Felix's next big project, was a cannon. He had already created a few of them, but he wanted to create something insane. This cannon would use batteries of a million mana each and would channel it all into different kinds of projectiles. He would load up a disc with a spell on it, then the cannon would channel the mana into the spell and cast it. He could then have lightning discs and fire discs and he could also fire with only some of the mana, he wasn't limited to all of it. He made the cannon out of a large steel tube that was a couple meters long and half a meter wide. He enchanted the entire thing to be lighter, more durable and counteract any force applied to it so it didn't have too much recoil.

When he was done, he giggled to himself from the excitement of using it at some point. He hoped it would work, but he couldn't test more than a tiny fraction of the mana it was designed to handle. He also made sure he made multiple lightning, force, cold and fire discs so he could choose the spell he wanted on the fly and replace them if he needed to for whatever reason. The best part about all of these tools, was that they didn't cost him precious concentration, meaning he could fire them and cast 5 other spells at the same time.

By the time he finished it was time to escort Grim and scout the enemy so they flew over to The Grove. Overall there were a couple more trebuchets and ballistae but the biggest change was that everything was beginning to fit into a loose formation. All of the siege equipment and tents were set up into even rows and columns and split up into groups. They were all facing, as expected, west, towards Tri-Peak. This may have been the most profitable scouting mission yet though because Felix realized what the tunnel was from, mostly because he caught a glimpse of it's creator.

Felix explained to Grim as they flew back to Tri-Peak, "Grim, the tunnel, it's Mole-Ants. Before I met you, I stayed in Bastion of Hope for a little while. Their entire settlement was in a cave system below the ground. Their stupid name, was because the leader of the settlement decided to start a holy crusade against these Mole-Ants. See if you can find a Benjamin, Will and Alan in the city, they're from Bastion and know more about the creatures than I do."

"Oh, they're on the war council."

"Really? That is oddly convenient. I guess they were all pretty high level and outspoken, makes some sense I guess."

"Noah recommended them."

"It's good to hear they integrated themselves so well into the town. Do you mind if I attend one of the council meetings in the morning?"

"How would that work? Why?"

"You just answer everybody by writing in the air again. If you just pull my hand, I can walk you where you need to go. As for why, I want to see what preparations we have set up and make sure you aren't going to set up a demon summoning circle."

"Alright sure, but in exchange, can I get some mana batteries?"

"I'll give you 6 million mana worth and some magical weapons I've been working on."

"Alright, deal. It will also mean I finally don't have to magically hide the breakfast to pretend I'm eating it."

They flew back to the tower and Grim headed down to the war room to prepare for the battle. Felix worked the rest of the night on magical grenades and planning for his next big project, some massive bombs.

In the morning, before the meeting, he met Grim and they sat at the head of the war room table. Grim placed himself down on the table next to Felix, open to a blank page so he could talk to Felix privately using the page, or to the room with lights. They had a few minutes before the meeting started so Grim briefed Felix on all the preparations they had made for the war.

"Wow, I am glad you are handling this and not me. I would not have prepared that well."

"You could likely have ended the siege in a few minutes yourself though."

"Really?"

"Yes. When you are done with the final boss, make sure to fill your mana and hurry back. While I am planning to be able to hold out for a month, I am only expecting to be able to hold out for a day at most. The city is mostly crafters and non combatants. We can hold the line but it's going to be hard to actually crush them and end all hope of continuing. Fighting back is not our specialty."

"I think you're going to do better than you think. Guess we will see though. As for hurrying back, I'd rather not interfere."

"Why not?"

"I've been thinking about Noah's concerns and now you saying I could end the siege by myself just reaffirmed my decision. I want the city to be self sufficient, the only reason I originally claimed it was to have a place to sleep. I am not and will not be the protector of the city. Either it can defend itself or it can't."

"I wish you would have told me sooner, I'd probably have prepared differently."

"Sorry."

"It doesn't really matter to me. Doesn't really change that much. Have you talked to Noah yet?"

"No. I'm kind of hoping he just falls for our little ruse."

"Pages crossed (It's like fingers crossed, get it?). Any idea what the final boss is?"

"I found the seal at the bottom of the ocean, it looks something like this." Felix proceeded to trace the engraving from the seal almost perfectly, as he was tracing a mental image, onto Grim's pages.

"Well shit, I know what it is."

"What is it?"

"I can't say more unless you know what it's called. I can give you a hint though, it was in one of your dictionaries."

"Octopus?"

"More mythical, like a griffin."

