In January I started to plan my trip to Russia. I planned to leave right after I finished the next dorm tower. I had my shipwrights come in. I wanted a large transport ship. So they came to the tower for two weeks. The transport ended being 410’ long and 80’ wide with 4 propellers. It had 6 decks, and 3 stern decks. It had a crew of 100 and 240 marines. The deck had 24 turret cannon. There were also 80 extra rooms on board for 160 passengers. It also had a lot of cargo space. It would be slower, maybe 8 mph, but it would make a statement. The amount of coal would be a lot to run it, fortunately with me aboard we could skip that. I only planned to build 1 cargo ship so I hoped it worked when it was built.
By the end of April the dorm tower was complete. I was also a grandfather. Daphne had a son, Bernard. He had some magic which was great. Do to having magic it meant he had to have my X dominant gene for magic. It was a good sign. I left on April 19th, 1688 with 8 golems, 6 mages, 40 knights and Summer. Summer had self-appointed herself my guardian mage. Whenever she was allowed to come on a trip she was there. Liam was also on board. He was going to France to take over his family estates there. Liam affinity was necromancy. He could commune with spirit, suck life force from the living aging them, animate small skeletons and stasis. Stasis prevented a spirit from leaving the body on death allowing the body to be healed.
On the trip I made light stones and reviewed my data sheet.
Magic Pool: 232, Magic Regen: 15.2 per hour (+63% from passive meditation)
Spell Design Points: 2
* Ageless, Level 5 (Stone Magic Ability) – like all stone you are ageless, your body ages 1/14th as fast greatly increasing your life expectancy, each level increase slightly slows aging even further, Evolution: hibernate for up to 1000 years
* Shapeshift, Level 6 (Nature Magic Ability) – you can shape change into one beast form healing injuries, each level increase adds another beast form, forms: Black Panther, White Wolf, Bottlenose Dolphin, Eagle; Evolution: Can half or double mass
* Stalwart Immunity, Level 7 (Stone Magic Ability) – you have resistance to disease and infections, each level improves the speed at which you heal from injuries and poisons , Evolution: Rebirth, 7 day cooldown
* Magic Sense, Level 10 (Divination Magic Ability) – you can sense magic and estimate its power, each level improves the range, Evolution: greatly increases range, can see affinity of persons and objects
* Meditation, Level 11 (Mental Magic Ability) – increase magic recovery by 100%, each level increase slightly increases recovery rate, Evolution: 25% increase in recovery, passively active at 50% effectiveness
* Stone Affinity Mastery, Level 13 (Stone Magic Ability) – reduces the cost of stone spells by 20%, each level slightly reduces the cost further, Evolution: casting speed increased by 25% for stone spells, stone spells easier to learn
* Stone Golem, Level 19 (91/100) (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
* Soften Stone, Level 15 (98/100) (Stone Spell – tier 3) – turns 2 cubic yard of stone to clay, each level increases affected volume by 1%, COST: .8 Magic per minute, Evolution: Purify Stone, Double Affected volume, Double time
* Strengthen Stone, Level 22 (25/100) (Stone Spell – tier 3) – improves 1 cubic yard stones resistance to damage, each level improves the volume and the stones strength, COST: 1.1 Magic, Evolution: lighten stone by 20%, selective hardening, double the area of effect, can control patterns in the stone when strengthened
* Stone Bullet, Level 10 (17/100) (Stone Spell – tier 0) – temporarily creates a small stone and fires it at a target, each level improves the density and speed of the stone, COST: 0.1 Magic, Evolutions: Control the shape of bullet, bullet accelerates for 3 seconds
* Nature’s Growth, Level 18 (3/100) (Nature Spell – tier 5) – complete 1 year of growth on a single plant in 60 minutes, each level increases the plant’s growth, COST: 1 Magic, Evolutions: Rejuvenate the soil around the roots of the plant, infuse magic to supply the plant for 1 year adds 12 magic cast, infuse magic (adds 50 magic to casting cost)
* Plant Snare, Level 2 (89/100) (Nature Spell – tier 0) – activate a square yard of plants to entangle an animal within 50 yards, each level increases the area and range, COST: 0.3
* Thermal Stone, Level 17 (27/100) (Stone Spell – tier 3) – raises the temperature of 1 cubic yard of stone 100 degrees for 138 minutes, each level increases the temperature and volume, COST: 0.5 per 109 degrees, Evolutions: Can stack the spell to extend the time of the enchantment, double the effective time, reduces casting cost
* Light Stone, Level 16 (4/100) (Stone Spell – tier 2) – creates a bright light source (2000 lumens) on 8.1 ounces of stone burning the stone over time 52 years, each level increases affected mass and time, COST: 10, Evolutions: the light can be white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo or violet, brightness can be 50 lumens to 4000 lumens, can double the mass to double the time of the enchantment
* Cure Disease, Level 14 (76/100) (Healing Spell – tier 3) – cures one person of disease, each level reduces the casting time, COST: 3 Magic, Evolutions: Area of Effect 5 x 5 yards, Cured people have 60 immunity to disease
* Perfect Recall, Level 14 (33/100) (Mental Spell – tier 1) – recall an image in perfect clarity, COST: 0.2 Magic per image, Evolution: can recall 10 seconds of audio, can recall 10 seconds video with audio
* Manipulate Stone, Level 23 (69/100) (Stone Spell – tier 7) – control 4 cubic yards of stone, each level increases affected volume by 1%, COST: 1 Magic per minute, Evolution: double affected volume, increases stone flow rate, finer control, can stack the spell
* Minor Illusion, Level 9 (26/100) (Stone Spell – tier 0) – creates a one cubic yard illusion that has no animation, COST: 1 Magic per hour at casting, leveling this spell improves the detail of the image, Evolution: animate on 5 second loop
* Revitalize, Level 4 (30/100) (Healing Spell – tier 9) – restores a persons tissues and bones, leveling decreases amount of time, COST: varies
The reason why I leveled spells quicker than everyone else was my high magic regen. The next closest mage was at 6 per hour and that was Daphne. With her meditation she could get to 14 per hour. I now regened 24.7 while I was awake and 34.2 when I meditated. I had 2 spell points as well. I was a snowball rolling down a mountain. My next spell I learned needed to be use full. I narrowed it to.
