Chapter 7 — The Ancient Workshop
The morning after their exploration mission, the Forgotten Creation Valley felt different.
The settlement was no longer just surviving.
It was growing.
Villagers moved around the farmland carrying baskets of seeds and tools. Militia soldiers practiced spear drills near the wooden walls while archers trained atop the watchtowers.
Aren Valerian stood near the settlement gate, staring toward the distant forest.
Beyond those trees lay the ancient creation workshop they had discovered yesterday.
A place that had reacted strongly with his Power of Creation.
Something about that ruin felt important.
Very important.
A glowing system panel appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HOST: Aren Valerian
Level: 5
EXP: 0 / 500
Territory: Forgotten Creation Valley
Territory Rank: E
Population: 300
Army: 80 Soldiers
50 Militia Soldiers
30 Archers
Skills
• Unknown Craft — F Rank
• Basic Swordsmanship — F Rank
Authority
• Power of Creation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Below it, the active quest remained.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUEST
Expand Territory Influence
Objective
Secure 3 resource points
Progress
1 / 3
Reward
Population +300
Elite Soldiers ×20
EXP +300
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren crossed his arms.
"We still need two more resource points."
Footsteps approached.
Captain Roderic arrived with several soldiers.
"My lord, patrols reported monster activity near the eastern forest."
Aren nodded.
"That's expected."
The valley had been abandoned for centuries.
Monsters had claimed it as their territory.
If Aren wanted to rule this land, he would have to reclaim it piece by piece.
"Prepare another exploration group," he said.
"Same formation as yesterday."
Roderic saluted.
"Understood."
---
Soon the expedition team left the settlement once again.
Twenty militia soldiers.
Ten archers.
And their lord.
The forest was quiet at first.
Sunlight barely reached the ground beneath the tall trees.
Aren walked carefully while observing the surroundings.
Every detail mattered.
Every resource could strengthen his territory.
After about thirty minutes of walking, the soldiers discovered another location.
A shallow cave carved into the side of a rocky hill.
Roderic inspected the entrance.
"My lord, this looks like a natural cave system."
Aren approached and placed his hand on the rock.
The Power of Creation activated again.
Information appeared inside his mind.
Iron traces.
Mineral deposits.
Potential for mining.
The system panel appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESOURCE POINT DISCOVERED
Iron Mine
Quality: Medium
Potential: Weapon Materials
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren smiled slightly.
"Iron."
This was exactly what they needed.
With iron, they could craft better weapons and tools.
The militia's spears and armor were currently very basic.
An iron mine would change that.
But before they could celebrate—
A deep rumbling sound echoed from inside the cave.
The soldiers immediately raised their weapons.
Something large moved in the darkness.
Then it appeared.
A massive bear-like monster stepped out of the cave entrance.
Its body was covered in thick dark fur.
Its claws were longer than swords.
Roderic frowned.
"Stoneback Bear."
"Much stronger than wolves."
The creature roared loudly.
The sound echoed through the forest.
Several birds flew away in panic.
Aren stepped forward calmly.
"Archers."
Roderic raised his hand.
"Fire!"
Arrows shot toward the monster.
Several struck its body.
But the thick fur reduced much of the damage.
The bear charged forward.
Militia soldiers raised their shields.
The impact shook the ground.
Two soldiers were pushed backward.
Aren moved immediately.
He placed his hand on the earth.
"Creation."
Stone pillars erupted from the ground around the bear.
The monster slammed into them and became trapped for a moment.
"Now!"
The archers fired again.
More arrows struck the beast.
The bear roared in pain and broke through the stone pillars.
It lunged directly toward Aren.
But Aren was ready.
He stepped aside and slashed his sword across the bear's leg.
The creature stumbled.
Militia soldiers rushed forward and stabbed their spears into its side.
The battle lasted only a few seconds more.
Finally the massive creature collapsed onto the ground.
Dead.
The soldiers exhaled in relief.
Roderic wiped sweat from his forehead.
"That was dangerous."
The system appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MONSTER DEFEATED
Stoneback Bear
EXP +200
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren's experience bar jumped significantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HOST LEVEL
Level 5
EXP: 200 / 500
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESOURCE POINT SECURED
Iron Mine
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The quest progress updated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Expand Territory Influence
Progress
2 / 3 Resource Points Secured
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren nodded.
"Two down."
"Only one more."
But his attention returned to the cave.
Now that the monster guarding it was gone, the mine could be explored safely.
He turned toward the soldiers.
"We'll send workers here tomorrow."
"With iron production, our military strength will improve quickly."
Roderic agreed.
"And we should fortify the entrance."
"Monsters might try to reclaim it."
Aren looked deeper into the cave.
The darkness stretched far underground.
For now, they had secured the entrance.
But the valley still held many unknown dangers.
As they prepared to return to the settlement, Aren looked toward the deeper forest.
