I couldn't decided whether to feel annoyed at the lack of power or amazed that the wood I inserted lasted that long. I decided to feel annoyed as I wasn't able to view through all the cameras I had set up outside. I really needed to get started on that geothermal plant now. Looking over the blueprint the facility was massive. Luckily with the transport tubes I was able to collect all the ore I had accumulated really quickly and now it was just time as I set it to construct the power facility for me. My geological scanner let me see that there was a rather sizable area for me to place this facility as there was an almost underground lake for the facility to fit inside of. There should be no problem with the building being submerged in the blisteringly hot water in there. I was more worried about how I was going to get get a drone in there without flooding my... I had to admit it... I became a hermit living inside a cave. It took me a moment to create a lock system of two sealed doors that I could pump the water out of and back into the underground reservoir. I wouldn't be able to leave if there was no power so I made sure I had everything I needed before I sent a drone through the large door that I could fit into.

I didn't go in myself as I didn't want to disturb the silt of the floor of the flooded cavern that would ruin the quality of the water, though I would have to filter it anyways just to be safe so it probably didn't matter. But it wasn't long before I watched on the map as my flying drone swam through the boiling water and placed the facility just as I planned it before it quickly flew back while the lights flickered and came back on. Then if I had a heart in this new mechanical body of mine it would have stopped. While I was tunneling through to the hot water the cameras kept recording and I processed what had happened the few hours it took for me to get the power back. I quickly processed what happened. I watched the recording of how she sleepily went to bed just after arriving and then waking up after a few hours wandered outside and managed to pull one of the construction drones away from her dad and played a game of fetch with a 'stick' But it was a metal rod meant to reinforce the outer wall. Its programming had it chase down the 'stick' and then try and go put it in its place but she stood in the path and kept snatching it away and tossing it again.

But how the fuck did she end up inside my secret entrance?! I kept watching before she eventually got bored of that and she showed her dad the trick who laughed and let her continue. I felt bad for the canine like construction robot. But I have zero clue how she managed to convince the robot to open the secret entrance and just stroll in without fear. And convince she did... She managed to plead for her dad to let her 'keep' one and he agreed... My own programming had it following his orders but now her as he had giving that authority to her. Which explains how when she said she wanted a 'Secret hideout' the bot took her here. I quickly took control of the robot made it emit what could possibly pass for a 'Bark' and had it dash away towards the exit. Luckily she followed... I added a 'Do not do' list to the programming of the robot. Top of that list was intentionally harming someone and opening my secret base. I did edit the construction plans to including a simple addition of a hidden place she could play in uploading it to 'her' bot so if she wanted to go back to her 'secret hideout' the bot would take her there instead of the real secret one.

I did notice she was taking after her father, showing a keen interest in mechanics and robotics. So I made sure to include some hidden tools and for her to discover and make stuff in her secret hideout. I was relieved when he didn't believe her story of a massive underground hideout where she stomped away followed by her loyal robot. That was a real close one, no idea how he managed to lose sight of his daughter long enough for her to stumble into my secret base. Well it shouldn't happen again though so I'm less worried... Not that I wont keep an eye on her from now on. I'd rather not be discovered like that. As I was thinking of that, she had taken the bot inside with her and had started dismantling it with a strange efficiency. I felt bad for the loss of the robot, having it perform fetch was a great way around the programming I would have to set up a line of companion robots with this in mind for later. With her now occupied dismantling the robot I had nothing more to do other than watch the resort be built.

Well the wall got constructed in record time, though it never showed on my workers face if the speed impressed him. With the wall complete I started making the internals for what would be the disguised laser turrets. I would sneak them into their places once he went to bed. With the external wall complete he relaxed some and let the robots go a bit more unsupervised to the point where they went mostly unsupervised just the occasional glance to see if they were all still there and haven't run off. It didn't take long after that for him to take a break for lunch which I took advantage of to bring me a single crystal.

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I was incredibly disappointed with the crystal though. My matter deconstructor showed the unique material as being part of a tree that stored energy... It wasn't even a rock. Pulling it back out also revealed that there was no energy left in it. The glowing crystal from before was now an opaque grey... Well I hesitate to say crystal because I now know it was actually some type of plant. I went online to see just how these were made.

Low and Behold I found out that no one knew how it was made. There was some articles about how the human empire was making a plasma power source for their flying ships back in the day. But then the elves suddenly started selling these... unknown magical crystals. Thus named mana crystals and then there was no need for the empire to finish their research. I did grab what plans I could of that. It was very interesting stuff. It was essentially a tank of volatile plasma with an agitator inside it. And when agitated it would produce magic power they would use to power their flying ship. And I'm not talking the shuttles they use now days. Like a wooden flying sailing ship... needless to say that this article was very old. It wasn't lost on me how the elves managed to be such a big part of the world despite being by far the smallest of the nations. Judging from the cost of these crystals they were definitely controlling the market, especially as they always released the same amount of crystals every month. I was definitely going to have to come up with a new 'battery' Especially as there was no way to recharge these crystals despite attempts to flood them with magic. Once spent they just turned into a grey crystal. Though they did have a quite good magic conductivity but the material tended to crumble once it has been worked. That gave me some ideas on some tests though that would have to wait until after I made a replacement for the robots power preferably something rechargeable.

That plasma agitator has promise. Though I say 'Plasma' it was actually a slush filled with a special microbe that was grown and highly corrosive in nature with high flammability, this made me wonder why they thought it a good idea to make the first first prototype the size of a large truck. That just seems like asking for something to go wrong. Should definitely start with a smaller more manageable size... Like about the size of a mana crystal... I wouldn't be able to agitate it from the center like the prototype was but I could have the agitator be on the bottom and just increase the surface area of it for a more thorough agitation... That should make up for the lack of size... As for the loss of power due to its small size, I didn't actually need all that much. My robots were already highly efficient and heading for being even more efficient once I reworked the spent crystals into them so there was less power loss when the generated mana went to the motors. Just these revelations had given me my first actual task.

To get a sample of this 'Plasma' slurry. Which I found would be quite hard due to its volatile nature and capability to be used as a bomb. Though from what I understand the non charged version should be much safer. There was a mention of this plasma in use in the coalition military but other than a mention there was nothing about what it was used for, so it would be quite hard to just sneak a bot into the camp not that far away and steal a container. I had no idea what I was even looking for, All I knew is that it was blue and if I had to guess glowed from the stored magic power. By the time I finished wrapping up ideas and planning things it was already night. There was no more surprise break ins by little girls, though from how her dad started explaining things over the dismantled robot she had on their table she was probably older than she looked. I was impressed how he managed to grasp the use of every piece of the robot, it was a cutting edge robot. He even explained how the multi-tool in its back worked, they didn't even have those yet! I didn't even realize that that might be an issue, but he still hooked it up and with a manual switch turned it on and off explaining how the mana flowed.

Of course the one guy I picked out with a glowing resume was actually more competent then his resume said he was, and could tell just exactly how my robot worked with just a glance. I wanted to slam my head on a wall at the absurdity of it. Why he didn't say he had a background in robotic design in his resume I will never know, but here he is explaining all the little secrets of what is probably 20 years ahead of any other on the market as if it was a textbook with writing on it explaining everything to him. Despite the advanced nature of this she absorbed it all hooking up the mana crystal to various different motors and lights watching them come to life for a few seconds before disconnecting them. While the motors were the same ones on the market the quality was unparalleled as I full control of how it was made. It was quite a heart warming scene to watch father teaching daughter all his tricks truly both were geniuses.