I made a trip to have a burger in the tavern down town. It was packed but as soon as I was recognized I was brought to the upstairs dining room and a private balcony table. The manager came and personally greeted me and took my order. I got a burger with fries and a cold beer. Apparently they had an ice room. The beer was good and just slightly over bitter. The ketchup wasn’t smooth but it was ok. I had the manager join me and asked her how things were going. She was very happy but upset that the tavern was not included in the list of businesses I sold off. She was making great money but it still felt… I told her I understood but I wasn’t selling. I had chosen to keep seventeen businesses in the city and I paid the employees well. She asked about getting more chocolate. It was in very short supply. I would look into it. I owned the only chocolate factory in the city and it made about 50 lbs of chocolate a month, mostly due to the slow import of coffee beans that came up from Florida. Even though we were at tensions with Spain, the old Spanish cities in Florida still traded with the Spanish ships. I suppose I could build a plantation or two, it would be a nice trip and I could bring a few of the kids. She mentioned the culinary school that was part of the college which got me excited so I went to visit it.

The school was small. Seven chefs teaching and 33 students in a three year program, 11 to each year. I watched them cook and sampled some of the attempts. The head chef walked with me and we talked. Cooking was a hobby in my past life. I had hundreds of recipes in my mind from surfing the web. After two hours and overstuffing myself I returned to my tower. I spent a day transcribing 82 recipes. My hand was cramped and I thought there must be an easier way. I checked and only had 4 spell points. They were too precious I spent a day going over spells I wanted to learn and options for helping transcribe information.

* Purify (Healing Spell – Tier 7) – cost 7 spell points, remove toxins and plaque in vessels

* Flight (Air Spell – Tier 5) – cost 8 spell points, fly

* Minor Illusion (Illusion Spell – Tier 0) cost 1 spell point, create a stationary illusion in a square yard

* Animate Quill (Air Spell – Tier 1) cost 2 spell points, create an animated object less than 2 ounces in weight

* Compress Earth ( Earth Spell – tier 4) cost 4 spell points, compress 8 cubic yards to half its volume

* Revitalize (Healing Spell – Tier 9) – cost 10 spell points, restore a persons body by reversing aging

The revitalize was a powerful spell that could cure cancer. The only spell I had found that could do so. An old man in Camelot had cancer and I found I couldn’t cure him. Apparently since cancer was the body’s cells going out of order it was still part of the person’s body so lesser spells didn’t recognize it as foreign. But 10 spell points! That was 3 to 4 years worth of accumulation right now. But the spell could basically prevent cancer, heart attacks, dementia, Alzheimer’s and even reverse the effects. I decided on just spending 1 point on minor illusion.

* Minor Illusion, Level 1 (0/100) (Stone Spell – tier 0) – creates a one cubic yard illusion that has no animation, COST: 0.25 Magic per hour at casting, leveling this spell improves the detail of the image

Casting the spell for the first time I made a dog. It was of my first dog as a kid and it looked pretty good, but as you got close you could see some fuzziness. I was able to disperse the illusion before the hour time limit. I then cast a screen with a page from a recipe. I had maxed the size. This was going to work! Next I made a cube with recipes on four sides. I spent the next four hours making pictures of the past. Parents, girlfriends, pets, and I cried.

The next morning I had 4 women with the best handwriting summoned to help me from the secondary school. It was quick now getting the recipes from my head. After three days I sent 639 recipes to the culinary school. The young women were exhausted but I told them they would be called on in the future and gave them a nice bonus for their work so far. I had many novels to transcribe. This spell opened so many possibilities.

The days passed and I made coins, played with the kids, sampled foods at the culinary school, transcribed books and worked on the magi tower and started the 3rd dormitory tower. On March 7th 1682 Carina gave birth to our daughter, Celeste. I teased Carina about our next child’s name. I also had Arisa and Cyra put together an expedition to South America. They had become my secretaries as Amelia was becoming too busy to deal with me. The expedition would have 300 people to set up a cocoa plantation. Daphne, Caleb and Dana would be coming with me. Each child would have a golem and six Magi Knights for protection. Originally I was going to take 5 kids but I had two other young women at the school with nature growth spells who I picked over them. Each of the women had two magi knights assigned to them.

