WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom-Chapter 221: Rebuilding

Chapter 221: Rebuilding

The first was a personal archive, a 6×6 room with reinforced scroll racks, mana-paper shelves, and a crystal screen embedded in the wall for reviewing footage from the outpost or Elvira’s lab.

He stored everything here: crafting logs, resource charts, battle simulations, and ritual diagrams he’d half-understood during his time with Apophis.

The second was smaller, 4×5, enclosed, with a single chair and a silent mana lamp overhead. His meditation chamber.

Just stone, quiet, and darkness. No distractions. A place to sort through his thoughts…

Ben stood back in the hall, rolling his shoulders. Kitchen. Archives. Meditation chamber. Forge. Barracks. Command Core.

All that was missing now… was what to do next. He turned toward the window again, eyes narrowing on the horizon.

Krahal-Zir stretched wide. Cracked towers, shattered gates, and half-buried streets.

Ben exhaled through his nose. Now came the real work. He stepped away from the window, summoned a slab of flat stone from his inventory, and laid it across his desk.

With a swipe of his hand, a chunk of mana flared along his fingertip like chalk. Then he started drawing.

The city sectors emerged with practiced ease:

Sector One:

The central ring, where the administrative buildings and ancient archive stood. That would be the hub, politics, law, supply routing.

He marked a few points: City Hall. Zarnak’s post. A future place for external trade registry.

Sector Two:

He divided this area further, by species.

To the northeast, he designated the Nephirid Quarter. Long halls. Underground living clusters.

Dome-like communal centers patterned after their hive instinct. It would be spartan, functional, and easy to heat, just like they preferred.

To the southwest, he marked the non-nephirid zone, open buildings, communal markets, small plazas for interaction.The kind of place other species like Felidaen or humans would prefer. Wide sightlines. Color. Noise.

He made a note: Use illusion stonework here, make it look safe.

To the west, he drew another ring: Mixed-Zone, a place for integration. Shops. Taverns. Controlled contact. Everything under surveillance.

Sector Three:

The forge block. Where remnants of the old factories lay buried beneath slag and collapsed stone.

He marked it with circles, refineries, workshops, and a full-scale golem assembly yard once Elvira was done with her prototype AI.

Sector Four:

The southern plateau. Where the Krell barracks would rise. Close to the outer gate, elevated, defensible. He drew long, rectangular halls for spawning pools, rest stations, armory racks.

Sector Five: The collapsed tunnel district to the north. No clear use yet. Dangerous terrain. But maybe… Ben wrote in small script: sealed zone / future expansion.

He paused, then drew a bold ring around the entire city.

He marked four points at the corners of the city walls, tall watchtowers, each manned by Nephirid with surveillance magic.

Inside the city itself, he placed Political Patrol Nodes, smaller garrisons, evenly spaced between sectors. Each would house a handful of golem programmed for civil suppression and emergency response. If a riot happened, they’d be the first to move.

He reached for his chisel again and carved thin tunnels beneath the entire city map. These were not sewer lines in the traditional sense, though they’d serve that purpose, too.

These were Krell maintenance and movement routes.

Low ceilings. Narrow shafts. Pressure-sensitive panels that reported movement.

Krell would use them to move unseen, transport resources, respond to alerts, or even stalk would-be traitors. Every ten blocks, he placed a rise-hatch, a one-way access point hidden within alleyways, guard stations, or wall crevices.

He labeled it: Krell Hive Network.

Finally, he marked the Mana Distribution Nodes, underground reservoirs that would feed the wall, gates, and relay points.

Ben stepped back again, his hand sore from carving. He looked down at the map, ‘now what am I missing?’

Security, check.

Logistics, covered.

Surveillance, mobility, administration… all in place.

But something gnawed at the edge of his mind.

He looked out again through the narrow tower window, down toward the ruined plazas, the scattered firepits, the makeshift street performers in the outer ring.

Even now, amidst reconstruction, people were still gathering, watching, laughing, arguing. Surviving, yes, but hungry for something more.

“…Entertainment.”

Ben’s lips twisted into a wry grin.

Of course. No city could survive on fear and efficiency alone.

He turned back to the map and began carving again. First, he outlined a massive circular structure just between the forge district and the mixed-species zone.

The Arena.

A proper one.

