'So many things to choose from…' Theo thought, momentarily stunned by the number of options the system offered.
On one hand, he low-key expected this kind of a thing, given how there were only five options for upgrades to the mansion's insides and the extensions to its outside, just like it was the case when he got his manor to tier one.
Taught by his experiences, however, he didn't expect the perk that the system brought up before to be of actually any real value!
"I stand corrected, system," Theo spoke out loud, as if to make it known that he was fully and willingly acknowledging the system's help. "Those gradual progression perks are awesome!"
Just by seeing how long it took to get the manor upgraded to tier two, Theo could imagine just how bloated the timings for the other upgrades of the same level would be. And yet, as if to counter exactly this problem that artificially slowed his progress down, the system came in clutch with the constructor's office, which not only was supposed to cut down on those times… but also decrease the number of materials needed to get those constructions started to begin with!
'That's a must-have for me,' he thought, quickly committing this particular upgrade to his memory before even allowing his eyes to move not down… but up, to the very beginning of the notification, a choice reasoned by the fact that his eyes instantly drew towards the parts he couldn't instantly recognize as the direct counterparts of tier 1 stuff.
'What's the use of a hall of arms when I have yet to get any defenses for the place besides just the palisade?' Theo quickly squinted his eyes in confusion. 'That is, unless there's something else down there…' he quickly scanned the list, only paying attention to the names and then to the warding tower in particular…
But despite his hopes, not a single active defense system appeared to be in store, making Theo question the very idea of building the first of the potential tier 2 rooms.
"Not only is it useless for me as of now, it does come at a steep price too…"
If there was one thing that differed between the mansion and manor upgrades, it was the scale of their costs. And while neither was cheap… the manor extensions were noticeably more expensive than their mansion counterparts.
That is, such was the case until Theo laid his eyes on the cost of the war room upgrade.
"Ten thousand wood, five thousand stone?" Theo squinted his eyes again, worried he simply wasn't seeing right… even though those system windows didn't seem to have anything to do with his eyes, being imprinted directly into his consciousness rather than appearing as some sort of magical artifacts only he could see.
For a moment, Theo felt like cursing his fate, the injustice of the system, and then all its parts separately… only to ultimately shake his head, roll his eyes, and sigh out before moving on to the next potential upgrade.
In the end, however, there wasn't a single upgrade that Theo could claim to be particularly more excited about than the rest. And that was simply because all of them came offering one heck of an awesome perk!
'As little as people care about the map in games, having a live-updated one in real life…' Theo shook his head. 'I can imagine entire empires coming to blows over something so convenient, especially if it could be upgraded to be used on a battlefield…'
The corner of Theo's mouth twitched.
'And I get the feeling that a battlefield is what this place is going to soon turn into!'
With all those perks… not even the material costs of implementing them made up for a rightful, justifiable price. And since it wasn't the construction cost that was the meat of the challenge, then…
"Well, there's no use thinking about it, is there?" Theo chastised himself out loud before putting his attention over the rest of the upgrades.
The craftechamber that would open a whole new level of development and progress potential, the degree of which Theo didn't even dare to guess. The Study, where he could progress his potential even further by researching new techs. And finally, the meditation room that would open up the world of magic for him!
Each of those upgrades was to kill for. Yet, each of them came at a cost steep enough to make even Theo, someone with the ability to farm resources like no one else in the world, hesitate.
"And that's all but a half of what's new…"
Already mentally tired from all the excitement, Theo moved over to the constructor's office, pretending not to see its five-digit-long material requirements, as he focused on the external expansion paths for his manor as a whole.
"Smithy will be big later, once I get the ore. For now, though, I can forget about it," he muttered upon seeing the several iron ingot requirements attached to the rest of the construction costs of the place.
The next two parts, the lumberjack and the mining guilds, however, were a lot more reasonable picks. And while they required stone, wood, and then some iron ingots… their cost wasn't all that big for Theo to struggle to fulfill it.
It was the warding tower and the outer stone wall that came with a hefty price tag, requiring Theo to spend quite a bit longer in the mines to get either of those… or so he thought, before taking a look at the current state of his storage.
"Wait, what the hell?"
