The number of Alvan residents had increased to two thousand. Nearly a fifth of that outside of the dungeon, working as traders, students to different Masters, wandering the realms, or adventurers forging their own path.
Newly styled apartment buildings were being made. They took up the area of five houses but they reached up into the sky. There was talk of them reaching to the top of the dungeon.
His eyes traced the Ten Realms Totem that was being built up.
He took a deep breath and turned to the rest of the room. All of the members of the council were there. Elise leaned back in her chair, rocking slightly. Blaze stood, facing outward. Egbert sat down with a pen in hand as Elise, Delilah, Jia Feng, Glosil, Blaze, and Rugrat grabbed bits from the refreshments table. Having a late meal together just as they had back in Alva when they were defending their village. Now with the addition of Delilah and Egbert who wassimply sitting there and talking to them.
“All right,” Rugrat said. People moved back to their seats as Rugrat took one of the two seats at the head of the table. On the left there was Egbert; on the right, Delilah.
“We’ll go around the table. What I want from you is what have you been doing, what went successfully, current operations and operations that failed.” Rugrat looked to Delilah first.
“Alva has grown to a population of two thousand. We have more people coming in from across the realms, including people now from the Second Realm. The unclaimed land in Alva has been turned into farmland. The iron mines are thinning out, so we are looking for other veins of materials in the mountain range and have sought out trading partners discreetly for different materials.” Delilah looked to Elise and nodded to her.
“The water treatment plant had to be increased in size with more people living in Alva. We have replaced needing to use spells with a series of formations that act like alchemical and cooking filters to clean the water for consumption once again. Building projects are underway to create taller buildings, like the Sky Reaching Restaurant in the Third Realm, so we aren’t taking up farmland needlessly. This report details the loan and saving situation within Alva.” Delilah pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Rugrat.
“Otherwise, we have had people apply to join the military, but we have placed them with the policing force to at least give them some training. We have also started to stockpile the required materials needed for us to build tier-four buildings minus the funds needed as they are used with the banking system.
“The banking system has set up branches in the Sky Reaching Restaurant in the Third Realm and the headquarters of the Adventurer’s Guild in Kaeju, with regional branches in other Adventurer’s Guild branches. These are run by the Adventurer’s Guild members but managed by the Alva Bank,” Delilah reported.
“We are currently developing the Alchemy garden and the farmlands, increasing their growth speed. We are managing the space given over to farming and to residences and making sure that buildings are built according to the codes Matt has created. We are issuing multiple loans to encourage business within and outside of Alva. Elan Silaz was able to track down information about us, so I am having the policing forces look into ways to cover our tracks more. Possibly have more locations for the Alva Healing House but I wanted to see what your thoughts were,” Delilah said.
“Have Lord Aditya admit to a few people here and there that the Alva Healing House owes him a favor. Have the healing house corroborate his story. What about the other nations and groups around the Beast Mountain Range? Have they done much these last couple of months?”
“They have been busy with the collapse of the Zatan Confederation. The lost cities have been recovered and they are re-establishing their rule. The other groups in the area see Vermire as a neutral location to carry out their business. Vermire is expanding, nearly doubling its size to accommodate all of the new trade. There is one issue there—the fact that the animals of the Beast Mountain Range have been killed off by us. It has had an impact on the hunters. They are talking about the low amount of beasts in the area.”
“Have the beast tamers and the alchemists work together to add concoctions to bodies of water and cultivate different ingredients that the beasts would consume, to increase their virility and their Strength. It would not be bad if there were a number of powerful beasts that make people in the First Realm not want to come close to us. A screen of creatures that would be hard for others to pass,” Rugrat said.
Delilah nodded and made a number of notes. “That is all I have to say.”
Rugrat looked to Jia Feng.
“We have changed the name of the tailoring department to the clothier department as they are not dealing with just forming clothes. They are looking at creating different weaves from sourcing their materials to giving someone a final product. There are five hundred people who have graduated from the elementary courses; there are forty children from five to thirteen who are being taught elementary courses and skills. They are allowed to specify which skill they want to do after they graduate and will get one year of free skill teaching from whatever department they desire. After that, they should be able to make items to pay for their later schooling. Adults are taking the accelerated courses, at night or on the weekends, but they do not get the free term afterward and have to pay for it. But with increased student loans, anyone who wants to can take a course.
“All of the different departments’ main buildings have reached the third tier; this is a sheet detailing the Journeymen-level personnel. We have made a new program for people who are not students of the academy to rent out different workshops. The merchants have also started to create their own workshops and assembly lines. We have a number of people who are heading to the higher realms if they have the required level, such as the Third Realm to do cooking, or going to Vermire to deal in healing. Others are traveling the realms in search of inspiration and information on their craft.
