The Villain's Story

The Palace was huge, far bigger than any palace he had seen in movies or videos. It was ten times larger than them. it was filled to the brim with rooms, some were bedrooms, with large beds and abundant furniture and decorations. Whilst the other were empty. There were some halls, but the empty rooms intrigued him.

"Is this thing okay to sit on?"

Alan questioned, as he blankly stared at a sofa in a bedroom. The sofa was large, able to seat 10 people easily but...

It was made of crystal. And Alan didn't think it would be pleasant to sit on such a thing. Regardless, he had seen many things, and those things he saw related to the crystals were all weird. So, without further ado, he sat on the sofa.

"... Wow."

Instead of feeling like a cold, hard rock. The sofa was actually soft, like a cloud.

"But it feels...so crystal like."

He stood up and touched it. The texture that was felt by his hand was just like the crystals he wielded. Just that this one was more safe to touch.

"Alright... So that means the bed should be comfortable too..."

Alan walked towards the bed, and lay down on it. His armour provided him no discomfort and the bed, just like the sofa, betrayed his expectations.

"..."

He stood up and examined the room's decorations. Each one of them felt so real, it was hard to differentiate them from the real things if one didn't use sight. To the eye they looked like crystals, but with all the other senses they were different.

"Hmm. Worth a shot."

He activated [Dragon Eyes] for a moment, and just like he suspected. There was no change. The crystals were just the same, all he spotted were the specks of mana that formed it.

He deactivated his skill and went outside, to roam the palace walls. There were small engravings in the walls where water travelled through, It didn't spill out and provided quite a nice sight to look at, Alan input his hand into the stream. He felt it was wet, and he pulled it out, only to find out no water came with his hand.

"It's stuck there, and only it is."

The water could not leave the walls, but other things could enter it.

"Hmm."

Making sure no one was looking, forgetting he was probably the only person here. He got close to the wall and put his tongue inside the water stream. Then his mouth and he took a sip.

"That's...normal water."

A little bit disappointed, he continued making his way, he eventually reached large arches which were like large windows, displaying the almost barren city underneath. Although Alan could see some of the Jade troops mentioned by the skill description, they were hardly enough to fill the city.

"What are these empty rooms for...?"

He asked himself, as he came across quite a few empty rooms. They were larger than the bedrooms, and only slightly smaller than the halls. But they were completely empty. Nothing but the undecorated walls and floor were there.

"It did say I would unlock new things as I achieved a more clear understanding of my domain and through sacrifices...at that Altar thing. Wait."

He stopped, and muttered.

"Where is that altar?"

He clearly remembered it being mentioned by the description, but no matter how much he explored, he didn't find it.

Granted, the palace was huge, but he thought he should have got something, no?

Suddenly, the water in the walls glowed, and began to flow towards a certain direction. Towards the Garden of the palace. The light pulsed through, as if telling him to go towards that direction.

"Ah."

Alan gasped, now knowing what purpose the water served. It wasn't just some fancy or magical decoration, but a pathfinder. A guide.

Alan followed the lights' path, and eventually, after about 30 minutes of walking, arrived at the garden. He had descended quite a few floors to get here. The stairs would be a hassle to climb again.

"Woah."

He gasped in awe as he looked at the garden, rows and rows of flowers and flora were present, in tidy formations. A crystal walkway led to a fountain, where a large, floating orb was spinning around.

There was no water, but only the orb.

[Will you like to sacrifice something?]

A mellow voice, that belonging to a woman, rang out from the orb, and Alan asked.

"What can I sacrifice?"

[Anything possessing worth.]

That was quite odd. If an object possessed worth, it didn't mean it possessed it to everyone. Some people were more attached to something's than others. But maybe that wasn't what the orb, or rather the Altar, meant.

"... Can you explain a little bit more?"

[Items of worth, high mana, history, and power can all be sacrificed.]

"Yeah, that makes sense."

He blamed himself for overthinking it. He took out his old armour. The one given to him by Suleras. It protected him from a lot, and also suffered for it. The armour had been reduced to rags a lot of times, and Alan had to have Twilight's artisans fix it.

He kept it even after he got the armour of the demon marquis, which was now in a similar condition to the other armour.

He suffered a lot, and the armour was also in pretty bad shape.

"I would like to sacrifice this."

He said as he held out his old armour, The orb glowed and a fluid-like light, like water, flowed out from it and observed the armour.

[Sacrifice level: Low.]

[Sacrifice: Accepted.]

[Please choose where to allocate the worth of the sacrifice.]

[City.]

[Troops]

[Palace]

These three options appeared before him, curious, he clicked on the [City].

A vast variety of options appeared before him, each related to the city. Parks, Homes, Inns, Buildings, Hotels...everything. And even the expansion of the city was listed here.

But there was a problem. The altar gave him a certain number of points for each sacrifice. The greater the 'worth' of the sacrifice, the greater the number of points. Problem was, right now, he was poor.

Dirt poor.

The number of points he had couldn't buy anything in this category! He needed probably ten times more!

Going back, he clicked on the [Troops] option, and a list of all the troops he had seen before were listed. Unfortunately for Alan, he could only buy one worker and about five Jade Serpents. The artifact he had sacrificed was about C-rank, despite all the repairs and other things the poor thing went through.

"Maybe its condition also factors in? It did say history as well."

He didn't think the altar would view something that had been reduced to rags before as valuable. So he tried something else.

He took out another, similar, ranked artifact and threw it at the altar. The altar accepted it and gave him more points. And as expected. They were more. Not a lot more, but more.

About a one and a half percent increase from the previous item.

"I wonder how many points an S-rank item would give me."

He thought, as he lamented that he didn't have a lot of artefacts to him. Alan mostly kept food, water, and other utilities in his inventory. And only a few items and potions that would give better chances at survival.

He didn't go around hoarding several items in it. He wasn't that greedy, and neither was his inventory infinite.

"Last one..."

He muttered as he clicked on the [Palace] Category. And now he knew what the empty rooms were, not only could he add defences in the castle and city walls, but also more rooms, blacksmithing rooms, libraries, and other things. This category was connected to the facilities' category, and although everything was expensive, Alan was interested.

He had money, a lot of it to be honest, From his salary from the Wellingtons, and Twilight. As well as share from the sales of the Spatial artefacts...

He was rich, nowhere near Sabrina however, who was the heir to generational wealth beyond simple comprehension.

He could do it, he could advance his 'strange domain' and what it offered. Likewise, he did need to do a lot to discover more things about it, however.

'Could I bring the entire city to the real world...?'

He thought, but didn't dwell on it right now. He went outside the garden. Two knights, wearing crystal armour, were standing guard. They bowed to Alan, as much as their strange lower bodies could allow. Alan inspected them and found their strength to be almost at S rank!

He had fifty of them! Although the difference between A+ and S- was like the difference between A and D rank, this was still quite a formidable power. Even Twilight had limited amount of people with this strength.

Expectant, he ventured outside, wanting to know the strengths of the other beings in this Domain, he knew it would be weaker than the knights, but it was still worth a look!