I paused for a second and thought that I should just send her to clear out every labyrinth alone. That’s a level 1 adventurer stats? I get the whole refinement stuff, but isn’t that a bit too cheaty?

  Remembering that I also counted as one of the elves, I brought up my own Status Page and took a look.

  “At least I still have Identify…”

  Weakly laughing at the average at best status, I closed the page and focused on the people which were becoming restless. I should get this ball rolling since there’s no starting food and we have 200 people I would very much like to avoid starving to death.

  “Alexandra, come here for a second. We need to talk.”

  She nodded and moved away from the group. They all looked at her with reverence after confirming that her Status Page was multiple times better than their own. Leaving that aside, I expected huge numbers in her basic attributes and while they are quite high, it’s not as exagerated as I hoped for. But her abilities… those look on a whole different level. So many impressive passive skills…

  So with that it might be safe to assume that by going through soul refinement, you don’t get huge boosts in attributes, but rather you get abilities that enhance the field you specialize in. That might explain why she didn't start at level 200 or something like that. It's just like a restart but with higher parameters. Something like quality over quantity once again.

  Also, yes… there’s guessing involved again. I hate not knowing anything and just stumbling through darkness, but I need to take this one experiment at a time.

  “Alexandra, given that we come from different worlds I am not certain about the knowledge you possess. Do you know how to gather food, wood or stone?”

  [Yes.](Alexandra)

  [What about hunting?](Mia)

  [I can do that as well. Probably better than before since I feel that I am at least ten times stronger with the blessing.](Alexandra)

  “What about foraging? Do you have any knowledge of the plants and fruits edible?”

  [I remember the ones from my previous world I think. As long as they are not different it won’t pose a problem.](Alexandra)

  Well… the flora and fauna might’ve changed a bit due to being mana imbued, but there should be the same type of vegetation and animals as on Earth. I hope…

  “Good! We should get started since we have no place to sleep, nothing to eat and there are also many animals that hunt during both night and day, meaning that we’re not safe either. There’s much to do…”

  [You’re implying that we need to have people split and do different chores?](Alexandra)

  “Correct! We’ll divide them based on their Status Pages and have the stronger ones go with you and hunt, while the moderately strong ones will follow bigger groups to forage in order to defend them. Myself and another small group of faster moving Elves will scout the area for water and other useful things in our surroundings. For now, before deciding on the numbers, go and inform the rest about what we need to do, since we need their full cooperation.”

  [In that case, excuse me for a bit.](Alexandra)

  The reason for stalling was because I knew that changes have occurred to the Civilization tab now that people appeared on Midgard, so I wanted to check up on those first before deciding on the actual assignments.

  “Mia, let’s re-inspect the descriptions now that we actually have members recognized as belonging to our civilization."

  [I already took a look while master talked to the rest of the people and the changes are quite substantial. However, some things were made clear...](Mia)

  “Does that mean that it will be easier to understand what to do?”

  [Yes and no. While you can understand the implication of each choice, the fact that you need to decide on construction, research, social policies and material gathering… each choice has countless ramifications, meaning countless possibilities. To choose the best option based on Earth’s history won’t work either since I already simulated that and the results were terrible… Neither monsters nor mana were present there, but the effects just those two have on my simulations are frightening.](Mia)

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  “For you to say that much… is that bad huh?”

  [Yes master. You need to find a way to properly balance both military advancement for protection and technological advancement in order not to fall behind other players. About 90% of the simulations I ran ended badly, because of the monsters trampling over the civilization due to its lack of defense. Also… we are currently in the season of summer so the weather is alright, but if housing is not solved soon, we will lose big numbers during winter. And that’s not the only thing that will happen in winter…](Mia)

  “While I appreciate a good build up as much as the next person, please just tell me what’s going on…”

  [The original dungeon, the first one that was placed on the second continent… it will have 91 years in Midgard time since it first appeared…](Mia)

  “And? Do I need to send a birthday cake and some gifts? What’s your point love?”

  [Do you remember that each year the dungeon will grow by one level?](Mia)

  “Yes… so it’s level 91.”

  [Wrong, master! You received a reward giving you ten additional levels for the first dungeon when you were given the Dungeon Master title.](Mia)

  “So wait…that means it’s basically at level 101?”

  [Only level 100, master… however the first overflow will occur this winter.](Mia)

  “Shit! I completely forgot about that… Will we be attacked?”

  [Is not feasible for them to travel such long distances, but within a maximum of five years, if we can’t build up a force capable of defending, our civilization will be wiped out for certain.](Mia)

  I stopped for a while and contemplated. In my mind, the best type of defense is a strong offense. Therefore I have 4 years and a half to set up an adventurer force strong enough to clean up the mobs, under Alexandra’s supervision. Either that, or fortifications and machine-guns on each wall or watchtower, in order to mow down the invaders.

