The Sovereignty System

Ben scrolled through the system store's professions list and found a profession that fit his current needs.

[Notice] [You have learned a new profession! Metallurgical Engineering: Level 1!]

[Metallurgical Engineering]:

This profession provides the host with the expertise of refining, alloying, and fabrication of metals. You gain modern knowledge and techniques for creating alloys with the combination of metals and other materials. [Costs: 200g]

After buying the Metallurgical Engineering profession Ben suddenly had a vast knowledge of combining ores, metals, and minerals to create the alloys from Earth. Now that he had gained the expertise of this new profession Ben knew that there were a few structures he would need to build.

He left the fortress and went to where he had built his Mines along the edge of the mountains located to the north and placed down a [Mineral Mine] and a [Clay Quarry]. When the two structures were fully constructed Ben upgraded both of them to level five so that they would produce large quantities of resources.

[Mineral Mine]: Produces nahcolite/sodium bicarbonate, fluorite/fluoride, magnesium, silicon, boron, chromite, lepidolite. talc, Ilmenite, sphalerite, niter, sulfur. Produces minerals from condensed earth elemental mana. [cost: 200g]

[Clay Quarry]: Produces clay and bauxite from condensed earth elemental mana.

[requires: stone-wood] [cost: 200g]

The main reason he wanted to build the Clay Quarry was for the [Bauxite] byproduct it created. He could find plenty of uses for the clay later but the bauxite was needed to create aluminum and the structure he needed to create aluminum and alloys was next on his list of buildings.

This structure was a [Metal Foundry] and he decided to build it within the fortified walls of the fortress on top of the plateau in the growing district near the military barracks.

[Metal Foundry]: Used to melt down ores, minerals, and materials to create pure ingots or alloy blends. [consumes: any metal, minerals, or materials added] [cost: 200g]

[Auto_Notice] [The system has advanced a level! System Level 18!]

Once Ben had the proper materials to add to the foundry he could put his new profession to use creating new types of metal alloys.

It would take a few hours before there were enough minerals to begin his experiments so Ben decided to inspect the fortress. While waiting for the resources to stockpile in the Warehouse Ben casually walked the streets of the growing fortress settlement.

He was making mental notes of what might be needed or upgraded as he walked along. During his inspection, he stopped on a street corner to look at the unused [Basic Education for All] building.

There were only six system-link chairs in each small classroom unlike the thirty chairs available in each of the military classrooms.

'This place didn't seem so small when I originally built it. Now that I compare it to the military school it seems like it is almost too small to be of any use.'

'Athena, do you know why this school was designed to be so small? It seems once I have a larger population living here I will need a few of these building so that everyone can learn to read and write. The people will be unable to attend the more advanced schools I plan to build later unless they can learn to read and write first, and unlike Earth where everyone is taught to read and write at a young age, 80% of this world's population here are illiterate."'

*Ding!* [These basic schools are small because it should only take a week at most for the people attending to learn how to read and write. Unlike the military school where the recruits are required to attend lessons that teach them large amounts of advanced information, this school can teach the people reading and writing in 3-5 days time depending on the person's learning capacity. This will create a quicker turn over time for each classroom allowing large amounts of people to endlessly rotate through them.]

'That makes more sense, with only needing a couple of days to learn the basics this one building should be enough to handle everyone who is assigned here without much of a waiting time for an available chair in one of these classrooms.'

Ben left the small school and made another mental note to have his Chancellor Rayner prepare a schedule for the civilians to begin attending classes to learn how to read and write. It would not be long before they had completed the excavation of the inclined road that led to the gatehouse. Once this project was finished they would have much more free time to attend classes.

Continuing to walk up and down the wide concrete streets, Ben found another place that he wanted to check out now that he had the time. This was the Stables he had built along with the Ground Forces Barracks and Training Fields/Classrooms.

The Stables was one of the few building that could be entered and reminded him of any typical horse stable for the most part. There were rows of differently sized stalls that allowed for varying sized animals to be housed indoors lined up along a central corridor.

What made this stable different was that there was no loft above to store hay or a feed room to store grains. Any of the animals housed here were fed by a set schedule depending on the species and any DNA alterations by the stable's program. The type and amount of food best suited for the animal or hybrid are directly sent to the animal's food bin.

Athena had explained the stable's program was advanced enough to determine how many calories each individual animal should be supplied and what type of food was best suited for them with regular DNA scans. It even had the ability to convert certain foods from the warehouse into proper foods suited for the animals. She had provided an example of wheat being converted into alfalfa or hay which was fed to the horse species of Earth. A combination of advanced computer programming and magic allowed these structure and workshops to continuously provide mind-blowing results.

