.¡± I sighed, ¡°I get it, next position of a guardian will be a human. Find a suitable guy or girl with some wits between his ears and some humour. I will take a shot at him or her but be reminded that the person will have to be loyal to me and nobody else. As a city core I promise anyone in my domain that respects the rules fair judgement. Oh before I forget, the prime rule is to not do things to others you don''t want to be done to yourself. If you kill somebody don''t be surprised if I or my guardians come looking for your head, understood?¡± All around the people sobered up suddenly when they heard my words. The all nodded without any comments. ¡°So let''s get started with the show. If there are any wounded around ,take them inside the walls. I have a spell to heal them faster and without getting any scars.¡± The humans didn''t look happy, ¡°Hey, don''t give me this look. Scars may offer a nice start for a bragging story but the aren''t as funny when you get older.¡± With that I began to assign my shard minds with gathering the corpses and all of the loot. Sarah will have to absorb a mass of goblins. Can a dungeon get constipation? With all the people in my domain my mana surged up like crazy, especially with the two avatars that went down to the river to find a nice place for ''talking''. Yeah, sure. The humans rounded up any goblins that somehow got overlooked which made Sarah crying out suddenly, ¡°Stop it, catch them and kill them later in my dungeon for god''s sake!¡± The humans gazed irritated at the elves who just shrugged and got some rope for bonding the green pests. Then they knocked the small monsters on the heads with something hard and dragged them to the place Sarah showed them. ''You have to give me permission for building my dungeon, you know!'' I wasn''t sure if getting a female dungeon core was such a smart idea. She seems demanding. I gave my permission and seconds later a kind of cave entrance began to grow around the place. ''A Cave? Seriously, that''s the best you can do? I expected something more grand. A mausoleum or such a thing.'' I sent her. ''There''s always a critique around! I have to start with something and that''s the most mana efficient thing for beginner dungeons. So give me some slack and send me more mana, boss. The gal here has some work to do.'' She grinned, the damn bitch, SHE GRINNED. That''s so unfair. At the moment I need her services, but I will get back at her. She knew it, I knew it and she gave a shit about it. Damn women. 53. Plans for the future I sent Sarah some mana equivalent to a third of the mana generation right now and told her to create some stone, preferable granite, which she then should deposit in my inventory. I hadn''t had made use of my creation skill in some time and wanted to check if I could just create stone pillars from scratch, if the material was there to be worked with. Theoretically it should do the trick. It wouldn''t help to advance my stonemason skill, but right now I needed some good and sturdy buildings for the humans to live in and later I would start to build better houses for them to live in. I''ll build the houses a little bit away from my core, that way I have enough space for building a splendid marketplace with all the important buildings around it, like an adventurer''s guild, the town hall or the much waited for bath house. I just wanted to begin with digging into the ground when I was disturbed by my still deceased city guardians. ¡°When do you think to revive us, Marcus? I''m just asking. Don''t mind me staying around here and using the beverages in your inner mind,¡± said Galen sitting at the table with some Coke in a cup, enjoying the new taste of it. Where the hell did he get it from? I can''t remember to have this stuff around, but being in my inner mind it didn''t have to have substance, did it? So maybe I could create anything I remembered and enjoy the taste of it as long as I didn''t try to take it outside? It was a thought to research later. ¡°Okay, I got a little bit sidetracked here. Let me see.... I need around 10000 mana for each of you to be revived, so with the goodwill of the guys around here you will be all back to life in less than a day, after I have taken care of the healing of any wounded.¡± Chara was enjoying herself with the food and beverages around with the older women keeping a close eye on her to not use any alcoholic drinks. Sometime during my absence there came a bar with a wide choice of drinks into being in my inner mind and I had a sudden thought that there would be quite some evenings with my guardians gathered around the table drinking and telling the tales of what happened over their days. I couldn''t wait for that to happen, maybe we could also enjoy some games like poker, pen and paper roleplaying or a movie evening. I had quite the selection in my memory, being an enthusiastic cinema geek in my former life. Their reactions to the Lord of the rings would be priceless. I said to the elves and humans that I would need a lot of mana for my guardians and therefore wouldn''t be able to do much building right now with the reaction of many of them coming over and sending their power into my core. That way it didn''t take long for Galen to be revived first. He had played some cards with the ladies and when I had gathered the energy he just disappeared from my inner mind and a gleaming light erupted only 2 meters away from my core with Galen then standing with some simple clothes in white linen. His old robe seemed to have been destroyed and when looking down himself he just sighed a little bit. ¡°That was a strange experience, I have to say. This new body feels almost as the old one, just a bit stronger or perhaps younger. By the way, these clothes are itchy as hell. You know, I''ll miss the old piece. I made it myself some 30 years ago and invested quite some vis into it to make it awesome, but at least it went down in a good fight.