novelraw Chapter 77: Resources View
Chapter 77: Resources View
Time seemed to fly by in Goldenveil, and before long, two months had passed.
Work on clearing the path between Goldenveil and Lake Azur had already been completed. A road wide enough for three carriages to pass at once, with room for pedestrians on either side, cut through the vegetation like a proud scar across the landscape.
Of course, there was still much to be done, especially regarding land drainage and the removal of stumps from cut trees, but that would be something for the future.
What mattered was that access for the people of Goldenveil to Lake Azur had become much easier.
During this time, the settlement also saw an influx of new people, and the empty houses quickly began to run out. The population was already approaching two hundred and eighty.
In just three months, a nearly dead settlement with barely sixty people had transformed into a vibrant village nearing three hundred inhabitants.
Much of this was thanks to Ethan’s gacha system, and he couldn’t have been happier.
Obviously, with this explosive population growth came problems. The biggest of all was the lack of housing.
Three new houses had already been built in those two months, but they were far from enough to keep up with the current growth rate. Goldenveil was receiving about forty people a month, almost always divided into eleven or twelve families.
In other words, every month the settlement would need at least twelve new houses to sustain the growth without ending up with a homelessness problem.
Fortunately, Ethan was already addressing this, ordering Goldenveil’s master builders to produce as many houses as possible within the palisades surrounding the settlement.
There should be room for about two hundred houses in total, and once they reached that limit, Ethan wanted to be ready to expand Goldenveil once again.
At that very moment, he was in his office, staring at the settlement’s status screen with a gleam in his eyes.
[Name: Goldenveil
Type: Large Settlement
Population: 273
Population Loyalty: 87%
Houses: 100 (98 occupied)
Prosperity: Poor
Attractiveness: Poor
Population Growth: +9/Week (Increase attractiveness and prosperity to attract more residents)
Lord: Ethan Goldenveil
Knights: 0
Average Level: 0
Guard: 47 light infantry
Average Level: 21
Guard Loyalty: 83%
’Miserable Wooden Walls’ Status: 543/654
Coins: 95 gold coins (+0.01/month)
Upgrade requirements: 100/100 houses, 273/250 inhabitants, 10 gold coins, Lord at Advanced Knight level or higher]
Much had changed.
The guard had grown to forty-seven men, and with the arrival of three second-stage recruits and a C-Rank Talent, it had become considerably more powerful.
Doran, captain of the guard, had even divided it into four squads, each led by a second-stage warrior.
The people’s loyalty was also much better. Strangely, however, neither the town’s appeal nor its prosperity had improved, even though Ethan had even ordered some repairs to the wall.
Well, at least for now, none of that mattered, as he could finally upgrade the settlement to the level of a village.
Ethan’s fingers moved, clicking on the option to upgrade the settlement.
Immediately, a golden pulse spread out from the Lord’s mansion, covering all of Goldenveil like a silent tide.
The workers felt renewed vigor in their limbs, and those at the second stage noticed both the density of aura and mana around them increase by at least twenty percent.
It seemed small, but it was an absurd improvement.
Ethan himself felt that change immediately, standing up with a broad smile on his face.
It had been worth it.
[You have completed the quest: "The Path to Glory. (02)"
Rewards have been moved to the system inventory!]
[You have leveled up! 34 -> 35
You have received 2 free attribute points!]
[You have elevated Goldenveil to the level of a small village. Elevate your rank to the level of baron and reach a total population of one thousand to found a barony!]
[Your noble title has been upgraded! Advanced Knight -> Minor Baron]
Ethan’s eyes shone brightly as he read those notifications.
He already had fourteen prestige points, earning two per month for having Evelyn and Alice as wives. With the six extra points from the "The Path to Glory" quest, he had finally reached the rank of baron.
But that was the least of it. What really excited him was the next ability of the golden ring.
With an eager gaze, he watched the ring on his finger, noticing its glow gradually intensify, as if the object were undergoing a transformation. A flood of information flooded his mind.
[You have received a new skill from the Golden Lord’s Ring! "Resources View (Rank A)"]
[Name: Resources View
Description: A rare management skill that allows the Lord of a territory to visualize the resources within an area of about one hundred kilometers around them. The level of detail in the displayed resource map varies depending on the level of control over the region.
Cost: 2 aura points per mapped kilometer.
Rank: A]
Theoretically, that ability was inferior to Lord’s Aura since it was only Rank A.
However, a quick read of the description was enough for Ethan to realize that it was far more useful in practice.
The ability to detect nearby resources... wasn’t that absurdly powerful?
How many leaders around the world wouldn’t kill for a skill like that?
With an eager gaze, he opened the resource map. His aura points were slowly drained as a map formed around him, dotted with small colored points.
Iron, gold, and even bauxite mines, with the intensity of the color indicating the quantity and depth of the ore veins.
Most were too small to be worth exploring, so Ethan’s gaze naturally fell on the abandoned mine he’d found with Evelyn, about fifteen kilometers from Goldenveil.
He was pleased to confirm that it was an iron mine, but then his eyes moved a little further ahead, reaching the part of the Eternal Peaks closest to the settlement, about three kilometers away.
There, on the mountainside, two intense hues spread across a large area. Red and blue. Aura and mana.
"Magic cores..."