From there, much of the day passed in a blur. They drank a little bit over two hours, nobody got more than a slight bit tipsy, then John went to that second Q&A panel. It was a good but not particularly noteworthy time, even with Maximillian attending as a surprise guest. They walked around the festival for the rest of the day, sometimes splintering into smaller groups, sometimes dragging the Gamer inside an empty tent to suck his dick.

Having a bunch of high Libido lovers really paid off. That his dick had essentially turned into an orgasm dispenser (as unflattering as that sounded) helped with the motivation to suck him off. Negative side was that, by the time the sun set, every last girl knew about his new commanding and flirting passives, as well as his further improved cum. Well, more than half of them had known already, everyone that was in the barrier with him, but he had still looked forward to surprising some of them.

Between keeping a moderate surprise and getting his dick sucked though… easy choice. He still had one thing he hadn’t shown them yet, so he wasn’t going to show up completely without new things.

Now that the day had turned into night and his birthday slowly came to an end, there was just one more public event he had to attend. It was also going to be the longest one. Once more, he got up on the large stage by the Harbour. On the back of the stage, as well as the sides, large screens enabled people further at the back to easily see what was going on.

He was alone on the stage. As to why, he wasn’t in the know. The things he was going to do on stage could have profited from some input by his harem, but they had collectively refused the offer to come up there with him. Something was obviously up. With the day approaching its end, he had a rough idea.

Regardless, with or without them, this would take quite a bit of time, so he just started. “Okay, welcome to today’s final event. I hope you all had a lot of fun, because I sure did. Now, I don’t want to waste your time, so let’s just jump right into it…” John announced, only to have the screen behind him suddenly black out. Something he only noticed because several people in the crowd started shouting about it.

“Ah, the wonders of Murphy’s Law…” he mumbled into the microphone. “Well, good thing we don’t need the screen for that first part, so we’re just going to continue with the program while the technicians fix things up.”

The crowd seemed not to mind either way, and so John just gathered his breath. It was a truly good thing that he hadn’t thrown all his Stats into just Intellect and Wisdom. He would have stayed calm with those, but only Charisma allowed him to really find the words fluidly despite the interruption of his plans.

“As you all should be aware, I have game themed powers. This extends into basically every aspect of my life, including this here space called the Guild Hall.” He walked up and down the stage to give his speech a level of casualness and a dynamic appearance. At the same time, he did the proper thing when giving a speech, ignoring the crowd as a whole and looking at the individuals that made it up. Looking from one face to the next, he was able to get a good idea of the general mood. The fewer people he spotted looking down on their phones or something like that, the better he was doing.

“And as my GUILD Hall is affected, me governing a GUILD also falls under game mechanics. I would tell you about all the boring, long-winded details…” he made sure to take the steps especially heavy and slouching as he said those words, “…but it could be in the interest of national security to keep things ambiguous.” He grinned at the crowd. “Plus, you know, boring and long-winded. I don’t think any of you are here for the school experience.”

He continued to walk. “Now, here is what you need to know: whenever I fill out a category of Guild Perks, the Guild Hall upgrades. I have withheld from investing into the category I want because it could cause a window to pop-up for all of the guild masters of guilds that are members of Fusion. All of those now had a bunch of time to read the email I sent out regarding this. Some of them may even be watching the livestream right now. In which case,” John waved at the camera, “hello, hope you’re doing fine right now. Especially you, Ahanu, I still owe you!”

That got some whistles from a subset of the crowd. It appeared a few members of the Hidden Tradition had made the trip all the way to the festival. Given that their leader was rather popular, it was expected that they honoured the mention of his name.

While he let those people calm down, John quickly opened his Game Points Store. As it was right now, he had three Guild Perks. For 1000 GP, he could buy one Guild Perk. Maybe that wasn’t the best way to spend those, but he had 1115 and upgrading the Guild Hall right then was something he had already decided to do. The only thing he wanted to buy more than a maxed out Guild Hall were more Class Levels, and those cost 5000.

The quicker he got a better Guild Hall and improved Buildings, the more money he would generate over time. Increasing the economic base of Fusion was never a bad idea. “Okay then, here we go,” John announced and tapped the first level of the Diplomacy category of his Guild Perks.

