Ben began to notice the higher his cultivation stage rose the less sleep he seemed to need and even his appetite was slowly declining. He was gradually changing from a regular human into a being of higher potential.
Feeling refreshed and full of energy after cultivating the entire night, Ben left his keep and walked over to the Blacksmith structure. He opened the custom blacksmith interface and began to browse through products it could produce from Earth.
He had almost forgotten since he would be producing canned food, everyone would need can openers. He found a simple hand handheld manual can opener and began production. His people would need these can openers and so would anyone he sold canned goods to in the city. Ben always had a decent stock of iron which cost him nothing to gather so he could provide his customers with free can openers without worry of losing money.
From the Blacksmith, Ben walked over to the Market and added the new can openers to the market menu so that his people could retrieve them when needed. A couple of his followers happen to be at the market looking at clothes so he gave them a quick demonstration of how to use the can openers and asked them to show the others how to use one. Ben left the market after his demonstration and made his way toward the Gym wanting to try out weight training and ran into Rayner his appointed Chancellor.
Ben was sure to explain this new change of adding a Market had nothing to do with him not performing in his new position properly now that they were alone. He did not want Rayner thinking that he was no longer trusted in providing the people with supplies from the Warehouse.
Rayner would keep his position as Chancellor and Ben would find other duties for him to perform in the future. Ben began to like Rayner because he was dependable and easy to talk with. It made him relieved to have someone dependable he could ask to help out with the smaller tasks he didn't have time for.
Once he had explained things to Rayner, Ben continued to the Gym and went inside without being sidetracked again. He had never done much weight training so he walked over to free weights and picked up a couple 30-pound dumbbells from the rack.
He began to do a few bicep curls and after lifting them a couple times stopped. Ben looked down and hefted the dumbbells and found they felt like there wasn't anything in his hand.
'Huh? Why is it these thirty-pound dumbbells feel like I am picking up one of my running shoes? Is there something wrong with the way these things were created?'
*Ding!* [The weight of the two dumbbells that the host is currently holding is exactly 30.002 pounds each. There is nothing wrong with the way they have been created. The problem lies with the host not having yet become accustomed to the sudden rise in attributes.]
'I forgot all about that! I keep thinking of my strength as how I used to be on Earth. I had learned how much weight I could handle from the manual labor on the construction sites. I realized I have been getting stronger, it is just hard to change the way your brain measures your limits when you can quadruple your strength in a single month's time.'
Putting the 30 powders back on the rack he went down the row testing the weights and stopped when he had picked up the 120 pound dumbbells. He found he could do fifty bicep curls with the 120 lb dumbbell so he stepped up to 150 lb dumbbells and did a set of 20 curls.
Feeling comfortable with the weight and not being able to do too many curls he stuck with the 150 pounders and did five sets of twenty reps. Next, he moved on to the bench press and began testing his limits by adding 50 lb plates until he was at 500 lbs.
Bench pressing 500 lbs ten times for five reps made him wonder how the hell his frame that did not look much different from when he lived on Earth could put up this much weight. Even at 500 lbs he still wasn't straining to put the weight up all that much and he even felt he could do more.
Moving over to the squat rack, Ben put 700 lbs on the bar and pumped out three reps of ten sets. Now that he was beginning to get a feel for his new strength, Ben opened the system interface and went through his books to find a couple weight training and cardio books he had once downloaded.
He sat down on a bench and began studying the different exercises. He used a new text document to create a workout routine for himself. Ben was unsure if he needed to have off days for muscle groups since his body was more like an RPG character that a human anymore. He decided to not worry about it and just wrote down all the routines he wanted to try out. Ben knew he could not lift all the time so he would only do what he could when he had the free time.
Making his way through the Gym he went from weight training area to the cardio machines. He ran on the treadmill, used the Stairmaster and the exercise bike. They all had electronic displays that allowed you to enter programs that made the difficulty easier or harder. With the treadmill, he could set the program to make it simulate he was running up a steep incline the entire time.
He spent a couple hours in the gym and took a shower in the locker room after his long work out. While he relaxed under the cool shower water, Ben opened the flashing notices, he had received.
[Notice] [You have increased an attribute! Strength +6]
[Notice] [You have increased an attribute! Stamina +8]
[Notice] [You have increased an attribute! Agility +2]
[Notice] [You have increased an attribute! Vitality +1]
[Notice] [Skill: Running has increased! Running Level 9!]
[Notice] [Skill: Sprinting has increased! Sprinting Level 8!]
[Notice] [You have learned a new skill! Iron Grip Level 1!]
'Not bad I made some decent gains in attributes! I also leveled up my running and sprinting from the treadmill and learned a new skill!'
[Iron Grip]: The host can hold onto anything with an unbreakable pressurized vice grip. The iron grip also increases damage with melee weapons and increases pulling power on bows which will help wield bows with a higher pound draw.