"Oh, Kraken?"

"Yup. I'm not sure about your universe, but the youngest one I had ever heard of, was absurdly strong. I honestly don't think you have the damage to kill it."

"Yeah I didn't think so either, I spent the last little while stocking up on mana and making single use weapons and stuff."

"If it is a Kraken, it won't be enough."

"Really?"

"You would need something ridiculous like 20 times the mana and even then, you would have to hit it with 50 thousand spells."

"Even if they were lightning?"

"Yes, I was assuming you would use lightning. Otherwise, it would be more."

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"Well shit."

"It's possible they aren't as strong in this universe."

"That doesn't seem likely."

"No it doesn't. I know you're still going to try though, aren't you?"

"Of course."

"Just don't get trapped by it's tentacles and you should be fine. It's really strong and really durable, but it's also massive. It doesn't move as fast as you do. You need to be like a fly, impossible to swat."

"Oh man, is it really that big? I'll be actually the size of a fly?"

"It's bigger and you'll be lesser. I'll be surprised if you manage to get 10% of the way to killing it."

"That's a little grim don't you think?"

"That was awful."

"Yeah, it was."

The meeting started and breakfast was served. Felix was happy to stuff his face with delicious food to help him avoid talking. Grim spent the time discussing the new developments with Benjamin. Luckily, Felix had worn his mask the entire time he was with Benjamin, Will and Alan so none of them recognized him.

"Mole-Ants? Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Grim wrote in the air in front of Felix.

"How the hell did they tame the stupid things."

"I assume they will use them to tunnel beneath the walls, how worried should we be?"

"A little? Mole-Ants are great at tunneling, but they aren't very fast. If they do tunnel through, it'll be at the front and only just under the walls. They won't tunnel through the mountain into the middle of the city or anything. That would take months. Best case, they tunnel a hundred meters every couple hours or so. Depends on the ground beneath the wall though. If they have to tunnel through hard rock it's more like a dozen meters in the same time." Benjamin said looking to Will and Alan for confirmation. They both nodded and shrugged.

"Alright that makes this easier. We need to have combatants ready to fight at the bottom of the walls in case they do show up. We also want to make the tunnel unusable once they come through, but we don't want to destabilize the wall, so no explosives. We can pour oil and ignite it or water to drown the tunnel. Any other ideas?"

"Caltrops. Should be pretty dark down there, doubt they can easily avoid 'em." Kenneth offered.

"Henry, can you make some simple caltrops? Just bend some scrap shrapnel or something?"

"Should be able to do that, sure."

"What about bear traps? Can use their own trapped corpses to seal the way." Jen offered.

"Henry?" Grim asked.

"On it." He responded.

The rest of the meeting passed without any major issues or concerns. Everyone gave quick briefs about what they were working on which was helpful for Felix who had no idea. In the end, Felix decided that Grim was doing a much better job than he would have been able to and that he should probably just trust Grim. He wasn't sure he was ready to soul-bond yet, but he was ready to give Grim a bunch of mana batteries.

"Uh Felix, you seem different today, did you change your robes?" Susan finally interjected. She had stared at him the entire meeting, clearly trying to figure out what was different about him.

"Yeah." Grim wrote.

"It is a little odd you writing to us while you stuff you face with food. Just saying." Will interjected.

"More efficient." Grim wrote.

"I mean, I guess so. Just a little off putting is all." Will mumbled.

Once the meeting was over, Felix and Grim headed up to Felix's lab to get some privacy. Felix supplied Grim with 24 single use batteries totaling about 6 million mana and also gave him some of the magical weapons he had created over the last week. He gave him an assortment of explosives as well as a few wands and a hand cannon prototype from before he had thought of interchangeable spells.

Just as Felix finished handing everything off to Grim, Noah walked up and into Felix's lab, "Alright, what's going on?"

Felix turned to Noah and Grim wrote out, "You're going to have to be more specific."

"For one, the past week you wore the mask even though you didn't change your face. Alone, that isn't that weird but, I started paying attention to the map and your icon said you were somewhere else even though I was right next to you. At first I thought you were projecting yourself but then I thought through the things you'd said over the last week and the fact that you can't speak. Then I saw you at the table today and everything was back to normal. That wasn't you, was it? You leant someone your mask? Who?"

Felix looked at Grim then back at Noah, "Noah, meet my book, Grim. Grim's been the one planning the city's defense. He's been posing as me for the past little bit."

"Hello." Grim wrote out in the air.

"What the hell do you mean, posing as you? Why?"

