Over the next week the citizens of The Keep in the Vale settled into a productive routine.

In the morning everyone met in the main courtyard and trained in their various disciplines of fighting, magic, and combat. Then for lunch they would discuss strategy and plans with Mal’s group. Many approached Mal’s main group with good ideas for the future of their home. After that afternoon and early evening were for work on building, hunting, farming, or anything else that needed to be done for their fledgling kingdom. Everyone’s evening after dinner was free time except for the keen eyed guards keeping watch.

The moat took a few days but was completed and added to the already intimidating outer defenses. Also quickly to go up was the Longhouse building as soon as Mal could afford the points to give them a dorm like sleeping space and meeting area. Many built their own homes, preferring privacy, as the ruined city slowly began to revive itself in small bits and chunks. These homes weren’t of the highest quality but the people were content to wait for the backlog of skilled builders or Mal’s prestige points to be available to upgrade and improve them.

Mal had been ignoring all his notifications, quest log and other things to do with the User Interface since he had been so busy hammering the keep into shape. He even had stat points he hadn’t spent yet from hitting level 9. Taking some time to himself he went over some of the backed up data he had been hiding from his view.

First and foremost was the quest given to him by Atish what felt like ages ago.

Congratulations you have completed the quest “The vale of lost heroes” 3000 xp reward plus your starkissed bonus. A man’s home is his castle and in your case quite literally adventurer!

It was a nice bump on the way to level 10. Then there were several smaller quests he had pretty much ignored many of them assigned by Stalyx.

You have completed the quest “Build a wall for your village” 500 xp plus your starkissed bonus You have completed the quest “Build a longhouse for your village” 200 xp plus your starkissed bonus You have completed the quest “Build a general goods store for your village” 150 xp plus your starkissed bonus You have completed the quest “Build a moat for your village” 250 xp plus your starkissed bonus You have competed “Acquire 10 residents for your village” 150 xp plus your starkissed bonus

This last one repeated every 10 villagers for 20, 30, 40, and finally capping out at 50 as they had 54 villagers at current. All told it was 750 xp plus the starkissed percent bonus so Mal appreciated it.

You have completed “Plant 10 crops for your village” 50 xp plus your starkissed bonus You have completed “Acquire 10 pieces of edible meat for your village” 50 xp plus your starkissed bonus

These last 2 were repeatable daily quests which was handy even though the reward wasn’t too much it would add up over time.

There were several more smaller quests but Mal just quickly skimmed them before dismissing them, like for example resolve a villager’s complaint or cook a meal for a villager and other things that Mal was automatically doing anyway just living in his role as Commander. Mal was curious how these quests were assigned. Was it some automatic system of Planus or Stalyx or Atish or just preset quests for a leader of a village? Something to look into he noted when he had a chance with someone knowledgeable or built more trust and reputation with Stalyx.

Mal’s skills had also gotten a huge boost and he had learned some new ones. The constant training with strong opponents like Jarl and a few others who dominated the training were great for all his combat skills.

Two in particular Mal tried himself against time and again with little success in victory but much success in acquired combat knowledge. These two individuals were Darko and Maverick who were also best friends. They couldn’t be more different than each other Maverick was a stout black bearded dwarf, a natural leader and a Paladin. In contrast Darko was a tall quiet elf, reserved, and some type of rogue or assassin class he never really said even when asked directly. After spending many hours with the pair it was clear that Darko was super intelligent as well in regards to strategy and planning. It was revealed by his clever remarks on the future of the kingdom that were so insightful.

Also all the hard work leading, providing for, and building for his little kingdom boosted many of his non combat skills. Mal looked over his notifications on his improved old skills and newly received ones.

Congratulations you have learned the skill Hunting lvl 1, The hunter that travels out into the woods is lost to the world, but yet finds himself in the wild. Congratulations you learned the skill Farming lvl 1, Always do your best, adventurer, because what you plant now you will harvest later. Congratulations you have learned the skill Manual Labor lvl 1, Put your back into it adventurer! Congratulations you have learned the skill Digging lvl 1, The only job where you start at the top, is digging a hole, eh adventurer?

