After classes, Rick went out to eat with Lily, Ryan, Joel, and Luke. They talked all about their classes and about their recent adventures while playing Kingdoms Online. Lily seemed to have made progress with her bow and sword skills and Ryan was still living on his own on the small island he had originally made his small hut. Luke not to be left out excitedly narrated everything he had learned about the Enclave Isles and the trek that he and his girlfriend had made from one town to the next.

They all had the day off tomorrow from classes so each of them planned to enjoy the day and play KO. Joel still had to work and had never bought one of the Gate Gears so he was a little jealous of his friends, but he did not let it show. It was his choice to devote his time to work and studying. Unlike his friends, he did not have the money that they all had and he struggled to keep his grades up as it is without the distractions of a game.

Rick made sure to work out when he got home since he skipped his training in the morning. After taking a shower and getting dressed he locked his door and joined Kingdoms Online.

Once he was dressed, Rick left the castle and went over to the crafting district. He went from one shop to the next gathering the finished products that were made specifically for the store. He left the basic furniture that was always be crafted for the apartments behind. After a while, one of his wagoners and cottars would come buy to load it all up in between supply deliveries and take it to the empty apartments.

With a new stock of merchandise in his inventory, he opened a Portal and traveled to his store office. He went over his sales records and collected the money from his desk drawer and dropped the sales records book off in Barats office. Out on the display floor, he went from one department to the next restocking any items that were sold out or running low. All of the leftover products that did not need restocking ended up in the back warehouse on the aisles of organized shelves.

Rick went back out on the floor and went around checking in with his employees and helped a few customers so that the sales girls who were swamped could catch up a little with the customers who had been waiting to be served. He then made his way upstairs and replaced any carriages that were missing and even added a few that had never been displayed until now. While assembling the new carriages, Rick noticed that the lifelike wooden statues he made of the orcs were now beginning to draw attention and a few of the customer's children hid behind their parents while staring from behind their legs in wonder and apprehension.

Even the new carriages he assembled drew attention as a few customers gathered around him to watch as he assembled the new models. He answered a few questions about the carriages and went off to recharge all the storage gems in the store. When he had charged the water tank storage gem he activated the water gem for a couple minutes to fill it back up. Down in the store basement, he burned off the waste in the buried septic tank and also recharged the storage gem for it.

When Nelie noticed him recharging the fountain and water wall gems, she walked over to let him know that they also had customers bringing back a few items that needed recharging. She led him to a shelf in the warehouse that was stacked with the lamps and flashlights they sold at the store. SInce he had only been in the store briefly the past couple days Nelie had never had the chance to let him know about them. She had already collected the recharge fees on them and the people were to come back in a couple days to pick them all up so Rick did not delay and recharged them all right then and there.

Now that he had taken care of everything at the shop and his merchant had not left any books for him to collect yet he decided to head back home. He opened a Portal to the Military Academy and found General Sturm out on training field running the troops through sparring practice. Since he had the day off tomorrow, Rick decided it was time to make a move on the Nekomimi tribe. He took out a table and a couple chairs and sat down with Sturm to find out what was needed.

A few of the new troops were lacking proper weapons and armorer so Rick used recipes or the gear he had in his inventory to outfit them all. General Sturm called them over one at a time and they gave each soldier the gear they were lacking. He made sure that all of his units with a ranged class were also given compound bows and plenty of arrows. Rick was not certain, but he assumed that the enemy would stand off at a distance and use their bows so he wanted to make sure that his men had enough bows and arrows to return fire from behind the shield wall.

When everyone was battle ready he made a few more of the Mithril tower shields and stacked them up with all of the extras he had in his inventory. They had the troops line up and file by them to collect a tower shield from the stack Rick had set down.

Rick asked General Sturm to run them through a walking Testudo formation and then to stop and form a shield wall so that he could observe how they all worked together. General Sturm walked out onto the field and gave them a hand signal and they all began to form up into Testudo while the cavalry lined up on their flanks. When the formation was complete General Sturm led them all across the training field when he yelled out shield wall the testudo smoothly spread out sideways to make four rows of infantry.

