59 Earth map

With the main engine being fully assembled, Keith wrapped this up for today. He was getting more tired as the end of the academic year was getting closer.

Since he had rethought of his plans, two months and a half earlier, he has also been working like crazy within Project Overworld.

The last satellite he had planned to launch into orbit was already finished, and its launcher was halfway done.

This would be the eigth of his 'new kind' of surveillance satellite, able to redirect its own trajectory to accomplish a better job at picturing the whole planet.

Thanks to these, he had been noticing quite a few ship coming from Niflheim embarking on the conquest of the world.

Some of them had already reached his continent, but were not able to find his base since it was well hidden within this large landscape. Not to mention landed on a totally different shore, so the chances of them coming across his base were really slim.

Though, this type of disturbance has delayed some of his launches, making him quite sour at the idea of sharing this place with anyone else.

Fortunately, they all came back to Niflheim a few days later, making him alone all over again.

There have been some more terrorist attacks within the two main cities of the game, but nothing too alarming. Those morons had certainly learned their lessons and were not forming groups anymore, nor organizing large scale attacks.

Thanks to this, only some parts of the wall or a few buildings were scraped here and there.

One of the main things he was able to spot out during this lapse was a large base being developed at the East of Midgard within the first continent.

They did not even try to hide since they had built a large manor with flashy style. However, Keith theorized that they must have created an automated type of defense of some sort. Several players had shown their intention to invade this land only to disappear without leaving traces.

Next to the manor was also built a large unit resembling his own coal factory, and he had to conclude that they must be quite well developed.

It was not that important to him, though, as he had his own plans to fulfill for the time being. However, if they wanted to race for spatial colonization he would have to do something about it.

_______________

Going down the stairs leading to the basement of their base, Eric was already thinking about their latest discoveries.

He has not been able to stream the game in a while, since he wanted to keep the rocket-making a secret for the time being, but it was going pretty well for him and his friends.

They had constructed a launching pad and several systems to help them out with the assembling of rockets. They also had time to test out a few rockets and Eric was getting pretty hyped up for this project.

Although they had only reached a few miles away from land, it was quite interesting working on such an innovative mean of travel.

He was also feeling like they were catching up with the players who destroyed the terrorists' base.

'Although, how did they make a missile? Were there some players inside the rocket to run the vehicle? If not, how could it be controlled from a distance?' Eric was questionning himself. There were some really shady parts about the explosion that had happened a few months earlier, and he could not find any answers.

The 'Starise' group, as they named themselves out, had already made some automated crafting processes. Some people in their team were also developing several computers for the base, so it would not be that hard to make a fully automated rocket.

However, there was no point in doing that now. They always embarked as two in the cockpit of a rocket and it was actually pretty easy to drive this thing.

The thing was, during their tests their rockets had only been a few dozen feet high and their was no way they could ever reach more than a dozen miles up in the air with this kind of design.

The more he though about it, the more Eric realized they had to work harder on this project. They were currently four out of nine working on rocketry, as the others either did not care or were accomplishing some essential jobs for the base.

He would have to convince the reluctant ones to join them and participate in the glory to be the first ones to reach space. Maybe the moon, even.

As for what the others had been working on recently, they were mostly working on their personal projects such as making the car of their dream, or upgrading some parts of their base.

He also knew some of his friends really liked to decorate the manor and create some interesting furnitures.

To Eric's eyes, this was literally useless. To him, the point of this game was to be the first to reach a huge achievement such as the vehicle created by the now popular inventor going by the pseudonym 'FancyGeorges'.

'I should join the others onto the next rocket prototype. We will be the first ones to reach the moon.' Eric convincely said to himself.

_______________

After the fourth Inventopîa took place, some really interesting ideas came up. As this one took place within Niflheim, most of the inventions were created with the ocean exploration as a theme.

In fact, the colloseum was built within the harbor and a part of its arena was fully submerged into the water.

Some people came in here to show off their new motors for boats, others were selling out how innovative their sails were and groups of players were introducing full on ships to the competition.

Although repetitive, this was stil an enjoyable moment for both the candidates and the spectators. Amber expected that this edition would be maritime focused and was actually waiting for it for that exact reason.

Thanks to the event, even more people got into the world exploration. Ship owners actually advertised their crew during their passage in the competition and recruited even more people afterwards.

There has also been a few interesting concepts presented here, such as factories and cetera. For the few months following Inventopia, the municipal team as well as the builder teams got really busy creating some industrial districts in both Midgard and Niflheim.

Not only that, the cities were now equipped with street lights and access to electricity was given to some building were people were working on innovating stuff.

It was really an industrial boom for everyone in Project Overworld. Most of the world has also been maped out, only leaving the land exploration to do. In fact, most of the continents and islands in the world has been found out, but people did not need to explore those areas yet.

As for Amber, she has been gathering all this information to pick out the best destinations to establish onto. She determined that a continent at the west of theirs was actually pretty close and it would be an interesting idea to build another harbor city there.

The others locations included some islands as well as the continent at the northern part relatively to theirs.

However, according to the terrorists she had interrogated, it was likely from there that the missile had been launched. That was why she was hesitating to establish there for the time being.

Talking about terrorists, the police force did a great job at repusling the constant stream of suicide bombers. Some buildings got destroyed during the three months following the great terrorist attack at Midgard, but nothing that could not be repaired.

She must really thank those players who destroyed that huge terrorist's hideout at the north-east of Midgard because it did demotivate large groups of terrorists to be made, or at least not establish anywhere.

In fact, since they feared to create any base, they were really limited in term of explosives they were able to produce.

This whole phase has actually been quite enjoyable. Amber delegated the management of Niflheim to another municipal team that she had organized the election of, thus letting her freely focus on the bigger projects she had in mind as well as some more detailed management of Midgard.

She had also been thinking of names for the continents they discovered, and notably theirs. They were now officially established onto 'Yggdrasil'. Though, they were running short of nordic names so she would have to think about something else for the other continents.

However, the Eldorado they had been living during the last months has also increased the popularity of the game to the point where a few hundred thousands of players were constantly playing the game.

_______________

'Hmm, this is quite suspicious...' Keith thought. He had been going through the program he has developed to explore the planet from his satellite's view, but he found out some dubious movements within Yggdrasil's landscape.

In fact, there have been some huge influx of players to a certain forest but Keith had not seen any post on the forums about some recruiting being made there.

If a large gathering of players was being made away from the eyes of everyone else, one could only theorize about what was going on there. Keith a little idea about that, and he had been working on a 'Intercontinental Missile MK2' just in case this feeling turned out to be exact.

During the while, he also managed to launch his tenth surveillance satellite into orbit and was now reassured about having eyes all over the world. He did spot some houses being established onto other islands or continents, and concluded based on their size that this conquest must have been made before the whole 'Eldorado' phase at Niflheim.

'Ah, they will have quite the surprise to see other players being well developed on other continents. But it should have been expected, people at Yggdrasil took their time to start the exploration of the world.' Keith thought for himself. 'I'm waiting for them to discover my base and have a heart attack.'

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