Chapter: Phase One complete

Rugrat woke up early in the morning, he checked on Erik who was still sleeping before heading to the barracks.

He walked through the town, seeing a boy running around the town, he had seen the boy sitting in a corner last night while everyone else was celebrating.

He had been the one without any fingers and bad damage to his body from a life of labor, now he looked like a healthy young man filled with determination.

Rugrat diverted from his path to the barracks.

"Wait up!" Rugrat called out.

The boy didn't seem to pay attention as Rugrat grumbled and had to jog to meet up with him.

"Heya!" He said as he ran next to the boy, shocking him and almost sending him sprawling.

"S-sorry, mister Rugrat!" Storbon said, all jittery and scared, not knowing what to do.

"No worries," Rugrat smiled. "What's your name?"

"Storbon, sir," Storbon said, looking slightly panicked.

"At ease, I'm not here to yell at you," Rugrat laughed.

"I heard you with the guards last night," Storbon said, then looked embarrassed at what he'd said.

Rugrat's lips pinched together.

"That was a different matter, there was a possible problem inside the town and they couldn't get themselves organized or ready, if we're going to make it through this coming battle we need people that can get themselves sorted out and organized quickly. If I intend to train a group of soldiers, doesn't matter if their a militia or god's given marines, I'll damn well make sure that they're worthy of the uniform they wear," Rugrat growled.

The atmosphere was tense as Rugrat cleared his throat.

"So, why are you running around?"

"Mister West said that he wanted to see me on the wall beside him, but I'm not that strong so I wanted to get stronger," Storbon said.

He ain't even lying. Rugrat looked away, sinking into thought.

"What group are you a part of right now?" Rugrat asked.

"I'm with the group that are chopping down wood," Storbon said.

"You trained with a crossbow yet?" Rugrat asked.

"No, sir," Storbon said, he looked a bit awkward.

"What is it?"

"I don't mean no disrespect, but I'm not that good with anything ranged, but I'm good with things in close," Storbon said.

Rugrat frowned and then his face seemed to darken.

"I'm sorry, mister Rugrat!" Storbon said, panicking.

"It's not your fault boy, actually I should commend you, I never thought about the fact that the fighting might not just be long range. Dammit Rugrat, you idiot," Rugrat hit his head.

Storbon looked confused.

"Alright, so ideally we're going to engage the beast horde at range and there'll be nothing to reach the wall, all good, safe and sound, the fact is that ain't going to happen, there will be breaks in the line and the beasts will get to the line. We're going to need people with close range weapons to finish off the beasts that make it to the walls or over it. So, Storbon, you ever used a spear before?"

***

Erik woke up as light was coming in his new room's window.

He felt energized, his whole body filled with energy as he got up.

His interface was flashing with a message symbol.

When he had put on his sound talisman the message icon had appeared, linking his interface and the talisman.

"Ran into Storbon this morning, put me on to something, so far we're only training people with crossbows, we're going to need people that can fight in close. Going to start training other groups of people with spears for close range fighting. My plan is to train everyone with crossbows first, so that they're able to weaken the beasts at range. I'm going to get the guards to pick out people that might be better suited for using spears. I'll teach some of the guards and then they can teach the recruits. I'm off, out to scout around with my new batch of guards, I'm taking Storbon as well, looks like with him and Roska we've got the start of a good quick reaction force if we can level and train them properly."

The recorded message ended and Erik recorded his own message to Blaze.

"I'll be out in the fields, organize the farmers to start harvesting as soon as possible," Erik quickly set out and headed for the fields, the faster they harvested the fields the sooner he could start training them and using them for other tasks to improve Alva’s defenses.

A few people were waking up with the sun as Erik walked out of the gate, he looked over the guards, they looked like they hadn't had much sleep but he could see changes in the way that they held themselves, no longer slouching and keeping an eye on the surrounding area.

He made it out into the surrounding fields and cast plant cultivation again. He didn't have Blaze there talking to him about the fields and the plants, instead he had his memories and the information he had remembered.

The area of effect for his plant cultivation spell was larger than before and his pace was faster with the additional five attribute increase to his mana regeneration and his mana pool’s increase of twenty.

