“It’s not a Fata Morgana—it’s home,” Ben said laughingly as they stepped out of the forest into the large clearing that held the settlement. Adam had organized the continuous clearing of trees so that there remained sufficient distance between the forest edge and the palisades, even if they were to grow the city further.

  They had made good time despite hauling the tree branches from the grove; it was still night, and only the moonlight and a couple of lit windows provided light that outlined the marble settlement.

  A few minutes later they were at the inn, and Ben organized rooms for their four charges but forbade them from leaving the inn. Allison had informed the protectors on watch accordingly as it was too late to inform Steve, the guard captain, and Arthur, the judge.

  The next morning, after the daily fitness and meditation routine he was at breakfast with the two and outlined the situation. Under their laws he stated no preference and left them to arrange the tribunal.

  Next, he went on a couple of deliveries. First he delivered the wood to Deepika, who’d already aligned with Thomas, the former lumberjack-turned-crafter, to build the chest so she could focus on the enchanting. Then he brought the Brown Cap Mushrooms to Zack and Liz. They were excited to branch into this new area after mostly optimizing their greenhouse processes.

  Luz had already taken the ingredients she and her apprentices had worked on the night before.

  Finally, he felt like he had completed all his chores for the morning and was free for a discussion with the professor.

  ***

  “Profe—Randal, how are you?” Ben remembered that Professor Gunther wanted to be on a first-name basis, so he obliged, despite the man always remaining ‘the professor’ in his head. He was just too stereotypical in his behavior—and Ben also felt deep respect for the man.

  “I am very well. As you know, I have always tried to stay fit, but these daily exercises with Tracy, who really is an excellent instructor, have been doing wonders for my health. The increased Body attribute points make me feel twenty years younger, at least!”

  “It shows, Randal, it really does. You do look younger.”

  “Good. I am aware enough of my own vanity to enjoy that without feeling guilty,” the professor laughed. “But I am sure you didn’t want to talk with me to compliment an old man, right?”

  It was Ben’s turn to chuckle. “Indeed. I am sure Barry has explained the process to reach Tier 2 and the Path alignment of perks. At this point, I am not even thinking about Tier 3, but I do want to make sure all my perks have positive Path alignment and, most importantly, I want to get rid of my [Frenzy] perk. It is not who I want to be.”

  The professor nodded. “Very well. What we have found so far from the books the systems have provided as well as experimentations is as follows. You can evolve perks on your own based on practice, meditation, or study. While we are here in the Protectorate gaining and evolving perks is accelerated, but it typically still takes either a very long time, months if not years, or very extreme situations to make that happen.

  "There are, however, ways to accelerate that. From what we understand, the most common approach in the multiverse— incredible that I am using such a term in all seriousness!—is via potions. When I say common, it is only relative to the following approaches. It is still very rare and very expensive. From what we can tell, we currently don’t have access to the ingredients, and they are not available in the System Store.”

  Ben nodded. Maybe these potions required higher tier ingredients or they were just not available in their area. He felt like there was a chance that these kinds of potions would become available if they leveled up the settlement further—but there were no guarantees.

  The professor continued. “Apparently there are locations, natural and crafted, that shape Energy to allow a massively accelerated evolution timeline. We don’t have access to those, either.”

  Ben interrupted the not-so-old-anymore man, “I think we found such a location yesterday. I did not have the time to test it in detail, but I felt that with the help of my [Meditation] perk I could tap into the environment to accelerate perk development.”

  The professor’s eyes sparkled, “That is excellent news! I would love to explore that location. It could help us tremendously in our research!”

  “I was planning to return there and in principle I am happy to take you along, however accessing it is not trivial as it is protected by a very thorny barrier. We will have to think about a more accessible solution than just me barreling my way through.”

  “Good, very good. Now, the last way to accelerate perk evolution that we know right now, is my perk [Clarity]. It puts the target into a state of mind that allows to rapidly make progress on that path. The main constraint is that it can only be used once per person. Maybe, but we haven’t had the chance to test this, yet, it is once per person and tier.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “There is no guarantee that any of these methods will deliver the outcome you seek. Failure is very possible. Common, even.

  “One thing is critical though, as it is true for all methods, you need to understand, deeply, what it is you are trying to achieve. For example, it is not sufficient to say that you want to remove [Frenzy], you need to understand what it is supposed to become.”

  Ben nodded slowly. “I think I understand. The work I am doing with Barry helps me understand what I want [Self Defense] and [Axe Handling] to become, I am not sure I have a clear idea whether I want [Frenzy] to just become [Cleave] again, or something else.”

  “Well, I am always here, Ben, and happy to help. If you want to use [Clarity] I am happy to provide it… Thinking about it some more… It is also possible that the methods have a cumulative effect, which might allow you to form your target picture during the process—if the nucleus of the idea is with you already.”

