Chapter: Return to Beast Mountain

Erik and Rugrat left the dungeon core, on the ground, one could see markers that lined out the different buildings that they had input.

The Vzztpssht, beetle looking machines started to move around, carrying resources with their front forks, placing the building materials at the side of these marked out areas.

One of the patrols was watching them warily, their weapons in hand.

“Sergeant Choi,” Erik said.

“Mister Erik, Rugrat, what are the markings and those metal machines?” Sergeant Choi asked, his expression tense.

“Those are robotic helpers, it’s their job to move materials to the new work sites. The markings are where we’ll build houses, academies workshops and other areas for the Dungeon,” Rugrat said.

“Houses, an academy?” One of the soldiers asked, looking stunned.

“Well, we can’t very well keep sleeping on the ground,” Erik smiled.

The soldier looked away awkwardly as he caught Sergeant Choi’s glare.

“No sir!” The soldier responded, embarrassed by his outburst.

Where the robots dropped off the materials, the marked off area would show where the materials were to be placed.

“You might need this,” Egbert said from behind Erik and Rugrat, tossing them two scrolls.

The soldiers all gripped their weapons tighter seeing the skeleton.

“Don't worry about him, that’s Egbert,” Erik said looking at the scroll.

It was a spell scroll.

“Binding scroll, it allows one to bind materials together,” Rugrat said.

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Technique Book: Materials Binding

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Do you wish to activate this Technique book? Doing so will destroy this Technique book.

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YES/NO

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Erik called up Egbert.

“How many of these scrolls do you have?” Erik didn’t want to waste them

“About fifty or so,” Egbert replied.

“Do you have any other technique books?” Erik asked.

“I’ve got spells from Novice to Expert, most are simple spells for building” Egbert said.

“Go to Elise when she wakes up and give her a full accounting of all the materials and items that you have,” Erik said. If I can get my hands on some healing spells, or on spell formations so that I can make my own spells.

Erik was pleased with the spells he had, but it felt like he was using a multi-tool for everything he didn’t have the tools for more complicated procedures or problems.

“Understood,” Egbert said.

Erik closed the channel and pressed yes on the scroll.

The scroll started to burn up, shooting out a ray of light into his brow.

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You have learned the spell: Materials Binding. Your spell book has been updated.

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Rugrat did the same, the soldiers could only look on in anticipation.

Erik moved towards where the hospital was to be built, he easily picked up the stone bricks, his strength was great enough that the heavy slab barely weighed anything. He carried a handful of them and looked at where there was a glowing blue light, he placed a brick down where it appeared and another light appeared next to it.

Erik binded the stone with the floor. He pulled on it, but there wasn’t the slightest bit of give, satisfied he repeated the process, putting the next brick into its place. The building blueprint showed him exactly where to place the next piece.

Erik quickly ran out of stones as he stood up he could see a percentage bar in the middle of the hospital.

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Hospital: 1% Complete

8 Hours till completion

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“Catch!” Rugrat yelled out.

Erik looked over, catching the rock, he looked over to Rugrat.

“Really?” Erik asked.

“Speed things up a bit!” Rugrat yelled back.

Erik felt a new energy filling him.

He put down the stone brick and bound it to the floor, he stood up, catching the next brick that Rugrat had thrown over and binding it, he moved forward catching another and continued the process.

***

“Much too dirty in here, hopefully the new masters will be able to build the new homes quickly,” Egbert tuttered as Elise’s eyes trembled before she opened her eyes.

She frowned as she looked up at Egbert who was inspecting the smithy she was sleeping in.

“Egbert?” She said, pulling up her blanket.

“It’s not like you’re naked, look at me I’ve got my bones out all the time, much more freeing I tell you. Erik ordered me to give you this, it’s a full accounting of all the resources and items that I contain,” Egbert pulled out a scroll and passed it to Elise.

“I’ll go and see if I can help out the master’s now,” Egbert turned and left the smithy as Elise looked at the scroll in her possession, Egbert was a strange one but she didn’t feel any malice from him.

Why do I feel that he’s begrudgingly happy under it all? Maybe he’s been missing contact with other people? Elise didn’t know the workings of an undead skeleton’s mind and let it go as she opened the scroll.

It was itemized into different categories with seperate stats for different items. She opened it up, her shock only increasing, there didn’t seem to be many simple things, it had to be known that spell technique books were something that were originally from the second realm,. Only someone that was from a powerful nation or sect in the first realm would be able to acquire them. Just looking at this list there were dozens of different basic spell scrolls and technique books.

“Expert level information books?” She said, her eyes wide as she shook.

Finding these in higher realms is hard unless you have a powerful backer, is this the information that Erik and Rugrat want to place in their library? Getting just the chance to read a journeyman book might be some people’s aspirations in the mortal realms!

Elise quickly put the scroll away, she needed to find Erik and Rugrat.

She headed out of the smithy to the main area around the Dungeon core, already Jasper had his people preparing breakfast, Elise looked around before seeing a patrol. She quickly moved over to meet them.

“Miss Elise,” Sergeant Niemm said in greeting.

“Where is everyone, shouldn’t there be more people?” Elise asked.

“Ah, well most of them are helping with the Hospital and the Barracks,” Niemm said with a smile. “Mister Erik and Rugrat started working on it early this morning. Others that weren’t able to sleep went over and started helping out. I’ve never seen a building built so fast!”

“Where is the hospital?” Elise remembered the two talking about it, but they had been planning everything out after she left.

“Down Nine-o’clock street that meets up with the Beast stables,” Niemm said, pointing to one of the rune roads.

“Thank you,” Elise moved down the road and could see the one story building, it hadn’t existed last night but now it was in the last stages of building, there wasn’t a slate or tiled roof, instead the roof was made from furs to protect from the draft.

