Dungeon core has just accomplished a large expansion and due to the mentioned, the book of dungeon maker has analyzed a small section of the dungeon store. Book has entered a standby phase for the next 6 hours to evolve the dungeon maker skills and adapt them to the dungeon system as well as form a preliminary connection to the system of dungeons.

Seeing the sudden message, I froze in my tracks making the guard stop.

“Is something wrong, dungeon maker?”

“Ah no no. Please lead on.” I said reading the message while following and getting curious about the incoming changes.

After another short walk the guard lead me to the dinning hall and pushed it open to reveal a feast in full swing.

All the summoned were there happily chatting and eating when I entered drawing the attention of all.

“Ace!” Charlotte exclaimed happily.

Besides the very childish wild elf and Misaki who kept her poker face, Hermes and Luna ran over while the living puppets that were sitting in the corner stood up elegantly and walked over.

“Ace! You’re okay! Did you finish the dungeon!?” Hermes asked.

“Only the first floor, I will tell you all about it later. How was it for you?” I asked very worried.

A silly smile appeared on his face, “Um… well we kind of got a taste of what it meant to be a hero’s party.” he scratched the back of his face but it was clear that there was a bit of a change in him since he had to live through that type of scene and grew a bit more mature.

“A lot happened after the battle! Did you hear!? We really helped out!” Luna said excited.

“I heard only that you won but i will listen later.” I replied to the excited Moon elf and passed the two and met the Living Puppets.

“We have accomplished your desires to support the miss.” They said together.

“Good job, return to the book and rest for a while.” I said.

“As you wish.” they said but after a moment they froze. “It appears we cannot as the book is undergoing a great change.” she said.

“Ah right, I just received a message. In that case please do what you were doing while I report my own progress.” I replied.

“At once master.” they bowed and headed off to the corner once more and sat down closing their eyes.

Seeing the path cleared, I headed to the king and queen, giving a nod to Charlotte while Marian, Charlotte’s young sister, happily waved my way which made me smile.

“Mr Cross, it is great that you have returned. How was the volcano?” The queen said.

“Hot and messy. I was able to build the first floor and slightly contain the volcano but i will need to constantly expand it to make it more assured. For now i was able to make several vents along the volcano to reduce the amount of lava building up and several large vents to funnel out lava when it is erupting.

“Unless there is a chain of eruptions, from what i have made, it can still deal with the large amount of lava building up but i still can’t get rid of the huge amount of fumes coming out of the volcano. That said the air inside the dungeon itself is clean and i made it possible for life to be sustained within the vents with no current present danger to the dungeon. Later on as the dungeon makes the volcano safer to approach with fewer eruptions, it will be possible to enter and obtain special resources from it.” I said.

The king, although not personally liking me, actually reacted to that statement. “What kind of resources are we talking about?”

“Hmm… I am not perfectly sure because the dungeon is only starting out but from what I saw, there are mineral veins slowly forming, not sure which kind yet, and in the lava surrounded by salamanders, lava slugs and fire wisps there seems to be forming some kind of magic items.” I explained.

“That most likely is fire crystals. Fire crystals are a mana reached crystal primarily used in boosting fire magic by placing them on staff.” the queen said.

“Mother, I have heard that dwarves use them in different ways.” Charlotte said.

The queen frowned but nodded, “Yes, from my time that I went to sign some trade agreements, that is true. They have something called a steam engine which uses not only fire crystals but water crystals to produce the energy needed to do many of their jobs from powering their drills to moving their trains.” the queen said.

“Wait dwarves already have the steam engine!?” I exclaim.

My words draw the attention of all the summoned group. Although the people of this world don’t know it but the steam powered engine was the starting point of the industrial revolution. It made human society on earth what it was in the present day possible by providing the basic form of power to run a machine and produce automated power that powered nearly all machines.