This allowed the stable to function without the need for workers to feed and clean up after the animals. The stables program would automatically take care of all their needs they were fed, groomed, cleaned, and their waste was disposed of all by the stable's program system.

Now that Ben had archers he was now thinking about who would wear the full body armor he had just redesigned. His original idea was to make a heavy armored front line infantry division but now that he was standing in the stables he thought that maybe he should begin developing a cavalry unit as well.

Having a Cavalry division would allow him to move troops around quicker on horseback and provide the devastating attack power from the cavalry charge but they weren't suited for stationary defensive lines. This wasn't a video game where troops were stuck to a set role, so even if he made a Cavalry division they could always dismount and fight on foot like frontline soldiers if the situation called for it.

He had already begun production of saddles, reins, and stirrups now he needed the mounts that would wear them. He brought out the basic wooden chair he always kept in his inventory and took a seat in the stable while bringing up the custom menu interface.

The stable's menu allowed him a choice of buying various types of species that could be used as mounts or he could use the DNA menu to make alterations or hybrids and he would be charged depending on what changes were made.

When he opened the custom DNA menu Ben was amazed to find it was a cross between a character creation menu and a menu you might see in a simulation/management game. There were countless options, sliders, graphs, and tools that allowed him to change any area of the animal's biology.

Ben saw these options allowed him to make a simple change like what color the animal would always be or even complex hybrid combinations of multiple species by picking which parts to keep or discard from each animal.

Before getting started Ben used the information he had received from his [Victus Zoologist] skill to search his memory of this planet's animals that could make acceptable cavalry mounts.

After a few minutes of thinking over the pros and cons he found just like on Earth, there were no perfect animals to use as cavalry mounts.

'I can't think of any animals that stand out by themselves. I feel familiar with horse and know what they are capable of so I guess I will start from there and see what this DNA menu can do.'

Ben began to look through the descriptions and images of popular horses from Earth. He liked the Arabian horse for its incredible stamina. The Arabian could travel a hundred miles in one day but the horse seemed to be way too small for a cavalry warhorse.

The next couple of horses he found interesting were the American Quarter horse and the Thoroughbred. The American Quarter horse had earned its name from being one of the fastest horses in under a quarter mile. This would mean that a Quarter horse could be made into a decent cavalry horse that would excel at changing.

The Quarter horse and the Thoroughbred were both medium size horses. There were larger horses like the Clydesdale and Shire horses which were twice the size of these two horses, but Ben was not too sure on how well they would work for cavalry. He was no expert on horses and like humans, he figured the bigger horses would have less stamina and would not be as maneuverable.

The first attempt at using the menu Ben decided to evenly mix the Quarter horse with the Thoroughbred. The menu then displayed a 3D model of how the horse would look without any further alterations made.

Ben decided to keep altering the horse by first starting with its nostrils. He used a modeling tool to enlarge, reshape, and flare the nostrils so that they were much larger and could function similar to an air scoop on a car. When the horse was running the altered nostrils would work to channel air into the lungs with greater efficiency.

His next attempt to improve his design was to enlarge the chest cavity. With an increase in the chest cavity, Ben had room to double the size of the lungs, arteries, and the heart.

Back on Earth Ben recalled a documentary on the racehorse Secretariat who had a heart over twice the size of other racehorses. That huge heart could pump more blood and oxygen to the muscles and was one of the reasons why Secretariat was a champion racehorse with tremendous power and stamina.

The horse that Ben was creating would also have these benefits as well. Falling back on his [Victus Zoologist] skill once again Ben began thinking of any other changes he could make to benefit this horse.

The horse design now had an overhauled circulatory system used to supercharge the muscles allowing for more speed and stamina so the next step was to improve upon the muscles.

His knowledge of animal muscles allowed him to know just like humans they had red and white muscle fibers or also known as slow twitch and fast twitch fibers.

Slow twitch red muscle fibers assist endurance or distance running. The fast-twitch white muscle fibers tend to fatigue faster, but are used in quick starts or sprinting. Knowing this Ben used the menu options to give his horse design the same amount of both red and white muscle fibers so it would be an "all around" type mount.

The addition of evenly matched red and white muscle fibers gave the horse a defined muscular appearance without being outwardly bulky.

From the bloodstream to the muscles had been now improved upon but there was still another weakness that often was the bane of horses and this is the tendons in their legs. The tendon was a what connected the muscle to the bones.

