“Alright, adding the gram of…” Murak glanced at Calvin.

“Lanthanides.”

“Lanthanides, highly diluted, to the test group’s diet raised productivity to sixty eight percent conversion and rising. The test group made fourteen point three five kilograms of plastic, The control group made two point oh one.”

Murak scowled and did some math.

“They’re paying you far too much in this dust. A few years from now you’ll be drowning in it.”

Calvin nodded. It wasn’t exactly something he could resell.

“Figure out what we need, bare minimum, then raise it a little bit so we can create a modest stockpile. The rest will go to buying other goods and services from the knick-knacks.”

“How do we determine the value of their other goods?” Murak asked. “As far as I can tell there’s no way to capitalize on a lot of them without the infrastructure to support it.”

“…See what you can do to keep them on retainer for train maintenance. I’m fairly sure they are more likely to honor a debt than your average human.”

“That’s not saying much.” Murak said with a scowl.

“Other than that, see what kind of machines you can buy from them for industry. Weaving, lathing, smelting…that sort of thing.

Murak looked at him like he’d lost his damn mind.

“You do realize a woman with only two breaks who’s specialized in weaving will never be beaten by someone with a machine, right? It’s too slow.”

Not your machines, maybe. Elliot said.

“The Knick-knack products should be competitive. From what I’ve been told, some of them don’t even need a human, or with one human’s supervision, a dozen or more of them can work on the same task.”

“Preposterous,” Murak said, his wrinkly face scowling at Calvin. “If machines could do things better than Skills, You’d have some kind of…industrial revolution!”

Hahaha!

“Let’s do a thought experiment. Assume a human has ten fingers and they can easily reach from here to here,” Calvin said, holding his hands wide. “And say with a Skill they can put out a yard of cloth at this width per second.

“That’s too fast, but I’ll play along,”

“Let’s say you make a machine with ten fingers that has the same width, only it can spit out, let’s say…a tenth of a yard per second.”

“If that.”

“What if you gave the machine a hundred fingers, and it was fifty feet wide? More?” Calvin asked. “It still made one tenth of a yard per second, but it was ten times wider. Is there anything stopping you from doing it?”

“You would need a huge number of blacksmiths and engineers to create it, and it would probably need to be operated by no less than five weavers. I admit you could pay them less than a professional weaver, but the costs simply wouldn’t be recouped.”

“What if you didn’t need but one person watching three of these machines, since they move under their own power, and the machines themselves were created en masse by other machines?”

“Under their own…” Murak’s jaw went slack and he turned to stare at the train, glistening in the afternoon sun. “Like the train?”

Calvin nodded.

“And those repetitive motions, repeated over and over?” Murak said, twirling his fingers, eyes gleaming.

“Yep.”

“Consider me interested,” Murak said, showing the first hint of amusement of the day. The only time the old man seemed to show any form of excitement was when he smelled money.

In a matter a seconds, his quill scratching paper furiously, Murak calculated the amount of dust they needed to purchase from the knick-knacks, and how much spare there was for back trade.

It was a lot.

Partway into this, the ground beneath them began to shake. Calvin and Murak stepped back instinctively, despite being far enough away.

In a matter of seconds, a tiny hole appeared in one of the the blank lots in the center of Calvin’s March, one Kurawe had reserved for the owner of the land.

In theory, a few decades in the future, these lots would make Calvin quite a bit of money from the lease of businesses on them, but for right now, they were simply empty lots that children liked to roughhouse in.

Calvin couldn’t think of a better immediate use for one of them than as an embassy to the Knick-knacks.

If they can be hired to maintain the train and other industries I intend to create, I won’t have to do it with my summons.

In essence, through money, an administrator of the city could request for the knick-knacks for repairs and maintenance, rather than Calvin having to do everything.

If Calvin didn’t have to do anything to keep this city going, that meant it had taken on a life of its own, and would become his legacy.

That still hadn’t happened, but the day was marching steadily closer.

Speaking of kids, did you wanna grab the Captain Kirk mutation? I finished that a while back. It’s in the Playboy category.

Can an undead have children?

