They all say their goodbyes and then leave to return to the ship for the night. Once they are gone I head to the library to see how Lin is doing and if she is ready for bed. When I enter the library I see piles of books scattered all around the room.

"What's all this?"

Lin says "With so many new books I needed to reorganize."

"It looks like it is going to take a while. Are you going to finish or do you want to go to bed?"

Lin says "I should go to bed, but I really want to finish reorganizing."

"Okay, go ahead and finish. I am going to go take a bath."

Lin says "What kind of bath?"

"Lava bath."

Lin says "Oh, then I won't be joining you when I am done."

"No, but you should let me know when you are done."

Lin gives me a smile before she goes back to organizing her books and I head to my bath. Once I am in my normal form and soaking in the lava bath I can finally relax. As I am soaking I make a few plans for what I am going to do tomorrow.

After a couple of hours Lin comes in to let me know she is going to bed. Feeling playful, I shrink down to about human size, and rise up out of the lava like a monster. Growling and roaring, I chase Lin through the castle until we reach the bedroom.

An hour later I leave Lin sleeping peacefully and head down to the main room to work. First I take out some of the leftover branches from the magical trees and reshape them. I make five foot long rods from them and then increase the density as much as I can.

However, I make sure to leave a weak spot right in the middle of the rod. The reason is that I am going to make the breaking of the rod the trigger to activate the item. It is a lot easier to make a one-use item than to make something that is reusable.

Besides, a one-time use item doesn't need to be able to gather mana, it just needs to be charged. That makes the enchantments a lot easier and will also make it more effective. Once I figure out what I want to do, it doesn't take me long to figure out the enchantments for it.

Figuring out everything actually takes the longest, enchanting the rods goes quickly and smoothly. When each rod is broken, it will instantly create a protective barrier around any elf within fifty feet. At the same time, the activation will signal me so that I know something went wrong.

The defensive shield will only last for a minute or two, but I doubt anyone in this city can break it. That should be long enough for me to get to the location and deal with whoever is attacking my people. The best part is that if the elves are close to each other, the barriers will merge and be even stronger.

Stolen novel; please report.

Of course, this doesn't cover every possible scenario, but it is the best that I can think of. Otherwise, I would have to create a defensive item for every single elf and they wouldn't be ready by morning. This is the best that I can do in the short amount of time I have available, but it isn't all I plan to do.

Once the rods are done I take out several blank sheets of paper from my pouch. Then I create an illusion based on my memory of one of the people that sent people to follow the elves. Then, using a modified version of the copy spell, I copy the illusion onto the paper.

It works and on the paper is now a full color image of the person I was remembering. Putting it aside I quickly go through and make images of everyone that the humans reported to. When they are all done I leave the castle, fly over to the association building, and turn into a human.

Then I walk inside and tell one of the bored employees that I need to speak with Almort. It is the middle of the night so of course Almort is currently asleep. Luckily, he left orders to be woken up should I need him for anything at all.

A few minutes later a sleepy, but dressed, Almort comes out of his room to see me. I hand him the papers and explain what I saw yesterday and about the people following my elves. Then I explain that those people reported to these people after following the elves all day.

Almort says "You are telling me that all of the groups were followed throughout the day?"

"Yes. I watched all day."

Almort says "I can't believe that not a single one of the adventurers noticed! I am going to have a word with those teams!"

"That's your business. While I don't know what any of these people are up to, if any of them launch attacks against my people, I will not be happy."

Almort says "Understood. I will hand these over to our intelligence group. We will take steps to make sure nothing happens to your people. Please, don't do anything rash."

"I will be monitoring my people. If they are attacked I will respond, but I won't burn down the city or anything like that. Unless my people are killed, if that happens all bets are off."

Almort says "Alright, I understand. We will take this seriously. You have my word."

"Good. I like this city, I would prefer to remain on good terms with it."

Almort says "Trust me, we want to stay on good terms with you as well."

After talking to Almort I return to the castle and try to think of anything that I might have missed. However, I can't really think of anything else that I would have the time for. By the time I give up, it is too late for me to finish my core upgrade, so I do some work on my spell.

I manage to fix one error without causing any other problems, but it takes a while. I am about to start working on the next when I sense someone at the front gate. I send my mana out and see Zachariah and another man outside, so I let them in and go to meet them.

Zachariah says "Morning, Ash. I hope we aren't too early?"

"No, it's fine. I was already awake. Did you need something?"

Zachariah says "We are just delivering more weapons for you to enchant, but I didn't want to deliver them to your suite. I knew you would be here, but I doubted my man would be able to get in on his own, so here I am."

"Oh, you're right. Sorry, I didn't think about that. I will add him to the guest list, just use him for deliveries and pickups while I am in the castle."

Zachariah says "That's fine. He has been handling all the deliveries anyway. I trust him completely."

"Alright. You can just put the crates over there."