Every Empire Starts from a Shabby Hut

Rain relentlessly beat down on the wood above, raindrops seeping through the cracks of what could barely even be called a hut. From the pitter-patter of the rain to the whistling of the wind, various noises filled my ears.

It was during times like these that my mind wanders to my dreadful past, replaying all of the pain I had to endure.

Then again, it was all a result of that choice I made.

*

I was awoken by the bright sun. The ground was moist and some water had dripped into my sleeping quarters but aside from that, there weren't any major issues. I checked my Minion menu and saw that some of my Minions were injured although none went into critical levels of health.

I checked all my Scout Minions and noticed that most had learnt their stage two education, as a result, I decided to send them all out on expeditions.

I now had 10 Minions fit for resource gathering and two more basic Scout Minions. I was at a point where my inventory would be filled before the day even ended so I decided to add some extra lines of code.

-

ON.

when resource gathered,

{Sell}

-

I gave this line of code to some of my Resource Gathering Scout Minions in order to lower the strain on my inventory and get some tokens. I would like the unlock more Minion types if I could. With that, I sent the Minions out on their expeditions and took a seat to ponder what I'd do for the day.

I wanted to get greater automation and build my forces more rapidly. As the Minions went out into the forest, I suddenly got a notification.

-

<Level Up!>

Level-3 -> Level-4

Rewards:

- [Unlocked!] Advanced System Controls

- More Crafting Recipes

- Inventory space {+450}

[NEW ADDITION] Everyone now has the ability to view the status of the top 5 survivors.

~

Everyone has the ability to view the status of the top 5 survivors? What did that mean.

I opened up a new menu.

-

[GLOBAL RANKINGS]

New-Gen Humans

1. Mackenzie Franklin - 1094

2. Noah Gait - 998

3. Oliver Moran - 975

4. Jeremy Atkinson - 812

5. Callum Ffrench - 711

~

[Your rank] #79,091,586

[Your Estimated Progression Score] - 14

-

What on earth? I was surprised to see my score so low, I thought I was progressing at a pretty rapid rate. I decided to wake Rosie up and ask what score she received. Based on how large the number of participants there was, I could only imagine that the entire earth's population was transported here.

The top 5 survivors all had somewhat European-sounding names. I wonder if that was just a coincidence or something deeper...

After I managed to wake Rosie up, she lethargically checked her rank.

"My rank is uh... #1,984,065 and I have an estimated progression score of 78, what did you get?" She asked.

"Mine is much lower than that."

"Really?"

All things considered, I believed that maybe my Minions weren't counted into my EPS, that was the only thing I imagined that could be affecting it so much. I could only assume that the Global Rankings were not completely accurate.

Even so, considering the level of progression that Rosie is at, some of the people at the top had insane scores. I doubted that I would be at such a high level even if the EPS system was accurate.

With new motivation at hand, I summoned my axe and made my way to the nearest tree.

{+8 wood}

{+5 wood}

{+6 wood}

{+9 wood}

{+11 wood}

{+7 wood}

...

As I continued frantically chopping down trees, Rosie ventured off into the woods once again, with one of my Minions as a guard. I completely forgot to ask if the third-ranked Oliver Moran was related to her, I did notice they had the same last name. The person named Mackenzie that she was talking about last night was the first-ranked which was quite interesting.

I made my way to the Builder Minion who looked like it was almost finished building the hut. I decided to have a look in my crafting menu for possible furniture I could craft.

There were some tables and chairs which could be made with just wood so I crafted a few of them. The main thing I wanted was to get some sort of bed.

I had the problem of not having anything resembling wool or fur. I initially came in with the assumption that I would have gathered at least some fur from all the animals that my Warrior Minion supposedly slayed.

With that, the best thing I could build was a simple bed frame. The leaves I had could be made into some sort of weaved cover although I would have nothing resembling a blanket. I was sleeping in just my clothes anyways so it wasn't a great big issue.

I decided to have a quick look at my inventory to see what resources I had gathered.

-

<Inventory > 960/1350

{1x} Lesser Stone Axe (Durability 72%)

{493x} wood

{33x} apples

{280x} leaves

{51x} meat

{102x} rocks

[Token Balance]: 1.026

-

I had over an entire token at this point. I decided to craft some more Minions with the great number of resources that I gathered. Using up all of my apples once again, I crafted 6 more Scout Minions.

I realised that I had been pretty short-sighted in terms of education. I was at the point where I was freely gathering Minions at a very rapid rate. I decided that I would do some experimentation. I looked through the different subjects that they could study and assigned one to each of the ones I hadn't looked at yet.

I put three Scout Minions in {Utility}, two more Scout Minions in {Combat} and a single Scout Minion in {Resource Gathering}. This way, I would be able to cover more ground and observe what each of the different education systems brought.

I had a single token but it likely wasn't going to be enough to buy anything substantial in the shop at this point.

However, just based on the number of people that had been transported here, I was surprised that I hadn't met more people yet. I assumed that there were likely several large groups which were working together in order to survive in such harsh conditions. For example, many people with weaker systems like Rosie's Botany System would struggle profoundly, especially due to the lack of combative abilities.

I wonder if having more people would make this easier...?