The first thing that happened was that he got a message himself that asked him whether he wanted the Little Maryland to join the Federation known as Fusion. ‘Funny that the system even asks me that, but I guess it makes sense,’ John thought, confirming the choice, then confirming a second time for the Small Lake Pact. At the same moment, a number of other windows rolled in, telling him who had all accepted the invitation. He only paid attention to the big names. Magoi’s sub-guild was in there, as was the Hidden Tradition and Amacat. Some very small, local guilds denied it. John assumed they were startled and had no idea what was going on.

As he got no denial by things like ‘Niagara denied the invitation’, he could assume it had only gone out to the guilds that inhabited the space Fusion currently owned, directly or indirectly. It went exactly as John had thought it would go, so he was quite happy. Without much further thought, he tapped the remaining three Guild Perks in the category.

John quickly read the list of things the Federation actually did, as the description on the Perk itself had been rather scarce. It was a small list of important things. A list (already adjusted for the fourth Diplomacy Perk) that he didn’t share on the livestream, but internalized after one reading.

1. Members of the Federation could use the Training Room to train up to level 25.
2. People in the Federation took 50% less damage from friendly fire during engagements with an opposing faction.
3. People in the Federation now had a 10% chance to send a small amount of money to the Guild Funds and an even smaller chance to drop an item whenever they killed a monster inside an Illusion Barrier (Natural or otherwise). The amount of money and strength of the item would scale with the difficulty of the monster.
4. Leaders of member guilds were now able to use the Perk enabled Buildings in the Guild Hall, aside from the Training Room. Currently this was just the Transmutation Forge and the newly gained Embassy.

“Alright!” he picked it up, before things got too boring for the people in the crowd, that just saw him tap invisible windows in the air. “That was successful, now to the exciting part!” He turned to the screen, which flickered back to life. What was displayed was no longer John, but instead a view of Liberty Island from far above. The video feed was accomplished by strapping a camera onto the Mandala Sphere. That it managed to send all the data back was nothing short of miraculous, but modern drone technology was just that good.

“Wonderful, it works. Alright, keep your eyes on the screen, but don’t forget to look around to witness things with your own eyes, cameras are just a substitute for the genuine thing.” John smirked as he hovered over the button that confirmed the Guild Hall upgrade to Tier 3. “There is going to be something beautiful in a second.”

He pushed the button. What was normally invisible, the cylinder-shaped borders of the Guild Hall barrier, suddenly turned into a spectacle of colours. As if somebody had liquified a rainbow or upped the colour intensity on a soap bubble mixture, the whole thing shifted around, colours drifting through each other but never truly mixing. Then the cylinder began to expand. The 400-metre-wide thing stretched further and further, until it had more than doubled in size, going to a full kilometre. Then, the spectacle flared away again, leaving only the darkness of the night.

John hadn’t planned to upgrade the Guild Hall during this even originally, only to get the Federation thing done. While Scarlett had planned all of this, he hadn’t had the necessary Guild Perks to do this. However, since the opportunity had arisen, he had taken it. He would make sure the technical staff that stayed past the originally planned hours would receive a nice bonus.

“And now, we have a lot more space to work with,” John pulled the attention of the awestruck crowd back to himself. For the sake of a simple demonstration, he opened the Guild Hall map and drew a line of land, where he previously couldn’t. The Mandala Sphere turned to catch it spawning once John hit confirm. There was an adequate amount of surprise. Not everyone here had caught the last time John had gone through a Guild Hall upgrade. Even if they had, the ability to just create a landmass at the press of a button was odd even for John.

‘Now how much do I actually have to work with,’ the Gamer went to check his new Room Slot maximum and the amount of mana the Guild Heart provided him with. The answers were unequally insane. His Room Slot maximum increased by 500, from 257 to 757 (basically tripling, were it not for the few Room Slots he had acquired by other means than natural progression), while the Guild Heart quadrupled its output to 200’000 mana.

‘Oh, that will be useful,’ John thought and pressed the yes button. Normally, Buildings couldn’t be modified or even placed if a person or foreign object was in the way. It was also disabled strictly if there was a combat situation. ‘I won’t have to stop with basic island design then. More to show off,’ he grinned, pleased to have a crowd to impress. “Alright, here were go!”

John did his best to not pay attention to how the billions he had earned recently, through the Raid, other Instant Dungeons, selling things in general and taxes, were going right back down the drain. First off, he doubled the diameter of the island. He tried to keep it somewhat round, but that was quite difficult drawing with his finger. Every time he pressed the confirm button, the people watching let out a series of ‘OOOooooh’ and ‘Wooooow’.

