As Regis heard Tristan bring up the topic of the local economy, he couldn’t help but sigh.

“We only have a blacksmith, a carpenter, a leather worker and a tanner and no proper supply channels. You can’t start commerce like this.”

“Don’t forget about Letty and yourself either,” Fabien reminded his friend while bringing out a sizeable cooked fish with some potatoes. “You two pretty much cover any magical ware we could need.”

“Which isn’t much, but yeah. This looks delicious. Where did you get the fish from?”

“From the river. I asked for a small fishing net as my share of necessary supplies. I managed to catch nearly a dozen in just a few hours.”

“Nice. It’s good to know that life is returning to the valley after we got rid of the taint and that tree. Do you still have the...”

“The guts? Yeah. Anyway, bon appetit!”

“Back to the topic,” Tristan cleared his throat as the infernal left. “Your farmers estimate that the next harvest should be quite bountiful, leaving us with at least four months’ worth of vegetables if the population stays the same.”

“Four months? That’s good. We could start preserving some from the next planting and make fodder for any farm animals with the extra.”

“Indeed, or we could expand and bring in a few necessary craftsmen.” The man suggested.

“I’m listening.”

“After asking around, I believe that a baker and a brewer would be a most welcome addition to the village. Miss Valerie also petitioned for the right to search for an appropriate area around the mountainside for a vineyard. She already asked Miss Nina to procure grape samples for her.”

“Finally,” Regis let out a content sigh. “That’s a notion I can get behind. Any other artisans you’d suggest?”

“A cobbler and a tailor would be good to have around, but we’re not large enough a settlement and we also don’t have a fabric supplier yet. A stable master and…”

“Tristan,” the spell weaver looked at his steward. “Only the essentials.”

“Oh, right. We would also need a butcher to deal with any game or farm-raised animals once we have those. Having a general store for the people to buy their necessities would be good as well, but that is for Miss Nina to solve.”

“Good evening, milord,” Lars greeted the dark elf, joining them at the table. “As promised, I brought over the floor plans of the new barracks.”

Here the man pulled out a set of scrolls, opening them at the empty part of the table.

“The first one is the main floor along with the side buildings the other two are...”

“The second floor and your house as well I guess,” Regis nodded as he looked over the drawings. “I see you marked down what each room would be, but I don’t see any toilets on the main floor.”

“Toilet?” The man asked back puzzled.

“A shitter,” the spell weaver rolled his eyes. “You put one on the other end of the training field, but that’s about it. Did you expect everyone to get down from the sleeping area and walk across the entire training field during the night or when they get the urge?”

“Well, I... I mean.”

Regis let out a sigh as he drew a pair of small squares at the more hidden corner of the main building.

“We can put them there so that they would be out of sight but close enough for the soldiers.”

“Good idea sir,” Lars nodded. “Anything else you might want to add?”

“I think that a proper bathroom would be appreciated by the guards,” he crossed out the second ‘storage room’ from the first floor’s upper right corner. “If it has a window then we can build a small crane to help them draw water up into the room. We’d add a water tank and an arcane stove to heat said water so that they could take a bath.”

“Isn’t that too much of a luxury milord?” Both Lars and Tristan asked with a somewhat rueful look on their faces.

“Would you want to walk around stinking all day after training?”

“No.” Tristan shook his head.

“Then there’s your answer. As for the rest of the blueprint, I don’t see anything else problematic. Getting the proper wood materials would however take for a while.”

“Miss Jody had already begun to work on the main support beams. She said that we would have enough for the first floor by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Alright,” Regis nodded. “We’ll start tomorrow morning by getting the bridge built and then a main road with the left fork leading to the barracks. I will raise the walls of the main floor and conjure building materials for the second floor. The rest will be up to you and your team. I still have to finish the second greenhouse and craft some spell scrolls and whatnot for Irene.”

“Then I guess we should let you turn in early milord.” Tristan said, helping Lars pack up his scrolls, giving a slight nod to the dark elf before leaving.

“Good night.” He said to the two before finishing up his meal. “Thanks for the dinner. It was delicious.”

“You’re welcome.” Mary answered while finishing up in the back of the inn’s kitchen area.

“By the way. Fabien mentioned that he kept the fish guts.”

“Over there by the window.” The young woman pointed at a bowl not far.

Regis walked over, picking up the bowl of washed and soaked guts, grabbing a water pitcher and an empty clay bottle. He brought them to a nearby table where he formed a transmutation circle using his arcana threads, placing the ingredients and the empty bottle into the circle.

“It’s pretty,” Mary said as she watched the transmutation circle swallowing up the materials, only to spit out a glowing bubble. “I don’t know much about magic, but Fabien told me that this kind of thing is rare and valuable.”

“It is, in more ways than one.” The spell weaver nodded while touching the glowing bubble that popped with a flash of light, leaving behind the bottle that was about one-third full of fish glue.

“This will come in handy. Please tell Fabien to put aside some more guts for me if he has the chance. We’ll need a lot of this stuff.”

“Okay,” she agreed before her a slight awkwardness showed on her face. “Will you… do you plan on making more toilet paper any time soon?”

“Are you running low?”

“Not just me,” Mary answered near immediately. “Everyone is. And now we have more people and...”

“I’ll make some tomorrow, just ask someone to bring over a few cut-up logs for me. Anyway, it’s getting late. I should get going. Good night!” Regis said as he turned around to head upstairs.

Once back in his room, the dark elf let out a sigh as he put away the things in his satchel along with the fish glue. ‘There’s so much to do and I barely have time for any of them.’ He thought to himself as he prepared a stack of parchment along with his ink well and bronze-tipped quill. The light of the magic crystal lamp felt soothing as he crafted one spell scroll after the other, creating nearly two dozen of them in less than two hours.

