I ported the group to Atlantis then returned to Olympia. Ok the final 15 months before athletes started arriving. 3 months after that the spectators. The biggest hole was hotels space. I was going to go work on just hotels while Leo and Luke were going to do all the minor things that needed doing. There was a problem that 19 hotels were 100% booked which I found out. I could complete one hotel every 10 weeks…allowing me to complete 6 more hotels…18 total. Well that was my estimate but the 13th hotel took me just 8 weeks. Yes a little bit was already done but still 8 weeks! The 14th hotel took me 9 weeks. The 15th took me 9 weeks. Then I took 3 days off to rest in Atlantis, I found there were 62 athletes in Atlantis wanting to participate so I took their names and events back to Olympia. When I returned I found the Avalon athletes had arrived and were settling in. I passed on the Atlantis athlete list to the committees and they at first said the deadline had passed but then just nodded and added them. The flag for Atlantis…blue field with three dolphins. My teleport spell hit the level 15 mark and I upgraded with reducing the activation cost to 40. Then I spent a week upgrading the teleport pads Collette had requested.

It was back to hotels. I started getting interrupted a lot and the 16th hotel took me 9 weeks. I told them to figure it out on their own and refocused. The 17th hotel also took 9 weeks as I had to work on some of the smaller hotels that needed things done to them. The 18th hotel took 8 weeks and I was told they were not going to be able furnish the 19th hotel if it was finished since we had added so many smaller hotels. I told them to buy the furniture from private dealers and went and got some of the gold I got from using my spells on royals. Leo and Luke were done and I challenged them to build a hotel before me. I worked on the 19th while they worked on the 20th. I finished in just over 7 weeks and they were only about a quarter done. The international athletes were arriving and started practicing. The trolleys in Olympia and the workers road were running! The trolleys had batteries that were charged by lightning and could run about 2 days before a recharge was needed. Fantastic! I had 11 weeks left before the opening ceremonies. There were hundreds of spectators already and thousands of athletes and you know what the biggest attraction was? Me building the frigging hotels! I built the 21st hotel and then helped the boys finish the 20th. And that was it. Ceremonies were 3 days away. My suite had one way glass from a mage spell. My suite had Maryanne, Naid, Maya, Summer, Anya, 7 knight officers, Leo and Luke with their wives and babies, and 9 of my children from Naid and Maryanne.

The ceremony started with the Olympic torch lighting…then revealing the Olympic rings…then the parade of athletes with 65,000 people in the stands screaming. The announcers used magic to introduce each country. Then there was a projection on the dome introducing each sport. Nice magic illusion skills! Then there were five speeches…boring. Then dancers from our school did an acrobatic number. Then a massive fireworks display. Then an announcement to let the games begin!

It was ridiculously impressive. It was very late, almost midnight when people started filing out. I had turned down Amelia’s and Collette’s request to join the dignitaries on the level below. This was it for me. Next step was building the United Nations building to open in 1705. But I wasn’t sure where it should be located…Camelot? Avalon? Somewhere in Europe? That night I went and worked on the 22nd hotel. Not because it needed to be done but because I found the mindless work helped me think. When the sun rose I went to watch the swimming events. I had a private booth in every venue. The women’s events were in the morning. They were undersubscribed but that would change in the future. The first event had what I wanted. Two woman had magic ability. A Persian and a Danish swimmer. I noted their names down. After the morning the men started racing but I had found 7 unknown magi. I pulled out the event schedule. Gymnastics…I walked over there and no one recognized me in plain clothes. I found 11 more magic women of the 78 competitors…two were from Avalon. I spent the entire games watching the women’s events and found 92 women with magic. Most likely they had magic abilities that helped their performance in some way. I had Maya and her team contact the women and offer them training in their magic. I planned to send them to Atlantis. 79 accepted. In the end Avalon won 70% of the gold, 62% of the silver, 80% of the bronze medals for women. Atlantis won silver for women’s soccer and 3 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze in swimming. For men Avalon won 56% of the gold medals, 28% of the silver and 10% of the bronze medals. The men of Atlantis won 4 bronze medals. The closing ceremonies were also phenomenal. We had 57,000 international visitors and 210,000 Avalon visitors. The monoliths with the sports on the main plaza were engraved with the medal winners names. The post op report was very positive. Collette said everything was beyond expectations and the rulers were cowed by the might and ability of the Avalon Empire. Uniting the planet should be much easier. The plans for building the United Nations building was next and Collette said it should be built in Avalon, our most impressive city and 19 countries already had embassies there. I had never built the passenger ships to transport the athletes but apparently it was covered. The portals that I made had transported nearly 3,000 people with the help of our mages. Liam had transported nearly 1,000 people by himself from France. Ok I now had some time to myself. I did finish the 22nd hotel because you know, OCD.

