"Not that I'm complaining." Toni says just as I'm finishing up the basement. "But, do you even need a team of guards?"

"Of course." I laugh. "The whole point of this is business is to do stuff for me that I'm too lazy to do myself. I have much better things to do with my time, after all." I say while looking directly at my girls.

"Hah!" Her bark of laughter almost outshines Temmie's. "Then what about this building, why not just hire someone to put it together?"

"Do you know anyone else that can put one together in a single day?" I counter. "Because I'll be happy to hire them so I can go back home. I may not look it, but I am exhausted. This is the third day in a row that I've had to push my magic to the limit. At least, here, I get to be a little creative with what I'm doing."

"Is that what you call those works of art you added downstairs?" Amelia interjects with a snort. "I know you won't take a break, even if I tell you to. But, at least take it easy. Apricot and I are going to find a friend for Flicker now. Be good."

"I'll try." I pull her in for a tight hug. "Hurry back; I'll miss you." I kiss her and then pull Apricot in for the same treatment.

I watch them leave before getting back to work. Only to be interrupted as Sinclair comes storming up.

"Here! I hate you, now make me more." He shoves a tiny clock into my hands with a huff.

"Good morning to you too, Sinclair." I say with a laugh and hand the clock back. "You can keep the first model; I was looking for something more like this anyways. And, I just need the working parts; I can make all the rest myself." I craft a basic men's watch out of wood. It's not my old smartwatch, but it'll do.

"Have I mentioned that I hate you?" He says with a sigh and snatches the wooden model from my hands. "Make me a chair; I was up most of the night working on that clock. So, is this the place? I'm surprised you haven't finished it yet."

"Big basement." I shrug. "I was just about the start working on the above-ground floors. Here's the model though; I've sectioned off this corner on the first floor here for your workshop." I set the model on a table in front of his chair and remove the top two floors.

"I still hate you, but yeah, that'll do." He nods and then a huge yawn escapes from his mouth.

"Would you like some tea?" I start whisking up some matcha.

Sinclair looks at the bright green liquid dubiously before shrugging and tossing it back like a shot.

"Huh? Not bad." He says, the surprise clear in his voice.

"I hope that's not how you always drink tea." I say with a disapproving frown and refill his mug.

"Oh, quit complaining and get to enchanting." The old man orders, but drinks this cup at a more sedate pace. "And, do it in brass this time."

"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to enchant something that small?" I scoff. "I'm still a beginner at this after all; just because I know a bit of math doesn't make me a master enchanter."

"No, that would be me." Rozelle says with a laugh. "Even though my apprentice gives me more work than I give him. So, what have you made now?"

"This." Sinclair holds up the miniature clock and sends a trickle of mana into it. This was just a prototype so I didn't bother putting a battery in it. "Or, the motive force behind it at least."

"It's just a variation of the runes in the music player." I explain further. "Only very small. I miss having a timepiece on my wrist." Rozelle's eye starts twitching at that.

"Yup." Sinclair nods at my enchanting master with a wide smile. "I seem to get that feeling every time I talk to him too."

"Now, I'm wondering if I should tell her about what I came up with last night." I say with a smirk that gets both of them glaring at me. "By, the way, have you any luck with the lightning runes? I had to create a crazy workaround because I didn't have that down yet."

"Tell me." Ro commands. "And, no. Not yet, at least." She adds with a sigh. "I may need to bounce this one up to the main guild in the Capital."

"Mhm, sorry." I wince, knowing full well what not being able to solve a puzzle feels like. "And, it's just another modification of the music player runes, only to transmit sound this time." I bring out a two-meter-long pot with a sapling in each end, tapping the 'microphone' at one end causes the sound to reverberate from the other. "I haven't done any long-distance testing yet, but Apricot tells me that the transmission is nearly instantaneous."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"This... But? What? How?" She's dissolved to single-syllable words.

"Nature magic trickery used to transmit mana over the roots." I say with a shrug "And, it's nowhere near perfected yet. If it even can be. And, honestly, it's probably more expensive than using proper enchanting gear, but I can grow as much of this stuff as I want. So, that's not really an issue. But, if you didn't work out the runes, what brings you here today?"

"Were not done with this." She glares at me again. "But, I recently got a very large job for security enchantments. I thought I'd get my apprentice to use his math skills for me." Now it's her turn to smirk.

"Never mess your master, boy." Sinclair says with a smug smile. "They will always find a way to make you pay for it."

"Can I finish putting up the building first, at least?" I try to at least delay my math-filled fate. "You need the exact measurements for most of those enchantments anyways, right?"

"Oh, fine." She rolls her eyes. "But, I'm surprised you're not done with it already."

