Akor let them gather enough for five fields. The fields were level 2 but the village was level 1 and it had the 5 field limit.

Akor left a basic population of 5 imps, all level 3, to give the basic population so that the level 2 nest would have a 2 birth every 12 hours.

Three were made into farmers while the remaining two were made to gather wood and stone from outside and inside the cave.

Akor took the rest of the imps to Sanity were he saw Valring walking out with a grin, “My lord has seen the greatness that your power brings to us?” She said.

“Yeah, i was surprised that the imps also gained a buff but why didn’t they get one when i planted the first demon heart?” he asked.

“Simply because all the mana went to awakening you but this one had surplus. This is why demon lords are so worshipped, the ‘power’ minions gain is a great temptation and the more cities you have, the more wild demons you attract.” She said.

She looked around at the imps with a smile as she looked at the horns growing.

“My lord, what do you plan?” She asked.

“I will wait to build up the village i just set up. It’s inside a cave so i think it would make a great mining town.” Akor said.

Valring smiled brightly as she heard that. “Do you plan to go to the others?” she asked.

“After we have enough minions. I tried to capture the creature at the cave and failed and gained 62 exp, i don’t want to face a lose like that.” He said.

Valring blinked and looked at him confused, “How is that a lose?” She asked.

“Did you forget that we are trying to avoid leveling up?” he asked.

“Ah!” she exclaimed seeming to have forgotten.

Akor actually chucked before shaking his head, “Alright, let’s get back on track. All of you get back to work.” Akor ordered.

The imps dispersed and the village revitalized after most of the members left.

New imps were born and half of them had already left the village but now the imps that stay would no longer be born without intelligence which is a huge leap in minion quality.

Akor went to do his studies before logging off to go eat.

Lucas slowly got up feeling very hungry so he went and warmed up some water to prepare his noodles. He turned on the tv and began to watch the news.

Knock! Knock!

Just as he sat down, he heard knocks at his door. It had been a long time since he had a guest and he actually froze when he heard it.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

They continued and confirmed it was his door so he slowly got up and walked over before looking through the monitor.

“What do you want?” Akor asked through the monitor.

“Can i come in?” she asked.

“What for?” he asked.

Sam frowned, “Just open up already!” she said irritated. “I’m here in peace so let me in!” she shouted knocking the door.

The knocks this time were very loud and because he was in an apartment building, of much higher classed people, he actually felt a bit distressed

“Alright alright, just stop banging.” Lucas said with a frown before pressing the button to unlock the door and turned the knob and looked at her with a sunken face. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Can we talk inside?” She asked.

Lucas looked at her and sighed before opening the door wide and letting her in.

She walked in and looked around, “Why is your house so empty?” she asked.

“Not everyone is rich enough to fill their home.” He said in a cold voice.

He walked in after locking the door and she was looking around. He pulled an old chair which was among his furniture for her and went to the kitchen since he heard the water boiling. He came back with a cup of noodles and sat on one of the only sofa, which was really old single seat sofa.

He took his fork and slurped up the noodles before looking at her. “So what is it?” he asked.

“I was wondering how you were developing? Your name is really talked around for being the #1 person most likely to fail in growing as a lord.” Sam said.

“Huh?!” he said and froze. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“You didn’t see the Second life TV show? The first show happened a little while ago and they released a few rankings such as the strongest lords and the ones who made choices which would cause us to fail with a higher chance.” She said and pouted, “They actually dared to put me as #4.” She said.

Lucas raised his head before waving and the tv turned on and he pulled up the show from the start. Sam remained quiet as he watched and he frowned when he saw the reply of the vice CEO towards his choices.

“So what did you want?” he asked.

“I’m just curious about your gameplay?” She asked.

“Can’t you just look through the studio site?” he asked.

“Not that, it doesn’t include your thoughts or anything. I was wondering your planning for your nation.” She asked.

“Isn’t that intruding too much? After all, everyone has their own style.” he said.

“Yeah but i just wanted to compare and trade pointers. Maybe we could even make an alliance or something.” She said.

“You are talking about alliance as if we even reach that stage but I’m not even out of the tutorial zone yet.” He said.

“You as well? I am also holding out. It was super hard because i went to the hellish badlands but after i researched animal husbandry, my food problems were finally resolved.” she said.

