As I browsed through the shop, three distinct sub-shops materialized on the glowing blue interface, along with two new functions.
Shop:
[Construction Shop]
[Item Shop]
[Castle Core Shop]
"Hohhh? This is actually interesting!"
I mentally selected the Construction Shop first.
The top of the screen lit up, revealing a clean and familiar-looking resource panel.
[Inventory]
[Points: 10]
[Stone: 0]
[Wood: 0]
[Food: 0]
Each category had its own simple icon: a chunk of stone, a piece of wood, and a juicy-looking ham leg.
"Aha! Resource bars!"
The sight hit me with a powerful wave of nostalgia. It reminded me of the old games I had played as a child, many, many years ago.
Age of Kingdoms, Heroes of Muscles and Wisdom... or whatever the exact titles were...
Those classic real-time strategy games where you gathered resources, built up your base, recruited units, and eventually conquered your enemies.
Still, one question immediately came to mind.
Hmmmmm... I guess stone can come from mining the nearby rocks or quarrying, and wood from chopping down the endless trees in the nearby forest.
But food?
What the hell is "Food" supposed to mean?
As a castle, I clearly don’t need to eat anything myself. So... is "Food" intended for any living things that might eventually end up inside me? Or is it more like those old RTS games, where you spend food to summon and maintain an army of minions?
I really, really hoped it was the latter.
Summoning minions would be absolutely amazing.
Still, I doubted it would work exactly like that.
Anyway, I quickly turned my attention back to the Construction Shop.
There was a clearly labeled sub-tab called [Repair]. The moment I selected it, the interface zoomed in, highlighting every damaged section of my structure with faint, pulsing red outlines.
[Broken Window – Second Floor]
[Repair Cost: 1 Wood]
[Small Roof Section – Main Building]
[Repair Cost: 1 Stone, 1 Wood]
Then another set of options appeared beneath the normal repairs, each one surrounded by a sparkling, eye-catching golden frame.
[Magic Repair – Broken Window: 3 Points]
[Magic Repair – Small Roof Section: 3 Points]
[Repair All Damaged Areas: 5 Points]
[(Save 1 Point!)]
"Oh god! The System is really gunning hard for my Points!"
Seeing this only made me want to save every single Point even more fiercely.
I had already made up my mind.
F2P for life!
Or at the very least, I’ll stockpile a decent amount of Points for real emergencies or something far more valuable waiting for me in the future!
With that decision firmly planted in my mind, I scrolled past the obvious repair trap and spotted another promising tab labeled [Resource Exchange].
There, right in front of me, was an option for directly converting Points into materials.
[Exchange]
[1 Point → 3 Wood]
[1 Point → 3 Stone]
[1 Point → 1 Food]
And floating dramatically above it all in shiny, tempting golden text was:
[HOT DEAL! Expires in 2 Minutes!]
[2× Resources Purchased with Points!]
Seeing that, I felt both relieved and strangely proud of myself for not falling into the earlier trap.
"Haha! I knew it! The System really was trying to scam me earlier!"
It had casually asked for ten full Points just to patch a single hole in my roof.
But if I exchanged my ten Points right now under this deal, I could get enough materials to repair fifteen broken roofs and still have some Points left over!
What a massive bullet I had dodged!
But then another question immediately arose as the countdown timer continued ticking away.
Hmm... this hot deal... should I actually take it?
I pondered for a few tense seconds.
Well... this deal does seem pretty nice. I guess it’s fairly reasonable for what it offers...
But just as I was about to make the purchase, I pulled back at the last second.
"Actually, nope!"
"It’s not like I have any immediate, pressing use for a bunch of materials right now anyway. And maybe this ’hot deal’ is just another trap designed to make me blow my precious Points before I even see the good stuff in the other shops!"
And so, after convincing myself with that rock-solid logic, I closed the tab and moved on.
The next section that appeared was more like a little sneak peek.
[Upgrade Construction Shop to Level 2]
[Requirement: System Shop Level 2, Castle Core Level 1]
[Upgrade Cost: 100 Points]
[Unlocks: Land Expansion, Building Construction]
"Whoa. Whoa."
"Land expansion? Building construction?"
"Now this is the good stuff!"
As I read the information in front of me, my mind instantly raced with exciting possibilities of what I could build once those construction functions were unlocked.
Some houses... taller walls... maybe even towers that pierce the sky?
The possibilities were endless.
But there was still a long way to go.
One hundred Points...
Who knew when I would be able to hoard that many?
Sigh...
Besides achievements, I still don’t know how to get more Points yet...