At the college, Rick heard all about Ryan's race that he picked and how fast that he could swim and how much he enjoyed himself. Ryan had also told his friends all about the submerged Darfellan city that was surrounded by an island and his little hut he made on the small island off the northern coast. Lily also told everyone that she had bought a longsword and was currently training with it so that she would have an easier time of fighting monsters and animals who got in close to her. Ryan and Lily then discussed when they would both want to leave their small starting location and be picked up by Rick.

Rick told Luke not to worry even if he picked the other two up before he was ready to move on from Vampire Island he would stop by the Island that was on the way to Darfellan Island where Ryan was at. Rick explained to them that he had a spell that allowed him to return to anywhere he had previously visited. By stopping at Vampire Island on the way to pick up Ryan he would be able to later open a portal to bring Luke to his city whenever he was ready to leave.

After classes, Rick went straight home and connected to Kingdoms Online and sat up in his bed inside the tower.

He opened up his menus to make a preset outfit template for his new armor set.

Spoiler: Preset Outfit: Tank Preset Outfit: Tank Equipment List Body Slot Enchanted Astrallium Helmet Head Slot Enchanted Gold Necklace with Gold Dragon ruby eyes Pendant +13 Agility Neck Slot Astrallium Chain Mail Tunic Inner Torso Slot Enchanted Astrallium Cuirass Torso Slot Red Silk Cape Outer Torso Slot Enchanted Astrallium Greaves Legs Slot Astrallium Chain Mail Leggings Inner Legs Slots Enchanted Astrallium Greaves Feet Slot Enchanted Astrallium Gauntlets Hands Slot Steel Ring + 13 Strength Left Index Ring Slot Steel Ring + 13 Strength Left Middle Finger Steel Ring + 13 Strength Left Ring Finger Slot Steel Ring + 13 Strength Left Pinky Finger Steel Ring + 13 Strength Right Index Ring Slot Steel Ring + 13 Strength Right Middle Finger Steel Ring + 13 Strength Right Ring Finger Slot Steel Ring + 13 Strength Right Pinky Finger Enchanted Astrallium Gauntlets Forearm Slot Dual Back Harness Scabbard and Two Runic Fire Swords Upper Back Slot Black Leather Quiver Lower Back Slot Enchanted Astrallium Greaves Thigh Slot Enchanted Astrallium Greaves Shin Slot Black Leather Belt Waist Slot Zeus Hammer "runic lightning and fire" Belt slot [one] Dart Kit Belt Slot [Two] Dart Kit Belt Slot [Three] Dart Kit Belt Slot [Four] Under-Armor Top Underwear Top Under-Armor Bottom Underwear Bottom

When he was happy with the new preset outfit layout he saved it and then used it.

Equip Preset Tank!

The weight of the extra heavy armor suddenly weighed down on him and it felt like someone had suddenly jumped onto his back until he touched the rune switch. Rick unsheathed the two runic swords from the scabbard harness on his back and swung them around to test out how the new armor moved with him again and it felt like he was wearing a suit of light leather armor instead of armor made from three hundred pounds of Astallium.

He then deactivated his armor and changed into his normal clothing and left Tower Island. When he started to cross the new eastern Tower Island stone bridge, Rick looked out at the city ahead to see a nice surprise out in the distance. The western wall, gatehouse, and towers had been completed and the city was now fully enclosed. Rick used the party chat menu to call Handil while he made a map of the city with his Cartography skill to check on the construction progress. He found out that Handil and Jerem were now working on apartment buildings due to Alexandra's suggestion. Since he had been bringing on more people they were running out of available apartments.

Spoiler: City Map Update.

Rick examined the map and discovered the two work crews had added almost another row of apartment buildings. Rick then instructed Handil to finish up the other two buildings on the plot they were currently building on and then begin construction on his castle with Jerem's crew.

Rick walked through the western gatehouse as he hung up with Handil and turned south onto the long narrow open plot along the western wall. He used his skill to raise a tall wall about six feet wide around the plot and left a small gap to enter it from the street. Once again he used the Party Chat menu to call Strum this time and asked him to bring over the ten female Dwarven Ballista/Battle Axe Hero units to his location.

