Although Kraft oversaw the entire operation, he still allowed Jin to incorporate stuff to entertain his customers. As long as it didn't interfere with the Devil Fox's almighty master plan, he didn't care what his master made his customers do. Even if it entailed something as drastic as an entire revamp of Demopolis, just in time for the attack of the Seven Cities.
From a pragmatic standpoint, Kraft did not think that they needed to proceed with the fight. He and the other foxes could easily teleport to the enemies' Dungeon Cores and steal them right under their noses.
However, both Kiyu and Qiu Yue had vehemently disagreed with that kind of action. Not only because they wanted to continue profiting from the war by allowing the Pandarens who still thought of this as a Raid Instance to actively participate in it, but the main rationale was that if they were the first ones invaded, they would have a legitimate excuse to occupy the trespassing Seven Cities.
Even without advertising the battle between Demopolis and Pandapolis, there were already rumours and whispers spreading around various cities about how a young city lord had managed to not only fend off Demon King Baal but had also managed to take his city by force and right under his nose too.
While these rumours were left out that he had been assisted by King Baal's ex-advisor, they eventually became hot news, leading the Church of the Afterlife to push its faithful allies to take over Demopolis from behind the scenes.
Of course, the Church of the Afterlife had refrained from publicly promising their support. Instead, they had nudged the surrounding human cities to take revenge against Demopolis who should be in a state of turmoil as a result of their infighting.
With the 'blessing' of the Church, the armies of the Seven Cities expected that by the time they reached Demopolis, all they would need to do was to finish up the weakened forces and divide the rewards among themselves.
Yet, that was the narrative in their society's news, but everyone who had lived long enough would know that all these were just a pretence for a competition between the Seven Cities to grab Demopolis' Dungeon Core.
They would eventually defeat and slaughter each and every demon and Demopolis citizen they encountered, but as soon as their common enemy was defeated, it would become a battle to decide who was the strongest between the Seven Cities.
However, what if Jin, Kraft and Rex could fend off the overwhelming assault as well as capture the Seven Cities' Dungeon Cores?
It would not only make the headlines but allow Jin to create an alliance of cities that would benefit him and ultimately Pandapolis too. (Not to mention it would be a perfect shield for Demopolis.) The others would fear him and some industry titans might even convert to his side for safety.
The three had also learned from Moloch and Baal that they did not have to necessarily conquer and rule the Seven Cities like how they did for Demopolis and Pandapolis. Another option would be to turn those Seven Cities into their vassal states for a period of time as set by a contract between the victor's Dungeon Core and the losing side's Dungeon Core.
Knowing that Jin had a sufficient amount of kingdom ruling between worlds, this was a delightful feature that he would love to utilise. He would be able to influence the way those Seven Cities worked while not having to deal with the administrative work that was beset by each city.
At the time that Moloch had explained this feature inside the Dungeon Cores, the System had spoken out, suggesting that should Jin and his minions be successful in this endeavour, Qiu Yue would be the most important piece in his current arsenal.
As much as the Empire Building Sub System was made to construct instant buildings as Qiu Yue levelled up her cultivation grade, more features such as automated governance could be given clearance by the Sub System for Jin and Qiu Yue to utilise.
One of the requirements would be to get more Dungeon Cores into the System's care as they inadvertently would increase its processing capabilities, in turn allowing it to allocate more resources to each of the Sub Systems, even though the Sub System modules were already partially independent from the main System.
Speaking of the Empire Building Sub System, the current "Assistance in the War Efforts" had been a collaboration between Jin and Qiu Yue. Due to the Red Panda Cultivator's diligent effort under the training of Tsu and Kai, her grade had gone exponentially to the point that it had frightened the System a little too.
Although she kept her new skills a secret from everyone but the Wolf Foxes, she did not hesitate to show Jin the new features that the Empire Building Sub System had unlocked, which had allowed this "Assistance in War Efforts" to be possible and naturally the Dungeon Supplier wasn't averse to make a profit in every possible turn of events that the Pandarens were in.
Jin had thought that he and Rex would have to use the Dungeon Core's basic functions to do a hard reset, clearing most of the city away and used Qiu Yue's previous quick fabrication buildings to provide defensive strongholds for the city.
However, with her new function, she was not only able to do that but by imaging what she wanted, the Empire Building Sub System was able to create a draft design of the area and fully replicate them immediately as soon as its user approved it.
Both major and minor edits could be done so long as Qiu Yue had a digital tablet and pen with her, with which she would redraw and change the designs by hand. The Sub System would then take into account her edits and add the needed infrastructure to make it work.
It would still require specific resources to build the buildings as detailed by the Empire Building System but if the Main System was in possession of those resources (from cement to pipes and wirings), everything would be automated through the powers of the Empire Building Sub System and this brought extreme new possibilities to the way Jin could fight his wars.
Once Qiu Yue demonstrated it to him, they were both reminded of those real-time strategy games like "Black Alert" or "Command And Conquest" where buildings were built so long as they had sufficient resources at their disposal.
The only problem was when Qiu Yue wanted the building to be completed within an instant. The Empire Building System stated that such a feature was not implemented and even if tried to research such a thing, it would be locked until she attained a much higher cultivation grade.
Thus, the defensive stronghold foundations that Xiong Da had assisted the Raid Instance to those milestones were merely part of the plan that Qiu Yue had already designed and had merely been awaiting construction based on the customers' progress. All the derelict buildings had already been deconstructed and removed, yet Rex had programmed the Dungeon Core to recycle the materials so they could be used for future construction.
Bunkers were already installed in the bas.e.m.e.nt levels and roads were mended throughout the districts except for the Royal Palace and the Shadow King Districts. With the milestone rewards to entice the Pandarens, Jin would step in and intervene only when they felt the need to rush the constructions.
For now, they just let those point and coin contributions come in, allowing Jin to save tons of money in redemption rewards while earning more via the side to fund the resources needed for the construction works.