“What about fields?” he asked.

“Water is too hard to get.” she pouted.

When Akor thought about it, it did make sense that it was hard since badlands had few water sources like a savannah during the dry season.

“So what are your plans?” Sam asked.

“Well… i plan to make and develop as many towns first.” He said and thought of something, “Did you make any villages yet?” he asked.

“No, i am just trying to get enough wood, stone, food and water for my one village so why would i make another to increase my burden?” She said.

“Just saying but i think each mana spring you get gives a buff to your minions in stats.” He said.

“REALLY!?” she shouted in shock. Her eyes were wide. “How much of a buff!?” She asked.

She got really close, more than Lucas felt comfortable, “Get back damn it!” he suddenly cried out.

She noticed that she had burst out but and drew close but not that much making her look at him weirdly.

After calming down with a frown on his face, Lucas looked at her, “Everything but intelligence got a 1 point buff while intelligence got 2.” he said.

Her jaw dropped when she heard that but then she noticed something, “Wait, didn’t you get attacked yet by the demons?” She asked.

“Yeah, a squad of 12 devils came but i captured them all. I sacrificed them and activated the god quest.” He said.

“So that was how you activated that. Right, why did you choose Pyarus when you could have gotten something like the god of wisdom or magic?” she asked.

“I have my own plans. One of them needs the buff for improved skill gain.” He said.

“Is that so.” She said thinking. “I wonder if you heard the exact ‘tutorial zone ending rules’?” she asked.

“There are rules to it?” he asked surprised.

“Yep, my grandfather was part of the build team for the game settings. I have just a few bits of knowledge. From what i know, it will be released knowledge next week. Besides the known level 5 limit, as soon as you level up your capital to level 3 it will break the tutorial zone because it will be counted as a ‘town’ and a starting point.” She said.

Lucas scowled when he heard but she grinned, “You are worried about the demon raid right?” She asked.

“Of course.” He said.

“Well don’t be, the AI’s and game makers wouldn’t be so unfair to leave us at such a disadvantage from the start. My grandfather explained to me that the territory moves and it would take a while for demons to find the territory, enough that you can build a strongish nation, enough to protect yourself at least.” She said.

“That is quite some insider information.” He said and finally calmed down. He began to eat again. “So what else did you want?” He after swallowing down the noodles.

“I’m actually wondering how to progress, i protected a general but it is a minotaur and he is very… bloodthirsty i guess. He is very combat orientated.” she said.

“You are the lord so why should his opinion matter? For me i am covering the support and craft research first because those are the requirements for setting up a stable kingdom. Without forester you have no wood, without blacksmithing you have no good weapons, without miners you have no stone, without architects you can’t advance to advanced level buildings. I have always played a passive method.” Lucas said.

“Isn’t that boring?” she asked.

Lucas frowned and leaned in forward and pointed his fork at her, “You are a king, before you even build an army, don’t you need to make sure you have enough food to feed them?” he asked.

“Ah!” She exclaimed realizing this point. She opened a digital notes and began to type quickly what Lucas just said. “I never thought of that, I have played five times as a queen in a few strategy games but i could never get the development right. Now i somewhat get it.” She said. “I will make my farms big enough and grow a good army before i completely take the water hole and expand it!” She said with her eyes burning.

“Well i guess securing water sources is important.” Lucas said but he could still see her own trace within his advice.

Following that she actually began a huge conversation to trade ideas with how she used to play. Lucas obviously had just as bad of success but there was a very distinct feature about the two. Sam was an aggressive queen, she wanted a strong military and usually tended to forget about the infrastructure of a nation while Lucas was the opposite. He set up a strong base but he never developed the armed forces to help expand the territory.

Not many people would actually think that the two would be able to get along, and Lucas found her very annoying since he couldn’t return to the game with her here but she was too excited when trading ideas and even bumped ideas and complaints about how it could fail badly.

Lucas benefited from her style of military formation. She was, strangely, very interested in military things and actually had a good idea on military organization from the older eras. Because demons had a very fixed hierarchy it made things even easier for her to build off of but demons were also the hardest race to develop due to their home territories lack of resources.

It would totally force people to develop a nation perfectly balanced between military and economy because only like that would they be able to raise a flourishing kingdom.

