Knowledge

The hulking brute of a man stood with a crazed look on his face, teeth gnashing and eyes unfocused as if he had seen atrocities never to be known to man and driven so beyond the human psyche with rage and terror that he had lost all semblance of a civilized being.

He had a large nose that was slightly reddened like his face and that moved in tandem with his heavy breaths. His breathing suggested a large amount of physical effort that had been spent by the man. Veins throbbed on his biceps and forearms as he held the short steel claymore with a vice like grip, never to let go of it.

A strange heat emanated from his body, unknown in it's nature and in it's origins.

He wore a brown kilt with a leather belt and a shield shaped buckle. And on each of his wrists was a spiked band.

"That's the barbarian, chief. Your first troop to be used in battle." Elda explained.

Ethan nodded without any thought, his eyes riveted to the majestic male specimen before him. There was indeed a small part of him that also wanted such a large and imposing physique.

Without any more delay, the Barbarian walked forward and out of the Barracks and genuflected before Ethan, slamming the tip of his sword into the dirt and lowering his head. It suggested intelligence that was beyond what one would expect from someone of his visage.

"Um... Ahem! Rise." Ethan said after clearing his throat. Truth be told, he still felt as if he was in some sort of a fever dream.

The Barbarian got up without a word. Then, without warning, he lifted his sword in the air and screamed.

Aargghhh!

And so, he dashed off towards the army camp.

Is there anything stopping me from having more units? Ethan thought while scratching his chin.

Just then, his thoughts were interrupted as Elda again spoke beside him.

"Chief, you can speed up the training of troops through the use of gems." She said.

"As of right now, you have a sum total of 500. Each gem is a potent form of pure magic which can be used to achieve unimaginable effects!"

"Pure magic?" Ethan asked, intrigued.

Elda nodded with confidence and keeping her hands on her hips, she went into her explanation mode.

"Each resource that the world has to offer are just different forms of magic. Elixir is formed when the underground water gets saturated through years of magical energy currents. Gold is formed in the same manner, except with stones. Once in a while, magic itself gets aggregated into small crystals. There are called Gems! As they are magic in it's purest forms, they contain massive power and can be used to even speed up time!"

Ethan nodded at her explanation.

It seems everything governs around magic... but what exactly is it? Is it supposed to be something like mana? It's certainly the most popular one, but would that apply here?

"Say..." Ethan spoke, "What exactly is magic?"

Elda raised an eyebrow.

"Magic is magic."

Ah right, that makes sense. Ethan nodded with silly smile. Like hell it does!

"No, but... what exactly is it defined as? Like... what does it operate on? Is it an energy?"

Elda stopped to think for a moment, furrowing her brows and humming along as if trying to pry into her brain to find out the secrets of the universe.

Then, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Magic is magic."

Of course... it was all so obvious...

It would seem Elda was not so knowledgeable about magic and it's eccentricities.

Ethan shook his head.

"Forget it. I won't be using the gems. It's only a wait of slightly more than a minute." He said.

Elda only nodded and they both looked on towards the barracks.

The other villager women walked around the couple of buildings and some of the bushes and stones on the distance. For some strange and inexplicable reason, when they got closer to the obstacles, they clapped their hands. Ethan could not tell why that was the case. He had even seen an animation by Supercell that contained goblins trying to get applause from a villager after they saw her clapping at a tree.

Ethan shook off these thoughts for now. He would have all the time in the world to worry about such things. For now, he ought to complete the 'tutorial.'

Every 5 seconds, the Barracks produced a Barbarian. The small statured brutes walked out of the small building one by one, each carrying a short claymore in hand and a hulking physique.

They all looked exactly the same, as was in the game.

And before long, the 20 Barbarians were done.

"Great! Now that that's done, let us head to the Town Hall!" Without waiting for a response, Elda took Ethan's hand and took him towards the Town hall.

As they walked, Ethan could not help but have Sone thoughts about the villager's hands.

Her hands are... surprisingly soft... Is it because the village just spawned? But that can't be, since she has the knowledge about the Ivory Tower and such. Is magic at play again?

As they walked to the Town Hall, which wasn't too far, Ethan threw a glance at the Army Camp.

The Barbarian, 20 in number sat around with their claymores on the ground and laughed along and chatted about some stuff. Although Ethan himself could not understand what they were saying, they seemed to communicate just fine.

Some of them ran around the camp, never actually leaving the patch of grass that the army camp stood on.

Curious...

Elda led them through the gates of the town hall.

As they stepped into the hall, the warmly lit hall, adorned with various ceiling lanterns and torches came into view. At the center of the hall was a table and along the walls rested various doors that led to rooms. At the far end of the hall, opposite to the main door was a double door.

Leading him over to the large table, Elda let go of his hand and knocked twice onto the table.

And then, to the absolute surprise of Ethan, the table lit up with a magical shimmer.

"Holy... shit." Ethan muttered as he watched the dance of a thousand colours above the table, projected like a hologram.

Slowly but surely, the colours twisted and turned, morphing into what looked to be a map of the surrounding areas.

