With one last task to complete before we could upgrade the settlement, I walked with Draemish to the manor.

  “Do you think letting everyone in like that was wise?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “If they need help, they will get it once we upgrade. I think it is best to leave them on their own devices. I checked before we left, and there aren’t any missions to take that this time, so they won’t be doing much other than going out and slaying monsters that get too close to the settlement.” Her attitude seems flippant from what I am used to, but you can only watch people line up to do a dangerous job for so long before it stops bothering you.

  “Do you think everyone knows to meet us in the meeting room?”

  “Yes, Laxreal made sure to reach out to everyone through one of his powers to inform those of the leadership that we will have this meeting. They should be there by the time we arrive.”

  “He has a power that allows for distant communication?” I can’t help but be baffled.

  “He does, but he prefers to talk with you in person. I think there is a connection that you and he share that he won’t talk about. I only know that he views you as his lord and treats you like one of his own. Through my many years of knowing him, he hasn’t ever shown that closeness with anyone else. Even Rhenriqi didn’t get as close to you as he was on our planet. I think his change to a Guardian Lich did more for him than I thought.”

  “He seems to be close to Rhenriqi now, even if he appears to keep his distance.” I can’t help but point out.

  “There is guilt in his eyes that you can’t fully perceive now. I think he remembers when he was initially trying to become a lich. I don’t know much other than what Rhenriqi told me later, but even for her, it was a bit blurry as her consciousness hadn’t fully awakened. From what I know, he sent her away before starting the ritual. I can only guess that it was to protect her.”

  “That sounds like him, alright. I could tell there was a change in his behavior after his resurrection; there is less fanatical devotion and more of a level-headed individual.”

  “As true as that is, the fanatical part of him was ground into his very bones from what I can tell because of where I left him after he initially awakened. I should have known better back then, but I was following orders from my direct supervisors.”

  We continued to talk a bit more about Laxreal’s past, catching me up on why he was who he was. Not having heard any of this from Laxreal himself, I was getting a very lopsided story, but I could tell that Draemish felt guilty for what happened to Laxreal then.

  Approaching the main doors to the main, they open for us, and standing in front of us is Laxreal. “Welcome back, Drake. I presume the opening of the Adventurer’s Guild went well?”

  Nodding, I enter through the door he holds open for us. “It went pretty well; we might have left a bit of a mess, though.”

  “Oh, I can only imagine,” he said after giving me a look, which I could only interpret as something he would have to clean up eventually.

  Not wanting to continue this topic, I quickly entered the meeting room, and everyone needed was there. Taking my seat at the head of the table, Draemish finds her seat, and Laxreal stands behind me, ready to step in if there are any questions I don’t know the answer to.

  “Since everyone is here, let’s get this meeting started. The sooner we figure everything out, the sooner we can proceed with the tiering up of the settlement. First on my list is to figure out what buildings we should move and in what order of importance we should move them. I believe that we should move the walls to be further out. While 100 meters in diameter is significant, it doesn’t leave us with much space inside the walls as we add more people and buildings.”

  “I would second the thought of the walls being one of the buildings we move.” Draemish agrees, with nods coming from everyone else in the room. The only person who doesn’t seem to be fully in the look is Brathfolim.

  “What do you mean we are moving buildings during the tiering up of the settlement, and what do you mean we tier up the settlement? I thought we had to do the work independently, and then we would naturally become a higher tier.” He asks, primarily out of confusion. I can’t blame him since he was just summoned yesterday.

  We take a couple of minutes to explain what is happening as a group. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long before he understands what we are talking about, and there is a gleam in his eyes.

  “What you are telling me is that we can move 10 ‘points’ of buildings during the tier-up process, and each building will either cost one point or more depending on unknown criteria, but the general idea is a larger building will take more points than say a smaller blacksmithing shop,” Brathfolim repeats to make sure that he understands what we are doing in this meeting.

  “That is correct,” Laxreal agrees with his assessment.

  “Wonderful. I was looking around last night and this morning, and I think some crafting buildings would work better if they were closer to their corresponding material locations. Raw materials typically weigh more than their finished counterparts, so having the blacksmith and the stone mason near the mine and the carpenter shop near our logging camp would be the best places for these buildings.”

