“T-this kid! Does he plan to ruin his entire gaming experience saying that!?” Wilson said as he sees the video of the first God Recognition. To his shock he insulted the game gods, which happen to be AI of the company.

“Do you think he will survive?” Edna asked.

“I don’t know, he is a very strange fellow, he asked about money at such a strange time. Did you check his background?” he asked.

“Yes, he is the orphan of two super humans. He was 10 when he was orphaned and couldn’t continue his education and had to survive from an early age because he didn’t have any known relatives. He stayed in several orphanage but due to the super human metabolism they couldn’t keep up and eventually he forced himself to eat less while starting to play VR games to earn his own money. He sustained his own food needs until he was 18 and the last two years he has been debt riddled trying to pay off house bills with low income.” She said.

“His history would suggest a person with great ambition but his personal choices is that of a passive person.” Wilson said.

“Indeed, i searched his gaming record, it seems he favors situations of kingdom building because he can use the town to generate money which he lives off. His poor education limits him and no one has taken to teach him.” she said.

“I see… well he is just another player, i can’t wait to see his path, if he will succeed or fall. Anyways, since he choose a sleeping god, have those eggheads started preparing the correction programs?” he asked.

“Yes, this was completed when the game went online actually. The several hundred damaged minor AI from the several ruins in old war zones of the WW4 we found have been hooked up. The god system is quite an ingenious system the head came up with to repair the AI.” She said.

“Sadly those brats of ours don’t like competition.” He said rubbing his head.

“Well, it takes only 1 to start a chain reaction.” She said.

He raised his brow and looked at Akor and shook his head, “That is true but i don’t think the demons would allow him to grow. There is a higher chance for animal kingdoms, monster kingdoms or sentient nations to provide this and with them only as minor gods instead of their major god.” he said.

“That is true.” Edna nodded agreeing.

“So how are the ratings for the first week?” he asked.

Edna pulled up several statistic graphs. “These are the lord popularity, this is the game’s popularity and this graph shows the number of players over the last 7 days.” she said.

“Seems the lord’s show was the right choice.” Wilson said.

“Yes but quite a number of them are trying to obtain the lord class in game.” She said.

“Hmm…” Wilson fell silent before nodding, “Let them, just limit the demons. Demon lords are born, any demon player who gets a lord class will be a dark lord and won’t be able to place the Demon heart to get the racial buff.” he said. “As for the others, i don’t mind because it is a process of expansion so ingame class change is no problem.” he said.

“Alright.” Edna said.

The screens closed and they moved on to their own work ignoring the ‘ambitious’ Demon lord who ruined his own game play.

***

Akor was watching the imps move wood towards the Lord’s house and dumping it on top. After gathering excess wood, he decided to upgrade the last upgrade of the lord’s house and all the upgrades for the demon huts.

Currently, the dirt mound over the lord’s house was slowly shrinking while wooden pillars rose up. When the pillars rose, the dirt finished spreading while the entrance to the basement changed from under the door to a space under the new frame.

Wooden walls quickly start to form with glassless windows and a straw roof. The house was large but extremely simple, which wasn’t really a problem.

The flooring was covered in straw like the lower floor but it was more ‘homey’ now.

When it finished he got a prompt.

You have completed all upgrades lord house upgrades.

You can now upgrade the Lord’s House to level 2 and level up your village to level 2

“Great, i can level up the village now!” He said happily and did just that.

Level up requirements

All Lord’s House upgrade 5 Demon Hut, Fully upgraded 50 residents

All requirements completed

Akor was surprised to see there are requirements.

Before he could ask, a bright light came from the Lord’s House and shot into the sky. The Lord’s house became a bit bigger with the level up but not much else changed besides the size.

By leveling up your capital, Demon heart has reached level 2

When everything quiet down he turned to Valring. “There are requirements to level up?” he asked

“Ah yes but i didn’t mention it since we completed them all.” She said.

“I see. How do i check them?” he asked.

“Just press to level up the Lord’s house to see the requirements.” She said.

He did that to check the next level up.

Level up requirements

All Lord’s House upgrade All Demon Hearts placed At least 2/4 demon hearts level 2 Level 2 Village Wall Completely built and upgraded Constructed Barrack Level 1

The requirements made him freeze and frown.

Valring saw this and smiled, “A Demon Heart needs power to grow, it isn’t strange that it requires more placed demon hearts. It stimulates Demon Lord’s to grow.” She said.

“I see.” He said nodding.

“We should build the wall first.” He said.

“Of course, my Lord.” He said and opened the research. “Where is the architecture skill?” he asked.

“It’s under the Architect class in support.” Valring said.

He opened the support section and tabbed to search and soon found it.

Demon Management

Demon Towns

Town Management

Research:

Support

Architect

Unlock

Tier 1 Research

Math Skill, Writing Skill, Paper making

He presses to unlock and places Valring to go research it.

