Since the battle a bit over a week ago ended up making them quite a bit richer, Jay had given all of the soldiers who participated in the battle an amount of silver and gold coins depending on their contributions.
Additionally, everyone now had 2 hours of free time each day. Yet even during this free time they couldn't just sit at home and do nothing. This time was to be used in order to exchange information, learn new skills and make their own little shops. Hence it didn't take long for the first bar to be built.
Thanks to this everyone was steadily absorbing more information. They learned what rare resources looked like, how to get magical cores and a bunch of other things. Other than the most recent arrivals nobody here looked like they were farmers.
By now a few people with a decent amount of magical talent had appeared and so, they had gotten permission to enter the first floor of the magical tower. They could enter the second floor for 5 merit points a day. These merit points were a new currency Jay and old man Von Hauser decided to implement.
Other than accessing the second floor the merit points could also be used to lend magical books for certain periods of time or getting private lessons by old man Von Hauser.
Merit points were gained by going on expeditions in the woods or mountains and bringing back valuable information or magical objects. Despite being somewhat dangerous this was the best way to get the necessary intel and gain a semi-steady supply of low-grade magical objects.
And so they became the first people, save for the special talents, who weren't required to go train in the barracks in the evening.
Non-magicians could also earn merit points, in order to get these they would have to do special deeds in battle. They could then use these merit points to live in a better-situated house or eventually get to train in a cultivation technique.
Once this was all in place, he headed to the market. After all, he had 900 gold coins now, more than enough to get what he wanted.
After seeing there were still barely any posting in the player market he once again headed to the system market. The basic magic books took a month to become available again, so they would still be out for 2 weeks.
This time around he was interested in the item which was situated just next to the basic magic books, the intermediate grade ones. There were only 3 intermediate grade magic books in the system market and they would only refill after 3 months. Each of these books cost around 100 gold but it was most certainly worth it.
There was a good reason any intermediate magic book would be highly sought after. They either had Tier 1 spells or information that could make it easier to create your own Tier 1 spells.
It seemed like these books were a mix of both, 2 of them containing a spell where the other one was pure theory.
Right now there were 3 people in his camp that were close to becoming Tier 1 experts. These were himself, General Green and Geralt.
He was nearly ready since he had reached level 10 with 10 mana a short while back. Geralt and General Green both had a seed of sword intent which also made them qualified. So, he soon had both of them sent over.
After careful consideration, Jay had decided to let them practice the E grade cultivation technique. Cultivation techniques were necessary for people who walked the path of a warrior. It was impossible to become a Tier 2 warrior without a cultivation technique. Meanwhile becoming a higher Tier in magic all depended on magical knowledge and strength you had.
Jay intended to walk the path of a mage in this life. He remembered in his last life he had an encounter with a Tier 3 mage. An existence many times stronger than himself. And as for Tier 5 mages? There were rumors they could create and destroy worlds as they please making them equivalent to gods.
Jay decided to delay his breakthrough for a while longer. The reason for this was since the first 3 people to breakthrough would be engulfed in a massive pillar of light, something that could be seen from anywhere in the region. This way everyone would know where he was located.
Since he wanted to avoid this he wanted to finish the warp portal first. This way, he could just breakthrough in the main city, thus not drawing too much unwanted attention.
The warp gate required something called a light core. This wasn't something the system sold in the marketplace and finding it was really up to chance.
So, for the time being, he focused his efforts on studying the intermediate magic books. He might not be able to cast the first tier spells yet but that didn't mean he couldn't start learning them.
Even though it was a bit early to do so, First City was already divided in 2 parts. The inner city and the outer city.
The inner city was the place to be, it had the market. The best blacksmiths, the Lord lived there and it was near the barracks.
The people in the Outer city had a few options to get into the inner city. One of these was merit points. By paying a certain amount of merit points each week they got to live there. There were also houses that couldn't be rented with merit points, in order to get access to those, they would have to challenge the current owner to a fight and win.
Obviously, these weren't fights to the death and whoever spilled first blood won.
Walking around the city, Jay was glad to see how hard everyone was working, he could see Humans and Iceborne interacting everywhere something that lifted a heavy weight off of his chest.
After telling architect Gariel to work on a shipyard blueprint Jay headed towards the forest, intending to see if he could find some mounts.
His goal was just beyond this forest, he hadn't forgotten about the goblin map. Other than the valuable ruins it also showed the location of what seemed to be horses.
And so, soon enough he passed the forest, before being moderately surprised by what he saw in front of him.
It seemed that just beyond this forest there was a small human town with only about 30 people. What made him smile, however, was that they had 20 horses in a large stable, despite this they didn't have any sort of defensive wall.
Since he was here already, he might as well just take over this village real quick, right?