Other than spending time engaging in regular hunter-gatherer sessions in the Gallows Woods, Kain spent a lot of time exploring what he could do with his newfound power, exploring the castle, testing magic, and inventing new things for fun. The castle was massive, as it eclipsed the entire grounds of Versailles, Buckingham Palace, and the White House combined in terms of size. While the outside was definitely damaged, and the inside was trashed, most of this was less terrible than it looked. The damage that the castle had sustained was mostly just cosmetic, but occasionally there were places where the ceiling had collapsed, or the walls were broken.

Now that he had taken his rightful place on the throne, the city and castle had slowly begun to repair themselves and it was quite interesting to see the piles of rubble slowly moving around over the course of several days to repair a moderate hole in the wall or to see the fallen ceiling slowly lift back into the air and make its way to the overhead area and mend itself. The constant sound of shifting debris filling holes and mending damage was unnerving at first but over time Kain got used to it and it became just another kind of background white noise. With each week that passed, more of the castle became available to explore and Kain spent at least two days a week just trying to seek out and discover every nook and cranny of the fortified palace.

When he wasn’t doing that, Kain was busy trying to find his limits. He would deadlift heavier and heavier objects to see the absolute limit of his new body’s strength. Ultimately, Kain discovered he could at most lift around fifty metric tons, but if time was slowed down my strength increased to allow him to lift over eighty metric tons. Kain certainly was no Superman, at least not yet, but he was certainly strong enough to kill anything that got in my way with a single punch if he decided to go all out and use his full power. As for magic testing, Kain discovered that, almost exactly like he had designed his body to be during Middle School, all forms of magic were usable aside from the vast majority of Light Magic spells. Technically this meant the limits that he had put on himself in the past only barely applied, magic wise, so he could indeed use every kind of magic. However, the fact of the matter was that even a mage with only an aptitude for Fire Magic could at least theoretically use the most basic form of every other school of magic. Rather, Kain's ability to utilize more than one school of magic to such a great degree meant he was not just a one-in-a-million, but nearly a one-of-a-kind.

When Kain wasn’t doing those things, he was using his rather dubious knowledge from a scientific Earth to make new things. He wasn’t going to try making gunpowder, at least not until he had a stable supply of the materials needed for them and the time to try and find the proper ratio. While making firearms was out of the question, for now, Kain did try his hand at making other things. Aside from the Walk-in freezer and refrigerator, he also made an automatically firing and reloading crossbow, an early automobile, a fire-siphon (an early flamethrower), and a magically-fueled pottery kiln. among other things. With the plentiful food and water being provided for them, some citizens decided to try and take up different crafts, at least until the Fields and/or Pastures were available. Kain had already decided which he would make first. If he made the Pastures first there would be nothing to feed the animals, but if he made the Fields first then due to it coming with a full harvest, we could begin stockpiling feed for use in the Pastures.

...

Today as well Kain was making things. His current goal was to make a high-carbon steel sword. He wasn’t sure about the ratio of materials needed to make steel and he had no experience with forging metal, so he made the steel sword by fusing iron and carbon together using Fire and Earth Magic in various ratios to see which was ideal. The way Kain had made a prototype automobile beforehand was by using Earth Magic and Nature Magic to reshape metal and wood to make the basic shape of a car and then instead of making an internal combustion engine he had merely used Earth Magic to rotate the wheels. While it could only go about the same sped as a man walking it was like a miracle of the gods to the civilians who made Necrograd their home. It was something unheard of; a carriage that moved without horses or oxen!

Sure, the process of maneuvering and moving the prototype car was both time consuming and cost a ton of personal mana, but it proved that the idea could work, Kain just needed time and resources. As for the steel sword that he was working on, it took about one hundred or so tried to get the ratio of carbon, heat, pressure, and iron just right, but once Kain got the procedure down to pat, he quickly made a cheat sheet to help him repeat the process again. The next goal was to create larger amounts of high-carbon steel and then to make more intricate and fine things out of them. It would certainly take him a while to get everything just right but once the day had ended and the next one began, he would create the Corrupted Fields and then have much more time available to experiment and innovate.

At least, that was the plan.

What threw a monkey wrench into those plans was the scared faces of Kain's current citizens as they fled from something into the castle that had been mostly repaired. There was still only one entrance that could be used as the others were collapsed, but the majority of the damage, both structural and cosmetic, was taken care of. Kain stopped one of the fleeing people and asked why they were fleeing and got a response that was unsettling.

There was a moderately sized group of undead heading out of the Gallows Woods, led by an Arch Necromancer. The force only numbered in the few hundreds, but to the civilians, the threat was real and intense. Kain had the feeling that this Arch Necromancer was just another one of the many, many people both alive and undead who had made a bid for controlling the capital of the fallen Darksol Empire, and he was going to be damned if he would let this person, whoever they were, take his rightful throne from him.

It was funny, over the weeks Kain had grown to identify himself as 'Kain' more and more, and the lines between who he was on Earth and Kain himself were slowly blurring to the point where he could barely tell where one personality and memories ended and where the other's began. He noticed that he was getting more callous to anything that opposed him with the intent to do harm to either himself, his nation, or its people, and his brutal destruction of the beasts in the woods and the joy he had felt from wiping the floor with the bandits and the vampire proved he was slowly beginning to show more tendencies of 'Kain' and less of his former self with its peace-loving and compassionate nature. At least he wasn’t devoid of these things but instead was only peace-loving and compassionate towards those who were not hostile towards him...

Back to the Arch Necromancer.

Kain made sure that his citizens were safe inside the castle and then erected a massive stone wall to block the only entrance into the castle. Kain then made my way at full speed towards the approaching forces of the Arch Necromance. He finally stopped just in front of the young woman after making a sizable leap over his forces and sticking a perfect landing. The young woman was obviously startled that Kain had seemingly just dropped out of nowhere in front of her, and as the Abominable King towered over the average-sized flat-chested lady, she had to crane her neck to look up at him. She was around 5 feet and 9 inches, the average height for people in this world, while Kain stood at a whopping 7 feet and 3 inches. With his muscular frame and immense height, he was an incredibly intimidating presence, especially so to this young woman when he had seemingly just dropped in from out of nowhere and landed just inches from her face.

“Give me your name, your reason for being here, and one good reason why I, Kain Anathemas Nekronus von Darksol, the risen and returned emperor of the Darksol Empire, shouldn’t simply snap your neck like a twig in my hands.”

Kain made his dominance clear, hoping she wouldn’t try anything stupid and thus make him kill her. He was more than willing to let her live here as long as she didn’t cause trouble or intend to try and oust him, but if she tried anything here now, he would never let her have the chance to do so later on. How would this mage respond to my announcement of Kain's identity? Would she believe him, or would she deny the truth until she fell? Kain waited for her to respond and watched her eyes dance in their sockets as she both looked him over and mentally processed what had happened. Before long, her face took on a look of utter madness and ecstasy as she fell to her knees and prostrated before him.

“The God of Death himself! In the flesh! Please make me your vassal, oh great one, oh Almighty God of the Endless Cycle!”

…What?