¡± The old geezer had slightly bitter feelings right now, so I just added, ¡°Don''t mind it, my friend. I''ll help you with a new one. Our newest mage resident should have enough knowledge about enchantments to make the new robe much better than the last one. By the way, does it have to be a robe?¡± Galen gazed at my core and laid his head to the side, ¡°You¡¯re right of course. Anything light should do the trick as long as it doesn¡¯t constrict movement.¡± If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I took a closer look at the old elf and had to admit that he didn¡¯t give the impression of being old anymore. So being revived had given him a younger body? My powers were really a cheat if there ever was one. I had to keep a close eye on any future guardians to ensure they didn''t just try to apply for the job for getting a younger body again. ¡°I¡¯ll do my best to find something better than a robe. The Jedi look doesn¡¯t suit you either way.¡± Galen seemed confused, ¡°Jedi? What¡¯s that?¡± I heard a snicker from Tiria some distance away and answered, ¡°We will have some educative viewings in the following weeks and months, my friend. All your questions will be answered then. For now we have some cleaning to do and more than enough building also. I turned to Kira, ¡°Please tell me this evening how many of you guys will stay right here. I¡¯ll have to build some homes for you and an exact number would help me very much.¡± The woman nodded and went back to her people with the other humans in tow. Then I told the uninjured elves to begin looting the place and disposing the bodies into Sarah¡¯s dungeon. This way I had more time for the more important things like buildings for my new citizen and big trees for the elves to life inside. I had the idea of growing the trees first and then constructing the homes around the big oaks. As I could control how big the trees would get, I could ensure that they didn¡¯t destroy the buildings with their roots. Some elves were sent to the forest to harvest more oak saplings. After having the training session with Tiria to modify plants I had some ideas how I wanted my future city trees to look like. As I wasn¡¯t keen on cleaning duty for their greenery, I wanted to cross them with some fir tree to make them able to keep their leaves even in winter. That would also need some serious structural improvement as snow had a decent weight. Later on I¡¯ll modify the trees some more but right now I had some restrictions with my reduced mana manipulation. I went down to the river and checked its depth for I wanted to create fields on the other side. There I had enough room for my next project and the soil looked good enough for planting. By the way, I could cross oaks with some fruit trees to make them able to produce food for the growing population. With the size of these trees each one could provide some serious nutrition for my citizens. ¡®Hey Sarah, do you have a template for animals like pigs, cows or poultry? It would help with keeping the elves and humans fed.¡¯ After some seconds she answered, ¡®You¡¯re serious? You want to make me a food provider for the mortals? I¡¯m a fucking dungeon, Marcus! They¡¯ll have to fight for their food if they want to eat my creations.¡¯ I sighed. This drama with women will hunt me wherever I¡¯ll go, ¡®Dear, I didn¡¯t say that they won¡¯t have to fight for their food. Just don¡¯t make the animals too hard to kill and make them pay for taking the carcasses outside by forcing them to gift you some of their mana.¡¯ ¡®That¡¯s wicked! Hehe, this way they offer you their surplus mana and me the rest, wringing them dry like the desert and they will even be happy about it. I love it¡¯ I knew that would get her interest. Sometimes it was just too easy. Stop right there! I caught myself being an ass and feeling superior to Sarah. She was a girl and therefore had an unfair advantage in shrewdness I would never happen to catch up to. So it would do me some good to not try to influence her too much and think I was the only one being manipulated. I didn¡¯t want her mad at me and I had to admit that she had a nice figure. Maybe I could have a go at her sometime in the future. Never mind, back to work. The river was quite deep, I had to admit. At some places the water was more than 15 meters deep and at the widest place more than 120 meters. I searched for a good place for a bridge that was inside my domain and could be easily converted as a fundament for a stone bridge, but after intensive searching I had to concede the fact that I will have to dump massive amounts of stone to get a good ground for building. Maybe it¡¯d be easier to just construct a ferry for the time being and some homes for the farmers on the other river side. The amount of work ahead of me made me cringe a little bit but also excited. So many things I¡¯ll be able to build in the coming years and then the developing of magic and technology, and their fusing. That was something I was the most excited over. Mana driven tools and machines. If the shit hit Earth and this world was a fall-back place for mankind I¡¯ll have my work cut out for me. Hm, I think I¡¯ve forgotten something. What was it again?.... Oh right, Mariah! I¡¯ll have her train all the mages right away and write down her knowledge. She would be the next candidate for a guardian as I couldn¡¯t risk losing her knowledge to some lucky fucker. Right now she might be one of my most precious persons around. I¡¯ll have to remind myself that she wasn¡¯t any kind of possession. I went back to my inner mind where she and the rest of my guardians played some card game that had a slight resemblance to poker. She explained the rules to them right now and they all had some beverages and snacks and sat on very comfortable looking leather chairs. I remembered the chairs from a visit at a big store near my former home. Where in the world did they get these things from? 54. New options ¡°Oh Marcus, I thought you had forgotten about me, but the gals here have found out how to access your vast memory of things from your past, mostly drinks and food, even some nice furniture.¡± When I searched my mind for the things she mentioned I saw a new addition to my system.