Sam got so into it that she pestered him to the point of almost jumping on him to see his gameplay videos, the original content. Of course, in return Lucas had her let him see hers.

They entered the virtual reality to watch it at a 1:10 time speed to be able to watch it all without wasting too much time.

When he came out, she was already out with many holographic notes floating around her.

“You are quite dedicated to strategy games.” Lucas said.

“My father and grandfather were once major ‘kings’ of their era and have always tried to teach me but i never understood their views even when i watched their gameplay. I guess it was because they always had to follow specific rules for setting up a village. I suck with human or elves but i did once try to make an orc kingdom and was quite good. Their aggressive style was just for me but it soon collapsed because the numbers were too much to sustain.” She said.

Lucas understood the problem, orcs have a high metabolism so without balancing food with population, such a nation is bound to fall.

“I once played with orcs… they were too dumb to follow my instructions. I failed before i even began.” Lucas said with a sigh.

Sam actually looked at him with pity. “Hey akor… wait! You never told me you real name!” she suddenly shouted as she randomly changed the subject.

Lucas blinked, “Why would i tell you?” he asked.

She suddenly turned red with anger, “Tell me cause i told you!” She said.

He rolled his eyes, “It’s Lucas Rollin.” he said. “I think you should go, we still have to complete our tutorial.” He said.

She pouted and stomped her feet, “Are you throwing me out! You have a gorgeous girl in your house like me and you actually throw me out!” She said.

“You are beautiful but for a man to date and marry a woman, they need money and i am as broke as one can get.” he said bluntly.

His confirmation of her beautiful appearance caused her to freeze and turned bright red. “Ah… um…” her face kept getting more and more red until she just sat down because the subject of the matter he spoke of was too embarrassing for her to reply to. Eventually she stood up and walked to the door and opened it herself and stepped out but before closing the door she turned, “Who said anything about marriage!?” she shouted.

BANG!

Lucas just looked at the door and raised his brow at the act of the girl. “So she is the romantic type, who knew.” he said.

Grrrr!

He suddenly heard his stomach growl and looked at his side which had the long since emptied noodle cup.

He sighed and went to make another one to sustain his hunger which had been growing over the last few days. He remembered the time when he had to adapt to the single cup every few hours. “Seems i have to be careful when i eat or else i will have a feeding relapse.” he thought as he finished his second cup still feeling unsatisfied. The state where he could sustain himself with one cup every 4 hours or so was something he could only achieve after nearly 5 years of controlling himself. It ended in his almost dried up frame.

He ignored his body’s reaction for more food and logged in.

Update

Research: Blacksmith skill/class complete

He smiled wryly at the current notice. This was a great thing to have because it unlocked the ability to use the blacksmithing craft window. He would have to build a smithy to use it though.

He opened the research page and quickly put the Miner class to research and while he was at it, he made Prosperity town research Merchant class. It would require this class to link the town and territory so developing it early on will be very important. What is more, he will need to transfer wood to Prosperity and stone to Sanity.

Akor was curious about the research.

Research

Research

Description

Unlocked items

Blacksmith skill/class

You have researched the basic methods to harness demon fire to a very high heat allowing you to melt mineral, even stones.

Smithy

Blacksmithing Skill

Blacksmith Class

The smile didn’t vanish as he opened the building menu and was shocked.

Demon Management

Demon Towns

Town Management

Stone

134 Unit

Wood

175 Units

Number of Buildings

Smithy

Level 1

Stone 10 units

Wood 10 units

Build

0/2

The amount of units made Akor think something was wrong with this picture. His image of a smithy was a building with a big forge with hundreds of tools.

He pressed to build and the map of his capital opened and he saw the ‘smithy’.

What he saw was a small water tank and two crucible next to it, one inside the other. Of course, along with it was a stone for the smithing skill was right near it but Akor first had to build the smithy but he was wondering why the smithy was such a simple thing.

He placed both and was surprised to find such a large space around it for the smithy but he still placed both because they would need the workforce soon.

It was quite strange to watch the simple twenty units get placed and a single crucible with water tank be called a smithy but most likely the upgrades would soon cover for that.

When they finished building, something that was incredibly fast, he pulled up the upgrade windows for it.

