Homesteading in a fantasy world

Today was a beautiful day; the sun was quite bright and warm, making the snowy landscape wonderful. I was on top of the tallest spot in the capital, one of the apartment buildings that had an observation tower built for some of the mages who requested it.

I was currently running on two hours of sleep, and the last two days have been quite busy. The other nations have been alerted, and we will have a proper strategic meeting in seven days. The public has not yet been informed and won't be until this meeting concludes, but I kind of feel sad knowing that war is again approaching us.

Unfortunately, this was just the world we were living in. The number of wars going on was truly saddening. Fortunately, for most, winter wasn't really an active time for war, but there were regions in this world that didn’t have that luxury. I guess being in a winter siege wasn't much better.

I asked Roger for detailed accounts of current wars and the strategies and battle plans that had been implemented, and he came through surprisingly well. I only had a few hours yesterday to look over all the papers that are now on my table, and I will probably need some extra space for more to be delivered.

My eyes were drawn towards my land, and with a slight adjustment to my sight abilities, I was actually able to make it out even from this distance. It felt like I was letting my land and my apprentices down, as I will probably have no time for them for a really long time.

The more I thought about this war and studied about the war of this world the more I knew that this wasn’t going to be a one-off battle where it was going to end with armies meeting and by the next day, it would be over. It wasn't even going to be like the conquest of the city-states. It was going to be a proper, brutal war that was going to take a lot longer and cost a lot of lives.

An inkling of a battle plan was starting to form, and the more I went over the information I had, the more I was certain that this was the best course of action. Unfortunately, it will lead to so much death.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and grabbed my emotions with an iron will. It was time to be the general again and be fully like I used to be. I didn’t like how calculating I became when I delved so deep, especially how things that would break other men would just wash over me.

However, it was necessary for the people who lived all around me. They had asked me to keep them as safe as possible so that they could live the lives they wanted. I will give them all that I have, even when it costs me so much.

I let out my breath, and I felt the sadness disappear. All that was left was a cold center and my clear mind that was constantly working, finding a way to win this war. They were going to regret whatever they were trying to do, and I was going to beat their leader to death with my own fists.

I opened my eyes and fully concentrated on my holy power sight. Immediately, the world changed, and I began to dissect and observe everything I could to learn more about this form of power.

Almost every person seemed to radiate a little bit, but none had enough to even fuel even a simple ability. Everything they had seemed to dissipate quite fast, so it couldn't continue to build up. There was a clear difference between every person; some generated more, while others were able to retain more. Usually, in holy power, all the colors of the rainbow were represented at the same time, but there was always one color that dominated more.

To learn more, I'd need to question people who were a bit abnormal, but that would have to wait for a later date. I continued to observe as much as possible for the next five hours until I felt I had a proper handle on the ability.

What I didn't like, however, was that it was a separate ability, and I seemed to have a few more sight abilities that weren’t in the merged ability dynamic sight. It was time to combine the abilities once again. I took construction sight, ethereal sight and holy power sight to combine it with dynamic vision.

It took me 8 hours to finish this, which I was disappointed about. That was a lot of time that could have been spent elsewhere. I opened my eyes once again and activated the dynamic sight ability. I found it more complex and powerful than before. It was time to continue on, so I climbed down but kept using the sight ability to test its capabilities and continued to refine my ability to use it.

It didn't take me long to make it back to the war room, which was now filled with people working on the map. It was time to get this done, so I opened my map using my ability and continued to give advice on how the map should look, like I had done previously.

They had almost finished the section that we worked on yesterday, but we still had a lot to do. Mirhit had worked quite extensively to get a better picture of their cities, towns, villages, the state of their resources, and other important locations that were also added to the map in different forms.

Everything was coming together nicely, and when this map is done, I will be able to gain more perspectives on our future strategies. I learned long ago that only relying on your own ideas will soon force you into a singular vision of what the battle should look like and the strategy to win it. No matter how good you are, you can fall into this trap quite easily.

It's especially important because the enemy might not necessarily think like you. If you are really good at strategy, you might actually fall into a trap of a bad general using a simple tactic. That tactic otherwise wouldn’t have worked, but since you had planned for a lot worse, it actually could work.

It was a hard lesson to learn, with a cost of nearly 100,000 lives. I mean, who would have thought the enemy general would just say ‘charge,’ something from medieval times. But since it was so crazy to just go straight for the enemy, most of my forces were concentrated on the flanks and more easily attackable positions.

If it had been a medieval battle, I would have lost. But fortunately, modern technology allowed a few people to hold against an overwhelming numbers difference. Still, they were able to establish a beachhead, which extended the fight to a more brutal conclusion.

Allowing this to happen here would have even more disastrous results, but I guess higher-ranking people could fight against a huge number disadvantages. It was something I needed to learn more about because I was quite certain that there were quite a few high-ranking people there.

I don’t think they would have rank three people, and besides that, rank three people would rarely be allowed to fight in an offensive war, especially around weaker people. Just the thought of relying on someone who wasn't really that reliable like the world counsel to enforce laws for every instance was disgusting for me.

Yet, there was no point in trying to strategize a war that would involve rank three people because we would automatically lose if this was the case. Now, I might be able to fight a bit against them if I didn’t rank up myself, but if I did rank up, it also wasn’t a guarantee for victory. Any fighting would need to take place away from the soldiers, which would mean that I would not be able to lead or give them my boosts.

So, for the meantime, I was going to stay rank 2 and keep my free points ready for a situation if I needed to rank up. Even if it could land me in hot water with the World Council, I will still use my improved power to finish the battle fast if the situation becomes too desperate.

If we won this war and the alliance didn’t break up, we would be able to solidify our place in this world, and even if I couldn’t help them with war directly after this war, I was quite certain that we were going to be able to weather whatever else might be thrown against us.