In the week following the lord's departure, Jack found himself often surrounded by his family and friends.
He enjoyed life to the fullest and rode many trips on Blackmane together with either Nisha or his daughter Xena, to inspect the rapidly growing territory and cities in his domain.
He spend every evening with Janus, his son and heir who could already recognise his father and always smiled and giggled whenever Jack spend time with him.
But as the week came to an end, he found himself spending more and more time Infront of the territory map in his mansions meeting room.
'I have claimed much of Sha'ri's former lands... Only a single territory stands between me and the mountain territories between the peninsula and the main continent. Besides these territories only the Bloodfall Mountain territory still stands.'
Jack had tried to send one of his commanders to claim the Bloodfall Mountains. But the steep and pure rock sides made it deadly to traverse and the ominous and sharp peaks was filled with a race of small drakes. They had completely forced Jack's commander and troops to retreat under heavy losses, and Jack hadn't spend more resources in that direction ever since.
He turned his gaze to yet again inspect his holdings within his territories.
Black Mountain city in the west. Large City, 150.000 civilians.
Harken's fort in the middle of the crazed forest, was now properly upgraded to 'Town' status with 5000 civilians, called 'Fort Ken'.
Lake-Town at the small lake had expanded it's territory to encompass the entire small lake with wall 2-300 meters all around it, merging well with the large garrison forts a small way up the rivers. It was now also a proper Large city with 150.000 civilians.
About 30-40 kilometres to the south, in the grassy and small-river filled lands stood Cochi's small city with 50.000 civilians. A lot of trade and assimilation happened here at Victory Hold, with the reptilians in the Glimmering Mountains.
The Glimmering mountains had a single city of 100.000 reptilian civilians, hacked out inside the mountain in huge caves. Spread out on the surface of the mountain, 13 small villages with about 500 civilians appeared sporadic. Jack had renamed this city 'Hizz'rah City'. In the reptilians language it simply meant 'city of reptiles'.
On the north side of his territory, Silver City, with Lee as their governor, had also expanded.
100.000 civilian proper city with flourishing trade. It had an abundance of silver and iron, and much war-material was forged here.
Many kilometers from silver city, came the beach into view.
A very huge harbour and shipyard now extended much of the beach areas and many meters into the waters.
Many sturdy and long moles of wood extended into the water where both boats and large ships could dock safely.
At the large shipyard in extension to the harbour, many of Jacks civilians worked to create common boats, fishing boats and large military ships.
You could often see sails across the ocean, traders from the entire trade-alliance had Swifty recognised Jacks wealthy lands as a place for high profit.
Jack's civilians had after all, a huge fat stack of silver and gold in each their homes, and they also greatly benefitted from this beginning, but highly lucrative cross-seas trade.
Ocean city itself was a Large city with 150.000 civilians and the sheere size itself with the rare citadel and huge walls, was a sight that any traders and travellers in the alliance craved to witness.
Beyond these cities, Jack only had a single Large town with 20.000 civilians. Recently built near the center roots of the Rushing Mountains.
It was called 'Rextown'. Its primary function was to keep track of the family of Prime Rex that had a territory between the large river and this town itself, and mine recourses from the mountains.
Lee had studied the Rex for many days and found that they were not entirely without intelligence.
As long as Jack's troops and civilians didn't cross into their territory, and didn't disturb their prey. They would leave the humans alone.
Only a few incidents had occurred while Ocean city han been built. But new unseen 'borders' had quickly been drawn and respected from both sides.
As such, Jack had ordered the Rex to be left alone and the large area they roamed, be protected as their sanctuary.
So while Jack's foundation had been properly secured and all his towns and cities prospered beyond anything before, he still had a vast area of lands between, and including, the large lake in the center and hundreds of kilometres up til the last territory before the Icy Peaks to the mainland.
Jack saw all this information on the territory map.
But there were two more locations depicted.
Two camps with all his troops.
One, Commander Rubens 50.000 common rank army, was located at Sha'ri's old and razed town near the giant lake.
The other, commander Williams 50.000 common rank army, was located far to east, between Hizz'rah city at the glimmering mountains and the only wild territory left, the large forest area called 'Dark Wood'.
Williams army was primarily keeping check on the reptilians, even though Jack knew in his heart that they were completely loyal. Besides this they were waiting for the command to take the Dark Wood territory.
Jack still had the mission to nurture a new hero in his mansion, and find the mithril vein. But the 3rd mission and the conquest missions had changed a few times during the last week's.
For now they were;
[New mission: Pacify the wild drakes on Bloodfall Peaks. Reward: Epic upgrade schematic(universal)]
Jack didn't fully understand what that reward could be.
'Meybe it can upgrade one of my trash- or common building blueprints to something better...'
He would just have to see when the time came.
[Conquest mission: Claim the Bloodfall Mountains. Reward: 100.000 of any chosen rare resource]
'Bloodfall Mountains... The system truly wants me to progress in that direction. However it won't be now as I have finalized my other plans'.
Jack had a look on his resources before he walked outside to the thousands of wagons and his 3rd army of 50.000 common troops.
3 sets of summoning stone was in his pockets. Humans, dwarves, reptilians. He could now summon them all.
The human stones could be 'picked-up' 2 more times, the dwarf stones 3 times and the reptilian stone could no longer be picked up again, if he chose to set them down.
Jack had changed his army(s) as he realised his previous 1 million trash troop 'order' had been cancelled and gold refunded when he picked up the summon stones.
In Black Mountain, Lake-Town, Silver City, Ocean city and Victory Hold, 5000 common troops kept the peace and killed new beast spawns close to settlements.
