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The Gamer Chapter 1631 – Guild Hall Tier 5.5 Upgrade
🕑 Added 2024-02-26 20:58:53 +0000 UTCJohn looked at the Guild Hall map as it currently was. A scanning look at all of his facilities and current districts, to consider what would need changing.
Sorting out his plans, John pressed the button for the (probably) final, final upgrade of his home base. The border of the barrier pushed out a little further – although the definition of ‘a little’ was very stretched in this case. From 15 to 17 kilometres across, the cylindrical space expanded, stretching out the physical space in the Hudson as it went.
Two kilometres added to a diameter was A LOT of space in real terms. From 176 to 227 square kilometres, an upgrade of no less than 51 of them. That was enough to place a town or three, but in terms of this specific map, John had a less ambitious project in mind.
The Gamer drew four elongated islands around the cardinal directions of his Guild Hall. Together, the four long islands formed an interrupted ring. They were swiftly coloured in by the various Elemental Islands adjacent to them, then filled with tall mountains. They had no other purpose than being a well-defendable position in case he needed one.
The more interesting question came right thereafter. He could upgrade three Buildings to Tier 6 and the decision was not easily made. Well, it was not easily made for two of them. The Mine seeing its upgrade to Tier 6 had been decided the moment the option had been on the menu.
Mine (Room Slot Cost: 300, Maintenance Cost: 300’000): The Mine went from its current 50 floors to 100. The sudden doubling was as exciting as it was dangerous. At the previous max depth, level 60 Basilisks had been lurking, so John could only imagine that incredible dangers waited even further down – for the average person.
With the upgrade in depth came a selection between two Perks. Either the Mine could attract Starfall Beasts to the peaks of its mountains in random intervals between 1 day and 10 years, whose bodies consist in no small part of Astrotium, or the depths of the Mine could be connected to a kobold Kingdom. The entrances would shift daily, but it would always be the same Kingdom.
John went with the latter for three reasons. Number one was that the Starfall Beasts were specifically described to only LAND in the area of the Mine, not that they were bound to it. Considering these were creatures partly made out of Astrotium, the Gamer could assume they were at least somewhat like that kraken terror that Arkeidos had slain, which also meant that, if he wasn’t there to take care of it immediately, that randomly spawning thing could kill a lot of people.
On a purely economic basis, getting chunks of Astrotium in return for a few dozen lives each time one of these things landed was probably worth it. On a moral basis, John was not ready to pull that trigger. On a pragmatic basis, people were likely to do less mining if that incorporated the risk of a creature from the stars ending their lease on life randomly.
The second reason was that a Kingdom of kobolds was just exciting. If he could make contact with it, he may be able to get their fealty and then he’d have all of these extra workers or at least someone to trade with.
The third reason, related to the second, was that these kobolds were specifically described as ‘short dragon people of the more human variety’. Traditionally, kobolds were reptilian humanoids that insisted they had genetic connections to proper dragons. John did not mind either but, even if he could not taste the benefits of it, having a Kingdom with short (and perhaps even stacked) dragon girls sounded fantastic.
After that, he had to make the other two choices. After some tapping around, he found an obvious second choice.
Training Hall (Room Slot Cost: 100, Maintenance Cost: 200’000): This upgrade did two things. Negatively, it actually added a Room Slot and Maintenance Cost to a Building that was previously free, coming from a Guild Perk and all of that. Positively, it did raise the level ceiling for those training in it from 50 and 25 (for members of Collide and Fusion, respectively) to 75 and 30. The former was practically inconsequential. Collide memberships were limited in supply and went to haremettes and a few of John’s confidants. The latter may only have been an increase of 5 levels, but that was 5 levels for hundreds of thousands of people.
These 5 levels could make enormous differences. Everyone in Fusion that had the time and energy to stay in the Guild Hall for some time could get them. It would make the people of Fusion smarter, stronger, and longer lived. The life expectancy between 25 and 30 went up by about seven years.
Knowing humans, far from the whole of Fusion’s population would take the offer, but it was still there and that made it good enough to take as a Building.
The last choice was then the toughest. Another Production Building seemed to be the obvious choice. Spawning endless resources was just that good. However, after a lot of pondering, back and forth between his haremettes, and finally a dash of his own paranoia, John decided to go with a different option. After all, what good was an endless supply of resources if it could not be accessed?
Sentry Station (Room Slot Cost: 200, Maintenance Cost: 250’000): Previously, the Sentry Station had spawned 25 Sentry Golems (Level 50), 5 Ohmior Sentinels (Level 100, with one of each variation present) and an Ohmior Warden (level 150, able to switch between all armaments, and always bound to guarding one location). Now it spawned 100 Sentry Golems as well as 10 Sentinels and the Ohmior Warden had its level boosted to 300 and was now able to instantly teleport to anywhere on the island, should there be an altercation large enough.
These respawning defenders were downright necessary to patrol the entire expanse that the Guild Hall had become. Even though they moved tirelessly, they had to patrol an area a tenth the size of Tokyo, with all of its forests and hidden pathways. That about a third of that was water helped, but it was still a mountain of work.
With the broad strokes finished, only one thing remained to be done.
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John and harem stood in the chamber underneath the Palace, at the heart of the star fort. Several concentric rings of gold swirled around a beating sphere of arcane blue, steadily generating mana from seemingly nowhere. It was the Guild Heart, the first Building he had needed to place and the nexus everything else turned around. The supernatural ongoings of Fusion’s centre were dependent on it.
