At the end of Jacks conversation with Xena, he had agreed to let her be a Hero in his territory.
In 3 days she would advance with all her civilians and troops toward the mountains in the distance. She would aim for the beaches to the right of the mountains, and in Jacks perspective, he would try to reach the small beach in the north part of the peninsula.
From there he would need to buy or produce some kind of boats or ships to transport Xena over the waters. This way was clearly the shortest, and they thought, the least dangerous compared to the road in or over the mountains, that connected the peninsula to the mainland.
'It's truly as the god said back then... Having had the bird eye view is truly helpful.'
But Jack still had a lot of unfinished business.
First he went outside to see Gynda as she had taken the new cooking pots made of iron in use.
10 female human civilians was busy cutting meat and some sparse blackroot into manageable sizes and stacks. When a cooking pot was boiling and ready to eat, they would empty it into many prepared bowls, probably from the trash houses. Then the empty cooking pot would be filled anew with a new batch of prepared food and water.
The 10 meter long stone table Jack had made, was used to store these ready to eat bowls. Civilians and troops emptied the ready food as fast as the women could restock it.
'I truly need a much larger kitchen area..'
But Jack had other priorities. After filling his belly he went back to the summoning area.
Standing opposite the four doorways to the summoning portals, he began his work.
The stonewall in the side of the main tunnel, slowly crumbled into sand and fell to the floor.
A ten meter wide and 5 meter high new entrance appeared. Inside Jack continued to hollow it out until he could no longer continue due to pure mental exhaustion.
[Drill-zone blueprint, trash rank. Description: A militia drill-zone. Used to upgrade and refine Troops. Can be upgraded to further advance the troops. Building Cost: Wood x500. Stone x1000.]
This building was only 5 square meters in size, which surprised Jack. He placed one in the middle, and one in each corner of the new drill-zone room.
[Drill zone, Trash rank: The drill zone is a magical building that can upgrade troops. Only trash troops can be upgraded regardless of the Drill-Zone buildings rank.]
[Rank upgrade cost from trash to common rank: 100 Gold Coins. 24 hours training. Building capacity: 0/500]
[Do you want to upgrade a troop?]
'This seems simple enough. Recruit troops and have them enter the drill-zones to rank up to common rank..'
Jack thought, but he was not done yet. He still had plenty of resources.
[Upgrade Drill-zone to common rank? Cost: Wood x2000. Stone x10.000. Gold Coins x20.000]
Jack upgraded all five and looked at his resources before he continued.
[Lords Common resources: Wood x82.500. Stone x570.000. Iron x200.000. Gold Coins x124.000]
He still had enough for his current plans. And tomorrow morning a new batch of stone, wood and gold coins would be deposited.
The stone miners and woodcutters had gained the same deal as the gold miners. Jack thought this carved a way for internal trade and wealth to build up naturally.
[Drill zone, Common rank: The drill zone is a magical building that can upgrade troops. Only trash troops can be upgraded regardless of the Drill-Zone buildings rank.]
[Common troops have one ability slot]
[Rank upgrade cost from trash to common rank: 100 Gold Coins. 24 hours training. Troop upgrade capacity: 0/1000]
[Troop ability upgrade cost: 500 gold coins. 24 hours training. Troop capacity shared with troop upgrade capacity]
[Do you want to upgrade a troop?]
It was much better now. The trash troops would in 24 hours be upgraded to common rank and even gain an ability that could likewise be upgraded.
Jack went to the summoning portals just opposite the drill-zones.
[50.000 gold coins received. 5000 trash troops summoned. Completion time: 14 hours]
Jack had lost count on how many trash troops he already had. But knew it was more than 3000. He would have to ask Harken later...
As the first troop appeared, he commanded it to wait here and tell the other troops to gather in the dwarven habitual zone until they were all summoned.
'Tomorrow I will upgrade all five thousand of them..'
Jack went to his mansion after this.
In the mansion Jack checked his blueprints before heading to the mission room. The troop barracks still needed to be build. And when the new 5000 troops was added to his current 3000 troops, the issue was becoming pressing.
'But where is the Sawmill blueprint? I'm sure I build 100 houses, 80 more than required. And the wooden wall and gate blueprint? I'm likewise certain that I reached more than 500 civilians..'
Jack entered his new and proper mansion and headed directly to the large meeting room.