If it didn’t cost so much money, John would have played around for their reactions, but he wasn’t vain enough to waste millions to get a laugh out of people by scribbling a dick into the river. He was thinking about it though.

After he had extended the original shape to fit better into the new kilometre he had to play with, he wasn’t quite satisfied. It was just round, the hollow area in the northeast for the Harbour notwithstanding. After some thinking, he added some bumps here and there for a bit more asymmetry. Also an extra lake in the Park, an extra beach at the Residential area and six decorative lakes around his own Palace.

Happier with that look, he checked which new buildings he wanted. His eyes first turned to the Production district. Obviously, the money-making apparatus of his Guild Hall was going to receive the highest amount of attention.

Mine (Room Slot Cost: 35. Mana Maintenance: 25’000): His first upgrade, it increased the size of the visible Building. In proper terms that meant that the miniature mountain became a very small mountain, with an extra two buildings joining the two that had already been in front of the entrance. Under the surface, it was as expected: more floors were added to find more valuable metals in. There was a mention in the description of creatures lurking on the lower floors, so he would send some trained personnel down there to check things out before he opened the floors to the general miner.

Farm (Room Slot Cost: 30. Mana Maintenance: 10’000): As always, the Farm itself actually did not receive upgrades. It was just that new, better segments to attach to it were unlocked. The sole goal John had for the farm was a Turkheir farm, though, so he wasn’t under any pressing issue to improve the Farm. Regardless, he extended the farm with several different kinds of grain (some of which he had never heard before) and added some animal shelters that would supply different kinds of meat. The idea was to have enough supplies generated by the Building that he could easily feed a few dozen people on them alone. Just in case there was ever a siege situation.

Logging Camp (Room Slot Cost: 30. Mana Maintenance: 20’000): Last time around, there hadn’t been enough Room Slots or mana left to make the Logging Camp more than Tier 1. As such, an upgrade to Tier 3 was tremendous. Lower level trees, being those normal or just slightly magical, would grow at a quicker rate than before, while new, properly magical trees would also grow. Unlike the Mine, they would be quite easy to find, the thing was to let them grow to the optimal stage before felling them. John imagined that, like all other Production Buildings, Tier 4 would get the really rare resources and Tier 5 the downright legendary ones.

With the three present Buildings upgraded, he also added 4 new ones.

Oil Tower (Room Slot Cost: 20. Mana Maintenance: 20’000): This Building created oils. Not oil in the sense of things that were pumped out of the ground. At least not exclusively. Rather, the Oil Tower could be used to refine any sort of magical, oily substance. And by ‘refine’ the Building of course meant ‘create out of nothing’, although the description said it would go tremendously faster if the actual source was provided. The Building could be set to produce a number of different substances passively, in parallel or just focusing on one. Of the highest rarity stuff it could produce, it didn’t even provide a litre a day. Not exactly unfair, what it could make was of considerably high and reliable value.

It had to be added that John didn’t choose this Building for the money though. Instead, he had seen that it could provide him with numerous things needed in the production of the cologne of Nathalia’s recipe. It was entirely selfish in origin. Not that he wasn’t willing to make money off it, once he had what he wanted.

Herb House (Room Slot Cost: 20. Mana Maintenance: 10’000): Operating on the same function as the Farm, the Herb House supplied herbs and other rare plants depending on what sort of extensions he bought for it. This was also quite selfish, as this supplied him with yet more ingredients for the cologne. Plus, the most basic thing he bought was a small marijuana patch. Exclusively for private use. Private use being that he wanted to surprise Rave with it, who had at least smoked pot before. Also, he was a bit curious himself. There were also a number of different herbs that could be used for massage oils or shampoos or to have extra fun sexy times.

Fishery (Room Slot Cost: 50. Mana Maintenance: 60’000): This one was exceptionally costly, but it did make a lot of sense. What it was, basically, was a Mine that created exclusively living targets. The Fishery had to be placed on a coast or a very large lake. So large that John would have needed to rethink his entire layout, if he had wanted to do that. Every day, like the Mine, fish would spawn in swarms, some rarer and smaller than others. If given the necessary environment to survive, the fish would stick around, but not leave the confines of the Guild Hall. If they were caught by any other way than the fishing rods the Building provided, the fish would despawn immediately. Same thing if they were killed before they left the water. An auto farm function utilizing nets guaranteed at least some yield every day.

