As expected, the two of them were quite interested in the skill, and happily accepted the quest from me when we met up. Without a second thought, they ran off to complete the quests themselves, returning only a few minutes later when they had completed it.

  “What’s your plan now, Drake?” Bella asked curiously, her eyes never leaving my own. “Are we going to stick around Fallcry for a while, or should we go to level up again?”

  I thought about it for a moment, my gaze shifting to Diane. However, she shook her head, as if to say that she didn’t have a particularly strong opinion either way. “Whether we leave or stay, there are plenty of areas nearby to level up,” she explained when she saw my gaze.

  “In that case… I think I’d like to remain in Fallcry for a little while,” I told the two of them, having made up my mind. “First of all, I want to make us a proper house to use while traveling. Secondly, I’d like to be nearby in case anything happens with the dungeons. And also… there’s a project I’ve been thinking about for a little while, and this might just be the chance to see it through.”

  “Oh? What kind of project?” Bella asked, eyes wide. “Your ‘projects’ are never really anything small, so it should be pretty shocking, right?” She let out a light chuckle after asking that, and I smiled wryly.

  “It’s nothing that big. I just want to make a safe path between Fallcry and the Sunset Isles. It’ll be more convenient for everyone involved if they don’t have to pay the teleportation toll every time, even if it does take a little longer.”

  When the two of them heard my goal, their eyes widened slightly. “And… just how are you planning to create this safe path?” Diane asked, though it seemed that she had already guessed the answer.

  “I want to dig a tunnel, wide enough for a caravan to comfortably travel, that extends from one city to another. I’ll need to keep an eye out for monster caves along the way, but I should be able to seal them up if I stumble across one.”

  Bella simply chuckled at that, shaking her head. “Like I said, never a small project. Alright, that should give you plenty to keep you busy for a while. Diane, you want to farm the ice dungeon, just the two of us, while we wait?”

  Diane considered this for a moment before agreeing. “We should be able to farm there without Drake’s buffs now. And I doubt Charlie and the others will mind if we use one of the martial dungeons.”

  With that in mind, our party temporarily disbanded, though we agreed to meet up if anything happened. In truth, there was another reason why I wanted to construct this tunnel. According to my earlier estimates after I built the Sunset Isles, such a tunnel should be enough to push my Instant Fortifications skill to the Grandmaster level. Given what Kelly had told me, that would push me one step closer to receiving the Simulation Training that Kelly mentioned. Not to mention the fact that a grandmaster skill should be powerful enough to aid me considerably in combat.

  With that thought in mind, I made my way to the eastern gate, which led deeper into the mountainous region. The first thing that I did was to create a wide road stretching out roughly a kilometer from the gate, and then make a branching path that carved down into the stone floor before continuing east.

  Once I was down in the tunnel, I shifted into my Dragon King form, planning to use my wingspan in this form as the guide for how wide to make the tunnel. After that, I began to focus, drawing up the plan for the tunnel in my mind. A long, straight path with recessed gaps every dozen meters on both sides and the ceiling, which I would enchant later with glowing stones like torches.

  The floor needed to be nice and smooth, and there had to be enough supports on the walls and ceiling to prevent a cave-in. Only after I had that thought in mind did I proceed forward, applying the design as I walked. At the same time, in the back of my mind, I began activating my regular rotation of training skills, letting their effects trail behind me. I felt a slight pressure on my consciousness from using so many skills at once, but it was not enough to cause any harm. If anything, it was a good way to train my ability to withstand such high levels of multicasting.

  As a precaution, I also summoned my Ki General, who was in charge of fortifying the tunnel behind me and watching for any signs of damage. Thankfully, the summoned entity seemed to be quite a bit more intelligent after it evolved, and was able to handle this task without any issues.

  For the next eight hours, I continued walking in a straight path at a steady rate. Whenever I detected a cave up ahead with Tremorsense-X, I would briefly pause my work to fill it in before continuing. Naturally, my walking speed could not compare to the speed of our flying car, even when I was in this larger form. Thankfully, I had planned to set aside a full week for this project.

  After my ‘shift’ ended, I rushed back to the city, where night had begun to set in. I could see people heading to their homes, preparing to turn in for the night. As for myself, I went to a vacant area beyond the city’s walls and spent another hour working on our future home. I knew that it didn’t need to be anything too extravagant, but I wanted something that we would be happy with moving forward.

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  Only when that hour passed did I return to the palace to rest, planning to begin my work anew the next day. Perhaps because I had already told them my plans, I didn’t see Diane or Bella at the palace when I arrived. Though, given that they’d have to continuously pay the travel fee if they wanted to come back for meals, that was entirely understandable.

