Lord Of The New World

After a few hours of walking, we returned back to the village with a few monsters and the Rainbow Sapling, and leaving the tree line, I spotted the log wall which had been completed a day prior.

Sadly, though there wasn’t a gate pointing towards the forest as I had decided that would be too dangerous, and just decided to make 1 pointing towards the river.

And as we walked towards the gate of the village, which was still unnamed as of now as I wasn’t sure what to name it, I saw the farmers and a few construction workers returning from the farms and the canals they dug to feed the Dark Onions they had started planting, and looking at the vast farmlands they had tilted, I quickly did some mental calculations and figured out that they had tilted around 24 hectares of land in the 9 days that they had been in this world.

Which was either 60 acres or 24 hectares of land.

You didn’t hear me wrong. They had managed to—or should’ve managed to tilt 24 hectares of land in 9 days, as 3 farmers could tilt an acre of land in a day with the technology we had right now, and there were 20 of them.

Looking at the vast farmlands on the other side of the river for a moment, I tried to imagine the 80 hectares of land they’d have to farm to keep 100 people fed throughout the year and, while I had seen my fair share of farmlands on earth, I had never truly understood the sheer scale of farming done by humans.

But on grand scale of things... 80 hectares was pathetic. It wasn’t even equal to kilometre squared of land, and I’d need to do at least a few kilometres squared of land to feed a few small towns.

Assuming those towns grew some of their own food too!

...

After a few more moments of just staring at the horizon, I walked into the village, and ordered the hunters under me to scatter for the day, and glanced at the few members of the construction group that were making preparations for all the wooden houses we’d need to make for 100 people.

Though the wooden houses would be more like barracks, as I just didn’t have the time to construct houses for families right now, and they couldn’t even actually start the actual construction as we need at least 20 more days for all the wood to dry up.

Oh, and the other members of the construction group were either manning the bowl furnaces and helping make copper tools or helping farmers with making canals for the farms.

Though that was to be expected as after the log wall was done, they were left with nothing to do, and this was going to be the only moment of respite they would have for the rest of their lives as more houses would be necessary and more than welcome in the future.

Hell, even if our need for houses in the capitol were fulfilled somehow, other villages and towns I’d found next spring and later springs would need workers.

Talking about other villages and towns, I should probably show you the quest I got after I completed a big village, right?

A Small Town – Have at least 1000 Homunculi, and 2 villages of 50 Homunculi or more. – Rewards: 10 Exp + 1 Research Point

1000 people was... a lot. I’d need at least 8 kilometres squared of farmland, or just 800 hectares, or more to feed that many people.

Which was... actually within expectations. But that many hectares could not be farmed from just a single small town, and I’d need to set up farmhouses and small villages far away from town in addition to manning them with families, and protecting those people from monsters and making sure their produce could be distributed.

So, I’d need to research husbandry and tame some animals to at least act as animals of burden, and while I had caught glimpses of some animals in the grasslands that were probably more than suited to be those animals of burden, and eaten quite a few, domesticating them was... a whole another thing than seeing and tasting them.

And not to forget that I needed more than fucking onions to feed 1000 people! I was of course not planning on feeding people only onions even now, but they’d be a lot of our diet in lean times... if I didn’t have a solution to that problem that is.

Cradling the Rainbow Sapling like a baby, I moved to my hut with quick steps and wished that the farmers hadn’t started planting onions as the wheat substitute, I’d make using the sapling could be harvested in spring... assuming I am actually able to safely mutate the plants that resemble grain from earth.

Then I quickly made a small hammock to place the sapling in, as it didn’t require anything other than mana to live according to Rae, and when it was above ground, it couldn’t penetrate ground with its pesky roots and destroy every plant in a few hundred-meter radius.

Removing the hides that I laid on the sapling, I saw its ever-changing form, and appreciated it for a moment before taking a singular wheat-like plant I had gathered, with all of its grains still on it.

I then touched the ever-changing sapling and as the plant touched the sapling, it started mutating immediately but, contrary to my first belief, for a moment the plant mutated in a way that actually... made some sense.

Its grains grew in size and more and more of them appeared from the stalk of the plant and the plant started growing in size—but it all happened but for a moment, and immediately after the plant started changing for good, the warping effects of the sapling took hold and the plant started warping in weird ways, and soon enough, only a withered husk remained.

