We found the islands pretty easy, thank god for good navigators. We made port on Tahiti. There were many clans and they were excited to meet us. We had a mental mage that could somewhat translate. When we told them we were settling the island they were less happy. One clan sent forty warriors against us when we started unloading supplies. I was torn but ordered the men to shoot them all. Two other clans immediately formed a peaceful relationship with us. We took control of the inlet between the two largest islands. We claimed two miles of shore in each direction and started building. We built a dock first that had a winch and rollers to bring fishing vessels up high on shore. I built six 34 foot long fishing boats and a friendly tribe showed us how to use them and fish the waters. I made a road inland, 35 feet wide and slightly elevated. It went just under a mile in and then we got building. I built two barracks towers flanking the road before town. Each had 40 bunks and an armory. I started with three large greenhouses for crops. Next was the living quarters. They were 3 story building on stilts with the roof having a private garden. I had so much available stone from the lava it was easy. I built eight housing developments. Each was 15 houses in a circle. They all had a road leading to the town center. The town center got a large 8 story tower, the magic academy. The magic academy had rooms for 120 students and 30 professors. A large plaza surrounded the tower. Twenty two story town buildings surrounded the plaza. The first floor of the buildings were operations with the second being apartment residences. Further inland to the island we built a training barracks. It was small just enough to house 120 men and they would be fighting off the jungle more than training. There would also be no weapons stored here, just a training space for youths. We then cleared 40 acres for crops and the chickens and goats we brought. We added 9 houses just off the beach for the fishermen. Sanitation in the interior was easy with the elevation I had two massive septic tanks built a mile away and fresh water was easy from the interior falls for the houses. The community was set up for 2200 people. They were starting with under 200 but the buildings were hardened stone and even if the jungle encroached they should just have to clear them. During our seven month build, a lot longer than planned, we had already added 36 natives to the our community. I am ashamed to say during the time in Tahiti I was not able to develop resistence to Naids spell. All 25 magi who wanted my child were pregnant as well as seven local chiefs daughters, fourteen other native women and six of magi women on the trip. With counting twins that was 61 children. I was almost a sex crazed teen…I would empty my magic pool then my seed. It didn’t help with all the partying every other night and women throwing themselves into my bedroom in the central tower. I just worried the island might have a population explosion with magi here to cure and heal. I destroyed the boat that brought us here, melting into a small pillar noting the village and its founding date. I felt torn leaving this island, it was paradise and Naid’s spell was definitely an endorphin boost. I finally flew away in eagle form heading northeast. It was 3000 miles and probably stupid. But I had learned a new spell.

* Heavy Gust of Wind, Level 1 (0/100) (Air Spell – tier 0) – create a heavy wind on a person 15 mph, each level increases the power of the wind, COST: 0.1 Magic per minute

It had cost 1 magic spell point but allowed me to direct the wind at any angle. I could just float on the air currents. Sometimes I noticed whales and watched them for a while. Sometimes pods of dolphins and I would transform and swim with them. The 3rd time I found dolphins and noted a few had magic… I was in eagle form and watched them. There were seven in the pod of thirty-two with magic. I was tempted and after an hour transformed into a dolphin. The pod was curious then happy and we played in the waves and depths. Killing fish was easy for me with stone bullet. I ended getting lost in the pod for days and learned courting and mating rituals. I don’t know why I did it. I mated with 6 different aggressive females, 5 had active magic halos. My animal instincts and their insistence made it happen. Days later during a sunrise I turned eagle and flew north east once again. From what I understood my planet had a recessive magic gene on the X chromosome. I had dominant X and Y magic genes meaning all my offspring would have magic. And much more powerful magic.

I finally hit land and continued inland at a mile up. The landscape was spectacular. I hit the Rockies and landed on a summit. I transformed to human. I enjoyed the view so much I decided to make a camouflaged house. It took a few castings but soon I had a house that blended in well. I slept on the stone bed that night in the house, I was a bit hungry but that was ok. In the morning I watched the sunrise in the chilly morning. After the sunrise I made the Avalon crest on the roof in white stone. Hopefully I could find the house again if needed. The door was stone with hinges. I flew east and eventually found the rail line. They were clearing and laying the ties to the Rockies. They just needed the rails and spikes. It made it easy to follow. When I got to where they ran out of rails I landed and transformed.