When Ben had read through the description of his new skill, he took out his bow and drew it back and found it felt like there wasn't any resistance. Pulling the string back was like reaching up to scratch his chin now.
This began to give him an idea of creating a bow that had much more power. Until, now he had been using a basic wooden longbow. It had worked well, but if he ran into anyone with heavy armor or a profound beast with a high stage cultivation his longbow may prove to be useless.
'It would be great to make a new bow, but everything costs money. I will have to wait to buy one from the shop or until I can build a Bowyer. Ben thought as he left the Gym.
Over at the Warehouse, Ben opened the interface to check on how much stone had recently accumulated. As he saw there was a decent amount still, Ben was preparing to upgrade the dirt roads to stone paved.
With a few strokes of the stone paved road tool over the existing dirt roads, he was done. Any road workers back on Earth who happened to see this would shake their heads in fear of losing their jobs. In a matter of minutes, every dirt road had been upgraded to flat interlocking stone pavers.
Ben was unsure of when and how much it would rain here in this region and thought the dirt roads would turn into a muddy mess in heavy rains. Also, the stone roads just gave it a cleaner finished feel to the area. The addition of the new structures and stone paved roads made the desolate fortress interior begin to look like an actual settlement. Ben went back to the Warehouse and rechecked to see how much stone he had used to pave his roads. When he closed the warehouse he saw his notification icon flashing in his peripheral vision.
[Notice] [You have opened your Warehouse over one hundred times and have now unlocked a hidden feature! You can now access your Warehouse from the system interface wherever you are from now on!]
Ben stopped walking as he read the new notice.
'What!? I can open the Warehouse without having to visit it now! This is a HUGE option to have! Now when I visit Goldcrest City I can restock my goods without having to head back home! This would help me if I ever went to travel this world I wouldn't need to return all the way back to this continent to resupply.'
He excitedly opened the system interface and found a new icon that wasn't there before it simply read Warehouse under it and when he opened it the warehouse menu opened showing him everything it currently held. With a big smile on his face, Ben left out through the Gatehouse and down the steep slope toward the valley. Stopping once again he looked at the incline that led up to the Gatehouse.
This narrow incline was the only way to reach the top of the plateau unless someone were to scale the forty foot cliffs and the thirty foot high stone block walls he built all around the top.
Turning around, he ran back into the fortress and stopped at the Tool Maker workshop. He opened the menu and set the Tool Maker to produce steel shovels, steel picks, steel sledgehammers, steel chisels, and long steel pry bars.
While he waited for them to be produced he went inside his keep and cast mana ball. With trial and error, he began to stretch out a mana ball into what resembled a spear about three feet long with a long narrow pointed tip.
He failed and had to recast the spell a few times until he became comfortable enough with holding the new shape. With just over an hour of molding the ball into a spear, he had a couple new notices to review.
[Notice] [You have learned a new spell! Mana Javelin: Apprentice Level 1!]
[Notice] [Spell: Mana Manipulation has increased! Mana Manipulation: Apprentice Level 5!]
[Mana Javelin]: An elongated hardened mana projectile that can cause severe piercing damage. Created through the use of Mana Manipulation by the host.
'That's what I was looking for! This Mana Javelin should be much more effective than the mana ball.'
Ben brought out a couple of stone blocks and stacked them up and tossed a [Mana Javelin] at the top one.
As the targeted block was struck it flew back a couple feet. When Ben investigated it for the damage he found a hole that looked like someone used a power drill on the stone block. The hole was a couple inches deep and there were small fracture lines that looked like spider webs extending out away from the hole.
'Impressive! This is still only an apprentice level one spell. Once I level this up some it will become a nasty projectile. If I ever run out of arrows or my bow breaks this will make a great ranged spell.'
Outside the keep, Ben found Rayner and asked him to follow him. Ben took him outside the Gatehouse to the inclined road.
"I have a job that I would like the men to work on in their free time. There isn't any hurry on this so tell them not to stress over getting it done quickly." He explained to Rayner.
"Not a problem my lord. What would you like us to do?" Rayner asked.
"This road here is the only way for an attacking force to gain entrance to the fortress by either destroying the Gatehouse or scaling over it. I want to make that much more difficult to accomplish" Ben said as he pointed toward the Gatehouse.
"First what I want to be done is for the men to begin to remove these aprons on the sides of the road leading up here."
Ben placed all the new steel tools on the stone road where they stood from his inventory. He grabbed one of the steel picks and walked over to the edge of the road and began to swing the pick. He cut into the stone and earth and made a two-foot deep lip along the road edge and stopped.
"You can see how I made this drop off on the edge of the road? I want the men to continue this, but make the drop off extend down to the valley floor. This way the only way to get up here will be on this narrow road."
