That day marked the start of a truly hectic period. However, it was still one of growth and improvement for our camp and civilization overall. After some conversations with Mia and the other important figures of our social construct, the decision we reached was that for today, the focus of the entire camp would be on building.

So, except for a few that manned the walls just in case, everyone worked hard on building under Mia's instructions... me included.

We decided that the Shrine and the Dinner Hall will be completed today and surprisingly, we somehow managed. That night marked the inauguration of the Dinner Hall through a huge feast prepared by Andrea and her chef-squad.

Well... I say night but there was still daylight left, therefore after some rations were prepared, I took the entire dungeon diving unit and Decarbia (which somehow woke up exactly before dinner was ready...) and left for the Eastern Water Dungeon.

Obviously, power leveling was a guaranteed thing to happen, but only after I have these people face against the Murlocs on their own. It will serve as an exercise for them and the new equipment Denise managed to thinker with. When? Well… during the time we were breaking our backs with the buildings that became harder and harder to construct, she took a couple of people and began melting away at the excess of spears or other useless things we had from the dungeon runs made by Alexandra and me last night. The result?

Advancement made through autonomous research!

Metal Casting Research Points requirement decreased by 700 points due to your civilization pioneering an unknown path!

The Metal Casting research dropped with 700 points in its requirement, which forced me to make a decision.

We had a total of 3023 RP accumulated so far and only 1400 RP required to wrap up the research. In order to give the poor lass a break, I directly bought Metal Casting and Mining, thing that sent Denise down the rabbit hole, unable to extricate herself from the new knowledge she received. Yeah… it didn’t go as planned, I know, but to her it was like a breakthrough made because of her hard work and I couldn't bring myself to tell her otherwise...

Nevertheless, given that we needed to complete Animal Husbandry and Archery as well, I coaxed the little mad genius to focus completely on the latter one, since elven archers are a must. Legolas, this little master won't disappoint you any further!

Obviously, since she required materials to create something, she used the newly (looking like it's about to collapse) forge and melted much of the useless stuff which kept piling dust in the Warehouse, creating many molds and evaporating much of the river's water... That finally brought about some results, as a batch of proper looking spears were created and even two lances, using the Vortex as an example. To my utmost shame, I mentioned by mistake plate armor to her and this mad genius forced me to explain things in much detail for some good couple of hours (which exempted me from working at the buildings, but not from Mia's contemptuous stare...).

Anyway, the fight with the Murlocs was... disastrous and we still lost pathetically. At least until Alexandra and Decarbia used their magic and wiped out the remaining forces... Everything was fine and dandy up to the point where the Boss appeared and according to the reports from Laurence, the damage dealt by the slightly improved javelins wasn't worth more than 20 points of damage per throw, while some didn't even penetrate its fish-skin and were completely blocked. So, when we tried to engage in close combat (I was able to participate because I wanted to show off, given my new high level), the Boss flew into a rage and bitch-slapped my monkey ass. That took out 25% of my entire HP… therefore I panicked thinking that some elves might get slaughtered and commanded D and Alexa to end this hateful bastard.

[Michael are you alright?](Alexa)

[Master?](D)

"I am alright you two, don't worry... Alexandra, last time me and Decarbia were here, we received a notification about a second floor appearing. Let's take a look while the others take a break."

[Shouldn't we bring them along?](Alexa)

"Nope. We aren't sure what sort of monsters will appear there, so it's better to go with just the three of us. D can use Fire magic so it shouldn't be that difficult to wipe out the floor on her own."

[Oh, right! Big sister D, can you teach me more about magic? You promised that you would...](Alexa)

[I will, I will... However, I didn't have time to do so yet. I will tell you a bit while we check the second floor like master said.](D)

[Hmm? I noticed before, but why both you and big sister Mia call Michael ‘master’? Are you serving Michael like big sister does?](Alexa)

[Uhm...](D)

Even if you turn to me... Anyway, the second level was filled with snakes. I still shudder every time I remember the sight of them. It was like a huge ball resting upon an amazingly large slab of stone, all of them basking in the sun. The girls were curious at first and I had an inkling as for what the ball was when I first saw it, however I decided to teach them a lesson about not dropping their guards in a dungeon like I did earlier with the Murloc Boss.

When the walked closer and were about 30 meters away from the black ball, the snakes noticed their presence and lunged at them. I will just say that the screams of the two lasses washed away the shame I felt when the boss bitch-slapped me. Venting on the girls? Of course not! I knew they will react properly and exactly as I thought, Decarbia hit the snakes with lightning and fire that would be present only in myths and legends, while Alexandra minced the poor things into dust with air magic, only to flood the entire floor and wash away their remains with a tsunami. Now that's what you can call overkill!

