If I just ignored the sudden visit from the unknown person, everything was going according to plan. The catch would be finished soon, then I could test the railgun system. After that I could start building ships without worry. My robotics sales were through the roof now, my subtle change of design to the batteries I made hit the market hard. Of course the government wanted it so I forced to send it to them else they might send a team to warehouses to try and steal it. Not that they'd find any as all the factories were underground. So I struck a contract with the company that made their guns, another with the one that made the vehicles. Basically if a company was providing the military anything I was striking a deal with them to supply the batteries to them. It would take a few months, but eventually all kingdom forces would be getting a massive upgrade.

Without having to rely on the supply of magic crystals the use of magical weapons would increase, no need for normal guns if you got a gun that shoots laser beams. With that done I started designing ships. I absolutely hated the Coalition ship design, just bland egg shapes. I made sure any design larger than a fighter was capable of having people inside. The fighters, well they could be easily converted over if needed.

Frigates were a bit more blocky than I wanted, but they needed to accommodate their engines. But being blocky I decided to add armor in the form of wedges, giving it a more angular design and honestly looked a lot better. No windows of course, but instead external cameras hooked up to monitors inside. With that, I was able to put less critical areas near the hull or the front and the bridge in the center. The ship was too small to need a CIC, it did need a sizable barracks area. I didn't put it right up against the hull but it was less critical than other things.

Engine room took up most of the rear of the ship as well as a big portion of the belly as it required a large reactor like structure. It almost reminded me of my own core using both Blue Goo and electricity to power the ship. I really didn't have any magical weapons, or for that matter engines, or shields... I realize that this design will be scrapped. It didn't have shields, only ballistic and electric powered guns, most of the magic generated was wasted.

I'm going to have to get my hands on some magical guns, those usually only come on mechs or Space and True ships. There was no ocean around here, so I'll have to see if I can get the plans for them... Maybe the government could help? I was skeptical because I haven't actually seen a magic powered weapon by the Kingdom yet. The ships in orbit were all Coalition, the mechs in the camp were old models that used giant shotguns. I'm not saying that the giant boom sticks are bad... But it effetely limits the usage of the mechs to rural areas or areas completely lost to the enemy.

So no fancy space guns for me... I knew that the ships in orbit were coalition, but it just dawned on me that ONLY coalition ships were in orbit. The station itself? Coalition. The intial ship they built? Coalition. The fighters they started building after the first fight? Coalition. I'll have to see if there isn't a treaty in place about ships in orbit. The only things that weren't explicitly Coalition was the shuttles they used to ferry resources. But they needed to go back and forth to specific points on the ground so it was kind of whoever sent them up.

I added magical weapons to my list of projects before I started looking up any treaties about space. But there was only the one they made when they made the first ship. Which was interesting as it wasn't supposed to have guns at all, until the elves pushed for it. So the magical weapons on the frigate were elven in origin, the hull was made by humans. Internal structure was designed by beastmen. Well, this doesn't explain why all ships ended up being Coalition. But it did make some sense, the entire world's military force united in space.

I would have to talk with them if I wanted to start building ships in orbit without them becoming suspicious of me. I pulled up my automated fighter design, the start of that would have to start with something small.

Pitch the design to the Coalition, have them test it figure out it's way better then theirs. Building trust, that's what this plan was about. From there I would start working on larger and larger ships. For now once they test the first fighters they'll realize I'm missing crucial tech and send me examples or the people who I can get that stuff from.

I designed the fighter to not be a living space, it was literally just a seat on top of a small reactor with an oversized engine behind them. My reasoning for the absurd thrust was because I wasn't going to be using the magic for anything else so I might as well. I put a few batteries in as well to act as a boost incase the pilot ever wanted to just get away from whatever was chasing them. The guns were miniaturized implosion cannons, currently it was looking exactly like the parts it made up. However I needed the fighter to be able to fly in atmosphere. It might not be able to get out of atmosphere on its own power but if something happened I didn't want the people dying in a fireball.

So the fighter was designed with an aerodynamic design, thick wings because I spread out the cannons. Ammo storage was in the wings into the belly of the craft. Again the cockpit used cameras and monitors rather than glass. That let me move the seat into a more central position rather then so exposed. The armoring was quite thick but it was needed with the amount of explosive power set into this thing. The ammo was explosive, the batteries I put in explosive, the reactor was explosive. Might as well make the engine explosive as well... Not, that was a joke it's an exposed component so its for the best it's not explosive. The rest was covered in metal giving it a large wing design. I had to introduce some fins for drag to stabilize the design in atmosphere. I wouldn't want the pilots to die because of poor design.

Blueprint completed I moved my attention away. It was time for the first test of the railgun. I had to file an alert to coalition that I was shooting the cannon soon. That was a week ago though. Cameron had succeeded in attaching the automated section of the catch. So it was all good to go. The first 'Capsule' Was actually a solid shot. They all were, the other layer was always the same so there was no visual difference. But the inside was made up of a single type of metal, all different. Copper, Iron, Cobalt. It was mostly iron though, as it would need that the most. Oh, and I was sending up some carbon as well. So it could turn the Iron into steel.

