[Chapter 182. Common sense]

Night had fallen over Androxis by the time Searanox returned, the cool, high-altitude air rushing past him in a sharp whistle as he descended toward the glowing heart of his domain. The moonlight, sharp and silvery, glinted off the new golden sigil that now graced his dark coat—its metallic wings spread wide across his chest, catching the celestial light with every tilt of his body. The journey back from the distant Spire had been a blur of rapid calculation and internal management. His mind raced through the complex logistics of the city as he flew through the darkening sky, his silhouette a lonely shadow against the stars.

`With the six dungeons outside the city and the one situated within the walls, I gain roughly 25,000 points a day.`

25,000 points per day. The number clicked into place within his mind with cold, mathematical precision. It was a staggering sum to the uninitiated—a fortune that could make a man a king—yet to him, it was a precarious balance. It was not nearly enough to feed and maintain the entire population of the city indefinitely, but it was sufficient to bridge the gap. It was enough to hold back the tide of starvation and the inevitable unrest that followed it until Androxis could become truly self-sufficient.

As the fortress city's towering, jagged walls rose against the horizon like the blackened teeth of some sleeping titan, Searanox made his decision. Accessing the city's master interface with a single, focused thought, he summoned the translucent blue menus of the administration system. He bypassed several confirmation prompts with ease and instituted a blanket decree: every registered citizen now possessed a Bronze rank for the first week, regardless of the actual points they had earned or the work they had performed.

The moment the command registered in the central core, he watched the city's point reserves begin to bleed in his mind's eye. The counters ticked down with every every meal. The exchange rate wasn't one-to-one—not yet—thanks to the remaining food stores they had scavenged and organized into the distribution centers, but the drain was steady, significant, and relentless. It was a countdown to a deficit he couldn't afford to ignore.

As his drone drew closer to the defensive perimeter, Searanox's gaze dropped to the vast, darkened plains surrounding the star-shaped foundation of Androxis. There, illuminated only by the faint, ethereal light of the moon and the pulsing, rhythmic lights of their own chassis, the two Agri-Cultivator drones he had summoned at dawn moved with a relentless efficiency. They traversed the sprawling fields in silence, their multi-pedal forms tilling the soil and planting optimized seeds without a second of hesitation or a moment’s break.

Under the moon's steady gaze, the tilled earth between the points of the star-fortress formed a dark, rich expanse—a perfect circle of cultivated land connecting one defensive point to another. Tiny dots of vibrant green already peppered the distant fields where the first crops were growing with magically accelerated speed, fueled by the mana saturating the very soil of Androxis.

Searanox flew over the city's outer rim, noting with a grim sort of satisfaction that nearly every square meter of space not occupied by a primary road or structure had already been converted into tilled fields.

"They work fast," he mused, watching the drones turn a corner of the perimeter with synchronized, mechanical grace. `It won't take long for the first harvest to reach the silos. A few days, perhaps, given the rapid growth provided by the Soil. But how much will it truly yield? Will it be enough to offset the drain of thousand mouths?`

The thought surfaced and vanished as quickly as it had appeared, a brief spark of calculation swallowed by the larger, more immediate needs of the city’s heart.

Deeper into the city, high above the residential blocks, he passed over the inner wall. His gaze fell upon a structure that stood apart from the rest, tucked into a corner of the commercial district. It was similar in its clean, geometric lines to the distribution centers he had visited with Carmen, yet it was distinctly different in its aura. As he drew closer to the wall surrounding the central Tower, the building came into clearer focus.

It was a strange structure, seemingly designed without a front door or a traditional entrance. There was no physical wall separating its opulent interior from the paved granite street. Inside stretched a vast, empty space punctuated by a few glowing pedestals, though no items yet adorned them. Rows of glass displays, all void and barren of content, stood in neat, professional formation under recessed spotlights. It resembled a high-end jewelry store from the old world, but with a subtle, alien twist in its architectural design that made the angles seem slightly wrong to the human eye.

Curiosity piqued, Searanox adjusted his flight path. There was no visible protection to prevent someone from simply walking in.

His drone touched down on the empty street with a soft hum, hovering a few centimeters above the granite for a moment before Searanox dismounted with a swift, fluid motion. He walked straight toward the open shop, his mind already cataloging the potential inventory, only to collide face-first with an invisible, rock-hard barrier spanning the entirety of the missing wall.

As he rubbed his nose, nursing the sudden sting of the impact and the insult to his dignity, a System window flickered open in his field of vision.

"Ouch..." he mumbled, his voice echoing in the deserted square as he took a hasty step back. "A City shop..."

A fragmented memory of Iris explaining the various tiers of the System Shop surfaced in his mind. She had told him that the basic interface accessible via a personal menu was the bare minimum—a convenience for those in the field that would expand its contents only slightly with time. It would only ever sell items of lesser quality, the standard fare for the average survivor. If he was looking for something truly valuable—rare materials, high-tier gear—he needed a physical City Shop tied to a major settlement.

`This must be the shop she was talking about.` He realized, squinting through the barrier at the empty pedestals. `But when does it actually open for business?`

As if to answer his unspoken question, a timer materialized beneath the text on the glowing System window.

The moment he saw the timer, his focus switched toward the countdown for the next stage of the System’s integration. The two timers were identical, down to the second.

