Lucas agreed and walked home. When he entered, he stood there blankly before his face brightened and he shook it and went to take a bath and clear his head.
She arrived after an hour and the two sat down to watch each other’s videos.
***
In a darkened room with the windows covered, a meeting was taking place, sat on the sides of a long table was an old man, a middle aged man and several other younger boys. On the other side of the table were a few young girls who seemed embarrassed to be in this situation.
This was Sam’s family, the one leading the ‘meeting’, and sat at the head of the table, was none other than Sam’s grandfather.
After knowing that Sam would appear on the interview, the family had gathered to watch but were shocked by how she was ranked and her playing style.
“As you all know I have called this meeting to talk about that… villian who has been enchanting my dear granddaughter!” the elder at the head said gritting his teeth.
“This punk has used delusional methods to corrupt my daughter! He cannot be forgiven!” The middle aged man sitting next to Sam’s grandfather while the following one was her father.
The family had a tradition of being a military family and was protective of each family member but Sam was a bit unique in the family. She was a lot less aggressive even if she did the same things her family did which made them even more protective of her.
That said, this was only the blood related members following her father's side of the family because her mother's side wasn’t as extreme.
“We should call Sam and make her return home to keep her away from this delinquent!” Her grandfather said.
“No, we should go there and beat him up!” Her younger brother, who was just over 15 years old said.
The younger members had a burning flame in their eyes hearing the idea.
At that moment the door burst open and everyone froze because of the person standing there with a cold glare.
“M-mom!” The boy said.
She looked at them making them tremble, “What are you doing?” She asked in a voice that was very normal.
No one replied, but they began to sweat heavily.
The leader of the family had never been the men, it was her. She was the one that fully mastered the family which was why they were having this meeting in a dark room which was actually an office far from the kitchen on the first floor where their voices didn’t reach her. Still, they couldn’t stop her finding out.
She walked in and her eye saw a small folder on the table and casually opened it only to find a file on Lucas. She flipped through it and her emotionless face formed a smile.
Everyone trembled and swallowed dryly.
“Oh my, she found such a unique boy.” She said and looked at her father. "I very much hope none of you were thinking of messing with Sam’s life now that she moved out, were you?” She asked.
Instantly every young member shook their heads. Only her husband and father-in-law remained unmoving. Her eyes focused on the two, “Honey?” She asked smiling.
“We were just discussing about how we should meet this young man is all.” He said feeling a cold in his belly at his wife’s glare.
His father looked at his son with disgust at being controlled by his wife so easily.
“Father in law, what were you all thinking about doing?” She asked.
The old man suddenly sat up straight, "I was just… curious about his background and family as well as his… financial situation and wanted to talk to him about the games he has played.” The old man said.
“Oh. if that is it then it is fine.” She said with a smile. “Maybe during the winter break we can have Sam invite him. It has been a while since she brought friends over. Of course, he must be free for that.” She said casually and closed the file and placed it under her arm before leaving the room.
The meeting that had barely begun had fallen apart while the file that was taken was placed in a shredder before being thrown away in an incinerator for burnable trash.
***
Sam left after hours of trading ideas and watching each other’s videos as well as many other peoples game play. He finally logged in and at once he got a prompt.
Demon Queen Idre has submitted a development project.
The next moment a screen appeared showing all the changes she wished to make. Most of it involved the chapels and temples. The amount of resource was obviously not small, but it was within a good projection.
“Hmm…” He muttered as he saw she requested upgrades to the temple. The particular upgrades were living quarters for priests, another one for clergymen and a training yard.
This upgrade affected all temples because even the central temple was only a basic temple. Seeing there was nothing negative about the many changes besides a huge amount of materials being used, Akor agreed and accepted the expansion to spread and improve the conditions of the religious order of the nation that had just begun to spread.
After dealing with that the next login notification appeared.
Your researchers have finished merging all extra research scrolls. You have upgraded and unlocked new skills, classes and buildings. Level limit for skills has been upgraded.
New research
Warrior skill:
Fist - Punch, Sucker Punch, Heavy Punch, Smash, Fist Mastery
Sword - Hack, Cleave
Hammer/Club - Crush, Smash
Spear - Thrust, Sweep
Shield - Parry
Mage skill:
Spells: Rock Shot, Icicle Shot,
Demon Magic: Hell Fire
Scout class (New)
Scout skills:
Scout Skills: Mapping, Disarming, Trap Making, Search, Tracking.