It looks like the new recruits already have the hang of the new formations. General Sturm must be drilling them quite a bit to have progressed this much already. Rick thought as he watched everyone run through the formations.

Rick called Sturm back over to him after watching him run the troops through the formations. He sat down at the table and took out a sheet of parchment and drew up a new formation.

Spoiler: New Formation.

Rick passed over the drawing to General Sturm and explained how this formation was useful for splitting up enemy lines and even more effective if it hit the enemy lines from behind. This formation could slice right through enemy lines and trample anyone who stood in its way. If was perfect for divide and conquer tactics. If an enemy kept their ranged units protected behind their lines it could be used to quickly cut through the front line and trample the ranged units.

He told Sturm that he wanted to attack early tomorrow morning in the same way they had the orcs so he had him let the soldiers know about his plan to meet at the restaurant a couple hours before sunrise and then sent them home to get some rest before the battle.

"We won't bother teaching the cavalry this new formation until after the battle. From the way, I assume this battle will go it won't really be needed anyway. When I had investigated the dead enemy who ambushed us they only wore furs and animal skins while carrying wooden bows. They also had a couple daggers on their hips as well. If I had to guess is they will more than likely fight us at a distance and if we were to move in close they will use their daggers for melee combat. The Nekomimi race is known to be fast and agile fighters, but without any armor and the poorly crafted weapons they have even with superior numbers they have no chance of beating us." Rick explained as he put away the table and chairs.

Rick had General Sturm follow him over to the Officials Building and they stopped next to the System Gate. He opened the Buy Units Menu and spawned twenty-one Female elves with Hero Ranger as their first class and Druid as their second class. He also spawned nine male elves with the same first and second classes. He had General Sturm brief them on the attack that would happen early in the morning while using his recipes to make compound bows for every one of the new recruits.

He outfitted them all with quivers and arrows and then asked Sturm to take them over to the Military Academy to outfit them with armor. Rick had the messengers follow them over to the Academy so that they could assign the new units apartments once they had all of their gear.

When they had all left the building, Rick went outside and flew off toward the north. He followed the new road he built all the way to where it ended at the base of the mountains and landed there. He investigated the area with his metal scan skills until he found an area that seemed to hold a decent amount of different ores.

This area was some ways from the road he had built so he used his groma to mark out a straight route. He then dug up the marked out area and began layering sand, river stone, and lime dust. Once he had the base layer done he took out stone pavers and cement and extended the road to the area he wished to make a mine.

With the road extended now up to where he wanted his new mine, he could now begin to cut out the main shaft. Using his Move and Shape Stone Skill, Rick was able to cut out a ten foot high by ten foot wide shaft two hundred feet straight into the mountain. He hung crystal wall lights every ten feet along the main mine shaft so that it was brightly lit all along it.

At the opening of the mine shaft, he made a stone block wall and cemented the joints. The entrance was completely sealed off except for a normal sized doorway that he made a four-inch thick wooden door that he hung on hinges. On the back of the door, he used a recipe to make two steel barricade brackets that a wooden post could be slid into to seal the door shut against any danger.

Along both sides of the mine shaft near the door, Rick cut out several rooms for living quarters, a blacksmith room, a kitchen, and dining hall. Inside the living quarters, he placed all of the single beds he had on him along the walls. In the blacksmith room, he made a runic forge, then hung a smelting pot over it, and added an anvil. Next was the kitchen and dining hall that was set up similar to the restaurant with runic stoves and fridges.

Since this area was not linked to the city water system, Rick used the same designs as he did at his store. Above the mine shaft, he made a large water tank with water runes that connected into a kitchen sink and the men's and women's bathrooms where he installed toilets and sinks. These toilets and sinks all emptied into a septic tank that he buried outside of the mineshaft.

Inside of a small closet near the door, he carved the switch runes that connected to the water rune in the water tank and the fire runes in the septic tank so that he had easy access to them whenever he needed to empty and fill them.

Seeing that he did not have that many single beds on him he made a basic wooden bed frame right there and used the recipe to finish filling the living quarters with beds. He opened his portal to transfer the mattresses he needed for the wooden bed frames from the crafting district over to the mine.

