John continued on with his placing of objects in the northeast, since it was the district he had the least to do himself.

Commercial District:

Shopping Area (Room Slot Cost: Variable – Maximum 350, Maintenance Cost: Variable – Maximum 100’000): Tier 4 had the very nifty feature that he no longer had to place a bunch of Storefront Buildings himself. Instead, he could simply designate an area with a purpose and everything built there would hook up to the system automatically, given that facilities and resources were present. Thus, instead of just putting the same copy-pasted boxes everywhere, he was instead able to leave people to build up a more architecturally diverse neighbourhood. What changes had already been made over the past months, he simply maintained.

Fusion Administration (Room Slot Cost: 50, Maintenance Cost: 25’000): This was, in reality, two Buildings. The good old-fashioned Guild Bank, in which John had been spending his office hours, and the newly acquired Great Archive. Since both were fundamentally places for his administrative duties, the Gamer had joined them at the hips, so to speak. This made the Building even larger, giving more office space to the financial ministry working from there. As per mechanical upgrades, the Guild Inventory was now accessible from EVERYWHERE for John and the individual inventories for each member of Collide could be accessed by them in all conquered territory. Furthermore, every member of the Federation could now create a 5-slot bank account there, but they could only access it if they were within the Guild Bank.

Embassy (Room Slot Cost: 0, Maintenance Cost: 0): No real changes, it just became a tad bigger.

Garden of Sinners: This was an extension of the Shopping Area that deserved its own short mention. Walled off and with only one entrance, the Garden of Sinners was a specific area into which the sexual industry was confined. John wanted the Guild Hall to be family friendly, but he also wanted to be true to himself. As such, this area was not only where all things perverted could be bought and sold, but also would serve as a sort of perverted amusement park where people could live out their broadly acceptable fetishes.

Harbour (Room Slot Cost: 200, Maintenance Cost: 75’000): The Harbour was an interesting case. It was difficult to say that it was actually part of the Commercial district. Taken in its entirety, the Harbour’s mechanics not only covered all of the two coastlines adjacent to the channel east of the Commercial district, but also operated the two large gates that regulated access to that channel. That meant that it covered a water surface about half as large as the Commercial district and was actually attached to two other ones. Regardless, since John got the Harbour done while working on this district, he counted it as part of it in this instance. There was also a development choice here between giving the Harbour the ability to construct small to medium sized vessels, materials and blueprints needed to be supplied, or massively increasing repair speed. John chose the former. It may have been a slow process, slower than the manual equivalent, but having a place that automatically produced ships, particularly of the military variety, was hilariously powerful. That it could only do one at a time was barely a limiting factor.

District Balance:

600 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 0 mana, COSTS 200’000 mana, BALANCE -250’000 mana.

John’s attention shifted west from there, to one of the two large areas of the Guild Hall whose main purpose was looking pretty.

Newman Shire:

Midnight Forest (Room Slot Cost: 10, Maintenance Cost: 10’000): Although John may have been better advised to NOT upgrade the Fairy Lantern and thus invite even more of the whimsical fairies into his domain, he did it anyway. He was the Earl of this court and his pride compelled him to have it thrive as much as the rest of Fusion. A base instinct, but the Gamer found himself at the mercy of it anyway. What he did, however, was isolate the area from everywhere else by means of rocky hills and rivers, leaving only a few paths and a single bridge for people to find their way in. There would be a lot of warning signs around.

District Balance:

10 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 0 mana, COSTS 10’000 mana, BALANCE -10’000 mana.

Having pressed the single button Newman Shire had required, John continued on to the six peninsulas along the west coast of the Guild Hall.

Elemental Islands:

Elemental Shrines (Room Slot Cost: 6 x 20, Maintenance Cost: 6 x 15’000): The upgrade only increased already present bonuses, but given what those bonuses were, that was all John could have asked for. First, there would be more elementals appearing in a larger area and there would be more powerful ones. Second, the occurrence chance for element infused materials increased in all Buildings that created raw materials. Third, the potency of the elemental essences would be doubled. John assumed this meant that the creation of Oblivium and the other five highest-grade elemental metals would be slashed in half by this change, but he couldn’t know for sure until he actually went there.

