I sent Sarah some mana equivalent to a third of the mana generation right now and told her to create some stone, preferable granite, which she then should deposit in my inventory. I hadn't had made use of my creation skill in some time and wanted to check if I could just create stone pillars from scratch, if the material was there to be worked with. Theoretically it should do the trick. It wouldn't help to advance my stonemason skill, but right now I needed some good and sturdy buildings for the humans to live in and later I would start to build better houses for them to live in.

I'll build the houses a little bit away from my core, that way I have enough space for building a splendid marketplace with all the important buildings around it, like an adventurer's guild, the town hall or the much waited for bath house.

I just wanted to begin with digging into the ground when I was disturbed by my still deceased city guardians.

“When do you think to revive us, Marcus? I'm just asking. Don't mind me staying around here and using the beverages in your inner mind,” said Galen sitting at the table with some Coke in a cup, enjoying the new taste of it. Where the hell did he get it from? I can't remember to have this stuff around, but being in my inner mind it didn't have to have substance, did it? So maybe I could create anything I remembered and enjoy the taste of it as long as I didn't try to take it outside? It was a thought to research later.

“Okay, I got a little bit sidetracked here. Let me see.... I need around 10000 mana for each of you to be revived, so with the goodwill of the guys around here you will be all back to life in less than a day, after I have taken care of the healing of any wounded.”

Chara was enjoying herself with the food and beverages around with the older women keeping a close eye on her to not use any alcoholic drinks. Sometime during my absence there came a bar with a wide choice of drinks into being in my inner mind and I had a sudden thought that there would be quite some evenings with my guardians gathered around the table drinking and telling the tales of what happened over their days. I couldn't wait for that to happen, maybe we could also enjoy some games like poker, pen and paper roleplaying or a movie evening. I had quite the selection in my memory, being an enthusiastic cinema geek in my former life. Their reactions to the Lord of the rings would be priceless.

I said to the elves and humans that I would need a lot of mana for my guardians and therefore wouldn't be able to do much building right now with the reaction of many of them coming over and sending their power into my core. That way it didn't take long for Galen to be revived first. He had played some cards with the ladies and when I had gathered the energy he just disappeared from my inner mind and a gleaming light erupted only 2 meters away from my core with Galen then standing with some simple clothes in white linen. His old robe seemed to have been destroyed and when looking down himself he just sighed a little bit.

“That was a strange experience, I have to say. This new body feels almost as the old one, just a bit stronger or perhaps younger. By the way, these clothes are itchy as hell. You know, I'll miss the old piece. I made it myself some 30 years ago and invested quite some vis into it to make it awesome, but at least it went down in a good fight.”

The old geezer had slightly bitter feelings right now, so I just added, “Don't mind it, my friend. I'll help you with a new one. Our newest mage resident should have enough knowledge about enchantments to make the new robe much better than the last one. By the way, does it have to be a robe?”

Galen gazed at my core and laid his head to the side, “You’re right of course. Anything light should do the trick as long as it doesn’t constrict movement.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I took a closer look at the old elf and had to admit that he didn’t give the impression of being old anymore. So being revived had given him a younger body? My powers were really a cheat if there ever was one. I had to keep a close eye on any future guardians to ensure they didn't just try to apply for the job for getting a younger body again.

“I’ll do my best to find something better than a robe. The Jedi look doesn’t suit you either way.”

Galen seemed confused, “Jedi? What’s that?”

I heard a snicker from Tiria some distance away and answered, “We will have some educative viewings in the following weeks and months, my friend. All your questions will be answered then. For now we have some cleaning to do and more than enough building also.

I turned to Kira, “Please tell me this evening how many of you guys will stay right here. I’ll have to build some homes for you and an exact number would help me very much.”

The woman nodded and went back to her people with the other humans in tow. Then I told the uninjured elves to begin looting the place and disposing the bodies into Sarah’s dungeon. This way I had more time for the more important things like buildings for my new citizen and big trees for the elves to life inside.

I had the idea of growing the trees first and then constructing the homes around the big oaks. As I could control how big the trees would get, I could ensure that they didn’t destroy the buildings with their roots. Some elves were sent to the forest to harvest more oak saplings. After having the training session with Tiria to modify plants I had some ideas how I wanted my future city trees to look like. As I wasn’t keen on cleaning duty for their greenery, I wanted to cross them with some fir tree to make them able to keep their leaves even in winter. That would also need some serious structural improvement as snow had a decent weight.

Later on I’ll modify the trees some more but right now I had some restrictions with my reduced mana manipulation.

I went down to the river and checked its depth for I wanted to create fields on the other side. There I had enough room for my next project and the soil looked good enough for planting. By the way, I could cross oaks with some fruit trees to make them able to produce food for the growing population. With the size of these trees each one could provide some serious nutrition for my citizens.

‘Hey Sarah, do you have a template for animals like pigs, cows or poultry? It would help with keeping the elves and humans fed.’

After some seconds she answered, ‘You’re serious? You want to make me a food provider for the mortals? I’m a fucking dungeon, Marcus! They’ll have to fight for their food if they want to eat my creations.’

I sighed. This drama with women will hunt me wherever I’ll go, ‘Dear, I didn’t say that they won’t have to fight for their food. Just don’t make the animals too hard to kill and make them pay for taking the carcasses outside by forcing them to gift you some of their mana.’

‘That’s wicked! Hehe, this way they offer you their surplus mana and me the rest, wringing them dry like the desert and they will even be happy about it. I love it’

I knew that would get her interest. Sometimes it was just too easy. Stop right there! I caught myself being an ass and feeling superior to Sarah. She was a girl and therefore had an unfair advantage in shrewdness I would never happen to catch up to. So it would do me some good to not try to influence her too much and think I was the only one being manipulated. I didn’t want her mad at me and I had to admit that she had a nice figure. Maybe I could have a go at her sometime in the future. Never mind, back to work.

The river was quite deep, I had to admit. At some places the water was more than 15 meters deep and at the widest place more than 120 meters. I searched for a good place for a bridge that was inside my domain and could be easily converted as a fundament for a stone bridge, but after intensive searching I had to concede the fact that I will have to dump massive amounts of stone to get a good ground for building. Maybe it’d be easier to just construct a ferry for the time being and some homes for the farmers on the other river side.

The amount of work ahead of me made me cringe a little bit but also excited. So many things I’ll be able to build in the coming years and then the developing of magic and technology, and their fusing. That was something I was the most excited over. Mana driven tools and machines. If the shit hit Earth and this world was a fall-back place for mankind I’ll have my work cut out for me.

Hm, I think I’ve forgotten something. What was it again?.... Oh right, Mariah! I’ll have her train all the mages right away and write down her knowledge. She would be the next candidate for a guardian as I couldn’t risk losing her knowledge to some lucky fucker. Right now she might be one of my most precious persons around. I’ll have to remind myself that she wasn’t any kind of possession.

I went back to my inner mind where she and the rest of my guardians played some card game that had a slight resemblance to poker. She explained the rules to them right now and they all had some beverages and snacks and sat on very comfortable looking leather chairs. I remembered the chairs from a visit at a big store near my former home. Where in the world did they get these things from?