Please, Elliot said with an insulted tone. I’ve been working on the Kirk for a while. After you pick that mutation, you’re gonna have to be careful where you aim.

Calvin was going to ask Elliot to clarify what he meant by that when the tip of a drill poked through the surface of the dirt, digging out into the open area.

The knick-knacks had arrived.

***

Calvin knew they worked fast, but it was always startling to watch. Especially because they were bizarrely faster than his. Calvin only took a moment to process it as he watched he swarm of metal men pass steel plates out of the hole and began assembling them onsite, sparks flying at they worked.

They specialized.

There were some with longer limbs, some that could fly, and a stunning variety of tools. One of the knick-knacks welding the metal plates together had eight welding flames on the end of long, spiderlike fingers.

By comparison, Calvin’s knick-knacks were…basic.

“I guess we’re about to see what kind of value they place on this ‘plastic’,” Murak said, his smile slowly getting wider.

“Try not to screw them over too hard.”

Murak scowled at him.

“There is a value to good faith,” Calvin said.

“You’re starting to sound like the fat man,” Murak said.

“And you never rose higher than a merchant.” Calvin said with arched brows.

Murak peered at him for a moment. “I’ll give you that one, you brat.”

In about fifteen minutes, there was a shed identical to the one in Mujenan.

Ding!

“Construction complete.” A neutral voice emenated from the shed. “Would the local government representative come forward and officiate the completion ceremony?”

Completion ceremony? I didn’t –

Murak took a step forward and opened his mouth. “I’ll –“

A panel of the metal shed opened, revealing a metal arm with a champagne bottle, which it proceeded to smash against its side.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” The voice spoke as champagne dripped off the side of the roof.

“The newly constructed Laborer embassy still needs to be staffed. Please disperse until we are able to create the appropriate personnel. If you meatbags have a suggestion, complaint, or wish to get a spot in the queue before the embassy officially opens, feel free to put down your pointy sticks, reinvent the internet, and visit our website.”

“I’m feeling…a little spoken down to.” Murak said, blinking.

“They just come across that way,” Calvin said with a shrug.

“The appropriate staff have been assembled. The embassy is now open for business. Please do not excrete on our around the premises. We understand that you cannot control the production of oils on your skin, but we request that you make an effort to try.”

Calvin pushed Murak forward.

“Good luck.”

Calvin watched as Murak entered the shed.

Man, I hope he doesn’t kick the bucket in there.

Tell me how you see this going. Calvin thought.

I see us being technologically superior to our neighbors for a good five years to two decades, before the technology begins to spread around.

Oh?

The reason your planet hasn’t gone beyond the middle ages is because simple machines can’t outperform humans with Skills. It takes advanced machines to do that. Unfortunately advanced machines take simpler machines to make and improve upon.

But once you poke a hole in that barrier, and you start making machines that outperform humans, somewhere, a person is going to spend their entire Break trying to figure out how it works.

They’ll sell that information to the highest bidder, or perhaps someone will force it out of them. Eventually you’ll have a competitor that also makes self-driving wheat harvesters. Maybe not as good as yours, but they’ll work in some fashion.

The pepsi to your coke.

If necessity won’t bring us out of the dark ages, I guess we’ll have to do it with greed.

Murak seems like a good place to start, Calvin thought as he left, leaving the negotiations in the hand of the moneylender.

Calvin went back to city hall, wlaking into his office to check in with Kurawe.

“How’s it going?”

“There are…Issues that developed from giving commoners access to the Temple of Awakening,” the giant zealot said. “If I may show you, Ravager.”

“Calvin nodded.

“Using Veterans to tame the deep jungle was a good choice, but having an overabundance of Veteran farmers and spreading knowledge of phytomancy is causing problems.

“How so?”

“Your March has approximately five thousand people living in it. They are producing enough food for thirty thousand and growing.”

“Is more food...bad?” Calvin asked.

“The farmers are unable to sell their crops and earn enough to support themselves. They’re producing such an overabundance of food that they simply can’t sell what they’ve grown because the demand for it is so low. They have enough food, sure, but they are beginning to run out of other basic necessities.”