The first practical steam engine appeared in 1663 while the first commercial steam engine appeared in 1712 during the Newcomer engine era. This was when the industrial era was starting up and went to 1780 but Watt’s steam engine and maybe the most famous was produced in 1768 initially which took off as the industrial era reached its peak the patent of which lasted only to the 1800s when it become something used generalized and further improved upon by later generations.

Amazingly, Richard walked over with a frown along with Nickelous.

“Why haven’t any of you obtained the steam engine yet?” Richard asked.

“Yes, that is pretty much the basis of all alternate power machinery and work.” Nickelous asked.

To the surprise of the summoned and even the royal family, the leaders of the three main hero parties actually stood together on this subject.

The king surprisingly frowned upon seeing this but the queen was equally as shocked by the action of the other two.

“What is so important about this?” she asked.

“What isn’t.” I replied shaking my head, “For one, as you said, the engine powers their drills and moves their trains. This machine, if used properly, can eliminate a lot of heavy manual labor problems such as using it to connect to the mine carts and have it pull them out to waste less time and energy of the workers that could be mining instead of pushing the carts.” I said.

“That is a really basic use. If modified properly, it could make motorized carriages that won’t need animals pulling it.” Nickelous said his biggest headache.

The queen, that said, had a frown and was actually tapping her hand on the armrest.

“Um… Ace, Sir Richard, Sir Nickelous. It isn’t that we never wanted to obtain any benefits of the alliance, which are many as they have grown greatly over the centuries.” Charlotte actually began to speak on her parents behalf. “But there has always been both internal and external problems.”

The three looked her way but the queen took over.

“As my daughter has said. The most major problem are the nobles. As you saw during the war, the nobles protected only their regions and territories.” She said.

“You don’t mean that the nobles reject advancements in technology?” I asked.

The queen sadly sighed and nodded.

This made all the summoned sneer. Even the dumbest among them would know that the situation this queendom was in was none other than the lowest point of medieval nobility. The most rotten period where people were left in poverty and had to pay absurd taxes and to live was to be tied to the ground they work with because they could not overcome the debts they build up to survive.

“Wait. If that is true then does that mean that the information of agriculture we brought was also ignored?” I asked.

“Sadly.” the queen said. “It wasn’t just your’s Sir Cross but everyone’s knowledge was gathered up to build a basic reference of development to start from but while you were out training we called the nobles and pretty much all of them denied wishing to implement something they said ‘had no fundamental basis to believe in’.” She said.

Veins appeared on my neck and head as I heard this but i was grinning in anger. Not just me but most of the summoned were either red faced or their eyes boiled with that absurd and ridiculous comment.

“It is no wonder this queendom has declined to such a degree.” Misaki coldly and bluntly criticized the royals making Charlotte feel red faced while the king personally turned red in rage.

But I raised my hand to keep the criticisms from the others from passing just that. “Don’t you have any very close allies in the nobles? I mean, can’t you also force the implantation?” I asked.

“Sadly we cannot. As ashamed as I am to say it but different from your world’s nobility during the era similar to what our nation faces now, which we have records of from our founding father who was himself a summoned hero. Sadly there is a major difference in our nobility.” She said.

“It is strength based.” the king said.

“So you give any random muscle head noble titles?” Nickelous asked coldly.

“Of course not. All nobles to retain their titles must show merit so depending on their titles, they must accomplish a certain amount of achievements through the adventurers guild and reach a specific rank to be able to inherit but to improve their titles they need to do major achievements for our nation to improve their titles.” the queen explained.

“This system is shit. From what we can understand, only those born from nobles can benefit from this.” I said.

“Well… naturally, their ancestors are already nobles. Why would we give titles to people without major merit within our armies and people?” the king said.

Richard actually began to laugh, “That is just like what nobles would do.” He laughed.

Probably having favored Richard, he never expected the hero to laugh while pointing in his face.

“See, even he knows that it is completely stupid. I am also guessing that you cannot prosecute them and remove their titles for doing crimes such as abusing the populous or doing other things correct?” Nickelous continued.

