Clang, clang, clang!
A harsh alarm suddenly rang.
Leo opened his eyes.
The sky outside the window was gloomy.
Six hours.
He had slept deeply.
Leo grabbed the bottle of water beside his bed and gulped down several mouthfuls.
Then he rushed into the bathroom.
Cold water splashed hard against his face.
His eyes were still bloodshot in the mirror.
“Come on.”
Leo patted his cheeks.
“Wake up.”
“It’s not time to relax yet!”
He quickly washed up, changed his clothes, and climbed into the game pod.
The pod door closed.
His consciousness quickly sank.
[Welcome back to Galaxy, Lord Leo!]
The familiar wasteland appeared before his eyes.
Immediately afterward, System notifications began popping up one after another.
[First-day settlement completed!]
[Congratulations, Lord Leo, for ranking first on the first-day novice speedrun leaderboard!]
[Reward: A-Rank Military Building Blueprint × 1!]
[Gold Coins × 1,000!]
“It’s here!”
Leo’s eyes lit up.
A-Rank!
It was only the second day since the server had launched.
What did a A-Rank Military Building Blueprint represent?
Units up to Tier 6!
Most players currently treated even D-Rank barracks like priceless treasures.
Yet he had already obtained his second Grade A military building!
Golden light appeared.
The blueprint rapidly changed.
The original building completely disappeared.
In its place, a massive stone fortress appeared in the center of the blueprint.
A black cross emblem hung high above it.
Countless towering figures stood on the fortress walls.
[Transformation successful!]
[A-Rank Black Templars Monastery!]
Leo’s breathing stopped for a fraction of a second.
“Holy shit!”
“Black Templars?!”
One of the most famous successor chapters of the Imperial Fists.
One of the strongest chapters to emerge after the Second Founding!
Eternal Crusades!
Black Swords!
Emperor’s Champions!
Old-school Warhammer players had even nicknamed them the “Black Orks.”
Leo immediately opened the unit list.
[Tier 1: Chapter Serfs]
[Tier 2: Servitor]
[Tier 3: Black Templar Neophytes]
[Tier 4: Black Templar Initiates]
[Tier 4: Black Templar Battle Brother]
[Tier 4: Black Templar Crusader Squad]
[Composition: 1 Battle Brother, 8 Initiates, 8 Neophytes]
[Tier 4: Black Templar Chaplain]
[Tier 4: Apothecary]
[Tier 4: Techmarine]
[Tier 4: Rhino Armored Personnel Carrier]
[Tier 5: Eradicators]
[Tier 5: Assault Terminators]
[Tier 5: Aggressors]
[Tier 5: Impulsor Tank]
[Tier 6: Redemptor Dreadnought]
[Tier 6: Land Raider Crusader]
Leo looked through the entire list.
The corners of his mouth slowly curled upward.
Astartes!
True Space Marines!
There was just one problem…
The price seemed a little…
“Twice as much…”
Leo’s eyelids twitched.
Expensive.
So fucking expensive.
But then he thought about the power armor.
The physical abilities of the Astartes.
The Veteran Astartes.
The Terminators.
The Dreadnoughts.
“Worth it!”
Resources were meant to be turned into combat power!
Besides, Leo no longer had to worry about running out of ways to obtain resources.
The System log continued refreshing.
He had been away from the game for around seven hours.
The old resource points had continued producing the entire time.
[Tier 1 Gold Mine × 2]
[Seven-hour output: 210 Gold Coins!]
[Tier 4 Gold Mine]
[Seven-hour output: 3,150 Gold Coins!]
[Tier 2 Iron Mine]
[Seven-hour output: 630 Iron!]
Just from the mining areas that were already operating normally…
Seven hours had produced:
[Gold Coins: +3,360]
[Iron: +630]
And that was in addition to the 1,000 Gold Coins he received from the first-day ranking.
Leo’s current warehouse had reached:
[Gold Coins: 18,908]
[Iron: 18,468]
[Wood: 9,805]
[Food: 22,510]
[Mercury: 820]
[Crystal: 838]
[Sulfur: 855]
[Gems: 830]
As for the resource points he had conquered during those seven hours…
Their occupation times were different.
Labor had not yet been fully assigned to all of them.
So Leo didn’t simply calculate their output as if they had been operating for seven full hours.
