The xerran known as Gaul stepped away from the dungeon in the green zone he had just demolished, smiling to himself he placed the core in his spatial bag. Looking around he tapped the side of his face as an ovoid craft appeared, Gaul had volunteered to lead the infiltrating team into planet C-102. An advocate of the crimson rose school, the divine order had appeared from the patron ruler of their school through one of his descendants, the master on the path of the crimson rose, the founder of their school, asking for those who would be brave enough to claim an early space in the planet and Gaul son of Ano had volunteered, the master had ordered his family be given scrolls on different rare skills and other gifts. To every other advocate it would look like the benevolence of their master, but Gaul was not stupid, it was compensation for a scenario in which he was caught breaking the rules of the archailect by the dragon brigade, the military arm of the archailect that answered only to the supreme beings themselves.

Opening the landing pad to the craft, Gaul put on his transmitter to call the acolytes in charge of creating their base deep in the yellow zone, that way it would be at least 2 years after the opening of the planet to the archailect that any local would venture into that zone on their own power, and just enough time space to gather resources before other factions sent their schools to occupy the yellow zones. Every respectable faction left the green zones to the locals, let them build their levels while looking to their new masters in the yellow and red zones for guidance. He was about to close it up when he heard the voice,

“To evade us for this long on a new world barely almost done with its grace period, I’m not sure if I should be insulted or acknowledge your skills”

Gaul shot out of the ship, wrapping his body in the crimson flames his path was known for, his crimson core churning mana into flames that grew hotter around his body. in front of him stood an average man, with read hair and eyes that had golden slit pupils, a dark red uniform that was a shade darker than the orange and red uniform he wore. Gaul froze where he stood, his breath hung in his throat, eyes wide as sweat poured down his body,

A member of the dragon brigade had found him,

After the supreme beings and the rulers, the next set of people feared in the archailect and the collective planets that made it up were the dragon brigade. Said to had been blessed by a supreme being who had an ancient dragon for as his bride, they were made up of the most brutal, narrow-minded monsters in the archailect who had ascended their planets at record speed, becoming experts on their own strength, thereby owing no faction or ruler allegiance. They were the security arm of the archailect, sent in to maintain order, quell insurrections and made sure the laws of the supreme beings were obeyed.

Gaul took a deep breath, mentally activating the kill switch on both the craft the other acolytes had taken along and the one implanted in their respective cores, frowning as the switch on the ship activated but the ones planted on the acolytes and the other members blanked out, what had happened to them?, had the dragon brigade gotten to them?. Kneeling on the ground, he faced the man who stared at him stoically, like a machine, Gaul suppressed a shiver,

“I swear by the archailect that I came here on my own volition, the rose clan, nor the school of the crimson rose were aware of my activities” he recited as his core shattered, blood leaking from his body,

Smiling grimly at the man who sighed,

“For what it’s worth, I hope they compensated you in full” he said snapping his hands

And Gaul, son of Anos seized to exist as his body exploded in white hot flames.

The man picked the spatial bag the advocate on the path of the crimson rose had dropped, removing the core as he grimly nodded,

“Fucking ruler politics” he muttered to himself,

Glancing at the sky he said with a louder voice,

“Authorization code 2-2-4-0, name Jan of the dragon brigade, access level alpha, request reversal of dungeon due to scrupulous activities”

A calm mechanical voice replied,

“granted”

The dungeon core hummed and disappeared back into the black hole that formed due to its disintegration as reality asserted itself back. The ship that brought the advocate exploded into cinders, burning like paper, and with another sigh the man tapped the air in front of him, reality shattering right in front of him as a spatial hole opened to show a large golden building in a snowy world, he walked in, reality fixing back behind him,

“Fucking rulers” he muttered as space disappeared with him.

*****

Moyo stood awkwardly as the people around him began throwing questions his way, what was going on?, how did he defeat the xerrans?, among other questions. Moyo raised his hand, silencing the crowd, Annika, Idris and Ayo at his side,

“we do not have much time!, their advocate can arrive at any moment and to be frank with you, I’d rather not be caught in the middle of this grassland where anything can attack us” he said,

Staring sheepishly as he had no idea what to do with the people, he turned to Annika,

“These are your people, who’s the leader among them?” he asked,

“To be frank, I, Idris and Ayo are the strongest among them all, and you seem to be way stronger, so I’m guessing you?” she said,

Moyo stared blankly, sighing as he turned back to the people,

“I hope everyone is aware of the situation we’re in?, good, now I need to know the classes you all have in order to know how to move forward, please I’m not your leader, I’m not trying to control you, everyone has the right to do whatever they want” he shouted,

“Even leave?” a voice shouted from behind the people,

“Yes! however I’d advice we find shelter first before considering that, this is the yellow zone if I’m correct and the green zone is hundreds of miles away, I doubt anyone can make it there by the time the grace period would be over!” he replied,

About to continue, Moyo heard a beeping noise, turning to see the ship flashing red, an ominous feeling surrounded him, a sort of warning from his instincts, he immediately shouted for the people to run. Used to such warnings they did, moving faster as their levels seemed to help them, Idris lifting four kids and running far away. With a swipe he unleashed his realm over the himself and Annika who had stayed behind, grabbing her and blasting off the ship in a flash as it exploded into a ball of fire.