After using a few recipes to make some basic outfits, he also made leather gloves, belts, and tool pouches and placed them on each bed. He did the same in the kitchen using what recipes he had to make utensils, cookware, and plates. With all the basic necessities in place, it was time to head back to the city. Back once again at the System Gate, he spawned fifty female dwarven miners, two female dwarven cooks, and two female dwarven blacksmiths. He told the new group of women that they would be working in the mine north of the city and would have weekends off. For now, he would have them work and live in the mines and be able to stay at their apartment on the weekends. Once he hired more miners he might be able to work out a better schedule so that they were not stuck in the mine all week long.

RIck had the messengers take them over to the residential district to find them apartments and then join back up with him in the crafting district when they finished. While they went to be assigned apartments he went over to the blacksmith shops and gathered up a bunch of pickaxes from the back room and told the blacksmiths to continue making tools for the workers and the metal shortage would soon be taken care of.

He flew over to the tool shed on Tower Island and took hammers, axes, saws, screwdrivers, nails, and screws and placed them in his inventory and went back to the city to meet up with the new Mineworkers. Once they had all met up with him he used his Portal to take them to the mine shaft.

After showing them around he told them that he wanted them to start making a grid of mine shafts off the main tunnel and mine any ores they discovered. He passed out pickaxes to the miners and stored the extra tools he took from the tool shed in the closet near the door and left a few stacks of lumber along the tunnel wall. This way they could make timber supports if they thought an area was unstable.

He showed the blacksmiths how to use the forge and instructed them to make and repair any tools the miners may need. Then he took the cooks over to the kitchen and explained how to work the stoves and sinks. He pulled one of the more outgoing female dwarves aside and took her into the bathroom and explained how the toilets worked and asked her to teach the others how to fill and flush them.

Now that he was low on food from distributing it between the castle kitchen and restaurant he had to jump over to Silverhall city and make a few more purchases from the butchers and farmers in the plaza. Rick stocked up the stone fridges in the kitchen and was about to leave and remembered he should tell the women how to barricade the main door so that wild animals or monsters didn't wander in on them while they were working.

As the women went off to start mining, Rick told them he would make a storage room for them to store the different ore types they mined. Using the Move and Shape Stone skill again he cut out a good sized room and used his carpentry skills to make large wooden crates to store all the ore in.

When he thought that they were all good to go he flew off to find the wagoners. When he found one of them making deliveries to Hadil, Rick landed to tell him about the mine up north. Rick wanted all of the wagoners to pick up the women and bring them back to town on the weekends and to bring back any metal ore that was in the storage room there.

Rick walked over to the restaurant after telling the Wagoner to pass the word along to the other wagoners about the mine. He sat down at an empty table and drew up a new building design.

He had been thinking about what the female miners would do on their two days off from the mine in the city and began to realize how little there was for the people to do on their time off.

Spoiler: New Building.

This building would be used as one of the first entertainment buildings to be built. He had plans for bigger and better forms of entertainment that he would need his construction crews to help him with, but for now, he was going to start off with a few gaming houses. These gaming buildings would provide chess, board games, billiards, darts, card games, foosball, and air hockey tables.

First, he started off constructing four of the new gaming buildings on an empty plot next to the temple plaza while making use of the fast domain to help speed along the process. Rick used his carpentry skills to make a pool table and he used the large stone cubes he cut from the mine to make a one-inch thick stone slab, glued green felt to the stone slab, and then set the felt covered slab inside the pool table. This would be the playing surface that the balls rolled on top of. He used strips of leather to make a basket weave netting that he tacked below each pocket to collect the balls. With the help of his Wood sculptor and Wood Shape skill he made the pool balls and colored and numbered them with his paint stick.

The foosball table was made similar to the pool table with a wooden frame and a felt covered stone slab playing field. He used his iron round bar recipe to make the table rods and carved wooden men to bolt onto each rod along with a wooden ball.