Sighing, I pulled the plant back, and I accidentally crushed it, and it turned to dust.

“Haaah... well, this is quite... inconvenient.” I muttered to myself, as I had seen the sapling actually warp the plant into a crop that could be used, I also saw it warping the plant so quickly that I physically couldn’t pull it fast enough.

“But there yet may be a way...” I thought to myself, as even though my chances of increasing my speed to inhuman levels without somehow reaching tier 3 were low, I didn’t have to do anything like that.

After all, we lived in a world of magic, did we not? And there just happened to be a lot of magical herbs around us, so I only needed to... either somehow delay the process of warping, or at least find a way to heal the warping crop so it wouldn’t wither so quickly.

Luckily, I had a magical herb that could heal things, but I was not sure if its miraculous effects affected plants.

And how would I even go about making a healing potion? I mean, I could always make a cauldron and throw in herbs into it, but that would only make soup! Not potion!

...

“Perhaps a salve could work?” I muttered after a few moments of thinking.

Maybe I could even heat up and remove all the water from whatever paste or salve I made and make it more... healy, if you understand what I mean.

Was I sure that was how magical herbes worked? No clue honestly.

As far as I know, Opal Berries in their raw form and any processed form have the same healing capabilities but, hey!

A man can hope! And hope I would!

Before I went to sleep, I started moulding a clay cast for the smelters to fill, and started firing it so it could actually be used as a cast, and as I laid in my straw bed, I opened my Research Tree and after a few moments of contemplation researched Weapon Mastery and Bloomery Construction so I could smelt iron.

As the information flooded into my mind on how to use my new skill, I realized that it was a skill that used the mana in my mana stone to enhance the speed with which I developed muscle memories.

But this wasn’t a skill that was all knowing, so if I practiced a sword swing wrong, it’d imprint those wrong memories too! But whenever I actually improved how I swung my sword, it’d thankfully replace the wrong imprints.

But even though it somehow imprinting memories into my muscles was impressive enough, that wasn’t all that there was to the skill!

As it imprinted more and more memories into my muscles, they’d naturally start growing stronger and stronger and be enhanced by mana!

And as the amount of mana I used in a day increased, my body would start absorbing more and more mana and growing my mana stone, in addition to refining the mana in my mana stone so I’d need less mana to do the same things!

Now, we come to the part of the skill that I think is the most important, I can teach it to others.

Even if they are not tier 2.

So, even though a tier 1 doesn’t have a lot of mana stored in their bodies, they still absorb some mana throughout the day, and if I teached someone this skill, they’d be able to slowly start filling their body with mana and prompt their body to develop a mana stone!

This, of course, wasn’t a thing that could be done in a year or two by normal people, but eventually more and more tier 2 people would start rising!

Even thinking about the prospect of more tier 2 people made my water mouth—but sadly I couldn’t teach this skill to others right now, as not having any mana in your body was harmful, and could lead to injuries, or death in worst case if those injuries were not treated.

And I did not possess the ability to treat people that ran out of mana right now, so I’d have to wait for a few more months before I developed a way to threat those injuries.

Oh, and as expected, I now know how to make bloomeries, and charcoal.

I can probably diver a few workers from the construction group to start mining Hematite, and just pile up a lot of wood and burn it to make charcoal.

And yes, making charcoal is apparently nearly as easy as piling a shit ton of wood and just burning it.

I mean, you have to leave a hole on the top of the conical pile of wood so air can get in and wait for 8 hours or so, but yeah, it’s just as easy as burning a bunch of wood.

The next day, so on my 111th day in the new world, I ordered the miners to start mining from the Hematite vein we found instead of the Malachite vein we found because...

Empire Stockpile

Copper Ore 162

Yeah... we had quite the big copper ore problem with a whopping 1.6 tonnes of it just piled up on a hill, and as copper was... well, toxic it was growing to be a problem...

But also, it was not piled on the hill of our village, and the log wall was quite successful in blocking the view to the pile of copper so... rip bozo.

Then as everyone got on their way, and started working on their jobs, I started my way with spending a couple hours teaching the lumberjacks how to pile up logs to make charcoal, and then moved on to teaching the 6 construction group members that were working on the smelters how to construct a bloomery.

