With survival points to burn, he was ready to max out every branch of the agricultural tech tree, laying the groundwork for his eventual sprint into the industrial age.
At least, that was the grand plan.
Clutching his trusty flintlock rifle, Reed Newt cautiously slunk down the watchtower, eyeing a hulking six-meter-tall sea monster lying crumpled at the base.
Right between its scaly eyebrows was a gaping, crater-like bullet hole.
The shot had punched straight through, exposing a weird, earthy-looking crystal inside.
“Wait a second,” Reed muttered, poking at the carcass.
“Isn’t the stone on these things usually red?
Why is this one different?”
It suddenly made sense why those twenty special monsters had fought like absolute maniacs.
If he hadn’t possessed a flintlock and the redeemed [Grandmaster-level Flintlock Marksmanship], he’d probably be monster chow right now.
He gave a casual wave of his hand.
“Alright, boys, do your thing.”
Behind him, five monkeys shrieked in delight, bounding forward with rusty knives held high.
They got to work, enthusiastically hacking away to extract the shining forehead gems.
An hour later, the grim harvest outside the city walls was complete: two hundred and forty-seven red crystals, and twenty chunky khaki ones.
“Jackpot!” Reed’s eyes practically turned into dollar signs.
“System, cash me out!”
Without a second thought, he liquidated the haul.
Red crystals fetched 10 survival points each, while the khaki ones racked up a cool 50 points apiece.
“Ding!” His survival point balance surged to a grand total of 3,488 points.
“Time for a shopping spree,” Reed breathed, rubbing his hands together as he opened the system mall.
Sure, he had a massive city, but half the facilities were crumbling garbage.
Jumping straight into factory chimneys without basic sanitation or farming was a fast track to disaster.
You can’t build an empire if your workforce dies of dysentery.
Plus, a little luxury wouldn’t hurt.
He was tired of living like a caveman.
“[Grandmaster Palace Construction], 100 points, bought!”
“[Grandmaster Sericulture], 50 points, snatched!”
“[Grandmaster Tailoring], 100 points, snagged!”
“[Grandmaster Animal Husbandry], 100 points, double-checked!”
“[Grandmaster Mining], 500 points, ka-ching!”
He didn’t stop there.
He went on a frantic spending spree, snapping up blueprints left and right: Iron Plows, Water Wheels, Spinning Wheels, and even a design for Wooden Oxen walking carts, 20 points each.
As a reincarnated soul, he knew a fundamental truth: productivity was king.
The faster agriculture advanced, the sooner he could kick-start the Industrial Revolution.
“Oh, and don’t forget the meat,” Reed instructed, pointing to the mountain of sea monster corpses surrounding the perimeter.
“Drag all this back to the inner city cellar.”
“Squeak!
Squeak!” The monkeys’ eyes lit up.
Food!
Exhibiting a bizarrely high amount of teamwork, they began barking orders at one another, chopping up the carcasses, tossing the meat onto carts, and wheeling it off to the newly dug cold storage.
yeah, the monkey army was going to eat like kings for a long, long time.
***
Meanwhile, at Valley View Academy Observation Room.
“Principal, today marks the seventh day,” one of the three instructors reported grimly to Meinhard Janek.
“Yesterday, our academy lost 165 students, including 13 Evolvers.”
It was the highest rate since the Island Holder assessment began.
But everyone in the room knew the brutal reality: the real meat grinder was just starting.
“Starting today, waves of standard sea monsters will assault each island, accompanied by several Tier-1 boss-types, usually around ten per island,” Meinhard murmured, his eyes narrowed as he watched the monitor displays.
“I just hope these kids can hold the line.”
The assessment rules of the Endless Sea were notoriously unforgiving.
Massive invasions hit like clockwork on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days, scaling up in sheer horror each time.
Trying to coast through on luck was a quick way to get eaten alive.
“Rudyard Wilf is looking solid,” another instructor chimed in, trying to cut through the tension.
“He’s hit the peak of Tier-1.
He should breeze through today.”
“Helge Nollaig’s body refinement is at the absolute Tier-1 extreme, too.
Basic monsters can’t even scratch his skin.”
“Anna Julianne is no joke either; she’s practically touching the Tier-1 ceiling.”
“The rest are a bit slow, but hey, they’ve got a fighting chance.”
The instructors nodded, listing off the school’s top prodigies with proud expressions.
And in complete, unanimous agreement, every single one of them utterly ignored Reed Newt, that bizarre, gun-toting freak building a medieval metropolis with a crew of construction-worker monkeys.