“Alright enough!” the king slammed his fist down and stood up while releasing a powerful and oppressive aura that surprised everyone in the room. “Do not think that we are weak either!? All royal family must be powerful so do not think we cannot do anything to you!?” he hissed in rage.

“He is correct isn’t he?” I asked the queen.

Her complexion had dropped to a pale color as the summoned were guessing the many corrupt facets of the kingdom.

I sighed and looked at the king. “You can calm down already.” I said.

He ground his teeth and pulled back his aura that was oppressing the guards and summoned.

“Now, have you ever thought of using your own land to produce the techniques we provided?” I asked.

“Our land?” the king blinked.

“Of course your land! Do you expect to use the elves land? Of course the royal family has lots of spare land in reserve correct? Why haven’t you tried to form villages or something to test the techniques and show the nobles that things we suggested work?” I asked.

The queen looked even more tired, “Sadly most of the land currently occupied is already used to reward most of the nobles.” the queen said.

The heroes shook their heads at the depressing situation of the kingdom.

“Then we can only find an ally among the nobles and work from his territory.” I said.

“Why are you so persistent?” The king asked.

“Why aren’t you?” Nickelous asked. “Humans run on food, more food means healthier men and women and that means their work output is larger which in turn produces more food and goods which provide for an ever growing army and supplies strong healthy soldiers who aren’t cocky and oppress the population for having a higher status.”

“It is probably useless to speak with the king and queen on this. Let’s summon those stupid idiots and ask why they are being brain dead.” Misaki said coldly.

“That is a pretty good idea.” Another hero said.

“Yeah!”

Soon all the summoned agreed and stared at the queen.

“Mother…” Charlotte had a bad expression on her face but the queen just stood up. “I shall relieve myself. Please enjoy the meal and please calm down. Once you have, we may speak with a calmer tone and clear thoughts.” she said and walked out.

The king also walked out soon after but Ace was far from finished but he didn’t pursue it at this time.

The others were the same and in turn he moved to his party and began to hear about their battle. He was shocked to hear that the humans were calling Luna a moon princess.

Jokingly I said, “Imagine them find out about your fetish.”

This made her pout but she fidgeted and made me realize something and look at Misaki, “Now that I say that, I never saw you punching or hurting her. Wouldn’t that be bad for her?” I asked.

Flames almost burst out of Misaki’s eyes making me back off and kill the subject.

From there I explain my time in the volcano and what I did, what I discovered and how I made the volcano dungeon a bit more safe. Now i was just waiting for the book to finish the cool down to see the new changes and from there see if there is more I can do.

After the pretty much ruined banquet we head to bed and the next day were called by the queen.

For the following two days we all were persistent in wanting a clear reason from the nobles until she gave in but with a warning, “Please do not act hot headed if… when this goes bad.” She said and ordered a summon for the nobles.

Three days later all the heads of the noble families arrived and the heroes were waiting at the side as many powerful men.

“Damn… they weren’t lying, these guys are strong.” Nickelous said.

“My queen, what do you summon us for this time?” A very powerful noble that was nearly 2 meters tall and his body rippled with muscle that made his suit look very tight. It was clear his was uncomfortable in it as he crossed his arms. He sat near her throne showing he was of high status most likely a marquese.

“Seems most of the important nobles have arrived. This was asked by the heroes really.” She said. Her eyes landed on us and she gestured for us to move forward.

I looked at the others and as we planned, i would be the one to talk because I was the least likely for the nobles to push some major punishment if things went bad.

“Greetings sir nobles.” I said bowing as i was instructed.

“Speak, what is so important that you made us all come here?” the muscular noble took the reins of the conversation.

“I have heard from the queen that the suggestion for the improvement on the agriculture was rejected by all nobles.” I said.

The face of many nobles instantly scowled.

“I wish to at least know the reason behind the rejection since we come from a world that has long since surpassed even dwarves in technology to the point that we even build vehicles that travel higher up into the air than dragons and faster than them.” I asked.

“What basis do you have to ask us why?” the muscular noble asked.