Those were his new skills and the one’s he had gained levels in he already had were as follows.

Gaining 1 level in Stealth, Sneak Attack, Fishing, Skinning, Crossbow Proficiency

All mainly side effects of hunting for those gains. Also his leadership skill went up 2 levels from constantly dealing with the many problems that arose from running a village. And lastly but probably most importantly for his combat he had unlocked specific class skills related to being a Spellsword when he had leveled up to 9. There were Swordsmanship, Blocking, Battle Meditation, and the new one Mana Proficiency. He had gained 3 levels in each of these and Mal found since they were class skills they were much easier to use as well as level up.

Blood Magic also strangely appeared in his class skills list but it was going to be a hard skill to level without really getting into life and death situations.

Next Mal had to decide where to put his 8 stat points from his level up. Since he was a Spellsword now he wanted to get away from using his crossbow except for situations like hunting wild game. So Mal put 2 points into strength for the percentage it added to damage to melee strikes. 2 each into constitution and endurance as well for durability and staying power respectively. Mal was also happy to see endurance and strength had gained a couple points from the hard labor digging the moat.

That left Mal with 2 undistributed stat points, so he put 1 in intelligence and 1 in willpower to boost his mana related abilities. He had a feeling if he invested more in this area he would become far more powerful. He still needed to learn and unlock some of the deeper skill trees and spells of his class for this to come into effect. Omega had been briefing him and teaching him some of the basic theories of the class as well as telling stories of the few advanced Spellswords Omega had fought side by side with back in the day.

There were future skills to look forward to such as catching enemy spells on the end of his blade much like a lacrosse player would and redirecting the nasty spells. Also Spellshield could be upgraded to convert enemy spells directly into mana that Mal could absorb to boost his own mana rather than it be a harmful spell at all. That same very upgrade could be used in conjunction with Bloodmagic to turn harmful spells directly into boosts to Mal’s life and vitality for short times totally negating the enemy spell attack.

Mal was chomping at the bit to get at these overpowered abilities but he needed to hit certain thresholds both in level and in skill to unlock them for his spellbook. Speaking of his spellbook he had been perusing it in the evening but much of it didn’t make sense to him at his low level and low understanding of his class. Sometimes when Mal was getting thrashed by Jarl or someone more skilled Mal felt like such a noob with so far to go yet. He was eager to see how he matched up with his guild mates when they arrived to compare himself to other player characters who had started the same day as he had.

“Mal.” Alison said with a weird tone to her voice that caused Mal to look up and regard her seriously from his User Interface. The usual suspects were lounging around the throne room, which had rudimentary furniture now, having lunch.

“I’m really bored.” Alison said when she had Mal’s full attention. “I mean training is great and all but I want to get out there and do something! Gah! I don’t know. Do you guys feel that way too?” Alison finished including the whole group in her question.

“Training is a great way to boost skills but not overall level for that you need kills along with quests.” Omega said.

“I woulda be not against some leveling up.” Taliah said.

“Fair enough. Stalyx where are the closest enemies we can go and get a serious challenge?” Mal said addressing Stalyx in the corner of the throne room.

“Hoho, I have just the thing for you young adventurer’s. The old iron mine we need to reclaim and restore. Since that Undead Invasion I’ve gotten a reading that some undead have taken up residence there. There isn’t much that takes place in this valley that I don’t know about and this would have to be sorted eventually or it would fester like a virus or disease and turn into a raid dungeon. Then we’d have more monsters than whole little population could handle spilling out everywhere into the valley. Though I would like to see our new walls under siege…” Stalyx trailed off thinking.

“No siege thank you very much!” Alison spoke up into the silence.

“Yeah let’s go, should we bring anyone else?” Mal said.

“The more party members the more the XP will be diluted. But it is up to you Mal.” Omega said.

“Hmm, let’s just go, I have faith in us. We’ve done fine til this point.” Mal said and the excited group grabbed their gear getting ready to test themselves against the undead.