Simon hurriedly peered into his mana core, feeling an unprecedented level of distress.

A resplendent multi-colored orb was currently spinning in the middle of his mana core, exuding powerful waves of energy.

However, these waves of energy gradually weakened with every pulse, and the orb itself even began showing signs of fracturing…

The mana core was indeed reverting to seven elemental stars!

‘F*ck!’

Simon’s expression darkened as he desperately tried to stabilize his mana core with everything he had, utilizing his years of experience and sheer willpower to the fullest extent. He immediately reinforced the core with countless strands of mana, attempting to mend the cracks within or at the very least, hold it together.

‘Oh, I think it’s slowing!’

For a moment, the fracturing and dimming of the orb seemed to slow down.

But...

Crack!

‘F*ck, it was my imagination!’ he thought despondently, feeling incredibly helpless.

Alas, his actions were futile. Before he knew it, he had reverted back to a measly zero star core mage, and his star core had collapsed...

He immediately tried to reform the star core from the seven elemental stars, but found that it was nigh impossible; the same force that fractured his star core also prevented him from reforming it. Trying to merge the stars now was akin to attempting to mix oil with water!

“Sigh…”

Simon solemnly sat down, calming himself and reflecting on what had just happened. It was all that he could do to suppress his frustration.

Eventually, he stood up and shook his head, turning towards the night sky through a window.

“Well, I suppose that I can’t expect for my journey to be an easy one. Misfortune is bound to occur eventually; thus, a man who cannot tolerate small misfortunes will never accomplish great things. Only, I didn’t expect it to be so soon.” he muttered to himself ruefully.

By now, he had properly calmed down and reflected.

Ultimately, he had too little information about this vast and mysterious world. If he thought that everything would follow his plan by the line, he was simply delusional.

Still, it was rather baffling to him.

After all, the strength of said force was extremely overbearing… Overbearing to the point of where he could not resist it at all! Not many things could utterly defeat him, a man who was once an esteemed farming genius. And yet, this force was one such thing.

He had long since scoured his mind for a potential solution, but simply could not find anything that worked in the face of such an overwhelmingly powerful force!

Whatever the cause was, it was not going to be something particularly easy to deal with. He estimated that the amount of strength that he would need to resist such a force was definitely unreachable for him in his current state.

But at the very least, he still had access to tier 1 spells due to his elemental stars, despite lacking a mana core...

Simon rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache brewing.

Without mana cores, he would certainly be at a disadvantage when compared to other mages. But ultimately, the most important thing to him was being able to use more complex spells, so this situation was not irredeemable - so long as he avoided provoking those who were stronger than him.

After all, the higher the tier of a spell, the more strength one could unleash, and the spells would likewise grow more complex with many more possible uses.

In the general sense, tier one spells were able to accomplish very few complex tasks. But compared to tierless spells, they were certainly an upgrade.

This exact reason was why Simon could not yet pull off advanced magical techniques, such as flying, teleportation, divining the future, and directly changing the physiology of matter.

Only with more elemental stars or star cores would such spells be possible! And in that, he had undoubtedly made strides towards by forming the seven elemental stars.

Simon then checked his stats.

-----

[Pro Farmer#69] (Human)

Island Level: 3 (48%) -> 4 (99%)

Island Altitude: (50,000 -> 70,000 meters.

Mining Level: 4 (24%) -> 4 (74%)

Gathering Level: 2 (13%) -> 3 (06%)

Farming Level: 1 (11%) -> 2 (87%)

Forging Level: 0 (4%)

Magic Level: 0 (53%) -> 0 (105%)

Nature Lv. 0 (88%) -> 1 (35%)

Hot Lv. 0 (58%) -> 1 (11%)

Cold Lv. 0 (57%) -> 1 (10%)

Dark Lv. 0 (55%) -> 1 (7%)

Light Lv. 0 (54%) -> 1 (7%)

Time Lv. 0 (53%) -> 1 (6%)

Space Lv. 0 (53%) -> 1 (5%)

HP: 3315 -> 7660

MP: 1485 -> 3024

Strength: 821 -> 1654

Speed: 683 -> 1435

Resilience: 694 -> 1495

Endurance: 685 -> 1461

Intelligence: 1485 -> 3024

Vitality: 643 -> 1532

Skills:

Magic Derived Skills:

[Matter Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Destruction Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Appraisal Resonance] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Hot Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Thunder Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Flame Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Cold Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Ice Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Hardening Resonance] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Nature Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 5)

[Summoning Resonance] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Poison Resonance] (II)(Lv. 2)

[Light Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Healing Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Clairvoyance Attunement] (I)(Lv. 7)

[Dark Sovereign] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Soul Attunement] (I)(Lv. 9)

[Mind Attunement] (I)(Lv. 8)

[Spacetime Manipulation] (I)(Lv. 10)

[Gravity Resonance] (II)(Lv. 1)

[Perception Attunement] (I)(Lv. 9)

Miscellaneous Skills:

[Anomaly] (I)(Lv. 1)

[Pickaxe Burst] (I)(Lv. 2)

[Glow Aura] (I)(Lv. 1)

[Forager’s Instinct] (I)(Lv. 1)

[Nature’s Aura] (I)(Lv. 1)

You will unlock more of your stat page as you progress.

-----

‘This sure is sh*tty… I’ll just have to research this discreetly I guess’ he eventually decided resignedly.

This situation definitely served to highlight his need for strong allies who were already well versed in the various affairs of the world of Island Ascension Online. Unfortunately, he was not yet at the stage where he could talk to such powers on equal footing, so he could only put aside such thoughts for now.