The air hockey table was made of an all wood frame and he used his hand drill to make small evenly spaced holes all across the playing surface. under the playing surface was a small chamber with wind runes that connected to a storage gem and a switch rune. When the switch rune was activated it blew air up through all of the tiny holes and made the air hockey puck glide around on the table on a pocket of air when it was hit with the paddles.

He then went over to the old worker's barracks and collected all of the board games and made copies of a few of the games to receive recipes for them. He also had recipes for the themed chess set he made to sell at his store.He used that chess recipe to make several chess sets and placed them all in one of the gaming buildings to make a first-floor chess parlor.

The same building upstairs on the second floor, he made a board game parlor with each board game laid out on tables with plenty of chairs. The second building had pool tables on the first and second floors. The third building he placed air hockey tables on the first floor and foosball tables on the second floor. The last gaming building was set up for card games that were popular in casinos and at parties on the first floor and the second floor he had made wood dart boards with steel-tipped wooden body darts.

Each building had running water bathrooms and crystal wall lights so that people could play after hours. Rick also furnished the gaming buildings with tables. couches, and comfortable chairs. Each gaming building had multiple pool tables, foosball tables, air hockey tables, and other games so that everyone who came to play wouldn't have to wait for on others to finish their game.

Now that he had finished the four new gaming houses he decided to log off the game for a little while. On his way back to the castle, RIck used his Cartography skill to check on the city construction progress.

Spoiler: Updated City Map.

The city is really coming along ever since I brought on the second construction crew. It looks like those guys will be able to finish up the crafting district in the next day or two. The road construction crews are making decent progress on marking out the streets for the next section of the city.

Rick put the map back in his inventory and went up to his bedroom and logged out.

He left his apartment and drove to a place that made great rotisserie chicken. He went through the drive-through and brought his order home and ate his lunch while watching TV. While he ate his lunch he thought about the different types of entertainment he should add to the town. One of the buildings that he wanted to build would take up as much room as the temple and the plaza it was built on but he thought it would be one of the most popular spots for his people to visit.

He turned his computer on in the spare room and sat down to do more research after eating his lunch. He started by researching historic forms of entertainment and the buildings used to host them. He studied the way they were constructed and tried to memorize the dimensions. The buildings he wanted to make did not need to be exact copies of what he was researching, Rick just wanted to know as much about them to help him work through problems that might arise.

While Rick was at his computer he went on the forums and checked on his video and his PMs. He was thankful that there were not many people asking him for the location of the dungeon. He even noticed that some of his good customers were even defending him from the comments section against the haters who didn't like the idea of him keeping the location of the dungeon to himself.

Even though he told everyone that the location was far from the main continent and near his city, some players just couldn't understand his reasons or just didn't want to. He also started seeing comments left from players thinking that since his store was so popular he must make a ton of money. A couple Players commented on how he doesn't help the newer players even though he is rich while also keeping the dungeon information all to himself.

A few people stuck up for him saying that some people just can't seem to understand the hard work others put into some things and just expect to be freely given information or items from those who put the work in to obtain it. One player mentioned how he couldn't even walk across the city without some of the newer players asking for handouts.

"Haters gonna hate" Rick whispered to himself as he shook his head in disgust and turned his computer off.

He opened his Gate Gear and laid down and pulled the lid down.

Connect!

Back in the game, Rick ran into Angelica and Nezera in the castle hallway. They had just returned from the military academy and had been sparring with one another while all of the other troops were at home.

Rick told the two girls that he had let everyone have the day off since they would all be fighting an early battle in the morning. When Nezera heard there would be another battle she asked Rick to take her along. Now that she had leveled up and grew much stronger from distributing her points properly, Nezera wished to gain more experience and continue to become stronger.

Seeing that she was so determined Rick agreed to bring her along, but he still wanted her to remain close to him and Angelica. The two girls then went off with their servants to take a nice hot bath before heading to bed early.

There is still a good amount of time until we all head out to teach that Nekomimi tribe a life lesson. Now that I have started making entertainment venues I could make another new one. I think it is time to upgrade the Tavern it is too far from town and that building looks like a big wooden shack. I want to make a building that is more modern looking and has much more room. Three floors should be ideal this way I can have the tavern on the first floor, the female prostitutes on the second floor, and the male prostitutes on the third floor. Rick thought as he approached the area he had built the gaming houses.