60 blocks wide. Stone-ringed. Tiered seating carved into the lower walls.

An underground chamber beneath the arena floor for summoning beasts for blood sport. With the right tuning, he could let Nephirid or Felidaen duel without death, or crank the difficulty up for real trials.

A place where warriors earned reputation. Where enemies could be sentenced publicly. Where the people could cheer until their throats went raw.

He etched the name next to it: Pit of Flame.

Next, he sketched a smaller circular structure beside it.

A performance hall. 10 blocks high, with natural acoustics carved into the stone, a central raised stage, and seats surrounding it in a soft arc. This one wasn’t for warriors, but for culture. Music. Dance. Debate.

It’s something rarely seen in Nephirid culture, but he think he should try making one. If nothing else, Elvira would appreciate that.

Then he moved toward the civilian zones and carved a series of entertainment districts, shaping them into three concentric rings, each one ten blocks wide, spiraling gently outward like ripples in a pond.

The innermost ring he designated for food stalls and taverns. He etched dozens of small plots into the map, each just large enough for a booth or mobile grill.

Around them, he planned open-air eating spaces, stone tables with benches carved from living rock, covered with thin awnings of enchanted cloth to shield against heat or rain.

In the corners of the ring, he marked space for larger taverns, multi-floor establishments that could double as inns or gossip centers. Places where stories flowed with the ale, and eyes could be bought just as easily as drinks.

The second ring was broader and rowdier. This would be the market and leisure zone, a place for trade and temptation.

Rows upon rows of open markets, merchant squares, and narrow alleyways ideal for pop-up stalls. But more than trade, this ring would serve as an outlet.

Ben etched out zones for gambling dens, small stone-built halls with reinforced vaults and spell-scryed dice. Nearby, he placed public bathhouses, heated by buried magma channels and regulated with siphon crystals.

Cleanliness, relaxation, indulgence, this place was for people to spend, drink, bathe, and forget.

The outermost ring was quieter but no less important: the culture circuit. freёnovelkiss.com

This was where he carved theaters, simple stone amphitheaters that used echo-focused acoustics instead of magic. Here, street performers could play songs from different worlds, and traveling actors could reenact legends of Nephirid kings or daemon-slaying heroes.

Along the wall, he placed message boards, long strips of enchanted stone where glowing runes could display announcements, news, or propaganda.

Just past that, he drew story pits, circular depressions filled with soft dust and low stone seats, places where elders would share tales, and children would listen wide-eyed by torchlight.

He than remembered the neon buzz of signs back home. The flicker of LED screens. He couldn’t recreate that, but with crystal projection and glowstone scripting, he could make something close.

He even marked space for a public dueling square, a flat 20×20 plaza where anyone could challenge another for grievances. Ben would oversee it personally, once a week. Keep order, while making sure everyone know his name.

Finally, he stepped back, and looked at the sprawling additions.

Entertainment wasn’t a luxury, it was control.

Give the people something to cheer for. Something to bet on. Something to lose themselves in. It would keep them loyal. Distracted. Inspired.

He set down the chisel and murmured under his breath,

“Krahal-Zir… .”

His fingers traced the border of the arena.

“This will be the start for my true kingdom.”

He turned away his focus toward the are beyond the outer wall. The land was rough, wasteland, and sunless. But not dead.

Ben’s eyes narrowed as he survey the terrain, already sketching possibilities in his mind. If Krahal-Zir was the heart, then the veins had to be stretched outward, into fields, into production, into sustainability.

They needed food. They needed beasts. They needed self-sufficiency.

He drew out a smaller chisel, summoned a fresh slate of mana-stone, and began carving again, this time focusing on the outer territory.

First, to the southwest, he designated the agricultural belt. The land there dipped into a basin, cold, but it could be reshaped. He’d flood it with light by embedding glowstone pillars and mana sunlamps, maybe even channel Elvira’s heating vents beneath the soil.

He carved neat rows: grid-aligned terraces where fast-growing fungus, root vegetables, and hybrid crops could thrive. Native plants adapted to ash and low light, crossbred with tweaked specimens.

Beside each field block, he left space for irrigation tanks. Not traditional ones, these would be Krell-operated siphon pits, slowly drawing water from filtered fissures beneath the city, circulated through enchanted pipes he’d commission from the forgemaster later.