I got some clothes from the workers. I then went to some rock formations nearby and made a few thousand spikes. Then I made rails for four days, giving them more than enough to connect to the next town. I stopped because a train had arrived to deliver supplies so I took the train back to Avalon seeing the development as I went. When the train stopped I used my stone magic to improve the train stations. One thing I noticed was my sexual arousal had calmed down in the days since I left the dolphins. Maybe it hadn’t faded from Naid and that was why I indulged in joining the dolphins. I was happy to head home to the tower.

My shower, my bed, my wine cellar. I enjoyed two good meals and a long sleep before I got back to work. It was August 29th, 1690. We had won the soccer and lacrosse international tourneys in June easily. We had secured many of the Caribbean islands in the treaty with patrols and now had surplus coal for operations. Carina had a request for 7 FAVs marked as urgent. The Madagascar expedition was on track to depart in 1692. The northern border fort had a skirmish with English settlers hunting in Avalon forests. Not a good sign. Liam in France was now advisor to the king and had married. Collette had a note he was rumored to be starting his own magic school. Coins were now being made in 5 Avalon, a larger copper coin. I had a large amount of stone coins to harden from Leo, Luke and a young female mage. There were a lot of requests from growing towns for a rail line. I looked at the map of Avalon. A rail to California was imperative. Then extend Savannah to the tip of Florida. Then from Lancelot to Excalibur onto Panama. Then a rail from Panama running up the coast to Alaska. Lots of work ahead. Riona’s reports were fairly positive outlining new promising mages and advancements. I hoped to start studying the magic artifacts soon. My magic was…

Magic Pool: 241, Magic Regen: 15.7 per hour (+63% from passive meditation)

Spell Design Points: 6

I stood. My spell points had jumped two points in three weeks… What caused it…was it the dolphins? I hadn’t gotten more than 1 spell point in 3 months for years. What causes a person to gain spell points… Carina’s research just said practice but there was some other factor. I pondered for a few hours but couldn’t remember any incident that triggered it beyond my time with the dolphins and that time was fuzzy. When I mated with the wolf did I get I get a boost? Should I try to find an eagle female? My shape change was now level 6 and I had two more forms I could choose. If I wanted to experiment…but the limiting factor was finding animals with magic. I put it in the back of my mind for now. A report from the knight academy was next. It was filled with injury reports on knights and implying the added speed was stressing the joints. So improving muscles, ligaments and tendons was an upgrade priority. Noted. Renee had a report on the university. Over budget and asking for more building upgrades and research. I approved 60% of the requests on my first read through and the extra expenses incurred were waived but I noted not to letting administration costs becoming inflated. The museum curator was next… they needed money as well. A small fortune for more exhibits. I found the paperwork listing my assets. I approved all his requests. He also wanted to do more salvage runs. I made a note to get the Inca artifacts in the warehouse to the museum and handed it off. No new salvage trips though. I checked military R&D next. Some progress with production upscaling. They had a new model gun they were working on, a small caliber handgun with 11 shot mag. They were getting close to gas ejection for semi-auto. A reliable modern pistol was a year or two away. Next up in the priority stack were requests to open more territory to settlements. The rangers were very busy in the kingdom stopping and removing people from settling. I looked at the map of the mid-west. Ok if they followed field rotation policy we could do another 600 square miles here and there and there. 1800 square miles should be farm land for 3000 families or so. I decided to open a lot of California land to orchards and vineyards and marked them off as well. I figured drought in California might be less of a problem with magic. Then I opened up Mexico, 24,000 square miles open to settlement. Next was the west coast magic college. They had little information on it other than the professors and mages.