"It has a very large basement." I explain again. "And, I may have overdone it a bit with the foundations. But, I didn't want to redo everything if I need to add a floor or five in the future. Speaking of... Sinclair, I was hoping you could help me figure out a decent lift, or at least the safety and control features for one."

"I hate you." He grumbles again, but I can see the light shining in his eyes. "More tea, first, and then show me what you've got." I refresh his mug and pour one for Rozelle, who sips at it appreciatively.

"Very little, unfortunately." I start building a model based on what I've seen in movies and what little I remember from middle-school science class. "It's a simple rope and pulley system similar to the cranes at the docks, but everything is on vertical tracks and it employs a counterweight. A high-torque motor is used to move the cables, and thus the carriage, up and down."

"I know I keep saying this, but I think I really do hate you." He says, but there's a wide grin on his face right now. "You're going to owe me a lot of those little gears for this."

"That's fine, as long as at least three of them come back to me as watches." I make a more feminine model watch. "I'd like something like this for the girls. But, like I said before, I just need the moving parts."

"You know, your master isn't above accepting bribes to lessen your workload." Rozelle says with a laugh while staring at the model watch I just handed to Sinclair.

"Four then, but you can help enchant them." I counter, and then bring out a large pouch of gold. "No, make that five, but I want you to commission the best jeweler in town to work on the body and band. I want something fit for a queen. The Queen, actually." They both lock up at that.

"..." Poor Sinclair tries to speak, but nothing comes out.

"What?" I let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm heading to the Capital soon, and I just know that with how Erick and Elise have been talking me up, that I'll be sucked into a meeting with Her eventually. It is customary to bring royalty a gift, yes? I thought that a functional piece of jewelry built in a collaborative effort by Riverton's best clockmaker, jeweler, and the head of the enchanting guild should do nicely."

"Best clockmaker?" The grumpy old man perks up at that.

"Do you really think anyone will say differently after The Queen starts wearing your work?" I ask with a low chuckle. "Now, if you don't mind my stepping back a bit, I need to make quite a bit of glass."

"Oh my, where did that come from?" Rozelle comments when she finally notices the building that has grown itself while we spoke. "Lovely design, by the way."

"That's just the shell, really." Plain floors and walls do not a building make, not for me, at least. "I still have a lot of work to do; it's just a lot faster when I don't have to make everything out of tonnes and tonnes of stone. Now, should I work on fiber optics, or tempered glass first? Gen, take five and drink another smoothie, I need to focus on this."

"Should we be worried?" Cyril calls back from the impromptu gym area. After Gen was able to walk on his own, Cyril started working his leg muscles on the equipment to build them up.

"Just some glassmaking." I explain. "I don't want to burn down the new building because I got distracted at the wrong time."

"I've been meaning to ask." Sinclair says. "But, who are they?"

"Security." I reply and get the fire going. "I'm working on their disabilities in exchange for guards that I can be sure of. I don't care about the money; I just don't want anyone getting hurt because some greedy ass thought this place was an easy target."

"You know that some of them are missing limbs, right?" He asks while I create a thick rod of fused quartz. I have all the soda and lime I need to make plain glass, but my fire is hot enough to melt pure silica, so why not.

"Mhm, that's going to be a bit of a challenge." I admit. "But, I have a few ideas on where to start. Now, I think I just need to draw this out into a thread." I focus the heat into one section of the rod near the end and let its own weight draw the glass out into a thin thread.

"Do, I even want to know what you're doing?" Rozelle asks with a laugh as I start collecting it on a spool, using my magic to draw it out smoothly now that I have a feel for how it should go.

"Do you know any enchantments that react to light?" I ask a tangentially related question. "I had just meant for this to light up the basement, but it's flexible enough that it would be perfect to control the lift motor from inside the carriage."

"Giving your master more work?" She asks with a wry smile while watching as the spool rapidly fills itself. "You cheeky little apprentice. I'll look into it." She adds with a sigh.

"Anything that works with electricity would be nice too since you're already looking into that." I add with a grin almost as cheeky as I am.

"I'm beginning to see why Sinclair hates you." She says with a laugh. "But, you're talking about remote activation of runes. That's a brilliant idea. It's been tried before, of course, to varying levels of success. But, something tells me that your method will likely put those to shame."

"Well, I'm mainly just trying to avoid having to keep a root system alive while it constantly moves up and down a fifteen-meter span." I reply while scaling up the fiber optic production now that I've gotten the hang of it. "I just can't think of any other way to easily send a signal from the carriage itself to its motor."

"Even if you can get the signal there." Sinclair interjects. "You'll still need to find a way to connect your enchantments to the machinery. Wouldn't it just be easier to hire someone to sit up top and just let people shout up the shaft what floor they want."

"Well, shit." I curse at myself for overthinking things. "I'll mark that down as a short term solution. But, eh. Who wants to do things the easy way?"

***