Night had fallen over Kaelrith.
Yet the Iron Settlement remained alive.
Furnaces burned endlessly in the industrial district while torchlights illuminated the expanding stone roads.
Soldiers patrolled the walls while merchants continued trading late into the evening.
Kaelrith no longer resembled a primitive tribal settlement.
It was becoming a true civilization.
And at the center of it all—
Kaelen sat alone inside his stone chamber.
A blue system screen floated before his eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Population: 15,000
Daily Civilization Point Income:
15,000 Points Per Day
Current Civilization Points:
6,750,000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kaelen stared silently at the massive number.
Even now, it still felt absurd.
Fifteen thousand points.
Every single day.
Every citizen under his rule generated civilization points continuously.
Which meant— the larger Kaelrith grew…
the faster the system itself became stronger.
Kaelen slowly leaned back in his chair thoughtfully.
“Infinite growth…”
At first, he had spent points desperately just to survive.
Back then:
• a single blueprint felt expensive
• even basic knowledge mattered
• every purchase needed careful planning
But now?
Kaelrith had reached fifteen thousand citizens.
And for the past one and a half years, Kaelen barely spent anything.
While the population exploded— his points accumulated endlessly.
Every day:
+15,000 points.
Every month:
+450,000 points.
Year after year— millions.
Now he possessed enough points to buy civilization-changing knowledge.
And Kaelen already knew exactly what Kaelrith lacked most.
Not soldiers.
Not roads.
Not resources.
Knowledge.
Civilizations were built upon knowledge.
Without it— even powerful nations collapsed eventually.
Especially now that Kaelrith had introduced currency.
Kaelen understood something dangerous from his previous life.
Money itself could destroy civilizations if mismanaged.
Inflation.
Economic collapse.
Market instability.
Corruption.
Improper circulation.
Even entire modern nations struggled with those problems.
Kaelrith absolutely could not afford such mistakes.
So Kaelen opened the System Shop once more.
Immediately, thousands upon thousands of categories appeared before him.
The sight still shocked him every time.
Entire civilizations existed inside this system.
Advanced medicine.
Steam technology.
Mechanical engineering.
Agriculture.
Finance.
Military science.
Astronomy.
Law.
Economics.
Everything.
Most advanced technologies still cost absurd amounts.
Some required:
• tens of millions
• hundreds of millions
• even billions of points
Far beyond current Kaelrith.
But books— books were comparatively affordable.
And books contained the foundation of civilization itself.
Kaelen’s eyes settled upon one category.
Economics
The section expanded instantly.
Thousands of books appeared before him.
His eyes widened slightly.
“This many…”
There were books covering:
• currency circulation
• banking systems
• taxation
• inflation control
• market stability
• labor systems
• trade networks
• state finance
• economic growth
• commercial law
Kaelen genuinely felt overwhelmed.
And now— he could buy entire libraries.
Still—
Kaelen didn’t purchase randomly.
He selected carefully.
Foundational knowledge first.
Civilization before advancement.
One after another, system notifications appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Purchase Completed:
Currency Circulation Foundations
Cost:
50,000 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Purchase Completed:
Economic Administration Archive
Cost:
130,000 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Purchase Completed:
Government Financial Systems
Cost:
175,000 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Purchase Completed:
Trade Regulation Collection
Cost:
95,000 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The purchases continued endlessly.
Hours passed quietly inside the room.
Kaelen bought books on:
• economics
• laws
• governance
• administration
• commercial systems
• legal structures
• social order
• labor organization
Thousands of books.
Entire archives of civilization knowledge.
The cost rose rapidly.
Yet Kaelen barely cared.
Knowledge was never a waste.
Finally— after several hours— he stopped.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total Points Spent:
1,200,000
Remaining Civilization Points:
5,550,000
Daily Point Income:
+15,000 Per Day
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kaelen stared at the screen silently.
Even after spending over a million points…
he still possessed more than five million.
And tomorrow— another fifteen thousand points would arrive automatically.