In the smaller Fort Ken, only 500 common troops patrolled the forest area.
In Rextown, 2000 common troops resided and lastly in Hizz'rah City 20.000 common reptilian troops awaited Jacks orders.
He had purposely minized the stationary troops as the war had ended and he realised he didn't need them there.
Instead he had scaled up the drill-zones and converted every single trash-rank to common and established these 3 main armies.
Before he left Black Mountain, he had dismantled all the drill zones.
He had a new place in mind for all those things.
And currently he was marching on his 10 meter wide asphalt road located 200 meters away from the river.
The road led directly to the new building zones on the south-east beaches of the giant lake in the center.
When they finally arrived there after 3 days slow travel, Jack ordered his large following to set up tents and make camp.
He now stood directly on the south-east side of the lake, where a small lonely island appeared in the giant lake, 200 meters from the lakes edge into the waters.
The island was extremely small, only some bushes and a single tree stood on it.
But it was enough to have made Jack's plan form around it when he had first seen it a few weeks back.
While the civilians and troops set up camp, he alone began to create a magnificent bridge.
He made it 50 meters wide and 200 meters long. On the edges he made a 1 meter tall edge with 1 square meter flat platforms every 5 meter, such as future sculptures could stand there.
The bridge was firmly connected to the lakes floor by 8 thick and solid stone pillars in each side of the bridge, allowing the waters and fish to easily swim by as they used to.
The entire bridge was made by solid white granite from the lake-beach and Ocean floor.
A wagon of pure iron dust had been brought to him, and he used the iron to create small veins inside the granite, making it much more sturdy than it originally was.
He then waited one hour for the civilians to complete remove the tree and every bush on the island.
He then used the same iron wrought granite to create a 1 square kilometres platform on the island. The same pillars extended to the lake floor to make it completely steady and secure.
In the past weeks he, or his troops, had slain many 'pack-leaders' and bosses while claiming territory and hunting Sha'ri's remnants.
Even the resources Ang'ris had, had been merged with his, and he had in the end a small treasure of spirit- and fortitude power cores.
He had given a few to his Lee, Cochi and his commanders, but had used the majority of the spirit power cores himself.
He needed the spirit power to create exactly what he was creating now.
Yet even with the infusion of power, he still decided to relax for the rest of the day, after building all this with his power alone.
[Lord Jack]
[Fortitude: 255]
[Spirit power: 310]
[Abilities: Aura sense(Uncommon). Matter control(mythic potential, heavily locked). Currently unlocked: Water control(uncommon). Earth control(uncommon)]
The next day he continued his foundational work.
The area became completely cleared for 5 kilometres in each direction of the of the beach, with the bridge as the center.
Another 5kilometres inland from each edge, equally became cleared of any and all trees, grass, bushes and stones.
The foundation had been laid.
In the entire perimeter he then created a multiple upgrades stone wall.
25 meters high and 10 meters wide extreme strong and wonderful wall now enclosed the entire area.
The wall extended 15 meters into the lake in both sides.
Two large gates with strong portcullis was made.
On in the east side and one in the south-west side.
Siege towers was created and merged into the huge stonewalls.
Every 100 meter, a round tower dwarfed the walls with it's total heigh of 40 meters.
It was 30 meters in diameter and flat on the top except the edges that had the natural cover stones.
This tower could fully carry 3-5 siege engines depending on the size.
Many more if only equipped with the small scorpions.
Every side on the tower had arrow holes for archers walking in the spiral staircase inside, to shoot through.
When the wall was done, he turned his gaze to the manipulated island, connected by the bridge.
Here, he created a castle and upgraded untill he finally paused.
[Legendary citadel upgrade]
[Description: This citadel spans an entire square kilometres. With outer walls, towers and a heavyly fortified gate. It has an significant inner yard for thousands of troops. The main building itself is 65 meters tall and has 7 huge towers reaching 100 meters tall. The citadel is remade from stone into heavy steel and can withstand most, if not all attacks. There are a throne room, giant storage and treasure holds. Countless rooms, corridors and halls enough for an entire army.]
[Cost: 25.000.000 wood. 85.000.000 stone. 55.000.000 iron. 150.000.000 gold coins]
Jack had all the resources. Even the iron had just reached this single amount. But he was still speechless. These resources was enormous. Was it worth it?
But before he decided, a new system notification appeared.
[This structure and rank is currently unseen on Prime. If built, a reward matching it's cost will be granted]
'A reward? Of course I would build it anyway, it would mean that on the entire planet of Prime, I would possess the strongest citadel of all the lords! Who wouldn't want to have that boasting right? And now. A reward to equal the cost...]
Jack instantly payed the price, but was met with another notification.
[Choose colours and design alignment]
Then a list of all the colours he could think of appeared.
He chose white and red for the main colours, while choosing blue and black for the primary colours.
[Choose design alignment: Dwarven, Human, Reptilian]
Jack chose human, it was him who would be living here, not a dwarf or reptilian after all.
[Choose design alignment: Evil ----- Good]
[Description: Further alignment to the 'evil' side, will create a more sinister overall design and shape, with more torture champers and highly secure captivity cells. Further alignment towards the 'Good' side will create an equally more harmonious and gentle overall design, including flowers and gardens]
A line with a single tap on it that he could scroll, appeared.
Jack chose to put it slightly to the evil side.
He didn't need gardens. But he needed a sturdy cell for a specific individual.
Half an hour it took, with shimmering golden orbs scattered all over the 1 square kilometres island, before the impressive and giant citedal appeared.