“Huh,” Calvin grunted as the train of barges passed by the dozen or so ooze weavers standing on top of bubbles of snot in the middle of the lake, using their long strands of goop to excavate…something man-made.

Calvin couldn’t see exactly what it was through the water, but he could tell the edges were made of metal and perfectly smooth.

That and the blinking blue light, reminiscent of the blue lights inside the Genosian freezer, and…Ritchie cool’s bitching recharging station.

Is there something down there from the time of the gods? Calvin though to himself.

“What is that?” Calvin asked their guest as they passed by.

“That’s the shrine to Mother Hagfish, where all life came from.”

“riiight.” Calvin said, thumbing his chin. Part of him was tempted to go check it out, but...I’m already a week and a half behind schedule.

Not that a week was a sizeable delay in the scope of building his wizard-kingdom, but still, he had other places to be.

“Let’s keep going.” Calvin said, waving away the thought.

***

The barges kept going upriver for another week before they came across a short waterfall, complicating the passage. Of course, it wasn’t on any of the maps, because nobody had ever gotten further than the edge of Ooze Weaver territory.

It complicated things for a while, until Calvin built a dock and wooden elevator off to the side of the fifteen foot cliff.

Once they got to the top, the view of the Garavel mountain sprung out at them, causing Calvin’s entire crew to take a moment to absorb the view. The Garavel mountain was the head of a mountain range that spread to the southeast, effectively separating Juntai from Gadvera except for the occasional tiny caravan of gravity goats led over the mountain range by plainsmen to the north.

It was Calvin’s intention to take that wall and punch a hole in it, so the trickle of trade became a torrent of goods and services flowing back and forth.

Wow, the things we do to become a wizard king.

Calvin wasn’t interested in trade, but he needed a kingdom, and it was more reasonable to build his own to suit his interests, rather than take some shitty, sub-par kingdom. However, every kingdom needed a product or service that it produced, allowing its citizens a certain level of sustainability.

Of course, technically, he was a marquis-cum-prince-consort, and this was, on paper, a March, a borderland belonging to Gadvera, but whatever.

When they started to outperform Gadvera, Calvin was fairly sure he could get the paperwork changed.

I forget, have I told you about trains?

No, why?

Let’s just say barges are for pre-industrial pussies, and if these Juntai guys really can make electricity at the drop of a hat, then they stand to profit in the shipping industry.

I’ll keep that in mind.

The elevation gradually became higher and higher, the trees growing shorter and shorter, the river narrowing as they passed tributaries, until eventually they simply couldn’t fit the barges in river any further and were forced to disembark.

Calvin led the march up the side of the mountain, the Endurance of him and his crew allowing him to reach the top at a brisk, leisurely pace, reaching the summit with half the army while the rest guarded the barges.

The whole hike only took an hour.

Once Calvin made it to the highest point of his territory, he summoned Nadia and Kurawe so they could see the view stretched out beneath them with their own eyes.

“Looks like a boxed in valley in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere.” Nadia said with a sour look.

“Yeah, but it’s my boxed in valley in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere,” Calvin said, unable to keep a grin off his face.

In his mind he was standing right on the very top of his tower, overlooking the glittering valley, complete with streets topped with liquid stone that aided walking, rooftops, topped with materials that gathered heat for stovetops, topless women…

All kinds of tops.

“Yes!” Goob shouted, motioning to the ground beneath them. “This is where the tower will be, and I will be master of everything I survey! My magic inventions will gradually trickle down to the city below me, and they will acknowledge my value and power, and girls will have to be nice to me.”

“Sure they will, kid,” Baroke said, kneeling down to ruffle Goob’s hair while the girls in the party gave him amused and slightly disappointed looks.

Goob swatted Baroke’s huge hand away from his head, glaring at the enormous archer.

That hit little close to home.

That kid’s got your number. Is he some kind of empath tuned to your frequency or something? I’m genuinely curious.

Kala giggled, watching Elliot’s dialogue with Calvin.

“Goob, C’mere.” Calvin said, motioning for his apprentice to approach, glaring at everyone else reproachfully until they backed off.

Once Calvin was sure everyone else was out of earshot, he knelt down until he and goob were less than a foot apart.

“Goob, I’m gonna give you a lesson right now that can’t be repeated to anyone.”

“Really?” Goob gasped, his eyes wide.

“I was thinking the exact same thing you were saying.” Calvin said slowly.

“Really?” Goob nearly shouted before Calvin shushed him.