We left May 15th, 1982 from Camelot on the steamship. The kids were excited and Caleb and Dana were two uncontrollable teenagers. Daphne was 16 and extremely mature. I had woman and the coin molds on the ship and I spent my days making light stones and coins. Daphne asked me if she would be married off during one of the coin sessions. What. She had read a lot of history and powerful people married off their children for alliances. I told her she would be able to choose her husband and live her own life. She said she liked a boy, a Persian boy who was the brother of one of the girls I brought back. So we spent time talking about boys. Then I realized we had no sex education in Avalon school. I decided to write my own sex education book. The body shouldn’t be taboo. My outlined book had six chapters. The first chapter was the male and female body and its parts and overview how reproduction worked and personal hygiene. Chapter 2 was the act of sex and how it worked and how men and women responded to arousal. Chapter 3 was how to take care of one self and described STDs. Chapter 4 described the development of babies in the womb and birth. Chapter 5 was how men and women enjoyed sex solo and with a partner of the opposite sex. Chapter 6 was how two women and how two men enjoyed sex together. The last two chapters were basically the karma sutra. The entire book was surprisingly 160 pages long with 88 half page illustrations when I finished. Growing up in modern times I had a lot of material to draw from with perfect recall skill.

We landed in Excalibur (Houston), and dropped off supplies. We spent two days and the magi students explored while I made some improvements for the mayor. There was now a road north that connected with the main road. Our next stop was the small town of Panama. It was just south of where the channel would be built. The town had almost 300 people now. They received supplies every six months from the Galahad. I found Tabitha had died from disease and was very sad. We got to work clearing land and planting the cocoa plantation a few miles north of the town. The work wasn’t too bad with 13 golems I brought helping. In two months we had planted 4000 cocoa trees and 40% were grown to be adult. We also had enough land sectioned off to triple the plantation. Once I found a good coffee bean I might do the same, make a coffee plantation. The kids had a great time and were very helpful and Caleb invented a spell to repel bugs that lasted the entire day. The spell used his darkness element and prevented bugs from seeing you, he became very popular and I think he was sneaking away with one of the young colonist girls to have sex. I was actually surprised how serious Caleb and Dana were during the day…at night, well they were 15. I also made a stone pier in Panama large enough for 4 ships and another pier in Cocoa Town for two ships. I know the name was lame but it would probably change in the future.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

We returned to Camelot on July 23rd, 1682 and took the train to Avalon, an eight hour trip with the three stops. There was a dirt road to the Olympic village already done and a town was springing up around the turn off. I decided to get off and went to check out the site. I took my six Pantheon golems with me. I started by improving the road around the forming town and built a large inn with a tavern on the first floor. I was getting pretty good at quick building. I partially paved a narrow road south heading to the site just covering the rougher parts of the dirt road. The site had a few hundred tents. I found the surveyor and they were working on digging the rowing venue. I had the golems help while I was here. I then worked with the architects and surveyor to erect two small hotels on the correct site. They were four story hotels with 80 rooms each. The basement was the first floor and earth would burying them eventually. They decided raising the entire area 12’ was going to be the easiest way to install plumping and electricity in the future. Both hotels were going to have restaurants on the first floor in addition to a large lobby so that would help feed the workers as well. Most of the workers were immigrants and the hotel were much better accommodations than they expected. The next buildings I added were in the athlete village. These were duplex houses with 4 bedrooms each. Each half house was 2000 square feet so they were quite spacious for the times. They also had a basement as the first level. I built 30 of these buildings giving them another 240 rooms for the workers. In the central area of the village the surveyors worked and I had them mark out some buildings I wanted to add. The first was a bank of Avalon so I could pay the workers. It was actually more extravagant than the other banks in the cities. I didn’t do finishing work on the outside but I did finish the vault with hardened stone. I built two taverns next and a souvenir store. The souvenir store would be a general store for the workers. Next I added the small three story hospital on the plans. I had been here getting close to three months and it was time to leave. The workers were more comfortable and I had given them a jump start. Before I left I also was recruited to build a few hundred yards of the bank of the rowing venue. They were moving earth and of course the hole was filling with water by making a good vertical edge it helped reduce erosion. The artificial lake was going to be 24’ deep. It was marked out to be 2 ¼ miles long and 460 feet across. At the west end the surveyors wanted to make a large round basin expanding the distance across to 1000 feet for the last 2000 feet. It wasn’t on the original plan and when I asked about it they said the new plans had a walking park that went around the round basin…so my lake would look like a bong or penis from overhead, whatever. I thought about it and figured the planers just needed more earth to bury the exposed basements. I decided to work on the bridge that would span the waterway. It was suppose to be an arched bridge over 500 feet long. I started by making the foundations on each side and then slowly building it. It was to be an slow arched bridge. I had supports every 100’ to make it easier and when I finished I removed the supports. The bridge was hardened stone and was 50’ wide. I had large 8’ x 20’ panes of hardened glass ever 10’ as well. The railings were plain right now but I would spruce them up at a later date. The bridge took me another 3 weeks but I didn’t mind as it was fun and a little challenging. When I finally did leave they had 970 of the 1200 workers recruited so far. I went eagle and sent my golems back to Avalon.

