After the fields in the entire territory were set to upgrade all the gained upgrades before the grade three upgrade, Akor began to turn his attention to the other gained upgrades. The Demon hut, demon nest and animal ranch all gained upgrade potential. Akor selected all the demon huts and commanded that they get the upgrade.

Sadly they still didn’t upgrade except the two that Everrath and Morrath lived. They upgraded directly into tier two and had all the upgrades for the first upgrade. Both their demon huts became Demon houses and they became the house leader of each house. Only when more Tier 2 demons appear can the other demon hunts be expanded.

The nest is a totally different story though. They all upgraded directly to tier 2 and could now house tier 2 demon eggs. It should be noted that the demon nest building system doesn’t change just because the breed of demon changes. All the demon nests are the same system meaning, imp, Minogida and kobold all had upgrades in this building.

Of course, so much upgrade will cause a huge use of resource but Akor wasn’t planning to do things at once. He was setting up everything that can be leveled up to do so, the remaining upgrades still needed materials to be added but as soon as it was gathered he would implement it.

Next he leveled up all the animal ranches, the upgrade include improved fencing, larger pastures and pasture cultivation, that is, the pastures will be reared as if it was a crop’s field. The size was an immediate improvement while the fencing and cultivation was something done manually.

With all the upgrades dealt with, Akor ordered a class guild for all the classes, the research unlocked, to be built and used the system to move the buildings near each other to form a kind of class plaza. Only the clergyman and priest were at the temple.

Lastly, Akor commissioned all the upgrades for his house. The current upgrades for the lord’s house is as followed.

Town Management

Lord’s House

Book room

Requirements:

Wood 200 units

Upgrade

Wood Flooring

Requirements:

Wood 100 units

Upgrade

Basement Floor: Stone floor

Requirement:

Stone 150 units

Upgrade

Research room

Requirement:

Wood 100 units

Stone 150 units

Upgrade

Treasury Room

Requirements

Stone 250 units

Upgrade

The final two were particularly important because the research room would allow two research topics to be done at once, that or one research and one research scroll merging since battles seem to happen quite often.

Akor put them all to upgrade and finally pulled up the window with all current construction projects. He organized the screen by each village or town. In Sanity, he placed his home as top priority followed by the fields, animal ranch and nests as second rank. He also placed the chapel and class guilds in this section.

In all the villages he placed the upgrade of the fields as top priority and the rest as second while the three main towns were to upgrade the mayor’s house and village walls as top priority and the rest as second.

For territory priority, this means taking the entire territory into consideration, road construction was placed as 1st priority which was labeled as ‘build trade routes’. This was building purely packed dirt routes but is proper dug out roads dug out and properly packed to allow organized traffic to pass through areas.

Of course this wasn’t anywhere near easy to do. The result of this road building job rose tons of different requirements such as carpenters and such to build bridges over rivers and miners to dig into the rocks and clear the path. Most of all, there were a huge number of red points that signaled dangerous monsters in these key points that would affect the development of the project.

Akor didn’t think twice to make the very sensible choice and selected all monster points and placed them up as a mission for players and roaming demons. He didn’t have an army that could be constantly on the move, he still needed to build that up.

After this he finished the construction options, he started on military. This once more brought up wages and the current territory balance.

With no one to consult at the moment he just scratched his chin. The weapons shop, tailor and smithy brought in a lot of money, not to mention the mint smithy that pounded out coin every hour.

Now with the religion and with the religion with the god of prosperity who was one of the primary gods of their territory, coin had begun to appear from monsters. Just like Pyarus at the beginning, Akor only got a minor blessing from all the other gods and each of their god quests besides Dyone, Goddess Of Earth, who was an active goddess. Only if he contributed greatly does the blessing improve. Adaldir’s blessing is the following.

Minor Blessing of the God of Prosperity

You and your people are blessed by Adaldir.

Monsters and animals now have a chance to drop some coin.

+0.5% improvement in the vitality of your territory making fields yield more.

It is a very small change but the appearance of coin from monsters is a major gain to say the least. It means it would need less copper to be minted while more of it can go into the military. The land improvement isn’t even needed to say the least, though it is still good since it stacks with the blessing of the harvest god and earth goddess. Still they are all minor blessings so Akor didn’t care about it for the time being.

He tapped on the balance and saw the gains all the things would earn him.

“So i get about 1000 copper daily from the smith and the shops i specifically own. This isn’t a lot, i don’t get taxes but from what i can see, a basic economy is already formed.” he thought while looking over the window.

He tapped on the total money circulating, which was just a basic calculating. It also calculated the average of money among all citizens, that is minions and subordinates, in the territory.

“Seriously! In an average of 4,500 people that is spread all around there is only about 70 copper coin for each?!” Akor said shocked.

Of course this was just an average, this showed how poor his territory was. He began to try to make mental calculations on some produce but then froze and looked at the player population. “What is the average money players have?” he asked.

A new calculation was done only for players.

Territory has around 950 players and their average money is around 200 copper coins.