What really caught his attention was the map.
After waking up from his sleep, large areas of black fog had already disappeared!
The Rangers’ vision.
Yarrick’s army.
His own troops.
They were all continuously exploring.
Leo clicked on the battle report Yarrick had sent.
The first thing he saw was the list of newly discovered resource points.
[Tier 3 Iron Mine × 1]
[Tier 3 Gem Mine × 1]
[Tier 2 Iron Mine × 3]
[Tier 2 Gold Mine × 1]
[Tier 2 Crystal Mine × 1]
[Tier 1 Gold Mine × 3]
[Tier 1 Iron Mine × 3]
[Small Ork Camp Destroyed: 2]
Leo’s eyes lit up.
But that wasn’t all.
[Accumulated Military Achievements gained in this expansion: 5,660!]
[Obtained D-Rank Resource Building Blueprints: 3]
“Awesome!”
Seven hours!
Yarrick had practically plowed through the entire western region!
There was also some bad news.
[No towns discovered yet.]
Leo frowned slightly.
Towns weren’t easy to find.
That was normal.
The map was simply too huge.
Fifty kilometers of exploration was practically nothing.
Yarrick had also discovered three player territories.
However, he hadn’t attacked them yet.
Leo continued reading.
The smile on his face slowly disappeared.
[Remaining Regular Steel Legion Infantry: 50]
Fifty.
Leo fell silent.
When Yarrick had set out, he still had four hundred Steel Legion Infantry under his command.
Now only fifty remained.
A full 350 soldiers had died during those seven hours of continuous warfare.
In exchange…
More than a dozen resource points.
Two Ork camps.
Three player coordinates.
Indeed.
Sacrifice was the foundation of the Imperium.
Resources wouldn’t walk into the warehouse by themselves.
The map wouldn’t reveal itself on its own, either.
Behind every single marker…
There was a life.
Leo closed the battle report.
His northern troops hadn’t had it easy either.
Seven hours.
They had only captured one Tier 3 Gold Mine.
One hundred Steel Legion Infantry had died in battle.
The higher the level of a resource point, the stronger its defenders.
What about the ones further ahead?
Tier 5.
Tier 6.
Those places would be truly difficult to conquer.
Leo looked up.
The Imperial Frontline Command had finally completed its upgrade.
[Imperial Frontline Command upgrade completed!]
[Current Tier: 4!]
Tier 4!
Chimeras.
Stormtroopers.
Tier 4 Adeptus Mechanicus units.
Tier 3 Mordian units.
All of them had officially entered the production queue!
And now he had the newly acquired Black Templars as well.
Leo clenched his fists.
“The dead won’t have died in vain.”
“Resources.”
“Keep turning them into an army!”
At that moment…
A new System notification appeared.
Ding!
[Guild System officially unlocked!]
Leo clicked it open.
The panel immediately exploded with notifications.
[Pantheon invites you to join the guild!]
[The Tribe invites you to join the guild!]
[Alliance invites you to join the guild!]
[Hot Money Legion invites you to join the guild!]
[…]
Dozens of invitations!
Hundreds of them!
Quite a few of the names were familiar to Leo.
They were all major player factions that had become famous during the later stages of his previous life.
Pantheon.
The Tribe.
Alliance.
After Galaxy descended into reality, these names had even influenced the course of regional wars.
Guilds were extremely important.
Player territories could use the guild migration function to move closer to the guild fortress.
The guild itself could also form a huge territory.
Resource zones.
Defensive facilities.
Public buildings.
All of them could be built around the guild fortress.
One lord was one piece of land.
But what happened when a hundred lords gathered together?
That was a real player city!
There was also a guild leaderboard.
And first place would receive rewards too!
Leo didn’t even bother opening a single invitation.
Join someone else’s guild?
What a joke.
He opened the guild creation interface.
[Please enter the guild name!]
Name…
Leo glanced at his newly acquired Black Templars Monastery.
Successor chapter of the Imperial Fists.
Black Templars.
Then he thought about their old arch-rivals.
Leo suddenly smiled.
“Got it.”
His fingers moved across the screen.
Four words appeared.
[Iron Warriors]
The more Leo looked at it, the more satisfied he became.
[Confirm creating guild: Iron Warriors?]