Chương 79: CHAPTER 78 — Claiming the South

Mark woke up to activity already going on. Ava was making breakfast, and from the looks of it, this was maybe her first time. It looked a little crunchy, but he was not going to say anything he was sure missing Dale's cooking right about now, though. Garrick and Mara were talking about placements. Where roads should go and where fields should go; where towers could be built so they could see for miles in every direction. Garrick was pointing out where some of the cabins would go.

He had staked out a few locations as if he were going to start building today. But they had other things to do today. Mark asked Garrick.

"So what are you doing?"

"Planning, of course, we are going to build a city, remember?" Garrick said. Mark replied.

"I do remember we picked here to build the village, but we still need to survey the rest of the zone first." The group finished up eating breakfast, stowed all their gear, and set out heading northeast. They traveled for quite a while and then had to ford another stream. Shortly after passing the stream, the wheat field ended. In front of them was open grassland; it looked beautiful. Garrick said.

"Looks like this would be great grazing land. We just need a herd of horses and cattle." They continued heading north until they could see the edge of the grasslands, where they ran into the marsh that was in the zone above. They looked around for a while, Ava and Bramble scouting on the ground and Swoop scouting by air. The land was open for miles and would be fantastic grazing land. They finally headed back south towards the lake.

As they traveled, they marveled at the wonderful land there, and no one was here claiming it. When they finally got near to the water, they realized that the lake on the eastern side was more marsh than lake. Garrick had that look on his face again. He was looking west and a little north to where their future village would be. Then west and south to where the river mill would be located. Then he looked off into the marsh. Finally, he looked at Mark.

"Here will be the easternmost outpost in the zone. Great place for gathering reed and fiber. Fishing and foraging and herbalism and alchemy resources. We can have 2 roads heading west: one leaving going north and then gradually turning west and going to the main village, and the other heading west and then south heading toward the river mill." Mark, Ava, and Mara all looked around. They were envisioning what Garrick had told them. They could picture the roads and the outpost; all of them seemed to agree.

Ava let them know that Swoop said this was also a good feeding ground. Swoop did warn Ava, though, that something big was in the south end of the swamp. Dangerous but not traveling; settled in one place. Mark thought about that revelation, which is the first sign of any possible future danger in the zone. But it was nothing they needed to deal with today and something they could handle when the time was right. They then continued east.

following the edge of the marsh and then traveling south to find the end of the marsh and lake. The traveling was hard and slow, as it was rough terrain. No trails or easy paths. The east side of the swamp ended in a rugged forest, and they followed the line between the two of them. As they hit the end of the marsh and headed west, Swoop let Ava know the general direction of the thing in the swamp.

It was not near the edge, and they never got sight of what it was but would remember it, maybe sending an expedition through the marsh sometime to find it. Mark received a system message somewhere along the route but did not check it until he wanted to bring up his map to check their progress. [Point of Interest Surveyed] If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Eastern Marshlands • Herbal Resource Potential Identified • Marsh Waterways Added to Regional Maps • Future Settlement Viability: Limited • Outpost Viability: Moderate Mark could see the new village on the map, and the area they had traveled was now visible, along with a red X labeled "danger" inside the marsh. They continued west until they hit the center of the lake on the southern side. This is where the marsh ended and they were back on dry and easier-to-travel areas.

There was a large river leading south out of the lake. It was big enough that it could be traversed by boat. Mark made note of that so one day they could plan a future trip down the river, but for now they just continued around the lake. The area was beautiful. He knew that there would be some that wanted to live out there alone by themselves, and the stretch heading west would make a good place to build away from others. They finally made it back to where the fishing village would be.

The lake was huge; it had taken the whole day to just go around the backside of the lake. The group was looking around for a good place to camp for the night when Mark got a new system message. [Regional Survey Milestone Reached] Southern Wheat Plains Region Survey Completion: 78% Then another message showed up.

[Zone Control Increased] Southern Wheat Plains Region Control Rating: 23% → 41% New Regional Information Unlocked: • Major Waterways • Terrain Stability Estimates • Flood Risk Areas • Agricultural Density Mapping • Future Road Efficiency Calculations Regional Benefits: • Minor Reduction in Future Construction Costs • Improved Road Placement Accuracy • Increased Map Detail • Faster Survey Progress Within Controlled Areas Steward Bonus: Regional planning and infrastructure development recognized.

Contribution toward future class advancement increased. Mark was finally starting to understand about his class. It was not about ownership but about helping civilization spread and survive. Mark gathered up the others and let them know about the message and bonuses for the region after getting the survey completed enough to unlock. Garrick was excited about the implications and the benefits.

His class was also getting near another level complete, and he was hoping for maybe an evolution of his class from the standard carpenter to something more. Mark then brought up the map and looked at all the details it now showed. It had almost all areas of the zone now revealed. All the roads and villages they had talked and planned about were marked. There were now new options to show him flood risk, and he could see that the area he first wanted to place the village in was the wrong spot.

There was a high concentration of flood risk there. He could see which areas had more stable terrain. Where they would need bigger or better foundations if they wanted to build because of stability. There was an option to go over all the major waterways, and he could see flow speeds and fish density. He brought up the road efficiency and saw that it had planned routes, but no construction was done, so efficiency was zero. Then it just hit him.

After the fight with the alpha, he had gotten a similar update message on the other zone, and he had never looked at it. He quickly switched to the tab for that zone, and the options were grayed out, indicating that he had to be in the zone to use those options. Now he wanted to rush back to Forest's Rest and check out what controls were open there and what they did.