The Stronghold Acquired

Finally, it was done.

Rhode let out a sigh of relief. His whole body felt limp, and his legs could barely support him. The nonstop summoning had consumed a great deal of his soul power, leaving him utterly exhausted. He leaned against the wall to rest for a moment, then walked over to the sculpture, now reduced to a pile of dust, and picked up the longsword lying on the ground. His gaze then fell on a fist-sized crystal nestled among the powder. It was an oval stone, shaped like an egg. It looked dull and gray, and at a glance, it was no different from a pebble by the roadside. But Rhode alone knew that this unremarkable stone was the root cause of the tragedy here.

It was a Soul-Binding Stone, an extremely rare mineral found in Hell. It could absorb the souls of living creatures and influence their thoughts. Devils used it to deceive mortals and claim their souls; it was the perfect tool for their dirty work. Under ordinary circumstances, it was difficult to find one on the surface. Even mages renowned for their vast knowledge rarely managed to obtain such a specimen. It was an exceptionally rare and valuable item—and a dangerous one.

For Rhode, the stone had another very important use: binding souls.

That was the main reason Soul-Binding Stones could fetch astronomical prices in the later stages of the game. At the player's discretion, they could bind the soul of a being the player had killed and convert it into its most primal form. Put more simply, it was a treasure that could be used to artificially create Soul Cores.

In the earlier eras, Soul-Binding Stones were even rarer than Soul Cores, so they never caught on. It wasn't until the final expansion, after the invasion of Hell began, that players started encountering them. Before long, these gems swept across the continent, becoming essential items for many mages and Summon Swordsmen.

Thinking back, Deepstone City had indeed been one of the first forward bases occupied by the devils' armies during the Hell Invasion expansion. At the time, it hadn't seemed strange. But now, with a Soul-Binding Stone in hand, Rhode couldn't help but wonder. Someone must have accidentally dug up one of these stones, setting off all the events that followed. It also seemed to be a veiled hint to players that the bottomless mines of Deepstone City were a passage to Hell.

But there was no need to worry about that yet. The invasion of Hell had been caused by damage to the Dragon Soul Power that covered the continent. For now, the land was peaceful, and the Dragon Soul Power was perfectly intact. Worrying about an invasion of Hell now would be nothing but needless anxiety. With that thought, Rhode put it out of his mind. He bent down, picked up the stone, tucked it into his bag, and began looking for other spoils.

The only disappointment was that Rhode didn't seem to have much luck. He hadn't gotten the dagger Sairiel had carried, "Sigh of Sorrow." It was a half-legendary magic item, with high attack power and additional poison and curse effects. For swordsmen and thieves, it was practically a minor divine artifact. Unfortunately, Rhode's luck clearly wasn't that good. He searched the entire pile of bones, but aside from a faintly glowing magic necklace, he found nothing else.

Rhode didn't make much of it. He merely shrugged and sighed, without taking it too much to heart. After all, his class, Summon Swordsman, was the one most dependent on luck. When it came to fusing spirits, looting corpses, and opening equipment, it was far more random than other classes. That was why Rhode had long since made peace with the odds. In the game, he usually focused only on quest rewards and equipment that bosses were guaranteed to drop. As for rare items that might or might not drop, it was nice to get them—a pleasant surprise—but no big deal if he didn't. The game had to go on, after all.

There was a much-repeated saying on the forums: "There are no useless spells, only useless mages." Rhode thought the same applied to other classes: there were no useless items, only useless players. In the end, skill came down to awareness. Paying players had simply taken an express elevator toward their goal, but eventually, they still had to learn to walk on their own.

Only then did Lize, who had been holding the doorway, feel her whole body go limp. She slid down the wall and sank to the floor.

She had been in fierce battles before, but this one would stay with her. It was the first time she had truly faced an enemy, attacked, and won.

In the final moments, when the sea of bones attacked, Lize had nearly gone all out. She had replenished her shield again and again without pause, then destroyed the arms reaching for her as quickly as she could. It was the first time the girl had fought back so fiercely—though it had looked more like an instinctive response under immense pressure. Even after the battle was completely over, she still couldn't recover from the heightened state she was in. Not even the first time she had truly gone onto a battlefield and fought as part of a mercenary group had left her this nervous and exhilarated.

The girl raised her hands and stared at her palms. The strain had left them almost powerless, and they began to tremble involuntarily. But beneath that deep exhaustion, Lize also felt a faint sense of satisfaction.

She had done it.

A new day had arrived.