* Compress Earth ( Earth Spell – tier 4) cost 4 spell points, compress 8 cubic yards to half its volume
* Cold Stone (Stone Spell – tier 3) cost 3 spell points, makes a stone cold
* Invisibility (Illusion Spell – tier 3) cost 4 spell points, makes you invisible
* Teleport (Space Spell – tier 7) cost 8 spell points, teleport 1 mile
* Control Gravity (Gravity Spell – tier 8) cost 9 spell points, control gravity in small vertical cylinder
* Antimagic Field (Prismic Spell – tier 9) cost 11 spell points, removes magic in a 10 yard diameter sphere
The cold stone was the best choice for society, the compress earth for building, the gravity spell for space travel the other 3 spells for personal protection. I decided to just bank spell points until I felt a need.
The ship was slow but eventually we docked in northern France and Liam got out. We spent two days in the city before heading to Copenhagen, Denmark. We spent an entire week on a goodwill mission, curing people and helping the commoners with magic. My revitalize spell hit level 5 and the evolutions were incredible, rewire: improve a persons reaction speed by 25% was my first choice. My other top options were, Cerebral: improve flow of thought by 15%, Might: improve muscle fibers, tendons and ligaments by 10%, Bone Density: increase bone structure by 15%, Vascular Fittness: Improve the heart, lung and aerobic efficiency by 15%, Control: improves fine muscle control by 20%, speed: improves a persons speed by 15%. There were many other options as well, improved vision, hearing, smell but these body mods were the ones that interested me. Since 25% was the biggest improvement I selected it. I used it on myself first and was disappointed it required 50 magic for the improvement. I decided to cast the improvement on all the Magi Knights on the ship. There were 40, over half had not completed their academy training. As we were heading to Sweden one of the older knights suggested I wait till they finished their 5th year. I agreed. The result to my person was dramatic but even more so for the sword fighters. The 25% allowed people to recognize and react quicker to stimuli. Their spars turned almost into a blur. The problem was if I focused on just the spell I could upgrade just 14 knights a day. Well the revitalize spell needed to be leveled because improving people was top priority. Maybe the cerebral improvement next or might if I decided to keep upgrading the knights. But I though speed would be best. We had the reaction improvement and speed could make the most out of it. Well, whaterever, I committed to the reaction improvement, level 10 was a long way off. We found three girls in the city with magic and got them to join us, two were orphans.
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Our next goodwill was Sweden. The king was sick so we got a boon from that and I used revitalize and rewire on him. We stayed just over two weeks and added 5 more women with magic. Three were sisters and the other two were related. They were all weak in the ability and low born so no one even noticed them getting ferried onto the ship. We added quite a bit of cultural artwork as well. It should be enough to have an exhibit in the museum. We were headed to Russia next. We landed in St Petersburg and spent 3 days there making trades. I found 19 women with magic in the city. Only two would join us, both were orphans under age 10. I would try again on the way back but for now we headed to Moscow. I left half the knights, magi, and golems on the ship and had them travel in groups and hopefully convince some of the other 17 magic positive women in the city.
We had an army escort to the city. I studied up on Russia from my memory and it was a mostly backward state. They really began their dominance around 1700 it was still a decade away. The thing that surprised me the most was the beards. Everyone adult male had a long beard. It must have been status. Sanitation was a bit behind as well. We finally arrived in the capital and were well received and given many gifts. Most gifts were amber which was nice. The czar wanted to be show me his city so I went on a tour. I noted 7 young women with magic during the trip. To return the favors me and my mages grew a garden and built a greenhouse for the czar. After a few days I brought out a large map of the world. After some back and forth I got him to sign a treaty recognizing Alaska and the archipelago as part of the Avalon Empire. After the first week I got him to offer some of his citizen families to me to help colonize Avalon. This allowed me free reign to explore the capital and recruit families. I spent a week and got 14 families, 10 had 13 magic positive women in them, the other 4 had some very impressive males. Standing over 6’3” and well muscled. If I was going with genetics I should play the long game. We finally left a few days later with an ambassador delegation of 17 to take back with us to Avalon. When we got back to St. Petersburg we found the second cargo deck had been converted to bunks and we had 146 young girls. Apparently two magi found the terrible conditions they were living in. We added 9 more magi students as well. I ended up recruiting a circus troupe as well of acrobats. The trip back was quite festive. I used revitalize and cure on all the passengers and every night there was a party on every deck. Unfortunately two men assaulted one on the Russian girls and we dropped them into the sea after a short trial.