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I couldn't send up steel directly as the heat from the railgun would ruin the steel, so I just had to send up the materials for it. Which was easy enough. The news crew watched as the railgun turned. Then the microphones broke as the shockwave broke them, as a streak of light came out of the barrel and seemed to stop before it got too far. It was an instant, the 'test' was successful. Very successful, as the catch took apart the capsule just in time to catch the next shot.

The news crew were wearing earmuffs, which I thought hilarious with their animal ears. They resorted to using captions rather than speaking as they reported the success with the railguns continued sustained fire in the background. In truth it could fire a lot faster but that would damage the barrel, Besides the catch wasn't yet up to full capacity anyways. Once it was we could safely increase the material delivery speed by two times.

I wasn't worried about the shockwave, the military base it was built on was very far away from the main city. Though, I felt bad about anyone who was going to have to work there. They might have trouble sleeping...

There was some sort of pleasure to be had watching the rail gun's non stop firing. After these test shots though, I wouldn't be the one firing it. After this it would be firing commercial orders into orbit. A shuttle could easily be refit to ferry between the station and catch for those materials. Even my competitor that was launching rockets realized they couldn't compete, not only was I sending up much heavier loads I was also doing so multiple times per day with much less waste.

Of course when the government inspection came around they got Axed with no complaint from them, I almost felt bad... It was incredibly unfair to them, but they could tell that I made them very redundant. Many of the other that were making shuttles switched from cargo to people, the others in space well they were already working on combat ships.

Coalition at first weren't happy with so many shots but when they realized not one missed their mark they realized just how beneficial this was. The only limitation was the orbit of the catch. Which was towed into a geo-synchronous orbit by a shuttle, so I could send up materials day and night. Within a month it will have paid for itself. I quietly published my fighter design, the Coalition were paying attention now. They'll see it and then I'll be given the green light to start building it for tests.

Except the Coalition were more competent than I thought, the directly send a message saying that my design wasn't up to par because of the lack of shields. That they'd send their own to my rented out bay for me to inspect how it was made. Their fighters looked a like a raindrop with a fat front and a long tail. The tails shape helped with the magic pure magic power they used to generate thrust. I have to hand it to them though, whatever they were using to generate power was leagues better than what I had to run such an inefficient engine . Luckily Cameron didn't care that the engineers there to teach him said he wasn't allowed to tear it apart. He had that thing in pieces quickly. As for their mana generator. Well it was a heart. A living beating heart. No fucking idea how that was a thing, but it was and it was still beating.

It was much bigger than a normal heart, so it wasn't from a human being. But using the heart of a highly magical creature made sense, every creature generated magic. So if a heart was used as a generator it would give quite a lot of power. As for the weapons, well it was using the pilots ability to cast magic. It would send it through a few gemstones that amplified the magic cast. If the pilot cast a light beam the spell would be amplified before being cast out on the exterior of the hull. Which was both amazing but terrible at the same time. Meaning I wasn't able to make a weapon that shot fireballs. I needed a person to do it.

Which meant I was limited to physical weapons for now. Which was fine, as having a military force be entirely made up of magical damaged seemed like a weakness to me.

Back to Cameron he had re-assembled the fighter the shield was a plate that had a circular patterned carved into it. This is what made me believe that making a weapon that shot fireballs could happen, I just didn't understand how to change it from a shield into a gun. But its fine, my machine brain after getting a look at the thing through the camera gave me the design blueprint for a 'magical shield' I didn't want to go too heavy into using electricity which was why I wasn't using my own energy shield designs.

But with that, it was a simple matter to divert some power from the engines to put it into the shield, then that plate was bolted onto the inside of the cockpit where the pilot could choose to turn it on. Of course turning it on meant a decrease in acceleration, which wasn't always a bad thing as the reaction time required was less if you were going slower.

With my fighter now having a shield Cameron started building it right away with the Coalition engineers watching the entire time.

As for the magical heart, well I believe it was from some kind of monster. I remember my one visit from a monster, it was vaporized instantly even though it was invisible. Who would have thought a light based laser could kill an invisible enemy... I didn't even think about that until now, but that was exactly what happened. It made me wonder if the creature wasn't actually invisible maybe the magic- No use thinking about it actually. It was long gone, vaporized completely. I could only lament at the chance to harvest resources from it.

That was when I found that person again, the one that vanished. A patrolling drone spotted them. They were still in the forest around here. They currently were standing on the wreckage of mech. I witnessed them punch their fist through the solid looking armor and pull out a magic crystal. Then they directly ate it with a heavy crunch. Sadly I lost them then as my drone was destroyed by them throwing something at it. That was one mean looking person, though it was debatable whether that was a person... I suspect it might be a monster despite the humanoid form. Their black uniform was still in tatters from the last time I saw them but the blood was gone.

I could only shake my head, what was even going on in those woods? That person could easily have destroyed my walls but chose not to so, so I'll overlook the destruction of my drone. It was an old one anyways, at least that's the justification I gave... Seeing them tear through metal like it was paper with their bare hands might have scared me a bit... Mainly because I was metal.