“I see,” Calvin said with a frown.

He definitely didn’t want to pull the Temple of awakening out from under people, under any circumstances. It was one of his March’s biggest selling points for immigration.

“What steps are you taking?” Calvin asked.

“We are using the train, of course. We’ve cut a deal with the miners in Uleis to supply a large portion of their food in exchange for a small amount of what they mine. It takes the form of buying farmer’s excess crops at a set price and sending them out of the march by train.”

“Not a big fan of buying back my own Abyssal steel,” Calvin muttered. “That’s cutting into the train’s storage capacity, isn’t it?” Calvin asked.

“Yes, Ravager. The train’s capacity is quite strained.”

“Is the amount of money they’re offered for the food a fair amount.

“Yes, Ravager.”

“Lower it a bit.”

“Excuse me?”

“If the farmers are given a fair amount of money for their excess produce, more farmers will come and our produce will continue to grow, perhaps beyond our ability to find places to sell it. Think of it as moderate easing, not a solution. Hopefully that should gradually squeeze a few of them out of the business, whereby there will be more for the remaining farmers.”

“I see.”

“Besides, these individual farmers are individually making huge amounts of produce with their Skills. The money isn’t being split very many ways, either.”

“See what you can do about prioritizing more immigration, and see if you can encourage them toward Breaks involving industry, math, science and technology. I’m especially interested in people who are interested in learning how Bent engines and Knick-knack technology work.”

“Get in contact with Murak, too. See if we can arrange for the knick-knacks to provide some of the basics that we might need if we tried to swell the population by thirty thousand.”

“Thirty thousand?”

“If we can do that, the demand matches supply.”

“Seems an oversimplification…but I’ll approach the problem from that angle as well, Ravager.”

“I also want steel refineries. Big ones.” Calvin held his hands apart for emphasis. “Big fucking steel refineries.”

“Yes ravager.”

“And see if someone can have a break that allows them to wrangle and breed Crystal Lattices. I’ll pay three glimmer to the person who successfully does so.”

“Yes Ravager.”

Calvin couldn’t in good conscious, use his matter converters to create undifferentiated mass and sell it on the market, because it was the direct result of a skill, and the other Royals would give him the stink-eye.

But if it were harvested from real crystal lattices by adventurers stupid or brave enough to tame the things…nobody could argue with selling it as a national specialty. Plus it would never even begin to match the sheer quantity Calvin could produce…and that was a good thing.

A little bit of undifferentiated matter on the market would get snapped up by royals and merchant lords, but a lot of it…could destabilize nations.

What could I charge for undifferentiated mass? Would it’s value be that of the highest possible material, or even higher, considering its ability to shift to meet demand. I’ll have to have Murak price it.

“How is Juntai doing?” Calvin asked.

“it is slowly regaining stability. Mr. Gunder has installed his son as the new Diocese in a surprise move that will give them power over the nation a good thirty years longer than anticipated, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Longer reigns lead to greater stability, after all.”

“Did the guy get a Carem check from Nadia?”

“Yes Ravager.”

“Well, alright then,” Calvin said, nodding. “I’m assuming his father is still in charge.”

“In practice, yes.”

“Good enough for me.”

“On the subject of Juntai as a whole, a few city states of Boles have pushed several tens of miles into Juntai’s eastern flank while they were unable to form a counterattack, and have begun converting the jungle into farmland.”

Calvin narrowed his eyes. Juntai had a lot of land, but could they just roll over and take it?

“I admit, I’m not an expert on war, so I’ll leave the fine details to you, but I’d like you to send a strong message that I’m backing up the Juntai people.”

“It will be done, Ravager”

“Also,” Calvin slapped the table with a sudden realization.

“Did you buy all the twelve year old Juntai girls I asked for!?”

“I…thought you were joking Ravager.”

“I know you, you don’t take anything as a joke.” Calvin said peering at Kurawe. “What actually happened?”

“Kala overheard, and said the plan was, and I quote, ‘founded on a disgusting practice’.”