After sending off Valring, he turned to the rest of the village. Different from the village walls that need architect, the demon hut, demon nest and wild fruit field did not have such high requirements.

Demon Management

Demon Towns

Town Management

Research:

Buildings

Wild Fruit Farm

Upgrade

Tier 1 Research

Requires all relevant upgrades

Demon House (Imp)

Upgrade

Tier 1 Research

Requires all relevant upgrades

Demon Nest (Imp)

Upgrade

Tier 1 Research

Requires all relevant upgrades

He instantly upgraded them all and all the building released a bright light and began to grow.

The huts increased in size a bit, the nests formed a second ‘room’ and the fields doubled in size.

The effect was quite good, the fields now produce 2 units of food each, double this because of the farmers buff. The nests now have a 1.5 birth rate every 12 hours so 3 per day for every 5 members.

For the demon hut, they now hold 12 members each with the small increase of size.

This was a good improvement because now there were a few more residents and much more food. What is more, he opened his Town management to see the specific buildings and smiled.

Demon Management

Demon Towns

Town Management

Stone

174 Unit

Wood

125 Units

Number of Buildings

Lord’s home

Level 1

Wood 50 units

Upgrade

1

Village wall

Level 1

Wood 20 units

Build/Upgrade

1/1

Demon Hut (imp)

Level 2

Wood 70 units

Build/upgrade

5/10

Demon Nest (Imp)

Level 2

Wood 100 units

Build/Upgrade

2/3

Wild Fruit Field

Level 2

Wood 15 units

Build/Upgrade

5/10

<<

↓

>>

Demon Towns

Town Management

Stone

174 Unit

Wood

125 Units

Number of Buildings

Succubus House

Level 1

Stone 50 units

Wood 120 units

Build/Upgrade

1/1

Animal Ranch

Level 1

Wood 90 units

Build/Upgrade

1/5

Forester hut

Level 1

Wood 60 units

Build/Upgrade

1/7

Farmer’s hut

Level 1

Wood 75 units

Build/Upgrade

1/2

<<

↓

>>

The increase in buildings was great news for him.

He opened his town map to build and that was when he saw a new button common to strategy city builders. It was a button to move buildings. He pressed it and a tutorial appeared.

Tutorial Guide

The move tool is a special tool that only the lord class can access. It allows you to move a building without having to destroy it.

This made him happy and he looked at the village which was compressed into a small space. Since the new wall was most likely to be wider, he moved the less important buildings like the houses out of the walls and rearranged the fields to the east side closer to the water.

He then put the construction of five new fields. Because of the level up, the houses were built directly in level 2.

That said, the cost of the house was equal to the construction and all the level 1 upgrades. Still it was better than having to do one upgrade at a time. The five fields with sturdy fences and tilled fields were all made raising the number of fields to 10 and the production to 40 units per day.

This was actually an impressive amount for a small village considering that upgrades will come as well, it will radically improve making him very happy and decided that he would upgrade the forester hut first to increase the number of forester imps and increase the amount of wood they get per day.

“I guess now all that is the few battles which will need to be done.” Akor muttered as he sensed the nearby tugs on his horns.

He thought a while and decided that he will first build the new village walls and then will lead the imps to take the mana spring.

Nodding, he went to train his writing which had leveled up to level 3 already because of his diligent daily practice.

***

While Akor was busy, something he didn’t expect was happening.

After a week, the Lord’s show officially began.

“Welcome to the new and daily show of the Second Life Channel, the Lord’s reality show, with your host, Ronald Tristan.” The opening narrator announced.

Clapping could be heard from the virtual audience who paid to have a sea. Of course like most shows, they are done in virtual reality to cut many costs such as set construction which can be easily built by the AI.

“Greetings and welcome, I’m Ronald Tristan. Welcome, I’m happy to host this new and inspiring show for all you as we’ll dive into the mysterious of what makes a Nation in the Latest released [Magic Life]. Just so you know, we will not be limiting ourselves to just the lords and will also show the fantastic players in the game, after all, this isn’t a full strategy game but an MMO.” He said as he walked to the stage and sitting there was Edna.

“For our first show we have our beautiful and always competent, Edna Winston, Vice CEO of Second Life INC here to show us what to expect as well as introduce a very fun segment of our show.” Ronald said. “So, Mrs. Winston, i have been curious ever since i heard this, though i only heard a few bits. Care to explain to us all?” He asked.

“Of course, well first off, this show is to show the game and its events. This can be from submitted quests done by players, boss battles, events and more. Beyond this, we are also here to show the many unique ways a nation can be made under various obstacles such as powerful existing lords and kings blocking the way. As you all know, each player in the lord gameplay makes major choices which influence their citizens more and more. These specific choices can been seen on the ten studio sites here.” She said and raised her hand and a screen with the ten studios and their website addresses. “At the current moment these are the ones managing the contracted players but because we did not block the lord class in game there are sure to be more lords who will appear later on.”