You¡¯ve got the Memory-Store
So that¡¯s new. I browsed through some windows of this new feature when Chris appeared besides me. ¡°Oh, you already discovered this new addition. Let me explain it shortly. In this Store you can get everything you remember and some other things like the newest series from all the worlds you have lived in. In your case this world and Earth. Thorm¡¯s world doesn¡¯t count because you haven¡¯t even stayed long enough to take a small nap.¡± I was speechless for a moment when he added, ¡°But everything in this store has to stay in your inner mind. You can get the best games, series, movies and equipment from your old home for some payment of mana, and you can even show the things to your guests but you can¡¯t take them outside. That¡¯s the only limitation.¡± He grinned with some smug as if saying ¡®Am I awesome or not?¡¯ I was conflicted if I should kiss, hug or bow to him. That was the best addon ever! And with my dungeon abilities to translate stuff I could even watch things in languages I¡¯ve never known back on Earth. I was so distracted for a moment with my thoughts that I didn¡¯t see him coming closer and knocking on my head, ¡°Don¡¯t forget to build and manage your city. This is for your personal research and recreation. Bye!¡± He winked to me and disappeared like he came. It took a moment before I understood what a grand slam he did for me. I could watch all kinds of different educational programs to regain my former knowledge and even expand it even further. My teachers would have been shocked when they would have known that I was willing to study like a madman without pressure from them or my parents. All the knowledge of my old home was at my fingertips and I only needed some mana to watch. I browsed around for a little bit and discovered the problem with my premature dreams. The mana cost was steep. At least for the educational clips. Game of Thrones, Star Trek and all the other recreational stuff wasn¡¯t very pricey but just watching a clip for explaining higher mathematics would take more than half a million mana. So the system administrator did some restraining there by limiting my knowledge gain to the size of my city and therefore my mana capacity. Tricky sly fox. The store also contained chairs, lounges, beds and other stuff to make my inner mind a place where my guardians would fight for to get invited in. Hehe, I have a proper carrot now to hold before their faces. After I¡¯ve got them addicted to Netflix they will do all my bidding. Damn I got distracted again. ¡°Hey Mariah, mind a moment?¡± She gave me an interested look, ¡°What''s up, boss?¡± ¡°I know this sounds a little bit forced right now but I have a job for you that could be the most important right now on this world.¡± Suddenly serious she nooded, ¡°Out with it! I was already thinking after some talk with your guardians that there might be a nice job offer with great benefits for me.¡± ¡°Yeah, I need you to be a magical teacher for all my magical gifted and then write down anything you remember about your education. This world is miles behind anything on your or my homeworld.¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. She seemed quite surprised, ¡°Wait a moment, you were not born on this world? Where the hell did you come from then?¡± I concentrated for a moment and a hologram of Earth appeared right before me, ¡°That''s my old homeworld, Earth. Birthplace of humanity and as it seems the center of future big trouble.¡± Everyone took a closer look now at the globe before them and Chara asked me, ¡°Master, this world is a globe. Does that mean that our world is one too?¡± I patted her head and she smiled. ¡°You''re right, young lady. I think most worlds in the universe are globes and any that are not were surely constructed by higher forces and more advanced civilizations.¡± I looked to Mariah and she gave me a nod. ¡°I''ll work for you, Marcus. You seem to be a nice guy most of the time and that''s better than what I''ve had the joy of getting most of my life. Your guardians informed me about the job description of being one of your special workers and I''ll do my best to become a guardian myself as soon as possible.¡± ¡°You know, there are some people out there that have already made a pledge for becoming a guardian themselves. But the next open place belongs to you, that''s a promise.¡± I had a sudden thought, ¡°Do you know a way to make stone easy to mold and then hard again? There are some projects I have in mind and it would be very good if there was a way to form the stone directly without first quarrying the stuff, work the stone and then transport it to its new place.¡± Mariah sat back in her chair and thought it over. The others watched her closely and waited for her answer. ¡°There is a geomancer spell that I learned quite some time ago in my apprenticeship when I had little else than my magic to provide for shelter. It''s nothing much but could be surely magnified to your needs.¡± Suddenly Sarah appeared right beside me, ¡°One moment please, you can cast spells like a normal mortal?¡± I nodded with some irritation in my gaze, ¡°You cannot?¡± ¡°For fucking sake, noooooo! I''m a dungeon core. You know what would happen if dungeons could just throw fireballs or lightning at adventurers? You''re such a cheat!¡± And she disappeared right after. Next on my agenda would be to create some rights to enter my inner mind which another bound core seemed to ignore right now. Mariah smirked, ¡°She seemed agitated.¡± ¡°Yeah, seems so. You said something about a geomancer spell?