A quiet sigh came from the queen.

“Exactly, what gives you the right to ask us our opinion of this subject.” Another marques asked.”

I frowned slightly but continued, “Well it was the queen who requested the information but was suddenly rejected without even being experimented with in small pieces of land to verify how legitimate the information we brought was.” I replied.

“Young man, you are the dungeon maker correct?” The second marques asked.

“I am.” I replied to him.

“Well you should stick to making those holes in the ground to be exploited and leave the political runnings of this nation to the nobility who were raised to run it. As you can see, even as we are, the demon lord is unable to reach it’s hand deep into the nation as we have enough strength to push him back.” he said.

My face grew dark as soon as his words fell and the other heroes were not any better because if any of them were to be in my place the insult would have been changed to match each of us.

“Sir says that but besides just dungeon making, I also possess skills in craft among which are farming. That knowledge I gave came not only from my previous world but some from this world’s own knowledge which complimented it.” I said.

“And how high is that level?” He asked grinning.

I froze and formed a frown. Naturally the craft skill was not heavily used due to the fact that there was not that great of a time to do that.

“See, you freeze at a simple question meaning it is but a new low level skill with little knowledge of the subject. This conversation is useless. As Marques Leon had said, leave politics to those who know it.” The muscular noble said. “Your highness, if this is all, we will leave.” The muscular marques said and stood.

“Marques Conner, please return, since we are at it I would like to turn this talk into a war meeting as well as a conversation to figure out how to plan the new routes to now isolated regions caused by the volcano the demon lord made appear. The current situation of the volcano is positive thanks to the dungeon maker forming a dungeon that lowered the amount of eruptions and lava explosions. Now most of it will vent along the sides through vents reducing the risk greatly. Still we need to remake the trade routes and roads as well as help the citizens of the cities and villages closest to the volcano relocate.” she said.

“I see.” The marques conner said and sat down.

The queen looked at me and the others and with a foul mood we left the throne room.

In a somber mood, we all exit the castle to the training yard and actually began to vent on the poor training dummy.

When they couldn’t hold out, Richard, Nickelous and I looked at each other before we each pointed our weapons at one another.

“W-wait Ace!” Charlotte cried out when she saw us three.

“Sir Nickelous!” one of the party of the berserker shouted.

“Richard!” Marybell, Charlotte’s sister, shouted.

Just as they shouted we three jumped at each other and our swords connected.

The largest impact was on me as my level was still 18 while the others had grown much greater since than.

Still that didn’t stop me as i pull out the pen and wrote on my hand the ‘Accelerate’ very quickly. Following that was ‘Enchant Strength’

The buff had an increase of 5% on my own stat of strength which at present is 158. That is an 8 point buff and seemed small but a little science lesson, Velocity + Mass = Force.

This translates to agility + strength = very strong hit.

Accelerate is a rune as well as a spell that gives a 10 second speed boost of around 20%.

Looking at the others who saw me, they turned a bit more serious as I swung the short sword forward. “Be ready.” I said.

Taking a step forward, i rushed forward “Heavy Blade!” I shouted and the sword began to glow and through magic, it became as heavy as a hammer.

Taking three steps I appear in front of Nickelous swinging who blocks with his artifact long sword.

BANG!

This time it was his turn to be sent flying and furthermore the webbing on his fingers broke while the hand that held against the blade had the blade slightly dig into it.

“You got more skilled.” He said coldly but grinned as he looked at his bloody hand and passed it over his sword.

Amazingly the sword began to vibrate and seemed to growl before magical red lines formed on the blade.

I felt a deep tepedration as did Richard.

“Royal guard!” Richard shouted and pointed his shield in front of himself and formed a bright yellow shield.

I used magic on the other hand writing ‘Earth Shield Harden Guard’ pushing it into the ground forming an earth shield that hardened into stone and released a faint yellow light.

“Blood Wave.” Nickelous chanted solemnly and took a step as he swung the overly large longsword releasing a bloody sword wave that slammed into both of us. The shields quickly cracked and we had to use our swords or shield to block being sent flying.

