*shapf*

*shlip*

*shup*

As I'm continuing to review documents, I suddenly feel a sharp stabbing sensation in my chest. Not pain, just the feeling of something stabbing into me. Then, something else begins flowing out, as if I were... Bleeding? How odd.

I put the documents down.

*shf*

*pff*

I mentally examine the area and find something unusual. It's like a small region is weaker than the rest of my body.

Strange.

I move my liquid-like innards around, but the spot stays in place. I try to move my body entirely away from that spot, but it moves with me. I expand my body; the spot gets larger, I shrink; it gets smaller. I create an orb of my flesh around it and separate the orb from my body, but the spot warps and shifts onto my innards elsewhere, as though it's not affected.

What is this nonsense?

Anyway, I merely need to kill the bulb. Shridenia just now agreed to evacuate its entire country to the Achiton and Tengerii regions. Plus, I've used Mana to create extensive resources to build a third city south-east of Achiton. It's in the southern wastes. As it turns out, that name was another load of hogwash.

Yeah, it's dry down there, but not desertified. There's a massive underground lake only a hundred meters or so below the surface near where the city will be built. To top it all off, there's massive lodes of ores and gems which made my draconic hoarding instincts go wild. That place is a veritable gold mine. In some places? It's literally a gold mine.

The last challenge the region presents is that of food production due to the region's poor soil quality, but once we get mining operations set up? Importing food should be simplicity itself. This is a gonna be more than a boom town— I checked deeper, too. The veins just keep on goin' down. I'm sure they'll hit the limit eventually, and I may need to teach them how to dig around the underground lake, but overall it's looking like a long-term mining region.

Luckily, the king was either not too attached to Fridellia, thankful I saved his daughter, or excited by the prospect of huge riches. Some combination thereof? Or maybe he's simply scared as hell and good at hiding it.

In any case, he agreed with all my conditions and further put forth a few ideas regarding how to evacuate the smaller towns and villages. Such as, providing travelers from cities with extra carts to visit these towns and villages, then giving city leaders official kingdom seals. It'll help those leaders evacuate the smaller settlements if they're officially under the king's orders.

I passed out these seals using transference magic. The king dealt with the communication side of things.

As for Eritromi, they have plenty of room in their northern cities due to an ongoing military stalemate with Oplenthiom to the north. Farther to their west are oceanic waters, the badlands lay to the south, and Shridenia is to the east and southeast. Eritromi's boxed in quite nicely.

I was able to negotiate a peace treaty with Oplenthiom, but only because I dropped my demand that they change their stupid name. I considered using raw force to make them change their name... By invading and conquering the country right away. It doesn't seem all that different from other nations' names, but it's like my brain can't process it somehow, making it difficult to pronounce. I know this is super-petty, but dragons do as they damn well please.

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I didn't, only because I'm busy with this darn monster.

Regardless, one major problem was moving everyone quickly. Normally, magic carts are ultra-expensive because they require several trained mages to operate in tandem. So, I did what Aitos did best and reinvented the wheel.

The actual wheel.

I faced the wheels toward the ground, added a nozzle to disturb the air's laminar flow, and so created a hovercraft! Though, since the wheels no longer move, I guess one might call them plates or discs.

With this, rather than needing to turn two axles at some absurd RPM, now it's one axle with a much wider shaft. This drives a turbine, which provides air from large holes in the middle of each wooden plate. Air floods out onto each plate, the nozzle creates a circular cushion of air under the plate, and the result is lift. Drop one or two corners of the carriage by decreasing the airflow onto those plates, and gravity pulls the cart in that direction. It's slow at first but on flat terrain can reach bullet train speeds. Wild! Though, I had to improve the carts' aerodynamics. Gravity wasn't enough to drive the cart to such high speeds on its own.

image [https://timjames.net/data/acd/images/059.png]

Oh, reah. I also added more inscriptions and improved the existing ones. Hreh, hreh.

One stores Mana for emergency situations. Another checks if you drove the cart off a cliff (a common problem with illegal magic carts), and if so, it'll activate a high-power 'float mode.' A third automatically seeks the nearest safe landing for large jumps or any involuntary cliff-diving. Lastly, because it's harder to steer than the old carts, I added a pilot assist to predictively dodge obstacles. It can't detect cliffs, but that's because I don't want to raise the Mana cost by adding ground-penetrating radar.

Hopefully, nobody gets themselves stuck in a ravine, but honestly? I think anyone who manages to do that deserves their fate. I've put a lot of work into making these things safe.

I mean, the float mode should be able to figure out how to escape a ravine. It usually won't try to land within a ravine.

If it can't find an escape route, then they drove into a giant canyon for some stupid reason. It'd land within said canyon to keep the occupants relatively safe.

Or, it could also mean they immediately drove into a ravine without the inscription having any time to store backup Mana, so it can't float back out. It just crashes.

What am I supposed to do at that point?

Even if I did add ground-penetrating radar, would they then drive my carts through lava? Into a dragon's den? What? What am I supposed to plan for? Everything?

I'm reminded of the old adage: 'you can never make an invention foolproof, for your efforts shall soon be defeated by the contrivance of a more creative fool.'

Ragh.

In any case, the result is a cart that can be driven by anyone with Mana. That is, everyone. This improved magic transport doesn't require a single trained mage. It's a critical part of the upcoming evacuation.

All in all, I'd say it's a good day's work. With the sheer number of carts I've rolled out, we should have the evacuation done by midday tomorrow. Whichever stragglers choose to stay behind; I won't fight with them.

They were warned.

Egh. I feel that thing in my chest again. It looks like it expanded a little bit. Damnit. I need to research this thing before it gets any worse.

I try magic of all kinds, including inscription and space magic, but nothing happens. I then try Causal Decoherence. It feels like I'm affecting something, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious change. I try to eat it, and this has the most pronounced effect. However, it feels like it simply eats the same amount back.

Is it canceling out my attacks by using my own Origin against me? Hell, this bulb is a real piece of work.

I start smacking it with tons of eating and Causal Decoherence to maybe slow it down or drain the power of the bulb. I'll bet that's where it's getting its strength from. I can tell it isn't coming from me.

The problem I have with the bulb is the opposite of the warp bug. It's not young and strong; it's weak and old. Such weakness makes it easy to deal with forcibly, but its old age gives it a substantial power advantage over me.

I don't want to do it. I really don't. But if push comes to shove, I'll go eat a huge swathe of land or water and overpower this thing's talent. I also don't want to kill innocent people, so, until the evacuation is completed, blasting it directly is off-limits. After that?

I'mma dragon.

Rawr.