As the group got closer to Elstree, Alan could tell that Akilatjin wasn't actually in the village. The sense he was getting put her much farther west, possibly in the forest. That made more sense to him. He couldn't see the dragon worm, especially if she was with TS, approaching a settlement without him. Perhaps they had wanted to try a new challenge and were looking for something other than the grasslands. It was still a shock that they would travel so far from Amthraxia, and he would need to check on them at some point soon.

From a distance it was easy to tell that the village had gone through a lot of changes. The most obvious was the tall wooden walls ringing the settlement, but there were also new farmlands outside of it. Inside the walls, it also looked different. It wasn't easy to pick out how it was different, at least without his town menu map, but anyone familiar with it would have said something had changed. Once he was through the walls, and after a brief chat with the party guarding the gate, it was clear that a lot had changed. They had come in through the eastern gate, so some things were still hidden from him.

The street he had expanded was now completely filled in with buildings, and these looked like larger, apartment style dwellings. There were also a few more side streets than he was used to seeing, and some of what had been farmland was now developed. There was also the sound of a blacksmith ringing nearby, and that should have been on the other side of the village. Looking around, Alan also noticed that people were everywhere. The village had gained around a hundred new people, according to his menu access, but he didn't think that accounted for the hustle and bustle he saw.

When he had left several weeks ago, about three quarters of the farmland had been planted. Now, it was closer to ninety percent, and there were more fields as well. His herbology skill kicked in for a few plants he didn't recognize. It seemed he was no longer their only seed provider. Alan also noticed the combat training grounds, over by where the river met their new wall. If anything, it actually looked smaller than before, but it was more full as well. It might need to move to a different space soon, perhaps outside the walls.

The streets were still relatively empty. It was mid-morning, so people were most likely at work. The town didn't have enough industry to have people busy in the village proper during the day. Most of the population had jobs that took them out, out into the fields, the woods, or a few people who mined in the only ore vein they had found so far. However, he did notice a few new shops that had people coming and going. One was where the ringing was coming from, so it must be a new smithy. Another had some leather accessories out front of their window.

The sight of the window almost made Alan stumble when he realized what he was looking at. Most of the windows in the village were simply holes in the wall that could be covered with shutters. A few buildings, like the town hall, had actual glass windows. This new shop had one as well. It was a large opening with several panes, allowing the owner to display his wares.

Alan and the Swarm were headed for the main square. The guards at the gate had suggested they look for the mayor there, and it's where Alan would have checked first anyway. That man was always working. After inspecting the windowed leather goods shop, Alan directed his gaze to where he was headed. Once more he was struck by the changes.

In the center of the town there had always been a small square with some nicer houses around it. Now when he looked, he saw that some of these houses had been knocked down. Nothing was going up in their place, at least not yet. It seemed that major renovations were happening everywhere. Seeing the changes on his mental map hadn't conveyed just how impactful the alterations were. It looked like the square was either going to be getting bigger, they were going to replace the houses with something else, or possibly both.

As they drew closer to the town hall, Alan suggested that the others might want to head home for baths and a meal, but Dantelion insisted on meeting the mayor as well. If they were really free from guarding the wild dungeon, then they wanted to head out for tier two again. The more work they put in there, the faster they would grow and the more rewards they could earn. It was hard to argue with their zeal. And so it was the full group of six that entered the mayor's office.

"Alan, you're back!" Roger exclaimed when he noticed who had just walked in.

"I am. I tried to get these guys to tell me how the town was going, but they said you wouldn't let them." He answered back with a smile and thrust out his hand.

Roger's own face wore a giant grin as he shook with Alan. "Good, I told them to let me deliver the good news, and it is great news."

Dantelion stepped forward. "We always listen to what you have to say Mr. Mayor."

That caused Roger to actually take in the whole group in his office. "That you do. But why are you all here? Did the Companions switch with you already?"

"No, sir. I'll let Alan here answer that one. It's only fair."

Roger turned his eyes on Alan expectantly.

