Defiance of the Fall

Two options . Either hide it completely , buy a huge illusion array to start . An E-graded one at least , as many can see through an F-Graded one . As soon as you can upgrade it to a D-graded one . Then we build walls around the whole area and say it’s the lord’s residence , only giving you access . Later you can add on slaughter-arrays to the illusion array , killing any trespasser . Then you build your town far away - . The demon clearly had a meticulous mind , already having formulated strategies .

Second is to hide in plain sight . Ask the creators to redesign their Shipyard and hide their characteristics . Make it look like a normal shipyard . Don’t make a big deal out of it , just make it look like a decently important place with some defensive arrays protecting it . -

Zac mulled it over and preferred the second option if it was possible . He didn’t believe an illusion array was the answer . Sooner or later something similar to the peeing demon would happen , and he would be exposed . Then everyone would know he was hiding something and would get even more curious .

Besides , his goal was to build a town , and that had to happen around the Nexus Node . He couldn’t move the crystal very far , and the area where he could place town structures from the outpost shop was limited as well . As soon as he walked too far from his camp or the crystal the shop turned to a browse-only mode . The area would probably grow along with the population , but for now it was only a few kilometers in every direction , far too short to create a town at other sides of the island .

I will do a mix . I’ll wall off the area from my camp to this shipyard to make it my private property , and then build a town outside . Inside the inner wall will be my residence , the shipyard , and other critical structures I might build in the future . It should look like I’m just protecting the important parts of the town , and not raise too much suspicion . - Zac decided .

Ogras mulled it over a bit then nodded . Zac glanced in the demon’s direction and his thoughts started to turn in another direction . The demon seemed very helpful right now , but he clearly was ambitious and ruthless . Now that Zac was sitting on an even greater pile of treasure , how would the demon act? Should he nip the problem in the bud and kill him?

But Zac soon gave up that idea . Ogras was still needed to control the demons , and he didn’t want to fight against the former general unless absolutely necessary with his current condition . Such a battle would take all the cosmic energy he had , and if he was forced to drink the azure water just to defeat him it would truly be a pyrrhic victory .

Maybe just as important , he didn’t want to become the kind of person who started preemptively murder people in cold blood to protect his wealth against possible perceived threats . He didn’t want to devolve into a crazed paranoid dictator . Certainly , the number he had killed by now would horrify anyone in a civilized world , but it was done out of necessity . And it wasn’t like he would adapt to some naïve no-kill policy in this ruthless new world . His hands were already bloodied , and he knew that this was only the start . But there needed to be balance .

Ogras seemed to measure his choices by how much benefits they would bring , and Zac was convinced that he was more valuable alive than dead after reading the contents of the crystal . He knew Ogras was unable to forcefully seize the town for roughly a decade due to being locked out of that system . If he was Ogras and was planning long term he’d do everything to make the town as successful as possible for now , and then forcefully seize it in the future .

But a lot could happen in ten years , and Zac planned on keeping utilizing his advantages to get stronger to the point that betrayal would be more foolish than staying on as a confidante .

Ten years sounded like a long time , but Zac knew it might not be too long in this new reality they lived . He had been surprised by Ogras telling him that longevity actually increased as people got stronger . As he increased his Race-ranking to E-Grade his life expectancy actually increased to a full 500 years .

It was crazy to think that he already had the life-span like some Elf , and that was just after one upgrade . Furthermore , Ogras told him that the life-span of a D-ranker was counted in the thousands rather than hundreds of years , and the grandfather he mentioned was over 1600 years old . Above that he seemed unclear , as apparently that was the highest official rank on his home planet apart from some mysterious emperor .

Zac had initially thought that in the multi-verse there would be no limit to the powers of the factions . As long as one had time they could keep killing monsters and level up . But apparently it got harder and harder to increase strength , and many bottlenecks kept peoples’ power in check .