Then I ported Anya and Maryanne with our kids to Atlantis. Summer came with the two knights who were guarding me. There were some fireworks between Naid and Maryanne but it settled down after a week and I built separate residence, well more of a sprawling estate about a mile further inland. I ended up building the estate up until I had to leave for the New Years celebration and magi and knight testing.

We had 108 new magi this year admitted including two of Daphne’s children, my grandchildren. This was mostly due to the influx of recruited female athletes from the games. The max was suppose to be 80 for each year, 10 for each magi clan tower but with prior thin classes they accepted all 108. It was crazy seeing my grandchildren test with Daphne and her husband cheering them on. Liam even had a son being admitted in the class. The diner after was nice, fresh seafood was ported in with tropical fruit. Liam came and talked with me. He asked me to support his new magi academy in France. Well at least he was asking this time. I said I would think about it. At the knight testing the next day there were only 264 people testing. The knights accepted totalled 53 after the testing and I had Anya go select 40 to port to Atlantis for training in our knight academy. She came back with 35 and I ported them before the knights celebration dinner. My next day was casting the physical upgrades spell. The day after was the New Years celebrations. I think I gained like 7 pounds from all the food. I had written a triste on healthy eating…why were all these foods fried and sugary. I sent a note to the medical school to prevent this lifestyle from taking hold. Put some education program in the schools. The sound mage that had made the communication gems had a few really awesome upgrades. Her range had increased to just over 500 miles, she could make batches of 5, the stones acted as relay stones so the range was actually 2500 if you chained them. She was also getting close to harmonizing stones. So batches in the future would work together. I told her to try to get sets with a master stone and the others acted only as receivers – magic radio. I explained the radio concept to her and she jumped on it. I made her a thousand cherry sized emeralds to practice on. My next conversation was with Orion, Liam’s brother. He was working as the supplies coordinator for the magi tower. He was requesting the plantfoam mattresses. Ohhh. Yeah I would get on it, not. Fryia hadn’t traveled with us but she had years of backorders and 20% were still being sent to the Olympia. I found Daphne and asked her to grow some bamboo forests in my compound. Daphne looked uncomfortable and said the magi council had taken ownership of everything except the southern portion that included my tower and underhill warehouse. I was a bit angry. I decided a needed time to cool down. The magi assembly with all available mages was in two days. I found Leo and Luke got them both to sign on as instructors for the Atlantis Magi Academy. Next was getting Dahlia to move her weapons R&D with her 500 weapons production staff to Atlantis that also had 19 mages on it. I was hesitant about approaching Maya but decided to approach her anyway. We talked privately for four hours. She was going to transfer to Atlantis as well to set up there but would share her intel with Avalon and the Magi Council. She would also step down from the council. That would bring Damien with 27 knights who worked for Maya. Quin, Heart and James were my next targets and they were easy to convince as Atlantis was like 75% women. They would become instructors at the Atlantis school as well. Maya recruited six of my other children who she knew had strong loyalty to me, Tyree, Lyon, Violet, Ella and Camilla. All my kids had enough magic to use the teleporters so it wasn’t a permanent move for some. At the assembly meeting I talked first. I thanked everyone for coming and then talked about the threat of the Xitit. Next I said competition was the best way to promote growth. Soon there would be hundreds of mages every year and we needed to be in a position to teach them all. We needed additional academies and I pointed to Liam. Paris would be opening its school in 5 years. Merlin and Seattle had two small research schools. And Atlantis had its own Magi Academy. More would open in the future and we should support them all with teachers and financial support. I them told them Hawaii was joining Atlantis. What was Atlantis? It was a nation ruled by magic. Avalon would always be ruled by the non-magic humans. Both nations, along with the French would strive to build democratic societies to prepare to fight back. It caused quite the uproar. Riona was pissed with me as half her teachers and researchers were leaving to go to Atlantis. Liam was angry too as he only got 9 magi to come with him. Naid was angry as she felt the powerful magi moving to Atlantis would replace her. Amelia said she was tired of running a country and planned to retire so the first presidential election was coming. I talked to Collette and she said everything was getting more difficult worldwide even with the teleporters. The Indians were restless with all the immigrants. South America was invaded by Spain as they tried to recapture the continent and precious metal mines. Crime was growing extremely fast and corruption in the senate was growing. The country was becoming unstable. When I asked what Maya had done to help I found she was the person holding everything together. I went back to Maya and after a long conversation. She was going to move into my tower and set up her operations there in Avalon. She would still answer to me but would use her assets to be more aggressive.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Well that is what I got for ignoring politics for 20 years.

