Ben opened the blueprint in his Settlement Interface and chose the ‘model’ option, just like last time. The golden miniature model of the current settlement appeared, showing the full extent of their area, of which they currently used only a fraction.

  Their core zone—the space they could build infrastructure on—had grown to 650 by 650 meters. The overall Protectorate zone was significantly larger and had grown into a square with sides 3.25 kilometers long.

  Just like last time, he was guided through a number of choices regarding the layout of the settlement. He did not see a reason to deviate from the principles he had applied before. Once finished, he arranged the buildings and infrastructure to reflect their new size and buildings.

  First, he moved the palisades out, then he placed the Guild Hall on the west side of the main plaza. Given that the plaza would grow to fifty by fifty meters, there was still space beside it on the west side. He tentatively placed a courthouse there, but it wasn’t set in stone yet. On the east side there would be space for another building beside the existing inn, and he put the auction house there as a placeholder.

  The HQ would remain alone on the south side for now, and given that he placed the park just on the north side, it would retain its unconstrained view down the avenues leading to the gate. Ben thought it would be nice to have the park right in the middle of the settlement, even though he was tempted to position the Academy main building on the plaza’s edge. In the end, he kept to their plan of a campus on the northwest side of the settlement.

  After a few more adjustments, including placing the park and their first school, he shared the blueprint with the council, who were happy with the suggestions, and confirmed it.

  The council sent a message to everyone in the Protectorate to warn them that changes would happen on that same day before dinner, with everyone excited to see what the new buildings would add to their emerging little town.

  ***

  A few hours later, Ben exited the dungeon portal to the Rings of Return. They had had a successful run and had also agreed to leave the settlement early the next day to start exploring in the direction of the Tier 2 dungeons.

  Akira waited for him on the plaza and greeted him with a grim look on his face.

  “What’s up, Akira? All well?”

  “No, it is not. I learned over the last few hours how things work here in the Protectorate.”

  “Good, but what is the problem?”

  “To house us, you had to spend thousands and thousands of credits. Credits that you have to risk your life for in these dungeons every day. But I learned that Energy cores are the currency the systems use, so I brought you this.” He handed over a red messenger bag.

  Ben opened it, looked inside, and found dozens of cores. He looked at Akira with wide eyes.

  “I collected those as trophies during my hunts around my grandparents’ village. There was nothing we could do with them, and I only collected them over the last month, once things had stabilized. If I had known how valuable they are, I could have brought a lot more,” the man said despondently.

  “Well, thank you. Let me say, this is not necessary, as we welcome everyone, no matter whether they bring something along. But I am not above taking them either, as we have a lot of projects that we would like to fund. If there are any businesses you would like to run, please let Adam know that you already paid for it with this,” Ben said as he lifted the bag. “In a few hours you will see what we spend those on,” he added with a smile.

  ***

  It was early evening, and most of the Protectorate had assembled on the plaza. It was time to expand, but first they welcomed the newcomers with a short Retelling ceremony in which many people talked about where they had come from and the new home they had found. Ben’s mother did a great job of telling a story she had by now told a few times in ways that were different and still funny.

  After they were done, Ben accessed the blueprint and confirmed it.

  First, the Protectorate Pillar rose a full meter higher into the sky, now seven meters tall, about as high as the HQ and library.

  Then, the palisades moved out, and Ben laughed as he heard the astonished shouts from some of their newest citizens. That was only the beginning.

  Next, the streets expanded across the whole new city limits—almost three times as big as just moments before.

  He executed the command to build the park next. It wasn’t huge in the grand scheme of things, but for the size of the settlement it was quite grand. On one end it had a large playground, and everything was surrounded by trees. It had a few small green clearings with wooden tables and benches. Ben could easily imagine families spending their days off with picnics.

  He announced the next building loudly. “To the delight of all kids and teenagers: a school!”

  It had been tongue in cheek, and he had expected boos, but instead there were quite a few cheers. It seemed that a place where they could congregate was not all bad.

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  The building rose close to the park, north of the plaza, across the street from the campus that would emerge just a few minutes later.

  The school building was fairly large and looked like it could host more students than the settlement currently had citizens in total. It had a glass dome over the central building, a lot smaller than the one over the library, and two wings that framed a courtyard. The same white marble that made up the whole city gave it a majestic feeling.

  After receiving the cores from Akira, Ben had made some minor changes to their plan. First, in preparation for a potential vassalization of Simonston, he had discussed with Adam that it would make sense to buy another greenhouse, bringing their count to four. Second, he had decided to be frivolous and spend another 50 SCs on a small park that he managed to stretch around the Academy main building.

  Now was the time to build both.

  Ben had seen the size of the main building on the blueprint, of course, but in reality it hit harder. It was one of those moments where he sometimes questioned the system’s priorities, because the building itself was larger than a city block.