While waited for them all to arrive he took out the ballista and assembled them and lined them up in a row. He also brought out the steel ballista bolts and stacked them behind the ballista line. Rick then made use of the recipes he received from making the life like wooden orc statues at his store and lined up a bunch of them up as targets downrange in front of the thick dirt wall.

When the female dwarves all had arrived with Sturm together, Rick had them gather near the ballista line and went over how to operate the ballista he had designed. Rick had also made exact copies of the steel rings he and Angelica wore with his recipe and enchanted them all with strength. Since these ballistae were designed for two-man crews he needed to provide the female dwarves with the extra strength so that they could crank the bow levers and also load it with the heavy steel bolts by themselves.

Rick informed General Sturm that instead of having the ballista units attend afternoon sparring practice he wanted them to practice firing the ballista. He stood around and watched the ladies work the ballista without any problem by themselves and were soon hitting the wood statues that were about two hundred yards away. Rick told them to move the ballista back whenever they felt comfortable so that they could learn how to shoot them at different distances. Rick then left Sturm and the ballista units to continue their practice so that he could walk through all the shops in his crafting district.

He collected all the weapons and armors that were being turned out for his new military units along with all the products that were still being made for his store. When he had collected everything and stopped by the Cartwright and Wheelwright building he found that they had a nice selection of completed carriages outside already disassembled and ready for him. Now that Rick had spawned in more Cartwrights the production of the carriages had improved significantly Rick went down the line and stored all the new carriages away and then opened a portal to his store office.

He sat down at his office desk and went over the sales records for a few minutes and also collected the growing layer of coins from his desk drawer. It seemed every time he went to collect the money there was always more than the last time.

Rick used a recipe to make up a bunch of simple drawstring leather pouches and put his employee's weekly salaries in each pouch. His saleswomen had made fifty silver a week and the managers had made seventy-five silver a week while working for the previous owner of the shop. They were all so glad to have been able to keep their jobs that none of them ever asked if they would make the same amount of money or less now working for Cedric.

The previous amount they earned was about the average wage earned by most of Silverhall City's citizens of lower status. For the way, Rick's employees currently lived it was enough for them to pay their rents and put food on the table but if they had wanted to go out and buy a new piece of furniture or a nice outfit it would take a quite a bit of saving up to pull this off. He did not want his employees to just scrape by and soon become burned out at their job, so Rick had decided to increase all of their salaries without telling them.

He placed two hundred silver coins in a pouch for each of his saleswomen which came out to be two gold coins for each of the sales girls and he placed three hundred silver coins in two pouches for his managers Nellie and Barat for a total of three gold coins for each manager. He could have just put gold coins in their pouches, but this may have made it difficult for them to pay their bills and go shopping if nobody could break the gold coins that they had received for their salaries.

RIck gathered up the salary pouches with the sales book to walk over to Barat's office and place everything on his desk. He then called him to the office with the friend list and explained what he had done. When Barat found out he was now earning his old monthly salary in just one week, he had to sit down in his chair before he collapsed to his knees.

Barat told Rick that a knight would usually make five gold a week and now he was making three gold a week just to manage the store. Rick just laughed and told him if they continue to keep bringing in sales like they have been, he would soon be making the same amount as those knights. He then sent Barat out on the floor to have Nellie come speak with him. Barat nodded his head in acknowledgment while still in shock and Rick could hear him muttering the same line continuously "I must be dreaming" under his breath as he walked out of his office to find Nellie.

When Nellie came in he explained everything to her as well and was met with a completely different reaction. Nellie broke down crying tears of joy and threw her arms around Cedric and kept thanking him between sobs. Rick just patted her back while chuckling. When Nellie had calmed down he handed her a piece of cloth from his inventory to dry her eyes.

Rick then asked Nellie to keep an eye out for any more reliable confident young women to hire. Since he had an almost all women staff he wanted to try and keep it that way. If he started hiring men he just assumed they would spend more time trying to sleep with the saleswomen than doing any actual work around the store. He also thought that if he were going to be working at the store he would have a much more pleasant experience to be surrounded by pretty women than men.