I spent the next 9 days moving and setting up teleportation pads. My estate on Atlantis had the only teleport to the Rockies Retreat. I had six paired fist sized teleports in my dimensional space for the Rockies Retreat. So in an emergency i could pull one out, teleport and then destroy it on the other end. I also had big plans for the Rockies Retreat…not just research but also building a massive underground expansion to the arboretum tended to by more than the two golems already there. The Avalon tower now had portals to Atlantis, Camelot, Lancelot, Excalibur, Panama, Madagascar Islands, Merlin and Seattle. I also had plans to set up more portals with secret locations on the other end for 27 cities around the globe. With my dimensional storage it was pretty easy but I just didn’t have the time right now. They still had access to the portals in the magi academy anyway. When I was in Panama I found the canal was over half done. This would make trade much easier and open up Asia. The train tunnel through the rockies was still 12-15 years away from completion. When I was in Merlin I checked on the magi school there and ended up joining an expedition to Alaska. They were going to set up a town in Alaska near where Anchorage used to be. I had just planned to drop off a teleport array but as we were heading north the majestic mountains along the coast were just amazing. I went to the mountains in eagle form and found a summit with a great 360 view. I spent a day building a second retreat. It wasn’t too expansive but i dropped a teleport link in the new hideaway to the Rockies retreat. I caught up to the expedition and spent two weeks helping set up the new colony and the teleport. I returned to Atlantis.

My estate was slowly expanding. It covered about half a square mile and was adjacent to the expanding knight academy. The knight academy currently had second rate knights…rejects of the main academy. It was time to initiate a plan i had in mind. Any mage who completed the academy, all 8 years, would get a knight assigned to them. It would be a mutual life bond. Next was to set up magic academies throughout the world…the knight academies were to be restricted to Atlantis and Avalon for now but eventually i wanted all knights trained in Atlantis. I sent Collette out and she went with a contract. Basically a city would build an academy to specifications and we would staff it with 5 magi teachers. They had 15 years to build the academy. The cities that agreed were London, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Mumbai, Moscow, Beijing, and Copenhagen. The 5 magi assigned to each academy would scour the population for talent. Would it create problems in the future? Maybe but it would also speed things up and like i said create competition. Collette dig the leg work and Riona had to prepare for the staffing in the future. She would be able to draw from Atlantis as well.

Well 1701 was a pretty placid year. Maryanne and Naid were the only two women sharing my bed. Anya was my personal servant, the reason why she resonated with me was she actually resonated with me. She didn’t have magic but Naid said she could produce stronger offspring. I never followed through and she actually married Quin in November of 1701. There were a lot of marriages and babies. About 20% of the population was under 10 in Atlantis. So i did a lot of building in 1701. My estate in Atlantis became a paradise and housed over 100 people, mostly my children’s families.