¡± ¡°I will teach it to you and your guardians. It''s not very difficult but needs a shitload of mana to use which doesn''t seem to bother a city core very much I think.¡± I grinned and waited for her instructions. ¡°You know that would be much easier if I had my body around.¡± ¡°Oh right, sorry. Wait a moment and I''ll transfer you back outside.¡± I concentrated shortly and transferred her body and mind outside. For a moment I feared something went wrong but then she breathed deeply and opened her eyes. Taking a look and around and watching the elves and humans watch her back she stood and took a moment for inspecting herself. ¡°It seems that everything is where it belongs. Thanks boss.¡± ¡°You''re welcome.¡± Kalla walked over and gazed to me, ¡°You''re good at finding new personnel it seems.¡± ¡°You can say that. Princess Kalla that''s Mariah, a wizard who helped me escape the new dungeon god''s grasp. She''s here to help us develop our magic skills and to escape the wrath of said god.¡± Mariah and Kalla inspected each other for a moment and then they both smiled, and bowed their heads slightly. ¡°He''s a piece of work, isn''t he?¡± said Kalla. ¡°That he is but quite fun to be around.¡± I suddenly got the chills. These two did get along much too good for my taste. Where''s the friction between powerful women, where''s the drama? ¡°Let''s make his life interesting.¡± Kalla nodded, ¡°I think it is already but let''s not get him bored.¡± The mischief and humour in their eyes made me retreat some feet. Maybe I should have waited before introducing them. They were much too similar, hell their personalities could have been twins. And one of them would become a guardian of mine. That will be a challenge. ¡°So Marcus, time for the geomancer spell. It''s quite easy as I said and you should be able to easily scale it up to your needs.¡± Mariah made slow and not very complicated motions with both hands and her voice made the world around her vibrate with power. ¡°Teraem mutalo carvete.¡± A small tower of dirt rose from the ground and became wider at the top resembling a kind of watchtower from a medieval city. I got giddy just by watching and then repeated what she did with my mind carving the runes that I watched her build with her motions and then saying the necessary words in my mind. Power rushed through me and I suddenly knew that the dirt around me became somewhat like clay for me to form as I wished. The wall made from compacted dirt was my target and I smoothed it with the terrain outside watching my mana usage closely. Mariah said that it would be costly and she didn''t exaggerate as I saw my mana plummet like a stone. I used much less power when I build things manually or maybe corely, is that a word? The spell would be useful when I had an overflow of power at my disposal but right now the old and tested way would still be better. ¡°You''re right. It is a bitch at sucking mana. Useful but only for specialized jobs I imagine right now.¡± The sorceress had watched my usage of the spell and made a face like someone who bit into a lemon. ¡°You know that it took me weeks to master the spell when I first learned it and here you just cast the spell the first time and change a whole 3 meter wide wall like its nothing. You''re a cheat to end all cheats.¡± If I had a face right now I would grin like a maniac. 55. Plans formed A young human man had watched the scene quite interested and with a timid voice said, ¡°I don''t want to sound like a smart ass but wouldn''t it be better to use such a spell for forming stone from smaller pebbles or directly transform existing stone into a usable form?¡± This young guy caught my interest. He thought outside the box which was something I desperately needed. ¡°What''s your name?¡± ¡°Sir, my name is Kreldor and I belong to the group who wants to stay here if you so please.¡± He had the body of a tank with broad shoulders, blond hair and green eyes. A surfer boy in his prime with hands the size of a pan and almost no fat anywhere on his body. I would have killed to have his genes in my former existence. It seems only the strong and good looking people survived on this world. That is so unfair if I thought back to my own body in my inner mind. Maybe there was a way to tweak it someway? Don''t get me wrong, I was normally quite okay with me but on this world I was somewhat underpar and it hurt my self-esteem a little bit too much. In the long run I had to represent a major power here and if everybody could make the frontpage of a beauty journal back on Earth it would probably hurt my reputation. Or maybe it would make me stand out more. Now where was I? Right, using the spell more efficiently. ¡°Okay Kreldor, if you have any other good ideas just spit them out. I''m always open for better ways to do things. The best way to have a nice lazy day is to use your work force the most efficient way possible.¡± The young man gave me the look, ¡° I thought that''s the best way to get even more work?¡± ¡°That''s also possible. Hehe.¡± Mariah watched the whole exchange with a smirk, ¡°Wonderful, two smart asses meet each other. Look Kreldor, if you''ve got a head that''s thinking this way get over here and learn the spell yourself and then make yourself useful.¡± I think I saw her inspecting the guy in a more than professional way but hey, I need new citizens so get a room and make ones. Right, there''s the problem. No room free in town. My work was cut out for me. ¡°You heard the lady. Get over and learn the spell and everything else she has to offer. I''ll leave you now but I''ll send the other guardians to you as soon as I get the mana for it.¡± Galen was walking over already and I turned my attention back to getting my entourage back on their feet. This took me some time but I didn''t waste it instead I began to plan my city in my inner mind by creating a topographic map of the region. As long as the ladies were around they offered me some advice but in the end it was my decision where I wanted the trees and houses, the streets and the underground canals. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The bath house was also high on my list because I wanted my population to have good hygienic standards. Also every guy who visited my city with his woman would have his ear gnawed off after the lady spent a day in my bath house. It would be advertising at its best to settle down at my place. Not that I would have any problems in the next time for settlers but planing ahead didn''t hurt either. First I''d have to transmute some trees with properties that I needed. I wanted to use Ironwood trees as a base and give it cold resistant leaves, maybe adding a slight heating effect. This would take some serious mana perhaps the trees would need also need some in the winter season but with so many elves around I had no doubt that they would provide the mana instead of me. I had already changed the bushes and twines somewhat heat resistant so perhaps I could take this property and make it even stronger. The needles of fir trees endured all seasons so I could take that trait. Getting such a seed shouldn''t be too hard. Any tree with needles would be possible. Then I only had to grow them to absurd heights and I''d be golden. The base of the trees would be surrounded with houses build from granite. I wanted my city to be mostly fire-proof. No burning Rome for me please. With so many mages around it was only a question of time until some spell misfired and burned something to the ground. I wanted to surround my core with a fortress made from granite or maybe concrete fortified with steel beams. Although I''d have to build some homes for my citizens. The trees and buildings had to be some distance away from my core and the Hearth tree so I had enough space for my fortress. With my powers it shouldn''t be too hard to move some trees around even with a building also standing there so if I had to restructure my city that shouldn''t be too much of a hassle. I sent some elves to gather me seeds and some others should meditate to gather mana for me as I''d need a shitload of it soon. Kalla and the human leadership spoke some distance away from my core but still within my area. It seemed they did trust me enough now after the appearance of Chris. They just discussed about food storage and how to integrate their people into the city. Important stuff I was sure but right now I had other things to worry about. The mana gathering allowed me to send my other guardians back into the world and indeed Nala looked much younger too. She was a looker and Kitara was too. Galen was a lucky man. ¡°Marcus, I have to say I like this very much. No pain anymore in the joints and I feel like I could bend my body in ways I did last time I was a child.¡± ¡°I think Galen will be amazed by this development,¡± added Kitara. ¡°Let''s hunt him down and see how he was changed.¡± Both gals walked away with a youthful urge in the eyes and I knew that Galen would have a taxing night before him. I gave them that because they did their best in the fight and had earned their fun. Tomorrow I''d put them through the grinder again. Much to do. Sarah had begun to put stone into my inventory and after some inspection I was very satisfied with the quality. ¡°Sarah, my dear, do you have a template for marble?¡± After some seconds I got my answer, ¡°Sorry, Marcus, but I''ve lost many of my templates. Before I was taken by you I could produce marble. Now sadly I do not.¡± ¡°Then I''ll try to get you the template and maybe some others too. A more diversified palette of building materials would be nice.¡± I heard her giggle, ¡°Oh yes, please do. Then I can make my dungeon the most awesome training ground ever. Your city will pale against my home.¡± ¡°Hah, you''re on. Challenge accepted.¡± I searched shortly for Tiria and her loverboy. They were still talking with Kalla about this and that. ¡°Hey guys, I''ve got some questions. Could any of you get me some marble and other kinds of stone and sand? I''d like to have as many kinds of building materials as possible for my city and gold infused marble would make an awesome material for my bath house or the ground of my temple and other official buildings.¡± Tiria and Kalla looked at each other a moment but it was Torben who answered first, ¡°I know the place to get these things for you. Some hundred kilometers north there is a dwarf settlement which we''ve good connections to. It shouldn''t be difficult to get your stuff from them and even if they don''t have what you need they should be able to get it from other dwarven clans. ¡°Ready for a ride my lady?¡± He bowed slightly with a grin on his lips. Tiria smiled delighted, ¡°I am, Torben. Let''s ride!¡± I knew for sure that this sentence had a double meaning. Torben didn''t seem to get the second meaning but I had trust in Tiria that she was more than able to teach him properly. ¡°As for me I''ll try to get you as many seeds as possible from the forest and the other elven tribes in it. Maybe some settlers too when I tell them the story of the last weeks.¡± She wanted to go herself? Is she nuts? ¡°No way, lady! You''re sweet bottom stays in my walls. Send some other elf out there, preferably Andarin and his chick. Ildara was her name I think.¡± For a moment I saw her resiting but then she deflated, ¡°It was much more fun when I was not the leader of my people.¡± ¡°I get it but right now you''re too important for me to lose you to some punk out there.¡± Confusion plastered her face, ¡°What''s a punk?