‘It looks like I'm getting the hang of it.’ He mused while packing away, preparing to use the remainder of his materials to create one more crystal lamp and lantern. By the time he was done with the finishing touches of the infusion enchantments, a long yawn made him aware of how tired he was. Regis took off his armour and after using the cleansing spell, he fell into his bed. Not even a minute later he was already deep asleep. Hours later there was a knock on the door that slowly dragged the young spell weaver back to reality.

“Milord,” he heard Tristan’s voice from the other side. “The sun has already begun to rise and Lars is waiting for you downstairs.”

“Fuck.” He groaned while crawling out of the bed, slowly dragging on his clothes.

“Just give me a minute.” The much-hated words resounded as he put on his armour, grabbing his staff once done.

As he left his room, Tristan gave a slight bow to greet him as the two headed downstairs.

“Good morning, sir.” Lars said with an excited smile, earning a slight nod.

“I guess we should get going,” the spell weaver noted. “We’ll have to start with the bridge first and that will take some effort.”

“As you wish milord.” The mason agreed and the three of them left with a few more people joining along the way.

When Regis reached the river through the side gate of the village, he walked over to the fallen tree where he planned to create the bridge. First, he terraformed the side and bottom of the riverbed to make it even before hardening it into stone. He left a few spots to stay condensed earth so that he could conjure columns out of them, large droplets of sweat appearing on his forehead as he felt the pressure of the flowing river pushing against his first creation.

It wanted to erode and wash away the condensed earth pillar which was only held together by Regis’ arcana and will. A few seconds later as he turned the pillar into solid granite, the pressure in his mind disappeared. After letting out a deep breath, the dark elf had to sit down on the fallen tree.

“Are you alright sir?” Tristan asked as everyone looked at the weary spell weaver.

“Defying the forces of nature can be quite vexing,” he said. “Just give me a few minutes and I'll be fine. Once the support pillars are done, the rest will be easier.”

After the explanation, he began to meditate for a short while before creating a second pillar and then a third. The stone columns created a line in the middle of the river, ready to support what was to come. Once he regained his energy, Regis began to conjure a condensed earth wall that reached over the riverbed, firmly laying down on their half of the columns’ top before hardening into stone. Along the edge of the now half-finished bridge were several square-shaped holes the size of a human's head.

“Tristan,” he called out to his steward. “Please take note to talk with Jody later about the railings for the bridge.”

“I... yes sir.” The man mumbled, still baffled by what he had seen.

A few minutes of meditation later they crossed the river using the fallen tree and Regis began to terraform that side of the riverbed before completing the bridge by conjuring and hardening the second half of the walkway. He crossed the bridge back and forth, testing his creation which seemed to be sturdy enough for the task. Charlatans’ wisdom showed an interesting yet also reassuring description as well.

{Granite Stone Bridge}

{Building rarity: uncommon}

{Building quality: ordinary}

{Weight limit: 5T}

{Durability: 500/500}

“It has a weight limit of five tons,” he stated while heading over to where the future barracks were meant to be built. “I’ll reinforce it if needed once the railings are added.”

“That was amazing milord,” Lars said with childlike enthusiasm. “Building a bridge like that would have taken weeks of preparation and work. If we could…”

“Lars,” the steward raised his voice somewhat. “Lord Regis is a busy man. He won’t have time to do your work for you. Be glad you get your building materials conjured where needed.”

“I am,” the mason lowered his head with his excitement fading. “About the barracks.”

“I’ll build the ground floor and the walls surrounding the area.” Regis stated as they arrived.

He stepped closer to the area marked by the stakes and yarn, the ground becoming even as he willed it to change. Light-coloured granite floor began to form between the confines of the stakes as the mason pulled out the scroll that contained the floor plan. The spell weaver followed the drawings as he raised segments of the wall, leaving window holes and doorway spaces when necessary. A good two hours later the main floor’s walls stood strong and tall with a good twenty cubic metres of stone blocks piled up in front of the entrance.

“This should do it for now,” the dark elf sighed relieved. “I’ll leave the rest to you. Once the second floor is well underway, I’ll come back to fuse the blocks.”

“Yes,” Lars replied with a deep bow. “Thank you for your help, sir.”

“I should get going,” Regis said as he began to walk back toward the village. “The second greenhouse still needs a lot of work and there are plenty of other things to do.”

“What about the paths and my workshop milord?” Lars asked as he watched the young man walk away.

“We need to plan a layout for the streets before building anything. I’ll leave that to you and Tristan. Start with a main road from the bridge and plan from there. Come find me when you have a few variants.”

“As you wish sir.” Tristan nodded after hearing the important task that was entrusted to him and the mason.

Regis walked back along the path outside the village wall to the half-finished greenhouse where he found a very busy Letty and Lunet. He couldn’t help but smile as he saw how hard-working and studious the little girl was, listening to every word her teacher said.

‘Looks like we’ll have a second druid in no time.’ He mused while entering the unfinished greenhouse. The following three hours went by fast as he spent his time creating and transmuting quartz crystals into glass-like panels he then inserted between the columns and beams. By the time the sun reached the highest point of the sky, the greenhouse and the small corridor got fully finished.

“So what do you think?” The spell weaver asked the girls as they joined him after the last quartz panel got slotted in its place.

“It looks good and it should let us grow twice as much as we did before, but what about…”

“I was just about to start making the grow boxes. When I was talking with Chera, she mentioned some other alchemy-related plants. That made me think it would also be a good idea to create a few other elemental boxes.”

“It would be nice to have more ingredients to work with,” Letty agreed. “But most of them are very expensive. It would likely cost us a gold or two just to get the seeds.”

“We’ll see what can be done about that. For now, let’s just focus on what’s at hand.”