The elven woman watched me with a frown for a moment then shrugged and began to cast the spell again, this time aiming shorter to avoid the same mistake like before. Her spell detonated 80 meters away and left a smoking hole with pebbles flying in all directions. I guessed that the crater alone was 4 meters in diameter, which was a clear indicator for the approved theory that a higher skill with fire magic increased the damage significantly.

“Good work, Nala. Now try to teach Kitara and Galen also. I want you to train the spell and then help Chara with the other mages. With a working spell to use, it should be easier for them to get the manipulation skill. With a little bit of luck they all will have it when the goblins arrive. The fireballs should be a nasty surprise for them, but we should also try to train our close-combat experts to use magic in any way possible.”

The three guardians only nodded silently and then began to train. I left them and went back to the fields around the walls, where I started growing more nightshade roses and digging my first pitfall traps.

“That wasn’t a nice thing you did to Chara.”

I hadn’t realized Gillian approached me, as I was focused on my work.

Sighing I answered, “I know that, but it was necessary. In my former life there were enough self-righteous idiots around me that hadn’t been properly educated by their doting parents. They demanded to be treated like kings and queens. They were always acting as if they were superior and better off, and I won’t tolerate anything like that from my guardians. They should be well mannered, polite and helpful. I want my guardians to be teachers for my citizens, paragons for everyone living in my domain, and powerful combatants who instill fear in my enemies. If they behave like arrogant nobility I will smash them down once and if they don’t change, they will lose my support and power. I like Chara, so I will teach her properly before any bad habits settle in.”

I knew that I was an ass, but sometimes it’s better to be hard once than to be soft too much and have to erase mistakes later. My own mother was always a hard teacher and I’m thankful for it, because it taught me to respect my fellow men.

Gillian sat down on the ground Buddha-style and put her head on her folded hands, “You are right in teaching her, but don’t forget that she’s had a hard time too. She lost her grandparents to the goblins, has to adapt to a new environment and be your guardian, all at once. I will keep a vigilant eye on her and try to help you guide her. Believe it or not, but hearth trees have helped the young elves since time began and everyone of us gets a package of guidelines for young ones when we awake, even if I seem like a teenager to you too.” Smiling regretful, obviously thinking back to our own recent discussion she waited for my reply.

“Good, help and guide her. Chara has such a great potential and I want her to be happy. I will talk to her later about me being so hard. Now let me alone for a while as I have to finish my welcoming field for our guests.”

Gillian remained silent and after some minutes without any words spoken she stood and went back to the settlement.

I let one of my subminds work on cutting stone and the three others dig holes in the ground while I also used some of my mana to increase my range again. The sooner I was able to feel someone stepping into my domain, the better. In the evening I wanted to gather enough mana to reach my next level and see if I could get another city buff. Perhaps I could also ask Tiria about a way to buy any specialties like in some dungeon stories. A shop to buy things with points would be cool, but so far my goddess didn’t implement anything like it, to my dismay.

I also needed to finish the roofs for the shelters inside the wall and the baths for my citizen. My heat-stone produced enough warmth for men and women side, and until now I didn’t use it for anything. When this situation with the goblins ended I wanted to create more heat-stones to create a network of hot water running inside my town to heat the buildings, much like the old Romans did. I would tear down my inner wall and create a garden there, which would hopefully delight Gillian and the elves. Outside of it there would be a circular marketplace with the most important buildings assembled like the crafting hall, the temple, bath house, maybe an adventurer’s guild after I got the dungeon core and a well defended fortress with my core inside.

It would need so much work but I was thrilled to begin with the work. The only problem to solve was destroying the green pests and then I was free to build as I wanted. I just hoped that the gods saw reason enough to create a temple that would blend in with my vision of the innermost parts of my future city.

As it seemed I will also have to grow some big trees for the elves to live in and connect them somehow to Gillian, to create a second layer of living space above the ground. I will have to change some oak trees for that project, but with my new knowledge this shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

One of the ways to destroy my enemies was the use of my makeshift minefield, so I would have to imbue many stones with mana to the brim and only at the last moment overcharge them. Also I had the grenade idea with using fireballs to detonate devastating shrapnel all over the battlefield, but with the low range of my casters I will have to build my blast traps much closer to my wall than I was comfortable with.

Galen and I will have to test them and their effective radius to make sure that we don’t accidentally hurt or even kill our own. Friendly fire was never good for morale. I wasn’t sure if we could find oil anywhere near, so I will have to forget about setting my enemies on fire for a while, but I will use it sometime in the future to traumatize them enough and prevent them from striking against me again.

After I had spent most of the remaining daylight on digging pitfalls and growing bushes, I returned to my core and watched the elves for a while chatting and enjoying the company of their partners. I had a guess what would happen if I used my fertility buff in the near future and I will be near Galen to see his face when he looked to his wives. It will be priceless, and thanks to my wonderful memory I still will be able to remind Galen of it in hundreds of years to come. I almost pitied him as I watched the elven women trying to get the attention of their husbands, sometimes quite aggressively, and with the poor guys torn between two and even three wives. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it myself if I was still human, but as it stands I will watch the show and make pictures for the posterity. You never know, their children might ask them when and how they came to exist, and I will be sure to tell them.

“I’m almost sure, that you have some nasty ideas again, right Marcus?” Kalla stood beside my core and I was impressed and also a bit scared that her womanly instincts were so accurate. I feared for the well-being of her potential husband-to-be if he ever went astray with his thoughts, as this devil of an elf would surely detect any improper thoughts.

“What do you think about me, Kalla? All I thought about was using one of my city buffs in the near future and if I do, you should have a partner to keep the dynasty going, you know.” I said with the calmest tone I was able.

She lifted her left brow and asked curiously with a little bit of insecurity sneaking into her voice, “What do you mean? And what is a city buff by the way?”

Oh, I found her Achilles heel!

Curious I asked her, “Kalla, is it possible that you don’t want to do your dynastic duty and produce an heir as soon as possible?”

I got her. That was her weakness; now I would only have to dig in the hole in her armor and tease her a little bit more. She went almost pale and then blushed, “I will do my d-d-duty, but first I have to find a willing mate and as it stands, there isn’t much choice around here.”

I grinned and enjoyed her evasive maneuver, but I had an answer for it, “You know, I have a kind of spell that targets all members of a race in my city to heighten their chances for concepting a child by 100%.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have teased Kalla so much, because she looked incredulously at me and called out, “You can what? Our women can get pregnant easier with a spell of yours?”

I suddenly felt most of the eyes of the women staring down on me and I thought ‘SHIT’.