"Behold! The war map!" Elda exclaimed.

Turning to Ethan, she again went into explanation mode.

"Because the village is situated above a layline, the town hall can directly siphon the magic in the air to summon the troops through spacial anomalies. It is one of the reasons that the Town Hall is the most important building in the entire village.

"Aside from being the center of management and the heart of the village, it is made through special spells that can utilize magic power in the air. It can even store various magic items inside it without deterioration. As long as the Town Hall is standing, you can summon your troops anywhere the map can reach. Naturally, the range is limited as per the level of the town hall; the higher the level, the greater the range for troop production and the greater the spells that would be attached to it!"

Ethan nodded at the explanation. All things considered, it made some sense.

The town hall made use of magic to summon troops at specific locations. Simple as that.

At the level he was at, with a Town Hall level 2, there wasn't much the town hall could be used for. But the most elementary factor of the town hall, attacking, could be used easily.

"Then let us commence with the attack!" Elda exclaimed and took to controlling the hologram. She used her hands to manipulate the magic projection like a mobile touch screen. The map wasn't too large, expressing the low level of town hall that it operated in; neither was it too detailed.

There was a large forest on the map. That was the entirety of it, with the areas the map could not reach being depicted by a foggy boundary. At the center of the map was a small clearing which marked a large 'O'. It was their own village. And all around the village, namely in the South, South-west, East, North-east and North-west were small clearings in which small buildings stood tall with defenses to boot.

Stopping at the settlement to the east, Elda tapped on it twice. The map zoomed in, and a very peculiar symbol came on the hologram. Attack. It said.

"Before we attack, Chief, there's something I must also tell you." Elda commented.

"What is it?"

"Even the map itself has two modes. One is the overhead mode, which peers over the immediate vicinity of the village. While the other is the scout mode, which actively searches for other villages like ours. Those that are situated over the leylines." She said.

"There are other villages?" Ethan raised an eyebrow, but he wasn't too surprised by the fact.

"That's right! The world is expansive with hundreds of different areas and biomes. In fact, it seems to be almost endless. So far, no one has been able to mark the entirety of the world on a map." She continued. "The world contains thousands of leylines, each of which hold a village above them. The goblin settlements are equally numerous, with some even hijacking leylines. Those are the most troublesome as they may even span over dozens of kilometers and have goblin population in the millions."

Hearing her words, Ethan felt a slight shiver travel up his spine as he thought of hundreds of thousands of goblins March over the world, plundering gold and riches for themselves.

Elda pointed to the magical projection.

"As you can see, this is the overhead view. It shows the immediate area around the village and can be used to attack the nearby goblin settlements. No leyline villages can be seen from this mode. Leylines attract magic to them and become stronger over time. Because of that, every leyline is situated at least hundreds of kilometers away from each other. No two leylines can overlap, though one may become strong enough over time to dwarf the magic power of several. If you wish to know about ours, its on the lower end in terms of magic." She shook her head.

"Anyway, let me get to the point. A leyline naturally generates an area under it which is protected by a strong magic. It is called the shield. A shield can last as long as the leyline is blasting it's magic into the air, or if it is hit by a sufficiently strong attack." She pointed to the village on the map which had the large 'O' around it.

"The stronger the leyline, the more magic it can withhold and the longer it can last. Normally, attacking goblin villages does not have anything to do with such an arrangement." She explained, then, her face held a solemn expression.

"But the fault lies in the Scout map. Every time a spacial anomaly is created to go beyond the scanning abilities of the actual town hall, it uses the excess magic of the shield to fuel the attack and search for an opponent. That decreases the shield time and it would leave the village vulnerable to attacks."

"Why can't it just use the magic in the air like before?"

"It is so because the way it operates. The overhead map serves as echolocation. It uses the magic in the air to find the magic further from the village. And since the distance is so small, not much magic is needed. But when talking about an attack on another village, not only does it need more magic power, it also needs a different way to create the said map. That magic power is taken from the shield since there's just so much of it." She said.

Ethan again had to nod. From the explanation, magic was beginning to sound more and more like a form of energy, but again, he would not jump to conclusions based off of half baked knowledge.

And again, the explanation made some sense. It also explained the shield mechanic of the game.

"Now, onto the next part. If you want to attack another village, you can either wait for their shield to run out, or you can try the other method." Elda smiled.

"Which is a 'shield clash'. It involves using your own shield to bash the opponent's shield and getting rid of both in the process. Of course, if your shield has less magic than the opponent's it is bound to fail."

"Then how can you tell?"

"You can't. It's just guess work. Well, not at this stage anyways." Elda shrugged her shoulders and turned again to the map.

"One question before we move on." Ethan interrupted.

"How does the shield regenerate?"

"It does so on it's own. Or you can use gems!"

"What about when the village has been recently attacked? Does the shield appear automatically?"

"No. Why would that be the case? It takes time for the leyline to generate another shield." Elda tilted her head cutely.

"Ah... okay."

~~~

A/N: Info dump.