Progress has been made. You have grown. Good, but more is needed. You will start to receive missions that will help your fellow earthlings and simplify my operations.
Good luck.
Ben had hoped for a period of consolidation and further training. He had also hoped to tackle the second level of the mine dungeon again, but he would have to wait and see whether that was possible.
A few minutes later, the ceremony was done, and everyone who wanted to become a citizen had done so.
When the ceremony concluded, Ben retreated to his home to take a look at the notification waiting for him.
A blue-and-gold window—identical in style to the first Protector-Protocol message he had ever gotten—unfolded:
Congratulations on reaching Settlement Level 2, an Outpost.
As a boon from the systems you are granted a Headquarter (small, upgradeable).
At every increase in Settlement Level you have one opportunity to apply a blueprint to the settlement; existing buildings will be moved accordingly.
New buildings will be made available per level. Prices for infrastructure will rise and special discounts decrease with every level. The System Store will expand its offering with increased level.
Citizen management and taxation features increase with level.
Settlement Credits per citizen and slain Energy-born creature will be held constant for level 2, but decrease in the future.
Your attributes will now increase by +1.
Ben felt a surge of Energy crashing through his body—a short brain freeze—but it was gone as quickly as it had come. For the first time in a long while, Ben checked his status.
STATUS
Name: Ben Jackson
Tier: 1
ATTRIBUTES
Body: 19
Mind: 14
Magic: 6
PERKS
[General]
- [Analyze] — Grants insight into objects, creatures, and sapient beings. Not upgradeable.
- [Multi-Lingual] — Allows comprehension and communication across most sapient languages, verbal and written. Not upgradeable.
- [Knight Protector] — Establishes and governs a Protectorate; +1 to every attribute per settlement level; chosen core attribute (Body) gains +10 % per five dungeon tiers integrated. Unique
[Body]
- [Resilient Body] — When out of combat, your body will fix itself over time. Rare
- [Axe Handling] — Whether felling trees or your enemies, you are on the path to axe mastery. Uncommon
- [Cleave] — Active. Channel your body’s strength into a single attack with devastating impact. Uncommon
- [Strong Body] — Enhances efficient exertion of physical strength. Common
- [Agile Body] — Enables smoother movement and improved dodging ability. Common
- [Self?Defense] — First steps toward martial?arts mastery. Common
[Mind]
- [Calm] — Improves composure in high-stress situations. Common
- [Party Coordination] — Improves team positioning and timing. Common
- [Public Speaking] — Improves your ability to convey your intent. Common
[Magic]
- None
That was quite a change from where he had started roughly three weeks ago. His Body attribute benefited from the 10% increase from his [Knight Protector] perk. At 19, it was almost twice the human average. He still didn’t know whether the attributes worked linearly or exponentially, but he was happy either way.
The number of perks had also grown significantly—not in a small way thanks to the training regime under Tracy and Barry.
Depending on whether his unique perk counted or not, he was four-fifths of the way to Tier 2. What that would bring—if anything—was also still a mystery to him.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
He did not see a mission from the systems right now, which was a good thing in his book. The ability to apply a blueprint to the settlement was in the Settlement Interface, but he didn’t play around with it until after the meeting with his mother, Adam, and Barry—that was next on his agenda. How to house and feed their new arrivals was the main topic.
***
“Damn!” Adam fumed. “We just wasted hundreds of SC. If we had just known!”
Ben was sitting with Adam, Barry, and his mother in the office. He had informed them about the messages from the system, and Adam had already checked the Settlement Interface. They’d discovered the library—once discounted from 500 to 200 SC—now cost 350. Worse, other prices had climbed, too. As an accountant, Adam hated not knowing how their SC allocation would change at Level 3.
The last point was one that Ben was less worried about for now, though.
“Let’s not worry about things that we can’t change anymore, Adam. Let’s focus on the now,” Barry weighed in.
Adam agreed, but his frustration was still palpable.
Before they could continue, there was a knock on the door and Jane entered the office. “Good morning, do you have a minute?”
“Sure,” Ben wasn’t sure what she wanted, but she was a no-nonsense person, so he doubted it would be a waste of their time.
“I have to be honest with you. I didn’t know what to expect when I decided to embark on this journey, but it wasn’t this.
“A marble city – or at least the nucleus of one – in the middle of the forest… The ability to interact with the system directly, or at least the infrastructure of this settlement… Let’s not even start with the System Store… I couldn’t resist interacting with it last night.
