Honestly this was a hard decision, there was still so much to do but we couldn't just ignore the story money-bags told us. He had first asked if we wanted to know his real name but Claire and I just shrugged and told him we only really wanted the man funding him.

The man grumbled slightly and then told us the tale. It was as I expected, well it was within range of my guesses I suppose. Despite all my desire to stay in this magical place, to investigate the strangeness of this place, it was impossible. I had to get to Havas as soon as possible. Luckily Claire had an idea. She concluded, that while dangerous, this was a perfect opportunity to try her newest skill. It was something she had learned from professor mage in the last days we were in Colgate, the demi-human village.

On a side note the mage woman we 'saved' from the bandit camp was actually an assistant of the very same mage, she had been kidnapped in a previous attack on the town. She was extremely grateful to us, it seemed she fully understood what Claire had done when she opened the voids inside the man. Soon after the fray she sheepishly asked if Claire was also a disciple of the mage, she told the mage she was indeed, and the girl smiled happily, likely assuming it was the mage who had sent us, well no harm in her assuming that.

Claire was preparing carefully. This was something the professor mage had only heard about in a story. She would be opening a teleportation void. It was a void linked to another opened in a familiar location far away. I had always assumed she had a range to where she could open her tears but it seemed if she was well acquainted with the place and had a good recollection she could probably envision the place correctly, and open the portal. It seemed to be all based on proper recollection, if your envisionment of the area was incorrect it could break the connection. If we stepped through an improper teleportation portal we would likely die.

First we would hop to Colgate's mage tower. It was a place Clare had very strong recent memories of. If it was successful then we would then attempt it again, but as it stood Claire had never even done it before so it was better go slowly.

Similar to the earlier void with Joye, direct contact had to be made with the creator of the void while traversing.

This was known as void walking. It was something all the witches of the 'Blood Hook Tribe' possessed. She was apparently very surprised that the professor knew of the ability but when the mage mentioned a mysterious witch that had taught him much she faintly smiled and continued her training.

After a couple moments concentration Claire gripped at the air tightly and ripped the space apart. This one was black similar to most of the voids she opened, she seemed concerned about it, until a small stone was tossed through, she then grew excited and assembled us to travel.

The stone was apparently something the professor mage had said he would do if a Void was ever opened in his tower. It seems Claire had planned this exit strategy early. I guess once a knight has finished her mission she must have an exit strategy to report her results, and in this scenario the sooner we returned the better.

Within a single step the four of us were in the mage tower, I had knocked Money-bags out for easier travel, I really didn't need him asking questions, or blabbing about the skill while we were in Havas. He was a fairly small man so carrying him on my back was no issue.

I could always just send a pulse to wake him up if I need to. It had worked on the few surviving mercenaries, when they awoke they quickly bolted when I told them the scenario, and my true identity

It felt great but I really wanted the effect of telling all thirty five bandits from earlier, but unfortunately most were dead. Oh well.

We greeted the professor after he hugged the apprentice deeply. I noticed a slight family resemblance, but I know professor doesn't have children, perhaps a niece or younger sister?

The plan from here was to attempt it again, Claire wanted to try one in Havas directly, or possibly in my backyard at the Inn. The professor warned her of the dangers of a improperly connect portal so she relented and decided to try one in the stable we had stayed in in Godrick, the location was fairly easy to imagine, we had only stayed their for a night but it was the first night of the trip, it was hard to forget, even if it had been a month now.

The portal seemed to open fairly easily, the professor claimed this was probably due to it being a recent memory. We bid farewell to the three mages thanking us gratefully and stepped through the portal, Claire sporting a backpack now stuffed with precious cinnamon, and me carrying the less precious, money-bags.

As I understood it, a failed portal would send us into a endless abyss, I was somewhat worried about that aspect. Endless abysses don't sound like much fun. But it was preferable over walking back through the forest for days.

Honestly we lucked out staying in the stable, if we had stayed in the mansion the portal would not have worked at all. That's because the mansion the stable and us now stood beside was completely under construction. Heavy beams of wood were being lifted via pulley and were being dropped onto the open roof.

Good, I hope they dealt with the mold too. It seems like this town is doing well, I had assumed as much. Godrick was now home to a gold mine. They had been excavating for the past month and it seemed the gold vein didn't appear to be waning.

I was happy, good for them. I hope mugger miner is able to take good care of his family now. I'm sure since 'he' discovered the mine he must be very rich by now. I hope he doesn't let it get to his head.

