Slow progress

Paxon led Seth inside the small church, where they could speak away from other people’s ears.

After passing through the entrance, Seth spotted a skinny young man kneeling before a statue resembling the symbol above the door. He could only see the deep black hair, cut clumsily at finger length, and the hole-riddled gray robe he was wearing.

The sound of footsteps passing through the entrance made the young man open his clear green eyes and turn around. When he spotted his father, he was about to say something, but Seth’s presence there made his words stop at the tip of his tongue.

Seth remained silent as well, but one of his eyebrows rose in surprise when he looked at the young man. He knew she was Paxon’s daughter, disguised as a man, but that was not what caught his interest. It was the message that appeared on his interface.

<Host should be aware the person in front was the former Paragon of Grace, Air ascended Blair Innis.>

“Blair, can you go in the back while I entertain our guest here?” said Paxon, his voice carrying a commanding tone.

“Yes, father.” The young man, Blair, nodded and stood up to walk towards a small room built behind the statue, leaving Seth and Paxon alone in the main church hall.

Paxon and Seth took a seat and got straight to business.

“So, how could I help sir Seth?” asked Paxon, already on board with helping Seth, even if he didn’t completely trust him. He figured things couldn’t get worse than they already were in the kingdom.

“I know that people still don’t know me, thus the mistrust and anxiety going around, so I want you to tell your believers that you have met me and a little about my plans. The word of someone like you carries more weight than you believe, and it should ease up some of everyone’s worries.”

Paxon nodded and replied: “That is easy. Two days later is a praying day, so there would be more people than usual visiting the church, maybe even reaching 500 or so during the entire day. I’ll speak about it as much as I can then, but I want to know more about your plans so I know what to tell them.”

“That’s perfect. Let the people know that the sudden disappearance of so many people was a cleansing of the worst criminals living inside the kingdom.”

“Inform them I’ll begin to work on providing houses and food for the people during the next couple of months. It will take some time, but the more people we get to help, the quicker it will be done. There would also be food provided for everyone willing to help.

“One more thing, I want you to also let them know I plan on building an academy here, just like the one in the Oath Kingdom. Most people don’t know what that means, but you should know a thing or two.”

Paxon’s eyes widened at the last phrase, and he asked: “Do you have the knowledge all the other kingdoms are fighting for? Have you managed to steal it?”

Seth chuckled at his amazed face and shook his head: “I didn’t steal it. I have a set of even more complete knowledge about ascended than the Oath Kingdom has. Where did you think I got the confidence to dare say I’ll go against the entire continent?”

Paxon took a moment to process what Seth said before nodding again and said: “Sure, I’ll make sure everyone who comes to the church knows. I’ll even ask them to spread the word. Anything else?”

Seth looked towards the back room and said with a smile: “Once the academy is built, you should consider having your daughter join. She has quite a strong air affinity.”

Paxon frowned slightly and didn’t comment as he asked again: “Anything else?”

Seth stood up and shook his head. “That would be all. If there’s anything you need from me, you don’t have to go to the trouble to seek me out. I’ll come back myself.”

Having said his piece, Seth smiled again and teleported away, appearing back on the rooftop of his building. It was already evening, so the city was engulfed by darkness, with barely any lights appearing here and there.

‘That should fix some of our issues for now. Make me a city layout and find a suitable location for the new academy and palace. Also, how is everything else going?’

<The best location for constructing the new palace is the same as the old one, serving as the city’s center. As for the academy, there are multiple possibilities, but the best one would be north of the palace, since there are low possibilities of enemies ever coming from the south. This will allow for quick mobilization of the ascended.>

<Pearl and Henrietta are still working on creating marble blocks, already having exhausted their sources twice over the day. The plan on continuing the work the night as well.>

<Caitlin returned to the ship with Lisa and Rebecca a few hours ago. She had managed to heal 52 citizens, gaining some good perception for host.>

<Maya, Hollie, and Amen had started working on planting as many crops as possible, making use of Amen’s earth energy, and don’t plan on returning to the city tonight either.>

After a few more reports from the system, Seth looked towards the north of the palace and sighed. “I guess it’s about time for me to go to work as well. Give me night vision.”

Once his vision changed and he could see everything as well as one would during the day, he moved to empty his spatial storage and started filling it with marble as well.

