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"Will this do?" Nadia asked as she stepped back into the workshop, dragging a sizeable bag filled with cores behind her.

She then pulled the bag up before lightly tossing it at Mathew\'s feet.

"I think so," the young man said before nodding his head with gratitude. "Let\'s begin."

So late into the night and events, Mathew saw no point in wasting time on bullshit.

"I wish to establish a fortress," he said while digging his hand into the bag of cores.

But nothing happened, save for some observers starting to rapidly blink their eyes once they started to dry up.

"Eh?" Mathew shook his head, turning his hand around while staring at it.

Mathew\'s confusion lasted only for a short moment.

"Ah, right," he slapped his face, "we didn\'t take over the first merchant in this zone," he muttered the plausible reason for the procedure failing. "Leila, I\'m sorry for dragging you around but could you please go and pay that merchant a visit?"

\'So that I will learn whether you can do it for me, or if I have to make the trip personally,\' he thought, hiding a small smirk.

Automation, people, automation. With many fortresses to possibly come into the future, Mathew didn\'t want to start by establishing himself as the only one who can ever manage merchants within his group.

"I will be right back, then," Leila said, nodding her head before bolting off into the distance… of one of the nearby doors.

She was a girl that didn\'t really enjoy stacking up problems or excuses. Solutions fitted her character more.

The wait took only a short moment. The distance Leila had to run was relatively short and she was a pretty damn fast runner. Coupled with how the time appeared to work differently during one\'s visits to the merchant\'s subspace, Leila returned to the group in less than a single minute.

"All set," she then reported with a slightly smug smile.

"Good," Mathew nodded his head, "then let\'s begin again."

Mathew turned his eyes towards the shadow underneath the cape of the merchant before him.

The young man closed his eyes, trying to picture a massive wall surrounding the entire area of Peter\'s base. A futile and most likely pointless act, but Mathew wasn\'t willing to give it up.

After all, how would it feel if he later learned that just a bit of an additional effort could, on the off chance, prove extremely helpful?

"I wish to establish a fortress," Mathew called out with his hand back in the bag of cores. And this time, the procedure worked as expected.

The flow of time twitched before grinding to a complete halt.

The cores within Mathew\'s bags suddenly lit up, as if the energy contained within was about to burst free.

And then, it simply happened. But rather than filling the air and then dissipating into nothingness, the energy from the cores rushed all towards a single point in space.

It was a point just like many others, perfect between Mathew\'s head and the shadow of the merchant.

The energy all rushed into this single point, granting it angular momentum as it did.

​ In a single flash, all the bright light from the cores turned into free mana, only to take this exact same second to all get absorbed by the vortex Mathew noticed in this slowed-down version of the world.

The vortex spun thousands upon thousands of times in a single second, quickly reaching a critical state.

And then, it overflew.

The mana inside the vortex jerked, shooting out in all possible directions. And yet, in spite of the extremely violent and chaotic nature of the explosion of light…

The mana actually rushed towards the general borders of Peter\'s base before fueling the construction of a thin yet extremely resilient barrier around the premises.

[Fortress established.]

A single line appeared in the corner of Mathew\'s vision.

[Unlocked Settlement establishment]

[Do you wish to establish a settlement here?]

[Conditions: Can only be used within the borders of one of your fortresses]

\'Do I wish to establish a settlement here?\' Mathew read out the message in his mind. Then, his face twisted a little.

\'Fuck no!\' he inwardly screamed, shaking at the mere idea of doing it in Peter\'s base rather than in the area he had no firm grip over.

\'How many cores does establishing a settlement take?\' Mathew thought about his question, hoping for his system to show its generous side and just answer the question.

\'I will most likely be able to get this question answered by visiting any of the merchants,\' Mathew then thought, fully ready not to get any convenient answers.

[The cost of establishing a settlement equals fifty thousand basic cores worth]

The system managed to take Mathew by a surprise by actually providing him with the answer to the one question that kept on lingering in his mind.

"Fifty thousand cores, huh?" Mathew muttered to himself, his thoughts muffled due to the sudden discovery.

"Matty?" Nadia whispered, her voice somehow breaking past the barrier of the twisted flow of time.

Or was it?

"Matty, are you okay?" Nadia asked again, her voice filled to the brim with worry.

"Huh?" Mathew twitched, finally realizing what was going on.

He turned his head and smiled.

"Yeah, I\'m alright."

Since he refused the idea of establishing the settlement, whatever kept control of the time clearly saw no reason to keep expending its energy to keep the time twisted. And so, the second Mathew rejected the idea of setting the next level of a base in the area he was least certain of, the force that kept the time altered simply vanished.

And it was just a result of Mathew\'s distraction that he didn\'t notice earlier.

"Yeah, fifty thousand," Mathew repeated himself shaking his head over the cost. And yet, his lips curved up and formed a small smile.

"That\'s… quite a lot," Nadia muttered, twisting her lips in an ugly grimace.

There was no way for them to gather that many cores from what they had on themselves so far. Even when adding up all the profits from the recent horde and counting on the core of the massive monster they had yet to defeat… They would still likely be several thousand cores short!

"Well, there is no use whining about it," Mathew said a bit louder. "At least we know how much it will be rather than being kept in the dark," he attempted to point out whatever good points of the situation there were.

"I… guess?" Nadia muttered. She then shook her head before crossing her arms over her chest. "Either way, the fortress here is done now, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," Mathew nodded his head.

And a single next look that he threw at the girl already gave him all the info regarding what was going through her mind.

Mathew sighed.

"If that\'s the case, then there is nothing stopping us from going after that huge monster, is there?" Nadia pointed out, raising her right eyebrow while leaning her weight over her left foot and then tapping the ground with her right.

"That\'s correct," Mathew said before releasing another sigh. He then placed his right hand on the handle of his saber before smiling leisurely. "So let\'s go and kill the bastard!"