Daz entered the smithy and was surprised to see that the five blacksmiths and the master blacksmith weren't Humans. "Gnomes, not Dwarfs?"

The one-feet tall and slightly chubby men and women quickly rushed towards Daz and circled him while some climbed on top of him. Each and every one of them was excited and happy to see him it would seem.

"He smells nice!"

"Weird arm!"

"Strange leg!"

"Good person!"

"Make equipment for you?"

"New Lord!"

Daz immediately grabbed two of the Gnomes on him and threw them away. They harmlessly bounced off of the smithy's walls and scrambled back to him before scaling his legs once again.

"Violent Lord!"

"Powerful Lord!"

"Good Lord!"

'The fuck... Is this because of my Shovel Knight class? If I remember correctly, it boosted my affinity with Gnomes and Dwarfs by fifty percent, but this is way more than that... These little fuckers are completely loyal to me... System, Higher Identification,' Daz thought.

He ignored the actual status of the Gnomes and focused on their Species while he was busy prying them from his face and chest. The sneaky little creatures were surprisingly nimble and hard for Daz to grab when he was focusing on the system messages.

Gnome Description A Species immune to charm based attacks and are highly skilled at enchanting and blacksmithing. They have a tendency to serve evil lords and are very compatible with evil-inclined species. They have a very large, almost obsessive, love for chestnuts. Abilities Charm Immunity Lesser Illusion Magic Resistance Greater Magic Resistance Black Magic Resistance Weaknesses Extreme Physical Attack Weakness Lesser Holy Magic Weakness

"Hahahaha, perfect," Daz laughed a bit maniacally.

These small crafters were ideal for him. Daz could see himself quickly becoming attached to the little people that were busy adoring him.

"Dark Lord!"

"Evil laugh!"

"Lucky Lord this time!"

"Yeah! Yeah! Nothing like poopy Archmage before!"

Daz chuckled lightly at the Gnomes' antics. "Okay, you guys. I was gonna work you as hard as I could, but I feel good now. I'll be sending my citizens to you, and I want you all to make their weapons and any items they give you as strong as you can, oh, and if possible, enchant it too. You can start with this," Daz ordered before he handed over his hand shovel that was completely normal in all regards. "If you do a good job, I'll reward you with as many chestnuts as you can eat."

"Amazing Dark Lord!"

"We work hard!"

"For the Dark Lord!"

"For the chestnuts!!!"

The Gnomes quickly snatched Daz's secondary weapon and ran into the smithy and immediately started to work on it.

"This could prove to be the most beneficial upgrade I've ever purchased," Daz mumbled to himself with a smile on his face. His expression quickly returned to being monotonous as he left the building and started to twirl a small token in his hands.

This item was the Base Type Alteration Token and Daz had finally decided to use it. As far as he could see, his base being a storage-type wasn't being a huge help to him. If he changed it, at most, he'd only lose his inventory system. He had made sure to not grow reliant on that function since he was aware that he'd have to change his base's type eventually.

"System, can you tell me what base type would be ideal for Fort Skip considering it's current developments and the direction I'm going with it?" Daz asked.

Confirmed. The ideal base type for [Fort Skip] would be [Castle-Type] Stat Upgrade Castle Base Type Description It would be very silly to own a Fort, but not have it be classified as a Fort or a similar type of base, like the far superior Castle base type, now wouldn't it? Upgrade Passively increases the base's attack by 25%. Passively increases the base's Defense by 25%. Will introduce the quest system to the base's citizens. Price 1,000,000(250,000) Merit Points. 100,000 Base Points.

'Well, that's interesting. A quest system? That's certainly worth trading the current inventory system for. I've already researched the quest system, but it was way too expensive... To think it was part of the Castle base type. Based on our current tasks and goals, the system will generate quests for us that reward us with merit points and items. Certainly, that's without a doubt, the best base type for me and Fort Skip,' Daz concluded in thought, however, he didn't use his token to confirm the purchase just yet.

Daz spent the next five minutes finding Lyle and telling him to gather everyone to the centre of Fort Skip where the law signboard and the attack volunteer signboard were. Lyle was more than happy to help and was done within twenty minutes, even if he looked very exhausted, which concerned Daz slightly, but he chose to ignore that for now.

Soon enough, all of Fort Skip's seventy-six citizens, Madison and Ellie included, were standing in front of the boards that were within the fort's inner walls.

Most of the citizens were confused and didn't know why Daz had called for them. Naturally, a lot of them had seen him repairing the ramparts and purchasing new buildings, but they still didn't know how any of that related to them.

Daz walked up to the same spot that he had stood at when he had created the simple rules of Fort Skip a few days ago and faced his citizens. "I brought you all here today to explain a few things and to announce a few changes."

"First things first, I want to thank everyone for working together during these hard times. I know some of you weren't satisfied with me as your leader, but as I'm sure you're all aware, I will do my best to keep you all safe and to protect your peaceful lives to the best of my ability," Daz said in a loud and enchanting voice.

The few people that still harboured foul thoughts had to swallow their words of discontent, much like with the ex-mayor, Robert Mathers. He simply had to sit back and allow Daz to do what he wished since he had the support of Crusher and the mysterious expert, Madison.

