Immediately, three distinct sub-shops materialized on the glowing blue interface:
Construction Shop
Item Shop
Castle Core Shop
(Hohhh? This is actually interesting.)
I mentally tapped into the Construction Shop first. The top of the screen lit up with a clean, familiar-looking inventory panel.
Inventory
Points: 10
Stone: 0
Wood: 0
Food: 0
(Aha! Resource bars.)
The sight hit me like a powerful nostalgia bomb, slamming me straight back to lazy childhood afternoons spent hunched over the family computer. I'd poured hundreds of hours into games like Age of Kingdoms or Heroes of Muscles and Wisdom… or whatever the exact titles were — those classic real-time strategy games where you gathered resources, built up your base from nothing, recruited units, and eventually crushed your enemies under superior numbers and clever tactics.
I figured stone would come from mining nearby rocks or quarrying, and wood from chopping down the endless trees pressing in around my clearing. That part made perfect sense for a castle-building system.
But food?
(What the fuck is food supposed to mean now?)
This raised a whole bunch of confusing questions. As a castle, I clearly didn't need to eat anything myself. So… was "Food" intended for any living things that might eventually end up inside me — future inhabitants, guests, or servants? Or was it more like those old RTS games, where you spent food points to summon and maintain an army of minions?
I really, really hoped for the latter. Summoning minions would be absolutely amazing. I would very love to have loyal little workers or defenders popping into existence to fix my courtyard, patrol the walls, and finally give me someone to talk to besides Sir Lawncelot and his grassy friends.
I doubted it would work exactly like that, though. Maybe there was a hidden instruction manual or beginner tutorial the system could provide… if I asked nicely enough?
So I tried.
"System, do you have any tutorial for me?"
"Please?"
"System-san?"
"Or… System-sama?"
…
"AAAAH! IT'S NO USE!"
No matter how politely or desperately I begged, the system completely ignored me. That was so bullshit!
Classic isekai move — drop the protagonist naked into a new world with zero guidance and let them figure everything out through painful trial-and-error and repeated suffering. It sucked, but whatever. There was nothing I could do about it right now except roll with the punches.
I forced my attention back to the Construction Shop.
There was a clearly labeled sub-tab called Repair. The moment I selected it, the interface zoomed in smoothly, highlighting every damaged spot across my structure with faint, pulsing red outlines that made the problems impossible to ignore.
Broken Window – Second Floor. Repair Cost: 1 Wood
Small Roof Section – Main Building. Repair Cost: 1 Stone, 1 Wood
Then, because the system was clearly thirsty for my points, another set of options appeared right below the normal repairs, bordered in sparkling, eye-catching gold like a limited-time gacha banner designed to trigger impulsive spending:
Magic Repair – Broken Window: 3 Points
Magic Repair – Small Roof Section: 3 Points
Repair All Damaged Areas: 5 Points (Save 1 Point!)
(Oh god! The system is really gunning hard for my points. That shiny gold border is practically screaming "whale bait!" at the top of its lungs.)
Which only made me want to save every single point even more fiercely. I had already decided. F2P for life! Or at the very least, I'd stockpile a decent amount of points for real emergencies or far better things waiting in the future.
I scrolled past the obvious repair trap and spotted another promising tab labeled Resources.
There was an option for direct point-to-material conversion, right there in black and blue.
Exchange
1 Point -> 3 Wood
1 Point -> 3 Stone
1 Point -> 1 Food
And floating dramatically above it all in shiny, tempting golden text:
[HOT DEAL! Expires in 2 Minutes!]
[2× Resources Purchased with Points!]
(OH SHIT! I FUCKING KNEW IT!)
The system really had been trying to scam me earlier! It had casually asked for ten full points just to patch one stupid roof hole. But if I exchanged my ten points right now under this deal, I could literally get enough materials to repair fifteen broken roofs and still have some left over!
"Wahaha!"
I was so glad my paranoid gamer intuition had been right on the money. What a massive bullet I had just dodged!
But then another question immediately arose as the countdown timer continued ticking.
(Hmm… this hot deal… should I actually take it?)
I pondered for a few tense seconds, staring hard at the glowing screen while the storm still raged outside and rain continued dripping through the unrepaired hole above. The clock mercilessly dropped — soon there were only twenty seconds left to decide.
(Well… this deal does seem pretty nice. I guess it's fairly reasonable for what it offers…)
But I pulled out at the last second.
NO!
(What if this resource conversion tab is… actually another bait?)
(Tch. Like hell I'd be tricked that easily!)
Paranoia level: maximum.
(It's not like I have any immediate, pressing use for a bunch of materials right now anyway! And besides, knowing how greedy and manipulative this system clearly is, maybe this "hot deal" is just another trap to make me blow my precious points before I've even properly explored the other shops!)
(Damn, this is evil!)
I convinced myself with that rock-solid logic and quickly closed the Resources tab. The next section that appeared was:
Upgrade Construction Shop
The Construction Shop was currently Level 1. Upgrading to Level 2 sounded promising.
Requirement: System Shop Level 2, Castle Core Level 1
Upgrade Cost: 100 Points
Unlocks: Land Expansion, Building Construction
(Whoa. Whoa.)
(Land expansion? Building construction?)
(Now this is the good stuff!)
(That means… I could actually grow outward? Adding new wings, taller towers, thicker defensive walls? Maybe even transforming this sad little miniature keep into a proper, sprawling fortress someday?)
My mind instantly raced with exciting possibilities.
But 100 points?
(Sigh…)
I currently had only 10.
Still… just seeing this upgrade option made me genuinely hyped as hell. It offered the first real, concrete glimpse of my long-term progression path in this new world.