¡± 56. Experiments lead to accidents I left Kalla with her confusion and went back to my work. The first tree I had grown was an oak and some 5 meters high right now even if I hadn''t grown it any further after my first attempts at growing it. It seems my ambient mana had done the trick. I''d have to limit the growth directly then after it reached the height I wished for. I saw that it had grown some seeds and took them right away. Even if the tree did indeed got manipulated before I maybe was able to do some more or at least extract the fire resistance from it. I wanted to use an ironwood seed as base so I had to wait for someone to bring me that one. Until then I would begin to use all the stone Sarah dumped into my inventory from her digging. By the way my inventory space seemed to have grown significantly. ¡°Sorry to disturb you again but do you dump all your digging material directly into my inventory or yours? Because right now I have several kinds of stone and big amounts of dirt in my storage.¡± There was a silence for some seconds before I heard distinct cursing from my dungeon counterpart. ¡°It seems we now share our inventory. What a fucked up situation is this? Now I can''t do any projects on my own without you noticing. No surprises!¡± I''d be worried if not for my contract with her that made it impossible for her to hurt me. ¡°Don''t you have something like an inner mind like I do?¡± ¡°Not as far as I know. How did you create it by the way?¡± I thought back and tried to recollect how I created it but I just seemed to have known the process and did it subconsciously. ¡°It seems to be a special ability of my core type. Maybe I can teach it to you?¡± I hadn''t thought that to its logical end when the system answered already.
Do you want to offer the dungeon core Sarah the ability to create an inner mind? Yes/No?
¡°Inner mind mind incoming.¡± And I chose yes with the girl suddenly creaking, ¡°That''s so awesome. You can teach abilities to me too. I thought it was only limited to your guardians.¡± ¡°Color me surprised too. I didn''t know I could do this. Perhaps it has something to do with you being bound to me by contract. I mean you''re something like the closest thing to a relative for me, being a dungeon core and me a city core. At some point there have to be some overlaps in our creation. I mean we have the same goddess as creator, don''t we?¡± I could feel her affection coming through our bond. ¡°Aw, you''re such a sweet talker. Thanks Marcus, I appreciate it. The last years have made me a loner and it''s such a strange thing to suddenly be in contact with someone other than Tiria. Dungeon cores don''t talk to each other, you know. We try to kill each other whenever our territories connect.¡± ¡°Must have been hard for you. But you''re with me and my guardians now. We''ll always talk with you, maybe even more than you like.¡± ¡°Haha, in my former life I was quite the chatterbox. You might regret this offer.¡± ¡°Try me. You''re with me and I''m with you, maybe for the rest of eternity. We don''t have an expiration date, do we?¡± ¡°Nope, we don''t. Can you also give me your memory shop ability? There are so many things I miss from good old Earth.¡± ¡°Oh babe, you''ll love my access to Earth''s media store.¡± If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I gave her access to the memory shop. Adding to that I asked, ¡°Can I come over later? I could need some inspiration to adjust my own place.¡± ¡°Give me some hours. A girl needs her time. You can''t be so old as to not know this truth, right? ¡°I know it. I''m no geezer.¡± Her amusement came clearly through the bond. A human came closer to my core than most of the others and suddenly knelt. ¡°City Lord, I heard that you seek seeds of ironwood trees?¡± The young guy was well built but lean, more endurance than brawn and that was something I liked. Don''t get me wrong, Dwayne Johnson looks good but I prefer to look more on the lean side like Jason Statham. ¡°You''re right. I need them for my city trees. I don''t have anything to reward you at the moment but maybe later when the dungeon core under my command has built its first levels you may have the honor to check them out first?¡± His eyes lit up, ¡°That would be wonderful. It would raise my status in the tribe and perhaps also offer some nice loot.¡± ¡°Don''t get too cocky inside it. I have told her to not kill you but that doesn''t mean that she can''t hurt you like a bitch.¡± The young man nodded, ¡°I will be careful, Sir. Where shall I put the seeds?¡± ¡°Just place them on the pedestal I''ll create before my core.¡± I took some granite from my inventory and placed it 3 meters in front of my core and then used the new geomancy spell to form it with a strong base and three beams upwards holding a bowl 50 centimeters in diameter. I wanted to make the beams look like trees but got instead just several vine looking things that swirled around each other going up. It didn''t look bad but wasn''t exactly what I had planned. Not that I would ever admit that. The young human was impressed either way so I was happy. He put his seeds in the bowl and left. At last I could begin with my experiments. The ironwood seed was surprisingly receptive for the fire resistance trait from the oak tree. The technique Tiria taught me what seemed ages ago worked like a charm and I was one step closer to my goal. Gilian would have been happy to get the hardness of the ironwood too but I was quite sure that even with my impressive mana capacity right now I had nowhere enough to implement that trait into her living being. Thinking of her I took a look at her to see how much progress she made with creating some homes for the elves. ¡°Gilian, can you tell me why there don''t seem to be many huts in your tree? I thought that you would be the home of the elves?¡± Her spirit form appeared before me, ¡°Oh yes I am, but only if there isn''t any other room to be had. Normally I''m the home of the royal family and their closest friends and allies. I''d have to be enormous if I''d have to be the home of a complete clan.¡± ¡°I understand. So I should hurry to create the new homes.