  “Thank you, Randal—this gives me a lot to consider. I want to use [Clarity], but need to plan when and how.”

  ***

  “People will think I am a pretentious prick. This is a really bad idea!” Ben whispered to his mother.

  “People will think that justice is being taken seriously. Now stop fidgeting; things are about to start.”

  Ben was sitting on the throne in the reception hall on the ground floor of the HQ. Barry, Adam, and Allison, his Council, stood by his side.

  It was the first time that they were using this room after they had built their new home. While the auditorium, which was even bigger, was sometimes used for school and other activities, Ben had not wanted to use the reception hall as he felt that it looked too much like he wanted to be a king.

  However, Arthur Cackett and all councilors had convinced him that for a justice system to feel just, it also needed to look like it. In this case it required a public proclamation of the verdict and confirmation of the Protector, meaning Ben.

  Now, Arthur stood before him, flanked by one member of Jane’s family and one original member of the Antarctica expedition that had made their home with them. They were randomly chosen to serve on the tribunal that reviewed the case of the four men that Ben and his team had picked up just the other day.

  Behind them stood the four men, flanked by Steve and another guardsman. When they had entered the room, seeing Ben on the throne, they had been shocked. Now they just looked resigned to their fate.

  A few interested citizens stood on the sides of the room, muttering quietly.

  Adam took a step forward. “Silence!” he called, raising his voice. “Judge Cackett, will you present the tribunal’s finding?” He stepped back into a line with the other councilors.

  Arthur cleared his throat. “I have indeed. Together with my fellow tribunal members, whom I would like to thank for their contributions, we have come to a verdict in the case of these four men, who were accused of failing to abide by the values of the Protectorate during an attack on Protectorate citizens in adjacent unclaimed lands.

  “The accused have confessed the deeds. In their favor it has to be said that they were not aware of the Protectorate or its values and laws. We have therefore come to the conclusion that no punishment is warranted should the accused decide to leave the Protectorate. Since they wish to remain, we have come to the following verdict:

  “First, the accused are under probation for one year. Should they fail to uphold the Protectorate’s values, they will be banished, independent of the crime. Second, if personal income is introduced in the Protectorate, the accused will owe two months’ wages, payable to the Protectorate Administration within one year of that system’s introduction.

  “We ask for the approval of the Protector to close this case.”

  Ben was impressed by the procedure and the outcome of the tribunal. He thought it was a reasonable judgement, even though he personally resented that the four men had not warned his mother and friends of the impending attack.

  He shuffled a bit in the unfamiliar chair, then raised his voice slightly. “Judge Cackett, tribunalists, I thank you for your work and the just verdict. It is final.”

  Adam stepped forward again. “The verdict and fines will be tracked by the Protectorate Administration. The meeting is adjourned.”

  The citizens in the room started to murmur again, but many heads were nodding and it seemed like the outcome was well received.

  The four accused—soon to be citizens—looked relieved, some even stunned. In essence, they had gotten away with a warning and a fine that was in the distant future. A couple of days ago they had been hungry and lost; now they were safe and had a future ahead of them. Not a bad outcome at all.

  ***

  “We’ve procrastinated on this for too long,” Adam said as they sat in Ben’s office.

  “Yes, I know. It is not my favorite topic, mostly because it is so far out of my area of expertise.”

  “I understand, but you also didn’t know anything about laws or a judicial system, and we still managed to come up with something that works—at least for now. We won’t solve this in one session anyway, but maybe we can try to identify a few things that are important to you. Once we have the principles on how to set up our economy, we can detail it later.”

  Ben nodded and thought about what was important to him.

  “I understand the value of a market-based economy. It helps incentivize people and the market mostly knows better where to allocate resources than the two of us would if we continued to make all decisions.

  “However, we have also clearly seen where markets can go wrong—so that’s something we have to work on. Our economy must be based on our values.”

  He recited them from memory.

  “Community – stronger together

  Growth – ever forward

  Safety – protecting everyone

  “Nobody must fall through the cracks. But of course all of these things cost money—and we can’t just borrow it from some anonymous market. That means we have to fund the Protectorate properly so that we can provide the infrastructure, education, and safety that will enable us to live free and prosperously in the future.

  “Our biggest assets are the dungeons right now. It is clear that a large part of our income has to come from them, but we still want people who take on the danger to be properly rewarded.

  “I am sorry, that was a very unstructured long list of things. Is this helpful?”

  Adam scratched his head. “Don’t worry about it. I think I got what you said. Let me think about it and talk with a few people—we do have quite a bit of expertise in the citizenry. We can discuss a first proposal in a few days.”

  Ben nodded. It was time for him to check what Deepika had come up with.