  “We are also trying to make sure that the buildings are safe because with the threat of a beast tide in three days, any buildings outside the walls could be destroyed, and we don’t want to waste time on rebuilding buildings if we don’t have to.” Eleanor tries to explain.

  “Oh, that is understandable, but have you thought about what it takes to make the building compared to the time it would save from all the hauling of materials? Sure, we would lose some of the materials as we have to rebuild, but considering that we don’t have to spend much time on the tier 0 buildings, it doesn’t seem like it would be that much of a burden.” He argues.

  Thinking about his suggestion, I can’t say that I disagree with him, but there is something that I want to bring to the forefront. “There are still some items that we haven’t used from the auction. They are the random blueprints for the Tier 1 crafting and Tier 1 gathering buildings.”

  Some looks of confusion before they remember the specific items I referenced. “Are you saying build a lower tier building outside of the walls to help refine some of the materials to their more parts and then bring them in to finish on the higher tier buildings?” Narus asks.

  “That is one thought. I don’t know how well it will work, but we will eventually need more buildings to help people work in their higher-tier professions. So why not?” I say while trying to think of any potential downsides.

  “What would work for a non-sentient being like beasts if we leave a lower-tier professional building outside the walls and near where they can gather the materials? Aren’t we just leaving ourselves open to being besieged and unable to stop them since they would have the materials to make something that could potentially devastate our settlement?” Draemish counters, thinking about a different side for repercussions.

  Everyone takes a moment to think about this issue before Zul’Zara speaks up. “Why we be tryin’ to figure this out? Shouldn’t we be trying to figure out the builds to move first?”

  Taking another moment, everyone stops thinking about our issue with crafting buildings and gets back on the topic of which other buildings we should move since, right now, our list only contains the walls.

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  “If we are going to move the walls, should we also move the training fields so they can still be close to the walls?” Shadow asks.

  “That would be a good idea, but since we are expanding the space inside the walls, should we also think of adding another gatehouse so people don’t have to walk around the entire wall before getting to the other side?” Vranjaya looks around while giving her thoughts.

  “Would we want to split the settlement into thirds? That way, one-third is always covered by one of the training yards to help if there is an issue when people are training that they can help?” I asked.

  Looking around the room, I see that everyone is thinking the same thing about where we would put the buildings, but they are leaning more towards splitting the settlement into thirds for this upgrade. There are enough people that even with everyone on the walls, there is at least a 6-meter gap between people. This isn’t a large gap, but it isn’t small.

  “So we have at least four buildings that we plan on moving.” Laxreal puts a halt to the murmuring. “The walls and the training yards. These are all good choices. Let’s select a couple more so we have some backups in case we have more points than we thought.”

  There is another round of agreement before everyone thinks about what buildings we should move to next. As we are feeling, Brathfolim asks a different question. “If we don’t want the lower-tier buildings outside the walls currently, why don’t we bring the resources into the walls?” They are technically part of the territory, so why can't we bring them closer to defend them or move them entirely inside the walls?”

  “I don’t…” I have to cut myself off because we haven’t ever been able to move buildings, and nothing says that those outposts can’t be moved either. I wouldn’t want something like trees falling inside the settlement, but having the mine wouldn’t be too bad. It could lead to the ease of use that Brathfolim mentioned earlier, but the downside is that it will take up space we should use for something else. What else? I don’t know, but we shouldn’t do what he asks, at least not in its entirety. “We can try and move the outposts closer, but I can’t guarantee they will be able to move. The best I can do is try, and I would like them near the walls but not inside the walls.”

  “Anything closer is a better call than letting them sit out there without too much protection.” He nods his head.

  After that thought was dealt with, we continued discussing other potential options. One option was to move the towers attached to the wall, which again wouldn’t be a bad idea, but since they were connected, I didn’t know if they would be moved with the walls themselves.

  Currently, our list consists of the wall, the outposts, the training yards, and the towers if they have to be moved independently. It isn’t an extensive list, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

  “Is there anything else we need to figure out before we start the upgrade to the settlement?” I asked everyone. Seeing that no one else has brought up anything, I grab the advancement token from Laxreal and use it.

