Chapter 417: The Many Facilities Riven Placed Around The Spirit Dungeon Realm!

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Riven brought Vladimir over to the land where the Mutants lived inside his Spirit Dungeon Realm. There, they entered an underground area where the Mutants had their own little village. Every single one of these mutants resembled either a cockroach or some weird chimera of several animals, often with mechanical and robotic augmentations in their bodies. Vladimir looked around as they walked past the first few houses, noticing that some of the inhabitants had tools attached to their arms instead of hands.

One of them was carrying a pile of metal pieces almost as tall as himself, somehow keeping everything balanced as he hurried down the street. Another had stopped right outside his house to take apart his own mechanical leg. He seemed more annoyed by a screw that wouldn’t come loose than by the fact that he was missing a leg, which Vladimir found a little hard to get used to.

Riven had used some of his accumulated Faith to place several buildings here and there. The Mutant Underground Village was where he’d invested the most, especially because of their genius-level talent for machinery and crafting. They were the perfect little workers to commission several things from. He’d made sure they had enough room to work, although they had already started filling most of that space with whatever they could find.

There were metal plates leaning against walls, boxes full of spare parts, and half-finished machines that Vladimir couldn’t even guess the purpose of. Riven wasn’t sure what all of them did either, but he liked seeing the Mutants making use of what he’d given them. It was better than having a bunch of buildings sitting empty. Besides, whenever he came to check on them, someone usually had something new to show him.

Sure, they would never be as good as the Growth-type Blacksmith Class Holder once he returned to his former prime, but these little tinkerers were pretty good for the time being. They would also complement his growth a lot, just as Riven had planned. Having more people who could handle smaller projects meant that he wouldn’t have to depend on a single person for everything.

The Mutants themselves seemed happy enough with the arrangement, especially when a request gave them an excuse to try something different. Sometimes they got a little carried away, though. Riven had already noticed that asking how a machine worked could turn into a whole explanation of every part inside it, followed by an argument between whoever had built it and whoever thought they could improve it. Label had also begun exploring this place and visited from time to time, having already befriended plenty of the inhabitants.

He had already placed plenty of Believer Residences all around the Spirit Dungeon Realm, especially here, so the Mutants could live more comfortably. Their houses still looked like they were made of scrap, though.

Even with proper buildings available, they kept adding things to them, replacing doors, putting up metal awnings, and fitting shelves into any space they could use. Some had even built little workshops beside their beds, which probably explained why so many of them walked around carrying tools.

Vladimir glanced at a house with a crooked metal door, then at the Mutant carefully adjusting its hinges. The door looked ready to fall off, but its owner seemed determined to keep it. Riven didn’t see much reason to complain about how the houses looked. They liked them that way.

Storage Warehouses were also placed in three locations: this village, the Giants’ village, and lastly, the Kobolds’ mountain. They could store materials and share them with one another, creating an easy trade network despite the long distances between the territories of each Believer Race. This would save them a lot of trouble, especially when one village had plenty of something the others needed.

The Giants wouldn’t have to leave their own supplies behind to go looking for materials, and the Kobolds could share what they gathered from the mountain without making a long trip every time. He’d wanted the villages to help one another, and this was a good way to start. They still had their own needs, of course, but there was no reason for each race to handle everything alone when the others could help.

He’d also placed three Training Grounds. The Giants were the most eager to try them, as they loved fighting. The simulations created by the Training Grounds could be customized to the user’s preferences, with all kinds of monsters and difficulty levels available, making them ideal for practicing real combat. They could start with enemies they already knew how to fight, then move on to ones that gave them more trouble.

Just having a place where they could choose their opponents was enough to get them interested. He could already imagine them comparing their results and trying to beat whatever challenge another Giant had completed. That was fine, as long as they actually learned something from it. Their strength was useful, but knowing when to attack and how to deal with an unfamiliar monster would make that strength even more useful.

For the Mutants, he’d also placed a Spirit Spring so they could have a reliable source of Spirit Water, as these underground areas only had nasty sewer water for some reason. He wasn’t sure how they’d put up with it for so long. Having water they could actually use without worrying about where it came from would make living down here a lot easier. It was a simple addition compared to some of the other buildings, but that didn’t make it any less necessary.

Afterward came the Mana Crystal Mines, which he placed in a large underground area full of Mana Crystals and in the Kobold Mountains. With mines in both locations, the Mutants and Kobolds would have somewhere to gather the crystals they needed, while the Storage Warehouses would make sharing them with the other villages easier.

And or the Mutants’ specific needs, he placed Monster Core Refineries so they could refine the Monster Cores they obtained from hunting. This way they could generate their own electricity for all the machinery they constructed, further fueling their creativity, which was what Riven wanted the most.

They were about to become his personal crafters after all!

Or well, at least for now until he finally got his hands on that gambling-addict blacksmith over at Beach City.

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