“Without people heading to the battlefield dungeon, we have not been able to get more information books, but already the library’s reserves of information are large. Though there is book learning and physical learning. Even with all of the books, getting subject matter Experts greatly increases the speed that one can advance their skill. Tan Xue is an Expert smith and having crossed the skill bottlenecks, she can help out the other smiths. It is part of the reason that they have the most Journeyman-level smiths. While one muyst have a firm understanding of the basics, they need more detailed and higher level information so that they can continue to advance. We have been promoting the students to test out their ideas and it has revealed interesting paths of development. It’s just much slower. Books are one thing and information is great, but I want to put forward that we should be looking to recruit Journeyman and Experts as a priority. These people can affect a much greater change than just information,” Jia Feng said.
Rugrat smiled a bit before letting out a deep breath. “Getting one Expert is already rare. Erik’s teacher Old Man Hei is an Expert in the Third Realm, one of three. While they are much more common in the fourth realm, they only appear in large numbers in the Fifth Realm and are considered not common. But you could have more than a handful of them in one city in the Sixth Realm. With our inroads to the Fourth Realm, we can try to entice these crafters to assist us and create an academy in Vuzgal to train our people secretly.
“There are Crafter’s Association locations across the Fourth Realm. They are insular, but with them just being there, there are people trying to join them. They can be considered subject matter Experts. Although the Crafter’s Association might not take some applicants, they might be valuable to our Alva. If they can grow here, then it would give us powerful Experts without poaching from the Crafter’s Association.
“Also, Erik and I plan to make the different groups that come to Vuzgal share some of their teachings. We hope to entice people who are visiting the city or the dungeon to join them in knowledge sharing, and to teach the people in the city, increasing its strength. If our people can
attend these lectures and gain new ways to pursue information, it wouldn’t be so hard as it has been in the past. That said, finding compatible Experts and Masters will be the goal of the traders and all of Alva’s different groups.
“The one thing I haven’t mentioned is that we can get recordings of everything happening in the crafting dungeon, so we can watch Journeyman- and Expert-level crafters without any fee. And we will be building a crafter’s trial here in Alva as well, though we will need to increase the dungeon core’s power so that it reaches farther.”
Jia Feng quickly wrote down notes as the others on the council looked at Rugrat.
“The academy will be excited to learn this news.” Her eyes shining as she gave a wide smile.
Rugrat let out a slight chuckle at her expression.
“Another sixty people graduated from the academy, and there are three hundred people as part of advanced education learning different skills currently. We are just losing too many people who are going other places to learn,” Jia Feng.
“I wouldn’t consider this a failing. They are people of Alva, in the end, and although they learned from here, they paid their fees and then they made items that were used by Alva. If we start trying to force them to stay, then fewer people will join us. Some may return of their free will, others might not. We aren’t a sect,” Rugrat said.
“I have erred,” Jia Feng apologized.
“It is understandable. Alva’s greatest strength comes from its people,” Rugrat said.
Jia Feng nodded. Her eyes had been opened to the wide world. Being in Alva, where Journeymen were common, she thought it would be easy to bring in Experts and to grow the people that they had.
Blaze was next as he cleared his throat and looked at his notes.
“The Adventurer’s Guild has headed into the Second and, to a limited degree, the Third Realm. With our head location in Kaeju, we’ve also established fifteen secondary branches in different cities around it, with trade routes run by the Trader’s Association. All of the revenue of the Adventurer’s Guild that has not been used to pay people for their services has been put back into the associations, building new facilities. We have about eight hundred adventurers, three hundred of which are people from Alva. We have about two or three thousand who are trying to join the Adventurer’s Guild but we’re not expanding rapidly—we want to maintain the quality of our people.
“Traders already have our teams in large demand and there are a number of private contracts to clear out beasts that have entered someone’s land or there is a dangerous area that some researchers want to go in, that kind of thing. We believe that the Adventurer’s Guild could eventually grow to eighty or one hundred thousand trained adventurers. We are looking at people to bring over to Alva, but it will take time for us to weed out those people that would be a good fit. We want to make sure that they don’t have any alternative alliances or motives.
“Since we heard about the Fighter’s Association in the Fourth Realm, we have been looking into that in greater detail. It looks like we are in direct competition in many ways. Though, they don’t go to the lower realms. If we are able to reach into the higher realms, we need to look at how we would act on that. Do we keep separate from the Fighter’s Association, do we pursue trying to become a root association—”
“A root association?” Delilah interrupted.
“Different places that cross realms can be broken down into roots and branches. The roots are the smaller places in the lower realms that feed up into the larger sects. These sects band together to survive, in say the fourth realm. Some of these sects reach higher, as they reach higher they create branches, smaller powerful groups that act as a hidden strength and deterrant behind the main combined sects.