The trip was good other than the incident and when we got to Camelot the group boarded a special reserved train to Avalon. On returning to Avalon while the Russians were getting settled I upgraded all the magi knights with the rewire upgrade. This didn’t include any knights in the first 4 years at the academy as they had the title of squire apparently. They were called knight-banner from their 5th to 8th year. Then when they graduated they were called knight-magi. Apparently they had 5 other ranks within the knight-magi. They had a code of chivalry and tenants of protection and rules of combat. Everything was becoming very formal within the knights. Damien had passed all his exams to skip a year ahead. Riona said Damien wanted to reforge his core again but she had told him no. Riona had done it but it was difficult beyond imagining. Two other women had failed in the 2nd tier core formation. The only good news was they had been able to develop a soft shell with less density a few months later. Riona figured maybe in 2 or 3 decades they would have better understanding of the process and it would be safer.
On September 23rd, 1688 things had calmed down. I wanted to finish the last few dorm towers before the new year. Even if I couldn’t complete them at least get their shells done. Once all 8 towers were done the magi academy would be mostly complete and probably the magi could handle it. So my time was spent on the towers and making 2 or 3 miles of rails a week. I was hoping by the time we reached the Rockies we would have mages that could help tunnel. It was weird the New Years party my children had dates and were having fun. I had missed most of their lives either out traveling or focused on building. I wasn’t taking a break to enjoy life. I was searching for another project, looking at a map of the world. The two small islands to the east of Madagascar. I think one was Dutch and the other… I wasn’t sure. They were like the Galapagos, exploited. I could set up a similar colony like the Galapagos. I figured they would be a military and resupply bases. Maybe training bases. I had the same layout for both. 12 docking berths for ships. A barracks with 4 cannon batteries and 500 soldiers. Each base would have 4 FAVs. The community would be limited to 1500 people with 4 square miles of farm land and 2 square miles for grazing. We would have to clear the islands as well. I put it down on my to do list.
Carina’s triplets, Quin, Heart and James were admitted in Dec of 1688. They were just 10 but already coming into their magic. After the ceremony Carina spoke with me. She said it was time for me to have more children. I decided she was right. We had 15 children together and even though our love was real she was willing to pass on the burden. Carina said we had 13 children born in Avalon with magic in the last five years but only my children and grandchildren had strong power at birth. We needed more males with the Y magic gene, basically my male children to have children. Caleb probably had a few bastards out there but none of my other sons to my knowledge did. Though Luke was seeing an Irish magi his own age and Leo was seen with one of the Chinese magi according to Carina. Well nature would take its course. In December I also had to make armor for the knights and advance those that were ready for the rewire upgrade. I spent a week upgrading their facilities as well. I also finally built that mini town inside my walls. The mini town had 256 apartments in four different buildings that were 5 stories high. Each apartment had two big bedrooms and one small bedroom, safe for a family of 6 to utilize. A lot of the knights were married and they needed a place for their families close by. The new recruits for the knights were selected as well. 53 passed all exams and it was the highest count women so far, 14 of the 53.
I was frigging rich not including my underhill warehouse or the artifacts in the museum. Speaking of the museum I found a paper in the stack. They were ready for another expansion. They didn’t need the warehouse space just more exhibit space. I decided to assign 6 golems to guard the museum along with 14 knight magi. For the expansion I planned to replicate the two underground levels and the two upper exhibits. The new buildings would make a horseshoe with the existing expansion and a large walking garden would be in the center of the horseshoe. So basically any invention from the books I transcribed belonged to me. The college was bringing a lot into reality and my lawyers got 30% of profits to me. Originally it was 60% but I held back on that much. I was also the only citizen in the Empire who didn’t pay taxes. Which was kind of fair since I basically worked for free.
Our military was still struggling to staff all our 37 installations. We were short almost 5000 troops according to Amelia, a lot of forts that were expected to have 500 troops only had 120. Also our existing forces were only 20% fully trained. We also needed another 2000 sailors…and 15 more FAVs when I got the chance. She was projecting out 10 years to get sufficient forces. The military and navy academies in Lancelot were now turning out 450 every 9 months. We had about 1.1 million people in the Kingdom but only 48% were paying taxes. Coins were still an issue but we had started stamping copper pennies…the Avalon 1 coin. So Leo and Lukes efforts were going further just doing higher denominations.