We said a casual 'hello' to the woman who had allowed us to stay in the stable a month prior, she seemed surprised when we emerged from the stable, 'had we been staying there this whole time?'

She thanked me deeply for my work on the mine. Ah so the mugger had spilled the beans, well no harm. I nodded back at her and Claire began concentration on the next portal.

I talked with the village chief-woman. Yeah as it turns out she was actually in charge, I felt somewhat bad for wondering where her husband was earlier this month.

She was a kind woman just as I had assumed, it seemed she possessed business sense as well, she had made a secret deal with the craftsmen guild of Havas to move the gold, if word got out that they had such a rich mine they would be overflowed by farmers and more mouths to feed so they had to plan carefully if they wanted to expand the mine.

Claire claimed that she was struggling, the voids would open but she was unsure of their connection status so she was uncomfortable stepping through them. It seemed she had tried both the Inn and her barracks in Havas, both had flickered unstably.

I had a theory for the Inn but I wanted it to be a surprise.

Well we had cut our travel time by at least twelve days this was good enough. We borrowed a few horses from Godrick after we vaguely explained the situation with the bandits. The Chief-woman once again thanked me for the service, this time greater than before. I guess the town had been even more alert about bandits lately since they once again had income they needed to protect.

The road was fabulous. I had to give Susan my deepest regards when I get back to Havas. It was a work of art, not a single rut was made in the tiled road. I was somewhat amazed by the speed they had accomplished this. Sure it has been a month but typically I would expect a road like this to take at least that long to be refinished. But as the craftsmen were nowhere to be seen it seemed they had finished some time ago.

They hadn't just repaired it there was no denying this road was upgraded. Heavily. It was no longer cobbles and mud. Instead it was now a work of the rock welding magic, they had formed small tiles that spread to create a sturdy road.

This must be the craftsmen own ingenuity, it's much better than what I would have suggested. And I assume it could be mostly assembled in house and then shipped to location. Truly genius. I will have to commence building roads to Colgate, Winter village, and the various other villages in the bay.

Our pace was much faster than the day we had first left on the flight. The horses, although no replacement to Penelope and Daisy, something me and Claire relented openly, were quite quick creatures. We had done in one hour, what had previously taken two.

There was a landmark I knew well, a small creek the road usually trudged through. Instead, said creek, now ran through a culvert underneath the road. Good work Craftsmen! The structure seemed to be formed from earth spec'd magic as well. It would likely naturally erode over hundreds of years. I also wonder how long these Tiles will last, they are each small so road maintenance could theoretically be done by travelers. But from the looks of them they were thick and had a good grippy texture to them, they also would easily shed water as each was domed slightly and the gaps between them was enough to wick water away from the surface. These were clearly not ordinary bricks, they were expressly used for deploying roads rapidly.

I wondered how the inventor, thought of this, it's an innovation I had not seen in this world before I presented them with my new technologies, so what from those drawings had prompted this?

Was it possibly just the concept of replaceable parts?

It was clearly something new to this world, it was invented in the 19th century in America, so it's no wonder they had never thought of the concept, it's clearly not a technology the 5th century Anglo-Saxon mind in the former Hawk could think up.

It still kinda surprised me though, how had they never thought of that? It's so simple, and you could repair things like siege weapons for a fraction of the cost.

I had been very clear when I explained the plow concept to Susan that each of the blade had to be identical so they could just be purchased whenever they broke. She quickly understood the concept and seemed to rip out her hair at its simplicity, and business potential.

Well at least innovations are happening now even without my interference. Claire seemed particularly taken by the road as well. She seemed to be transfixed by the steady lines created by the offset tile pattern.

We still each carried our cargo from before, Claire had the backpack and I was stuck maintaining with the frail body of money-bags, I was now forced to keep a small trace of my aura outside my body in order to just keep this man alive.

This was something I realized when I first killed all the bandits, the pulse had robbed them off all of their mana, but the ones who were alive had small churning masses like me so I was unable to fully extinguish their flames.

I could also use this to my advantage, if I wanted to keep someone like money-bags unconscious I just needed to kill him and keep a fraction of my mana inside him so his body doesn't die, then once I needed to wake him I would just give him a small pulse of mana and he would arise.

It was easy honestly, life is nothing but the presence of mana, or not.

This must be similar to what the faeries had done to keep Claire alive, though my aura was unable to do anything like actually healing wounds I could easily maintain someone's 'life force' so to speak.