It was October 21st, 1682 when I got back and I was told by Carina that I had to meet with Amelia, Collette and the French ambassador. The meeting was set up and I found out Europe was a mess, England, Poland, Spain and Portugal were going to declare war on France with the backing of the Vatican. France was going to pull out 4000 soldiers from America, of which 2400 were currently loaned to Avalon. Amelia filled me in. We were paying for 4200 French soldiers currently so we would lose more than half our defense forces. I told Amelia to immediately station our available troops in Camelot, even if they only had a few months of training…386 was that count. Then start the next class in January with 480, that was the max we could train effectively. They were to be deployed after 9 months. The ambassador asked if I could send any magi to help defend France. Unfortunately we were about a decade away from that option. I attached 15 magi knights and two golems, Athena and Artemis, to Maya. She was to go to cities and look for insurrectionists and screen the soldiers and recruits. I felt this move was to weaken us and cause problems in Avalon as well. Well if the Vatican wanted to cause problems I should reciprocate. I started formulating a plan. I dropped of my sex education book to my private printers. They were to get the plates for the book and hold them for additional printings in the future. After looking through the rough book the editor gave me a weird look. She said it would take a month or so for the four artists on staff to make the illustration plates. That was fine. The first run of the book would be 5000 copies but they were to hold them and not distribute them until I returned. The title of the book was Understanding Your Body.

I pulled the two golems looking for salvage. I had 24 golems total, minus the two for Maya. I left Hermes, Hades, Hera and Zeus at the Magi tower. I left Apollo and Hermes to guard my tower. That left me 16 to take with me across the ocean. I would upgrade these golems on the voyage, giving them the glowing eyes, human skin tone, human form and gem weapons during the voyage. The steam ship was loaded with supplies while I planned. I was going to take 22 young magi knights with me. I needed to make speed to Istanbul. Get the Ottoman to attack Italy and then I would send my golems to attack the Vatican itself while Turks invaded.

I left Camelot on November 7th, 1682. Summer had somehow got to Camelot and stowed away. She was 12 but figured she could protect me with her lightning shield. Her mother Ella had told her to become strong so she could protect me in the future. I was tongue tied for a second but nodded. I couldn’t turn around so she was coming. I was impressed as she demonstrated her shield on the deck, arrows and bullets were stopped. Cannon balls were greatly slowed and easy to dodge. Ok maybe she could help. On the trip Summer helped me redo the golems giving me suggestions.

Atlas, Hercules and Perseus got some cosmetic upgrades and a pair of black katanas.

Opal became Aphrodite, a female golem with soft green eyes and two red katanas.

Flint became Odysseus, a tall black skinned golem with white eyes and two white katanas.

Ebony became Othello, a tall black skinned golem with blue eyes and two blue katanas.

Slate became Romeo, a male golem with blue eyes and two yellow katanas.

Ruby became …

Emerald became…

Granite became…

Topaz became…

Sapphire became...

Shale became…

Aegis became…

Defender became…

Knight became…

They all looked suitably impressive. All ships that saw our ship made way. The trip took 8 days to land in France. I disembarked 52 French officers and soldiers with Atlas, Hercules, Othello and Romeo. They were to defend France, attacking any invading forces. They would work in pairs and defend two cities. It was the best I could do.

* Stone Golem, Level 17 (20/100) (Stone Spell – tier 9) – create a golem from 1 cubic yard of stone, each level increase adds density, strength and durability, COST: 5.0 Magic Pool, Evolutions: Reduced Golem Cost, Improved Intelligence, 20% faster movement

I found 5 magic pool was the minimum needed to animate a golem. So no golem army. I was regretting choosing 20% faster movement at level 15. I could have networked the golems, given them speech, increased their size or see through a golems eyes. I figured getting them to do 20% more work was a good investment. Oh well. I had 120 magic tied to my 24 golems. I decided to add one more golem. It would be Summer’s personal guard on this trip. So she got to design it.

She decided she wanted a minotaur. I was able to make it 7’ tall and the horns pointed forward so he could get through doors. He was sculpted with insane muscles. His eyes were blue but could flip to red which I thought was cool. She had him have a 4’ high shield he could wear on his back and he had a 4’ mace for fighting. The mace had an indigo glow. The shield had six 4000 lumen stones on the front with individual covers that could be removed. I was impressed with the golem and she named him Rover. Then we found out something completely by accident. I could push the magic pool cost to her when I created the golem. It was also just cost 5 of her magic pool. This changed everything. I could give each of my children their own golem servant when they left the academy.