"Yeah, there's not much for them to do up there anymore. I managed to clear the whole dungeon and it should be good for a month or two at least." The actual time it would take for it to build up was closer to six months. Because of the low mana density in the area, and the cores large reservoirs, it would take a long while for leaks to be an issue again. It had only been a problem before because the core had arrived at the tutorial with dangerous levels of ambient aether already.

"That is good news. Well, I don't have chairs for everyone, so some of you will have to stand." Roger gestured to the only two seats in the room other than his own.

Alan chose to stand, he had been sitting around enough recently. Dantelion also chose to stand, he didn't think it fair for him to sit while his teammates stood. Thadrick had no trouble claiming a seat, and Elluin absentmindedly sat in the other chair. With that figured out, Alan decided he had waited long enough.

"Okay, Mr. Mayor, time to spill. I saw that we won the raid, so what did we get from it?"

If Roger had been grinning before, he was smiling like a canary filled cat now. "Well, that's a difficult question to answer. It depends on what you mean." He paused for a moment, and when it looked like Alan was going to complain, he continued on. "If you mean what did we get from the Network, then it was a few things. The first was a slight upgrade to the ambient mana in the area around the town. The second was a few blueprints unlocked, and the last was something we can't use until much later. There were also some individual rewards that were handed out."

That was quite the prize. Depending on how slight the improvement in mana was, that could be a big deal. The higher the levels in the area, the better everything went. Plants grew faster, and better, and new resources could show up. Increasing the mana of a settlement was one of the most sought after rewards. The second prize could be good. Alan hadn't looked too closely at the town blueprints to see what had been added, but he could do that later. The last reward sounded mysterious.

"What exactly is the last reward, and why can't we use it?"

The Motley Swarm looked at the mayor expectantly. It looked like a bunch of kids waiting for their favorite bedtime story. They had obviously heard it already, but they would enjoy it over and over.

"Well, we were granted an extra town dungeon. These usually cost a ton of Town Points, but they are super worth it. Unlike the main dungeon that is controlled completely by the Network, this dungeon has a lot of options that we can choose. It can be set up as another raid dungeon, as one of several types of resource dungeons, or a few other choices."

"That does sound incredible." Alan had to say. "But why can't we use it?"

"Well, we have the extra dungeon unlocked, but we can't actually get it set up until we officially become a town. Villages have a hard limit on the one dungeon."

That was unfortunate. In order to upgrade their village, which was already at the max of tier five, to a town, they needed to increase their population to fifteen hundred people. That was a huge jump from the six hundred they started with, and even with the recent addition, they weren't even halfway there. Alan had a plan for that, but it was going to take some time to get it done.

"Well, we'll see what we can do about that. The way you phrased your earlier statement suggests to me you got other rewards."

"You got that right. It's called a raid for a reason. After we won, we were given a full day to loot. Since the opposing adventurers were dealt with already, there really wasn't any danger anymore, so we kinda went nuts."

That made Alan a little nervous, just how out of control had they gotten. It turned out he didn't need to worry too much.

"We tried to be fair, we didn't want to completely decimate the village, but we got a lot. You might have seen some of the new plants we got growing out there, but we also picked up some more livestock, Goats! They had a small herd, five adults and a few kids. We took the adults and left them with the little ones. It might take the other village a while to get them to where they can breed, but at least we left them something."

Goats was a huge get. He would have preferred cows, but goats could provide milk and meat too. Between the chickens Alan had gotten them, and these new animals, the village had come a long way in becoming self-sufficient when it came to food. He would have to check out some of these new plants Roger mentioned as well. There was still something the mayor was holding back, though.

"What about the sudden spike in Elstree's population?"

Roger looked a little ashamed and coughed before answering. He was actually worried about how Alan would take this. He had learned from Lyonel that Alan might object to slaves, but these people weren't actually slaves.

"Well, with several of their top adventurers dying, and losing so much from our looting, the native villagers knew they were in trouble. If this was a normal planet it wouldn't be so bad, but since this is a competition, they're properly screwed. I managed to talk quite a few of them into joining our village."

Alan's forehead crinkled in confusion. "You can do that, they can just decide to come here instead?"