Landing and letting her go as she muttered a thanks, he watched the flames die down to leave nothing behind, not a sign that anything had been there a while ago, again Moyo was glad he had stored all the valuables into his spatial space. Glancing behind him as he saw Idris and Ayo jogging towards him, he spoke aloud,

“Someone definitely knows we’re here, we need to move”

“and go where?, you said it yourself, the green zone is miles away, we won’t make it on time” Ayo said,

Moyo pursed his lips, thinking, glancing at the three of them he spoke frankly,

“let’s be honest with each other, I had not planned for this scenario, I was going to take some extended period in this yellow zone, but now I can’t in good conscience leave a bunch of fledglings and acolytes to themselves in this zone” he started,

“And we’re grateful, we have nowhere to go to be frank with you, but we’re ready to pull our weights, I’m pretty sure we have skilled workers among those with us, we can create a place to stay and for your protection we can hunt and do whatever you need us to do” Annika said,

Moyo glanced at Idris and Ayo who nodded along in affirmation, sighing he pressed the tip of his nose,

“Now I feel bad” he muttered as they chuckled,

To be honest it wasn’t a bad deal, he was going to try and quickly create a base anyways, and with people there it could become a town, on the plus side he wouldn’t be lonely for the duration of time he would spend in the yellow zone. Coming to a decision he turned to them,

“So, I might have a way to create accommodations, don’t ask how, but before I do that I need to hear from the rest of the people” he said,

Annika and the rest nodded, walking back to where the people sat in the grass, looking tired and dejected, Moyo felt a pang of guilt in his heart. They were the reason he had grown stronger, had gone through hell so he could protect his world, as they got closer the people stood up, staring at him with hope in his eyes, he wasn’t ready for this,

“I, with the help of these three members of your…. community” he started as he gestured at Annika and the team,

“Have come to the conclusion that I would try my utmost best to protect those of you who so wish to stay with me”

The people shouted for joy, Moyo gesturing at them to tone it down and after a minute or two they did,

“If I can get a suitable location to create a home for all, we can put roots down there. In as much as you all are ready to defend the place the same way I plan to, I believe we all can grow there, but please, I don’t know a thing about building a place for all to stay, you all would be needed as we’re all we’ve got to help me along, and if you want to elect a leader, fine by me” he finished,

An elderly woman stepped out among them, a bit of grey in her hair, probably early fifties,

“I am Martha, I may not speak for us all, but I’m pretty sure I speak for a majority of us here when I say we are ready to follow your lead, not only are you stronger than us all combined if I’m to guess, but you came to our rescue when you had no cause to, that in itself is enough to let you lead” she said as everyone else chorused in affirmation,

Another young man came out of the crowd, pointing towards the east,

“My name’s Boyle good sir, was a blacksmith, still am: he started,

“Right over that cliff, on our way here we passed a good large plot of fields with what looked like err…mutated cows, and a flowing stream, pretty sure we can set up roots there sir” he said,

“Please, my name’s Moyo, not sir, not sure I deserve such an honour yet from you all, but if everyone is in accordance, its time we move. Okay so I need you all to line up according to your classes, warriors, mages and the last group are for those with other classes” he said,

Out of the ninety-five that were here, a good thirty were warriors, another 40 had somehow gotten the class archers, probably due to them throwing projectile weapons or something. The woman Martha had ended up as a mage, along with Boyle and 20 other people, the five left were kids who had been shielded during the battle. Arranging themselves in lines Moyo thought them all how to add their attribute points to the attributes, watching as they did so and underwent transformations.

With that stop gap taken care of Moyo ordered everyone to begin moving towards the east where Boyle had seen good land, with him in front along with Annika, Idris, Ayo, Boyle and Mrs Martha who somehow had begun to calculate the items people carried along with the water and other things they had salvaged immediately after the battle, Moyo was just glad someone was handling logistics. As they marched through the night, Moyo had shown the people how to assimilate aether shards, sharing the shards they had gotten among everyone as it had numbered in the hundreds from the crimson roses they had killed.