Demon Management

Demon Towns

Town Management

Stone

114 Units

Wood

155 Units

Number of Buildings

Smithy

Smithy Fencing

Requirements:

Wood 50 units

Upgrade

Stone Flooring

Requirements:

Stone 100 units

Upgrade

Stone hut (Smithy)

Requirement:

Stone 80 units

Wood 20 units

Upgrade

Tool Rack

Requirement:

Wood 40 units

Upgrade

Akor nodded when he saw the finished upgraded smithy and found the cost more reasonable to start with just the crucible or else it would take so long to build. He took a small time to do the math, using his fingers and dropping a zero and eventually found that the level 2 cost for a smithy would be 220 wood and 90 stone.

He didn’t need it upgraded, nor could he upgrade all of it at this time, so he just ignored it for now and walked to one of the smithy. To check out the craft window.

Craft System

Craft List

Alchemy List

Smithing List

Seeing the smithing list open was a very good thing. He opened it to see what he could do with it.

Smithing List

Smelting

Forging

This was similar to the craft list which was divided between handicraft, tailoring and other class required sections which could not be accessed at this time due to the lack of the required craft stations.

He pressed both to see what he could get.

Craft List

Smelting

Stone Brick

Consumes 3 Stone Unit to produce a stone brick building materials

Charcoal

Consumes 3 Wood unit to produce charcoal

Copper Bar

Consumes 2 units of copper ore to produce 1 copper bar

Bronze bar

Consumes 3 units of copper ore and 1 unit of tin ore to produce 1 bronze bar

Craft List

Forging

Forged Stone Knife

Consumes 1 wood and 1 stone brick to produce a Forged Stone Knife

+10 dmg

Stone Pickaxe

Consumes 1 Wood and 3 stone brick to produce a Stone Pickaxe for mining

+12 dmg

Stone Axe

Consumes 1 Wood and 2 stone brick to produce a Stone Axe for lumbering

+10 dmg

Copper Sword

Consumes 3 Copper Bar and 1 Leather to produce a Copper sword

+14 dmg

↓

The list went on but only stone items were available, it was interesting to see that stone could be forged in this game but it did have a direct impact on the quality. The stone knife gained a full 3 points over the Stone knife which had 7 damage.

As for the tools like stone axe and pickaxe, these were class requirement tools/weapons. Miners and lumberjacks, and maybe even foresters, could use these to work.

Akor clicked on the Stone bricks first and he saw three stone units appear and float over the crucible into a bright crafting light before drop into the inner crucible. In the outer one, it suddenly lit up with a bright blood red flame which was probably demon fire. He watched and after one minute, a white light jumped out and into the water tank and released steam before a stone brick appeared.

Akor picked it up and felt the faint warmth left behind and felt this process was very interesting to say the least. He then made the Forged stone knife and a normal stone knife to see if there was a difference in appearance or description.

The brick and wood went into the forge while two units of stone and one of wood went into making the hand crafted stone knife.

The hand crafted one finished first and it looked like one would expect.

The forged stone knife soon flew out of the crucible and cooled down before floating to the top of the water somehow so that Akor could grab it.

He looked at the two knives.

The hand crafted one was as one would expect, two stones hit and cracked to form an edge which was uneven and sharp enough to cut and damage an enemy. There were uneven lines along the body and looked like primitive tribal work.

The forged one on the other hand was interesting. Akor turned it and found it interesting how smooth it was. The blade edge was straight like a forged metal blade and there was no uneven lines along the body. The forged blade was a thumb length longer than the 20 cm long hand crafted stone knife and the edge was definitely more dangerous. What was more, the forged knife looked less primitive giving a more civilized appearance which gave it more points in its favor in Akor’s eyes.

He stored both pieces but favored the forged one without a doubt after seeing it. He hoped to get access to more material and make his first set of private weapons because he was currently only with a small piece of lower body garments provided by the system.

He opened the build window and built these outside of the cave in Prosperity and after looking at the amount of wood they had gathered and the land that was cleared, he set the village walls to be built with the gathered wood along with a second demon hut. There was a few more imps available already so they began to work as soon as the order came out.

He left it as is and went to look around and see what his imps did when not being ordered around. The lives of his subjects has always interested Akor and he would occasionally do that as a pass time.

With his grown body, he walked on the dirt ground to explore his land.