Seth spent the entire night draining his creating source three times to create as much marble as possible. He even filled his storage space, having no choice but to place the remaining extra on the ground close to the palace.

After draining his source for the third time and noticing that the sun was already starting to rise, he teleported down and walked north.

He walked until he reached the place the system recommended for constructing the new academy. The site was already occupied by wooden huts built close together. A few branches were put shabbily together with thin twigs covering them.

Some people there recognized him, word of his appearance having long spread throughout the city, and moved away, but most continued with their usual business unperturbed.

Lowering his head and seeing the feces-filled path not even two feet away from him, Seth shook his head and muttered: “This will be a pain.”

He knew he had to take this land from the people here, but convincing everyone to move was not easy. He needed to take down around ten thousand huts, which, even after the cleansing, meant the homes of about 3000 people.

He could use his status as the king to have everyone move, but that would only give the people a wrong impression.

“Guess I can only postpone the academy’s construction until after gaining some favor with the people and having a few houses built…”

For the next week, Seth joined the marble-creating club, emptying his creation source time after time. His talk with Paxon worked; after three days, some people came forward, interested in helping Seth with the house-building project.

Seth knew they were just people who looked to gain the favor of the new king or simply searching for some easy food, but that still worked in his favor. After just one week, he had around 400 people willing to help.

Managing so many people would have been a pain. Still, with the help of everyone that came with him from the capital of Oath, he started delegating some of the management responsibilities.

Seth stopped his marble creation process and recalled Maya and Hollie back to the capital, entrusting the job of crop management entirely to Amen.

With everyone there, it was time to start building houses for the general population on the city’s outskirts. Since he didn’t want to throw anyone out of their homes and had no doubts the city would expand in the future, he started building at the city’s southern edge.

With Hollie’s help, he opened a portal and had her fly all the created marble through the portal to the building area. He also had the 400 volunteers come.

Then, he created a few books containing nothing but simple schematics of a few types of houses and had them choose one according to their preferences. They didn’t know how to read, but the books only contained graphic images and were made relatively easy to follow by the system.

The houses were simple, containing only two or three rooms and a single floor, but Seth considered that enough for now.

The volunteers didn’t understand why Seth bothered to create two- or three-roomed houses and have everyone choose a design, but they still agreed and started work.

In the meantime, as they were laying the bricks according to the received schematics and Maya was monitoring everyone, Seth had Trevor, the brainwashed earth ascended, create dried clay tiles to make the rooftops of the future houses.

The process was slow, even more so at the start, and Seth had to go around and connect the marble bricks with creation energy since he couldn’t produce anything like concrete yet.

The number of volunteers gradually increased to almost a thousand, but things still went on slowly. After one week of constant work, they barely managed to create 62 houses, and everyone was already exhausted. Pearl and Henrietta were already spent as well from having to make marble.

Looking at all the workers’ tired faces, Seth had Hollie propagate his voice to everyone.

“Everyone has been working hard, and we managed to build 62 houses. I know this number might seem quite small, more so when compared with the city’s population, but our progress rate would only increase with more people joining us.”

“Over the next two days, everyone would take a well-deserved break. During this time, everyone can still come here to eat, but please try to speak to as many people as possible and get more hands to help with the construction.”

As everyone was heaving sighs of relief, finally happy to take a break, Seth teleported along with the girls inside the fuckroom on the ship.

The city population had worked continuously for an entire week, only taking sleeping breaks at night and their lunch breaks, while Seth and the other ascended skipped even those.

Falling on their backs on the soft mattress, Seth frowned and said with a sigh: “This is too exhausting…”

The girls also lay down and nodded as Pearl added: “There’s also the food issue. If more people come, the food we brought from Oath won’t be enough to feed everyone.”

Seth’s frown deepened as he asked the system: ‘How is Amen doing?’

<He keeps using his energy to speed up the crops’ growth rate before planting new ones and creating more fertile land, but they can only be used to feed about 400 people.>

‘Will the production rate become high enough to feel 100 000 people in three months?’

<Affirmative. Amen is spending energy on creating more fertile land, but the absence of water is delaying the process. With the blood race’s migration, that problem would be removed, and he could focus on only propagating more crops.>

‘How long until they finally leave?’

<Estimate time: a week and a half.>

Seth sighed again as he closed his eyes.

“Let’s all rest. Three more months of this, and things should slowly stabilize at last.”