"It's really not much different than how it worked before you claimed the village. Villagers could just decide to leave their settlement and move here. This was pretty much the same thing. With a little more time I could probably have convinced more people, but I focused on some of the more important ones."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, we picked up another blacksmith. They actually had four, but the other three had been trained by some of the Bodarians directly, so they refused to leave. We also picked up a few more leather workers, including a couple who can make a full set of leather armor. Brud has already gotten a few shipments of weapons and armor from them and people are buying them as soon as they come in. The rest were mostly farmers and a few more construction workers. A lot of them were beast people, I think it has to do with Lyonel's party being mostly beast people, and it seems that the Bodarians were playing favorites with the other golemoids, so there were some hard feelings."

"It sounds like you did a fantastic job. I've got a couple more questions though. What's going on outside in the square, and I saw some new glass windows. Where did those come from?"

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Gaud must have hit her limit of letting others answer the questions, because she broke in for that. "The village we were matched with was set in very different terrain. The land right around it was very rich, but outside of that it was pretty desertlike. One of our villagers had some glass making experience and suggested we bring back a bunch of the sand. A couple of people took storage devices out and came back with a very good sized pile of sand. It took them a while to get a proper furnace set up and figure everything out, but they started making real windows several days ago. They don't have any significant volume coming out at the moment, but it's better than nothing."

Roger took over the explaining again. "It's been a real boon, and we will need to find some more of the right type of sand eventually. Several of the fancier blueprints we could get include glass as a requirement. If we ever do get to be a town, that's going to be a must."

"That all sounds pretty incredible. But, you and the Swarm kept hinting at some individual rewards. Who got them, and how good were they?" Alan finally asked.

This might have crossed some kind of social boundary, but since they kept talking about them openly, it must not be much of a secret. If the rewards, both official and looted, had been this good, then he was curious what these special people might have gotten. It was also plain that they were trying to taunt him with it. Roger finally took pity on him.

"Well, the rewards varied greatly by person. As far as we know, only six people earned one. Everyone in Lyonel's group got a reward. Those included a new spear for Hector, a shield for Lyonel, and spells for the three mages. The only other reward we know about was for me." The mayor delivered the final news with another large grin.

"Well, out with it man, what'd you get."

"I got a rare scholar class stone. I am now officially an adventurer."

While everyone in the village had classes, technically you weren't an adventurer until you had at least three classes. Since Alan hadn't had any spare rare class stones, he could only give each person two classes. While this stone might be only giving one more class, having three instead of two led to all kinds of synergistic bonuses between the stats and classes that made a significant difference in their abilities. It was too bad Roger didn't enjoy adventuring, he could have been the strongest in the village, at least for the moment. Of course that would have taken him away from his duties as mayor which would have made Alan's life a lot more difficult. Maybe it was a good thing he preferred his day job.

"Congratulations, that will probably make your life a lot easier."

"It already has. Dealing with all of the changes and upgrades, the focus has made a huge difference."

That reminded Alan. "Speaking of changes, what's going on in the square."

The Swarm all groaned. This must be something that was discussed a lot. "Well, knowing that our village was eventually going to grow, I've been working on making the main square into the real deal. Previously it was just a larger space with houses and such around it. My plan was to tear down all the houses and put up a bigger inn, and then a bunch of shops. But then Lyonel pointed out that our square kept getting turned into a meeting area, and that it wasn't really big enough for everyone. So, now I plan on tearing down the houses, and the ones behind them too, to make this much bigger, and then start putting up shops and such. I am having trouble finalizing what it should look like though, so construction has been stuck"

"Can't make up his daft mind." Mumbled Thadrick from the chair by the wall.

Indecision or not, Alan was impressed with the larger vision. "That sounds like a tremendous amount of work. Are you sure you can get that all done?"

"Well, the sudden expansion in crafts and farming that took place after the raid is starting to die down, so we should have plenty of people to work on it. Plus, now that we actually have people making a variety of goods, we need places to sell them."

"About having plenty of people…" Alan started to say, but then paused as Roger's eyes turned sharp.

"What?" Was all he said.

"It sounds like everyone has made great strides both with building up the village and leveling their classes. Has anyone upgraded to opal yet?"