The Maw (Room Slots: 10, Maintenance Cost: 10’000): The purpose of this Building was pretty simple. It was a giant pit into which items could be thrown and John would receive some reward in return. Essentially, it was a recycling bin for items he didn’t want or found other uses for. The recompense would likely be quite moderate, but John wanted to have something like this around regardless. Because it was thematically appropriate, the Maw was placed on the Shadow Island.

Galewind Tree (Room Slots: 20, Maintenance Cost: 10’000): This had to be placed close to the air shrine as per the Building’s conditions. The leaves, bark, wood and sap of this tree were all harvestable and heavily infused with air properties, and the fruits were delicious, if the description could be trusted. John wanted it in order to have some guaranteed materials to use in his weapon industry. When it came to basic military purposes, Agility boosts, which air was most closely affiliated with, were among the most universally useful.

True Ice Peaks (Room Slots: 20, Maintenance Cost: 10’000): This place was similar to the Galewind Tree, except it was a formation of icebergs with water properties, boosting health and mana regeneration. The ice would also last for a long time, even if left lying in the middle of a summer day, and was therefore perfect for cooling drinks.

Bleeding Mountain (Room Slots: 20, Maintenance Cost: 10’000): A volcano which had two main products. One was lava that remained liquid at room temperature, until treated in ways that caused it to harden, making it a good base for all sorts of projects that required sturdy materials. The second was ash, which could be mingled with regular dirt to enrich the soil. It was more of a utility building than the Galewind Tree or the True Ice Peaks.

Elemental Depths (Room Slots: 50, Maintenance Cost: 25’000): Although its main entrance was on the Earth Island, the Elemental Depths had entrances and exits all over the other Elemental Islands, which changed positions daily. Peculiarly, this Building created a network of tunnels and rooms underneath the islands that summoners could use to face trials and strengthen their bonds to their elementals, potentially triggering an evolution. John would not directly benefit from this. The idea was that it would attract young talent in search of contracts to Fusion and they could then be convinced to join the Federation proper.

District Balance:

250 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 0 mana, COSTS, 155’000 mana, BALANCE -155’000 mana.

With the west coast done, John moved to the areas between the Palace and the Elemental Islands. The first of which was the Park.

The Park:

Magoi’s Tower (Room Slot Cost: 20, Maintenance Cost: 5’000): Unchanged in terms of equipment and relative position to the centre. Magoi spent less than half of his nights there anyway, since he had secured himself a nice plot of land in Manhattan and had a mansion built there. Only when he had a lot of business with John, or if the ongoing construction of that mansion did more noise than he wanted to bear, did he spend time there. John could have feasibly deconstructed it, but it had been around for so long that he thought it was worth it for the nostalgia alone.

Floaters (Room Slot Cost: 25, Maintenance Cost: 500’000): This Building had the theoretic capability to lift chunks of the landscape into the air, creating floating islands. Aside from that looking quite impressive, the reason why John had wanted this Building in particular was that it, at Tier 5, was able to lift up the entire Guild Hall. Keeping islands in the air was absurdly taxing on the maintenance, so it would spend most of the time inactive at the moment and likely most of the future. It was the sort of thing that would be manually switched on or off.

Weather Tower (Room Slot Cost: 75, Maintenance Cost: 75’000): The Weather Tower was now able to create any kind of weather that was appropriate for the kind of biome the Guild Hall was in. According to Rave’s wishes, John fiddled with the settings until he had made it so the majority of days would be summer days with little to no clouds, with the occasional rainy day thrown in there for the mood. Manual overrides could always be enacted.

Menagerie (Room Slot Cost: 25, Maintenance Cost: 10’000): More variety among the cute animals and they could now roam the entirety of the Guild Hall, unless settings were changed to keep them from doing so.

District Balance:

145 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 0 mana, COSTS 590’000 mana (90’000 without Floaters), BALANCE -590’000 mana (-90’000 without Floaters).

Moving slightly south from there, John got to the area of the Guild Hall where he rented out or ‘gifted’ people room to stay.

Residential District:

Housing (Room Slots: 75, Maintenance Cost: 40’000 mana): The black apartment Buildings that dominated the Residential district weren’t as spacious or as luxurious as Magoi’s Tower and therefore consumed a lot less per unit. They were still quite comfy to live in, John made sure of that. Although he had a lot of room he could have expanded this district into, he stopped at a certain point. He had trouble getting the old number of houses filled and he doubted that would change anytime soon. The District Government, although designed more lavishly, was part of the Housing.