Somewhere out there…
The third resource point was waiting.
And with it, the next step in building his kingdom.
The Forgotten Creation Valley was slowly revealing its power.
And Aren Valerian intended to claim every part of it.
The Forgotten Creation Valley was becoming busier every day.
From the top of the watchtower, Aren Valerian could see smoke rising from cooking fires, villagers walking between houses, and soldiers training near the walls.
What had once been a silent wilderness was now a growing settlement.
But Aren knew something important.
This was only the beginning.
A glowing system panel appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HOST: Aren Valerian
Level: 5
EXP: 200 / 500
Territory: Forgotten Creation Valley
Territory Rank: E
Population: 300
Army: 80 Soldiers
50 Militia Soldiers
30 Archers
Skills
• Unknown Craft — F Rank
• Basic Swordsmanship — F Rank
Authority
• Power of Creation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Below it was the current quest.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUEST
Expand Territory Influence
Objective
Secure 3 resource points
Progress
2 / 3
Reward
Population +300
Elite Soldiers ×20
EXP +300
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren looked toward the mountains surrounding the valley.
"We only need one more resource point."
Footsteps sounded behind him.
Captain Roderic climbed the tower stairs.
"My lord."
Aren turned.
"Any news from the patrols?"
Roderic nodded.
"Our scouts found something near the northern cliffs."
"Strange glowing plants."
Aren raised an eyebrow.
"Glowing?"
"Yes."
"They appear at night."
That was interesting.
Resources didn't always mean stone or metal.
Sometimes rare plants could be just as valuable.
"Prepare the soldiers," Aren said.
"We're going to investigate."
---
Soon the expedition team gathered again at the settlement gate.
Twenty militia soldiers.
Ten archers.
Captain Roderic.
And Aren.
The group moved north through the valley.
This part of the valley had not been explored yet.
The terrain became rougher as they approached the cliffs.
Rock formations rose high above them, creating narrow paths between the mountains.
After nearly an hour of travel, the soldiers finally saw it.
A field of glowing blue plants.
Even in daylight, the plants shimmered faintly.
At night they would likely shine brightly.
Roderic examined one carefully.
"My lord… these look like mana herbs."
Aren crouched and touched the plant.
The Power of Creation activated.
Information appeared in his mind.
Magical properties.
Energy potential.
Alchemy uses.
The system panel appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESOURCE POINT DISCOVERED
Mana Herb Field
Quality: High
Usage
Alchemy
Potion Production
Mana Recovery
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren smiled.
This was far more valuable than normal plants.
Mana herbs could be used to create healing potions and magic recovery potions.
Even kingdoms valued these resources highly.
But as expected—
A loud screech echoed from the cliffs above.
Everyone looked up.
Large shadowy shapes circled the sky.
Roderic's expression darkened.
"Cliff Raptors."
Three massive bird-like monsters dove from the cliffs.
Their claws were long enough to tear through armor.
"Archers!" Roderic shouted.
"Ready!"
The archers raised their bows.
The first raptor swooped down.
"Fire!"
Arrows flew into the sky.
Several struck the monster.
But it still crashed toward the soldiers.
Aren stepped forward.
The creature aimed directly for him.
At the last moment—
Aren slammed his hand against the ground.
"Creation."
A tall stone pillar erupted upward.
The raptor slammed into it mid-air.
The impact stunned the creature.
Militia soldiers rushed forward and finished it with their spears.
But the other two raptors attacked immediately.
One of them grabbed a soldier and lifted him slightly into the air.
The soldier shouted in panic.
Aren reacted instantly.
He picked up a sharp stone and hurled it with all his strength.
The rock struck the raptor's head.
The creature lost balance and dropped the soldier.
Archers fired again.
The wounded raptor crashed to the ground.
The final raptor circled above before diving again.
This time Aren was ready.
He raised his sword.
As the creature approached, he jumped forward and slashed.
The blade cut across its wing.
The raptor screamed and fell.
Moments later the soldiers finished it.
Silence returned to the cliffs.
The system appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MONSTERS DEFEATED
Cliff Raptors ×3
EXP +240
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren's experience bar increased.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Level Up
Level 5 → Level 6
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A warm energy flowed through his body.
He felt stronger again.
The system displayed another message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESOURCE POINT SECURED
Mana Herb Field
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The quest updated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUEST COMPLETE
Expand Territory Influence
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aren watched as the reward window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
REWARDS RECEIVED
Population +300
Elite Soldiers ×20
EXP +300
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Back at the settlement, new villagers would soon appear.
And twenty elite soldiers would join his army.
Aren looked across the glowing herb field.
"This valley is far richer than anyone believed."
Roderic nodded.
"With these resources, your territory will grow quickly."
Aren turned back toward the settlement.
The Forgotten Creation Valley was no longer a forgotten land.
It was becoming the foundation of a powerful kingdom.
And this was only the beginning.
---
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