Chapter 7 - Sparring

When I woke up the next morning, I quickly assigned missions to each soldier group I was going to arrange. In total, there were 8.000 soldiers ready to wander around the mountain searching for resources, apart from 2.000 soldiers who will be protecting our home as garrison soldiers. With that number of soldiers, when divided into groups consisting of five hundred each, I had a total of 16 groups, of which I sent half to collect resources and the other half to hunt beasts lurking in shadows. Using soldiers to collect as much resource as possible was my first goal. 

After walking around and checking on the dwarfs, I remembered something that I overlooked last night.

The numbers of the ravagers.

My base got attacked by ten thousand ravagers, while the girl, Min-ji Park, was attacked by a few hundred. Also, knowing that without my multiplier system, I would be dead, I came to conclusion that the ravagers' strength is depends on the attacked players strength. That is to say, because of my growth and military strength, I received attacks by ten thousand ravagers, while Min-ji Park got attacked by a few hundred.

Though it's all theory right now, it's also the only way to explain that difference. If everyone received attacks from the same amount of ravagers as I did, more than half of the players would be very much dead.

If my assumption is right, then the next raid will probably be two times stronger, so I need to prepare before they attack me.

Having that in mind, I opened the research menu and looked how much left for wooden wall research to be completed. There, I saw that there were still two hours left for it to be completed. After this research finishes, I will start the research of weaponry, which can be used to produce armors, swords, shields, spears, bows and arrows. After that, I will focus on the production of weapons and armor, but to achieve that, I first need enough iron and wood.

I had soldiers enough to mine iron, but the problem lay that they were soldiers, not workers, and the fact that I could be attacked anytime by ravagers meant that I shouldn't waste their energies digging mines. So, I opened up my production menu and selected BiBOT. To manufacture one BiBOT, I need 100 stones. Right now, with the resources I had, it was easy to manufacture ten of them, which would return to me as hundred.

Hundred BiBOT is enough to mine 50 irons per day. With multiplier, it becomes 500 irons per day. If nothing changed about the resources needed to produce weapons, those amount of iron would be enough to produce 1000 swords per day. But investing everything in a sword wasn't the best choice, and I needed to get ready for incoming attacks as quickly as possible.

To do that, I needed more irons, so I decided to manufacture hundreds of BiBOT, which will become thousands. Even though it will cost me high amount of stones, I was sure that with how many soldiers I had sent to collect resources, that spending will be easily covered. Then I will have thousands bot workers who will mine without stopping or resting. With that amount of bots, I will receive 5000 irons per day with multiplication applied.

The only problem of this plan was how much those mining areas are holding. If you can only mine for a thousand irons, then after a few times it will be depleted. Thinking about a solution, only thing that came to mind was conquering other sites while keep mining. But I decided to think about that problem if my mining sites gets depleted.

Then I decided to check on my status, as so many things happened since the time I last checked.

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Ethan Smith

Race: Human (Temporarily)

Ability: N/A

HP: 500 > 1.500 (CON × 20)

MP: 300 > 700 (INT × 20)

ATK: 20 > 120

DEF: 20 > 120

DEX: 35 > 135

AGI: 20 > 120

WIS: 15 > 35

INT: 15 > 35

CON: 25 > 75

Skills: Appraisal, War Cry.

Titles: Grand Demographer, Supreme Legionnaire, God of Wealth

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Now these are some stats that satisfies me. Even though I don't know how I got stats, and the fact that I didn't even feel it, was something worrying. Did I overlook that too while watching the battle?

Wanting to test out my new strength, I called one of the garrison soldiers to my side and told him to spar with me. He was at first reluctant about it, but after I insisted on it, he finally accepted. Though he accepted, he said he wouldn't use his skills to make it fair.

"Alright, then, if you have that much confidence in yourself,. Just.. let me crush that confidence." I said this while getting into position and smiling. The stance I took was a simple Muay Thai stance. Though I never talked about it, I actually did practice martial arts in my old world. It wasn't to the extent of trying to become professional, but it was more like the passion of a man. I was ambitious and had dreams that were impossible to accomplish, so I practiced martial arts (Muay Thai) to forget about them.

"Muay Thai?" The soldier in front of me said as he somehow knew my martial art, which made me raise my eyebrows. Was that a simple coincidence?

"I'm ready, Master!" My soldier said as he was ready to have sparring session.

"Come at me!" I replied while guarding my face and getting ready to counter whatever attack I got.

After my words left my mouth, my soldier rushed forward with great speed. In matter of seconds, he appeared in front of me and hit me with right hook. Seeing his punch, I quickly leaned to right and countered him with punch to his ribs. Contrary of my expectation, he didn't dodge my punch; rather, he received it and countered my counter with another left hook the moment I rose up.

Sensing his punch, I quickly leaned left and countered with punch to his liver. This time, though, he felt the pain and staggered as his breathing was cut short. Taking advantage of it, I quickly did horizontal right elbow strike, aiming right at his temple.