Nellie told him with the new salaries they were now making he could find as many sales girls as he needed. Rick told her to try to stay away from quiet shy girls, he needed out going confident young women that would not be afraid to approach customers to make a sale. Rick then left it to Nellie to hand out the girls salaries at the end of the day and the two of them went out onto the sales floor. Rick went around restocking counters and displays and also went upstairs to put out and assemble the new carriages for display. As Rick was assembling one of the enclosed gypsy wagons that had small beds, a stove, and a table inside he began to think about stage coaches from the old west. This got him thinking about how they had begun to make them from metal plate armor and had gun slots to protect them from bandits. A few of them even had rotating turrets with Gatling guns on top of them.

This got him thinking of ways he could use those armored stagecoach ideas to make some type of armored bunker that he could wheel out onto a battlefield that would allow his units to fire arrows from safety.

I will have to sit down later when I have time and try to come up with a few ideas. If I were to come up with a good design I could also make a steam engine using wind, fire, and water runes to make them into medieval tanks. Rick was soon thinking of ways to make new weapons as he continued to assemble the carriages on the 2nd floor of the store. He made a mental note for a couple new runic weapons and finished up with the carriages to find his store guards.

He gave a few more coins out to his guards while he was still upstairs and then opened a portal to the mine he had made in the mountains far north of his city that he had mined a good supply of Mithril. Rick opened his inventory and brought out his new Astrallium pickaxe that he had made because he was constantly repairing his old one because of his increased strength and skills.

Now with the extra weight of this new pickaxe and all the enchanted strength rings he wore mining into the rock was almost as easy as just swinging his pick. He felt a very little resistance as he cut his way deeper into the mountain. After testing out his new pickaxe by digging a tunnel near sixty feet long he began using his metal scanners. When he used the Mithril Scan he found another vein and used [Move and Shape Stone] to cut straight for it.

He used his pick to harvest the vein and came across a cavern when he had mined past the area he just harvested the Mithril from. Rick chipped out a doorway to the cavern and began exploring it with his night sight still activated which allowed him to see his surrounding without any light sources.

Walking along the wall he soon came across a large pocket of quartz crystals like the ones he used for the storage gems. He still had a large quantity of them in his inventory so he thought about just leaving them and continuing on exploring.

Rick then decided he should just stop a harvest them while he was here. For all, he knew this cavern could collapse or fill with water or lava before he had time to return again.

When he had harvested a good amount of the quartz he picked up a large one from the ground and used Identify on it.

A Large Diamond

Diamond is renowned as a material with superlative physical qualities, most of which originate from the strong covalent bonding between its atoms.

In particular, diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any bulk material.

[Very Rare] [Hardness 10.00]

A large diamond? I thought these were all clear quartz, they look identical in this game until they are cut. Diamonds are great in the real world, but here in the game world where the hell would I sell diamonds this big? I can cut them down and use them for my jewelry or maybe I will find some other use for them.

Rick continued on after mining the diamonds without any excitement for finding them and continued deeper into the cavern to find a vein of iron and copper. With a new supply of metals, he stepped through his portal into the castle basement workshop and sat down at the table to draw up a couple new designs.

He designed armor for his Tigers and for the horses. He wanted to use his Tigers and mounted knights when he attacked the northern tribe and didn't want to lose his animals to the accurate bow shot that he saw the nekomimi tribe pull off when they first ambushed them.

Spoiler: Tiger and Horse Armor.

He had made sure to design the Tiger's armor so that the metal Mask that covered their face only came down to their upper mouth area. This would allow the Tigers to still use their mouths to bite while protecting their face from injuries.

Rick then stood up from the table and went over to his blast furnaces after drawing up the designs and loaded the first three with the Mithril ore he just found and the other three he filled with the copper ore he mined in the cavern.

While the furnace began to heat up he placed a few Mithril ingots into the forge and turned it on. When the ingots were hot enough to work with he started hammering out the different sections of the tiger armor. He welded the sections together on hinging rivets so that when the Tigers turned and bent their bodies the armor would rotate and hinge with them without limiting their range of movement.