Archer skills:
Bow skills: Double Shot, Power Shot
Rogue class (New)
Rogue skills:
Rogue skills: Sneak
Dagger Skills: Stab, Backstab, Poison Stab, Dagger Throw
Priest
Magic: Lesser Heal, Minor Detoxification, Magic Barrier
Support: Sermon, Faith Blessing
Clergyman
Mace: Smash, Exorcist Impact
Shield: Block, Parry, Bash
Magic: Lesser Heal, Magic Shield
Upgraded Research
Buildings
Wild Fruit Field
Has upgraded directly to level 2. All unlocked upgrades have been made available, and can be completed with your order
Animal Ranch
All Tier 1 upgrades have been unlocked
Demon Hut
Demon Nest
Demon hut and nest have upgraded into Tier 2 buildings
Level Cap: For all skills is now Level 30
Once he checked all the skills and upgrades, he opened the map and touched all the buildings that were upgraded. The fields were the most anticipated one, and he checked every upgrade. The original upgrades he had lacked were irrigation channels and a dam to control the flow. He hit a command button for all the fields and implemented them. Then upgraded it to the Tier 2, and it instantly transformed from Wild Fruit Field and became Fruit Field.
The next upgrades were a direct relation to the drop of the word ‘wild’, domesticating wild crops, implement 2 cycle crop rotation, use fertilizer. All of them were within the range of the upgrades which were completed and Akor accepted the upgrade.
Now, the fields not only doubled in size throughout the entire territory but the imps worked differently. They began to work on the crops in a strange way and slowly the plants began to look less like weeds and more like crop plants.
The fertilizer was knowledge that was newly obtained and imprinted into the minds of the imps to collect river clay, ashes and animal waste.
The animal ranch provided the waste while some imps went to the valley river side and dug the ground and in the fields they mixed it all together.
At the end of it all the production of food skyrocketed to 15 units of
food daily per field. It had previously been 4 units a field but going from Tier 1 to having all upgrades under Tier 3 was a very large improvement.
“No wonder war is said to be the harbinger of wealth for the winner.” Akor muttered and faintly smiled.
He called Valring, “Good job organizing the research.” He said.
“Thank you my Lord.” she smiled seductively.
“Alright, for now I want you to train scouts, I need a very large number of them. Send them outside the borders of my territory, I need them to find mana springs.” He said.
“Of course, my Lord. It will also be useful to use scouts to map the territory and many key points. They might even find very valuable resources such as minerals or maybe rare breeds of demons that can be brought into the fold, my Lord.” She said excited.
“We should go one step at a time. We need scouts for now. Also, after the internal arrangement of all the territory’s villages is complete, and I have upgraded my three main villages into towns, I will begin territory expansion. Before that happens I want roads connecting all the villages and towns to make trade and travel easier.” he said.
"I agree sir, only in such a case will we be able to react quickly. I shall get those lazy subordinates working right away.” Valring left while swinging her hips. She looked back with a smile just before leaving the room while Akor focused on the future tasks at hand.
Chapter 12
After the fields in the entire territory were set to upgrade all the gained upgrades before the Tier 3 upgrade, Akor turned his attention to the other gained upgrades. The demon hut, demon nest and animal ranch all gained upgrade potential. Akor selected all the demon huts and commanded that they get the upgrade.
Sadly they still didn’t upgrade except the two that Everrath and Morrath lived in. They upgraded directly to Tier two and had all the upgrades for the first tier. Both their demon huts became demon houses, and they became the house leaders. Only when more Tier 2 demons appeared could the other demon huts be upgraded.
The nest was a different story. They all upgraded directly to Tier 2 and could now house Tier 2 demon eggs. The demon nest didn’t change just because the breed of demon changed. All the demon nests were the same system meaning, imp, minogida and kobold all had upgrades in the building.
Of course, so many upgrades needed a lot of resources but Akor wasn’t planning to do everything at once. He was setting up everything that could be leveled up to do so, the remaining upgrades still needed materials to be added but as soon as it was gathered he would implement it.
Next he leveled up all the animal ranches, the upgrades included improved fencing, larger pastures and pasture cultivation, that is, the pastures would be reared as if it was a crop’s field. The size was an immediate improvement while the fencing and cultivation was something done manually.
With all the upgrades dealt with, Akor ordered a class guild to be built for all the classes that the research unlocked. Then used the system to move the buildings near each other to form a kind of class plaza. Only the clergyman and priest were at the temple.
Lastly, Akor commissioned all the upgrades for his house.
