Towers Of Heaven 8 Book 2 Chapter 4

Deep in the forest to the east was a giant crater, littered with chunks of raw iron. Wandering inside were level 15 rock golems. Considering that Ronald and his group of spearmen were all under level 10, Jason knew they were completely outmatched if they fought head on. Not only were the golems a higher level, Jason's units had poor equipment.

As Jason's thoughts spun, he ordered a group of villagers that were out scavenging to head over to the quarry as fast as possible. Jason wanted to build structures at the top of the quarry, but it was impossible unless a villager unit was nearby. When the villagers arrived, Jason began his plan.

Wooden walls were erected at the top of the quarry, creating a narrow pa.s.sageway. It was so narrow that only a single golem would be able to pa.s.s through at a time. When the structures were finished building, Jason began the next phase of the plan.

Ronald looked down from the top of the quarry, watching as the golems wandered aimlessly. Just then, he received a divine command. He slid down the side of the quarry, sending rocks and dirt flying in his wake. After making it a third of the way down, he slammed his spear into the ground, stopping himself. Not more than twenty feet away was a golem, turning in his direction from the noise. Upon recognizing Ronald, it roared and stumbled over.

Ronald turned and climbed back up as fast as he could. The golem was hot on his tail. The roars grew closer. Ronald wanted to glance back, but decided that he couldn't afford to waste a single moment. It was good that he didn't, because just as he reached the top of the quarry, he could feel its hand brus.h.i.+ng against his back.

Heart pumping wildly, Ronald rushed down the narrow pa.s.sageway created by the wooden walls. The golem followed after him, unaware of the trap that was about to be sprung.

"Now!" Ronald hollered as he turned around. On each side of the wooden wall, numerous spearmen suddenly appeared. They had been been hiding, waiting for Ronald's command.

The golem froze to a halt. Its head was just a tad higher than the walls, so it got a good look at the spearmen. It wanted to raise its hands and swat them away, but found that it couldn't. The pa.s.sage was so narrow that it didn't have enough room to raise its limbs. It felt a stinging pain as numerous spears slammed into its body. It roared and struggled, but the reinforced wooden walls held on.

A short minute later, the golem dispersed into light. Numerous spearmen leveled up, Ronald included. After a brief moment of respite, Ronald went to gather another golem.

An hour later, Jason nodded to himself. With the tactic of luring individual golems and ambus.h.i.+ng them, Ronald's squad leveled up several times, making them the highest level squad under Jason's command. With their new strength, they no longer needed to employ such tactics. They could fight the golems head on.

By nightfall, the quarry was cleared of monsters. Jason spent the majority of his resources to build a wooden wall around the quarry. It was deep in the forest, and quite a bit away from the village, so it was best to have a squad dedicated to protecting the quarry from the occasional monster attack. That way his miners could harvest ore in peace. At the same time, he invested in building a mining outpost in the center of the quarry. At tier one, it boosted mining speed by ten percent.

Jason planned to have his kingdom specialize in producing equipment. That meant he would need to supply his kingdom with a vast amount of ore. He wanted to transform this quarry into a mine by the end of the next day. After a moment of calculation, he decided to dedicate thirty villagers to the quarry. Jason also didn't forget to begin building a road between his village and the quarry. Efficiency was key to growth.

Two days later, Jason inspected the information of his village. He couldn't help but be pleased at its progress. Less than two weeks since the village was created, he had almost two hundred villagers and a hundred spearmen. Thanks to the river, he had a steady supply of food.

Now that the iron mine was up and running, the village gained a steady supply of iron ore. That meant it was time to upgrade the blacksmith to tier two. A tier two blacksmith was able to forge iron ore into iron bars, which could then be used to create iron equipment. With iron equipment in hand, Jason would be able to outfit his spearmen with it, boosting their survivability and damage.

Everything was progressing smoothly. The only thing that Jason wanted now was a gold quarry, but that was being greedy. It was already great that he found a river and iron quarry so early.

As Jason watched his villagers run here and there, he fell into thought. Maybe I could…? He glanced at his resources before coming to a decision. It was early, much too early, but his village was progressing rapidly. Only because of that did he decide to build a research center.

After consuming quite a bit of stone and wood, a large building appeared near the center of the village. It was filled with books and scrolls. Jason scrolled through his villager's information and picked out five villagers with the highest intelligence stat. He changed their roles to researcher.

A tier one research building only allowed five units to research at a time, while a tier two building allowed ten, but it was way too expensive to upgrade. Jason could do it, but it would drastically slow down the development of his village. It wasn't worth the risk.

A research building was the most important building a kingdom could have, besides maybe a royal palace or G.o.d statue, but those things were basically a money sink. Jason was still years away from being able to build those. Until then, a research building was considered the most important.

A research building had one function: the ability to unlock new technologies. It didn't cost anything to research, unless you counted time as a resource. Jason had a plethora of options to pick from. He could research a bow to unlock the archer unit, a farm to unlock farming, a wheel to unlock carriages, stone walls, and many other things.

For now, Jason focused on one thing. Growth, growth, growth! He needed to catch up to the other ascenders and surpa.s.s them. He couldn't afford to waste time here. With that being the case, a farm it was. With farming, he would gain access to an unlimited amount of food. The only thing that mattered with farming was how much land one had access too. The more land, the more food.

When other ascenders started building farms, they didn't account for one thing. A very important thing. Monster attacks. When monsters attacked, they would destroy all of the farms they came across. Ascenders learned the hard way that when one started to farm, it drastically increased the amount of land one had to protect.

Jason didn't need to worry. He already had a hundred spearmen before the second monster wave. The monster wave would be handled with ease. In addition, the nearby forest was filled with squads on patrol. Jason set it up so that no monster would be able to slip through.

It would still take five days for farming to be researched. Until then, Jason made sure his woodcutters continued to cut back the forest. The more s.p.a.ce he had, the more farms he could create.

Before he knew it, the second monster wave arrived. Two hundred goblins marched from every direction towards his village. As they pa.s.sed by the iron quarry, they destroyed the mining outpost and wooden walls. Thankfully, Jason already sent his miners back to the village, lest they be killed in the attack.

The morale of his units was at an all time high, largely due to the perfect victory last week. No longer did the spearmen cower on the walls. No, they faced the monster horde without fear.

After less than an hour, the monsters were killed. Another perfect victory.