“Trial wives are a disgusting practice, which is why we’re going to use it to fuck them in the ass.” Calvin said, making crude gestures with his fist.

Kurawe gave him a dubious look.

“Juntai as a society, not the twelve year old girls.”

“…Yes ravager.”

“Oh come on, you’re just not seeing the potential here!”

“Perhaps if you cared to share your plan, beyond buying young girls from their parents for your amusement?”

Calvin stroked his chin. “I’ve gotta keep some mystery, don’t I?”

Kurawe drew a swift line through something on his notepad.

“No wait!” Calvin said. “Politics, it’s about politics!”

Kurawe’s eyebrows raised. “You intend to give them Breaks.”

“Exactly. We’ll find out what these girl’s primary stats are, then design a build around that. We’ll give them three Breaks doing nothing but raising their primary, then on the fourth Break, use the massive amount of extra warp they’re able to store to give them skills that make them profitable, better at politics, and perhaps see if we can’t give them a Skill that joins all of them together socially.”

If they all felt a deep need to band together and support each other, they would be much harder to stop from rising to the top.

“You intend to seed a generation of rich, powerful women in Juntai.”

“And what do you think these rich, powerful Juntai women will do when they have daughters?” Calvin asked.

Kurawe smirked. “They’ll send them to you, creating an institution within Juntai dependent on you.”

“You’re godsdamned right they will.”

“I’ll set aside some of the treasury to make the offers on the young women, but Kala will be the one handling their breaks, and day-to-day training.”

Calvin opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it. He was a woman-eating undead with a habit of corrupting deep-seated beliefs. It was probably a good idea not to let him interact with twelve year old girls.

Still, it stung a little.

“You’re just doing this because you didn’t think Juntai women had enough spunk aren’t you?” Kurawe said, peering at Calvin.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

“Well, regardless of your motivations, I’ll admit it’s an interesting plan. It will be…” Kurawe started scribbling down notes. “As you wish, Ravager.”

“Excellent,” Calvin said, straightening his jacket. “Anything else?”

“We’re the only territory banned from mining the Abyssal steel. The other countries got together and agreed not to reward you for destroying an entire city when you most likely could have exterminated the Aberration without destroying the infrastructure.”

Calvin clicked his tongue.

“Have they figured out how to mine it?” Calvin asked.

“Yes, Iletha was the first country to develop a method to cut through the Abyssal steel, likely because of their experience with metallurgy, and they are now the biggest mining operation, sending home several tons of the metal per day.”

“Before you say anything,” Kurawe said, holding up a hand. “Iletha is fairly cornered right now, and if you were to pressure them further, you would likely cause a rather bloody war. Let them calm down a bit, is my suggestion.”

I do have a friend working on my behalf in Iletha, Calvin thought. If you can call her that.

“What about the other countries? If Iletha gets sole access to Abyssal steel, they’ll be unstoppable on the battlefield.

“All other countries have devised their own methods, and are only slightly behind Iletha. Everyone will be sharing in this bounty for years to come. Iletha is aware of this, and is unlikely to make aggressive movements in the near future.”

“Alright then,” Calvin said, nodding. Anything else?”

“The rest of the news is of minor domestic issues. If you’re interested, I’ve got a lovely report about a man suing his neighbor to reclaim the shit his guars deposited on the man’s property.”

“What the fuck?” Calvin breathed.

“Fertilizer.” Kurawe explained with an amused expression, flicking his thumb through a huge stack of documents.

“Side with the land-owner,” Calvin said, pulling up a seat and beginning to flip through the documents.

“Already done, Ravager.”

It was true: Kurawe had only been bringing him the big deal issues. There were so many pointless squabbles in here that Calvin had to wonder how the Chained Spirit got anything done.

If you’re not busy, you wanna check out the mutation? Elliot asked.

Show it to me, Calvin thought

The Captain Kirk: The user’s physiology will shift during mating to create viable offspring with any creature that passes the Harkness Test.

^No furries for you!

After Calvin had Elliot explain the Harkness Test, he nodded. It was reasonable.

“I choose The Captain Kirk.”

Before Calvin passed out, it felt like someone had kicked him in the balls.