And then, I took a spear to my hand and just... started training on a piece of wood.

I stabbed and slashed at it, and used quite a lot of mana, and after 5 hours of training, with breaks of course, I had used up around 80 points of mana, and decided to call it a day.

Though I hadn’t spent all of my mana, even this would make my body focus on expanding my mana stone, which would give me more mana.

And while I was training, I realized something, the less mana I had the more my mana regeneration increased!

System Window:

Name: Damian Tier: 2

Hp:100/100 HpR: 1

Mp: 20/100 MpR: 10

Skills: Mana Sense, Mana Manipulation, Mana Eyes, Weapon Mastery

Emperor Skills: Homunculi Creation, Absolute Order

Blessings: Chosen Of The Goddess Rae

Party Members: 0

I had guessed that my mana regenerated at 1 point per hour, but after I started training, and losing mana points, I saw my mana regeneration increase too!

Though, thankfully, the mana regen I had was not enough to overpower the amount of mana I used by having Weapon Mastery constantly on.

But in the future, when I reached higher tiers, and my body naturally started absorbing more and more mana... it’d perhaps become a problem.

But perhaps.

After an half an hour or so of resting, I went to the smelting team, and grabbed my copper bowl, and started crushing Opal Berries with a rock inside the bowl, and after I had crushed quite a lot of them, I made a small fire and boiled as much water as I could from the Opal Berry Mash, and watched in amazement as I saw the mana concentration increase as water evaporated and the berries became more concentrated.

After an hour of leaving the paste to concentrate into a dark bluish salve/paste or whatever, I grabbed the copper bowl after leaving it to cool down, and went into my hut, and grabbed a few plants and touched them to the Rainbow Sapling, and as they were touching the sapling I put the Opal Berry Salve on them and... nothing happened.

“...Did I just waste a dozen berries?” I wondered aloud, and after a few seconds took a copper knife and cut a small wound on my hand and put the salve on it and watched the mana in the salve disappear, and the pain in my hand go.

Cleaning the mana-less paste from my hand, I saw that the small injury had healed without any issues after only 10 seconds.

“This is useful! Really useful—but only for small injuries as an injury as small as this could’ve been healed by just eating those berries raw too!”

*ding*

Quest The First Step completed! Rewards, 10 Exp + 1 Research Point

have been granted in the Empire System!

Though the gain of exp and the research point helped, I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed with my salve as it hadn’t done what I wanted it to do.

But, oh well.

Then I opened my Empire System to see 2 new quests.

The Second Swing – Mine 10 units of Hematite and smelt 7 units of Iron. - Rewards: 10 Exp + 1

The Second Step – Make 10 unique alchemical products! – Rewards: 10 Exp + 1 Research Point

Yeah, both quests made sense but... why does the second swing quest basically just ask me to smelt 10 units of hematite? Hematite is 70% iron, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but oh well.

Looking at my quests for a moment, another quest I had forgotten caught my eye.

Whispers From The Dark – You’ve realized that there are a lot of tier 2 beings in the forest. Discover their origin. – Rewards: ???

“Hmm? Wasn’t the Rainbow Sapling their origin? And I discovered it?” I muttered out loud, and then remembered.

Remembered that Rae had said that an older Tier 2 must be giving cores to the lesser Tier 2 monsters.

And the realization hit me, there was actually a proper Tier 2 monster in the forest as an animal surely discovered the sapling before the others and used it to speed through Tier 1 and reached Tier 2.

And if we assume the sapling has been in the forest since the day I’ve come to this world, maybe even before I came to this world as Rae talked about implanting an off shoot from the tree to the Rain Forest continent, this sapling has been here for at least 111 days... which was probably more than enough to create at least 1 proper Tier 2.

“But if there really is a proper Tier 2 somewhere in the forest... where is it?” I muttered to myself, before a sound of something hitting the log walls came from the other side of the village.

*BANG*

For a moment I was surprised that an animal would be stupid enough to ram into the wall, but soon enough another sound came, and then the sound of a part of the log wall hitting the earth followed.

*BANG*

*BOOM*

For a moment I was stupefied because no normal animal could manage to hope to destroy the wall in 2 rams, and then it hit me, I was not facing a mere animal, but a true monster instead.

“...Fuck.”