With associations, they have their roots in the lower realms and don’t band together but instead specialize. As people reach a higher strength they focus on their talents. Take the fighter’s association. In the higher realms, there are specific classes and academies within the association that teach just Fire mages, just abjuration or illusion mages, fighters who use poison or those who use crossbows or sabers. If we become a root for the Fighter’s Association, then we can’t allow people from Alva to join. Once becoming a member of the Fighter’s Association, then they are not allowed to be part of any other society. They could accept the oath, but then if asked about Alva, the two oaths would conflict and they would die.
“People who are external to the Adventurer’s Guild could move into the Fighter’s Association with no problem, but not those that have been accepted into Alva. So we’re going to have to be very careful about who we want to become people of Alva and we have to look at what we’re going to do once we encounter the Fighter’s Association. We’re a small player now, but say we get into a conflict or something—then we can have a big problem on our hands,” Blaze said.
The others seemed to agree, but Blaze only really saw understanding in Rugrat and Elise’s eyes. They had been to the other realms and been out of Alva the longest; they had been able to see the differences in the realms. “We have had different people try to enter our association who are spies from other groups. We have denied them all at this time, but we’re getting attention.”
“If we know who the spies are, there is no problem having them enter. They can feed their people wrong information and make us look better. The spies we know of are fine—the ones we don’t are the problem. As people get to higher ranks and we take them in more, their contracts should become more restrictive, not allowing them to turn on us,” Rugrat said.
“If they don’t want to agree to these contracts?” Blaze asked.
“We don’t force them but it means that they will stay at their current stage. Take it slow. It would be nice to have hundreds of thousands of people in the association, but quality over quantity. What about training?” Rugrat asked.
“That has been our bottleneck. We’re paying our current members who are good for teaching a massive amount to do that instead of actually being adventurers.” Blaze sighed.
“Don’t force them all, or else the quality of the fighters will start to decrease because their training staff don’t want to be there. Like we’ve done here—only the strongest can be the teachers, and they get the greatest benefit. Others get a solid salary for teaching, testing, and training the new people. If they truly want to be someone of the Adventurer’s Guild, they will wait. If they don’t—well, it doesn’t really matter. Slow and steady—we have expanded rapidly in many different directions. It’s time we consolidate our gains and take our time. If we race now, then the foundation of these new areas might falter.”
“Understood,” Blaze said, surprised by Rugrat’s words. He had always thought of Erik as the leader. Rugrat might goof around and he was an idiot at times, but when it was important, he took his time to look through all the information before he came to a decision.
Blaze remembered when he had been hunting in Alva, Rugrat had been watching over him and his group.
There was a wolf that had charged him but an arrow that seemed to have eyes moved around his body, hitting the wolf. It was an incredible shot. He thought it had been lucky and it took him some time to find out that it had been Rugrat to hit the wolf. If it wasn’t for him, then he would have been badly wounded at best.
He was happy to keep up the appearance that he was a simple redneck, but the truth was much more complicated. Otherwise, how would he have been able to make firearms, mortars, sockets, and more?
“We have people coming to us, trying to purchase weapons and gear from us directly in different places where their gear isn’t that good. We’ve made it mandatory for people to be part of the association to purchase from us, that way the weapons are being used to increase our strength instead of competing against us. We have also been looking at moneylending and sending money through the branches. There are competitors in the area and I would prefer to keep it limited to just our people and those in the associations and their families
before we can challenge these other groups. Even if we don’t mean it in that way, they’re sure to take it like that.”
“Understood. It will be a good way to bring funds to the traders to increase the amount we can loan out, but if a short-term gain leads to long-term instability…” Rugrat tilted his hand, leaving the rest unsaid.
“Agreed,” Bkaze nodded.
“Anything else?”
“That is all I have.” Blaze sat back in his seat as he looked at Elise, who sat forward.
“This is going to be a long one,” she warned Rugrat. Blaze snorted as he got comfortable. He knew most of what she was going to say; he had been there for most of it.
Elise glared at Blaze as he just smiled sweetly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Looks like I’ll be in trouble later. His smile only grew wider.
“Well thankfully I’m comfortable, small words please?” Rugrat said with a smile.
Elise shook her head and started talking.
“Our trade routes crisscross most of the continent Alva resides on in the First Realm. We trade mainly food items for raw resources that we sell to Alva to be refined or trained with. Low end goods are taken to the Second realm, and sold there for whatever is good. Industry has started to take root there with most of the trading conglomerates.
Food is taken to the third realm as well as high quality items. Trading in the third realm is hard as most people already have set trade routes. The first and second realms are the money makers for Alva. Looking at the fourth realm our outlook is better than ever.
Plenty of traders will want to move in, we have a large stock of high quality weapons, armors, concoctions, medical supplies, cultivation resources. Not because we didn’t have a market but the only people we could trade with were the associations. The people of the lower realms didn’t have the money to make moving and selling the products to them, worth it.”
Elise finished her piece as Rugrat was still writing down notes. It was some time before he was done.
The Fourth Realm (The Ten Realms Book 4) Page 60