All around him the field continued to grow and ripen, he messed up a few times as the plants weren't ripe enough or they were starting to falter because they'd grown too much.

After some adjustments he found his pace again and moved forward.

For three days Erik worked in the fields to make the crops ripen, at night he would heal people if they needed it. Erik would assist Rugrat in training the guards as needed.

Rugrat would train the guards in the morning before he took out a group to the forest to hunt boar, then he would take another group in the afternoon, returning at night to train the guards once again.

The groups were rotated from training, to hunting, to working in the fields and chopping down wood.

Other set groups that weren't able to do physical labor or were better suited for crafting, worked to create crossbows and defensive instruments, such as spikes, and hedgehogs, basically crossed wood that had been sharpened into spikes. There were also others who looked to the food of the town, all of the food was divided equally, each person having meat and grains to fuel their activities, most of them probably hadn't eaten this well in a long time.

Rewards in the shape of salted meat were handed out to people for doing well in their training.

Erik stopped in mid afternoon as he looked over the latest crops behind him.

In three days he had walked through all of the farmland around Alva, all of the plants were ready to harvest.

The farmers were working quickly together to harvest it all and send it to the granary.

Seeing that he had time, Erik checked on his land owner interface.

==========

Resources

==========

Food: 2,371 Units

Stone: 50 Units

Wood: 230 Units

Gold: 8.389

==========

With the harvest their food levels had shot up, adding in the meat from the boars they had plenty of food ready.

They had been harvesting wood since they started, as people increased in strength then they were able to cut down and carry more trees per day, stocks of wood were laid down outside the crafting workshops.

Rugrat had gone through and broken down the crafting into processes so assembly had increased in speed.

With the boars, they not only produced meat but monster cores that Rugrat sold at the store.

A few of the items on auction had been bought out already but Erik was hopeful that more might be bought in the coming weeks.

Erik went to an area that had been marked off with stakes, this would be where the first defensive line would be located with spaced out pitfalls and traps with meat to entice the predators.

Erik took a stance and angled his right arm up as he directed mana through his body, compressing and building it up.

He accelerated it right out of the mana gate in his hand, a bolt of blue mana raged before it hit the ground, it touched the ground, exploding.

Erik ducked down as dirt rained over him. He looked over where the mana bolt had landed. He looked at the crater and then back to his hand.

Slowly he looked around to make sure no one else had seen his 'display'.

"I'm a human grenade launcher, right," Erik put down his hand and started walking to the crater.

It was three feet wide and two deep.

After fifteen minutes a group of guards moved to Erik with some of their trainees armed with crossbows.

Erik nodded as he watched them approaching.

They slowed down as the guard Niemm moved forward.

"Mister West we heard a noise," he said, looking to the pit next to West.

"Good reaction! Smart bringing some of the trainees to bolster your numbers. There is no need to worry, I was just testing something out," Erik assured them.

"Yes, mister West," Niemm said.

"You can get back to training I'm going to do some more testing," Erik said, moving off.

He pulled more power and circulated it before shooting it out. Its trajectory wasn't straight and it arced, like a grenade launcher as well.

The people watched as Erik blew another hole in the ground before examining it.

Niemm led his people back to the town to continue training.

Erik headed back after some more testing and moved over to where the crafters were working, Taran was working day and night to build more crossbow mechanisms, he had improved his failure rate and could make twelve a day now. The woodworkers and assembly teams had increased their production accordingly.

There was a total of seventeen groups, but only thirteen of these groups would see combat, requiring nearly one hundred and forty crossbows.

They had fifty crossbows in use already, and it would take eight days to make the remaining crossbows. just two days short of when their quest said the beast horde would arrive.

Erik looked in, watching Taran at work, he didn't interrupt and left silently.

Rugrat has the theoretical knowledge, if I take over the afternoon group heading out into the woods then he could focus on smithing, maybe working with Taran, get the basics down, share knowledge they'd be able to increase the speed they work at. Might even have one of them making crossbows and one making spearheads.

Ever since Storbon had brought it up, Erik and Rugrat realized their oversight. Storbon was growing quickly under Rugrat's tutelage, Roska applied herself to every job she had, looking to show off her ability.