Cherry Square: Not a real Building, just a park with eternal cherry blossoms that John placed in the middle of the Residential district to give it some more charm.

Green Greens: Also, not a real Building, just a charming clearing inside a small forest where he installed outdoor grills and stone circles for campfires. To be used by the residents as an outdoor partying spot or as a place to put tents and other attractions during festivals.

Tilgun Bay: Not even a not-real Building that John had placed there. Halfway through working on the Green Greens, the icon of a sea serpent and the text simply sprung up. Either the high dragon was meddling with the Guild Hall or Gaia was screwing with John a little bit. The latter was much, much more likely.

District Balance:

75 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 0 mana, COSTS 40’000 mana, BALANCE, -40’000.

To the south and across the deliberately cheesy named Freedom Channel was an island that housed, in isolation, one production facility.

Silicate Island:

Silicate Fields (Room Slot Cost: 75, Mana Maintenance: 50’000): Name-giving for the island, the Silicate Fields dominated the western half of it. Here, rocks and crystals would continuously grow, to be harvested as building and enchantment materials. The increase in Tier added some more rare materials to the spawning chance and increased the chances for valuable ones from previous upgrades.

Counting Tower (Room Slot Cost: 10, Mana Maintenance: 5’000): This was a lighthouse on the eastern peak of the island, serving two purposes. One, it overlooked any ferries that docked on Silicate Island over the day, a change made to put a bit less traffic into the Harbour, and two, it allowed lifeguards to coordinate their responses over the large beaches that the islands had. If people continued to abuse the endlessly good weather of his Guild Hall for their beach bodies throughout the winter, he would need some more available stretches of sand.

District Balance:

75 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 0 mana, COSTS; 55’000 mana, BALANCE -55’000 mana.

And with all of those out of the way, John got to the two districts that made the Guild Hall the economic powerhouse that it was. He started with the one that was (mostly) about producing raw materials, localized in the south and stretching eastwards.

Production District:

Farm (Room Slot Cost: 70, Maintenance Cost: 50’000): The Farm was extended with a few more fields for different kinds of grain, a fair number of multi-fruit trees that could grow anything sweet and edible that fell from trees, and a shrimp net in the river. Otherwise, it only got an upgrade in the scope of already present operations. Turkheir would finally be on the menu at the next Tier.

Fishery (Room Slot Cost: 70, Maintenance Cost: 50’000): Moving from being on the coast to being on a small island surrounded by a parting river, the Fishery did as basically all upgraded Buildings did and simply increased the rarity of the catchable fish. John got to make the choice whether he wanted to increase the Fishery’s passive yield or to have some fish spawn as giants, relative to their normal sized variants. He picked the latter.

Herb House (Room Slot Cost: 35, Maintenance Cost: 20’000): John added a few modules to the Herb House that allowed it to grow the ingredients required for health potions and some other basic alchemical concoctions. Otherwise, it was left as it was.

Oil Tower (Room Slot Cost: 40, Maintenance Cost: 40’000): Simple expansion to Tier 4, increasing synthesizing speeds and the amount of options.

Perfumery (Room Slot Cost: 30, Maintenance Cost: 20’000): Much like the Oil Tower, there was little to say about the upgrades. If there was anything interesting about it, it was that John decided to place it in the Production rather than the Industry district. While it would be more fitting in the latter category, at least with how John drew the lines, it made fairly little sense to separate it from the Herb House and Oil Tower, given how dependent this Building was on the raw materials they provided.

Logging (Room Slot Cost: 100, Maintenance Cost: 70’000): Upgraded growth speed for lower tier trees, more spawning chances for higher level trees. The usual, with a choice on top. Either John could fuse the Logging with the Midnight Forest, enabling Whimswood to be generated, or he could enable a 0,1% daily spawning chance for trees in the ‘world tree’ category. Mostly because he thought the presence of fairies at the workplace would drastically decrease productivity, John picked the latter.

Mine (Room Slot Cost: 75, Maintenance Cost: 75’000): While, fundamentally, the further depths only offered rarer metals, there was also a warning of kobolds now. John got the choice to either add Tunnel Dragons (a rather weak subspecies but dragons regardless) to the lower floors of the Mine or decrease the power level of all monsters inside. A choice he did not make at that moment, opting to first find out how strong those kobolds were.