“All of this is… overwhelming, and I don’t know what it all means or where it goes. But I do know a couple of things will always stay the same, at least as long as I am around. Nobody likes freeloaders. After you told me two weeks ago that these monster cores have value, I had my daughter pick some up with cash that has little to no meaning these days, even in the city.”
She opened her backpack, pulled out twenty cores, and set them on the table. “I’m grateful for this opportunity, and my family wants to contribute from day one.”
The council exchanged glances—Barry calm, Adam grinning, Allison and Ben surprised but warm.
“This isn’t necessary, but it’s deeply appreciated—and incredibly helpful right now. Building the infrastructure we need is expensive—very expensive. Thank you,” Allison put her hand on Jane’s shoulder gratefully.
“Don’t mention it. As I said, to me this is the minimum I can do. No strings attached. Beyond that, I do have a few more cores that I want to invest to get the family back into business. So let me know if there are any opportunities that you see.”
“Any specific business in mind?” Adam asked.
“Not really. Trade is the obvious answer, but it is not like selling groceries was my dream when I was young. It was the opportunity that presented itself to me at the time. I understand that we all need to be flexible in this new world. I am just looking for a starting point, really.”
“Understood, we will keep that in mind. Just know that so far we have lived quite ‘communal’ where everybody did what they could and all income was basically centralized so that we could buy equipment for the protectors and the militia etc.
“We definitely will go back to paying people and having the citizens benefit from their own work, but so far that wasn’t possible,” Ben weighed in.
“Totally. I get what you’re trying to build and the values behind it. This is just long-term thinking and giving you transparency on my position.”
Ben stood up to shake Jane’s hand as she moved to leave. “Really appreciate it, Jane!”
As the four of them were alone, Adam sighed, “Those twenty cores are actually a huge help. I must admit I was a bit worried. When we get our monthly SCs from the system in ten days we should be fine, but without that cash infusion things would have been a bit tight.”
“Ok, give us an overview of where we stand and your thoughts, please,” Ben said.
Adam nodded. “Sure. Based on the continuous stream of monsters attacking us and the SC bounty we get, we currently have 150 in the bank.
“We also have cores worth 45,000 Credits, which translates to 4,500 SCs, including those from Jane.”
“Wow, that is a lot more than I thought,” Ben exclaimed, and Allison seemed pleasantly surprised as well.
“Well, yes, it is a lot more than we had so far, but at the same time, a pretty focused list of things we should buy gets me easily to 6,000 SC, and that does not include any credits for food, clothing, or equipment for our now hopefully much larger militia.”
That led to a moment of silence.
Ben frowned. “Ok, let’s break that down. That is a lot more than we had discussed in the past.”
“So, apartments: the one we built so far now costs 200 SC; the one more suited for families costs 250. Even if we cram everybody together, that’s 2,500 SC. But that is not all. It turns out that once you have more than 100 people, you need a dedicated water-treatment Energy interface. It seems to be just a 1 × 1-meter block—nothing like what we knew before—but this thing alone costs 500 SC, and the increased cost for the apartments is tied to the link each building needs to the interface.”
“Well, that is a lot of money, but so far only three thousand, if I counted correctly.”
“You did. The rest is for a smithy, workshops, greenhouses, and training grounds. Plus, with every new dungeon and the level-up, our borders have grown to 350 × 350 meters, so we might want to extend our palisades slightly—say, to 150 × 150 meters. We could also go for an Inn, which is currently discounted.”
Barry cleared his throat, hesitated for a moment, then spoke up. “Before we go through the list, it seems like there is a question about whether we stay in our cabins or move to the new apartment buildings. You know I love this place, but I am not sure how sustainable the cabins are given that we have no electricity and warm water anymore. By winter it will become… unpleasant.”
Allison stood up and looked out of the window.
Ben and the others looked at her with trepidation. This place was more her home than anyone else’s.
She sighed, then nodded to herself. “You are right. We should not attach ourselves to the material ‘stuff’ around us. What matters is that we are still together.” She turned around. “For what it is worth, you have my blessing to abandon the cabins.”
Ben stood up and gave his mother a hug. “I hadn’t thought about it so far, but it seems like the right choice. Apparently I have an apartment in the new Headquarter, so we can tear down this building as well. If there’s enough space, would you like to stay with me for now?”
Allison smiled gratefully. “That is a lovely idea. Once we have a bit more cash I can move out—I am sure living with your mother is not your long-term plan, right?” She winked at him.
Ben laughed. “I am not sure I do have long-term plans at this point… I think it would be good if you and I talk with all our long-time crew to inform them about the cabins, ok?”
She nodded and they moved on.