A castle!

Any well-developed faction would never rely solely on elite units while neglecting lower-tier troops.

That would be a completely unbalanced way to grow.

As the saying goes, "A skyscraper starts from the ground up." The foundation and backbone of any faction will always be its lower-tier units.

In fact, the most numerous unit in any faction is always the Tier 0 unit—farmers. Whether it's mining resources, growing and harvesting food, or constructing and maintaining cities, they're indispensable. That's what they do best.

Now, Ethan wanted to send his Tier 4 Battle Dwarves to mine resources at various resource points. It was definitely a luxurious move, but what choice did he have?

The only units he had available right now were Elynn, along with Seraphina and Cicero—his two Green Dragon heroes.

And there was no way he was going to send them to do resource gathering!

"Wait… the creature dwellings!"

A sudden realization hit Ethan.

Just like in Glory Lords X from another timeline, the world of Glory Lords X also had creature dwellings—wild recruitment points.

These were the primary places where most units in the game were recruited.

But recruiting from them was risky.

Most creature dwellings were located in the wilderness, and they could only be used once per in-game month—on recruitment day.

In other words, when recruitment day arrived each month, you had to travel all the way to the dwelling's location in the wild to recruit units.

And that single recruitment opportunity? It wasn't just for you—it was for everyone!

Because these creature dwellings were unclaimed.

If you wanted to claim one and officially take control of it through the game's system, you needed a fortress!

That meant even if a hundred or a thousand players arrived at the same creature dwelling on recruitment day, there would still only be one chance to recruit.

And what did that lead to?

You didn't even need to think about it—

Fierce competition.

Brutal, cutthroat competition.

In fact, on Earth in this world, every major faction—including governments and military forces—had already developed a strategy for dealing with creature dwellings: territorial control.

When recruitment day approached, they would send teams ahead of time to surround any creature dwellings within their reach, blocking all other players from entering.

If you couldn't even reach the dwelling, there was no way you could compete for recruitment.

But even with these precautions, there were still countless cases over the years where factions got outplayed—where someone managed to slip through and snatch the recruitment opportunity right from under their noses.

As long as a creature dwelling remained unclaimed, there would always be players willing to take the risk, to gamble everything for a shot at power.

Because for them, this was their one and only chance to rise to the top.

All in or nothing.

But for Ethan?

This whole risk factor didn't apply to him at all.

Why?

Because he had a castle!

Now that he owned Emerald Castle, he could claim the surrounding creature dwellings as his own…

Of course, that was assuming there were any creature dwellings nearby in the first place!

"Hey, little guy, I've got a mission for you!" Ethan said as he scooped up Cicero in his arms.

"Chirp, chirp?"

Cicero let out a questioning sound, as if asking what the mission was.

"I need you to scout the area—check out the wild creatures, resource points, and especially the creature dwellings nearby. Pay extra attention to special resource points and creature dwellings. If it's safe, try to get as much detailed intel as possible. Think you can handle it?" Ethan asked.

"Chirp, chirp!"

Cicero puffed out his chest and smacked it with his chubby dragon claw, signaling that he was up for the task.

"Alright then, off you go." Ethan grinned.

With a powerful beat of his wings, Cicero shot into the sky like a bolt of lightning, disappearing over the mountains and soaring into the clouds. Dragons were the undisputed rulers of the skies—aside from the angelic races, nothing could challenge them up there. For them, the sky was the safest place to be.

At the same time, Ethan glanced at his status screen. His face twitched slightly—part excitement, part disbelief.

"Level 14 already?! That's way too fast!"

After just three waves of wild creatures, he had shot up to level 14 like he was riding a rocket. This was the highest level he had ever reached, even after his past self had restarted over thirty times!

If he remembered correctly, the original Ethan in this parallel world had taken a full two and a half years just to reach level 7. And even then, all he had managed to get was a single Tier 3 unit—a Stone Gargoyle. But that small success had drawn unwanted attention.

Not only had his Stone Gargoyle been stolen, but his character had been hunted down and reset to level 0. He had been forced to start over from scratch…

And the one responsible for stealing his Tier 3 Stone Gargoyle and killing his character?

It was some mid-ranking officer from Rising Storm, the ninth-ranked guild in North America's top ten.

A cold glint flashed in Ethan's eyes as he muttered under his breath, "Next time I visit Griffonhold, I'll make sure you get a taste of what it's like to be reset to level 0. Hmph!"

Although the Unicorn Duchy and Eldoria Duchy shared a border, the territories in Glory Lords X were massive—dozens of times larger than their real-world counterparts.

Traveling all the way there just to deal with some minor guild officer? Not worth it.

But back to leveling—his past self had taken two and a half years to reach level 7, while he had hit level 14 in less than half an hour!

The difference was like a tractor versus a Ferrari.

Then again, it made perfect sense.

An 8-Tier Greater Basilisk, a 6-Tier Cerberus, a 5-Tier Griffin…

Who the hell had the luxury of using these kinds of units to grind levels?!

Most regular players had to grind endlessly through F-rank trash quests, spending months just to reach level 3 or 4. Only then could they try to get their hands on a few Tier 1 units and start tackling E-rank missions.

No one else could do what Ethan was doing—slaughtering enemies with an army of Tier 5, Tier 6, and even Tier 8 units like they were nothing.

So his insane leveling speed?

Completely justified.