NOVEL WEB Chapter 14 - New Camp
The first thing Dan needed to do was decide the fate of the new animals. They would need to be under his control at one point or another. Still, even if they came under his control, they wouldn't be turned into upgraded versions of themselves like his current monsters were. Instead, the beasts would be regular creatures that he could alter, but they would otherwise remain the same. The main issue was that he wanted to avoid slaughtering the whole area and respawning everything.
There were two choices as far as Dan was concerned, though honestly, he was already leaning towards one. The first choice was to let the beasts go and deal with them all later. However, as that was going to be a hassle, he just decided to take the secondary approach. He would make this group submit, but from there on, or at least until he got to D Rank, he was going to give beasts choices. They could join him then or go free. If they went free, Dan would let them do their thing until he controlled most of the land. Then, once he did control it and his power was unquestionable, he would give them the choice to join willingly or die.
The choice was rough, but it was the only way, as per the World Crystal, he needed to control every single creature in the area. He would have liked to start with the two choices from earlier on, but it would have made him look like a tyrant. This would then cause factions like the druid to be antagonistic from the start, making everything that much harder.
So, for this first group of beasts, it was submit or die, and naturally, they all agreed as no one wanted to die. And right after they agreed he got a nudge from the World Crystal informing him he had a new statistic in his menu.
Looking at his menu, he quickly found it. Right underneath the number of monsters was a new little line.
Non-Original Residents: 32.
Clearly, it indicated that the new beasts were under his control and that he had placed them apart from the monsters he had created himself. Dan wondered if altering a creature and empowering them would change the creature from a non-original to just a regular monster in his dungeon. Actually, he was really interested in what would happen when he got some humanoids. Would they just be counted as monsters, or would they also gain their own little tab?
Not worrying too much about that, he nudged the tab just like he could with the number of monsters tab, and a list appeared showing him all the residents he had.
Non-Original Residents: 32.
- 4 Crows, 3 Robins, 1 Blue Jay, 1 Woodpecker, 1 Owl, 3 Bears, 2 Elk, 1 Moose, 5 Wolves, 3 Rabbits, 3 Squirrels, 2 Foxes, 3 Boars.
Dan quickly dismissed the lot with directions to find and try to convince their fellow animals to join Dan. Obviously, they couldn’t tell other beasts what happened in the camp, as that would be bad for business. Additionally, they were to report if they found any intruders approaching Dan and his new campsite.
With that done, Dan moved to configure his new camp. Dan planned to follow the same route as the old camp, which was now dismantled, except he would put in some extra effort.
Opening his menu, Dan went for his Claim or Edit Area.
Claim or Edit Area.
— Claim Area.
— Edit Area.
Then he chose the Edit Area, which caused two more options to pop up.
— Edit Area.
- - Transform Environment.
- - Add Enchantment.
Dan was interested in the whole enchantment thing but knew he would need more mana to mess with it properly. So, he chose the Transform Environment option and felt endless options appear in his mind. He could turn the sky within his area purple or any color for that matter. It was the same with the grass or trees or anything. He could turn everything into gold or diamond if he wanted to, well, as long as he had the mana. Heck, he could even create a whole mountain. Sadly, he didn’t have enough mana for that, either.
The main difference Dan instantly felt between this newly claimed land and the one outside of the shattered space was that it was all his. At least until the space came to a halt at the fog, but that was still more than enough. Much like the sky, the ground extended deep down about five miles, which was plenty to work with. The space did have one similarity to the land outside: Dan still had a hard limit to his perception. His perception came to a slow end as it approached the fog until everything just went fuzzy and dark. Dan assumed that the World Crystal was blocking him from seeing the space between spaces, which, as far as Dan was concerned, was a good thing.
Focusing back on the whole editing thing, Dan quickly got rid of the dead trees and spiky vines, along with the dead animal corpses and any other stuff like blood and guts. Afterward, he flattened the ground, which surprisingly was free. Apparently, matter disposal was free, at least so far. After making the camp nice and flat, Dan began with the creation of a new central tree. He wouldn’t make it as big as the dead one, but it would definitely be sturdy with a thick trunk. The tree would be an oak of sorts, and he would carve a hole at the center of the trunk just slightly above the ground where he would place himself. Overall, the whole thing cost him around ten mana.