¡± ¡°That would be the best for now. After you''ve made the trees big enough I can use my powers to create the homes for the other elves and then stop the trees from expanding.¡± ¡°Yes, that be awesome. I want to make the trees emit some warmth on cold days so they don''t accumulate snow and can bear leaves all year long and possibly also fruits.¡± She made a worried impression now, ¡°That''s quite unnatural.¡± ¡°And?¡± ¡°I think I''ll have to adapt to your powers but it goes against mother nature what you''re doing.¡± ¡°Mother nature is also something governed by the system. If I''m able to do this why shouldn''t I do it? It would help our city tremendously and cut down any heating costs. We might need some more mana in cold seasons but with rising numbers of citizens that shouldn''t be any problem.¡± She sighed, ¡°I won''t stop you and it might be a good idea but don''t overdo it. Nature has a reason for things so don''t hit her too hard in the face or she might bite back.¡± ¡°You''re talking as if Nature has a will of its own.¡± ¡°She might!¡± and with that she left me. I really hoped that this planet didn''t have a mind of its own. That would be another problem to handle in the long run. Remembering the ways humans had fucked old Earth I didn''t want to know what a not so benevolent planetary god would do to its inhabitants. Earthquakes are just the smaller things that could happen. Bad enough for the landscape but for a city an absolute desaster. Some thoughts for later. Now there was a tree to grow and then to build my first stone building around it. I modified the tree with the resistance of pine trees to cold and even that worked better than I''d hoped. Now how could I add the self-heating function? Just adding fire mana could solve the problem but I had some doubts it would be so easy. So I just grew the modified ironwood tree until it bore first seeds and took them for further testing. The bark had changed to an auburn color much to my delight. Now that I had more seeds for my experiments I began to send fire mana directly into the first seed only to see it burn to ashes. That was a mistake. So I tried to mitigate it with earth mana but that also didn''t work. Next I tried to add other kinds of mana only to be disappointed too. My old ways didn''t seem to have any leeway so I had to try something new. I went back into the seeds inner core and looked around to get some inspiration only to discover that I was surrounded by the most complex runework I''ve ever seen. Much too advanced for me, making my mind dizzy only by looking at it. I went back outside and searched for Tiria only to see that she had almost left my territory. ¡°Wait Tiria. I have a question for you.¡± Said lady turned around with some irritation appearing on her face. ¡°What is it? I have a place to be.¡± And then she pointed with her thumb to her new and old boyfriend. ¡°It won''t take long hopefully.¡± She was somewhat mullified. ¡°When I went to modify my ironwood seed I sent my consciousness into its core only to discover an overwhelming amount of runes surrounding me. Last time we did that with you still a goddess there wasn''t anything of that.¡± She frowned, ¡°I have only a misty memory of that but if I had to guess it might have to do with you discovering runes yourself and trying to change the fundamental layout of life itself in the seed. Very advanced stuff, so you should be careful of what you do. Sadly I can''t offer you more advice as I''ve lost most of my knowledge about runes.¡± She grinned shortly, ¡°Tell me later about your newest mischief but now I have to leave you.¡± I wished her some fun and and went back to designer mode. I tried to discover anything familiar and that took me most of the day. As the sun came up again I found what I was looking for. There was a small segment where I could see the known part of the fire rune. It was much more complex than I''ve known and I made a mental note to show it to Mariah. Maybe she could offer some advice on it but right now I was just too impatient to wait for it. I made the rune stronger by intensifying its outline, using tremendous amounts of mana that way. Feeling somewhat dizzy I had to wait for some minutes to get back into the game and planted the seed a little bit away from everyone sending a steady stream of mana into it. I could feel Sarah''s and Gilian''s attention shift over to me and the test site. ¡°I have a feeling that this could be awesome or its direct opposite,¡± said Sarah. Just as Gilian wanted to add her own bit a new mind erupted from the seed, definitely masculine, ¡°Dad?¡± 57. New additions I was completely taken by surprise. ¡°Just joking. Hey there master, my name is Raken and I''m your new awakened tree.¡± Gilian looked unbelieving at the new sapling, ¡°Master, you''ve created something like a treant? That''s interesting.¡± ¡°I''M NOT A TREANT! I''m an intelligent tree, I can''t run around and tend to saplings like myself even if I wanted to. My only purpose is to stand here and give shelter to my creator''s people.¡± Did have treants somewhat of a bad reputation around here? Something to ask later. ¡°Hi Raken, I''m Marcus, your new boss. As you already stated your purpose is to shelter my people and warm them in colder weather. Are you able to do that or not?¡± That was the question of questions. If he couldn''t he was not much use for me besides as a talking partner. ¡°Not right now. My power isn''t strong enough as I need mana for heating but give me some time and I''m sure that I will be able to support all people living in my crown with comfortable warmth even in the deepest winter.¡± ¡°Will you also be able to keep your leaves and bear fruits?¡± ¡°You''re demanding quite some bit of a simple tree, aren''t you?¡± ¡°Answer the question, Raken.¡± ¡°It may take some seasons before I''m strong enough for that.¡± No way would I wait for him to grow strong enough if I could accelerate that. I sent mana into his trunk. ¡°Or you could just give me the mana for growth, haha. I will serve you loyally for my all my life, master.¡±