He took out his drawing table and chair to sit down and draw up a new building design that he would use for the future taverns around his city.

Spoiler: New Tavern Design.

When he had an idea of what he wanted to build he put away his table and chair and got to work. He used limestone blocks to build the foundation and outer shell of the building and filled the windows with glass panes made by the glass workers. Above the front picture windows, he made a metal pipe frame for the awning. He took out a few deer skins and shaved the hair off them and used leather strips to sew them together. He stretched the deerskin leather tightly across the awning frame and sewed it around the pipe frame.

With the help of his paint sticks, he colored the awning green and printed out Tavern in white block letters across the top of it. On the second and third floors, he made bedrooms that had their own bathrooms. Everyone had a toilet, sink, and bathtub in their bathrooms. He painted all of the rooms a deep burgundy color and laid out a nice size red rug in each room. He hung light fixtures on the walls and even placed a couple standing lamps in each room.

Now that every room had windows, Rick took out some fabric and dyed it red. He measured a window and made red drapes that were hung from a metal rod. With the recipe for the drapes, he installed them in every room so that whoever was using the room could have some privacy while entertaining customers.

Downstairs in the back of the bar, he made a wooden trap door that led to a flight of stairs. under the bar, he had dug out a large storage room with wooden walls and floors. Before he left he made a small stone runic stove and a stone runic refrigerator behind the bar.

Rick left the tavern when he had finished all of the needed construction and walked over to the Officials Building. He opened the Buy Units Menu nest to the System Gate and spawned four female Aquatine Water Sorceress. His funds were almost completely wiped out from all the units he had been purchasing so he did not bother to give the four female Aquatines the second class. Next, he spawned a female human cook, two Nekomimi servants, two kitsune servants and two half-orc servants.

He then went into the Chancellor's office and told Irene where the new tavern was and had her tell the messengers who were in the lounge to find apartments for these new citizens and then bring them over to the tavern and wait for him to meet up with them there.

He then quickly flew over to the tavern and told the Vampiress Temptress/Minstril Silvana about the new tavern and asked her to help him gather the male and female prostitutes together. He told them to pack their personal possessions and that he would move all the furniture and supplies.

When they had gathered up everything and went outside to wait on him, Rick went through the tavern and packed away all of the furniture and the casks of alcohol. Now that everyone who worked in the tavern had their own apartments and no longer lived in the tavern rooms they only had a few things to carry over to the new place. Rick escorted the group over to the new tavern and began placing down the bar tables and benches. He then went upstairs and filled the rooms with beds, wardrobes, tables, chairs, and any tapestries that he had gathered from the old tavern.

When he was finished arranging everything he found that the new help had arrived he had them sit down for now and went into the cellar storage area and unloaded the few casks of alcohol that were left. He took out his drawing table down in the cellar and drew up a few new outfits to be used by the people who worked in the tavern.

Spoiler: Tavern Employee Outfits.

Using his level 2 advanced Tailoring skill inside the Fast Domain he made one of each outfit and received recipes for them that he used to make extras. He then packed up his table and tailoring supplies and went upstairs. He gave one of each outfit to each female prostitute and assigned the ownership over to them so that it would perfectly fit each one of them. The Nekomimi, Kitsune, and half-orc servants were given the tavern waitress outfits with ownership assigned to them. Then lastly the female cook was given the tavern cook outfit with the ownership set to her.

The male prostitutes were given one of the vintage suits he sold at the store and also had ownership set to each of them. Rick then gave Silvana a couple of the fancy dresses that were sold at the store. While everyone went off to the upstairs rooms to change, Rick sat down with the Aquatine Water Sorceress. He wrote down a list of locations around the city of places with storage gems. He instructed them to split the locations between them and go around and recharge these storage gems every so often.

He told them that once they had done the job for a few weeks they would learn how often they would need to recharge them. Rick also told them that they would have to occasionally go through all of the apartments and recharge the wall lights. It wasn't a difficult job to perform, but there were so many storage gems around the city now it would keep them busy every day. He sent them off to start recharging gems once he explained the process and went to find Silvana.