"As you said, he wears the mask and makes it look like me then we put a cloak over him and the mask's effect makes it hard to tell it's not me."

"Why?"

"I'm not going to be participating."

"In what?"

"The war. I'm going to go fight the Kraken. Grim will do his best to fill the gaps, he-"

"Your book? Felix, we need you here. I know I said think about it but I thought you had decided to say. You sai- or the book said you were going to help."

"Noah, it's not my fight. It wouldn't be right for me to fight."

"It's your city, why wouldn't it be right."

"It would be like picking on the little guy, beating up a child. It's not right."

"What if it's to protect tens of thousands of lives?"

"If you have a kid and they're being bullied at school, do you beat up the bully?"

"You do if the bully is trying to kill your kid. Or you do something to stop the fighting. Felix, the bully is trying to kill us."

"Those are the rules of the arena. In a playground, the bully punches your kid and takes their lunch money. Here we fight with sword and spells. People die, on both sides. Hundreds or even thousands of our citizens will die. Hundreds or even thousands of them will die too. This is a gun fight, don't complain that they have guns too."

"Why not just end the war before it starts? Why not destroy the siege weapons and make it impossible for them to fight? You don't need to kill any of them. The whole town was started around the idea of focusing on professions. Why should we have to fight when you could easily protect us?"

"Just taking out the siege equipment doesn't eliminate the threat they pose, it does minimize it though. You would have had to fight eventually, whether or not it's this army or beasts or something else down the road. Even if I did protect you now, I wouldn't be able to forever."

"You don't have to protect us forever, but you sure as hell own the damn city right now and right now it's under attack. Also don't you think it's a little arrogant to call us all kids?"

Felix sighed and finally looked into the privacy setting screen for his own level. Once he found the setting he was looking for, he gave Noah permission to see his level.

"Hello? Why'd you go all blank ey- holy shit. That's an item right? It's the mask or something?"

"Noah, I really did kill all those world bosses myself. I'm not going to go on a killing spree to take out the other people in the tutorial. I don't care that they're aggressing on us."

"Wouldn't it be easy then? All you have to do is scare them, make them back off. Maybe destroy the siege weapons, you don't need to kill anybody. Minimizing the risk will still save lives."

"Look, maybe in hindsight I'll regret this decision, but I just think it's wrong to participate. It's not the right thing to do. The right thing to do, I think, is to prepare you all as best I can and let whatever is going to happen, happen. I won't always be there to protect the city. What if down the road I'm dead or stuck somewhere and can't be here? The city needs to be self sufficient, and well… this is the tutorial. You may not agree with my moral conclusion, but this is the one I've made, and I will live with it. If you don't think the city can defend itself, evacuate. I'll help in whatever way I can. Or surrender, if you think they'll be merciful and you'd rather live under them."

"So instead I'm responsible for protecting everyone in the city? What if everyone dies? Or even just half of them? Or… Amelia…"

"You have cannons, storm generators and an absurdly massive wall. You have the tools you need to survive, you just need to be willing to fight back. I'm sorry I won't be there. I'm sorry you feel responsible for their lives, but this city is as much, if not more yours than it is mine. You built it, you designed it, you cared for it and fostered it's growth. All you need to do now is fight for it. And again, I'm sorry. Look, at the end of this, if it makes you feel better, I'll transfer the ownership of the city to you. All I really wanted in the first place was a place to crash. If you still want me around at that point, I'd be happy to do my all to protect the city from anything that's out of it's league."

"You think that's the right solution? Just give up the city entirely?"

"It is what it is. I'm sorry you disagree. Look, if you want my advice, emotionally not for the actual battle, people are going to die, that's just how it is. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can get over it and the better prepared you'll be to save as many people as possible. If you know there was nothing else you could do, hopefully it will hurt less down the road when you look back on the fallen. And remember, it's not all on you. Everyone in the city is helping to defend it, Amelia built defenses and the ramp, we have medics on standby, Jen stockpiled food and water, Henry built ballistae and Grim here knows a lot more about war than I do."

"They just don't have to die."

"I'm not gonna give you the broken egg omelet analogy cause that's not accurate but, people die no matter what, whether or not a war is happening. If they go out to hunt creatures or Henry got his way and fought the world boss, people would have died. You can't, and even I can't, protect them all, all we can do is prepare everyone for success and hope. It seems this is just life in the multiverse."

Noah stormed out of the room and Felix sighed.

He doesn't have to agree with me, I just hope he doesn't hate me afterwards. . . . . .