With the tree standing nice and proud, Dan moved to the next thing, which was to command the stags along with Fur to start erecting walls. He wanted the walls to be thick, with a width of five feet. Dan also planned to make a large square for each corner and have a thick piece of stone as a watch tower. The thick stones would go up around 15 feet, while the walls would be 10 feet high. Fur was the one to make the corners as he could create them in one go. The entire area came out to be 190 feet by 190 feet, and Dan was just glad he didn’t have to pay the mana to claim it.
Dan knew it would stand out but would rather have the increased defense. He debated changing the walls and towers' colors from their light brownish to more regular grey stones but decided against it, as he was saving mana.
The new fortifications took a few hours to complete, as the stags only had so much mana, and they had to wait to regen it back up. As they worked, Dan began to create new trees inside their fort. He hated spending the mana, but George had brought up so many good points.
George pointed out that the ex-shard had no cover, which opened them up to easy spying and aerial harassment. Additionally, if the giant dead tree hadn’t already been easy to spot, the large clearing around it was a bigger giveaway. Finally, the trees would provide nice resting spots for the apes, big cats, and birds to help them relax while not on duty.
Sadly, for Dan, the gorilla made excellent points and quickly gained the support of everyone, including the bears, as they would “have good scratching spots.” So, Dan didn’t have a choice.
The trees would make it harder to see what was happening within the fort and would help their birds weave between the branches if they were ever attacked. Additionally, Dan was thinking of making spiders for some proper aerial traps, and the trees would be perfect spots for them. Even more interesting than the spiders, and now that he had a larger area, Dan wanted moles or worms. He wanted to be able to fight on all fronts, and the burrowers could cover the underground, but that would be something for later when he started gaining more mana.
So, with the decision made, trees began to sprout all around the fort area. The new trees weren’t going to be as large as his main one, and they came to cost between two to five mana each, for a total of 145 mana, bringing his new total mana to 135. Dan was unhappy with the amount, but he enjoyed watching his beasts relax and enjoy the new natural amenities. And considering they had fought hard, he felt like they earned it.
After finishing the tree-growing process and with the stags done with the walls, Dan decided to add something extra to their new fort. He began deleting dirt outside the walls to create a five-foot-deep moat. It wasn’t going to be much, but it would help in case of an overground attack.
In the end, the fort was a large, squared area with four sizeable 15-foot-tall pillar towers at each corner and ten-foot-tall and five-foot wide walls. The moat was going to help with possible invaders, and when the tree defenses were complete, along with a possible fog enchantment, the area was going to be a proper base of operations.
With the fort mostly complete and night approaching, Dan decided not to go too crazy, and though he did begin proper scouting and guarding, he wasn’t going to push for much else. However, the hunt would start first thing the following day as he needed more mana to expand.
During the resting hours, a hawk came back with new information about the druid situation at the large rock to the east. The hawk reported that the druid and its beasts wanted to see Dan and form an alliance. Supposedly, it was to help various other factions in the shattered area, such as the kobolds and the frog people. Dan was definitely on board with this, as it would be his in into the various factions.
The information also made it clear to Dan that the different factions were clearly having issues with each other. Though he did sort of already know it, but as he hadn’t been able to gather any more information as to the specifics of the conflicts via the hawks, he hoped that the druid could give him some more details. Either way, Dan wasn’t comfortable just yet as his forces were still on the smaller size, and he wanted to build up a bit more before doing anything.
As a human, and with some of the mental itchiness that came from his new form and information gained through the contract, Dan knew just what magic could do, and he didn’t know how strong the druid was. Heck, the whole thing could be a ploy by a stronger shard to strike him while his guard was down. And, of course, Dan had to be careful as the whole thing could go downhill. It’s not like he could respawn via the World Crystal, and if a shard or something else got him, that was it.