Homesteading in a fantasy world

Even in the short time we had our company advertisement up, we were still able to get 104 applicants. It seems that it was quite common for entire adventure parties to try to join together, most of the time because they simply ran out of funding and now had to tie themselves to a bigger organization.

Arabella was very strict, so from all the applicants, only twelve were accepted for the week-long evaluation. The two most surprised new members were two adventurers who were still in the gold rank.

They tried to join just in case because in the advertisement there wasn't any rank requirement, and fortunately for them, it was not a mistake but a deliberate choice.

We didn't care much about your rank but what you could do and your potential. It was, however, rare to have such ranks in this city but not unheard of.

I mostly stayed away from the testing, but it seems that Arabella can pick them quite well because a week later, we had 12 new members. After they became full members we continued to train them and took them out on a few quests.

Three weeks later, most of our members, except for the few who stayed back to guard the compound, left on another mission with the wagon.

This time, the focus was more on training. The time passed quickly, but I was quite enjoying traveling and instructing our new and old members. Near the end of this mission, Goose finally made it to rank three.

The joy in him was immense, and it made me happy just to see him experiment with his new strength. It would now be even easier to travel around.

The winter, however, was starting to end, so we headed back to Connection. All of our members had progressed immensely, which was incredibly important. Because as the spring was approaching, I wanted to shift my focus to my homestead. Thanks to Arabella, it was now possible.

As I was preparing to leave for home, she was already working on another recruitment advertisement, as she was going to expand the member count once again. She seemed very driven and to actually enjoy the responsibility.

I would still need to go to the fort every month to do the fort's monthly quests. I would also visit the Connection at that time, but most of the time, I would be back home.

Goose also wanted to fight and hunt stronger creatures. We often went hunting closer to the middle ring. Thanks to Goose now being rank three, it made it easier to hunt and escape in more dangerous areas.

Being back home, I focused on my apprentices and leveling up my classes. There was so much to do, but everything I did, I absolutely loved doing, except for the paperwork I needed to do for the United Freeholds.

When my birthday finally arrived, I had to tolerate the fact that it was a national holiday. I looked at my achievement page and saw that I was now 16. It made me feel weird. My body felt like it was 25, my mind felt like I was in my 50s, and my soul, well, that felt ancient. It might be a good idea to meditate on this.

Francis had come back with me, along with Luke, as we needed their help with more road construction. Francis was an absolute monster, being able to pull a device that could shift and cut through earth and rock faster than any machine back on Earth.

With the help of Luke and many others who used their abilities on the device, Francis was basically able to complete the first step in our road construction at the same speed a normal caravan would be traveling down the road.

I also decided to start a project on the idea I had about the roads. Perhaps we could make it work. Currently I needed to fund it myself but if this worked it would be amazing.

It wasn't only in this aspect that our nation's construction speed continued to accelerate. With our open policy and giving out information about the achievement page, skills, and abilities, and how they work, people were quickly able to gain necessary abilities that helped them with their work.

During some of the meetings, it was now common to worry about the nation not being able to supply enough work to our constantly improving workforce.

Fortunately, we had large ambitions, so we were constantly expanding and even starting some large projects for the future. We still needed to be careful, and it didn't take long for there to be a need to make a mandate that we need to preserve as much of nature as possible and not just exploit everything for resources.

There was no way I was going to let them simply cut down entire forests so we could continue to expand. This limited us a lot, but it was necessary.

Time continued to pass. Near the end of the summer during the harvest, I had advanced enough in my First Homesteader class to finally reach level 80, the max level for this class. Just before that, however, I had also gained enough points in my constitution to reach the 1280 milestone and gain a new trait.

I had been out with Goose fighting a monster that was close to the United Freeholds border. Killing it leveled up Heroic Commander and First Homesteader. While it'll take me some time to get to the max level of Heroic Commander, as I pulled up the notification, I felt something changing.

New trait gained:

Constitution reaches 1280 new trait gained: Blood of the Werewolf

As I read it, I understood what was happening, but it was still hard to control myself. My heart was pounding so fast, and I felt so much vitality coursing through my veins. I felt so powerful, but fortunately, the effect seemed to dissipate as I started to get used to it.

"Wait, am I a werewolf now?" That would honestly suck quite a lot because being cursed with the lycanthrope curse was actually really bad. Not only would I spread the curse every full moon, but I would also turn more feral every time a full moon passed. Lycanthropes are also outlawed and would mean that everyone would hunt me down if they found out.

It took me three days to fully test everything. I had higher regeneration but not an insane level; my strength took another leap upwards. There wasn’t, however, a curse trait that should have been on my achievement page that would indicate that I had a lycanthrope curse. Fortunately, Tim was willing to volunteer. So, it seems that I also couldn’t infect others.

It seems that this trait was simply similar to the vampire senses one I had and just gave me the benefits without the downsides of wanting to suck blood or curse others. It was honestly a complete relief, but I still wasn’t completely certain and would only be after a full moon. Now, all of this completely distracted me, so I now pulled up the notification for my last first homesteader level up.

First homesteader reaches level 80 (max)

strength +36

dexterity +36

vitality +36

endurance +24

empathy +24

intelligence +24

wisdom +24

free points gained +75

perk is gained ability harvest storage

max level reached choose a specialization (specialization locks class upgraded)

It was the usual, more stat points when I reached a milestone. I also got a new ability, harvest storage. It did exactly as the name would suggest. It allowed me to store, quite frankly, a stupid amount of food that I personally harvested. With this ability, I now could walk around and have a personal root cellar.

The ability turned out to be more complex than I originally thought, as I could adjust absolutely every factor from temperature to humidity to sunlight inside this space. What I could also do was split this space into different smaller spaces.

Immediately, an idea came to me, and when I was able to put seeds into this storage, it was hard to stop smiling. I now had a perfect place where I could keep my evolution experiments.

The 75 free points were amazing, but I didn’t spend them on anything just yet. While holding my fingers crossed, I opened up my class advancement options to see that I actually had an option to choose from.

There are many people who made it this far, getting to the end of level 80, but there were many who couldn't advance past that. It looks like I would be one of those people who can. I opened up the description for the class upgrade I had available.

First elder homesteader: You are the inspiration and the shepherd, the first to guide the others and the first to be an elder for all homesteaders. This class lifts all restrictions on every skill used in homesteading.

Lands authority is upgraded to land keeper. Trait gained aura of Rich Dirt. Ability gained potential evaluation, and voice of an elder. This class gives a chance to upgrade a skill or ability into a more specialized one.