  It had three floors, which currently seemed to be the maximum in their settlement. It comprised two parallel buildings that were connected with three wings—two on the ends, one in the middle. It therefore had two courtyards. The connecting wings had oval glass roofs, and the middle one had a flagpole that flew the Protectorate emblem: the golden-tipped obelisk in front of blue mountains on a golden background.

  Some of the citizens were silenced by the size and grandeur of the building, others shouted in excitement. It was a festive atmosphere.

  Ben was extremely excited to explore the building, but first he had to conclude the current build phase.

  While the others were still debating and celebrating the Academy building, he initiated the construction of the greenhouse, which was not spectacular, but certainly crucial.

  Then, the second major building of the day started to take shape.

  Almost thirty meters wide and equally deep, the Guild Hall rose from the ground. It had a large metal gate but, similar to the HQ, no windows on the ground floor. The higher you got on its overall three floors, the more windows appeared. It had an axe and sword crossed over the Protectorate Pillar as an emblem, and each corner was shaped like a tower, extending over the last floor into the sky.

  It looked like a small castle made from marble. It exuded sturdiness.

  He thanked everyone and told them that they could return to their homes, while Adam informed Liz and Zack that they needed to align on managing the new greenhouse.

  It was time to explore their new buildings.

  ***

  He entered through the heavy gate of the Guild Hall, followed by the rest of the council.

  They entered into a large hall that had a long reception desk in a central position, easily able to host multiple clerks in parallel.

  On the left was a three-meter-long, thin block, about hip-high, that stood a few meters from the wall. Its purpose was unclear. On the right were a couple of seating areas.

  Doors lined the wall behind the reception desk.

  Congratulations on opening your Guild Hall.

  It is a place for soldiers and adventurers alike, allowing you to organize the defense of the Protectorate as well as the exploration of your assets.

  Once you have assigned a Guild Master you will have access to the following features:

  Dungeon management system.

  Mission board.

  Strength assessment.

  Increased coordination for units fighting within the Protectorate for its defense

  Add-ons are available for purchase, more will be made available at a later time.

  Good luck.

  Lots of things that sounded interesting. Without hesitation, Ben made Allison the Guild Master, and both she and Adam were apparently reading up on things in their interface while Ben wandered around the room, trying to get a feel for the new place.

  After a couple of minutes, Allison seemed ready to share what she had learned.

  “When we designed the Protectors, they were meant to be defending us like an army and at the same time delve dungeons, even though those things might be attractive to different people and eventually also require different skillsets. This place seems to be designed to cater to both. I can’t tell you why, but it feels like it is custom made for us and not a standard building.”

  Ben frowned slightly—not because of the building, but because he had never thought about the Protectors like his mother had just described. He had to remember to discuss this with her in more detail and what it would mean for them.

  “Anyway, the dungeon management system provides the ability to create delving slots for each dungeon and essentially close them to anybody who is not part of the assigned party for that slot.”

  “If that means it prevents people from accidentally entering, that would be one less worry for me,” Ben said.

  “It does,” Allison continued. “It also enables some of the financial things that Adam talked about, like charging people for access or taxing them for loot. Charging does not have to be limited to Credits—you can also build a point system where you get points for doing a certain dungeon and pay them for running another one.”

  Barry nodded. “You can easily see how it might not be interesting for stronger people to run some of the weaker dungeons, but if there is nobody else, that way you could incentivize them to do it anyway.”

  “Exactly. Speaking of ‘stronger,’ there is an assessment tool somewhere here on the ground floor that allows for a more granular assessment of people’s strengths than just the tier,” Allison continued.

  “That seems very helpful. A Tier 1 crafter clearly is less well suited to run Rat World than someone whose perks are all built around fighting,” Ben said happily. It would reduce the risk of people running dungeons beyond their strength.

  “The mission board will change things up around here. As the Guild Master, I can offer missions—again, payment can be Credits or points if we want to introduce them. More importantly, the systems can offer missions as well. So your monopoly on system missions will end,” his mother said with a smile.

  Ben was happy with that. Especially if the missions would also specify strength requirements. It would also potentially provide one path for their growth. The way things had gone over the last month, where his team was the only one to run the rescue missions, didn’t scale, and the trade-off between exploring the Tier 2 area and running the missions necessary to rescue people and grow the settlement would be resolved.

  “That sounds wonderful overall. I can’t wait to see this place come to life!” Ben said with a smile, ready to explore the building further.

  “Wait! Do you remember the paradigm shift?” Adam exclaimed.

  “You mean the game changer? Where you declared an emergency? The thing that is supposed to make this settlement rich? Yes, I faintly remember,” Ben said sarcastically.

  “So, I just learned about the next level of the game changer!”