Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse-Chapter 32: []: Sanctuary Founded, The Valley of Cinders

Chapter 32: [32]: Sanctuary Founded, The Valley of Cinders

"A natural chokepoint," Sebastian said. Pointing at the valley. "The mountains are too steep. Only one entrance south of here. We build walls, and nobody gets in unless we let them."

"The mountains surrounding this basin are unscalable. The only entrance is a narrow canyon pass to the south. Once we build the walls, the only way a raid party gets in is if they ask nicely."

"If the wildlife doesn’t eat them first," Valerie pointed down.

Down in the ash-covered basin, massive terrifying shapes prowled through the smoke. Colossal hounds made of entirely cracked glowing charcoal lumbered through the magma streams.

Towering skeletal giants draped in chains of molten iron dragged their heavy feet across the obsidian floor.

"Level 45 Cinder Hounds. Level 50 Ash Ghouls," Sebastian noted. His True Sight scanning them. "Aggressive aggro. We step off this ledge, they’ll swarm us. Melt us down to zero HP."

"What’s the plan?" Valerie asked. Eyes wide with fear. "Fight them? I don’t care how broken you are. You can’t out-damage a whole valley of elites."

" I’m not fighting them," Sebastian said. "I’m evicting them."

BEEP. He opened his inventory and the holographic grid popped up in the suffocating air. He bypassed the rusted weapons and trash tier spell books until his fingers landed on the Mythic item he had forcefully extracted from the World Boss.

The Guild Token materialized in his hand!

It was a heavy blackened iron slab etched with a crossed sword and shield. It still faintly glowed with the corrupted red energy of the Doom-Howl Wolf.

"Transferring party lead," Sebastian muttered. Tapping his menu. "Accept the prompt. Name the guild Sanctuary."

Valerie tapped her screen. DING! A loud chime echoed over the magma.

[Guild Creation]

[Guild Created: Sanctuary]

↳ Guild Master: The Drifter

↳ Vice Master: Valerie

"Step one," Sebastian said.

He didn’t hesitate. He stepped to the very edge of the precipice and looked down at the sprawling hostile valley.

He raised the heavy iron token high above his head and violently slammed it down.

CRACK!

He drove the jagged edge of the metal deep into the ashen stone at his feet.

The system violently reacted! A massive translucent golden dome exploded outward from the token and expanded at the speed of light to encompass a five-kilometer radius of the valley.

[Territory Claimed. Guild Zone Established.]

"Step two," Sebastian said. A small, dark grin forming.

He pulled the Rusty Iron Shard from his belt. It was the disguised City Core, and he pressed it directly against the Guild Token.

"Start Guild Construction. Basic Defenses."

Normally, this opened a boring menu. Cost millions of gold. Needed hired NPCs and weeks of real-world waiting just to build a wall.

Players would have to allocate millions of gold pieces, hire thousands of NPC laborers, and wait real-world weeks for the system to slowly render the walls, towers, and gates of a player-owned city.

But Sebastian didn’t have weeks! And he certainly wasn’t going to play by the rules!

He channeled his mana and intended to execute the basic rudimentary construction skill that allowed players to build wooden palisades.

The system registered the action. The glitch woke up!

[System Prompt]

[Action Registered: Basic Guild Construction.]

↳ Nexus Glitch Activated: Proficiency x10,000.

↳ Basic Construction leveled up to 10/10! Max Level Reached!

↳ Evolution Requirement Met. Basic Construction evolves to Tier 1: Stone Masonry!

↳ Proficiency Overflow Detected! Stone Masonry evolves to Tier 3: Citadel Forging!

↳ WARNING: Concept Threshold Breached. Creation Law Unlocked.

↳ Citadel Forging evolves to Conceptual Law: Absolute Bastion.

BOOM!

The sky above the valley screamed!

The ground beneath their feet began to shake with the force of a magnitude nine earthquake.

The localized server architecture frantically tried to process the instantaneous manifestation of a fully upgraded max-tier guild fortress without rendering the intervening build phases.

"Sebas! What is happening?!" Valerie yelled. Dropping to her knees.

"Skipping the tutorial!" Sebastian yelled over the grinding stone.

Down in the valley, the high-level monsters didn’t know what hit them.

The earth violently ruptured. RUMBLE. Massive fifty-foot-thick walls of pitch-black basalt and interwoven razor-sharp iron thorns erupted from the ground at a terrifying speed.

The walls shot upward and carved a perfect impenetrable perimeter around the claimed territory.

A wandering Level 45 Cinder Hound that was comfortably bathing in a pool of magma looked up just in time to see the ground beneath it violently explode.

A towering sleek obsidian Arcane Tower shot out of the earth like a spear!

The sheer kinetic force of the rising architecture caught the hound directly in the chest.

SPLAT.

The massive beast was violently impaled! Its digital body was lifted a hundred feet into the air before the physics engine gave up and simply detonated the monster into a shower of glowing red polygons and digital blood.

All across the five-kilometer radius, the local wildlife was being brutally evicted.

Ash Ghouls were crushed beneath rapidly expanding courtyards of polished marble. Magma rivers were forcefully rerouted or violently capped by emerging bunker foundations.

The entire process took less than thirty seconds!

When the dust settled and the system finally caught its breath, the Valley of Cinders was forever changed.

Sitting in the center of the hostile wasteland was a sprawling and terrifyingly brutalist fortress. Imposing black walls bristling with defensive spikes loomed over the landscape.

Arcane towers pulsed with deadly concentrated blue mana. Their automated targeting systems were already tracking the surviving monsters outside the perimeter.

Sebastian stood up and brushed the ash from his Drifter tunic. He looked down at the masterpiece of architectural violence he had just spawned into existence.

"Step two," he said, sounding tired. "The warehouse is syncing with this footprint now. We have our anchor."

Valerie slowly stood up. Her jaw was practically unhinged as she stared at the massive impossible fortress.

"Sebastian... this... this is a Tier 5 Guild Citadel. The top guilds on the server will not have the resources to build something like this for a year."

"They are slow," Sebastian replied smoothly. "Now we have a fortress. But right now it is just a very pretty empty rock."

"We need someone to build the guns. And I know exactly where to find our chief engineer."