When the sun rose again, its bright rays streamed through the dilapidated old house. The place, which had once felt gloomy and dark, no longer seemed evil or terrifying—not even the weed-choked garden outside felt as sinister as it had the night before. Instead, it seemed to hold a hint of life.

Although they were both utterly exhausted, Rhode still pulled himself together and told Lize to return to the Mercenary Association to rest and handle the paperwork for the mercenary group's stronghold. The girl didn't question his order and soon left.

Only after Lize was gone did Rhode finally let out a sigh of relief. He leaned against the wall and opened the mercenary group construction system.

Once it confirmed that Rhode had effectively become the owner of the place, the mercenary group construction system finally revealed the old house's full layout. Apart from the basement, it had three floors. The entire building was shaped like an inverted T. The main building contained a hall, guest rooms, a study, bedrooms, and other rooms, while the annex at the back housed the servants' quarters.

Rhode certainly didn't plan to keep this layout. He was building a mercenary group, not a noble's estate. Besides, most mercenaries came from the lower classes and had at least a little resentment toward the rich. If he made the group's base as luxurious as a noble's mansion, it would feel completely out of place and alienate people, which would be terrible for its development. Naturally, Rhode had his own plans.

Before that, though, Rhode wanted to test how much the real-life mercenary group construction system differed from the one in the game.

After the previous night's chaos, the stronghold's damage rate had reached 35%. Most of the three-dimensional diagram floating before Rhode was a troubling yellow, and some collapsed floors were marked red to indicate critical danger. The most urgent task was to repair the place completely.

Rhode quickly selected the "Repair" option, and a system prompt appeared at once.

[Repair stronghold?]

Yes.

[Complete repairs will cost 15,000 gold coins. Proceed?]

Seeing this, Rhode frowned, then chose "No" without hesitation. Another system prompt quickly appeared.

[Choose repair type—repair building, repair furniture, complete repairs.]

Repair building.

[Repairing the building will cost 500 gold coins. Continue?]

Continue.

At the movement of Rhode's thoughts, the system prompt floating before him vanished.

A golden beam flashed from Rhode's palm, then quickly expanded into a grid that spread across the floor, walls, and ceiling. Everything changed.

The damaged, crumbling walls were repaired in an instant. As the luminous grid swept past, the long-rotted furniture vanished. In the blink of an eye, the hall, once piled with junk and rubbish, had been completely transformed. The floor was free of holes, with nothing but enormous, smooth stone slabs beneath their feet. The decorations and furniture that had once lined the walls had disappeared, leaving only the newly polished shields and swords mounted there.

The deep-red curtains and carpet, riddled with holes from insects, were gone. Sunlight streamed through the new glass windows, bringing a touch of warm spring air into the room.

In less than five minutes, the decrepit old house had been completely transformed. Not a crack remained in its solid walls, and the weeds and sand that had once forced their way through the floorboards were gone. The round wooden staircase, so badly damaged in the battle that it had nearly collapsed beneath a footstep, had been replaced with stone steps that wound upward along the wall and spread out on both sides like wings. Looking around, the entire stronghold had shed its former decrepit appearance. In its place was an imposing, majestic structure.

A black banner hung from the wall at the front of the hall. At its center was a star-shaped cross—the current flag of the mercenary group.

Starlight.

Very good!

Rhode nodded in satisfaction. At least the system worked just as it had in the game, which was all he needed. The only downside was the cost. He had only repaired the building, yet his wallet, which had still been holding up reasonably well, was already starting to shrink.

But Rhode didn't care about the money. After he had figured out the construction system's functions and rules, he quickly activated it again and built the hall, study, and bedroom. Since the mercenary group was still so small, he could only build level-one rooms, but even so, another seven or eight hundred gold coins slipped through his fingers like water. By the time he had finished arranging everything, only 370 of his original 2,500 gold coins remained.

The saying that money flowed like water was certainly true.

Still, Rhode was very satisfied with the stronghold information now displayed before him.

Name: Starlight

Scale: Small

Leader: Rhode Alrand

Members: 1

Stronghold: 1 (Medium)

Level: 1

Reputation: Unknown

Facilities: Hall (Lv. 1: Morale increased by 5%), Study (Lv. 1: Allows investigation of some information about members), Bedroom (Lv. 1: Stamina recovery increased by 5%).

It was done.

After checking all the information, Rhode let out a long sigh and closed his eyes, sitting down on a wooden chair nearby. His right index finger tapped lightly on the armrest. Several minutes passed before he opened his eyes, his expression resolute and determined.

From now on, things were finally moving along the path Rhode had hoped for.