Time that I adjusted my plans slightly.

Erik headed to the store, he found Elise there, salting meat and readying it for long term storage. While they had storage rings that could keep the meat fresh, they would still need to have a fire to cook it up properly, this wasn't ideal for the hunters if they went out for long periods of time, or if they needed food during the siege.

Erik wanted to be prepared for any occasion.

Meal packs were being organized so that at least everyone would have a few meals on them at all times.

"How can I help you today?" Elise asked as she worked with the meat and salt.

Erik was about to let her get back to work when he realized he hadn't asked a very important question.

"What is the store, not like this physical place, but the interface and everything?" Erik asked, he had been rushing about that he didn't think of it.

"The store is something that only the leaders of a dungeon or a base can use, or they can give authority to people inside their city," She said simply.

"Dungeon or base leaders?" Erik asked.

"You are the acting base leader of this Alva town, there are also people that control dungeons," Elise shrugged.

"They sell things between one another?" Erik asked.

"Yes, the auction isn't as good as if they were to sell to one another directly. Though it cuts down on the time that it takes to transfer things, across realms or between realms albeit at a higher price," Elise said.

"So, I can buy things from the tenth realm in the first realm," Erik said.

"Yes, if you have the money to do so," Elise nodded.

It's a way for the leaders of these bases to sell of items that they don't need to gain riches, also they can use it to buy items that they desire. Some regions might have an abundance of one resource but lacking in another, even across realms. Though there aren't that many things for sale, there's hundreds of thousands, but not millions or billions. Either the ten realms is smaller than I think, or most base leaders and dungeon bosses don't give access to their people. This makes sense, if they gave access then it could cause chaos in their own city if there's a resource that they want to focus on gaining. It also gives the leaders more options to make money. Say, there's an influx of items in their residence, then they can sell those items on the auction for a large profit.

He didn't waste anymore time talking and went up to the auction platform.

First he bought thirty simple shovels. Then he directly placed a bid for healing powder that was ending soon.

He watched as the timer went down, having to increase his bid as someone beat him out.

Finally he won at a bid of one silver and thirty two copper per batch of powder, for a total of two hundred units deducting five gold, eighty silvers and eighty coppers including the transaction fee charged by the auction platform.

They appeared in Erik's storage ring directly as he winced, It had taken out over half of his accumulated gold.

Gold is gold, we can get it back, but lives can't be replaced. Erik thought to himself.

He looked over different sets of gear that were up for auction. He found a simple cuirass for sale.

==========

Basic Leather Cuirass

==========

Defense: 24

Weight: 5.3 kg

Health: 97/97

Base Value: 1 silver 23 coppers

Slot: Takes up Chest slot

Innate Ability: Red Haze, Upon killing 2 enemies within a 20s window, one's strength will increase 1% and last for 30s If user kills 1 more within 10s then strength will increase by 2%, effect can be stacked up to 15%, will last 45s (will be renewed upon killing again)

==========

It looked useful as hell and just what Erik needed but the bids were actually around eighty coppers and there was still a day to go.

Erik took down the details and looked to Elise.

"Does something seem to be wrong with this armor?" He asked Elise, showing her the information he copied down.

"It looks like Apprentice level armor to me, that innate ability, Red Haze, I'm not sure what that's about, sometimes innate abilities will be good, but they can have negative effects as well. I can get more information but that will cost three silver," she suggested.

Sometimes there were hidden effects with armor, the armor looked really good, but Erik had bought enough things online that it was best to know everything about the item he was buying instead of getting it on impulse.

The armor was in bundles of ten, if he could secure this armor then it might be possible to armor ten of the town's people.

He handed over the three silver, she used it to get a message scroll, using it with her sound talisman she sent off the question.

Erik still had money left, but he didn't want to waste it.

"It might be some time till I get a response, as soon as I do then I'll let you know," Elise promised.

"Thanks," Erik said with a smile and headed out of the store. Since he didn't have anything better to do, Erik used a shovel and stakes to outline the defensive lines. Now the farmland had been cleared he had a clear view from the city walls to the forest. It was time to move into the second phase of work. Focusing on their defenses and their forces.