Recovery

The trader looked up at me.

"So what's your name?" I asked.

"It's Eugene Pariston, others call me Jean."

"Okay, Jean," I drew on one of the maps I held and marked out the settlement that Chloe had overtaken a few days ago. I didn't want to give him to the location of our settlement just in case he decided to try to bring an army. The other settlement was relatively close to our main camp anyways and I'd like to make it into a secondary village for us, "Did you get that?" I asked.

"Yeah, so I'll go there every morning?"

"Yes, wait there until we arrive."

"O-okay..." He was still looking at my sword.

I withdrew [Mayuri-Luc-Ei] and placed it back into its sheath.

"Alright, we'll be going now," I announced.

Chloe made her way over to me and the two of us walked up the small hill back into the forest. The trader seemed to be somewhat in shock but not long after, he began walking back the way he came as well. As we trekked through the rough forest terrain, I opened my inventory and had a look at the items I bought.

-

<Inventory (Miscellaneous)>

{x1} Light Sphere

{x1} Fishing Rod

{x1} Enchantment Stone

-

First of all, I took out the {Light Sphere}. In my hand, I held a large fluorescent ball, it was extremely bright, lighting up the entire area just on its own. I looked around at the dark shadows being cast by the trees as the bright light illuminated the place.

"Ah, that's bright~"

I guess it was just a permanent light source.

It was a bit large and awkward, whilst it was definitely quite bright, it wasn't going to be all that useful as something aside from being a piece of furniture. Being able to light up my hut at night might be somewhat helpful if I needed to do something and it just looked pretty cool anyways. I returned the large ball back into my inventory and took out the {Fishing Rod}.

As I held the fishing rod in my hand, I observed it and for the most part, it just looked like a normal fishing rod. I had never gone fishing before so I had no idea how to actually use one and what the different parts of a fishing rod are for. There wasn't a fishing rod crafting recipe in the crafting menu so I didn't know if I just wouldn't unlock it until later or if I just didn't have a fishing rod recipe entirely.

I didn't have any bait or anything so it was basically useless, I wanted to have it just in case it could be of use in the future if I ever come across some bait or find someone who knows how to fish.

"Chloe, do you know how to fish?"

"Oh me? Um, I've fished a few times when I was little but aside from that I haven't~"

"Alright."

I returned the fishing rod to my inventory and looked at the final item. I observed the Enchantment Stone which had a line of text next to it.

{Use this to increase the number of enchantment slots of a piece of equipment by [1].}

After reading the description, I wondered if I could put it on [Mayuri-Luc-Ei], I summoned it and tried jamming it in my sword. It hit the blade with a thump an had no effect.

I guess it doesn't work.

I'd hold onto it for now until I got a better weapon or tool to put it on. It would be a waste to put it on my {Silver Pickaxe} or any of my other equipment.

While I was thinking about that, I decided to look through my crafting menu to see if there was anything else useful that I could craft.

After a few more minutes, we finally arrived back at our camp. It was practically empty since my Minions were automatically sent on expeditions. As I walked out of the forest towards the settlement, I was approached by my Minion Manager.

[I've got the end-of-day report]

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<End of Day Report>

Total resources gathered:

- {x2114} wood

- {x20} leaves

- {x22} meat

- {x418} rocks

- {x29} Ultra-Hardened Stone

- {x13} iron

- {x3} gold

Other:

- {x53} Scout Minions Crafted

~

My army was growing at a rapid rate, I had several hundred Scout Minions and there was nowhere near enough space in the settlement to hold them all. My camp had expanded significantly since I began but the area was already getting congested again.

I recalled a few Woodcutter Minions and ordered them to start cutting down the trees around the camp. I wanted to increase my border and increase the amount of space I had to build more buildings, I had a very large number of Minion huts already but my rate of Minion production was still increasing.

Chloe made her way to an empty spot and began using her system to gather resources.

I had also moved the priority onto building an army over increasing my resource gathering.

I wrote a line of code for my Minion Manager who was in control of assigning the new Scout Minions something to learn.

-

ON.

let Scout Minion learn;

resource gathering - 30%

combat - 65%

utility - 5%

-

This was the best distribution I could think of. I wanted to expand my forces before I took on the main army of the Cloaks which I assumed was still a decent distance away. Based on what the man said, they apparently had someone who used to be in the top 5 ranks, which meant they were likely incredibly powerful.

In terms of physical strength, I wasn't really on a level to compete with someone who has a combat system, I wanted to increase my personal combat ability but I figured that my Minions would have to do most of the fighting.