He suddenly frowned, “Are players richer then the NPC?” he muttered and looked outside and instantly nodded. It made total sense because players hunted so they are the ones who collect the most money. “There is no way around it, i need to impose taxes to get money from players at a higher fixed rate.” he said. That said he wasn’t stupid to the point to give npc lower tax compared to players since it would simply push them away.

“Let’s put taxes on all produce at 5%, it isn’t too much or too little. With the little economy i have now, this will get me money and in turn i can stimulate the economy in the territory.” he said.

Territory announcement

Demon Lord Akor has decree that tax prices increase to 5% on all produce’s sale price. Tax will be counted in each price and it will be discounted with each purchase directly to the lord of the territory.

It didn’t take more than a minute to read that all the players began to complain about taxes. There were some people who weren’t as stupid among the players. Some of them have already formed groups and their leaders weren’t stupid. The calmed down their own groups so that they wouldn’t be banned from the city at such an early stage. It was only 5% of taxes only, much better compared to some people who impose 10 or even 20%.

In Akor’s throne room, the final calculation of taxes coming from the entire territory was soon announced.

The predicted tax income per month per individual is 1,500 copper coins

“So 15 silver for one person in a month. If the current population is at around 5,000, this is 7,500,000 copper, or 750 gold coins a month. In early game, this is a considerable sum and would completely fund the expansion of the territory army, not just city guards.

“I can finally separate city guard and army, having both would be a major plus as long as a strong leader was born or developed.” Akor muttered.

He smiled as he saw that the balance had gone high into the green opening up a large range of possibility to recruit for the army to improve the defensive abilities he had. Akor knew he was experiencing the calm before the storm right now. It was now that he had to quickly expand his army.

“Alright, with the tax money i can rapidly expand the military aspects now.” he said and smiled faintly.

Demon Lord Akor has officially separated city guard and the territory army. Guards will protect only the major settlements while the army will protect the territory from invading forces.

Both forces are now recruiting.

The message was sent out but only among npc, Akor didn’t trust players in the army, he wasn’t some rich family member where they had specialists just for these jobs. Such a position had to be cultivated and friends had to be obtained but he had none of that and he was distant from players.

Next he set up the basics of the army structure following modern structure and terms.

Army Formation

Name

Alternative name

Number per unit

Commander rank

Squad

Section (Cavalry)

4-10 Soldiers

Sargent

Platoon

16-40 Soldiers in 2 or more Squads

Lieutenant

Company

Troop (Cavalry), Battery (Artillery)

100-200 Soldiers in 3-5 Platoons

Captain

Battalion

Squadron (Cavalry)

4-6 Companies

Lt. Colonel

Brigade

Group (Logistics or Special Forces)

2-5 Battalions

Colonel

Final calculation for the formation of a Brigade.

Minimum: 800 individuals

Maximum: 6,000 individuals

Akor was happy with this and pressed the ‘submit’ button for the structure.

DING!

Your intelligent and well structured military arrangement for your territory army has adhered to the principals of the Goddess of Wisdom and the God of Battle. Because of this basic formation has produced faith towards the two gods.

“Eh?!” he muttered before holding his chin while looking at the message. “So there is another method to producing faith depending on the god. Because i used modern structuring, it made the sleeping gods gain faith.” he thought.

He was in deep thought before shaking his head “For now i will make the smallest minimum for them following this. Four per squad with four squads in a platoon, three platoon in a company, four to a battalion and two for a brigade.” Akor said and nodded.

With this distribution it would work best after they were all armored and sent to hunt in small parties. They will form coordination between small numbers and the strongest and smartest in command will be promoted as the platoon lieutenant and so on.

With all his plans done, Akor stands up to go outside.

Ding!

Event Announcement

All Lord players have upgraded to the rank of town and have total control of their territory with a stable armed forces.

Beware all, war has come to the land. Throughout all the lands, lords of all races have sprung up and have begun establishing their territories and their ambition grows to expand. The land will soon be covered in war and strife, lords and players have to work together to survive and possibly expand. The war for the thrones has begun and will cover the land in flames and blood.

Territory Quest:

The War of Kings

As a Lord, you command a territory with many people under your command. With the coming of war, unbalance in all territory borders have loosened and have become blurred allowing for you to expand your power beyond your small corner of the world.

Objective:

At least expand territory land by 2 times its current size.

Place all Demon hearts 4/8

Reward:

Territory proportion to what you can conqueror, ???

Failure:

Territory destruction

Akor’s eyes narrowed upon seeing the sudden event and knew that the storm had arrived. He stopped in his tracks and returned to the throne and first upgraded the barracks and blacksmith to be able to increase the output of items and increase the number of furnace and anvils available maxing it out under Tier 2.

Finally he issued an order of recruitment which would cause all idle nonworking subordinates and minions to join the army at once. He also commissioned the production of armor and weapons in full scale from Prosperity where the mine was. All coin production was stopped to not waste copper and it was changed to full armor production.