The fish could provide quite a number of things. Food, their scales could contain rare minerals or be good crafting materials themselves, same for their bones and whatever other appendages they might have that could be useful alchemic ingredients. It was useful in a large number of ways. It would also let John employ yet more people.

Silicate Island (Room Slot Cost: 35. Mana Maintenance: 25’000): This was basically like the Logging, except for rocks and crystals rather than wood. All over the island, stone formations would grow, maybe the odd crystal, that could be smashed and taken in. Although the rocks would also be magical, the crystals were the really rare resources. Quite a few gemstones could be won there. As building material, the stones would also serve a number of purposes. The Building had to be placed on its own landmass surrounded by saltwater though, thus giving it the name Silicate Island.

That was all regarding the Production district, but of course there was a whole lot more. Moving onto the Industry area, John fixed one of the more pressing issues first. Namely, that he had more than 300 Room Slots but was already running out of mana.

Mana Factory (Room Slot Cost: 15. Mana Production: 25’000): Turning into white towers with green roofs, the Mana Factories also quadrupled their output. John increased their count from three to six, giving him an extra 150’000 mana to play with.

Mana Storage (Room Slot Cost: 15. Mana Production: 5’000): Just for the extra safety, he also put down this building. Although its own production was much lower, It could save up to 1 million Maybel (that being the official term for what John called MP). The mana could only be used to fuel Guild Hall things, but it would still serve as a nice safety line should something go wrong. Some of the Buildings had potential extra costs, after all.

Transmutation Forge (No Costs): There wasn’t much to say about this Building. There were more materials he could buy with horrendous amounts of money there now, all coming with their own creation time. It was nice to have and, because it was a Building from a Guild Perk, free to upgrade and own. If push came to shove, he could use it to supplement a few other things he needed for the cologne. Generally, it was cheaper to buy them off the Abyss Auction though.

Perfumery (Room Slot Cost: 15. Mana Maintenance: 10’000): The last in John’s ‘I want this cologne!’ line of Buildings. When fed with the necessary ingredients, it would combine them into a well-smelling blend automatically. The end-product could be adjusted and, because it had all the necessary compartments, manual labour there was perfectly possible as well.

Up north from there was the Transportation area.

Harbour (Room Slot Cost: 25. Mana Maintenance: 25’000): Also going up to Tier 3 from 1, the Harbour now had enough room to hold a bunch of ships in addition to John’s yacht. Otherwise, it was just an unimpressive looking assortment of magical piers.

Transport Station (Room Slot Cost: 10. Mana Maintenance: 10’000): The teleporter had its range increased, again, and went up to 7 outposts he could scatter about the Hudson Barrier and its surroundings. The real interesting bit was that it supplied him with an additional 2 endless range teleporters, as previously discussed with Lydia. Whenever he found the time, he would put one down on Servant Island and another around Lydia’s main residence in Berlin.

Scanner (Room Slot Cost: 5. Mana Maintenance: 5000): Easily enough described, the Building scanned incoming vessels in the Harbour for potential dangers. It would alert John to the amount of people on board and any potentially harmful substances. It would also, and that was the really important part, tell John if and where any sort of scrying magic was being used in the confines of his Guild Hall.

In the centre of the Guild Hall, there were quite a few changes.

Palace (Room Slot Cost: 40. Mana Maintenance: 10’000): There were no changes in look or capabilities to the Palace or the star fort it stood on.

Security Station (Room Slot Cost: 20. Mana Maintenance: 5’000): The Sentry Golems had their level increased to 40 and their number rose to 8. They could patrol an additional 10 areas now. A function barely needed anymore, as most remaining gang struggles in New York had long since been dissolved.

Cleaning Station (Room Slot Cost: 20. Mana Maintenance: 5’000): Slime count increased by another 15, making it a total of 40 grey blobs crawling around eating trash.

I.D. Gates (Room Slot Cost: 2. Mana Maintenance: 500): John was still missing a reason to actually upgrade this, so it remained as it was.

To the west and northwest was, then, the Park. It was largely decorative, John had even gone so far as to place some of those spire-like, tree-covered mountains there, and sported only a few Buildings. Quite a few more than in the past, however.

Magoi’s Tower (Room Slot Cost: 20. Mana Maintenance: 5’000): No changes were made to Magoi’s home, just a slight change of place to be closer to the centre. Conversely, that still meant it was further away from John’s home than before, as the relative size of the island had changed more.

