The White-Haired Duo shared a look that spoke volumes.
Okay then, since NPCs and in-game elements did not know or comprehend the AI, it was most likely the 'mysterious unknown' majority shareholder.
Draco smacked his lips. Well, this wasn't something he could fight. After all, the AI did fork over money from its coffers to pay for the shares, so taking controlling shares was fine too.
Draco and Eva toured the bank and found that apart from the executive offices and the main lobby, there wasn't much else they could access. There was no obvious vault where money was stored, which meant it was likely inside some pocket space or something.
They were fine with it, the tighter the security, the more trust in the bank people would have, and the more they would seek its services. Draco and Eva left the building and noticed that many who had entered to explore it were dazed.
NPCs and players both seemed to be in the midst of processing the unique information this Rank 7 Bank offered them, so the White-Haired Duo decided to leave it to the Avatar, as they returned to the sky, where Draco asked his Soulmate:
"So next is an Academy? Do we have one of those?"
Eva nodded and pointed to a large building in the core area that was bustling with young lads and lasses of the various ethnicities that made up Vita Kingdom's citizens. Their interaction was extremely pure and interesting, as they were curious about each other, so they were mixed up quite heavily.
Each clique of friends they could see had at least one member of each ethnicity as they all chatted, caused trouble, and fooled around. Draco was pleased to see that his efforts at unifying them was working well, and even the newest additions, the Gypsies, were well-received by all because they were extremely attractive, could dance e.r.o.t.i.cally, and were extremely philosophical as a race.
However, he would have to be careful about any more races he intended to include into the mix, because they might not be as openly accepted. After all, those he had brought so far had accepted each other not only because they were already few in the core section, but also because they each had differing traits that didn't clash with each other, but complemented each other.
The Nshaw Tribe were mostly explorers and warrior geniuses, so they could handle security and protection. The Goddess Descendants were mostly Tradeskill masters, so they could handle all aspects of production and crafting. The Gypsies were mostly dancers and lovely talkers, so they added culture and entertainment to the dull core area.
To be honest, it was best to just stop at this point and let these three expand in time to fill the core section and integrate further until they shed their past identities and became one new group.
Draco then lowered himself to hover over the academy. Even though it was currently occupied, he knew the system would accommodate the students during the upgrade, so he continued on.
｢ Detected a Property Upgrade Token – Platinum
Would the player like to upgrade a building? Y/N｣
Draco accepted the change and paid the price of 46,000 platinum immediately. The next instant, the change began to happen as the academy became shrouded in a wondrous light.
Just like the warehouse, its size began to expand rapidly, pushing all other buildings around it equidistantly omnidirectionally. It grew by about 4 times its previous size which had already been quite large.
Its new campus resembled a small village, instead of a single institution. The students who were within during the change blinked in confusion, wondering what the hell had just happened.
'I was walking down the hallway to reach my class and now the door which was almost in reach has run like 300 meters away from me. Is this a sign from the Gods that I am meant to skip class today?'
However, nothing of the sort occurred, which surprised them. They had been under the impression that those Avatars might have been a hidden bonus from using the platinum tokens to upgrade the buildings over using the Tradeskill Association like Draco had done back in the day for their Rank 7 Guildhall, Shop, and Noble's Residence.
However, now it seemed like Rank 7 buildings could be separated into those that ran solely through manual means and those with extra features for which the AI assigned Avatars.
Even without one, there was fortunately always the changelog to show them the actual changes.
｢Rank 7 Academy changes:
– Reading and Comprehension speed is boosted while studying in the library by 300%.
– During lessons, teachers will acquire the following status effects; <Concise>, <Words of Power> and <Lecture Genius>.
– During lessons, students will acquire the following status effects; <Focused>, <Insightful>, <Dutiful>.
– There is a 10% chance each day for a student to acquire the enlightenment effect which lasts three hours.
– Food and drinks prepared by the academy increase the retentive memory capacity of all students slightly with each consumption
– Addition of a fast travel system, allowing students with a formal ID to teleport anywhere within the grounds once within range of the school or within it.
– There is a 1% chance every school year that a single student will be blessed with a great talent in their field of study.｣
Draco and Eva were pleased by the changes. It could be said that the academy had gone from an institution of learning that could educate their citizens into useful a.d.u.l.ts for society into a factory that would spit out extremely intelligent and skilled a.d.u.l.ts every year.
The first benefit allowed one to read in peace and actually bloody understand what they were reading, which many students worldwide would sell their left testicle/tit for. Now, learning and reading up in solitude within the library would not be as tedious as it should be.