Power… Everything was reliant on how much power he had, just like in his old world!

If he were strong, he would be able to resist the suppression. If he were strong, he would easily be able to find capable allies. If he were strong, achieving his goals would be infinitely easier!

Alas, power had to be built up overtime. As of now, he was incredibly weak.

He then turned from the window and pushed the door open.

Woosh!

Immediately, the pleasant and rich fragrance of chicken stew wafted into his room from outside the door.

‘Hell yeah, it’s dinner time!’ he thought with a grin, and the scowl was instantly wiped from his face.

Sometimes, Simon was a simple man.

-----

Within the dining hall of the Manor, there were simple adornments spread throughout, with furniture made of wood and stone. The mouth-watering aroma of the stew was also the thickest here.

Currently, Simon was happily eating chicken stew along with a few other figures as they talked about various island affairs.

Two of them were Jake and Joe, while the other was Jack, a new arrival.

Jack was a C tier engineer with a robust personality and a short, muscular figure. He loved to brag about his various inventions and strokes of genius, but he was indeed a good engineer.

Simon had immediately brought him into his crew, not only because of his impressive talent, which was on the verge of hitting the B tier, but also because of the fact that he reminded him of his old master in his old world.

“So how is the reconstruction going?” Simon asked Jack between mouthfuls of food, enjoying himself greatly.

Jack heartily laughed as he took a swig of alcohol, before replying with a slightly flushed face. “I have to say, those arrays of yours make everything so easy! The anti-gravity array, the propulsion array, and oh, especially that mana-gathering array! Your creations are the best that I’ve ever laid my hands on! Man, I would have paid to know about your island earlier...”

Jack suddenly slapped his forehead as if realizing something. “Ah, excuse my ramblings, I got carried away. Anyways, the airship should be ready by tomorrow morning!”

Simon nodded and swallowed down one last piece of chicken before opening his mouth to reply. But before he could do so, a series of system notifications deluged his ears.

[Island leveled up to Lv. 5, island rose by 10,000 meters]

[Unlocked: Ruins]

[Unlocked: Shop Lv. 5]

[Unlocked: Leaderboards]

[Achievement Unlocked [The First] (II): First player to reach level 5. Rewarding 50x (Golden Tickets], and adding this achievement to the Hall of Glory. Would you like to publicize your name?]

Cough, cough!

Hearing this and seeing the changes in his vision, Simon almost choked on the chicken that he was swallowing down.

‘Another achievement? 50 Golden tickets?! Hahaha, I’m rich!’ he immediately thought upon realizing what had happened.

“Master, are you all right?”

“Sir, are you ok?”

Concerned voices snapped Simon out of his daze, and upon seeing the worried faces around him, he waved his hands casually, signifying that everything was fine.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. Everything is fine! It’s just that I’ll need that airship earlier than expected.” he said with a light grin.

Indeed, now that he had officially unlocked ruin, the instant that the airship was ready to be deployed was in fact, when it would be deployed.

“Congratulations, Mayor!”

“Hahaha! Took long enough!”

His crew was understandably excited when they heard of the good news. After all, they pinned all of their hopes and dreams onto the island. As a result, any growth that it received was naturally a good thing.

As such, choosing islands to enter was a very dangerous and important affair for refugees. The choice determined their livelihoods, after all.

If the island was too big, one would risk getting forced out due to the intense competition or even taken advantage of. On the other hand, if the island was too small, one would risk getting their entire island destroyed by pirates or other disasters, such as famine or plagues.

Thus, if one failed to entice refugees, then one would simply not receive any good residents at all. After all, who wanted to join an unattractive island? Only under dire circumstances would it be possible.

However, this was not an issue for Simon who was an experienced mage... It was only natural that almost every refugee who came over expressed their interests in joining upon seeing his proficiency in magic.

After all, having such a skilled mage safeguarding the island was definitely reassuring. Qualified mages were considerably rare in the lowest zone, after all.

It has to be known that these refugees came from a variety of places, but were typically the civilian residents of islands that were raided into oblivion.

This was because when islands fought in wars, the system mandated that the islands sent out their civilians in fleets of airships. On top of that, these fleets of civilians were immune from attacks due to the system’s influence.

Of course, this rule was set in place due to the fact that if all of the civilians died or were enslaved after every attack, then there would be no more people left for developing islands!

And so, these refugees were merely innocent civilians thrust into a world of warfare and greed. All that they were looking for was stability and peace.

Simon naturally had no qualms about taking most of them in, so long as they were hard working. With his agriculture skills, providing enough food was no problem, after all. He could certainly afford to do so.

…

After the meal, Simon went back out to oversee the creation of the new town buildings.

Currently, there were close to a dozen carpenters, masons, and builders assembling a few new buildings. Occasionally, Simon gave out pointers to them and helped resolve problems. But other than that he also helped process the raw materials into the needed products.

As these refugees were once workers on other islands, they had considerable experience and skill, so the progress being made was not bad.

They now had a wider variety of woods and stone to choose from, due to the respawnable resources upgrading in variety with every upgrade of the island. In this case, oak wood and limestone were still the most prevalent materials, but other resources such as slate, basalt, and birch were also incorporated into the builds.

It also has to be known that one could even customize the respawnable resources in certain regions of the island to create unique biomes with unique resources. Though, it required one to clear ruins in order to do so.

However, that was but one benefit of clearing ruins... Ruins also contained resources needed for his island core, runes, precious materials, and even artifacts of the old age that one could loot!

Therefore, he was understandably eager to go on his first ruin run. He was itching to finally get his hands dirty!