Second World

"What about the fighting school and magic school?" John asked Peniel again.

"Fighting schools teach soldiers to learn skills. Magic schools teach spells," Peniel answered. "Similar to you, outworlders, natives received new skills or new spells when they level up. But what skills or spells they receive differ from one native to another. You can look at them as their hidden talents. Aside from these natural skills and spells, they can also learn ones from outside sources. However, unlike outworlders, natives don't learn these non-standard skills and spells instantly by simply interacting with technique books. They need practice and guidance. Thus, it takes a long time for them to learn a single skill or spell."

"Hm... How long do they usually take to learn a skill or spell?" John asked.

"Depending on their affinities and the skill or spell's difficulty," Peniel answered. "All skills or spells that have been researched by the kingdom will be available for them to learn in those schools. What the soldiers choose to learn is up to them. Priority is given to soldiers who have the least number of non-standard skills or spells. So, in this case, it will usually be the recruits who get prioritized again. Usually, the more non-standard skills one has, the more difficult for one to learn an additional skill. Recruits normally will be able to learn one skill in one session, which is one month. But for veterans who already have more than two non-standard skills, they might not get any result even after learning for one month."

"How many soldiers can each school teach?" John asked.

"Same as barracks, 1,000 soldiers," Peniel answered.

"What do you think?" Jack asked.

"Let's just fill up the two remaining building slots with barracks," John said. "Learning skills and spells might be important, but the success probability is too unstable. We should just let them focus on their basics first, which is their level. They will gain their natural skills and spells anyway if they level up."

"You should also think about building residential houses," Peniel informed. "Building one will provide a living complex for 10,000 population. You should prepare them since the Goddess' blessing boost your population growth. If there is not enough place to live, the population will remain stagnant even if you have enough food."

"I think you don't need to worry about that," Thaergood informed. "Thereath still has enough residential space to house another one million population."

"Well, in that case," Jack followed John's advice and inputted the remaining two slots with barracks. Each cost 5,000 gold coins, no mana, and a few minerals and lumbers. The upkeep was 100 gold coins and it required ten days to build.

Now that the four building slots were occupied, he diverted his attention to the next city function, Draft.

When he pressed the button, he was provided with three options. Casual draft, regular draft, and heavy draft. Each cost gold coins. A casual draft cost 2000 gold coins. A regular draft was 5000 gold coins. While a heavy draft cost 10,000 gold coins.

"Casual draft will convert 2,000 commoners into a fighting force," Peniel explained. "A regular draft produced 5,000 soldiers. Heavy draft resulted in 10,000 soldiers."

"So, each soldier cost 1 gold coin," John remarked.

"Please note that these three options are only available to metropolises," Peniel added. "Cities only have casual and regular drafts. For towns, you can only do the casual draft. You can't draft any people from villages. When you have a megalopolis, there will be another draft option available, conscription. This draft recruited 50,000 soldiers. Every drafting process will cause happiness to decrease. But since we have Goddess Serenity's Blessing, it will not. No matter which type of draft you choose, the cooldown will be the same. One month. So, you can only make another draft a month later."

"It's a no-brainer then. We will go for the heavy draft," Jack said. But before his finger could press the button, Peniel stopped him.

"Wait! Before you do that, let me explain another feature first!"

"What feature?" Jack asked.

"Remember that the World Peace Garden increases the chance of better-grade soldiers emerging during a draft? It is better if we do our draft after completing that Wonder building."

"That building takes one month, sister. We can do another draft again when that building is completed."

Peniel smiled instead, "Hehe, that's why I said I'm going to tell you about another feature. Probably the most important feature in this entire monarch system. Remember the ruling power you received?"

"From becoming the first outworlder monarch? Yes, I have been waiting for you to explain that," Jack said.

"Go back to the main screen that displays the country overview. You have missed one detail," Peniel said.

"Oh?" Jack interacted with the screens and returned them to the one with the giant Themisphere map.

"What do I miss?" Jack asked as he looked around the screen. He spotted it then. At the top corner left were a few words.

*

Sovereign, level: 1

Exp: 0 / 50,000 merit points

Ruling Power: 110

*

"You have a basic of 10 ruling power when you became a sovereign," Peniel said. "That 110 were your basic 10 plus the reward from the notification. That's why I said it's a lot. When you go up a level, you will receive 10 ruling power. Additionally, every month you will receive ruling power ten times your sovereign level at the time."

"So, next month I will receive 10 ruling power?" Jack asked.

"If your sovereign level remains at level 1," Peniel nodded.

"I see now why you said my merit points are important," Jack said. "The merit points can now be used to increase my sovereign level."

"Yes. Take out your kingdom faction badge to interact with it."

Jack followed the instruction. When he took out his kingdom faction badge, it was completely different from before. It was bigger, grander, and had a brilliant golden color. The description also changed to Themisphere King Badge. It no longer displayed the total accumulated merit points from the start. It only showed the available points, which were 287,804 merit points.

An interface appeared when Jack interacted with the badge, asking if he wanted to use the available merit points to increase his sovereign level. Jack agreed to it.

A stream of light flowed from the badge and entered him. As it did, Jack saw the exp bar below his sovereign level increasing. Once it hit 50,000 points, he received a notification that his sovereign level had increased to level 2, receiving 10 points of Ruling Power.