"Now, the important matters," Daz smiled.

He then went on to explain the barracks and the role of the soldiers as well and the Gnomes and their smithy. A surprising amount of people were excited by the new work opportunities. Previously, they could only help in the mines, which lacked any and all appeal, however, assisting in a smithy or training to be a soldier was obviously a better option to most of the citizens.

The next subject Daz spoke about was the inventory system being replaced with the quest system later on today. Daz urged everyone who had been using their few inventory spaces to empty them out so no items would get lost. Daz didn't know how the transition would work, but he didn't want to take any unneeded risks.

The final thing Daz did was explain that he wanted everyone to come to his cabin one by one tomorrow and they should talk to Lyle to arrange who would come when and in what order. He planned to craft simple identification tokens which his citizens could use as proofs of citizenship to the guards.

No one had any complaints regarding these changes and announcements, so after being dismissed, half of the citizens went to the smithy to hand in their weapons while the other half either went back to what they were doing earlier or they chose to check out the barracks.

"Have a good sleep?" Daz asked Madison after he hugged her lightly.

"Mmm," she softly replied, "Was good."

"I'm glad. I'm going to go upgrade Rimmy before I knuckle down and start crafting those identification tokens, wanna join me, or are you busy?" Daz would be happy regardless of Madison's choice.

"Training. Sleep more," Madison responded in her usual broken format of speech.

"Okay, don't break anything important while you train, and I'm sure Lyle already told you, but you can get free skills if you train over there," Daz explained nonchalantly as he pointed at the tiny training area, "Or at the barracks' training area," he added.

Madison nodded and trotted off to do so. Daz left Fort Skip and met up with the unofficial guardian of the outer gate, Rimmy McShineston. No words were needed between the two and Daz immediately began checking for suitable upgrades for Rimmy and after roughly an hour, he had spent one-hundred thousand points on his best friend.

Summoned Jewel Golem's Status Basic Information Name: Rimmy McShineston Species: Jewel Golem (Beginning stages of evolving) Age: 0 Sex: N/A Class: The Jewelled Pioneer Affinity: Neutral Description The one who got lost on the jewelled path and was consumed by its power. Has been granted a second chance at life by the host, Daz, and due to this host being his summoner and a being who once tread the same path he did, he feels unending loyalty for him. Energies Jewelled Core Mark II: 100/100 Jewelled Core Mark II: 100/100 Stats Strength: 750 Constitution: 2,500 Loyalty: Maximum Defense: 500 Skills Double Energy Usage Efficiency Crystal Shotgun Jewel Generation

He had thought fairly hard about what upgrades he would get for Rimmy, but Daz finally settled on these changes.

First, increasing Rimmy's strength and constitution to the limits of his Species and secondly, he bought the Defense stat for his jewelled buddy. With that, Daz was far more confident that Rimmy wouldn't suffer as easily as he did in the recent four-day cycle.

Maybe the most noticeable change that Daz made to Rimmy physically, was that he upgraded his jewelled core and bought an additional one, essentially quadrupling his energy capacity. The two cores were very easy to see because they hummed and shone through Rimmy's cyan coloured body.

After having made those changes, Daz decided to make Rimmy's unofficial skill, Crystal Shotgun, into an actual one sanctioned by the system, which boosted its power by almost three-fold.

The final upgrade was the skill, Jewel Generation. This allowed Rimmy to, as suggested, create jewels. It wasn't nearly as fast or as productive as the mines, but Daz figured that it was an essential skill if Rimmy were ever to be trapped somewhere where he couldn't get any jewels to feed on.

Thanks to all of these things, Rimmy's height had grown once again. He now stood at a proud ten-feet tall and he could barely fit through the portcullis anymore.

"There we go. Now I feel far better knowing that you're stronger, but Rimmy, why didn't you tell me that you were in the beginning stages of evolving? Were you planning to hide that from me until I used Higher Identification on you?" Daz asked with a slightly accusing tone.

Rimmy shook his head and waved his enormous arms around.

"What do you mean you didn't kno- ah, you can't speak normally and you don't have the mental communication skill, so you can't check your own status?" Daz deduced.

Rimmy's head immediately nodded up and down before making a motion that would imply sighing.

"That makes sense, sorry for blaming you for something that wasn't your fault, hahaha." As always, whenever Daz spoke to Rimmy, something about their conversations invariably brought out his emotions that until recently, were hidden for most of his life.

Atop the outer limestone ramparts, two soldiers that were on duty, watched Daz talking to Rimmy and they had incredulous looks on their faces.

"Sten, do you think our new lord is nuts?"

"There's no doubt. Bloody chap's lost his rocker. What kind of fool talks to a Golem? Lunacy I say."

"Right. I hope we can serve him for a long time though."

"Indeed. This is a very peaceful world after all, and I don't know about you, Leston, but the women here are very beautiful. I'd even go so far as to say that they look better than the princess of our homeworld, ohohoho!"

"Like you have any chances. How old are you now, Sten?"

"I'm a chipper young lad by anyone's standards, thank you very much! Fifty-two is considered young on this planet, right?"

"I have no idea, Sten. But with your face, I don't think it really matters..."