All around here there were markings that broke up the space, piles of bricks lay in the middle of these locations, around the hospital, crews were hurling bricks from these piles to their fellows that laid them down, following the blueprint, their hands glowed with magical runes as they cast spells on the bricks and the floor.

Elise was in shock, she looked around.

There are fifteen people that are using spells? There were only five spellcasters when the Beast horde arrived! What’s going on?

She walked up to one of the blueprints where people were chatting with one another, quickly assembling the building at an incredible speed.

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House: 15% Complete

4 Hours till completion

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“Miss Elise, is there something I can help you with?” A burly looking fellow, Gu Tao, who was standing at the pile of bricks asked, he was throwing the bricks as if they were nothing, everyone’s levels had shot up, greatly increasing their attributes.

“Umm,” Elise’s mind was still reeling. “Will this house really be finished in four hours?”

“If we had more people we could do it faster,” Gu Tao frowned. “Also these don’t have any runes in them and they won’t be finished with lights or a roof until the second crew comes through, we’re just making the walls and then the structure for the first and second floor.”

“Do you know where Erik and Rugrat are?” She asked.

“They’re probably up at the Barracks I heard that they might be racing one another at who can lay bricks faster,” Gu Tao laughed, looking towards the Beast Stables.

“Thank you,” Elise said, following where he was looking she could see that there was a building in the distance now next to the beast stables.

“No problem, miss!” Gu Tao said.

As they were talking, he never stopped throwing, supplying three different brick layers as they simply caught, cast their spells and caught the next, moving along the wall at a walking pace.

Elise moved towards the barracks and looked around, it looked like everyone that was awake was working in the outlined areas that were meant for houses, Egbert was talking with a group, Elise walked nearby, listening in.

“Now these are mining picks, make sure that the edges are smooth, if they’re not it will be hard to fit all of the piping and the cover stones,” Egbert said.

Elise watched as she was walking, the crews turned to face different ways, glowing squares appeared in front of them as they swung their picks, the front group was meant to break up the rock while the second clean up the excess.

With their strength each blow with the pick sent rocks flying, their picks started to get into a rhythm as they walked forwards, behind them they left a two feet deep path, Panels were brought over and laid next to this path, they were rune panels, complete with sewer lines, the runing had been carved out and used by Egbert to keep the dungeon core alive, otherwise it was completely fine.

She could see the entire dungeon being built up at a speed visible to the eye, the sense of progress left her feeling excited about what was to come and pushing her fears away.

“And you were scared that this was the wrong decision,” she chided herself, but making any kind of big leap like this would make one hesitant.

She made it to the barracks, the walls here were much thicker, different sections were in various stages of progress.

She walked through what looked to be the main gate, the towers on either side were being built.

People were talking and the sounds of work could be heard all around.

The soldiers were in their shirts and pants helping out, there was a cafeteria, housing, training areas an armory and then the massive thick walls that enclosed the entire place. There was enough room for two people, not just the sixty or so that had stayed as part of the army.

They were only focusing on the walls and some of the housing, the rest would be completed later if more people joined the military.

She saw Erik and Rugrat were building the outer wall facing away from the city. The stone was as big as a man’s torso, cut into blocks.

Erik and Rugrat handled them as if they were just large boxes, easily catching them, placing them down and using the spell she had seen the other builders using to fuse it to the other materials around.

To keep up with them, two soldiers were throwing to them each.

In the space of a few minutes they had done the base layer and they were moving higher.

“Done!” Rugrat said jumping off of the wall just a few minutes later, dropping to the ground.

Erik put the last stone in place and jumped down to the ground as well.

“What’s going on?” Elise asked.

“Just a bit of friendly competition,” Rugrat said.

“No, like last night I went to bed and there wasn’t anything, now there are houses popping up, you made a hospital and there are roads going in!”

“Oh, that,” Rugrat said. “We did some planning and then we wanted to test out how these blueprints really work.”

Seeing the playful grins on their faces she could tell that they were indeed telling the truth. The previous images were once again shattered as she couldn’t help but show an amused smile.

“Oh, Egbert gave me this this morning,” she said, holding out a scroll to Erik and Rugrat.

Rugrat opened it with Erik looking over his shoulder.

He scrolled through the scroll, his eyes getting bigger as he looked through it all.

Rugrat’s hands paused as they got to blacksmithing materials section.

“Where’s that skeleton!” He yelled out.

Erik grabbed the scroll from Rugrat and scrolled through to the section on alchemy materials.

“You go towards the six I’ll go to the twelve, get his finger bones!” Erik yelled, the two of them started running out of the barracks.

“He’s down the road near the hospital!” Elise yelled out.

The two idiots that had been sprinting to the right and left curved back around in a comical display of speed as they left trails of dust running into the city.

“What was that all about?” Blaze asked.

“Well,” Elise thought about the things she had seen on the scroll. “I think that we’re in for some big changes.”

“Big changes, you ever seen a house built in an hour?” Blaze asked.

“Not really,” Elise said.

“Even though these are blueprints, making so many buildings someone would be able to learn something about construction. I swear that half of the people here will reached at least Apprentice skill level in construction!” Blaze said, loud enough that the soldiers heard.

They had been paying attention to their conversation and slowed their actions down, before they sped up.

Elise saw the sly smile on Blaze’s face, it was true that crafters could increase their skill level by working with a blueprint related to their skill. It guided them to build higher quality items than what they could make themselves. If they could learn from the blueprint then they could increase the quality and level of their own creations.

One might need to grind out plenty of blueprints, but the allure of learning a skill was high, they could get a random item, more experience and the modifiers could make their lives easier.

Elise thought on the markings she had seen around Alva, there was plenty of buildings to grind out.