Roger sat back as he answered. "No, for two reasons. None of the villagers, at least that they've shared, have gotten their classes that high. We are running the dungeon again, we stopped during the raid, and they are clearing out bounties. With all that, only a few of the parties have gotten their classes close to seventy-five percent even, with most people closer to fifty. The other reason is that no one has any opal stones. The training dungeon hasn't awarded any, and since it's a wild dungeon it probably can't."

"Good, I'm actually glad to hear that." The Swarm all gave curious looks, but Roger knew what he was getting at. "I think it's time we started bringing people to get a third class."

All of the starter dungeons in tier one were sitting there almost full of class stones to hand out. Except for the top prize, an epic class stone which Alan had already gotten, and the few rare stones that the Swarm had claimed, the ten thousand stones each dungeon held were still available. Most of those were uncommon or common stones, but ninety-nine of each class were rare. These would allow people to add a third or even fourth class to their repertoire.

Roger and Alan had discussed previously a plan for what to do with this resource. There were enough stones that everyone in the village could get one, but the plan was to be more strategic. Everyone was thrilled to get classes, and it made everyone's life better, but some people took to the new opportunities more than others. There were a few people, like Roger, who had only paid a little attention to their classes. The fact that he got a third would continue to help him, but he would still probably not put a lot of effort into leveling those abilities. There were others, like the Principals, who were taking every advantage they could to level, grow, and gear up.

Most people, however, were somewhere in the middle. They appreciated the new opportunities, but they hadn't embraced them wholeheartedly. Was it worth giving a third class to these individuals, or where they better off giving the more motivated people a fourth class. Morally, Alan had struggled with the decision. By denying them a chance to gain another class, was he any different than the current system in the Network that denied classes altogether to so many people. In the end, however, operational realities had taken precedence, and he had made a decision.

Only those who committed to serving in a more active role, not necessarily for Elstree, but for Alan himself, would be offered the chance. Those who were willing to help him advance Earth's cause in the tutorial would be rewarded, while those who were simply happy to live their lives would have to settle for two classes. Alan soothed his conscience with the knowledge that this was far more than they could hope for in the wider universe.

Roger might be the mayor, but it was Alan's name on the owner's tab. If he said it was time, then Roger was going to do it. It might make his renovations take longer, but there were other considerations to deal with.

Sitting forward again in his chair, Roger started giving orders. "Okay, Dantelion, since we don't need to guard the wild dungeon anymore, why don't you guys take a run at the town dungeon. It's a little earlier than necessary, but you're going to be busy soon. Once you clear that out, come back here and you'll be needed to escort people to tier one."

That elicited a series of groans from most of the party, no one liked babysitting, but Dantellion knew what to say. "Will do, should we head out now, or stick around a bit?"

Roger deferred to Alan with a glance of his eyes. The former Army man didn't even have to think about it. "Why don't you guys go get some food, and then you can do your dungeon run. No point doing that on an empty stomach. You should be able to make it back by nighttime and you can have baths and a good night's sleep before things get started in the morning. I do have one question though."

"What's that?"

"You have the most recent experience down there. How big of a group can you take with you? The plan is to have some people run all eight dungeons, collecting all the rare stones to bring back."

Rather than answering right away, the Motley Swarm gathered together and talked it over. Once they had agreed on a number, Dantelion reported back. Alan was slowly getting over his instinctual distaste for the man, but it was a process.

"For now, I think it'd be best to stick to a group of five. We can probably handle more, especially since they have combat ability themselves, but we don't want to get too ambitious and then have people get hurt. We can always adjust upwards for the next run."

"That's good thinking. Caution isn't necessarily a bad thing, and you're right, there will be more runs. Eventually, even after the rare stones are cleared out we'll have people go through to get as many of the uncommon stones as we can." It would have been nice to get all the stones, common and uncommon both, but that would take ten thousand different people, and they just didn't have those kinds of numbers.

With that decided, the group said their farewells and left to make their way to the town dungeon. Rather than being a chore, the job was an opportunity. Not only did every fight help them level their classes, but there was also the loot involved. It was no longer giving quite as much gold as a bounty, only ten per person, but the dungeon itself gave some rewards. They hadn't been particularly great, but they weren't worthless, either. As the village leveled up, so would the difficulty and rewards from the dungeon.