“Yes, really. Did you notice how I didn’t say any of it out loud and at the top of my lungs?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“Developing an air of mystery is half letting other people do the work. Tell me, what did you think I was thinking?”

“I guess you looked like you’d found the promised land, since you were crying a little. I thought you were already carefully planning the construction of the city in your head, making sure it was absolutely perfect.”

“Nope, I had a brief thought about outlawing bras.” Calvin said.

“No…”

“Yep. For guys like us, Goob, voicing our unfiltered thoughts tends to do more harm than good.”

“I understand.” Goob said, nodding.

Do you, really? Calvin decided to let it go with that, though, standing up.

Calvin walked up to a nearby boulder and cut it in half with the disembodied hand clipped to his hip, creating two perfectly flat tables where he could stretch out the sheep vellum he’d brought out from Mujenan.

Calvin narrowed his eyes and triggered the Drafting Ability: M*necraft Debug Menu.

M*necraft Debug menu: this Ability allows the user to calculate the distance between every object in their vicinity, its mass, chemical composition, etc. the resolution of the ability is strictly in 1 meter cubes. Always in metric.

WARNING: converting from metric to Federation Standard may cause the desire to punch random trees, animals and dirt.

Suddenly Calvin’s vision became crowded with partially see-through, and highly crunchy alphanumerical data that seemed to shift randomly wherever he looked. Distance was the easiest one to decipher, though, he’d figured that one out right away through simple experimentation.

“The far peak is exactly 1219 meters away,” Calvin muttered, indeed irritated at the need to convert from metric as he began designing the map of the mountain chain that would become the main trade artery in his empire.

“Grant.” Calvin called as he began filling out details on the map with unnatural speed, Drafting guiding his hands to make more precise marks as he glanced back and forth to made sure his distances per perfectly accurate. Once he got the elevations and details notated on the map, he could begin to design the transport system.

“Yeah?” The old general asked, stepping closer.

“You’re in charge of setting up our base camp.”

“On it,” Grant said with a salute.

Has he ever saluted me before? Calvin thought to himself before Nadia interrupted his musing.

“You’re going to put him in charge?” She demanded. “When we’ve got me and Kurawe here? We obviously outrank him.”

“Kurawe, I want you to start roughing out plans for growing the economy of the city. feel free to organize the scouts to search for mineral resources across the mountains as well.”

“As you wish, Ravager,” Kurawe bowed and went over to Calvin’s pack of writing supplies and grabbed enough to get started.

“And Nadia.”

“Yes?”

“Do you have any experience setting up a semi-permanent camp in the middle of the wilderness?”

“No.”

“How about building kingdoms from nothing?”

“No,” She admitted grudgingly.

“Then shut up and learn to do something more than being a manipulative bitch,” Calvin said, flicking her forehead with ink. “Because as good as you are at it, we don’t need one right now.”

“Kala, what can you do?” Calvin asked.

“Most of my skills are geared toward leadership and administration,” Kala said with a shrug. “I could help Kurawe or try my luck at Seering.”

“You mean getting high and seeing if you have a hunch.” Nadia said sourly.

“Try Seering,” Calvin said. Kala had seen Orson dying before she had any hint about how Calvin was going to do it. The possibility of lifesaving insight was valuable compared to the extra paperwork she might accomplish, even if she didn’t see anything in particular.

“Baroke.”

“Yeah?”

“Stay here on the top of the mountain and keep an eye on the scouting teams. If they get into any trouble with Warped creatures I want you to bail them out.

“I can do that.” Baroke said with a nod.

“Ella, take a company of the more aggressive humans and go through the valley with a fine-tooth comb, kill anything that wants to eat you.”

“Sure.”

“Tell the Cobalts to explore the northern slope of the mountain, to see if there’s any place they would like to settle down.”

“Got it.” Ella nodded and turned to leave.

Finally, it was just Calvin, Nadia and goob.

“Still here?” Calvin asked, glancing over at the dark-haired pale princess in her tight leather outfit.

“You didn’t tell me to do anything,” She said with her arms crossed under her chest. “Just some vague nonsense about improving my skill set.”

“Right. Goob, you’re going to be my research assistant, as usual. Nadia, you’re going to be the test subject.”

“The what?” Nadia asked, eyes widening.

“I’ve got so many ideas on the backlog. I need someone to help me test them. You volunteered by being functionally useless in the wilderness and disposable. Congratulations!”

***

Once Calvin had finished making the map, Elliot described the concept of a freight train at length.

It was basically just a scaled up mine cart on a track long enough to stretch across an entire continent. That didn’t seem too complicated.