Akor also sent out commissions to players for bone weapons, purchasing it from them for the army expansion. Although it would make financial burden when he barely had much money, it was all to be paid for through the taxes that would come. As long as he survived, he would have greatly expanded and would no longer have to worry about money if he could discover more copper veins to produce coin or raid the treasury of other lords.

As such, the economy development mentality was suddenly pushed aside when push came to shove and after the constant build up, he was going to finally put the motors of his territory into action to show his worth as a lord.

***

“The latest event of [Magic Life] has caused a huge stir among all the players from the solar system no matter what server. Second Life INC made sure to wait for every last lord to gain full control of their territory to do this event as a ‘response’ to the rise in lord players. As the mission all lords have says ‘War of the Kings’. This name is a message to all players who are joining, both guilds and lords, this is going to be a big bloody war that won’t end quickly!” the hyped reported said on the tv.

At the moment, five people were sitting in Lucas’s house. In their hands was a bowl of noodles that were made with the nutribar. Lucas slurped it quickly as he watched it and looked at the invited group.

The four others were Sam, Vince, Madison and Sasori. The previously invited weakest lords, all of which came off the list one by one as they passed the event to build a temple themselves and produced their own religions through their own combinations of gods which were all different from Akor.

“So have you guys already prepared your armies?” Lucas asked.

“Undead have the advantage that makes them easy to recruit.” Sasori said and slurped up the noodles. “The only disadvantage…” he said with his mouth full before swallowing and continuing, “... is that they are dumber and research speed is slower and that they are restricted under sunlight. Frankly, my choice in having the Goddess of Death, Life and Light as my three primary gods got many laughs in the viewer site but my vision is in the far future where i might have an undead army that will not be affected by sunlight.” He said.

“That is a hard path, you can’t do evil things.” Lucas said.

He shrugged his shoulders at the comment.

“I’m having a headache because of elves slow growth rate and birth rate.” Vince said with a frown before he drank some juice to help with the heat of the food. “1:20 individuals, is a seriously annoying birth rate and it takes a long time for them to reach maturity.” he complained. “Demons and undead have it good.” He said.

“You think? It’s not that easy because they are gluttons. With how bad Hellish badlands is, we have a seriously hard time producing food.” Sam complained as well but then grinned, “At least the higher level monsters that survive there have given me some strong minions but the overall strength is really low and my equipment is really restricted to bone equipment.” she sighed.

“Humans don’t have as many problems except for the political side.” Madison said and even rubbed his head when he saw that while holding the bowl in the other, “There is so much bullshit and etiquettes we have to follow and the church isn’t as ‘open’ as you guys. Each god has an established organization so opening temples for one god will bring that organization and so on. It’s such a damn pain dealing with those priests.” he cursed and furiously ate.

The others laughed at him. Humans had the least trouble, material wise or population wise but their political side is very developed and had to be taken into account. Although human lords aren’t exactly close to other human nations, they aren’t far either. They are spread out far enough to not interfere with them in early game but would be direct enemy in late game. It isn’t much different for demons that are stuck in the territory around the hellish badlands where demons are concentrated.

“Oh right, Lucas, i saw a strange research subject when i watched your video feed.” Vince said, “What was that church research all about, the one with the prototype vitality tree or something?” he asked.

Lucas stopped in the middle of eating and began to think. He indeed saw there was such a research subject but he hadn’t explicitly checked them before the event message came. He put on the glasses and brought up the window.

“It’s a research for one of the primary gods.” He replied after reading and understanding. “They are researching a way to evolve the demon wood so that instead of being a massive vitality drainer, which they are if not raised properly, they become a life giving tree.” Lucas said and removed his VR tech.

“Which god wants something like that?” Madison asked curious. Most human gods are active so there isn’t something so curious as the demon’s who get to awaken gods themselves.

“Adaldir, God of Prosperity. His greatest desire is ‘to see a demon king revitalize the Hellish Badlands’. This is the easiest god desire among the top three gods to fulfill.” Lucas said.

“Oh, then these might be fertilizer trees.” Sasori said. “These are trees that capture nitrogen in the air and fix it to the ground as well as prevent fertilizer and soil erosion and retain water better improving conditions of the soil for other plants.”

“Oh, you mean like those plants terraformers use to cultivate desert planets with atmospheres. I remember watching a documentary about that. They start around surviving water points or make exposed oasis and fill the area around the water with these kinds of trees and trees that produce lots of shade to stop the sand and dust in the air making it settle and allow water to survive under the heat and allowing them to make waterways that slowly expand outwards.” Sam said

“I don’t know, the church is in itself a separate but controlled organization made by the king to promote their ideals. After all, even after the current pope and my head advisor made the rules and laws of my territory, i still checked it to make sure they were within my preference.” Lucas said.

“Hey, we never asked but what are you doing for your pre-work for the coming war?” Vince asked Lucas.

“Making my first Brigade.” Lucas said simply.

The other four looked at each other and finished their bowls and went to check the setup that Lucas made in details to see if they could adapt it while Lucas went to see their pre-work to see if he could give advise or improve his own design.