Rayner looked around and noticed with the extra earth on the sides of the road it was possible for about twenty men to climb up this incline shoulder to shoulder, but if they were to remove that earth leaving only the road then only about eight men can walk up here shoulder to shoulder. He understood that by narrowing this route it made it easier to defend by bunching up the enemy and it limited them on how many men they could send up at a time.
While Rayner was thinking this over Ben opened up the defenses menu and went to the moat menu. He used the interface to look at the fortress from what looked like an aerial satellite view and used the moat tool to draw out a twenty foot wide and twenty-foot deep moat against the bottom of the plateau cliffs that encircled the entire plateau except for where the road led up to the Gatehouse.
[Moat]: Allows the you to make a custom designed moat in any shape, length, width, or depth. All moats will be filled from any Water Treatment structure in range.[locked until: first built wall]
Ben clicked the moat finalize option to begin construction and he could see a glowing band of blue mist marked out on the ground below where the moat would soon be. It seemed this blue mist was beginning to slowly erode down into the soil to create the moat.
When Ben looked up he saw that Rayner was now nodding his head in agreement with his plan for how narrowing the road would be a good idea.
He motioned Rayner to follow him and they walked over to the Gatehouse, Ben used the interface to buy a [Drawbridge] for the Gatehouse now that it was unlocked after choosing to build a moat.
[Drawbridge]: A customizable drawbridge that can be made of wood or metal. The Drawbridge can be lowered and raised by thick iron chains or cables connected to a manual or electric winch in the Gatehouse. The drawbridge can also be lowered or raised with your system interface. [locked until: first moat-mine][requires: wood-iron-steel]
When a drawbridge suddenly appeared and dropped down right in front of them, Rayner almost had a heart attack. He began backpedaling so fast he fell on his butt and skidded for a couple feet before he came to a stop with his eyes bugging out.
Ben chuckled and reached down to give him a hand up.
"Sorry about that I assumed that you all were used to seeing things just suddenly appearing around here already."
"Quite true my lord, I believe seeing it happen right in front of me just caught me off guard."
When Rayner was back on his feet and seemed to have calmed down Ben marked out the size of the open Drawbridge and warned Rayner he was going to raise it.
The drawbridge slowly raised and closed off the iron portcullis behind it from view. Grabbing the pick Ben began to dig out the dirt that sat below where the drawbridge extended when it was lowered into place. He dug out a section about a foot deep then put the pick down to explain his second idea.
"When the men finish the job of digging out the earth along the road I want them to dig out this channel below the drawbridge all the way down to the valley floor. This way when the drawbridge is raised there will be a ten-foot wide by forty-foot deep ravine here between the road and the Gatehouse."
Ben pointed toward the moat below them which was filling with water provided by the Water Treatment structure in the fortress.
"Once the men dig out the ravine here that cuts off the road leading to the Gatehouse I can continue the moat down below us so it encircles the entire plateau. Any attacking forces will be unable to use ladders to climb the cliffs and our walls. The same goes for them using siege towers as well. The only way they can get in is to swim across the moat and try to climb the cliffs by hand while the archers and ballista shoot at them."
As Ben explained the second stage of his plan to Rayner, he began to see him appear puzzled about something so he stopped to ask what it was.
"My lord, what are siege towers and ballista? I have never heard these words before?"
Ben just chuckled. "Haha, Don't worry about it sometime in the future we will make them and you will see what they are first hand. Just be prepared to be amazed these machines will help us change the way wars are fought from now on if we ever have need to use them."
Rayner understood that by creating a ravine with a moat at the bottom of it and once this new Drawbridge contraption was raised it would leave a ten foot wide by forty foot deep ravine with water at the bottom of it.
If anyone wanted to try and attack the Gatehouse they would need to somehow cross the deep ravine in front of the Gatehouse. The only idea he could come up with is the attackers would need to lay long wood ladders from the road spanning across the ravine to the top of the Gatehouse and then try to crawl across them.
When he thought about doing this while a division of archers stood on the battlements launching volley after volley of arrows at them on the exposed slanted ladders, he felt a cold sweat cover his back.
'I can't believe how young the lord is and he is already a genius of war tactics. If my old lord gave me an army of five thousand men and this fortress only had a small division of archers I don't think we would ever get in here.' Rayner thought as he listened to the ideas that Ben explained to him.
"When the men are done with the tools after working for the day just have them store them inside the Gatehouse. This way they won't need to carry them back and forth across the fortress and if it rains it will prevent them from rusting."
Ben thanked Rayner for his hard work then he lowered the Drawbridge and opened the portcullis. With the Gatehouse open allowing Rayner to go back inside and find the men, Ben began to descend the road toward the farms in the valley.
"How can you prevent rusting, doesn't it just happen with age?" Rayner quietly questioned himself while he watched Ben stroll down into the lower valley.
Rayner looked around at the areas they needed to excavate and then turned around to head back into the fortress to explain the work that Ben assigned them.