But that also made me curious, could I possibly make someone into a demon the same way the faeries had with Cal? That was something I had to avoid at all costs.

Oh, might it happen to money-bags?

I somewhat doubt it, but it is possible. but since I will be the one refueling him I will easily be able to strip him of the mana if he is determined to be a problem.

This somewhat feels too powerful.

I'm now seeing everyone as a simple candle that can be snuffed out like nothing.

And it's because they are.

If I make the slightest mistake, everyone within range of me will be extinguished like nothing.

Other than Claire of course, it seems she has a large mass of spinning energy similar to my own when I first began cultivation of mana stones.

I wonder if she could strengthen her's somehow?

Perhaps I could introduce more mana somehow if she is unable to draw it in like I am.

I honest am not sure if my magic is something that only I can do, or if there are others like me out there. Or is professor mage perhaps correct, maybe anyone learn this magic with enough effort.

The witch told me much, but mostly about tribal tradition and history, not much was explained to me about my power. She just unlocked it and began my day of initial training.

All my current powers I had either learned from the professor mage or picked up myself through trial and error.

But perhaps it's better this way.

Only I can best know how to use this power. Its likely that my father's mind had a particular way of using the power.

But for me, I would have to do it my own way.

The inn, viewed via mana vision, was bright. I could see it and we hadn't even left the forest yet. It was a beacon of mana seemingly.

It made me somewhat relieved. I would likely not need to maintain my aura too carefully at home at least. These people were obviously quite powerful mana wise.

Thinking about it I only knew a few of their magic spec's, Degin was fire from what I remember, and there were of course a few earth's and water's but many didn't use magic in their daily lives. It wasn't exactly a convenient tool for everyday life, it was only some who had integrated it into their work like Susan and the farmers and miners. And for it to be useful one would have to train for at least a year.

We finally rounded the final bend before the road meets back up with the coil. My mother's Inn would come into sight soon. I was excited to see everyone, I'm sure they must be worried about what my thoughts were on everything, but I could hold them no blame.

Despite my desire to stop at the Inn I would like to also finish the business with the Count, and I really don't want to have to keep this guy alive while chatting with the tribe's people. I wanted to be able to relax at home, and maintaining this guy's life was not exactly relaxing.

Degin approached the two of us on Horsey and asked of the travel.

"It was a success, I caught those blasted Blood Hook Tribe members." I explained with a big grin.

He looked at me raising a brow with a slight grin, he glanced at Claire who nodded at him and he let out a long laugh.

"Good then, Wouldn't want warmongers in our backyard."

"Of course."

"So you are taking this one into Havas then?" He asked looking at the unconscious man behind me.

"Yeah he's sedated for now, I have some questions for him and I think the count would like to hear them as well."

Degin seems confused by the term sedated but he shrugs it off and nods. "Don't be late now, your moms got meat cooking. And Susan will be joining us as well, she has much to talk with you about."

I glance at the piles of sheet metal and Plows that are stacked behind the Inn. Likely the reason for Claire's inability to properly place the Inn void. It seemed Susan had done well with my designs, even going so far as to run out of room at the storehouse of the guild.

I had mentioned that she could store some materials here if she overstocked, it seems she had taken me up on it. I hope mother didn't mind it.

I also saw stacks of what must have been the Tile they used for the road, they were actually hollow from the look of it, that must have made shipping them much easier, they were stacked around one hundred tiles high by a few hundred wide, I wondered if this was enough to begin the roads between Godrick and Colgate. It would surely be a start. Ill talk to Susan about it at dinner.

For now I needed to discuss matters with the count, it would be my first time meeting the man in person, I wonder if he has lost weight since that parade. Is his son in good health, what of the portly wife.

They were a nice family but I had serious matters to discuss with the man, I couldn't let little things cloud my mission.

Entering Havas was a cake walk. While, when I earlier entered the town a month earlier I was forced to pay a fee and jump through various hoops. Now, with a single flash of a Claire's knight emblem, the guard let the two of us enter and even retrieved our horses for us. I guess Claire's position had some major perks.

The Count's castle was up a road about half a mile away, the town was fairly big over around.

It had four main roads that intersected the main street running towards the castle, there were some small alleys between the roads but they were mostly inhabited by homeless or street vendors depending on the area of town. I passed the bustling craftsmen guild and waved at a few familiar faces.

They seemed to be doing well, it seems they were busy producing seeds for the incoming growing season. They had rooms where rare light spec'd magicians were growing plants via artificial light, they would then harvest the seeds and repeat the process.