We both coughed up some blood and landed far off on the other side of the training field.

Forming a triangle we all stood up but it was finally Richard’s turn who began to glow a bright white light. “Hero’s Blessing.” he chanted making the white light enter his body making yellow lines appear on his body. “Hero’s Avatar!” he shouted and behind the prince looking blond appeared a ghost of a giant knight appeared.

It slowly superimposed on the young hero and formed a ghostly holy armor around him.

I gulped and nodded “Yeah, this is a hero’s skill for sure.” I narrowed my eyes and began to buff myself. ‘Harden’ ‘Enchant endurance’ ‘Harden Earth Shield Guard Enchanted Endurance’ and more defence spells.

Allowing the two time to guard up Richard struck as he lifted his sword. “Now it’s my turn.” he said. “Holy Smite!” he shouted and swung sideways causing everyone to be blinded and the parties shouted.

As for me and Nickelous, we prepared our strongest skills and attacked back after our defense was broken and the attack weakened but it was still a heavy burden.

After the three attacks, the three of us were in a bad state but far more relieved and walked out from the pits we were in.

“You are weak Cross.” Nickelous said as he walked out all bloodied.

I coughed as my body was covered in dust and was slapping it off. “Oh shut up you berserker. I level slowly and need to gather mana through my book to make exp. I focus on my skills over my level.” I cursed at him and looked at Richard, “And were you trying to kill me you bastard? I saw that more of that attack came at me! If I didn't use the vibrate rune and my vacuum slash to split off most of the impact i would have been in bed for weeks you asshole!” I cursed at the hero.

“If you were that weak at this point you really should be in bed and retire.” he said but his face was pale clearly from the amount of energy or backlash that all hero skills have.

I spit some blood in my mouth out while the healers or alchemists of the parties ran over and used magic or potions to heal us.

“You guys are stupid. Geez you are such brainless men. What was all that about?” Misaki criticized us.

“Venting.” the three of us said together.

“Also i was gauging what these two can do.” Nickelous said.

“Oh please, i was the one gauging you guys.” Richard said.

“It doesn’t matter who was doing what to the other, that was stupid.” Misaki insulted us and began to criticize us but we really didn’t mind.

“You really should focus some exp into leveling and raising your base stats.” Nickelous told me.

“Yeah, with how things are going for this nation, we will be in lots of battles.” I sneered.

“Those nobles are annoying.” Richard said.

“They are.” me and Nickelous said.

“Still they are really strong. Even the weakest which are baron were probably as strong as us.” I said.

This comment was a wakeup call to the others who began to think deeply about our actual position in the war.

We eventually calm down and go take a bath and get the wounds treated while the queen had her meeting and as night fell we were all called to the throne room where we looked at each other with a somber mood.

“I see you all calmed down from your fits of rage. I could feel the tremors from here.” She said.

“Yeah.” We all said.

“Good, the nobles and us have planned for the repairs of the nation and remake the roads.” She said. “Now from the talk, you realized why we didn’t want you to meet the nobles right?” she asked.

We nodded.

“Nobility isn’t as simple as knowledge. Each person with nobility was once an adventurer and very strong ones. They are the pillars of the nation and despite their resistance to our control and maybe even plan to overthrow us if they get to ambitious but they are the powers of the nation and control a huge amount of strength. The marques, like myself are A rank adventurers at that.” She said.

My hands ball into a fist.

“As you all saw that nobility are very proud and will not take orders of those outside of it. To them you are just commoners from a different world with no speaking power.” she said.

A silence fell over the room before she smiled, “Which is why Sir Ace Cross, Sir Zondervan and Hero Richard Arrowood will each be given the rank of Baron.” She said.

The three of us turned wide eyed.

“Why?” I asked.

“After the nobles left, I spoke with my husband. I remember you ask about our personal land correct?” She asked.

I nod and she stood up and waved for us to follow.