The system itself rewarded civilization growth monstrously.
The larger the nation became— the faster development accelerated.
Kaelen slowly smiled.
Now he truly understood.
The system wasn’t built for survival.
It was built for empire creation.
________________________________________
The next morning— chaos erupted inside the Iron Settlement.
Not because of monsters.
Not because of war.
But because of books.
Thousands upon thousands of books suddenly appeared inside the newly expanded library complex overnight.
Workers nearly panicked.
Scholars lost their minds completely.
Even Mira stood frozen while staring at endless shelves stretching through the massive stone structure.
The library had originally been modest.
Now it resembled the heart of an ancient civilization.
Rows upon rows of shelves extended endlessly.
Leather-bound books.
Massive scroll collections.
Ancient texts.
Advanced writings.
Economics.
Engineering.
Government systems.
Law.
Mathematics.
Trade.
Agriculture.
Administration.
Knowledge itself filled the building.
Lucian Veris slowly walked through the endless aisles like a starving man entering paradise.
His hands visibly trembled.
“Impossible…”
He grabbed several books rapidly.
Then froze while reading their titles.
“Advanced Economic Circulation…”
“Government Structure…” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Commercial Law…”
The scholar slowly turned toward Kaelen with disbelief.
“Where did you obtain all this?”
Kaelen smiled faintly.
“Useful?”
Lucian looked almost offended.
“Useful?!”
He held up a thick finance book.
“This knowledge could reshape nations!”
Kaelen crossed his arms calmly.
“That’s the plan.”
Meanwhile—
Mira Stoneveil already sat on the floor surrounded by engineering and administrative books while muttering calculations under her breath.
Borin Ashhand ignored most sections completely except metallurgy and industrial production texts.
And Ragnar?
Ragnar entered the library…
opened one law book…
stared at it for several seconds…
then immediately walked out.
“Too many damn words.”
Kaelen almost laughed.
________________________________________
Over the following weeks—
Kaelrith changed once again.
Not physically.
Mentally.
Scholar groups formed under Lucian.
Administrative systems improved.
Currency regulations became more organized.
Construction standards appeared.
Market laws stabilized trade.
For the first time—
Kaelrith began evolving from:
a strong settlement…
into a functioning state.
And Kaelen himself spent countless nights reading.
Economics fascinated him deeply.
The balance between:
• labor
• production
• population
• trade
• currency
• resources truly determined civilization growth.
Too much currency caused inflation.
Too little slowed trade.
Too much taxation caused unrest.
Too little weakened government.
Civilization itself was delicate.
Complicated.
Dangerous.
And honestly—
Kaelen loved it.
Because unlike brute force— building civilization required intelligence.
________________________________________
Several nights later, Kaelen sat alone again while reading beside candlelight.
Books surrounded him endlessly.
Yet despite purchasing thousands of texts— his civilization points continued growing daily.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Civilization Points:
5,655,000
Daily Income:
+15,000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kaelen stared at the screen thoughtfully.
Even while spending massively— his points continuously recovered.
A civilization truly generated terrifying wealth over time.
Kaelen slowly leaned back.
“So…”
“Where should I spend next?”
Military?
Medicine?
Agriculture?
Infrastructure?
Industry?
Magic?
The possibilities were endless.
Then suddenly— his eyes narrowed slightly.
Medicine.
Kaelrith’s greatest weakness remained obvious.
People still died too easily.
Infections.
Diseases.
Childbirth complications.
Simple wounds.
Compared to infrastructure and military growth— medicine lagged terribly.
Kaelen slowly smiled faintly.
“…Perhaps that should be next.”
Because healthy citizens built stronger civilizations.
And outside his chamber windows— the lights of Kaelrith continued illuminating the night like the rising heart of a future empire.
Author’s Note:
Thank you all for reading and supporting my stories!
• Chapter 17—
If you enjoy my work, please join me on this journey and support the rise of Kaelrith!
Thank you everyone!