“From what i heard, you let all available gameplay races get 100 lord class players right?” He asked.

“Yes, at least for those who wanted to choose to have their class given at the character making state yes.” Edna said.

“So with these choices made, exactly what is so special about these choices?” He asked.

“It is a special feature of the game. Choices in life can always be life changing so we took that to the extreme. These changes can cause so many changes that it is possible that, in the case of monsters and animals, that it alters their evolutionary path.” She explained.

“What about demons? I remember there were a huge number of them like monster races.” Ronald asked.

“Demons don’t evolve, this is the biggest change compared to games who regarded the demon race as monsters.” She said.

“Wait, so demons don’t evolve but there are so many variety.” He said

“The Demon Race originally had a single race which are the Imps. These are the original demons, over time these original imps mated with countless different races. Because their DNA is so flexible, like dragons are normally portrayed, over time the imps bred countless different demon races but never did they evolve through the evolution system of the monsters but were bred into new races.” She explained.

“I see, so do they have some kind of different system?” Ronald asked.

“Anything that isn’t animal or monsters, in this case, the so called sentient races and demon race, all have what is called a ‘maturing’ period.” She replied.

“Care to explain?” he asked.

“Of course, in [Magic Life], maturing means that the genetic code of a race stabilizes. In the case of the demon race, a very distinct feature is shown between a Tier 1, or basic imp, and a tier 2 a Great Imp. That feature is that all Tier 2 and above creatures ‘grow’ with age. By that i mean just like how humans age and gain status points they would also get this benefit. For a more clear idea, humans are a Tier 2 race while in rare cases one individual can reach Tier 3, the so called noble bloodlines would come from this source.” She said.

“I see, i was told you were going to introduce a section of this show.” Ronald said.

“Yes.” she smiled and snapped her finger.

Behind her, several large boards appeared. At the top was actually rankings. ‘Lord Ranking’, ‘Lord most likely to fail’, ‘Player ranking’, ‘Most powerful Lord nation’...

These several rankings were filled in already. The most eye catching was the ‘Lord most likely to fail’.

“Wow, there are some interesting rankings there.” he said.

“Of course, because of the number of lords, we had to up the difficulty that lord players would face and as i said before, choices have major effects and well… some choices made early on have put quite a few players at an extreme disadvantage.” she said.

The names on the list were revealed all in quite bold text.

Ranking: Lords Most likely to fail

Ranking

Player

1

Akor (Demon)

2

Salgan (Wolf)

3

Xith (Dwarf)

4

Ulra (Demon)

5

Azan (Dragon)

“Looking at this list, i am actually curious about what these players did to get placed on this list? There is even a Dragon Lord on it!” He said.

“It was their choices, the first one pertains to an event we put for all the lords which allowed them to get either an advisor or general for their people but at the same time, warriors of a powerful existing lord, king or overlord beast would come. Inside the tutorial zone any entering creature would have to reset their levels so the players have a fighting chance. They would choose either to gain unique minions or followers from the more powerful faction but in return they lose the advisor or general.” She said.

“The other option would be protecting them right?” he asked.

“Yes, this makes the faction the enemy of the player and would regularly send minions to hunt the player. If killed they will give experience which would eventually level the player to level 5 breaking the tutorial mode.” She said.

“That is a rather cruel method.” He said.

“It is life.” She replied making some people sigh and shake their head at the true fact.

“Has there been any other choices?” Ronald asked.

“Yes, the #1 has done this earlier, recognition of a god. In the game, Gods play an integral part of the game by giving special blessings but there are three types. Active gods, or gods who actively promote their religion. Sleeping gods, or gods who were gravely injured at one time in game. Lastly are Sealed gods, gods who are so powerful that the other gods had to seal it. Amongst these, sealed gods are the most powerful and unique but if you choose to give faith to them you will be hunted by everyone in the world. As for sleeping gods, the weakest, they are much less likely to give a large reaction depending on the race.” She said

“So this Akor made a bad choice?” Ronald asked.

“Yes and no. Sadly for the demon race, the demon gods do not like them because the active demon gods are all of the evil faction. You see, the term Demon god, is literal very much like human god and elf god.” Edna said.

“Ah! So you mean to say that Demon gods aren’t all evil and are more like racial gods instead.” He said.

“Yes, because he discovered this fact, he choose a sleeping god making the demon gods choose to hunt him down so that the good faction does not awaken.” She replied.

“Wow, what a troublesome choice? Did he never think of choosing an active first and then a sleeping?” he asked.

“No because gods have ‘desires’ and most of them are evil desires which he did not like. What is more is that he further insulted the gods without thinking making them angry. So his ranking…” she said shrugging.

“What an unlucky fellow.” He said.

“It is the consequences of one’s actions.” Edna said.

“Alright, shall we go to our next segment, the rankings will be on our website for everyone to follow.” Ronald said before standing and going to the next segment of the show.