Town Management
Lord’s House
Book room
Requirements:
Wood 200 units
Upgrade
Wood Flooring
Requirements:
Wood 100 units
Upgrade
Basement Floor: Stone
Requirements:
Stone 150 units
Upgrade
Research room
Requirements:
Wood 100 units
Stone 150 units
Upgrade
Treasury Room
Requirements:
Stone 250 units
Upgrade
The final two were particularly important because the research room would allow two research topics to be done at once, or one research and one research scroll merging since battles seemed to happen quite often.
Akor set them all to upgrade and finally pulled up the window with all current construction projects. He organized the screen by each village or town. In Sanity, he placed his home as the top priority followed by the fields, animal ranch and nests as second rank. He also placed the chapel and class guilds in this section.
In all the villages he placed the upgrade of the fields as the top priority and the rest as second while the three main towns were to upgrade the mayor’s house and village walls as the top priority and the rest as second.
For territory priority, this meant taking the entire territory into consideration, road construction was placed as first priority which was labeled as ‘build trade routes’. This was not building simple packed dirt routes but proper roads dug out and packed to allow organized traffic to pass through areas.
It wasn’t at all easy to do. The road building had tons of different requirements such as carpenters to build bridges over rivers and miners to dig into the rocks and clear the path. Most of all, there were a huge number of red points that signaled dangerous monsters in these key points that would affect the development of the project.
Akor didn’t think twice to make the very sensible choice and selected all monster points and placed them up as a mission for players and roaming demons. He didn’t have an army that could be constantly on the move, he still needed to build that up.
After this he finished the construction options, he started on military. This once more brought up wages and the current territory balance.
With no one to consult at the moment he just scratched his chin. The weapons shop, tailor and smithy brought in a lot of money, not to mention the mint smithy that pounded out coin every hour.
With the religion and the god of prosperity who was one of the primary gods of their territory, coin had begun to appear from monsters. Just like Pyarus at the beginning, Akor only got a minor blessing from all the other gods and each of their god quests besides Dyone, Goddess Of Earth, who was an active goddess. Only if he contributed greatly did the blessing improve. Adaldir’s blessing offered the following:
Minor Blessing of the God of Prosperity
You and your people are blessed by Adaldir.
Monsters and animals now have a higher chance to drop some coin.
+0.5% improvement in the vitality of your territory making fields yield more.
It was a very small change but the appearance of coin from monsters was a major gain to say the least. It meant they would need less copper to be minted and more of it could go into the military. The land improvement wasn’t even needed, it was still good since it stacked with the blessing of the harvest god and earth goddess. Still, they were all minor blessings so Akor didn’t care about it for the time being.
He tapped on the balance and saw the gains he would earn.
“So I get about 1000 copper daily from the smith and the shops I specifically own. This isn’t a lot, I don’t get taxes but from what I can see, a basic economy is already formed.” He thought while looking over the window.
He tapped on the total money circulating, which was just a basic calculation. It also calculated the average of money among all citizens, that is minions and subordinates, in the territory.
“Seriously! In an average of 4,500 people there is only about 70 copper coin for each?!” Akor said shocked.
Of course this was just an average, it showed how poor his territory was. He began to try to make mental calculations on some produce but then froze and looked at the player population. “What is the average money players have?” He asked.
A new calculation was done only for players.
Territory has around 950 players and their average money is 200 copper coins.
He frowned, “Are players richer than the NPCs?” He muttered and looked outside and instantly nodded. It made total sense because players hunted so they collected the most money. “There is no way around it, I need to impose taxes to get money from players at a higher fix
ed rate.” He said. That said he wasn’t stupid enough to give NPCs lower tax compared to players since it would simply push them away.
“Let’s put taxes on all produce at 5%, it isn’t too much or too little. With the little economy I have now, this will get me money and in turn I can stimulate the economy in the territory.” He said.
Territory Announcement
Demon Lord Akor has decreed that tax increase to 5% on all produce’s sale price. Tax will be counted in each price and it will be discounted with each purchase directly to the lord of the territory.
It didn’t take more than a minute to read that all the players began to complain about taxes. There were some people who weren’t as stupid among the players. Some of them had already formed groups and their leaders weren’t stupid. They calmed down their own groups so that they wouldn’t be banned from the city at such an early stage. It was only 5%, much better compared to some people who impose 10 or even 20%.
In Akor’s throne room, the final calculation of taxes coming from the entire territory was soon announced.
The predicted tax income per month per individual is 1,500 copper coins.
“So 15 silver for one person in a month. If the current population is at around 5,000, this is 7,500,000 copper, or 750 gold coins a month. In early game, it was a considerable sum and would completely fund the expansion of the territory army, not just city guards.
"I can finally separate city guard and army, having both would be a major plus as long as a strong leader was born or developed.” Akor muttered.
First War Page 14