He also carved a metal, gravity, ice, and wind rune into the armor and engraved a switch rune inside the lip mouth area where the armor stopped to expose the Tiger's mouth. Rick then lined the inside of the Tiger armor with sheets of natural rubber. When he completed the Tiger's Armor he received a recipe that he used to make enough for all his Tigers and also a couple extras for backups.

Rick then left the basement and flew over to the island and had them all try on the new armor. He told them with his [Speak with Animals] skill where the switch was and had them stick out their tongues to touch activate the switch runes. This made the armor almost weightless since it was made from Mithril and the ice and wind runes cooled the metal along with the interior of their armor keeping them from overheating. They were unsure of this new armor at first until Rick took out one of the spares and zipped a few arrows at it from close range. The Tigers watched as the wood shaft arrows slammed against the armor and shattered into pieces.

They may have been Tigers, but they were smart enough to know if an arrow hit them that hard without this new armor it would cause a lot of damage. Rick explained how the people they were going to attack preferred to use bows and arrows and if they did not have armor on they would be shot down before they even in striking range.

After they ran around the yard in front of the tower and had a chance to test out their armor, the Tigers found that after a few minutes of wearing it they almost forgot they had it on. Rick then removed it from them and stored it away and decided to head back to the castle workshop and start to craft the horse armor.

When he was ready to fly off something strange happened. He noticed that the medallion that Faith had given him began to pulse with a bright light and the chain it hung from pulled around his neck toward the temple. Rick ran into the tower and called out for Angelica to come downstairs from the second floor where she was talking with her squad of Valkyrie.

Rick scooped her up and flew off toward the temple and went directly inside to land near the podium.

"Faith are you ok? I came as soon as I noticed the medallion." Rick called out as he looked around.

"I am here Cedric." Faith said as she appeared before them.

"I was worried something may have happened I never had the medallion you gave me respond like that before," Rick said.

"Now that I have a temple with followers in the mortal world once again it is slowly becoming possible for me to use my powers here again and influence certain things such as your medallion." Faith explained.

"That's great I always thought it was unfair that you were the one who made all of this and also help the [Chosen] as they take their first steps in the world, but were trapped and forgotten alone in that temple. I take it though you called me here for a particular reason is there something you need me to help you out with?" Rick curiously asked Faith.

Faith smiled at Rick's concern for her and answered him.

"Yes, actually I have a quest for you in the forest to the southwest of here where you recently sent your scout to investigate. There is someone who needs your help and if she were to die many things will change in that vast forest.

There are separated clan factions living there who are currently at war and if the main hostile faction who is attempting to gain control over the others wins it will not be long before they move beyond the forest borders in search of their next target." Faith said enlightening Rick to the current situation.

"And when they leave the forest it won't be long until they gather enough forces to attack our city walls," Rick said understanding where this was going.

Faith nodded in agreement. "If you can save the clan princess and her people from being captured or killed it will weaken the sway the hostile clan has over the others. If you were to save the clan princess and attack the hostile clan and win you would stop their plans to spread war and destruction across this island and enslave the other races that you have or have not come in contact with." Faith then made a few movements with her fingers as if she was typing on an invisible keyboard and a window opened in front of Rick.

Spoiler: Quest!. An Unexpected Princess

A noble clan has ruled the Lorebark Forest for over a century with a fair and just hand. Now their rule has been stripped away by a large warmongering clan who has hidden in the shadows gathering strength over time to one day claim the forest and all the surrounding lands by any means necessary.

If this evil faction should win this current clan war Godshome Island will be thrown into chaos. This Hostile clan plans to one day march an army of all the conquered clans together out of Lorebark Forest to begin their campaign of conquest.

The Goddess Faith wants you to save the clan princess and her people from becoming captured or wiped out. If this were to happen all of the Lorebark Forest clans would have no choice but to join the hostile clans. Once the hostile clans unite all of the forest clans they will begin their march across the island with a formidable army.

Objectives Outcome Rewards 1 Save the clan princess You will hold off the campaign of the hostile faction +XP 2 Save the clan princess and her people You will hold off the campaign of the hostile faction and enter an alliance with the princess's clan +XP, +Fame 3 Save the clan princess, her people, and defeat the hostile faction You will stop the campaign of the hostile faction, and the princess's clan will swear their allegiance to you as the new ruling clan of the Lorebark Forest.

