Matthias licked his lips nervously as his first creation came off the Assembler.

The four Elder Lizard-Kin, no, the four Saurians became fully visible as the thick glass plate opened and the steam dissipated. They stared at him with unblinking eyes, making the entire first meeting very uncomfortable.

The Saurians were tall, topping seven feet and not quite having to duck as they exited the Assembler. Their thickly muscled bodies had been designed for power, dexterity, and endurance. The five claw-tipped fingers were capable of working tools and grasping weapons. Their skin was covered in scales of compressed keratin, from around their eyes to the tips of their powerful tails. It was a particular formula that Matthias had found in the databanks that made them stronger than steel. It was as if each Saurian was wearing a suit of scale mail.

Literally.

Their eyes, however, were the most unique feature. Outside of their body types, which were fairly standardized in order to ensure that regardless of role they were strong enough to survive combat, their eyes blazed with different colors set in multi-lidded irises that easily identified what role they had been made for, what abilities they had been given.

Red for warriors. Pale blue for healers and mages. Green for rangers and engineers. Gold for leadership caste, who knew a bit about everything.

Taking a page from Trion Incorporated’s combat teams, albeit with some slight alterations to naming conventions, Matthias had designed them to work in primary groups of nine. Two squads of four with a commanding Saurian. These groups were then organized into a much larger grouping called a pack, made up of nine squad groupings resulting in eighty-one soldiers. Packs were organized into hoards of nine packs, or seven hundred and twenty-nine combatants. These, in turn, were organized into legions. A legion was the largest grouping of his organization chart so far, being made up of nine hordes or just over sixty-five hundred Saurian warriors.

He was pretty far away from achieving a legion, but four Saurians for now would work wonderfully.

The first Saurian out had golden pupils, signifying that he was the leader of this half-squad. Two others were red with the remaining Saurian having pale blue eyes for a magic user. All four immediately took a knee in front of Matthias, dispelling any worries that he may have created something that would break free from the confines of the loyalty he had instilled within them and end his life.

“Command us Master,” hissed the golden eye Saurian commander.

Matthias shook his head, “None of that Master business. Mr. Mob or CEO does just fine,” he rebuffed, getting nods from the four. “You are the first four Saurians in existence. Literally. I designed you, built you from scratch using every ounce of my technological and biological knowledge, and imbued your race with a wide variety of abilities to serve combat, defensive, and enforcement roles. You have smaller cousins that I fondly refer to as Lizard-Kin. They are… children, essentially. So be nice to them. Protect them.”

The four nodded in rapt attention, watching their creator as he watched them back.

“My first command for you is to learn everything you can about your own capabilities. What weapons do you prefer, and what armor, if any, do you need? Learn and work with my Fairy liaisons so that we can best equip you for your roles,” he ordered. “I also want to know your preferences on living quarters and food. We don’t have a lot, but as your responsibility is to protect myself and my company, my job is to ensure you have everything you need for success and well-being. Do not be shy about letting myself or a Fairy know what you may need.”

The Saurians stood up, towering over Matthias.

“Understood CEO. We will depart now and report each day with our discoveries and needs. Do we have a training facility?” asked the commander.

Matthias shook his head, “No. Not yet at least. My area of expertise does not lie in the martial fields, so I did not think of that. I will get Mab to create one for you. For now, explore the area and do what you can. We can meet later tonight and discuss what you have figured out. Dismissed.”

The Saurian nodded and led the other three out the door of the Assembler room. Matthias watched them go with wonder, still amazed that the new machine that he had finished was capable of creating living, breathing beings. The melding of technology and magic still floored him, and he understood so very little of it as well.

He turned to look at the room. Where there had once only been what he was now calling the Prime Assembler was now three Assemblers. The Prime and two others. The Prime was focused on currently making a new design of machine that was much larger and would be capable of printing a full squad of Saurians at a time. It was taking a large draw of metal and minerals that the Golems and Fairies were mining, but it would be worth it in the end to have a dedicated set of protectors for the Lizard-Kin farms. Once that was in place, he could equip and begin renting out squads of Saurians. They would bring in considerably more income than selling Lizard-Kin worker eggs.