`That is no coincidence.` He thought, his eyes narrowing as he looked once again over the empty displays. The marketplace opens when the world changes into the second stage.

He dismissed his drone, the machine dissolving into a cloud of blue particles that vanished into his inventory. He walked the remaining few meters toward the high, black wall of the inner sanctum, which began to slide open slowly as he approached. His eyes closed for a moment, a deep, weary sigh escaping him as the weight of the day—the battles, the psychic intrusion, and the political theater—finally began to press down on his shoulders.

"Just keep the gates open," he said aloud, his voice sounding thin in the vastness of the corridor. "At least the ones from the inner walls that don't lead outside of the city itself. There’s no point in locking them every time they are opened, if someone just going to walk through them five minutes later."

The City accepted his command with a soft, melodic chime that resonated only in his mind. This was followed by the mechanical sounds of other sliding gates as they disengaged their locks and opened in sequence. In the distance, the massive gates of the Inner Wall slid open with a heavy, grinding sound. His gaze shifted from the distant gate toward the now fully open one in front of him. The base of the Fortress Tower behind it was a looming, dark presence that seemed to swallow the moonlight.

With slow, heavy steps, he walked below the free-standing arches and the massive flying buttresses that connected the main spire to the auxiliary towers. His boots echoed sharply in the wide, marble-lined corridor that led into the heart of the Atrium.

He saw them the moment he stepped inside—Rayan, Samantha, and a small group of the freshly recruited people were huddled near the central workstations. The blue glow of the screens illuminated their tired faces, casting long shadows against the white marble. They all froze the instant they saw him, their whispered conversations dying mid-sentence. The Atrium, which had been a chaotic space of processing and organizing only hours before, was now a scene of quiet, practiced efficiency.

"My Lord," Samantha said, recovering her composure first. She stepped forward with a deep, respectful bow that the others quickly and clumsily mimicked. "We've finished processing the initial registrations for the new citizens. The response to your decree has been... overwhelming, to say the least."

"Overwhelming in what way?" Searanox asked, his tone flat and devoid of any discernible emotion. He stopped near the central console, his hands instinctively clasped behind his back.

"The people are terrified, but also desperate, my Lord. They are lining up to register at the outer kiosks, hoping that the Bronze rank will protect them from being exiled back into the wastes," Rayan added, stepping up beside Samantha. "The Atrium is in full operation, but we are going to need more staff to handle the flow."

Searanox stopped and looked at him, his eyes cold and unforgiving. "I call bullshit, Rayan. Are you trying to tell me that you are overworked when there isn't even a single person currently in this building? There are twelve of you here and twelve active stations, three of which are still completely dormant. At peak hours, you would need two people at each desk at the absolute best... and right now, you would only need one person to man all the desks. Any lonely person or small group that seeks your service at this hour can be managed by a single individual."

He waited for Rayan to answer, but none came. Then looked at Samantha.

"You only need three people down here at a time. If you notice that it gets busy, they can help each other. In the first few days, if not the first week, there won't be hundreds or dozens of people simultaneously using our bank. If you notice that you need three people managing the dungeon desk, then call one of them down from the tower..."

His gaze went over to the white marble behind the dungeon desk, where the System window of the leaderboard was displaying hundreds of names.

"There won't be thousands wanting to go into the dungeon in the middle of the night. There are only a few hundred that did it in the last twelve hours. A bit of common sense, guys."

Searanox's gaze drifted back to the central console, the blue light reflecting in his dark, calculating eyes. "But there is one matter you all seem to have overlooked entirely. The food. The food is free, but the city has to produce it. There's no way to avoid it. Every single meal consumed, every scrap of food that is taken from a distribution center, is being deducted from the city's point reserves. I'm bleeding thousands of points per hour just keeping the populace from starving to death. That's the real crisis."

He paused, letting the weight of his words sink into the tired minds of his new administrators.

"I need numbers. I need data on consumption rates, not on how many people you have registered. I need to know exactly how fast this city is eating through my hard-earned points. The more precise the data, the more efficiently I can manage this crisis."

Samantha and Rayan exchanged a glance, the raw reality of Searanox's words hitting them like a physical blow. They had been so focused on the immediate tasks of registration and crowd control that they had failed to grasp the larger economic picture.

"Understood, my Lord," Rayan said, his voice tight with a new, dawning urgency. "We will re-task the staff to begin collecting and collating that data immediately. We'll have the initial reports for you by sunrise."

"No, you go to bed. These numbers won't happen overnight when most of them are asleep. Furthermore, the city will provide these numbers automatically. What you should focus on is informing the citizens. Give them the knowledge they need to clear the dungeon. The more people who clear it, the more points the city has to work with."

"Understood," Samantha said. "We will focus on providing clear, concise information to the populace about the dungeons, the point system, and what they can do to contribute. We'll turn the fear into a productive drive."

"Good." Searanox gave a final, curt nod. "I'm going to rest. And so should you all; there is no point in pretending to be busy at work if there is no work to be done." He then stepped over to the central node and placed his hand on it. "Good night."

With that, he vanished in a flash of soft violet light.

Arriving on the rooftop floor of the tower, he walked over toward the bath, but his steps halted right in front of the door. Turning around, he looked at the door to the room with the hexagon indentation.

`The guild has leveled up and became a city... has something changed in there?`