Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

The design team had indeed been working on new toys for the residents of Forest Grove and their allies. Most of them were unrelated to the topics that Wolfe had to talk about, but they had created a magic-powered mining tool intended to help the villages expand their dens.

Most of them had no Witches or other Magic users among them, so their villages had been dug entirely by hand and expanded over the course of years.

That was not optimal for population growth and really limited how much they could do with the space they had.

Some of them had improvised decent equipment for mining out of what they had taken from the army, but the utility of that equipment was still very limited, and Ella had found a plan in one of the design books that Myrrh Coven had traded to them which would be perfect not only for the villages but for Wolfe's plan to create a subterranean road network.

"This is our new pride and joy right here. The adaptable mining drill. It cuts through rock with ease and spreads the rubble down a conveyor behind it. That means there still needs to be somewhere to discard all that rubble unless you have an Earth Magic user with you, but if you did, it might be easier just to have them do the digging." Janet, their only truly trained engineer, explained.

"What would require less mana and skill? I am thinking of hundreds of kilometres of tunnels to be dug, and that is going to be a massive amount of rubble created." Wolfe explained.

Janet tapped one smooth chocolate-coloured finger against her chin, nibbling on her fingernail as she considered the answer.

"If that's the case, we should change the spell on the conveyor to merge the rubble into the ground beneath it. Magic will allow it to disperse without any fuss or mess, but traditionally, this device was meant for mining precious minerals, so you wanted to keep everything." She explained.

Ella brightened at the mention of precious minerals. "I think that I can make it so that the spell only gets rid of regular rocks and keeps all the gemstones and precious metals. Then, we will have them to trade to the villages and Covens as well.

Creating new materials with Earth Magic that last beyond the duration of the spell is WAY beyond the skills of 99 percent of all Witches. It's only those at Rank Two, or very close to it, that can do that. Everyone else has to reshape what materials they have.

So, there should be a big market for these, and we can transport them by truck to our customers or have them get the materials themselves.

Plus, gemstones are common reagents in earth magic spells, so we can always use more of them for charms and amulets."

"Alright, this is the map of all the villages in our immediate area. I only included the ones that have been affected by the spread of the Fae Forest so far, but we can expand as the effect expands.

That way, there will be no risk of miscommunication due to the Curses, and we can deliver straight to our allies without fear of discovery or carrying everything through the dense trees." Wolfe explained.

"That is brilliant. Insane but brilliant. If we can actually pull this off, we could revolutionize transport on the continent. We would be able to go anywhere without fear of being caught." Janet cheered.

The existing machine was three metres across, a very tight fit for a truck in a tunnel, but they could always make multiple passes to create a large enough passage for the transports that had been converted to magic over electric power.

"You know, if we switch the mana crystals to the new higher density ones that I have learned, we could cut down on the volume of them that are needed to move the big trucks and the planes. 

It would cut the weight down and require less of a redesign. In fact, I think that we should be able to fit all the crystals we need in the old fuel tanks. You would only have to tear out the engines and replace them with the inscribed electric motors mated to the existing transmissions." Wolfe suggested.

That was about what they had been doing. Only the crystals needed to carry a heavy load added up to quite a lot of space, so they had put them all in a large box in the back, which cut down on their cargo capacity.

The teams got right to making the modifications while Wolfe filled the empty fuel tanks of one of the trucks with the third-rank crystals, some of the densest that he could create and nearly ten times as energy-rich as the standard.

When that was done, he finished up the Inscriptions that needed his personal touch and sent a stream of mana through the system to get everything activated.

The gauges on the truck lit up when Ella flipped the switch, and the truck began to roll across the floor with a whirring of the electric motor when she put it in gear.

"It looks like we've got a working vehicle, with just the fuel tanks. I can't say how much they will hold for power, but I trust that Wolfe wouldn't joke about the level of increase." Ella informed her team of mechanics.

Her coveralls were all greasy, and there was a line of dried blood on her hand from a mishap with the wrenches, though she had already healed the damage. It made the place look much more like a regular mechanics shop than some fancy magical research lab. 

That was basically what it was these days, as the team worked on all the vehicles, repairing the damage that had been done to them and using magic to repair or fabricate new parts to get them going again.

"I think the big question is where should the tunnel start? If we're going to link the Den to other villages, the tunnel needs to connect somewhere secure and not a spot that could be overrun if one of the villages is invaded by either monsters or soldiers." Ella pondered.

Her frustrated gesture tossed grease off her sleeve onto the floor, and the short tomboy sighed. "First, I need to shower, then we talk."