Speaking of that, Matthias brought up {BALANCE SHEET} to see how they were doing. While he wasn’t paying out wages, not yet at any rate, he was still purchasing equipment and utilizing his abilities when needed to augment their production capabilities. It was expensive, but it looked like they would just manage to squeeze by for now.

{BALANCE SHEET}

REMAINING POWER – 250

NEX BALANCE – 271, 500

DENOMINATIONS

10K GOLD NEX BAR– 0

1K GOLD NEX COINS – 30

500 SILVER NEX COINS – 327

He nodded at his current funds. He hadn’t had to break into the NEX bullion reserves, which was a good thing. Having that as an ace would be ideal if he suddenly needed Power for any reason. He was also pleased to see that egg sales had spiked, going through the roof. Even though it had only been a week the Dark Fairies and Mab had proven that their abilities to manage, market, sell, and assist him in everyday administrative tasks were unparalleled.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

He would have paid anything they had asked if he had had the resources to do so.

Thankfully, the Fairies and their Queen mostly wanted to have fun, be free of their boring dimension, and explore a world full of new things. The world they were in now was certainly full of new things for them to experience, luckily. And this was only a single island on a world that he had very, very little information about. It was quite possible there were vast civilizations that he had yet to discover.

Turning his attention back to the Assemblers, he queued up two more orders of Saurians and departed the room, limping out to the main floor. What had once been a makeshift office area was now the primary assembly zone for the Headquarters Complex. With a workforce of Excavators and Golems the underground complex had expanded rapidly and quickly. There was now a warren of reinforced tunnels, chokepoints, guard posts, massive empty rooms waiting to be built out, and marked-off areas for future construction.

Excavators and Golems needed neither rest nor food, stopping for a paltry hour a day to recharge as needed. This allowed them to build nearly nonstop and, in fact, had been told to just that. The Excavators were sent to the surface to begin using the excavated rock to build walls, buildings, and warehouses for the food and minerals that were only now just beginning to be brought in. Mines were only just starting to be established under the watchful eyes of the Dark Fairies, but the increasingly constant raptor attacks were slowing them down considerably.

With the new Saurians, hopefully, those attacks would be slowed if not stopped entirely.

But it would take time. Time that Matthias feared was running out. He didn’t know why, but he had this… feeling. This odd feeling that scratched at his awareness in the back of his mind. Something he couldn’t quite put a definition to, but a feeling nonetheless. A feeling that someone was hunting him.

And that they were getting ever closer.

He started as Mab touched his shoulder, a mildly concerned look in her eyes. “Are you ok Matthias? You seem distracted.”

“As alright as I have been I suppose. My ribs and leg are hurting still, and I have a lot on my mind. Nothing else really,” he said casually. “The first Saurians came off the Assembler a few moments ago, did you manage to catch them?”

Mab shook her head, “No. But I saw them stop and talk with Red and Blue. Apparently, they can communicate freely, somehow. Not even my Fairies can talk to them casually. After they spoke those four took off up the tunnel. You designed them well; they were almost as fast as Alyssa.”

Matthias snorted, “Yeah. Yeah, they would be. It took me almost two whole days to build out just the four castes, and I have two more in mind. Those will take far longer though, and we will need much more infrastructure before they can be made,” he said. Then he paused, “Do you know where they went?”

The pair were interrupted as Alyssa burst into the cavern and buzzed over to them at near top speed. She slammed to a stop mid-air, wings moving so fast Matthias couldn’t even see them.

“Boss! I just had four big lizard guys show up at one of the farms. We had a few raptors prowling the area, and apparently, they didn’t like that. Not at all!” she fired off quickly. “They ripped through them like… like… like paper! And now they are playing with the little hatchlings! Those guys are crazy! They just charged right in and started ripping, tearing, and biting. They even got some of the Lizard-Kin involved!”