  - Would you like to use this Settlement Advancement Token? Yes/No -

  Selecting ‘Yes,’ another notification comes up.

  - You have used a Settlement Advancement Token; you have 24 hours before the effects of this token expire. -

  Looking at everyone, I nod my head. “I will proceed with tiering the settlement to the next tier. Are there any questions before I start this process, or can we proceed?”

  Another round of shaking heads, and I nod.

  - Your settlement has initiated the Tier Up process. Generating task…

  You have used a Settlement Advancement Token. Tasks have been canceled.

  Congratulations, your settlement is now a Tier 1 Hamlet.

  Due to having an excess of experience, it has been condensed into a manner that would allow the continuation of settlement leveling. -

  Looking at the settlement menu, I immediately note a couple of changes.

  - Settlement Information:

  Name: Caelnova

  Tier: 1 (Hamlet)

  Level: 1

  Experience: 101/2000

  Population: 100

  Territory Size: 2Km X 2Km

  Wealth:

  Copper: 59

  Silver: 4

  Gold: 132

  Platinum: 0

  Diamond: 0 -

  First, the settlement's tier hasn’t changed, which makes me think that the hovel tier wasn’t a tier we should have been in. Next is the amount of experience we have towards our first level up. It says that it condenses the experience, so it would help level up the settlement, but I didn’t realize it would condense by a factor of 100. The last thing on this screen that has changed is that instead of a typical increase of 0.1 km, it increased directly to 2 km.

  I do not want to get distracted, but I need to review one more notification.

  - Your settlement has increased in its tier. Would you like to move 10 building points worth of buildings into a new location and select the town hall location? Yes/No -

  Once again, I select ‘Yes’ and go to my overview of the settlement. Above each of the buildings is a number. Over the smaller huts is one; the training yards only take one point to move. When looking at the wall, there is a five over it. Looking closer, no numbers are above the towers, so they must be included in the walls. Finally, when I look at the outposts, they have a number, but it is more than I can handle. It takes eight points to move one of them. So, having to scrap that isn’t that big of a deal.

  Going over what we have discussed, I first select the walls and position them within a 100-meter radius. Even with moving the walls, there isn’t a timer for completing the other 314 meters of wall. Instead, the supplies to create the walls are instantly built. Including the earthen bulwark, it takes about 600 units of Tier 1 wood to complete. With the gap in the walls left, I selected to move the different training yards and move them into the best position that I could.

  With that done, I have two more points before I need to decide where to put the town hall building. Moving the manor doesn’t have a cost, but I will get to it in a second. With these last two points, I can’t think of anything that I could move that would be worth it. Looking around, it isn’t until I look far outside the settlement that I remember about the small dock on the northern side. Selecting it, I pulled it as close as possible to our settlement and placed it on the other water source.

  With the final point, I can’t think of anything else and decide to let it just be. Pulling my focus back into the settlement and the manor, I can move it for free. There is a small difference from the rest of the buildings when I select it. I can move the fencing or even remove it if I want to. Choosing to remove the fencing as it hasn’t served any purpose other than for one time, I figured it would be easy to reset the fencing, but in the worst-case scenario, we would be able to build a secondary wall at some point to help us deal with the beast tides.

  While it didn’t refund the materials for the fencing, the area where I could place the manor has expanded, so choosing a place a little bit further away from where it was previously located. I set it down. Finally, I can place the town hall with the manor out of the way. There wasn’t much choice as to where to put it, but I was allowed to rotate it in a manner I thought would benefit all of us and slide it slightly along its axis so that it had the current road running past the front of it.

  Having done everything that I could with the buildings, there is one final notification that appeared.

  - It has been detected that there is an Adventurer’s Guild in the settlement…

  Detecting level of Adventurer’s Guild…

  Detected that the Adventurer’s Guild is level 1, proceeding with leveling up the Adventurer’s Guild…

  Congratulations, your Adventurer’s Guild is now level 2. Please check on the changes yourself. -

  Coming out of the overview, I can see everyone has been sitting waiting.

  “Shall we go and explore our new Hamlet?” I asked with excitement on my face. With that I stood up and stepped out of the manor.