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

My day was burned going through the stacks of paper. That evening I got the coins done and picked up. Carina spent most of her time at the magi academy these days. She taught two classes there. But I did see her that night. We kissed and she said I hadn’t aged and she was getting old. I was sitting and brought her to my lap. Holding her I said she would always be my first love. She went into the gossip with all the kids. I was tired and felt I had already lived a lifetime. I told her I was moving to the Olympic village and wanted her to come with me. We talked for a while about it but she was happy at the magi academy. Well I needed to focus my efforts over there. She had a list of upgrades needed for academy. Riona said I was more likely to get them done if she gave them to me. I sighed…then grinned. She would have to convince me to get the upgrades done. Well maybe it was the afterglow from Naid but I was very frisky.

Shit I should have read the list before I agreed I would do it for a good round of sex. Well I guess I got paid and now had to deliver. I went to the magi academy. I found Riona and she pawned me off on an assistant who knew the details of the upgrades. The girl was 17 and had no magic. She was apparently the daughter of one of the older knights. Her name was Mary Anne and for the next 5 weeks she led me around to places for me to use my stone magic. She was a nice kid, very smart and very organized. When we finished all the upgrades I told her she was now working for me. She was to transfer to the Olympic village. She actually seemed happy about it as her time with me was fun. She had served Riona for 2 years and it was hard work with no recognition for all her effort. Riona was very angry but finding good help was hard and I needed someone to coordinate my efforts in the Olympic village. I had made 30 miles of rails during the 5 week build session and was harassed daily about making more.

So Maryanne moved to the Olympic village with me. I was fairly detached…kind of the odd man out. Everyone was doing their own thing and I was just the sugar daddy. Maybe moving to Tahiti full time would be in my future. It was Maryanne’s first time on a train and she loved it. She was less impressed with the Olympic village. We met with the Olympic committee which now had 27 members, 7 from Avalon and 1 representative from 20 different countries. Ok this was my first problem. 27 was a big committee. So I had them divide the sports into 7 groups, each headed by an Avalon rep and then the other 20 could each join one sporting group. But the max in each group would be 7. That way things could actually get done. Nations would select based on their populations which sporting group they would over see. Then I got with the architects and we designed the committee compound. It had a large building with offices from the 7 sporting groups. Each office had a reception area, two small offices for staff and a large office for the leader. So after making this building with 49 suites countries started asking to fill the other offices which I denied. 27 of the 49 being filled was enough for now. I was smart and this building was actually about half a mile away from the competition sites. The next thing was to build 49 houses for these reps. I built them further away, about ¼ mile from their offices. Each house was a three story stone building with 5 bedrooms and had a carriage house with three small apartments over it. I was getting good at this and could build 3 houses in a single day and they looked good. They had space for future hookups for water and sewer. Then I built the roads and paths. A month, I spent a month doing basically making zero progress. I hadn’t made any rails either. Well Maryanne had been busy taking the massive to do list and organizing it. She decided the main stadium for the track and field events was first priority. Well it was massive so would take a lot of effort. I could do a lot of hollow construction. It was a lot. They had a massive pile of stone nearby. Ok so I worked on it for the rest of the year. Barely getting the foundation done. We returned to Avalon for the academy testing and new year celebrations.

None of my children were in the new mage class of 15. Although the number was low it was going to be growing in the coming years as we had kids running around shining in potential magic. The knight class had 63. Larger than expected but the crop was quite impressive from what I had been told. I was a little unhappy Carina was not pregnant, it would have been good payback for her tricking me into the all the work of the Academy. I was able to gather some support among the mages for the Olympic village. Nearly 50 mages pledged to come help at least a month in the next year. I was surprised to see political factions growing in the magi. A lot of my older children were getting married or in serious relationships. Summer had joined the Knights after graduating. Although she was 20 they still admitted her in this class. I hoped she would find a boy while at the knight academy. Carina said Summer had developed an anti-aging magic ability. It allowed her to sleep at night regenerating her body. It could triple her life span, perhaps even more as she evolved it. Summer was set on becoming my protector. I returned on January 5th , 1691 to the Olympic village. My time would spent mostly on construction but I would make a mile of rails in the evening.

I was focused on building the massive stadium and on February 15th I finally developed my new magic ability.

