Congratulations. Thought seed [Alliance with Fort Skip] successfully implanted into the host [Greg Miller].

Daz heaved a breath of relief when this notification blocked his vision. He had used his only chance to implant a thought seed into the General via his Death Energy clone, and thankfully, deep down, an alliance was what the General wanted, or at least, what he knew would benefit him the most right now.

"Okay. Everything?" Noticing Daz's pleased expression, Madison gazed at him with a curious look in her eyes.

Daz smiled and walked up to her before giving her a light kiss. "Yeah. The mess with the military might be on the track to getting fixed now."

"Daz. Bad." A small blush crept onto Madison's face after being kissed by Daz. Madison was strange in the fact that she got exceedingly embarrassed when she and Daz shared any affection outside of their homes.

"Sorry, I got a bit excited. It's surprisingly exhilarating seeing your mistakes slowly getting fixed by your own attempts," Daz replied stoically.

The two then walked back to Fort Skip with more energy in their steps. By this point, Daz was walking with absolutely no difficulty and his new leg felt as natural as if he was born with it. He attributed this to the fact that he had a high Agility stat.

Daz and Madison were greeted by the statue-like Rimmy, in all of his sparkling splendour. "Hey, buddy," Daz happily said as he approached Rimmy who was sat on the road like the silent guardian of Fort Skip that he was, "Anything happen while we were gone?" Daz continued.

Rimmy slowly rose to his feet. He outstretched his arm and raised a big blue thumb in response to Daz's question.

"That's good. Thanks, Rimmy. I feel safer knowing that you're here keeping everyone protected when I'm busy," Daz smiled as he chatted with his friend.

Rimmy crossed his arms and lowered his head in such a way that it looked like he was pressuring Daz with his presence. Daz slapped Rimmy's chest playfully before lightly chuckling. "Don't worry. I didn't forget. No less than one-hundred thousand points are going towards making you stronger."

Madison was very interested in Daz's actions right now. Why was he acting like Rimmy was replying to his sentences? Even Madison, with her very deep understanding of Daz and Daz's mind, was unable to discern his reasoning for doing this. "Mr McShineston. Upset?" she asked cautiously.

Daz turned to look at his girlfriend and shook his head. "He's just feeling insecure, the big softie." Daz nudged Rimmy with his full strength, rocking the Golem's body a bit. In response, Rimmy pushed Daz with as little force as possible, resulting in Daz's body mimicking Rimmy's.

"Yeah, yeah! I know. As always, you're right. He claims to not be insecure, but just feels like he was useless in the last two attacks, which isn't correct. He was more useful than me at least," Daz said with a bitter smile before looking at his left arm and leg. He sighed and continued, "Rimmy says that he won't let me off the hook this time if I don't upgrade him a lot because he wants to keep up with me and Crusher. He wants to help Fort Skip."

"Cute." Madison was infatuated with Rimmy. Even if she couldn't see or understand why Daz was talking to him in an eerily normal manner, she still found the crystal giant's actions and movements to be very pleasant to look at.

"I knew you'd get it. Some people just don't understand what makes Rimmy so perfect," Daz sighed. "Oh well. I'll upgrade you soon, buddy," Daz said after having turned back towards Rimmy, "Just keep guard here and wait for me to finish upgrading the base and myself, then everything else is going on you, okay?"

Rimmy nodded his head and sat back down. Both Daz and Madison then made their way into Fort Skip and then his personal cabin and Daz sat down after making himself a coffee, courtesy of the base's shop for the low price of a single merit point for a jar of coffee beans.

Madison was sprawled out on one of Daz's sofas and she had her eyes closed. Clearly, she was very relaxed and anyone who'd look at her would unanimously say that she was adorable and very peaceful to gaze at. Daz was thankful that such a sight belonged to him, and only to him.

Daz carefully walked towards her with his coffee in-hand and he gently sat next to her head. In response, without opening her eyes, Madison scootched back and laid her head on Daz's lap. A smile crept onto her face before she nuzzled into him and got comfortable despite one of his thighs being made out of Death Energy.

Daz had an emotionless expression as usual, but his eyes seemed to be happy. He slowly lowered a hand onto Madison's head and stroked her soft golden hair lightly. Daz made sure to be careful of the long scar that ran along the beauty's scalp, hidden under her golden locks. He then took a sip of his coffee and opened the shop for the base.

'I got the mines for work which I'll be cracking down on and trying to get people to do, after all, Rimmy needs a food source. I got enough houses to compensate for all of my citizens and we can just build new ones by hand for Camp Waterford if we merge. The shop is all that we need right now for basic things and entertainment, so I guess now all I need to focus on is defensive and offensive tools and gizmos for the base, huh?' Daz summarized in thought.

He ran one of his hands through his hair and sighed. 'System, show me weapons and defences that I can afford and that would be suitable for my base.'

Confirmed. Displaying 1,005,642,896,243,232 possible items.

"Ah, fuck," Daz mumbled under his breath. 'I forgot about that. Man, I must have been pretty stressed today. I guess I'll be wasting the next thirty minutes narrowing my options down with filters. I should really make Lyle do this as usual. I wonder where he is?'

Daz looked down at his lap's sleeping occupant and a rare genuine smile made itself known on his face. 'I'm not really doing anything, so I guess it doesn't really matter. I've got thirty minutes to spare.'

Option after option, filter after filter, Daz finally managed to get the stupidly large list of potential upgrades down to a measly four.

To start with, before he chose any of the upgrades, Daz checked Fort Skip's base balance and the base's merit points gathered from the new tax.

Confirmed. The total balance of the base is 57,400. 50,000 points were awarded due to a [Small Base] having survived an attack and 100 points were awarded for each surviving citizen.

"So much?!" Daz exclaimed. Madison tossed about a bit due to the noise but otherwise, stayed asleep. Daz lightly stroked her hair once more and the metaphorical cogs in his head started to turn while he thought.

The first thing he purchased was, obviously, the very cheap and critical size upgrade. While it had no physical impact on the base, it increased the amount of land that Fort Skip could expand to in the eyes of the system.

Base Size Upgrade Little Base Size Upgrade Description Size does, in fact, matter, like it always has. The bigger a Lord's base, the better his social standing amongst his peers and his enemies, so bigger is ALWAYS better, even if a little base isn't anything to brag about. Upgrade Changes a [Small] base into a [Little] base, allowing for far more structures to be built and far more Citizens to be housed. Price 200,000(50,000) Merit Points 10,000 Base Points

'Is it just me, or are the descriptions getting less 'sales-pitchy' and more insulting towards me? Who writes these base upgrade descriptions?' Daz frowned.

He shook his head and moved on after confirming the purchase. The other three upgrades he planned to purchase were simple but expensive.

The first was a magical tower that could automatically target system monsters, and, perhaps more importantly to Daz, hostile Humans. It had the ability to summon lightning in exchange for power and it would passively generate that power up to a numerical limit of one-hundred. Each lightning bolt cost a single point and they could all be used at once, or over a longer course of time if desired.

Daz carefully stood up and made sure not to wake up Madison before he left his cabin and made his way towards where his new defensive mechanism was going to go. He wanted to immediately test out his new toy.