The second benefit allowed teachers to gain three status effects. Draco and Eva checked what they meant and were positively surprised.
<Concise> made it so that teachers would no longer derail lectures with meaningless things to waste time, and they would always hit the core of a subject with ease.
<Words of Power> allowed their words to become like thunder in the ears of students, filled with endless profundity and wisdom that would be rooted in their subconscious.
<Lecture Genius> allowed teachers to easily make their lectures interesting, fun, and very engaging for the students. No boring or droll moments, just vibes and joy.
The third benefit also gave students some useful status effects.
<Focused> prevented the students from getting easily distracted in lectures. Those with ADHD and the like would temporarily lose this problem and be able to devote their focus fully to what was in front of them.
<Insightful> was similar to Draco and Roma's skill, which allowed them to acquire knowledge faster when being taught or when training themselves. Only, this one came into effect only when being taught and the speed boost was only 1.5x faster, but this would speed up the completion of the traditional syllabus and allow the academy to add more.
<Dutiful> made students more obedient and less likely to cause trouble in class. They would find themselves taking serious and insightful notes of what they had heard while answering questions they could and asking questions that were necessary.
The Enlightenment effect that could be triggered was extremely good though. It would allow a student to not only master whatever they learned in that period of time, but they could detect flaws or find new pathways in the subject that were not discovered before.
However, the benefit they would get from eating and drinking in the academy's cafeteria made Draco and Eva endlessly jealous since they were also university grads. Well, technically, Draco was a university grad while Eva had been in her final year but that was in the past.
Getting better memory from stuffing your stomach… how envious and hateful! How they wanted to grab those kids and shake them with red eyes, screaming at them to be thankful to the RNG Gods for their favor.
The trial grounds feature was expected. Most Rank 4 Academies and those above had them but only one or two. Having one for each subject and field was extremely good, and it would allow each student to hone their crafts even better through practicals.
The fast travel function in the school was necessary given its new size. In fact, many universities in the real world could use this.
Why have such a bigass campus that is so hard to navigate? Seriously, is it some sort of status symbol? A form of flex?!
The final benefit was more shocking though. Once a year, any student on campus had a 1% chance to have their talent increased to the maximum in their field of study. So, assuming that anyone was lucky enough to trigger that 1%, they would become an instant genius that could even lecture teachers.
Draco and Eva nodded. Since the Academy already had a principal and staff, they would leave things to them. If anything, Sublime could step in and allocate things more efficiently.
They flew up into the air and gazed at the next target, which were the military barracks where their army was stationed. Draco took out his fourth Property Upgrade Token and activated it.
｢ Detected a Property Upgrade Token – Platinum
Would the player like to upgrade a building? Y/N｣
Immediately, he paid the required 99,000 platinum, which was the highest so far. The White-Haired Duo didn't mind, as this likely meant the benefits of the barracks would be beyond their comprehension most likely.
This was even more evident as the size of the barracks increased so greatly that Draco and Eva were horrified. They quickly had to flee before they got smashed to bits, which was unnecessary since players and NPCs were protected from damage during such expansions.
The barracks eventually stopped draining Worldly Energy about 5 minutes later. Its size had increased by about 30 times and now took up about 1/50th of the entire core area on its own.
For scale, only about 1/50th of the core area was populated by citizens while the rest was empty land. It was now taking about 10% of all developed land in the core area.
Draco and Eva observed it from the sky, slowly lowering themselves to stand before it. It had gone from a large barracks with many sleeping bunks, a small training ground for recruits, a rally area for deployments, a command area for officers and commanders to discuss things, and finally an armory to… something else entirely.
Not only that, the armory had become a large warehouse of its own which would likely require more than one quartermaster to manage. The rally area was the largest possible open area and had many portals set up for the troops to rapidly deploy in pre-arranged locations.
However, what took the cake was the large hanger that existed to the southernmost end of the barracks. From runways to hangers for storing airsh.i.p.s, and service areas for maintenance to be performed on such airsh.i.p.s, the battle power of the Vita Kingdom military had greatly spiked.
Draco knew that he could begin making airsh.i.p.s at the Expert Rank of Magical Engineering, but he had never gotten down to it. Now though, there was a need for this and urgently.
After all, air support in the Western Fantasy section was but a myth in Kingdom Wars. In the sci-fi section, sure it would be common with spacesh.i.p.s and magneton bombers, but here?
It was unprecedented. Draco could employ Blitzkrieg tactics and destroy countless monsters and other kingdoms before they could even respond. By the time the main plane found countermeasures to his aerial ace support, he would already have 70% of the continent in hand.
