Joshua stepped out into the bright sunlight once again after finishing another dungeon run. They had spent the twelve hour period of the system clearing out the town doing another dungeon run and do to their efforts they were able to reach level forty. Cinder and Tank were both level forty as well along with Jade and Flutter who had kept pace since they had been the main beast partners that Lilly would have out while fighting. The rest of her partners were close at around level thirty-eight or thirty-nine so it wasn't going to take much more for them to catch up.
In their second run through the dungeon they honestly didn't get much from it outside of experience. The gear they got was clearly inferior to the first run being weapons and armor pieces that would only last up to level fifty at the most. Joshua wouldn't dare rely on that equipment against beast past that level. He did find a short sword that could hold him over until he could get Nathan to upgrade it for him. At this point he was certain that the one he currently had wouldn't be able to do any real damage against any monster in level fifty regions.
Outside of treasure they also got a couple new skills for themselves or their pets. This time around Lilly got another bubble trap skill for Tank and decided to just keep it and sell it in the auction when people started getting partners in the future. Pet skills would become extremely valuable then. Mr. Hoppy actually got a skill that allowed him to use a poison gas bomb instead of just an acidic one. When the bomb exploded it spread at a ridiculous speed and covered a fairly large area. Luckily it cleared up fast so it wouldn't hamper their attack whenever used. This time around none of her other pets gained any skills so that was a bit of a letdown for her.
Joshua on the other hand got one single skill that was incredibly useless to him in his eyes. It was the shunpo skill that he had seen being sold at the auction earlier. Of course it was a far better version than most of the ones being sold since it had a greater range at level one, but it was completely useless in his opinion. It was too predictable in comparison to the blink skill and he didn't plan on leveling two movement skills at the same time that were so similar. If he was going to level another movement skill he'd rather it be the type with a prolonged effect that increased his speed for a certain time frame. In the end he decided to keep it to see if anyone in his group wanted it, then they headed out of the dungeon.
The first thing Joshua noticed when he came out of the dungeon was the fact that there were no longer any buildings in the area. Everything was completely cleared out from the rubble left from collapsed structures, to the cars left abandoned in the streets. There was nothing left behind including even the pavement for the streets that they use to walk on. All that was in front of him was a large dirt patch where the grass hadn't been given the time to grow over just yet.
"Well when it said it was going to clear out the area it wasn't kidding at all." Lilly said as she looked wide eyed at the space. The only thing left was the door to the dungeon that they had just come out of.
"I wasn't expecting it to take the street and other pavements as well." Joshua said looking a little surprised as he kicked up a little dirt to inspect it. Even the underground piping was removed and pact in with dirt to keep the ground even. He was certain that the system could replace all this with new stuff but it was still surprising nonetheless.
"Well then why don't we check out what else the system has to offer for it before getting the wall and defenses started? I know you want to let Henry figure all of that out, but we can still try to have some idea of the price we'll need to pay and everything." Lilly said getting a small nod from Joshua in return. He brought up the map so that he could go straight into the territory building system. He made it public so that Lilly could watch along as he went past the clearing portion of the system and went to the town structure portion first. He already had a good idea of what he wanted to do for the defenses at the moment, so he'd put that off for now.
When they were going through the building structure portion of the territory building system they noticed quite a few things after spending only a few minutes searching through it. The first thing he noticed was the fact that piping and street pavements were separate from building structures and they were going to have to pay for that as well if they didn't want their entire territory to have sanitary issues in the future. Luckily it didn't cost all that much money to create waterways and sewer systems. There was even a magical portion of these systems that cleaned the water and got rid of the excess materials without damaging the surroundings. There weren't going to be any polluted waters going forward in the world and it was clear the system was supporting that fact.
The next thing they noticed was the large variety of building structures that could be put together. There were some buildings such as hospitals or fire and police departments that had a limit to the amount you could have in one town. He was certain that the amount would change depending on how big the town was, but since this town was relatively small there was a limit of one of each along with one town hall. He also noticed that outside of these essential buildings all the other structures were straightforward. If you wanted to build a movie theater or something along those lines you would have to get all the materials for that yourself since the system didn't build that for you. Joshua wasn't sure what the reason for that was, but he was certain that it would probably be explained in the future.