He opened his storage and gave her all the musical instruments from the tavern that he had bought for her in Silverhall City. With her Minstrel class, she knew how to play many different instruments without needing to learn and had a beautiful voice that came with the class. When she performed for the tavern patrons she could mesmerize every person in the room with her performance.

Everyone eagerly came back downstairs with their new outfits on and began to show them off to one another. They all happily chatted about how nice the new tavern was and that it was much closer to their homes. Rick smiled while he watched how excited they all were as they explored the new tavern and talked about the sexy uniforms they were given.

When they all calmed down he sat everyone down at the bar tables and told them about the new gaming houses. Rick asked the tavern employees to let everyone know about them and what each building had in them. He then realized that the people would have no idea how to play most of the games so he took all of the tavern employees over to each gaming building and used his fast domain to go over game rules and how to play.

He figured between all of them they should be able to remember most of everything and even if they didn't it was fine because he had planned to hire people to work in the game houses to help teach anyone who wished to learn how to play all of these different games.

Rick told them to go ahead and have fun with the games and return to the tavern or home whenever they wanted to leave. He let them know that he was going to head over to the old tavern and place a sign on the door that they had moved and left them to enjoy the new games.

He flew over to the old tavern and placed a closed sign with a basic map to the new tavern on the door and nailed a couple boards across the door just so people knew that it was closed for good. Now that he had closed the tavern and moved everyone to the new location he was free to move on to his next project.

Down in the castle workshop, he sat down at his table to draw up a couple new fixtures for the city.

Spoiler: New City Fixtures.

Starting off with the drinking fountains, Rick used a 10x10 stone cube to cut the basic size out and shaped it with his Move and Shape Stone skill. Inside the stone rectangle, he cut out to channels to run a pipe up to the facet and a pipe to the drain. Using the basic concept of his sink facet he designed the drinking fountain faucet to work on a turning handle to allow water to flow out or stop flowing.

After altering one of his recipe faucets to work on the drinking fountain he threaded it to the water inflow pipe. Next, he made a metal screen to fit over the drain and connected the pipe outflow to the drain. When he had completed the new drinking fountain he acquired a recipe that he used to make one hundred drinking fountains with and left them all in his inventory.

With his metal supply slowly dwindling away he decided to make the street lamps out of wood which he had plenty of. With his Wood Sculptor skill, he easily made the street lamp frame. Once he had the frame he carved a light rune onto a crystal and mounted it inside the top lantern. The next step was to connect the crystal light to a storage gem and a switch rune that he carved into the lamp post.

Using the paint sticks he was able to paint the light post all black so that it had the appearance of being made of metal and the paint would also seal the wood a protect it against the weather. After making one hundred street lamps with his new recipe he packed away his tools and left the castle.

He flew over to the construction crews and found the plumbers and taught them how to install the new drinking fountains to the city water systems inflow and outflow. He instructed them to start installing them on all the streets around the city. They were instructed to place one drinking fountain in front of every plot in the city. This way there would be a drinking fountain roughly every seventy feet along each street.

Once he left the plumbers with their new task he began bolting the new light posts to the corners of every street. As he was finishing up with the lamp post he began to think about what a pain it would be to turn them on and off every day.

I will need to hire more people to turn all of these on and off every day. It would take up to much of my time to try and keep after all of them. The best way to go about it would be to hire some city guards that can turn them on and off as they patrol the city streets. It isn't like I have to worry about my people doing anything illegal that I need guards to watch them, but it would be nice to have the extra units to protect them against anything that may somehow get into the city like monsters or wild animals. If one of those big ass eagles that live around the eastern lake flew out here they could easily swoop down and grab a person right off the streets.

Haha, yeah I so rich like the other players were saying on the forums, but I can't even afford to properly protect my people.

Rick finished up with the street lamps and went back to the castle to disconnect from the game. He unequipped his gear and laid down on the bed and logged off to go eat dinner and get some sleep.

Disconnect!