Tannery (Room Slot Cost: 30, Maintenance Cost: 20’000): Because of a warning about the smell, John placed this at the edge between Industry and Production district. He wouldn’t be able to do too much with it for the moment, since the only hides he could tan were what remained of Farm animals. Still, this allowed him to do something with those hides, so he liked having this new addition.

District Balance:

450 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 0 mana, COSTS 345’000 mana, BALANCE -345’000 mana.

Only one more district remained on the mainland.

Industry District:

Brewery (Room Slot Cost: 30, Maintenance Cost: 20’000): This place made beer and other liquors. Not much else to say about it. Aside from Scarlett’s insistence that it was never bad to have a reliable alcohol supply, it was also true that booze was a product that was in pretty high demand all over the world at any time.

Weavery (Room Slot Cost: 30, Maintenance Cost: 20’000): Refined wool and other materials to threads, cloth and clothing. Just another Building that diversified the Guild Hall’s spread of produced goods.

Foundry (Room Slot Cost: 30, Maintenance Cost: 25’000): The main purpose of the Foundry was to smelt down the ores from the Mine into ingots, which would fetch a higher price and allow other Buildings to make use of them.

Transmutation Forge (Room Slot Cost: 0, Maintenance Cost: 0): The amount of stuff John could buy for money there increased further and now included all kinds of Baelementium. At a steep price, for sure, but it was, regardless, another reliable access of the powerful metal that John now had.

Mana Factories (Room Slot Cost: 12 x 25, Mana Production: 12 x 60’000): The Mana Factories were a simple necessity to keep everything else running. To keep up with increased demand, John not only upgraded them but doubled the count.

Mana Storage (Room Slot Cost: 30, Mana Production: 10’000): The Mana Storage increased its saving capacity to 10 million Maybel, making it the Guild Hall’s lifeline should supply ever be interrupted.

District Balance:

420 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 730’000 mana, COSTS 65’000 mana, BALANCE +665’000 mana.

Finally, on the new island to the northeast, John placed the newly formed Military district.

Scanner (Room Slot Cost: 10, Maintenance Cost: 10’000): This Building wandered from the dissolved Transportation district to the new Military one. It was attached to the roof of the new Fusion fortress and served to, as the name implied, scan the surroundings for peculiarities and potential dangers.

Fusion Fortress (Room Slot Cost: 80, Maintenance Cost: 50’000): The Fusion Fortress was itself made out of three Buildings. One was the aforementioned Scanner, the second was the Housing necessary to give space to military personnel, and the third was a wonderfully fittingly named ‘Fusion Laser Cannon’. At the cost of 2 million mana per shot, this massive construct would fire a devastating blast with several kilometres of range. John got his very own superweapon and it made him very happy. It could have only been more awesome if it had been attached to the torch of Lady Liberty, from a visual standpoint. When it came to actual symbolism, he didn’t like the image of the symbol of freedom crushing armies with a death ray.

Weapon Manufactory (Room Slot Cost: 30, Maintenance Cost: 30’000): On the condition that blueprints and materials were provided, the Weapon Manufactory could steadily produce offensive equipment of any variety. While the quality was reasonably limited, it was still a reliable mass production and would allow the common soldier of Fusion forces to be the best equipped in the world. Abyssal warfare was largely decided by which side had the most powerful individual mages, rather than numbers. However, having the average person in superior gear was still a considerable advantage as they would operate as occupying forces and, as heartless as it sounded, would be more effective roadblocks.

Training Hall (Room Slot Cost: 0, Maintenance: 0): This Building allowed all members of Collide to train up to level 50 and all members of the Federation to train up to level 25, regardless of potential. The upgrade in Tier simply increased the spread and effectiveness of training methods inside.

District Balance:

120 out of 2’257 Room Slots.

PRODUCES 0 mana, COSTS 90’000 mana, BALANCE -90’000 mana.

Total Balance:

2250 out of 2257 Room Slots in use.

PRODUCES 1’230’000 mana, COSTS 1’650’000 mana (1’150’000 mana with Floaters deactivated), BALANCE -420’000 mana (+80’000 mana with Floaters deactivated).

The end result of it all looked like this.

(Author’s Note: Same as last time, I am using a mapmaker tool – Inkarnate - with limited assets, so don’t take the icons to be accurate representations of the Buildings)