Second World

"You are right…," Jack muttered. "This will greatly alleviate our need for gold coins."

With the economic boost provided by this building, each settlement would generate more gold coins each month. The upkeep reduction also meant fewer coins were deducted each month so more for the kingdom to spend.

"This building is even more potent if we have more allies," Jack studied.

He opened the diplomacy screen on the other side to check. Out of the six countries, Themisphere was friendly to three countries. Verremor, Palgrost, and Sangrod. This alone generated a passive income of 150,000 gold coins each month. Additionally, all three already had trade routes established. With the trade routes' income doubled, that was another 300,000 gold coins per month. This was almost half a million gold coins of revenue, and this was not yet considering the normal income boosted by the improved economy.

Jack estimated with this building up and running, Themisphere could receive a total profit of more than 1,5 million gold coins after deducting expenses. This allowed them to continue their heavy expenditures of continual drafting and training of recruits every month, building new buildings all the time, and using the mass pay function to increase officers' loyalties. The kingdom coffer was getting thinner after three months of such heavy spending.

With the World Commerce Center, they could continue spending at such a rate while still having some coins to save in the preparation for a military campaign outside the country. Such a campaign also consumed large expenses.

Jack immediately started the building process. He placed the building in one of the empty districts adjacent to the business district. He spent 5 ruling powers and had this World Commerce Center completed.

Since the World Commerce Center was completed, there was one empty building slot. He thought for a while, grinned, and then went and built the theme park he saw earlier. The location of this theme park was right next to the World Commerce Center.

"John won't be happy about that," Peniel informed.

"That's the point," Jack said.

One last thing Jack did before he quit the monarch system, he refreshed the Impose Blockade on World Maker and World Ruler. With those two guilds banned, it would be more difficult if they wanted to cause instability inside Themisphere. He didn't want what happened to Hydrurond to happen in his country.

The Impose Blockade on two guilds cost 40 ruling powers. His stock of ruling powers was reduced to 47.

He closed the monarch system just as Thaergood returned. Jack spent the rest of the days with Thaergood and the other advisors who had prepared issues that needed his attention.

Jack originally planned to only spend one day in the palace and left for Joy's divine faction, which was also called the Council of Charites, as soon as possible. But he ended up spending two days because there were just too many things that needed his attention.

The war in Hydrurond had brought the threat right next door. A lot of nobles were on edge. A bunch of them had been waiting in the palace for Jack to return so they could talk to Jack about it. Jack entertained them as best and as patiently as he could. A few times he almost drew his Storm Breaker on these nagging nobles.

When he couldn't stand them anymore, he feigned an urgent matter happening somewhere else and had to leave. He told them to just put their thoughts into a written article and give it to Thaergood so he could read it later, which he would not.

The matters regarding the autonomous area for Queen Aldryth also required much of his attention as there were boundaries to be decided on how much freedom and how much area to be allocated for the Hydrurond refugees.

John arrived the next day and took over this matter happily, which Jack appreciated.

John also asked Jack to spend some ruling powers on some of the techs in the research overview, particularly the military paths. Now that John had knowledge that was almost on par with Peniel, he knew what the future techs were and could plan accordingly.

So, Jack activated the monarch system again and spent almost all of his ruling powers to get to where John wanted. The further down the line, the more days were needed for learning the techs, and thus, more ruling powers were needed.

Jack spent 41 ruling powers and learned seven techs in the military paths. Three of which were John's targets. They were basic military specialization, improved military specialization, and advanced military specialization.

Each of those techs allowed another 1% of the army to become special units outside of the ones provided by Wonder Buildings. So, a total of 13% of the entire army could now become either musketeers, illusionists, or paladins. With the other 1% ancient champion and 1% brave champions, the total of special units Themisphere could have was 15% of the total army.

"There are still techs that allow us to get a new special unit, or upgrade the ones we have," John informed. "But your ruling powers are not enough to get them. Hurry up and collect more so we can learn more techs to improve this kingdom!"

"Easy for you to say! You think getting these ruling powers is easy?" Jack complained. He had exhausted his ruling powers and only had 6 points left. "We should also save some in case Master attacked. We can't use them all for you to play with."

"Don't worry. He won't attack anytime soon," John said.

"Are you sure?" Jack asked.

"The matter of Aldryth taking away all remaining Hydrurond army and causing some Hydrurond settlements to not submit to Master's rule has caused delays in his plan," John said. "He doesn't have enough troops for an aggressive expansion. Even with his zombie army and Aurebor, he would only have about the same number as us if he invaded. Unless he and Mistress cleaned out all the troops that were still in Liguritudum and Aurebor, leaving those two countries defenseless, they won't have enough for an effective invasion.

"Furthermore, the invasion into Hydrurond should have drained much of their resources. They couldn't afford a protracted war. They needed to recoup. My spies informed me that they were now busy subjugating Hydrurond rebel settlements to get the whole country under their rule.

"I also got the intel that the resources gained from Hydrurond were used by Master to draft and train more troops in Liguritudum. Since Master was the direct ruler of Liguritudum, it made sense that he prioritized building the army using the ethereal race. The army morale of Liguritudum troops was most likely higher than if they used Hydrurond troops during a campaign."