Martha informed Moyo that after the roses were dead, they had all gotten what they saw was coins appear in their Hud, everyone said the same as Moyo frowned, remembering he hadn’t even looked at his stat table. Bringing it up he saw he had only gone up one level, dismissing the points he had acquired, deciding to let it accumulate he ran his eyes through his notifications, finally seeing it below

You have gotten 15,000 silver coins!

informing the crew who told him that everyone else had gotten a thousand or less bronze coins, not silver,

“Probably a tier to the currencies then” Martha had mumbled and had gone back to her calculating self,

They had been attacked on the road by mutated wolves that went by the name feral spiked wolves, they had protruding spiked thorns along their spines and longer claws. Moyo had frozen them all in his realm, allowing the warriors to finish off the monsters. Moyo had opened his spatial rip and dumped the slain monsters in there, preserving the meat for later, as the night wore on, they were accosted more and more. If the monsters attacked from afar the mages used their powers on the creatures, their small cores unable to handle more than a few shots of fire, ice, and other elements they individually got. Moyo informed Martha to catalogue it all, every affinity they had in their midst.

As day broke, they saw the field in the distance, wide enough to contain two stadiums, Boyle smiled and pointed,

“we’re here” he shouted as everyone chorused with shouts of joy,

Moyo jumped high in the air and dimension stepped his way closer to the field, the animals the consisted of mostly odd-looking cows ran away, something about him told them they were in the presence of a predator. Landing in the middle of the field, everyone else waving in the distance, Moyo produced the rare dungeon core, watching it pulse, a notification appeared on his screen

You are in possession of a rare dungeon core:

Create a stronghold Absorb and evolve a skill +1000 attribute points

Moyo decided to go dungeon hunting sometime down the line to gather dungeon cores to evolve his skills, either that or get them for attribute points. Accepting the create stronghold icon a white light and loud trumpet blew as notifications blared up

Congratulations! You have formed your stronghold. You are the first on planet C-102 to have done so!

1,000 diamond coins! 10,000 gold coins! 100,000 silver coins! 500,000 bronze coins! You now have access to the building menu! 10% boost to your armies while in the vicinity of your stronghold Dome of protection gifted to the first pioneer of a stronghold

He now stood inside a simple dwelling that looked like a cottage with stone fireplace, stone walls and floor and a simple thatched roof. In the middle of the room was the dungeon core, glowing on a pedestal. He walked out to see the glowing dome; a notification came up telling him to assign a name to his stronghold. Moyo watched the people as they trudged down into the field, the dome parting on his thought as they entered the area of the stronghold that seemed to extend as far as half the field, Annika and the rest jogging towards him. He intended for this place to be a shield, a place of refuge, to protect humanity from the incoming crisis, he wrote the name out on his Hud,

Zone Notice! Stronghold Bastion has been created by the first lord acolyte Moyo!, may all beware his might!, long may you rule!.

“Bastion, nice name” Annika said as Moyo scratched his head in awkwardness, a cheer arose from the people,

“Hail lord Moyo!” someone shouted,

“Hail!” the people replied,

Moyo just stared on sheepishly as Annika and the rest laughed, Boyle walking up to him,

“We might need to get wooden walls up as soon as possible” he whispered to their team as Mrs Martha joined them,

“Wait a minute let me check something” Moyo said,

Walking back into small building that housed the core, he touched it as the stronghold interface came up:

Stronghold – Bastion

Stronghold Keep – level 1

Lord-Moyo

Steward- none

General- none

Treasurer-none

Armourer- none

Grand mage- none

Wall- none

Cottages-none

Barracks- none

Farms- none

Moyo stared at them all as they raised their eyebrows at him inquisitively, with a mischievous grin he began inputting their names in positions, he gave Martha steward, seeing as she had proven capable of handling any necessities that he couldn’t wrap his head around, he made Annika, Idris and Ayo his generals and Boyle his armourer. Watching as they gasped in shock ad Boyle sputtering that he knew nothing about armours,

“you thought you all could leave me to this?, ha!, think again” he grinned,

Switching back to the stronghold layout he selected walls and saw he could build them for coins, wooden walls were a thousand bronze coins, stone walls were a thousand silver or then thousand bronze, and aether infused walls were one thousand gold coins or one hundred thousand bronze coins. Moyo used the one hundred thousand gold coins and watched as walls that glowed purple like crystal rumbled out of the ground at the edges of his territory round him. The people gawking at the rising fortification. When it was over, they all turned to him in shock,

“Well? let’s get shit moving” he said with a smile....