* Magical Aegis, Level 1 (Mental-Space Magic Ability [Cost 30]) – a passive magical resistance to foreign magic and physical attacks, each level improves the shield’s strength

It took me a while to feel out the ability. It actively opposed foreign magic unless I allowed the magic to affect me. For physical attacks my magic would create a shield around me to protect me. The shield would even work in space, creating a bubble around me. It was much stronger than what I was shooting for but all the better. I spent a few days trying out the shield. I could resist a bullet from a rifle. The shield lasted for 60 seconds when active and recovered slowly over an hour. It wasn’t perfect as a cannonball slowed but the inertia throw me back when my shield tried to hold it. When visiting mages tried to use magic on me they said I felt slippery and it was difficult to target me directly. In April I started bouncing back and forth to the rowing venue and the stadium. Maryanne also brought me around after lunch to do little projects here and there, usually connecting water or sewer lines in buildings or fixing minor issues. Maryanne was a gem and she had become the foreman for all construction, making the big decisions for the workforce of 1300 men and 10 golems and me. We were living together in a two bedroom temporary house by the boathouse on the lake. She had two assistants, the previous foremen, who prepared drawings for me to review every night. She had two cooks from the culinary school to prepare my meals and I think I was fatter. Me and Maryanne ate meals together, at breakfast and lunch she usually arranged a third person either from the construction crew or Olympic committee. Dinner was just us and Maryanne kept the conversation light. She had the weekly Avalon paper and we talked about sports, inventions and people. I noticed she always dressed up and did her hair at dinner. I usually just showered and put on the clothes she laid out for me for dinner. On April 12th the dinner conversation suddenly turned to my book of sex education. Maryanne was bright red flushed while she asked questions. I thought she was flirting. So I flirted back and in the end we went and practiced some on the sex acts. She was not a virgin and the sex was more desire than passion. She had a fit body and she obviously thought highly of me but after the act I lay there and thought I had just taken advantage of a young 18 year old teen. I regretted it but I knew she never would.

We continued to have sex and it never really affected our relationship. And we got into a routine. We had sex every night and we didn’t seem to get bored of each other. Even after she was pregnant we continued. October 9th and the rowing venue was complete along with the bridge crossing. The main stadium was 70% done. It would need a lot of finishing work after I finished the last 30% but I was feeling good about it. Maryanne had me finishing around the middle of next year. She actually had me go to Camelot to build 9 FAVs next. This took 5 weeks and I checked my warehouse diligently. Still no sword. Maybe it never sank or never existed. Well the golems had done a great job, the salvage was impressive. I would give them another year. The FAVs were well received and soon crews were taking them out. I frowned at the smoke stacks. Back in the warehouse apartment I prepared a meal and suddenly lost connection with a golem. It took me a minute to puzzle it out. One of the salvage golems…had they…found… I couldn’t give commands to the golems but my last evolution had networked them. Rather than return to the Olympic village I stayed in Camelot. I checked my basic stats.

Magic Pool: 244, Ability Points: 137/145 Magic Regen: 15.8 per hour (+63% from passive meditation)

Spell Design Points: 9

Nine spell points. I was looking for spells to help me retrieve the sword. I spent a day before I stopped looking for a combination. I didn’t want the investment. Instead I built some simple devices for the golems to grab and hold the sword. One of the golems came to the warehouse carrying the deactivated golem. This was great…I reactivated the golem. I was shocked to find the golem retained its memory and knew where the object was. It took questions and golems nods to figure out they retained their memories but after a period of time the memories would dissolve. Shit was I basically killing the golems when I disconnected them? It took about 72 hours to lose memories. But since the golems were networked they could share memories until they were rebuilt. So golems developed their own personality? It seemed like a yes. I needed to be careful in the future. I sent them out with the tools to safely harvest the sword. As I waited for them to come back I went through the city healing and curing disease. The city had grown to 150,000+ and was the hub in the Americas. Crime was infiltrating the city and it was like a rough new York city. It took two days for the golems to return with the sword in the stone cage.