Chapter 27: Quest Creation

The next morning, as the first rays of sunlight appeared over the horizon and slowly illuminated the world, the two goblin siblings were already awake.

They had apparently slept quite well.

Throughout the night, they had stayed close to each other, even holding hands as they slept. I couldn’t exactly leave my first citizens sleeping on the cold stone floor, so I’d purchased them a simple wooden bed.

And yet...

They still ended up sleeping on the floor.

Haha...

Well, whatever.

There was something else that had been bothering me since their evolution.

When they evolved, their bodies had changed dramatically. They had become taller, larger, and far more physically developed.

So...

How the hell did their clothes still fit perfectly?

Seriously.

Their simple animal-pelt outfits hadn’t changed at all!

Is this some kind of law in this world?

Does every humanoid creature automatically get magically resized clothing whenever they evolve?

Or perhaps...

Did the System evolve their clothes along with them?

Maybe it had somehow adjusted their equipment so they wouldn’t suddenly end up completely naked after evolving.

Hmm...

That was actually a pretty convenient feature. And honestly, probably for the best.

Otherwise, things could have gotten pretty awkward.

Still, it was definitely something worth investigating later.

Anyway, the goblin brother slowly sat up and yawned. He stretched his arms before standing, then rolled his shoulders and neck. Several joints popped loudly as he loosened up his newly evolved body.

Meanwhile, his sister seemed to have a much harder time waking up.

She sat there for a while, fighting against her remaining sleepiness. Her eyes were still heavy as she rubbed them with both hands, looking almost comically adorable.

"Well, well. Good morning, my new citizens!" I greeted them enthusiastically through my thoughts.

Unfortunately...

They still couldn’t hear me.

Damn.

I really needed some way to communicate with them.

I wondered if the System would eventually give me some kind of skill for that.

****

Now that they were awake, I wanted to give them some quests right away.

But first things first...

I needed to give them names.

With hundreds, maybe even thousands, of creatures potentially flocking to my castle and becoming citizens in the future, I knew I needed some kind of proper naming system.

It was mainly for my own sanity.

I wanted to look at a name and immediately know what race I was dealing with. Otherwise, things could get chaotic and confusing pretty quickly.

Technically, the most efficient method would have been something like Goblin 1, Goblin 2, Goblin 3, and so on.

But that felt way too boring and lazy.

These were my citizens now.

I should at least put some effort into naming them and make things feel a little more personal.

After thinking about it for a while, I eventually settled on the prefix "Gopu."

From now on, every goblin citizen I acquired would receive a name starting with Gopu, followed by something unique.

The first two ended up being Gopuro for the brother and Gopuran for the sister.

Simple.

Easy to remember.

And, honestly...

Kinda cool!

I liked them!

[Ding!]

[Naming Process Completed!]

[New Name Registered: Gopuro]

[Ding!]

[Naming Process Completed!]

[New Name Registered: Gopuran]

"Gopu...ro?" the brother goblin repeated hesitantly, as if getting used to the unfamiliar sound.

Then his expression brightened, and he gave an enthusiastic nod.

"Gopu...ran!" the goblin girl repeated as well, her face lighting up with an equally happy expression.

They both seemed to like their new names.

Perfect!

I was glad my first naming ceremony had gone smoothly.

With that important matter taken care of, I finally moved on to the next thing. It was time to test [Quest Creation]!

I activated the skill and studied the information for a moment.

Turns out, it was far more complicated and interesting than I had expected. The instructions were surprisingly clear and detailed, explaining almost everything I needed to know about creating and managing quests.

This made me wonder...

Could it be that this System was actually created by multiple different entities?

After all, whoever designed [Citizenship Granting] was absolutely terrible at explaining anything. I had been forced to figure out almost everything through painful trial and error.

Meanwhile, whoever designed [Quest Creation] seemed to be very good at explaining things properly.

Now that’s an interesting thought...

****

As I activated [Quest Creation], a blue interface appeared before my mind’s eye.

[Quest Form]

Please fill in the following information to create a quest.

- Quest Name

- Prerequisite (Optional)

- Quest Info

- Quest Type

- Objective

- Reward

- Penalty (Optional)

Quest Name, Prerequisite, and Quest Info were all pretty self-explanatory.

As for Quest Type, when I mentally selected the blank field, a dropdown menu appeared, revealing several different options.

One-Time.

Repeatable.

Periodic.

Chain.

Group Quest.

Whoa...

There were quite a few choices!

If I set a quest to Repeatable, I would only need to create it once, and the quest could then be completed repeatedly without me having to manually create a new one each time.

That was pretty neat.

I could also create a chain of quests, just like in classic RPG adventure games, where completing one quest would unlock the next.

With all these options, creating and managing more complex quests would be much easier than I had expected.

Then came the Objective section.

The System recommended making objectives as specific as possible.

And that made perfect sense.

If I made the objective too vague, something like "Chop some wood," the System might have trouble determining whether the citizen had actually completed it.

But if I specified something like "Chop 30 Units of Wood within 2 Hours," the System could track the objective automatically, while the citizen would have a much clearer idea of exactly what I wanted them to accomplish.

Pretty convenient.

And finally, there was the Reward section...

"Huh?"

I froze for a moment.

"What the hell is a Powerstone?"

Apparently, I could use meat, resources, equipment, or basically anything else currently stored in my Inventory as a quest reward.

However, the System strongly recommended using something called a Powerstone instead.

"But what the hell is a Powerstone? Do I even have any?"

Just as I wondered about that, another notification appeared.

[Ding!]

[Your Powerstone Balance is: 0]

[Would you like to convert Points into Powerstones?]

Oh?

A new conversion window immediately appeared.

[Conversion Menu]

[You can convert your Points into Powerstones.]

[Powerstones can be exchanged for Points or vice versa at a fixed rate.]

[System Fee: 10%]

[Automatically deducted from the converted amount after every 100 Points converted.]

[Exchange Rate: 5 Points → 1 Powerstone (F)]

The icon beside the Powerstone showed a small, glowing white crystal.

When I focused on it, its description appeared.

[Powerstone]

Description: The materialization of Points in the real world. It contains the essence of power and magic, with endless potential. Wanted by all beings and creatures.