  However, what Mia said is that the tech tree restricts what we can build. Further extrapolating from the description of everything else I’ve read in the Civilization tab, I need to advance my people to the next era before future technology becomes available.

  “Which means that I could consider myself being in the Stone Age… or the Ancient Era?”

  [Master?](Mia)

  “Was just thinking out loud love… This will prove trickier than I originally thought. Let’s check some things, shall we?”

  [Before that master, the only tab that didn’t have any changes was the Miracles one. However in it, the Faith was already at 200 followers.](Mia)

  “Eh!? Bring it up please.”

  Wow… just the story and the hero assignment worked that well in making them believe? I guess that seeing that pillar of black light coming out of nowhere and strengthening Alexandra up to such a point, might made them more inclined to believe that there’s a God watching out for them. Also, given that I am likely to start in the early ages of mankind, faith in a higher existence was a primordial need. I can only hope that it will stay the same for the newly added souls later down the road.

  Speaking of which, there was one more thing beside Faith and followers, which is Influence!

  “Mia, bring up the Influence tab.”

  [Sure master!](Mia)

  Now that’s a bit vexing. After 200 followers of my ‘religion’ the influence my divinity has over the newborns will be only 2%? Is that because they were just ‘converted’? Or is it a matter of numbers? It’s way too vague…

  [Master, don’t forget that having 2 people from 100 newborns being LvL 3 in soul refinement as well as being able to decide the domain in which they will work in the future is already good enough. Not to mention that the other 98 will already be LvL 1.](Mia)

  “I guess you’re right. Is not good to be too greedy and we haven’t even got proper food for our current people. Thinking about the ones yet to be born and how they will impact our civilization, that’s something for the future. Let’s see what constructions we have available Mia.”

  [I will bring up the interface!](Mia)

  Given that each building obviously requires materials, I will need to have the elves collect wood and stone… But that implies an urgent need for tools if I want that. I can’t exactly rip a tree from the ground and create planks out of it, irrelevant what stats I have.

  “Mia, you can still access the user interface and see the entire Midgard, right?”

  [Yes master!](Mia)

  “Can you please check for rivers nearby?”

  [There are two which distance is close to the World Tree master. Both should prove as a good source of clean water for the Elves.](Mia)

  “What I’m more interested in are the rocks. How deep are the two rivers?”

  [Depth? One is about 3 meters, while the other is quite wide but is only about 1.5 meters. What sort of rocks are we looking for master?](Mia)

  “We need to build tools if we want to gather materials. Same thing for water… we could use digging and have a small creak flow nearby the location where we can build the settlement for farms, or digging for a well instead of carrying water to the houses with Reaper knows what objects. All, in all we need to have tools!”

  [In that case are we to build up a Warehouse first?](Mia)

  “Not really. Building up houses after which a wall around them is more important. Intentionally or not, this huge clearing should prove perfect for the start. Actually how big is it? How many houses could we set up in it?”

  [Master, I think you might want to check the description of the Elvish Huts. The way those are built is a bit different than regular houses…](Mia)

  “… please bring it up.”

  “Huh!?”

  How… no, the more important question is ‘why’? Why trees? And how the hell would you live inside of a tree!? Yes, I am curious, but I am also intrigued about how these Elvish Huts will look like from the inside. Maybe the trunk will have an interior flight of stairs that will get the persons up, while the entire building will be placed on the branches of the tree. Having your house at 10 meters in the air inside of a forest sounds interesting.

  “Then, what about the other buildings?”

  I was curious if the granary or the warehouse would be also placed inside trees. For the wall, it was certain that it was going to be set up at the entry in the forest, around the clearing.

  While the first part of the description is rather underwhelming and it doesn’t say anything about the building being imbued with mana or the World Tree taking care of it, means that it will be just that: a regular wall. The second part is what I am more interested in. The people feeling more secure!

  If we manage to build up the wall fast, if means that after securing food and housing the population, the elves can begin to naturally reproduce. While thinking about how I’m going to convince these people to hook up, I came with an awesome idea. Why not use the houses themselves as bait?

  “Do you think that if we use tell the elves that we’ll provide houses to the couples, will it make it easier for them to... you know... mingle?”

  [If master is referring to having the elves breed, then forcing them to share one room or one bed will prove to be helpful in that endeavour.](Mia)

  “Mia… we’re talking about people not animals… breeding is not the right word… But yeah, having a couple made of young people sitting and sleeping in the same room, something is surely bound to happen sooner or later. That takes care of that I guess.”

  Thinking about how to create a pleasant atmosphere that’s worry free, I kept dreaming about having thousands of genius babies being born and advancing through era after era while kicking every other godly ass in this game.