A horse that injures or tears a tendon needs months of recovery before it could be ridden again and once a tendon had been torn they never healed back to as strong as they had originally been.

Ben asked Athena how he could improve the horse's tendons and was given a lengthy explanation on how Fibrillar collagen [type I] would give ligaments and tendons a higher tensile strength along with something about a triple helix with two alpha-1 chains and one alpha-2 chain.

After about a minute and a half of this, his eyes glazed over and he began to shake his head at not being able to understand any of it. Ben just stopped Athena and asked her if she could make the changes to the menu for him.

She agreed to make the changes but then the DNA menu would also need to charge him 100g for the assistance. Ben happily agreed to pay the money if it could help him create a horse which was less prone to ligament and tendon injuries.

The tendons that connect muscles to the bone and the ligaments that connect bone to bone were quickly altered by Athena. Ben was now looking at the skeletal frame of his horse and just as he had done with the Indigo Iron Fruit, Ben chose to thicken and increase the bone density of the horse he was designing.

Unlike him, his horse would not have to go through the pain of eating that dreaded Indigo Iron fruit though. Ben knowing full well that the extra bone mass would work against the horse slowing it down some decided the trade-off was worth it.

The horse would lose some speed and may become winded a little quicker but the stronger bones would allow it to carry the heavy armored troops with less strain on their skeletal structure. They would be less prone to injury when they collided with enemy troops while providing even more damage during the charge from the addition bone mass.

Ben had now designed a horse that when compared to an automobile it would be a Nascar race car. It had a solid reinforced frame with a beefed up supercharged engine. This was all great except for one problem, race cars went through gasoline quicker than normal cars and the same thing would happen with his horse.

Once a horse expended its stored glycogen it would take a considerable amount of time for it to recover. Ben called upon Athena again and discussed ways of solving this problem. Glycogen is stored in the muscle cells and a good amount is also stored in the liver so Ben had made a suggestion of providing an additional liver or even altering a second horse liver to work as a glycogen storage organ.

Just like adding a second gas tank to a car if they could create an organ that stored glycogen the horse would have higher stores of energy to expend allowing it to run and travel further distance without fatigue.

Ben discussed this theory with Athena but his knowledge was not that deep to know how to recreate an organ that would store glycogen without causing massive health issues for the horse.

He agreed to pay out 200g this time and handed the controls over to Athena. Due to the increased size of the chest cavity on his design it allowed Athena to make an altered version of a liver which was double the size and its only function was to store glycogen.

When Athena finished creating and connecting the new storage organ to the design Ben made one final change to the color of the horse. The horse was recolored to always be all black with a red mane and a red tail so it matched his troop's uniform and armor colors.

He thought that an army wearing all black armor with red accents and horses to match would be an intimidating sight to see marching toward you.

Now that he had finished his horse design the stable charged him 1300g just to save the template. Later on, it would also charge him a small number of gold coins for each horse he created as well.

The menu gave him a new option after he saved his design which allowed him to run his creation in a simulation by itself or against other animals. This would allow you to see how the animal would move and how it would compare to other animals or creations.

Ben loaded his new design to race against a common Destilar which was this continent's version of a horse often used to pull carts or the occasional mount of military officers.

Once the simulated race started Ben had a big smile on his face because it wasn't even a race. His horse took off from the start and outdistance the Destilar with no hope of ever catching up.

The program estimated his horse design ran a top speed of 55 mph while the Destilar ran a top speed of 24 mph. His horse was twice as fast and would have no problem chasing down or running from troops mounted on a Destilar.

He would not have to worry about troops on mounts for now though. From what Athena had told him before the Destilar were only used by military officers in battle. This might change after his mounted cavalry were seen in action. If a kingdom could afford it they may attempt to make their own version of Ben's cavalry division.

Once the simulation had played out Ben went ahead and created two horses using his design. When they appeared in neighboring stalls not far from him he walked over to see them. The two were solid black with bright red manes and tails and looked like they just stepped out of a fantasy novel. The top of their backs was about even with his chin making them a decent sized horse.

"You sure are a couple of beautiful horses. You two are also so tall I don't think the soldiers could even climb up on your backs without stirrups or a stepladder" Ben said as he looked over the two new horses.

They both walked over to the stall doors looking for attention and were both friendly and outgoing in nature. This was more than likely due to the system who created them. Just as the recruits were created completely loyal to Ben the horses were no different.

Ben fed them both a few apples from the Warehouse and set their outer stall doors to the corral to open up from 6am-6pm so that they could go outside and run around and graze in the fenced in grass-covered corral area connected to the stables.