We enter the war room and the table that showed the entire alliance.

She made the map zoom on only the queendom territory.

“This, that you see is the active territory populated by us.”

“Yes.” we nod and keep listening.

“This isn’t the full size of the territory.” She said and activated a different setting zooming out towards the south and west until the territory exposed was nearly 4 times the size.

“Wha…” all of our jaws dropped upon seeing the expanse of land owned but unoccupied.

“As you can see, all this land is unoccupied but it wasn’t always like this. When Heavenlight was founded, the capital was located here.” She pointed to the center of the map and zoomed in where the ruins of a beautiful capital lay. “The fall of the original capital came from the demon lord’s attack and was probably when the decline began. At that time the demon lord’s forces were actually stronger but thanks to several summoned, many powerful demons were killed but many nobles that had very high honor and loyalty were also killed. The control of the land became very weak so we had to decrease how much land we could actually manage.” The queen explained the past of Heaven light.

“So by giving us a title, it means you are giving us land is this abandoned land?” I asked.

“Exactly. I wish to expand the queendom back even a little. Also, these lands are much safer from the demon lord. To the southeast is a very huge canyon and wall of mountains that is almost impossible to pass even by dragons because there are actually monsters living here that the demon lord cannot control or even kill. They are passive and don’t care about the alliance of demon lord but they protect their territory viciously. The demons cannot invade from there but it was thanks to the old demons who are now dead, they could reach those lands from the current territory before.” she explained.

“This is all good and all for giving us an entrance to the nobility but there is a problem. One, there is no workers, two how dangerous is it, three where will we get the food to pioneer this place?” Nickelous said.

“That is true, i believe the nobles have farmers under debt like in our world. How will we get workers?” Richard asked.

“Slums.” the king said.

“Huh?!” we all exclaimed in shock.

“The slums are a cesspool of homeless and unemployed. They aren’t bound by debt and since they don’t do crimes, we also can’t put them in jail.” he said.

“Will nobles let them go?” I asked.

“Most definitely, slums reduce the public order and is the place where bandits are born. If we can give them a place to live, we can improve public order in the current territory as well as send people to pioneer the land. Furthermore, we can obtain the help of the adventurers guild as they desire great amounts of missions to be able to raise the adventurers. This will be a great use of manpower as long as they accept.” the queen said.

“There is one more thing.” The king pointed out, “There actually are villages surviving there. The passage to the south and west are both blocked in all the mountains but we do know that there were people who couldn’t come here and remained. There most definitely are humans surviving there if they became strong enough to survive.” he mentioned.

“Hmm… this might be good and all but i think it is best to start a new village. I don’t think the abandoned village will take likely to our takeover. On the other hand, as we expand and grow, we can attract and negotiate with them.” I mentioned.

“This is a good thought process. Do you accept this mission?” the queen asked.

All the heroes turned to face one another. There were four main groups and the leader of the four, Ace, Nickelous, Richard and one last boy who was the leader of the last group but his strength and couldn’t compare to the other three, decided for their parties.

“We will accept but… we will work as we want and implement our own techniques.” I said.

“Good. I will announce the new titles for your war efforts. Ace, for you the reward will be your effort for the new dungeon reducing the danger of the volcano. Please continue strengthening that control to eventually regain that land.” She said.

“Of course.” I nod.

“Good, as nobles, you will also be allowed to recruit and train your own personal soldiers and found your own noble families just like all the others.” She explained. “All this will be explained once you get the title and we will send a teacher of noble etiquette with you so that you know what is expected of nobles. After the announcement of your titles we will also announce the pioneering of the territories. We will be recruiting those of the slums, skilled craftsmen and workers as well as order a teleportation platform from the elves to take to the south. That said, do you have a means to clear the blockade of boulders covering the passage?” She asked.

“I can achieve it all as material.” I replied with confidence.

“Good. We will proceed while the problems with nobility you leave with us.” She said.

Like that, the first step of the heroes into the political world was taken.