Matthias blinked at that, then turned to Blue and Red who had been watching him. They gave him a tipped thumbs up and a toothy grin before turning back to the group of Lizard-Kin they had been directing. Apparently, they had directed the half-squad out to a particularly difficult area. An area that was now, at least according to Alyssa, free of enemies entirely. For now, at least. The inclusion of the Liard-Kin in combat operations was surprising, however. He was just glad that the two mob types worked together well, it boded positive results for the future.

“Right. I have another batch in now with a much larger Saurian Assembler in the works. Once the parts are done I need to get Masterwork to help me assemble it, unless some of your Fairies can help?” he asked, turning to Mab even as Alyssa clapped in excitement.

Not surprisingly, Mab shook her head no. “We handle magic well, but technology is not our forte. I would recommend sticking with your Golems. Perhaps it is time to consider hiring or creating some technical works and engineers?”

He agreed with her. He had actually seriously considered breaking into the Saurian manufacturing time to create a purely engineer mob for some time. The problem was resources and time. He couldn’t dedicate the Assembler's time without seriously hurting his numbers of soldiers. And soldiers were what he needed right now.

“That will be my next goal. NEX wise we are barely above the red, so we have to be careful. The more we can make here the better,” Matthias replied as Alyssa and Mab nodded. He walked over to the area where his old desk used to be. There was anew desk there, with projections up on the wall along with a map of their immediate area.

“I have reviewed where the farms are right now. The fire devastated the plains, and I haven’t seen any of those saber-tooth cats in a while. I think they fell back to what plains hadn’t been destroyed,” he explained, pointing at the map. “I want to station a half squad in each farm for defense, at least until we have the island tamed or the perimeter pushed out. Since we don’t have the Saurians yet, I want to make sure the infrastructure is in place. Get at least a tower up at each farm. Compressed rock will do nicely for now, it seems to be effective against the raptors. Once the first Saurian half-squad returns figure out what they need to be comfortable. Build out quarters for a half squad based on that off the tower itself.”

Mab nodded, but Alyssa frowned getting his attention. “Why not just make the farms into farming combines?” she asked, curious.

Matthias didn’t have a reference, so he looked to the Fairy Queen who explained, “A combine is a gathering of people for a purpose. In most basic communities they are, essentially, small farming villages and towns that produce a particular good. I believe what Alyssa is attempting to say is, instead of just assigning a half squad there have the Saurians integrate and live within the area permanently. This would provide a guard force, police force, as well as a much more powerful source of labor that is easily accessible should it be needed.”

“But don’t stop there either,” Alyssa said, grinning excitedly. “Send them out with a couple of Golems, maybe even a tiny Assembler that can print or repair items and Golems as needed. Have the Saurians run the Assemblers so that the Lizard-Kin can focus on what they do best, grow food and maintain the land.”

Matthias blinked at that. The scope and detail were not something that he had thought of, not something that would have crossed his mind. These were not good ideas; they were great ones.

“Draft up a plan, what you recommend the maximum size of these combines should be. What resource allocation, how many printers per community member or soldier,” Matthias ordered as Mab nodded and took notes on a pad she had procured from somewhere. “And let’s not stop there. Assign Amin Fairies to each farm as well. Maybe a small group of them. They can analyze and make decisions without having to pipe it through us. Call it an Executive Liaison Force.”

Mab looked at him oddly, “You want Fairies in charge of the farms?” she asked.

“No. I want Fairies to administer logistics and administrative tasks so that the Lizard-Kin can focus on farming and the Saurians can focus on the fighting,” Matthias clarified. “They can send in periodic reports on production, needs for the combine, and anything else that crops up. They can work in conjunction with the Saurian commander and the Lizard-Kin Matriarch for that area.”

Mab nodded. It was a good idea. Turn each small farm into what amounted to an independent village. Once the village was established and defended expanded to create the next ring of villages. Rinse and repeat until the island has been pacified. Then move on to the next step of the plan. A plan that Matthias was slowly working out in his mind even as they spoke.

Matthias Mob was smart. Incredibly so. And sneaky. But he was learning everything on the fly as he did it. Logistics? He got it. Supply chains? Easy for him to put in place. Figuring out who needed what, how, why, and dealing with people? Completely lost.

But he was learning.