Without the 'growth limiting' factor of the night cycles, they were quickly nearing the amount of seeds we would need to plant the entirety of the fields surrounding the city as well as distributing them to the towns in the Bay.

It was mostly turnips as we were nearing the winter growing season, Susan and I had originally planned on starting the reforms in summer, with clovers and beans but as turnips were already a common vegetable in Havas it wouldn't be to difficult to prepare it before winter planting began.

Crops would still suffer from the lack of nutrition in the soil, but we planned to introduce manure spreading techniques as well.

I wasn't sure how well they would take that, but once they see the size of the crop yield they should get over it.

We neared closer to the Castle, it was a nice castle, it was many levels and had a tower rising from the center, it didn't really resemble what I considered a castle from my memories of Earth but it was surely a fortified home.

We entered into a chamber near the dead center of the large building, I was surprised he had agreed to speak with us so quickly, I was sure I would have to force the situation to take place. Perhaps he felt guilty?

In the room stood Joseph, seated beside him a few feet away in a magnificent chair was the thick Count, leaning against the chair stood a thin silver scepter, it must have been his equivalent of a crown. I heard it was required to be nearby the Count.

The count shuffled uncomfortably in the chair, his bulking body jiggling as he shifted. He suppressed a slight cough when he saw the man I had placed on the ground before him.

"Excuse me for a moment." I said calmly as I prepared to resuscitate the man, careful not to accidentally knock out Joseph and the count while doing so.

I carefully aimed my aura and released a light pulse, I placed just enough mana inside him, it was around the same as he had earlier so he likely wouldn't turn into a demon, or some monster with endless mana.

The man gasped loudly and gripped his chest as he abruptly righted his body.

"Wha… what happened where…" He began before grasping his surroundings.

It was a place he had previously mentioned in his story.

This man, Money-bags, was indeed the middle man. But not to some scheming noble, he was getting the money he paid these mercenaries directly from the Count. I honestly couldn't grasp the Count's logic.

"So you have found out." Joseph says lightly rubbing his chin, "I had figured as much."

From the long talk I had with the Count and Joseph, it seemed this was indeed the Count's doing. Joseph, I later found out had only recently learned of the real details behind the bandits, he apologized deeply for the wild goose chase he had sent me on, I told him to forget about it, that it wasn't a wild goose chase anyways, and that I had learned much from the adventure.

So, the Count had given this man money in order for him to stir trouble in the Bay of Mountains.

The endgame was for the King to take notice of the dangerous encroaching bandits and either allow the Count to garner a standing army to take down the bandits. Something that would require him being raised to level of a Earl.

Or if not, to reduce the taxes he had to pay to the kingdom, with the excuse 'Bandit attacks have cost us so much this year, Perhaps we can pay next year.' He claimed he just wanted more money for importing food for the starving citizens, his mana intent felt true so I was inclined to believe he truly thought the foolish plan would work. What of next year? Would you be able to continue importing food to feed your people?

He had also told them to use the name 'Blood Hook' as an attempt to use fear to increase war spending in his County, if nobles were aware that the terrifying tribe was attacking villages in their midst they would surely sell their precious belongings and give it to the Count's fund. It had apparently worked so far, taxes from the nobles were at an all time high. It was perhaps the only reason the citizens were still getting food despite the terrible crop yields of late.

It seems he was very upset when he heard the attacks had become deadly in some of the Bay villages. He prostrated himself and apologized for the trouble he had put me through, it was only then did I realize this man likely knew my true identity, not to mention if I told the King about his plan, it's very likely the Count would lose his position, and possibly his life. It made sense for him to apologize so deeply, I was in a position of great power right now.

I had no intention of turning him in though, he may have made a very, very stupid mistake but he did care about the people here. I told him I had no plans to rat him out and he thanked me heavily.

He demanded that I receive commendations for 'Clearing out the 'blood hook' bandits in the Bay of Mountains.'

I accepted but told him to change the wording of the proclamation, He agreed to change it to just, 'bandits'. I thanked him for the consideration, left the gasping money-bags and went on my way.

Should I have been harsher? Maybe, but despite his wrongs he was trying to make this County stronger, and to feed its citizens. Honestly I didn't much care right now, I just wanted to get back to the Inn so I could eat some honey-buns and chat tech with Susan. Plus I still had much to do in the Bay, despite the mission being completed I'm not done.

And of course the cinnamon.