Raken has sworn an oath of servitude. He is now your minion.
Awesome. Now I also had minions. Maybe I could create also mobile ones later? Sarah watched me with interest, ¡°I thought I would be the one supporting you with minions and now you just create one. City cores are cheats.¡± And she disappeared. Women! Gilian watched the sapling grow fast and turned to me, ¡°You know, he may be not able to move himself but I''m able to move him around. He is a tree after all so he is my domain to be ruled over. You wouldn''t have to use your own power to do the heavy lifting. Just tell me where you want him and I will take over.¡± This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°That''s useful information Gilian.¡± ¡°I''m master''s minion, not your''s.¡± ¡°She''s a guardian of mine, so unless you get orders from me directly you will obey her and the other guardians under my rule, you get me?!¡± My tone had taken a hard undertone. I wouldn''t tolerate upstarts around here. The pecking order had to be established right from the start. There wouldn''t be any misunderstandings ever about the standings of my guardians. EVER. ¡°I didn''t want to disobey you master. I will obey.¡± He was suddenly very submissive to me and Gilian but I would watch him for some time. If he understood his place then good if not I will see to make him understand. For his own good. Otherwise he''ll become fire wood. I was sure that his wood would burn very hot and long. Too much fire mana to not do so. ¡°Good. Now that this is cleared I will send a part of my mana to you to grow larger. See to it that you grow some rooms for my people to live in and also a way for them to get upstairs.¡± ¡°Yes, master.¡± ¡°Gilian, I want you to grow also larger but right now I need my mana for other things, so you have to wait for that to happen.¡± ¡°No problem, Marcus. I will keep myself busy with training magic and teaching your people what I''ve learned.¡± She bowed lightly and disappeared. I went to my inner mind and sent for some granite from my inventory. If I just used the stone shaping spell my stone masonry skill wouldn''t rise at all. By my best guess this skill governed my ability to create better buildings even by using magic so I had to better my abilities even if it meant hard work. A short look outside ensured me that Mariah had begun to teach some elves and humans basic magic manipulation and understanding so I sent one of my subminds to listen to her teaching. Never waste a opportunity like that. She surely knew some tricks I didn''t. My other guardians helped with the cleaning of the battlefield. A gruesome work but necessary. And looting crude weapons might offer some unsuspected rewards. There was also something that bothered me. Stone masonry was a wonderful skill by itself but it didn''t teach how to build good houses or other things. So I looked for some easy to learn beginner videos for architecture. After searching for almost ten minutes in my new shop I discovered that I needed 10k of mana for some short introductory into the new study field. Everting needed so much of my sweet mana. So I would have to wait for that and just experiment first and maybe get the skill unlocked first. I began creating stone plates for the ground for people to walk on that would interlock with each other and therefore be a very stable floor. That was at least my hope for it and only time would tell if it was a good idea. It took me only an hour to create a template for it and then I spent some energy to create a copy of it. The cost was not too steep so I began mass producing the tiles and sent for more granite for the next part of it. I remembered something very peculiar from my childhood that I thought would be a master stroke if I could recreate it here and that was Lego. If the stone could be shaped in this style and with precise edges the interlocking pieces would be so much stronger and even in case of an earthquake perhaps have enough leeway for movement to not crumble into dust. I was determined to test if my old cherished memories could get a revival on this virgin world. I was quite sure that I wouldn''t get any problems with patents or lawyers about it, at least I hoped so. Sarah appeared suddenly beside me and I almost lost my shit right there. ¡°Please send me a short message that you want to come over or next time you could possible see something you won''t ever forget even if you want to.¡± All I got was a smirk. ¡°Oh, don''t be such a wuss. Maybe I''d like the show?¡± she wiggled with her eye brows and smiled a little bit more seductive than was good for my sweet old heart. ¡°I''ll be nice and give you a warning in the future. I wouldn''t want you to just walk into my place also. So I''ll be nice gal and give you ample time to get everything in order, okay?¡± ¡°That would be splendid. What has woken your interest now? I mean, you can''t already be ready for visitors, right?¡± She shook her head, ¡°Nope. I just watched you doing something strange here. Why do you create things with tools and just will it into being?¡± I sighed. ¡°To increase my skills that I can teach my guardians or other contracted beings. It also helps with creating new templates for building and my visualization.¡± ¡°I never had problems with that but it seems that at least you''re not a cheat in everything. You could come over to my place later and I''ll show you how I create new things for my dungeon. Maybe we can find a new way to get the best of both ways.¡± I was very excited about that. ¡°It''s a date!¡± ¡°Nope, nope, nope!¡± She crossed her hands in front of her. ¡°To get a date you''ll have to take me somewhere nice and be a gentleman about it. I may left Earth decades ago but not all social rules have been forgotten, haven''t they?¡± I was shattered.