Contrary to how things were in his personal inventory, the manor's storage accepted items in numbers way above the stack limit Theo had no other choice but to follow for now. That's why, while his personal inventory could fit maybe just above a thousand blocks of stone in total… the current number of stone blocks the manor's inventory held could be rounded up to eleven damn thousand!
'That only makes me wonder,' Theo gulped his saliva down, 'how the fuck did I mine so much in the short two hours I was zoned out?'
Theo used the progress rate of the manor's upgrade as a clock of sorts, giving him the rough outline of just how long he spent in the mines.
Still, how he managed to get so much stone so quickly was likely going to remain a mystery, for Theo's attention quickly turned over to how he could now actually afford not one, but both of those upgrades.
"Heck, I could even get several towers at once…" he muttered to himself, staring at the five thousand stone block price tag for the wall and the further two thousand for each of the warding towers.
Still, knowing that he could, in theory, invest in those right away… didn't make it the best or even the correct choice of action.
"I'm still going to need some stone to get the constructor's office," thinking out loud, Theo sat down cross-legged directly on the ground, turning his eyes over to the cost of each of the upgrades he was interested in.
Regretfully, just like it was the case with the smithy, the constructor's office required him to come up with a total of a thousand nails and then a hundred iron ingots.
In other words, if he wanted to take the optimal path around expanding his manor… he had no other choice but to get back to the mines!
Still, regardless of how much this task grew in importance ever since the manor's upgrade came through, Theo still decided to first go through all the news before deciding on any course of action, especially if it was something that came with a steep time-centered price tag.
"I wonder what this specialized industry is all about, huh…" Theo squinted his eyes, struggling to see through the value of the second line of the gradual progress perks, one that clearly had to do with the exterior rather than the interior, as was likely the case with the constructor's office.
Still, after seeing the benefits of the aforementioned office, Theo dared not to harbor a single doubt about the value of this perk. A value that was only further increased by the insane material costs slapped on it!
'Ten thousand wood blocks? Ten thousand stone blocks? And then still, ten thousand iron nails and a whole thousand iron ingots?!'
Baffled by those numbers, Theo could do nothing but just sigh and shake his head.
"Well, I guess this is going to have to wait… And this also explains what those lumberjack and mining guilds are likely for," he spoke out to the sky as his eyes drew up, only to then dutifully move down to the second-to-last segment of his notification.
"Those…" Theo uttered a small moan, hardly even noticing the names of the potential expansions when his eyes drew to their respective prize-tags… each of which boasted numbers that broke through the mental barrier of five digits and stepped into the realm of hundreds of thousands of blocks!
"Yeah, those are deffinitely the late game of this subroutine," Theo muttered, overwhelmed by the massive numbers attached to each of the area upgrades, a completely new avenue he could expand his claim with.
Still, that left him with one more, the very last part of the notification, one that was considerably smaller than all the stuff Theo went through before. And, as opposed to those, it also updated every second, making it quite clear what each of the numbers showcased was supposed to mean.
[Time before the first wave of challengers: 19:43:27]
[19:43:27]
[19:43:26]
[19:43:25]
"…"
Theo stood in silence, struggling to even gulp his saliva down when faced with the sudden emergence of what felt like a doom scenario for him, who dared to think his system would make his exile any different than what it was supposed to be—a freaking execution.
"Well, I will be damned…" Theo finally managed to utter, feeling an overwhelming sense of dread take over his body and paralyze it, stopping him from even shaking in fear.
Those challengers…
Theo had no doubt they were either on the Oilrat's level or even stronger. And the wording of the warning was clear.
It wasn't going to be just one or two of those.
It was going to be an entire wave of them.
And as it stood, Theo still lacked any real means to defend himself, his possessions, or his claim!
"I wonder what will happen if they take over the manor…" he muttered…
Only for the fire of determination to suddenly spark up from the very bottom of his soul, chasing away the fear-induced paralysis and filling his body with strange energy that somehow felt extremely familiar.
"I've worked too damn hard to get all of this done!" Theo shouted out to the sky as he jumped up to his feet, his hand already summoning the axe from his inventory. "And I will be damned if I'm going to just let a bunch of monsters take it all away from me!"