Obviously, everyone's levels went up in the process, but not sufficient, therefore the grinding for that night commenced at the Earth Dungeon. Given how the sheep were pretty much invulnerable to any damage, we stood behind the two magicians of our group and watched as the poor fluffy demonic things were abused to the max. We even ventured a couple of times in the second floor, but because the time we needed to wait to re-enter was increased when doing that, we focused on grinding.

Day 11 marked the building of the Monument, while day 12 since arriving on Midgard marked Decarbia joining us. Now that day 13 ended after much grinding and some building, I could truly feel how fast the time passed, given the pressure that was put on us by the second continent...

When day 15 ended, some major events finally occurred. We had enough culture points to acquire the Military reform which will grant us a steady path for future policies through dungeon diving. Not only that, but through Denise's hard work (more like obsessed but I can't really complain since she enjoys what she's doing), we had another breakthrough in the Archery research, decreasing its cost down to 800 points. So I used out of the grand total of 1301 we had on that day, the required amount to buy it outright once more, leaving me with only Animal Husbandry and 501 Research Points left.

Buildings also thrived as Stone Works and Farms were also finished, much to the delight of Stephanie and the two muscle-heads, since the following day we also wrapped up the Lumber Mill.

We were now on day 16 and we were planning the location of the Water Mill for the following day, with only the Barracks, Ancestral Library and the Bathhouse required to be finished. I was also quite hyped about the last one, due to the fact that there was a pleasant surprise once the Dinner Hall was constructed.

Dinner Hall

The hungry finally have a place to gather where they can enjoy both food and proper conversation!

Effects: +1 Culture Point/day; 50% increase in respective food effects

Due to it, not only did the food we ate gave more attribute points than it usually did, but the culture points gain per day went up a bit as well. Unfortunately, after acquiring the Military reform I was left with only 3 points, while the next policy required me to spend 104 for it. I felt my scalp tingling at the mind-boggling number and the fact that in the future it will likely go up again and again... but a helping hand was sent out in the form of a massacre.

As bad as that sounds, it was the truth. Based on the general level of the monsters in a floor, once it was cleared, a number of culture points will be granted. For example, in the Eastern Water Dungeon the average level of the Murlocs was 2-3, so we were awarded 2-3 culture points with each clear. For the second floor the average was the same as the first floor from the Southern Earth Dungeon which was about five, so we grinded those again and got 5 culture points per each dungeon run on those floors. It made me wonder if I can dive the big dungeon in the second continent with D and Alexa and easily buy all the social policies and reforms available...

There was also a pretty big improvement within the dungeon diving unit, something like a qualitative change due to them reaching level 10 and getting Jobs. They were happy about being able to finally stomp the Murlocs under their feet and even fought the snakes on the second level. There were some light injuries, but since beside Alice that was already a second Tier healer, we got a couple of Priest Jobs as well among the unit, the damage we took and the risk of major injuries was reduced to nil.

These three days we acquired so much meat of different types without having to hunt, more clothes than required, enough that we had spares and a huge mountain of wool that our tailors began creating socks, pillows and blankets with for the cold season.

According to Mia's calculations, this 16th day represented the end of August in Earth's terms, so I took a chance. With yet another mad scientist's help, Simone and some deer that gave its life for our cause, we created the first calendar ever for our civilization. Obviously, we kept the same months, only that there were slightly more days in the year since it was too annoying to think of new names. And with it...

Congratulations!

By pioneering and braving the unknown, your civilization acquired the Calendar research technology without having spent any research points on it! Major achievement: A path through the stars! A path through the stars

Requirement: be the first to complete the Calendar research and make your civilization aware of the notion of time.

Reward: one set full of stars for your world

That night of the 16th day, before I accepted the reward and put the stars on display for everyone to see, we held yet another huge feast (I'm starting to get used to those and the feeling of party, but we lack alcohol... we only have juice in its stead) during which I announced that Mia had an epiphany of sorts, granted to her by the Chaos God through which he let us know how proud he is of our achievements (yup I threw her under the bus once more). As reward, the sky itself will light the darkness of the night for us from this point onward. Cheesy, I know... However it worked and everyone got really hyped. I had to explain what stars are, which made things even more complicated, but once night arrived and they saw the glittering dots in the vast beautiful sky, everyone was stunned into silence by the breath-taking sight.

Even for me, the view was amazing beyond any words, completely different than what it was on Earth and more pronounced. It truly appeared to be a path made of stars drifting like a river through the vast universe without a specific destination in mind. I remembered the Milky Way which it was visible with the naked eye back then, but compared to that, what I was currently looking at seemed much closer and way more colorful.

That night, the entire camp slept outside, in the company of the others and the smell of the grass. Summer ended and with it, a colder wind began stirring across Midgard.