Every increase in Tier had added a ring around the Guild Heart. Now, John was going to alter it completely. One button press took 100 Room Slots in exchange for the Starforger Perk that John had unlocked but been unable to take since before he went to the Divided Gates meeting. A second button press applied that Perk, fusing the Guild Heart to the Starkiln.
The transition was every bit as gamey as John would have expected. The current Guild Heart rose up, enveloped in a silver-gold glow. Hidden by the light, its form changed. Then, the light exploded outwards in a harmless display of glittering particles, revealing the new Building.
The Guild Heart now sat inside a crystal sphere of silver tinge, its blue light shining through effortlessly. Although the golden rings still existed around it, all decorated with intricate blue and purple runes, they no longer circled around all axes. Rather, they now moved like the rings on a planetary model, turning around the central point of the Guild Heart, while oscillating gently up and down. Furthering the planetary impression was a point of intense light on each of the bands of gold.
Underneath it all sat a structure between chalice and pillar. The Guild Heart hovered above the rounded top of the kiln, which itself was the crown of an ornate plinth shaped from beige metal and starlight silver metals. A man-sized opening shaped like a furnace extended from the southern end. Already, mana began to swirl from it, coalescing into a small, circular object. A Mana Star, forged from the excess mana of the Guild Heart, ready to be harvested at the end of each week.
In theory, that would be around 3’500’000 per week, bound in a transportable medium. In practice, it was limited to what John could bind and, at the time, that was 100’000 MP. Much less impressive, but still outclassing modern mana batteries by miles. Another problem was that they had to research proper ways to utilize these things once they had their hands on some. It was unlikely they could hook the power source into a regular mana generator and have it just work.
“Alright, that’s that,” John declared and dusted off his hands. “I’ll go take a nap.”
“For fucking real?” Eliana asked. “We woke up like 2 fucking hours ago.”
“And I feel tired,” he stated plainly. “Got to force my sleep schedule back into shape.”
The harem took that as their signal to disperse. Splintering into groups of one to five, the gathered women went out to follow their various charges for the day. John, meanwhile, went back into the apartment and stripped back out of his clothes.
Yawning, he let his eyes wander between the door to his bedroom and the Couch. After some consideration and a glass of water, he went to the latter. He did not want to train his mind to expect a short rest from the bedroom. Best to keep naps to the Couch.
John laid down and closed his eyes. Sleep did not come readily. He was in that weird in-between state where he felt too tired to keep his eyes open, but not tired enough to actually feel like sleeping once he had closed them. He was all too aware of the world. The texture of the Couch under him changed from leather to cloth, the moment he started to note his skin sticking to the material. He picked up the quiet. He did not like the quiet.
Grabbing his phone, he connected his mind to it, then browsed Youtube for about fifteen minutes. Several short videos about kittens and the lifestyle of the European badger later, he had forced himself to tap on a podcast. A pair of guys joking around the intricacies of Warhammer lore accompanied him when he closed his eyes again.
Just when he was starting to go from that entranced state of motionless rest, he heard the tapping of footsteps. He did not bother raising his head or even opening his eyes. ‘Probably a maid doing her duty,’ he thought, too lazy to extend either his additional senses or mental connection to check. The feet passed him. The person entered the bedroom. She turned back. John heard the gentle whispering of cloth on the ground.
A toe stubbed his shoulder.
Opening one eye, John met a sight that immediately made him snort with amusement. There stood the very same woman that had ridiculed him for wanting a nap about twenty minutes earlier. His second eye opened, to look at the adorable, small woman in more detail.
Eliana was not just walking up to him, she was walking up to him with a teddy in one arm and a blanket dragging behind her. The teddy John readily recognized as the one gifted to her by the Fluffsider. “Get that fucking grin off your face,” Eliana demanded.
“No,” John answered, and readily tapped the space to his left. The blushing blood mage took the offer, crawling up next to him. She spread the thin blanket over the two of them. It added more of a pleasant cool factor to their cuddle, enchanted as it was. A direly necessary cool factor as well, between the heat of the summer and each other’s bodies.
Eliana wiggled around for a little bit, until she found the proper position to put her head. “Got to relearn everything about where to put my useless everything,” she complained. “You and your stupid fucking pecs and your broad fucking shoulders, how the shit does a hunk of manmeat like you- Eeep!”
The blood mage stopped when he pinched her ass, preventing her from saying anything more self-deprecating. “I do want to try and nap,” he reminded her.
“Sorry…” she mumbled. John couldn’t help himself. His body moved before any thought occurred and he went from lying on his back to them being the big and the little spoon. A pleased hum came from the pretty little psycho, growing into a mumbled, “I love you,” when he wrapped his arms around her.
“I love you too,” he whispered and kissed the top of her head. She felt so small and vulnerable. In many ways, she was, in others, it was absurd to even think of her in the same sentence as those words.
Even if she had been universally invulnerable, John would have seen it as his duty to hold her like this, like she was his to protect and cherish. That was just how he felt towards her. It was how he felt towards all of his girls, one way or another, but especially towards her.
Mindlessly, he caressed the smooth skin of her arms. She smelled of lavender. Her arms hugged the fuzzy plush. “One and a half years,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” Eliana answered and yawned.
That had been how long ago she had gotten that plushie. It was a gift from/puppet body of an entity called Kyonchi that had appeared on Christmas to braid Nathalia’s hair. The Fluffsider had returned the Christmas after and it stood to reason he would be back this Christmas as well. Fun times, all around.
John’s eyes closed again and he let his mind drift. Rapidly, sleep claimed him. There was so much more to sense and feel with Eliana around but, for so many reasons deeper than any intellect could fathom, her presence let him come to rest near immediately.
Love was like that.
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