With the others gone, Alan and Roger got to planning exactly how this would work. The first step was to make an announcement, letting people know that there was an opportunity. Then they would have to also let them know what the price of that opportunity was. Both men agreed that most if not all of the Principals would agree to sign on with Alan. They had the adventuring bug, and the most fighting spirit, so this would be a logical step for them. That would be somewhere around fifty, no doubt at least one person would turn him down so he wouldn't get all of them, but they had room for almost a hundred total.

Even after figuring out who wanted to go, they would have to figure out who went first. Five people meant picking a party. There was no point in splitting one up when the number they were sending matched so well. How would they choose the lucky party? Roger actually came up with the best idea.

"Let's have a competition. We can have a variety of challenges for different combat roles, and the party that claims the most top spots will get the honor of being first. It'll also let people see how they compare to others, and provide a nice diversion. We can make a party out of it."

"I like it. I can also offer some prizes. That dungeon was good to me, plus I have a few things I can't use, but others could."

With that decided on, they spent the next hour planning what the events would look like and the logistics of it all. Food took a bit to plan out. It was too early to think about killing some of the goats, the herd would need to grow in size quite a bit before that became an option. The chickens, however, had gone from the original five to over thirty already. It was crazy how fast things worked in the Network. Sadly, even if they sacrificed all thirty chickens, that wasn't enough to feed seven hundred people. Stew, and one heavy on vegetables, was going to have to do for the main course. Even the limited hunting they were able to do wouldn't help too much. The fruit plots were doing well, so they could have dessert at least. Unfortunately they didn't have sugar, so nothing fancy.

"We should look at what staples we are still missing and see what we can purchase." Roger offered. "I know your money isn't the same as the village's money, but Elstree has managed to gain a decent amount from all the bounties people are completing. We could see about getting a few things, and maybe you could supplement that some with your own funds."

"I like your idea of getting some more crops, but I can't contribute any of my money."

Roger was a little surprised by that. Not because he would expect anyone to donate their own gold, but specifically because Alan had thrown his full support into such things before.

"I do have some more resources to add to what we have. I found some particularly hardy trees that I was thinking we could try planting. If we can get some to grow they would be great for building and even making weapons. Normally I wouldn't have a problem buying things for the village, but I already have plans for that gold."

That got Roger's interest, and he waited expectantly as Alan explained. "Right now we are in an idyllic time for us. People are exploring new abilities, and gaining even more. The town is growing and everything is good news. But you and I both know that won't last forever. Tier four is on the horizon, and while I think the Difmer family will be quite surprised by our strength, we don't know exactly what resources an aristocratic family can call on. We need to be ready. And that doesn't even consider the other zones we'll face."

Roger nodded along. "That's true, but don't forget that Chrisly's family would have been fairly limited in what they could bring into the tutorial."

"You're likely right, but I have seen people cheat before, and you probably have too." That drew a grim nod. "Their biggest advantage right now is probably the fact that they are a town. That allows them access to many things that we don't have. Extra, and more powerful, dungeons to raid, better and bigger buildings, higher tier items from the Network market, and more people working towards their goals. It's too bad that you couldn't convince more people to join us from that other village. We are a long way off and there's no conventional way we can get our population high enough to upgrade Elstree."

"I'm sorry about that. But even if we had taken the whole village as slaves, that wouldn't have been enough. And don't worry, Lyonel shared how you feel about taking slaves, so we didn't even consider that. Each person who joined us did so completely of their own free will."

Now it was Alan's turn to nod. "I'm glad of that. On my world there is some rather dark history with slaves, especially in my own country. But there's good news. I've figured out a way to bring people in to turn us into a town before the tier ends."

Roger shot to his feet. "Really, that would be incredible!"

As the mayor, having his settlement become a town would come with a lot more responsibility, but also a lot more prestige and power. Not only that, but it would also open up a ton of possibilities going forward.

"Yeah. It's something I've been considering for a while. The idea first occurred to me after I got my title The Mayor and my menu got an upgrade. While exploring the access we have to the marketplace, I realized there was an untapped resource. Did you know that you can buy people?"

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