The last thing he took notice of was the fact that every building was powered by solar energy instead of electricity. The buildings could either have their own solar panels on the roof or they could get energy from the town solar farm if necessary. He'd have to build one of those close by to power the town properly, luckily these solar panels were far more advanced than anything Joshua had heard of before. One panel could power a building for a week with just one day's worth of sun light, so he wasn't worried about the weather having too much of an effect on the town's energy supply. James Town was going to be one hundred percent run on green energy. Hell after having to fight monsters literally made by the pollution humans had created over the years Joshua sure as hell wasn't going to start burning oil any time soon.
After looking through all of the different structures and buildings made available Joshua realized the price would be fairly heavy, but he had more than enough saved up on his own to pay for the town. Even so he was certain the others would probably chip in a little, but he wasn't all that worried about it. In all honesty it would only take a few dungeon runs to pay off everything and he was certain that they'd have that all ironed out within a couple of months. He decided to start the building of the wall and defenses since they had already checked through all of the other stuff at that point. He led the group out of the town before having the system start to build the four story high wall. It was more than big enough to hold off any beast in the area and the turrets placed on it would be able to take care of any flying enemies that decided to get involved.
They could see several robots come out of a large portal that was similar to the ones they had seen before that took away all of the rubble. This time around hundreds of robots came pouring out of them first and then stacks of materials started to be dropped nearby for the little robots to work with. After a few minutes they got started and Joshua and Lilly were amazed at the speed the things worked at. They were like ants being able to lift up things several times their size and they put that feature to good use as they started putting together the first piece of the wall. In the first ten minutes alone they already had the first little section set up. This part was a little different from most of the wall since it had an extra story worth of stuff put on top and was the first turret section of the wall. It wasn't functional quite yet, but he could already see several robots on the top putting it together.
"Looks like the place will already have some defenses ready to go." Tank said as he looked in wonder at the massive turret being placed. The bullets on the turret probably wouldn't break through his shell right away, but they would slowly wear him down. He was also certain that he would be in grave danger the moment he popped his head out while being targeted by that thing. Those bullets were armor piercing which was a must against all the monsters in the wild that now either had protective feathers like a lot of the giant birds or extremely hard exoskeletons like the insects. Even the regular beast usually had tough hide that would be hard pressed to be damaged with regular bullets.
"That's a good thing. Even if at the moment there really isn't anything to be destroyed." Lilly said with a smile as she looked over what once was a small town that now looked like nothing more than an enormous vacant lot. "We don't want to come back to find beast swarming all over the area and have to clear them out again."
"True, I highly doubt they will want to come towards that turret. I'm guessing it must give off a sense of danger to beast like you Tank?" Joshua asked.
"Yeah I feel a little threatened by it, but since I'm a part of your group it is probably a very small amount of what other beast will feel the moment they come into the area. I'd expect it to feel similar to the killing intent some of the beast we've faced give off." Tank explained while humming a bit giving off his usual rumble.
"Well if one turret already gives that feeling then I'm sure that the twelve that will be built all along the wall will only make that greater. It should keep any birds from the mountain range from having any interest in coming down here to check things out." Joshua said with a relieved sigh. Joshua knew that the system made it to where birds weren't able to just randomly fly around and attack people. They were more territorial now instead so they tended to only come out when they were hunting for food and that usually consisted of far bigger things than humans. If birds could just attack wherever whenever then you'd see level eighty plus birds flying all over the world and killing people in any area. Beginner areas wouldn't be safe and territories would be under constant attacks if large birds found humans as a primary source of food. The world and system wanted to make people stronger not kill them all off, at least not yet.
Joshua watched as the robots split into two groups each starting to build a portion of the wall with the already built section being the center for them to build out from. The system said it would take a couple of days for the wall to be completely built and then it would start the defensive robot production and barrier construction as well. The only things Joshua had decided to get for now were all the defenses and a stable for monsters that were going to help protect the town. The stable was like a soul realm in its own so it wouldn't take up to much space. Now that everything was set it was time to head out and get as much done as possible before going back to the hub city. They had some new areas to explore.