Weather Tower (Room Slot Cost: 50. Mana Maintenance: 40’000): Before, the Weather Tower was only able to modify the weather that was already there. Now it could make any weather John wanted inside the Guild Hall. Except that it still had to be within the boundaries of the season. He could make it a very warm winter day, but it would still be a winter day. Future upgrades would change this, but for the moment, he was just happy for the ability to dictate the amount of clouds and when it was allowed to rain.

Menagerie (Room Slot Cost: 15. Mana Maintenance: 5’000): He didn’t get a lot of personal use from this, but the Menagerie did attract some paying visitors, so it wasn’t a total waste of an upgrade. Also, whenever Nia returned, and he had denied her extra cute animals, she would likely very softly drum against his chest with the slightest bit of protest on her blank face. The upgrade increased the number of animals living inside and allowed them to roam around the direct surroundings as well.

Elemental Islands (Room Slot Cost: 60. Mana Maintenance: 30’000): Those were actually 6 Buildings that roughly did the same. They had three functions. Number one, they attracted wild elementals to the place, making it a place where summoners could travel to make contracts. Also a place where John’s elementals could mingle with their kind for a little bit without John having to actually let them go back to their plane. Number two, they would increase the drop rate of elemental infused materials for all Buildings that John had in the Production district. Number three, they actually produced pure elemental essence of their respective element themselves. John had no idea what to do with that, but it sounded quite valuable. Really, the first two reasons had him already sold on them.

He placed the six, quite small, islands off the west coast. There was no particular reason, other than he thought it looked better that way.

Midnight Forest (Room Slot Cost: 5. Mana Maintenance: 5’000): The majority of the forest was not a building. It was just a bunch of trees, just like Newman Shire to the south of it. However, John did place a Fairy Lantern there. It supposedly attracted nature spirits. More interestingly, it made it so it was always midnight in that particular corner of the Guild Hall. It was just a cheap thing that sounded really interesting.

As the last thing, there was the Commercial district.

Training Room (No Cost): Now placed right at the edge to the Transport area, because all Federation members had some reason to get in there and try pumping their level up, even if they had barely more talent than a mundane person. Going up to level 25, ignoring their actual potential being lower than that, was quite valuable.

Embassy (No Cost): Place next to the border of the Central district and just across the street from the Guild Bank. As it would be a reliable method to contact distanced guild members in the future, it was mostly of value to John and his administration.

Guild Bank (Room Slot Cost: 40. Mana Maintenance: 15’000): The Building got bigger, which was good, since John used it as the seat of his administration. Now members of Collide with the necessary access rights all had their own Guild Inventory pocket that they could store things in. Limitation being that it was only usable within the Guild Hall or the adjacent barrier. Access to the actual Guild Inventory was now possible from all conquered territory though.

With that, John still had 134 Room Slots and 42’000 mana to go. He blew all of it quite easily on getting some worthwhile looking Storefronts in the Commercial area, as well as some nice-looking houses in the Residential district, that now actually could be one. The mana was a bit short, but he fixed that by only giving those things the bare necessities. The standard houses and stores were not entitled to the cooling chambers, indoor pools and whatever other luxuries there were in the Palace and Magoi’s tower.

It had to be said that John was basically out of money and bunkered up materials by the end of this endeavour, but it was all worth it. He thought so, at least. The improvements were vast, the potential for future profit immense. It did look quite crowded though.

[Author’s Note: Icons on map do not represent actual Building appearance. The limitations of mapmakers…]

‘Better crowded than underutilized, I say,’ John thought and then finalized his interactions with the crowd. He had been playing off them the entire time, asking if the Building would look better there or over there. It had been all fun and games. Of course he hadn’t explained every last detail of every Building to them, for the same reasons he kept other details secret.

“I wish you all a good night!” he said his goodbye, got a last cheer, and walked off the stage while waving. A few people started the happy birthday song again, but it didn’t catch on and petered out when the Gamer went out of view. ‘I really had enough flattery for the day,’ he said to himself, quite eager to get back home and see what his girls were planning for him.

That was when his phone vibrated in his pocket. Somewhat confused, and surrounded by technicians eager to call it a day themselves, he pulled it out to see who was writing him at this hour. Of all people, she had been one of the last few he had expected.