This time, he quickly dodged by taking a step back, trying to collect himself. Not giving him any chance, I quickly rushed forward and performed flying knee strike straight to the chin. As he had already taken a step back and was trying to rebalance himself, my knee hit him perfectly, as I was hoping.

On impact, he staggered and took few steps back, creating a space between us. Using that to my advantage, I rushed forward once again, jumping up. Seeing my movement, he quickly guarded his face and chin, thinking another knee was coming but he was wrong. This time I was using the technique of flying elbow.

With that technique, I was aiming his temples once again because of his guard. When my elbow landed, he lost his balance once again, staggering back. Not wasting anymore seconds, I quickly rushed forward and landed another elbow straight on his chin, which resulted on him fainting the moment it touched.

I looked at my soldier, who was now lying on the ground, taking short but strong breathes. It was known to have symptoms of fainting after getting hit to the chin. Though I was worried about him swallowing his own tongue, that worry was cut short as he gained consciousness.

Then I heard applause sound coming around us. There were hundreds of garrison soldiers and dwarfs applauding us. I didn't even notice their presence when I was fighting. That's something dangerous I need to work on because who knows when I'm going to fight against ten enemy at a time.

After helping him get up, sending him off and others, I turned my attention back to the status screen. My ATK stat was enough to knock down one of my soldiers but I have to keep in mind that he didn't use his skill...what was his skill again?

Remembering that I never checked his status, I quickly used my appraisal on him as he was getting inside his house.

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Cain Order

Race: Superhuman

Ability: Barbarian > The owner of the ability has a 50% chance of applying knockback status.

{Knockback status: The being effected by Knockback Status will be receiving effects listed:

After getting up: Loss of balance for three seconds, -25 DEF.

While on the ground: Blurry vision for three seconds, -40 DEF.}

HP: 4500 / 6000

MP: 500

ATK: 180

DEF: 140

DEX: 95

AGI: 100

WIS: 20

INT: 25

CON: 300

Skill: Berserker Rage: After activated, -50 HP per minute in exchange of +35 ATK, +20 AGI, +20 DEX, and -20 DEF.

Status Effect: Knocked out > {Loss of consciousness for five seconds. After getting up, Loss of balance and dizziness for one minute.}

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Looking at his status screen, I was shocked that his HP was lower than what he actually had and the reason of this is probably me attacking him ruthlessly. I should treat him a meal or something.

Also, he has one ability and one skill and that was different from soldiers I have seen so far. His skill was also very powerful once used correctly and at the right time.

His ability is also broken, even though it doesn't stack up as I would want; nonetheless, fifty percent was already strong considering the status effect of Knockback.

On the other hand, my ability section was still empty. I have one skill, though it doesn't work on me but still, it's a skill. I also did noticed that my health and mana points increased tremendously. It's all because of the stats that are increasing. I wonder how are my HP and MP are getting calculated.

Nevermind that for now, let's check my title, which I overlooked as I was too focused on the battle unfolding in front of my house...

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God of Wealth > The user of this title will receive the effects listed below:

Resource Collector: The user's workers will receive %75 efficiency on collecting resources.

Accumulated Tax: The user will receive 25% tax collection efficiency, which will reduce the chances of tax evasion.

Blessed Lands: The user will receive 50% efficiency on farming. The crops harvested by user's people will have high chance of providing double raw food resource. 

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The last title was something I had received while ravagers were attacking me so I had no time to check it's effects. Now that I can see the effects provided by the title, I was happy to receive it because, with increasing population, there are problems coming with it. Tax evasion is just one of them. 

The game's tax system was important for late game as you could buy various boosts, items and pets from shop. Taxes were providing players with gold coins used in shopping and if the tax evasion rate was high, then the player would receive fewer gold coins, ultimately leading to defeat.

Of course, there are other ways to prevent tax evasion, such as being tyrant ruler or with creating rules that are ruthless enough to keep people away from such treasonous acts.

Collecting resources was already easy job for my soldiers, not to mention that the title works on workers only and you can't increase the number of workers you have. This effect seems really unnecessary for late game. Because at that time, everyone would be gathering thousands of resources per day.

Shaking my head, I looked at the last effect. Blessed Lands was something really useful for me, as I had humans and dwarfs to feed. Apart from using those for food, I will also use it on my recruitment of soldiers. Thankfully, the developers had pitied on us and lowered the amount needed for recruiting soldiers to 10 Raw food from 25.

While I was looking at my new title, I heard a ding sound. Drawing my attention, I tried to locate the sound and it wasn't much of a hassle as I saw notification icon on the research menu. 'It seems like the research is complete.'

[Ranking Announcement!]

[Congratulations to Ethan Smith for successfully completing research and becoming first in Research Ranking all alone.]

Now that the research for the wooden wall has completed, let's start the research of Weaponry. From what the menu says, it will take another day for it to complete. Hopefully they won't be attacking for another few days.