  On the second day, I completed my nine hours of work with plenty of time left in the day, and thus began walking through the capital city, curious to see how people were adjusting to all of the new players that had migrated to Fallcry in recent days.

  As I did, an elven player approached me with a bright smile. “King Advent, right?” he asked in a tone far too casual for a normal person when addressing a king. Still, I didn’t really mind that. I didn’t believe that I truly had the ‘mindset’ or the presence of a king to begin with. “My name is Julius. I just arrived in the city yesterday. I was hoping that you’d be able to teach me some skills, if that’s alright?”

  Hearing his request, I arched a brow, briefly checking to confirm that he was really a resident of the nation. Julius was a green-haired elf with blazing red eyes, and a lean, athletic figure. He wore a studded leather jacket and black pants, and had a pair of leather bracers on his arms.

  Realizing that he was actually a citizen of Fallcry, I saw no harm in teaching him something. “I don’t mind. Though, wouldn’t it be easier to get a lesson from Kelly at the training hall?”

  Julius chuckled bitterly, scratching the back of his head. “I went to ask her after I arrived, but she turned me away. She said that she won’t take any students unless they can impress her, and I apparently wasn’t impressive enough for her.”

  My eye twitched, but I nodded my head with a low sigh. “Alright. What type of fighting style do you have? As long as you’re not a mage, I should be able to help.”

  His eyes lit up when I said this, hands clenching into fists. “I mostly fight in melee, using a shortsword. My main elemental skills are Burning Blade, Spark Slash, and Binding Vines. However, although I’m supposed to be a frontline fighter, I have trouble keeping the monster’s aggro focused on me. Whenever I use my taunt skill, the damage I take tends to overwhelm what our healer can keep up with, leading to a wipe.”

  I listened to his concerns, nodding my head as I did. “In that case, there are three skills that I can recommend for you…” As I said that, I opened a menu to begin creating quests for him. “First, you’ll want Dull Pain, a self-healing skill. It’s not great to start, but it will relieve some pressure from your healer.”

  For that skill, I assigned him to recover from a certain number of injuries inflicted by monsters. I didn’t want him just injuring himself to get the skill. “Secondly, you’ll want Killing Stare. It’s another taunt skill, but it also applies a debuff to your targets.” For this, I had him kill twenty monsters that after taunting them.

  “Finally… Fortitude of Nature should help to cover your defenses. It has a high mana burden, so try to use it sparingly. However, it can reinforce your body in a pinch.” Finally, for that, I had him meditate for an hour within a forest.

  Julius seemed excited to learn these three skills, bowing gratefully before running off to complete his new quests. At the same time, other players seemed to notice my willingness to share skills, since three more approached me before I could even reach the palace. I made it clear to any who asked that I would freely help any member of Fallcry as long as I was available.

  Because of this, there were… quite a lot more people that approached me on the third day. Enough that I managed to earn the Instructor skill. Most of them were eager to learn some of my enhancement skills that had allowed me to fight at such a high level despite famously still being only level one.

  Regardless, I only taught novice-level skills when possible, emphasizing that these skills would not have the same level of effect had they not been trained from the ground up. Even if I taught them a master-level skill like Adrenaline Surge, it wouldn’t be as potent for them as it would be if they evolved it from an earlier version.

  Despite this, they were eager to learn. Some of them, like Julius, told me their specific concerns. Using my array of skills, I helped them find one that would compliment their situation and cover their weaknesses.

  However, there were those that approached me with other goals. For instance, there was one woman, a cowfolk with long, black hair, who had heard about the meals that I can produce from the locals. She was a chef training under Ennolf, and hoped that I could teach her the skill that led to that evolution path.

  Even when I warned her that the skill had a very high mana burden, she was firm in her decision. So, I taught her the Create Bread skill, pointing out that she could have learned it from Ennolf. Though, she chuckled dryly, since Ennolf was a player and couldn’t bestow skill quests like I could. In order to learn the skill from him, she would need to first acquire an enchantment skill book, which was hard to come by in the present market.

  Starting from the third day, more and more people began approaching me, as if an invisible wall had fallen down. Wherever I went, people were introducing themselves to me and asking if I could teach them.

  Is this how instructors normally feel? I asked inwardly as I created a quest for an archer girl interested in shooting different types of elemental arrows. At this rate, I had actually become busier when I was just walking around the city than when I was actually building the tunnel or designing our house. That just felt wrong.

  Still, I had said that I would help residents of Fallcry learn new skills while I was free, so I stuck with it. At the very least, it led to the training hall getting more use as people worked on leveling up their new skills.