[Sorry for all the details—they might seem a little unnecessary and slow down the story, but that’s just because this is the first time I’m describing these locations. Soon, the plot will pick up pace again.]

***

Ethan entered the gigantic main office of the fallen emperor-god’s palace.

From that day on, the place would be known as the Palace of the Golden Veil. At dusk, the golden veil descending from the eternal mountains would spill over the palace’s roof, casting its light across the entire sky of Goldenveil and bathing the whole city in shades of amber.

The office was vast.

In the center of the room, three large, comfortable sofas surrounded a low, elegant square glass table.

To the right of the door stood a wine cellar, currently empty.

To the left, a mini-library rose from floor to ceiling, filled with ancient books and carefully stacked documents.

At the back of the office, a large window provided natural light and a direct view of the internal garden and, of course, the magical cores mine.

In front of this window stood a large, imposing armchair, and directly before it sat an elegant wooden table whose delicate carvings revealed its noble origins.

Ethan crossed the room—much larger than his previous office—and settled into the armchair, letting his body sink slightly into the soft upholstery.

His eyes immediately fell on the stack of documents covering the table. He leaned forward, flipping through some of them with interest.

They were simple reports—diplomatic agreements with long-fallen empires, along with a few notes written by the God-Emperor himself.

Ethan planned to read them more carefully in the future. For now, he set them aside as his attention turned to the Goldenveil status screen.

[Name: Sacred City of GoldenVeil

Type: Large Village

Population: 6,323

Population Loyalty: 91%

Houses: 1,425 (1,424 occupied)

Prosperity: Prosperous

Attractiveness: Extremely Attractive

Population Growth: +177/Week (Increase attractiveness and prosperity to gain more residents)

Lord: Ethan GoldenVeil

Knights: 200

Average Level: 38

Army: 1,500 Soldiers

Average Level: 33

Guard Loyalty: 95%

’The Divine Wall of GoldenVeil’ Status: 3,120,990/3,120,990

Treasury: 21,000 gold coins (-2,205/month)

Upgrade requirements: 1,425/2,500 houses, 6,423/10,000 inhabitants, 10,000 gold coins, Lord at Viscount level or higher]

"Ah... I’m still a long way off." Ethan sighed, resting his chin on one hand as he analyzed the numbers before him.

To elevate the barony of Goldenveil to a county, he would first need to turn the town itself into a small city, and also conquer a few more vassal villages.

Fortunately, that would be taken care of next month.

Not only was new housing construction in Goldenveil booming—with even third-stage experts lending a hand—but the population was also growing at a rapid pace.

Once he began marching out to expand the city more directly, everything would move even faster.

With a slight sigh, Ethan turned his attention to his system inventory.

He had used a few thousand free gacha tickets, and they had yielded him a fortune in various resources.

If he put them up for sale, the total value would easily exceed hundreds of thousands of gold coins.

That was the true wonder of free gacha tickets: they were common and usually only yielded low-level items, but there were so many of them that it simply didn’t matter.

In refined steel alone, Ethan had over a hundred metric tons stored in his system inventory, ready to be forged into anything.

As for pop cards, the results had been even better: cards capable of summoning over two thousand five hundred units, which he planned to use soon.

Finally, his eyes fell on the common gacha tickets—nearly five hundred of them.

Again, they almost always yielded low-value items, so Ethan didn’t pay them much attention.

Pulling the 500 silver gacha tickets from his inventory, he tore them open one by one in quick succession, without hesitation.

Ethan ignored all the low-value items, his eyes catching only about five that piqued his interest.

[Congratulations, you have received: 1x Superior Magic Extraction Technique Kit (Rank B)]

[Congratulations, you have received: 1,000x Instant House Construction Kits (Rank B)]

[Congratulations, you have received: 10x Pure Superior Mana Cores (Rank B)]

[Congratulations, you have received: 1x 500-Pop Card (Rank B)]

[Congratulations, you have received: 1x High-Quality Crimson Blade (Rank B)]

Those were all the Rank B items obtained from nearly five hundred common gacha tickets—a drop rate of about one percent.

It was small, but considering the value of a Rank B item and how easy it was to get common gacha tickets, Ethan couldn’t complain.

His eyes then settled on the second Rank B item he’d received—the one that interested him the most and would be the most useful to him.

[Name: Instant House Construction Kit

Description: A kit capable of creating middle-class houses in any available architectural style chosen by the user. Medium-sized houses with basic magic arrays and space for seven people, including children, at medium density.

Rank: B

House Effects: +10% fertility, +10% stamina and health recovery.]

Reading that item’s stats drew a satisfied chuckle from Ethan.

It would be a pain to have to use them one by one to build a thousand of these houses, but even so, he was more than satisfied.

Considering how large families were in that world, these houses would be exactly what he needed to push his population past ten thousand inhabitants without any worry.

’Hmm... considering Goldenveil’s current population, with this construction kit and the pop cards from the free tickets, that already guarantees another three thousand people, bringing the total to nine thousand,’ Ethan thought, feeling his excitement grow.

All it would take was just under seven hundred more people and two hundred new houses to elevate Goldenveil from a large village to a small town.

With a light, excited sigh, he turned his attention to the remaining premium tickets.

It was time to decide which three items he would put into the luck system.

He hadn’t done it yet because he’d first taken time to think about what he really needed—he didn’t want to make the mistake of choosing items that weren’t all that necessary for Goldenveil and then regret it, since he wouldn’t be able to change them once selected.

Now, he could no longer keep waiting for the right moment.

This was the right moment.