However, the prelude to this was him being able to make enough airsh.i.p.s, and this was the issue. Magical Engineers existed among the Goddess Descendants, so he would have to incentivize them to make many in the interim.
For now, Draco and Eva called up the changelog to see the difference as they knew that a building like this would not have an avatar, which also turned out to be true.
｢Rank 7 Barracks changes:
– Total army capacity is now 30 billion.
– All soldiers enjoy a 50% comfort rate as well as fully alleviating fatigue and stress when sleeping in barracks bunks.
– All soldiers are able to enjoy a 300% increase in efficiency in all forms of training.
– All officers are able to enjoy a 50% increase in natural tactical ac.u.men when making plans in the barracks.
– All meals consumed in the barracks fully satisfy consumers and restore their resource stats to full.
– Hangers have been added, and can support up to 30,000 large airsh.i.p.s.
– Soldiers can now teleport to preset destinations on deployment from the rally area.
– All weapons stored in the armory retain their durability, and in the case of damage, can have durability restored over time.｣
Draco and Eva trembled. The army capacity was 30 billion! 30 whole billion! That was 30 million a thousand times!
Even if Boundless had huge populations and everything was generally scaled higher than earth, this was still a crazy number. Even Divine Empire couldn't field that many men, you know?
The two of them shared a look and felt excitement. This was definitely the beginning of the invincible army of Umbra and Vita Kingdom!
Just thinking this, Draco suddenly sprouted a large mustache and his army changed into a black military attire with a strange four-sided symbol.
A name tag appeared on his c.h.e.s.t 'Fuhrer Draco' and the fellow gazed into the distance, like a visionary seeing the future. Dramatic music began playing around him as his cape flapping in the wind, the screams of innocents responding as they were mowed down by his endless death troops, while those he hated were placed in Destruction Chambers where Destruction Energy would be leaked onto them, melting them down into nothingness.
Suddenly, Eva shook Draco a little and his little hallucination disappeared. He smiled awkwardly and then focused on calling Deployed Soldier to inform him of the changes and what he could do about them.
Excited, Deployed Soldier quickly contacted many Magical Engineers and offered them insane amounts of money to build airsh.i.p.s for them. Deployed Soldier could afford this because Eva had directly given him a budget of 1 billion platinum to facilitate it.
Draco and Eva decided henceforth that they would apportion 60% of state funds into managing their military. Vita Kingdom was going on the warpath, but they would also have to bide their time and strike all at once.
After all, the Cario Continental Council were nice to them because they feared Vita's potential so if they started acting up, all that niceness could turn into oppression. Going against the local continental council was never a good idea.
They then returned to the sky, watching as many soldiers who had been training, sleeping or discussing things speechlessly observed their new and improved barracks. Soon, Deployed Soldier called them all into the rally area and gave a resounding speech explaining everything as well as highlighting the future of the army.
Soon, loud cheers went out, as they were motivated more than ever before. They too could see the grand future where they would raze the entire continent down in grand glory, claiming endless land, beauties – and handsomes for some fellows/lasses – as well as wealth for themselves.
… right, why did it seem like they were less like disciplined soldiers and rather tightly-knit bandits?
Sigh, whatever.
Eva checked the list and smiled. "Well, it's time for the most important out of the entire lot, the Refinery."
Draco nodded with a glint in his eyes. A refinery was crucial to every kingdom, as that was where most raw materials were filtered and purified into something that their artisans and workmen could use on a large scale.
It was far more efficient and crucial compared to each and every fellow using their own skill to refine raw materials. It ensured uniformity in material quality, so it was easier to tell who was skilled between the workforce, as well as increase their production speed.
This was especially important for Vita Kingdom since the Goddess Descendants were forced to use their own means to refine their materials, which slowed down their production speed.
The current state refinery was only Rank 2, as it was the hardest building to upgrade according to Sublime. Just throwing money its way wasn't enough, one needed certain technologies and other things to meet its upgrade conditions.
However, Draco toyed with the last platinum upgrade token in between his fingers with a smirk. Eva folded her arms and floated beside him with a winning smile, the two of them enjoying this suspense as they knew the AI must be gnashing its teeth in anger.
Truly, this Young Master and Young Mistress were infuriating and arrogant!
If only one day, thunder could strike them conveniently and turn them into barbecue, it would be a blessing to all of humanity!
｢ Detected a Property Upgrade Token – Platinum
Would the player like to upgrade a building? Y/N｣
Draco finally decided to get on with it and activated the token. He noticed that the price for the Refinery was the highest, at 200,000 platinum, but did he care? No!
With the poise of a seasoned young master destined to have his neck wrung by a protagonist, he chose to pay up!
