Lord Of The New World

As days passed, my current 4 quests seemed to take an excruciatingly long time.

Not that they were hard quests in nature, but they just took... time. Which would probably become the norm in the future.

I asked Rae if I’d live as long as a normal human, so until my 70-75, or does my new species have an age advantage over humans, and she said that Homunculi lived as long as humans, but as I was her chosen champion, I’d live as long as I wasn’t killed.

So, while a few weeks to a month seems like a really, really slow time to me right now... the future, immortal, me will have to get used to quests taking months if not years to complete on average.

But, slowly but surely, the quests progressed forwards.

More houses were completed, more Homunculi and Brutes were summoned, Jesse continued to cook, and the ship seemed to be continuing forwards steadily... and the hunters hunted another animal, which turned out to be a tier 2.

I was slightly worried that a dungeon was in the forest, or a new dungeon was appearing, but there were really not many things I could do about it other than just giving the hunters a few more brutes.

If a tier 2 that could cast spells appeared they’d just be cooked, there was nothing I could do about that.

I just hoped the march of progress of my empire was faster than the march of nature, and whatever was inside the forest, be it be a dungeon or just a strong tier 2 that helped other animals tier up, would be overcome with time.

I wanted to cast spells and be a deterrent against other tier 2 creatures but... my attempts of manipulating mana were fruitless. I just did not know what to do with it.

I had mana in my body that I could bend but... how did manipulating mana equal to spells? I just did not know. Like what I said before, hopefully the march of progress of my empire proves faster than the march of nature or whatever.

And, though I was not sure what the future would bring for me and my people, I would be prepared for it as best as I could.

And, thankfully, after 2 weeks I was able to complete the quest that pushed me to get more of the most important thing, manpower.

*ding*

Quest A Village completed! Rewards, 10 Exp + 1 Research Point have been granted in the Empire System!

As I stared at the system notification in front of me, and then the people buzzing by, I was overcome with another bout of melancholy.

“It’s been already more than a month, huh?” I muttered loudly to myself.

This first month I spent in another world still felt kind of dreamy. It felt as if it wasn’t quite real. I mean, to my side sat a literal goddess, watching “my people” develop and improve.

I mean, they were still quite... dumb, as they literally lacked any sapience or intelligence to speak of, but hey, they were as good as anyone else, so I was not complaining.

Then I opened my empire window to see if there was any new quests and... yup, there was one.

A Big Village – Have a total of 100 Homunculi. – Rewards: 10 Exp + 1 Research Point

100 people... that—that was a great number. I’d need at least 70 more units of organic matter to make enough Homunculi. And that was if I only made basic homunculi and not brutes, or any future types I may get. Because, I am saying this beforehand, I am definitely getting my empire level to 2 before I complete this quest.

And I think... I am going to call stops to population expansion, for now.

Right now, I had a 17 – 13 of population, 17 working for food, with 12 being separated into 2 hunter parties and the remaining 5 working on gathering, and of the 13 that were staying at home base, 4 were constantly drying, and storing stuff so they would last for longer, while the other 9 worked on construction.

And yes, small critters were already a problem. Birds and a few weird rat looking shits would just not leave our food alone, and those mole rabbits too! Or rabbit moles or whatever, I forgot what I was calling them, but you surely understand what I am saying, yeah?

So, we started putting the bags that hold our dried food on roofs of our mud houses and covered them in straws and hopefully they stay safe like that until we make a storage house for food, because we needed them to be safe if we were to survive the winter, which would come in about 3-4 months.

And yes, I was already worrying about winter. Did I need to? Probably not, we were most likely going to live through it, but I also didn’t want to lose people to my lax attitude, so I was planning on working hard to survive this first winter because I was sure that if we managed to survive one, the rest would be way easier.

But I assume we will complete the food drying quest in a few more days, and that should help us a bit because any fruits and vegetables or whatever we dry up now, will most likely last until the end of winter... assuming I don’t make a mistake in storing them safely, which is a possibility.

And as I assumed, we were able to complete drying a total of 2 units of food in the following week, and I just had to complete 1 more quest to level up my empire!

*ding*

Quest Good For a Few Months completed! Rewards, 10 Exp + 1 Research Point have been granted in the Empire System!

And it took 21 days to complete this mission. Why so long? Because I had to have a total of 1 unit of dried meat, and 1 unit of dried fruit, at the same time. So, if we dried them, and then ate them, those bits we dried would not count towards the total goal.

And a unit was 10kg, so it also took a considerable amount to dry that much.

But thankfully, we only needed 1, 1 more quest and everything would be done! And, thankfully, thanks to the workers getting better at their job and there just being more of them, we were able to make 7 houses this week! One for each day!

I mean, the houses were... primitive. And only 1 room houses like I said before, but hey, houses are houses. So, we had 19 houses right now and only needed 11 more days to complete the quest!

Well, I needed a house that was bigger than normal, but there probably wouldn’t be a problem in making them slightly bigger, so that was fine.

And after waiting for 11 level more days in excitement, the quest was finally complete!

*ding*

Quest A Place To Call Home completed! Rewards, 10 Exp + 1 Research Point have been granted in the Empire System!

Empire Level has risen up to 2!