The room had slightly changed. The walls had intricate carvings and the middle meeting table was much wider and longer.
On it lay no longer the mission board, but instead a large map was there.
Jack went to the mission board that now hanged on the bare wall at the end of the meeting table.
'So I have to claim the rewards here? Maybe this kinds of missions require me to claim it. And the missions that requires killing, will be obtained when I slay my foe...'
Jack guessed it was something like this. Because when he opened the mission board, he gained the reward for building the 20 houses, and reaching 500 civilians. No new mission appeared this instant.
'I will look at these later when I get to the palisades..'
Jack then continued to sit down in his chair and looked at the territory map.
[Territory Map: The territory map details high events within the owned territories. It shows sizes of controlled villages, towns, cities and metropolises within the territory. The territory map provides 'Conquest Missions'. These missions solely refer to the conquest of new territory and the rewards will equal the danger level of those territories.]
[Territory(s): Black Mountain, village]
[Owned territories decrease wild beast and monster spawns close to habituated settlements by 90%]
[Conquest Mission available: Conquer the crazed forest. Rewards: Uncommon treasure: Crazed Plantation.]
[List of settlement sizes: Small village, 500 civilians. Village, 1000 civilians. Large village, 1500 civilians. Small town, 5000 civilians. Town, 10.000 civilians. Large town, 20.000 civilians. Small city, 50.000 civilians. City, 100.000 civilians. Large city, 150.000 civilians. Small metropolis, 250.000 civilians. Metropolis, 500.000 civilians. Large metropolis, 1.000.000+]
'So I'm currently in the village stage... I wonder if anyone will ever reach the metropolis stages?'
Jack now had 2 missions left. Conquer the forest and claim a resource spawn. He wouldn't actively search for a resource spawn. He had plenty resources for right now, and other matters he needed to focus on. If he found one in the forest, fine. If not, fine too. It only gave a medium amount of resources as a reward anyway.
Looking closer at the map he could clearly see his territory, the black mountain, having distinct borders in three directions.
Forward was the crazed forest. He could clearly see a path, or road halfway through it in the middle of the forest. That's where his troops were. And a circle encampment was depicted there.
Behind the black mountain was only water. The ocean roamed here. But on both the left and right side, the black mountains territory stopped even though the mountains continued.
To the left was the 'Silver Mountains' clearly depicted on the map. It was the mountain range that spanned all the way from the black mountain till it reached the 5km small beach. Another territory began on the other side of the beach, but was hidden in fog.
To the right the mountain range was called 'Bloodfall Peaks' according to the territory map.
'Uhm, that name seems rather ominous..' Jack thought, but had no intention to go there in the immediate future.
Besides this, he noticed that so far he was still only halfway up the black mountains leg. His territory was so much larger than he imagined. Maybe there could even be made multiple metropolises in the black mountain alone...
Jack had many thoughts, and was beginning to get tired. Dinner should also be ready.
He went outside again and grabbed a ready to eat bowl from the stone table at the entrance. He sat down in the corner and briefly watched the civilians and troops walking by.
'So many people.. I didn't realise my home had grown into a village already.'
Jack watched as people was working with the food, dwarfs singing and eating, more civilians coming with crudely made wheelbarrows or wagons with wood or sand from the newly excavated drill-zone.
The civilians didn't waste anything. And the more they have to experiment with, the more they would invent of daily necessities.
The sand was being brough to a couple of men and dwarfs who was positioned next to the small pond. They where experimenting and sharing ideas, and it seemed they had already completed a batch of home-made clay. If they only had some high temperature oven...
Jack visualized how clay pots, pans, cutlery and maybe even sculptures of art could be appearing in his village soon.
After eating and watching the plateau full of people, he went to the palisades.
"My lord! The area here is firmly secure. The forest base and road between is equally stable. There have not been any beast or monster sighting in a few hours."
Harken bowed and reported instantly. He had been overseeing the defenses at the palisades and the forest base and thus patrolled between them. Jack had just been lucky to meet him at this moment.
"That's good Harken, well done with the defenses!"
Harken bowed and smiled relaxed.
"But I need the civilians and troops to all move to the forest. I have new buildings I will create here" Jack continued.
"At once my lord!" Harken yelled and everyone became rushed and moved to the trees.