+XP, +Fame

compass unlocked

Do you wish to accept this quest? Yes No

Yes, I accept!

When Rick accepted the quest a compass appeared in the upper-right corner of his vision. It was translucent enough not to distract him and still be able to read the heading. on the compass, he then noticed a small red dot that was pointing toward the southwest of the compass heading.

"You may have noticed the quest compass in the outer part of your vision it will display a red dot that will lead you to your quest objectives. It is your choice to complete whichever objectives that you wish to complete. The more of these objectives you complete the higher the experience, fame, and other rewards will be that you receive when you come back to me. Now you should quickly make plans to head out at soon as possible. I called you here suddenly like this because the clan princess is in danger and needs your help." Faith hurriedly explained to Rick.

"We will head out as soon as possible. I wanted to ask before we head out if you will have enough strength to speak with Angelica after the quest? She has always wanted to meet and talk with you ever since you had appeared in her dreams." Rick asked.

Faith turned to Angelica and smiled. "I would like that very much. I promise when you return we will talk together. I will not be able to speak long but we will have many opportunities in the future to speak together. Now I must go my power is still weak here. I will watch for your return to this temple from my plane. Good luck with the quest." Faith finished talking and faded away to return to her temple in the paradise plane.

"Thank you for bringing me here to see her Cedric and asking her to talk with me," Angelica said with a smile.

"I promised you I would and she said you two will get to talk later as well so let's see what we can do about this quest and return here so you can finally get your chance to meet her one on one."

Angelica nodded with a determined look and Rick opened his party chat and called Sturm to bring all the troops to the tower. Rick picked up Angelica again and flew over to the crafting district and collected more weapons and armor for his troops and from there they walked over to gather up the ballista and the bolts. He stored them into his inventory and flew back to the tower with Angelica in his arms and landed by the door. They walked up to the tower's 4th floor and he used his recipes to make more weapon racks and armor stands. He filled the racks with Mithril compound bows, swords, spears, axes, daggers, maces, sabers, and hammers. He then arranged the armors that he had collected over the past couple days on armor stands along the walls.

Rick sat down after laying out the weapons and armor and used his quiver as an example to make a copy of it with the leather and leather working tools he had and dyed it black. He used the recipe for that quiver to make up a few more and laid them out on the table along with leather belts, straps and throwing dart kits.

When Sturm arrived with the military units he called them all up to the 4th floor. Rick then assigned ownership of armor to each of them. What he really like was that a normal sized suit of armor actually adjusted the size to fit the half-giants. This ended up saving him a ton of steel ingots. Rick made sure they all had proper weapons for their classes leather belts with dart kits bows and quivers full of arrows if they could use them and had them head down to wait in front of the tower when they were fully equipped.

Rick followed the last of them downstairs after they were all geared up and then called over the group of Tigers that were playing off to the side thirty yards from them.

Rick then explained that their goddess had given them a mission to save a clan princess and her clan. If they did not save her then the war would spread across the island and they would become a target of it. As he explained this to his military units he also translated what was said to his Tigers.

When he wrapped up the mission briefing he brought out the Tigers new full body armor that they had just tried out and he strapped it back on them. When everyone was ready to go he opened a portal to the edge of the forest where he had once cut trees and waited until everyone had walked through. Some of his troops looked at the portal warily but they were all brave enough to step through without hesitation.

On the edge of the woods, General Sturm held his hand up and gave the troops a few hand signals and they all quietly formed up with the lighter armored troops in the center and the heavy armored melee troops on the outside.

Impressive it looks like Sturm has been training them in formations.

Equip Preset Outfit Tank!

When Rick said the preset outfit command with his inner voice his clothing was replaced by the heavy runic suit of armor "Bastion of Protection." The familiar heavy weight returned as he reached up to touch the switch rune located on his collar. Rick then turned to Angelica to make sure her armor was all in place and her runes were working properly. He gave her a mithril compound bow from his inventory and placed a few runic fire arrows in her quiver.

Rick then nodded to General Sturm and they all quietly set off into the forest following the red dot on Rick's quest compass.