10 Research Points have been granted for the level up, and more researches are available in the research tree!

Then, with excitement, I opened up my Research Tree after seeing that I had a total of 14 Research Points and got ready to spend!

Level 2 Researches

Skill Weapon Mastery – Allows you to start mastering weapons through continuous use. – Costs 2 Research Points

Skill Mana Eyes – Allows you to see the magic in things by expending mana. – Costs 2 Research Point

Basic Agriculture – A basic information packet about agriculture. - Costs 3 Research Points

Basic Metallurgy – A basic information packet about metal production. - Costs 2 Research Points

Basic Smithing - A basic information packet about smithing. - Costs 2 Research Points

Animal Husbandry - An information packet about taming animals. - Costs 2 Research Points

Geological Surveying – An information packet about how to identify different kinds of rocks, and which ones have ore in them. - Costs 1 Research Point

Basic Tanning – A basic information packet about how to tan hides into leather. - Costs 1 Research Point

Carpentry – An information packet about Carpentry. - Costs 1 Research Point

And I was kinda... underwhelmed by the lack of researches. I mean, this was the level 2, was it not? Shouldn’t there be more researches than this?

Not wallowing in despair, I looked through the things that caught my eye, and I planned on researching Mana Eyes, Basic Agriculture, Geological Surveying, and Carpentry.

Basically, everything in this list interested me, but I had to be conservative with my 14 points, and I had already chosen to spend half of my research points, so being a bit conservative wouldn’t hurt now, would it?

Then, I started from top to bottom, and first bough Mana Eyes. And as I clicked on the skill, knowledge of how to manipulate my mana to see foreign mana flooded into my mind and using the skill felt like I had a whole 6th sense!

I could still see in normally, but there was some kind of overlap on my eyes that showed me the mana in things, which was very interesting as, while none of my people could use mana, they all had some!

But sadly, they were not yet coalescing into mana stones, so no new tier 2 Homunculi yet.

Then, I clicked on Basic Agriculture and information about crop cycles, fallowing, and how to use charcoal to enrich soil... problem, I didn’t know how to make charcoal.

But slash and burn farming is starting to look more and more appealing by the moment! But that is really not the most important thing right now, the important thing is that... I gained new researches after researching agriculture.

Aquaculture – Fish farming. - Costs 4 Research Points

Herbology – The science of studying plants with magical effects and using them to craft basic potions and remedies. – Costs 3 Research Points

Fruticulture – Agriculture but for trees and other fruit bearing stuff. So, basically Orchards. Do I need to explain more? - Costs 2 Research Points

Orchidology – The science of identifying plants. Is more useful than you think. - Costs 2 Research Points

And the moment 4 new researches appeared, I understood why there were so few researches, some were just hidden behind others!

Looking through the 4 new researches, while all 4 interested me, I saw Herbology and Mana Eyes as matches made in heaven, and I was sure Orchidology was as important as the system said—which was basically just the words of Rae as she was the one writing these things.

But I wonder... do I buy them now? And the answer is... no. Impulse buying is bad, so just let me buy Geological Surveying and Carpentry too and then let’s decide on what to buy and what to leave behind.

And after I bought them, the information about how to identify different rocks, and which ones held ores, flooded into my mind, in addition on how to make wooden planks, chairs, tables etc... problem, I did not have the tools to cut trees, and the equipment to just... make wooden things, and the only 2 researches I gained were Wooden House Making, and Bow-Making.

Wooden House Making – An information packet about how to build wooden houses. – Costs 2 Research Points

Bow-making – An information packet about how to make different types of bows. Does not include crossbows. – Costs 1 Research Point

I didn’t mind buying both honestly, and I especially wanted the information about bows, them not including crossbows did not matter.

But there was no reason to buy them yet, as I was pretty sure I could not use the knowledge I gained from them.

So, I turned my attention to Herbology, and Orchidology and immediately bought them.

And as new knowledge flooded into my mind, I was, as you might’ve guessed, disappointed by Herbology as I didn’t have the equipment necessary to make potions. It didn’t need much, only a cauldron and things to put the potions into, but I had neither, so it was a bummer.

But at least, thanks to the synergy with my Mana Eyes, I’d be able to spot any plants that may be useful in alchemy if I ever saw them. And yes, I did not plan on leaving town to search the woods for quite a bit, how did you guess?

But Orchidology, as the description said, was better than it initially seemed.

It was not only good for actually giving me knowledge on how to identify plants, but it also gave me a lot of advice and information about how to domesticate plants.

So, I could selectively breed primitive crops, and turn them into things like wheat and corn with time!

But sadly, that normal takes decades to centuries. But there was probably a way to fasten it with mana, otherwise... I would be eating really bad vegetables in the future.

Shaking the negative thoughts and the reality of the fact that I wasted quite a bit of points on researches that wouldn’t benefit me soon, I looked at metallurgy and basic smithing to decide where to spend the last of my 2 research points and... they seemed like they needed each other, so there was probably not a whole lot of reason for me to choose—SIKE!

Metallurgy here I come!

...

“Ha...hahahahhaha! I fucking hate myself! I spent the fruits of my labour on researches that I can’t use for the next few months to half a year! And what do I do with my last 2 points? I research fucking metallurgy! God, if any of my people could understand the levels of stupidity I had, they would abandon me right now!”