If we cut through here, Calvin thought, delicately tracing the mountainside on his map with sharpened charcoal. We can create a rail with the lowest possible angle that lands square in the heart of the Juntai land.

Calvin traced the rail back up to the north, toward Uleis, then branched it northeast, toward the great plains which bordered Uleis and Boles.

We’re going to need a lot of Abyssal Steel for this.

Thankfully Abyssal Steel was able to be duplicated by force-feeding a crystal lattice stone and wood and allowing it to process them into undifferentiated matter. Then it was simply a matter of shaping it with Trait Doctoring.

The efficiency rate was poor, though, with only about fifteen percent conversion rate. Most of the mass simply ceased to exist, presumably bubbling into some kind of greenish vapor byproduct.

Why not just duplicate valuable trade goods and ship them around and…oh, right. Elliot’s mind caught up with his mouth as he pointed out the obvious.

Calvin could use his magic to duplicate large quantities of valuable resources in exchange for valueless ones like common stone, but that only served to put a target on his back, like the Hash’Maje had said. If he were the center of the entire economy, not only would he be constantly overworked, he would also be a key figure to assassinate.

He needed to make himself less important to the operation of his kingdom, not more.

Toward that end, Calvin needed to produce shipping rails that were replicable and repairable with techniques possessed by other people.

Which meant Abyssal Steel rails were probably off the table. Nobody else that he knew of could fix or replace them easily.

But using a Crystal lattice to replicate normal steel would be fine…

Except for the awful conversion rate it seemed like the perfect solution. There was an entire mountain range worth of raw stone that could be disposed of by a crystal lattice and replaced with s smaller amount of raw steel, waiting to be shaped.

Oh! Calvin had a thought.

This is exactly where Survival of the Fittest would help.

With an effort of will, Calvin uncapped the Warp Tank, feeling the thrumming sensation build behind his heart as it merged and interacted with his body.

He’d been saving the Warp for an emergency or to help trigger another Break, but this was something he’d been wanting to do for a while, and even spamming the spell in Shadowboxing was showing drastically diminishing returns. Breaking level 30 was hard.

Calvin started summoning.

Calvinian Summoning has reached level 29!

Calvinian Summoning has reached level 30! 2 slots available!

Calvinian Summoning level 30: 27000 pounds, 900 minutes (15 hours).

10/45 Bent remaining

14/35 Warp Remaining

+1 Will

Please Choose an Ability or Mutation

Avatar: 1 Bent. Alternate casting which summons one (1) creature slotted in Calvinian Summoning. Avatar is limited in mass to that of the original slotted creature. User may perceive through the Avatar’s senses at will and control perfectly it from any distance. User may cast Bent-based Abilities through the Avatar.

^Atom Ant and Chimera may still be applied to an Avatar.

Bulk Summoning: Mass Limit increased by (Int) %

Extended Summoning: Time limit is increased by (Sta)%

Diversified Portfolio of Death: User may now divide summon’s mass between any different combination of *options they have access to*.

^Not only size and slotted creature variations, but extras like Chimera and Atom Ant may be added to a fraction of the total summon. The summon will no longer be strictly homogenous.

Mutations:

Continuity: The Summon remembers time spent during each summon, is aware of what the user is aware of while it was unsummoned, and can learn or improve System and non-System Skills to the limit of Calvinian Summoning.

^Moved from Chained Spirit

Bent: Summoned creatures gain a limited pool to draw from to fuel Abilities, provided they have Bent-drawing abilities. The effects of the Abilities are extentions of Calvinian Summoning and not actual Bent. Pool is 1/5th the level of Calvinian Summoning.

^Moved from Chained Spirit

Voodoo U: Damage taken by caster is absorbed by Calvinian Summon instead.

^Moved from Chained Spirit

Survival of the Fittest: All Calvinian summons experience occasional random minor mutations of the template creature. A creature from the swarm may be chosen to replace the old template creature or be added to a new slot, if one is available.

I’ll just Borrow That: For 1 bent, User may choose to incorporate parts from summoned creatures into their own physiology. Lasts for the duration of the spell or until dismissed, then the User’s physiology is returned to the state it was in before the Ability was activated.

Damn, That’s a lot of options. Calvin thought as he perused the list.

He picked out the two new ones, the borrowing one and Avatar. They were both interesting and highly useful, but he already had one in mind.

I choose survival of the fittest.

Calvin felt a twitching itch spread down his spine, slowly growing over time.

User will be rendered unconscious while Mutation is taking place.