"Hey, guys." I greet the guards who are still playing board games in the conference room. "How are you all feeling?"

"I never thought I'd say this." Fawne sighs. "But, I think I'm actually tired of eating. Thank you for giving me some variety, but I need a break." I knew she'd get tired of eating bowl after bowl of chickpeas, so I gave her a different style of tofu chicken every other bowl.

"Okay." I nod. "I was going to drop the accelerated growth spells after dinner anyway. Your progress is already well ahead of the others thanks to that high metabolism, so breaking early won't slow you down much."

"Thank you." It's hard not to smile at the relief on her face right now.

"Heh." Hughes chuckles. "A beastkin tired of eating? Now, there's something I never thought I'd see."

"Are the rest of you doing alright?" I know how their bodies are doing, but I never would have known about Fawne getting sick of food if I hadn't talked to her. "Good. I just finished adding controls to the lift, and wanted to show you all how to use it."

"That was fast." Hughes looks excited. "Thank you for working on that; I know you must have a thousand other things that need doing around here."

"No worries." I smile at him and lead the way over to the elevator. "First off, these are for the six of you." I hand them each a key. "These are override keys, and they will call the lift to whatever floor you're on when you use them in the slot under the call button. Please don't abuse them."

"That won't happen." Cyril assures me.

"Good." I use a key myself and the doors swish open thanks to a motion magic enchantment. "Now, the controls are simple enough that anyone can use them. Just select what floor you want with the lever and push the up or down button depending on which way you're going." I pick the third floor, and the doors swish closed before the lift takes us up.

"What if we push the wrong button?" Gen asks.

"You'll end up at the basement or top floor." I need to work out a proper control circuit like in a modern elevator, but this works for now. "I'll be hiring an operator soon, and eventually automating the whole thing. But, I need a lot more enchanting experience before that happens."

"Easiest job ever." He laughs.

"More like most boring." Toni shakes her head.

"Yeah, that's why I'll be adding a music player, and they'll have short shifts." I agree with her whole-heartedly. "Okay, does anyone need anything else while you have me here? Hughes, I already put a bed down in the living room for you." He nods his thanks to me.

"I think we're good for now." Cyril states after exchanging glances with everyone.

"Alright." I nod. "I should get back to working on the appliances, then. Oh, hi, Felicia. How are you and your crew settling in?" I say when the elevator doors open up to show her walking down the hallway.

"Sorrel." She greets me with a smile. "I was just coming to look for you. I know that Melanie is still working on increasing the production of the silk, but I was hoping that you could still provide the looms. The girls and I are eager to prove ourselves."

"Anything to save me from enchanting yet another light." I agree readily. "Squeeze on in and we'll get off at the next floor. Now, I have a copy of one of Cecil's looms in storage. Will that be good enough to start with? Just because I can weave with magic doesn't mean I know anything about doing it for real."

"That's a good start." She nods. "A very good start, but I might have a few minor changes..." We got off on the second floor and spent the next little while setting everything up to her satisfaction. "...That should be enough cotton to keep the girls busy." She says with a nervous laugh after I turn a giant bale of cotton into countless kilometers of fine thread.

"Alright." I node with a smile playing at the corner of my lips. "And, I'll speak with Sinclair, whenever he shows himself again, and ask him to have a look at the spinning wheels for you."

Now that I've built a working air compressor we should be able to use that to power a multitude of devices. I had already installed some waterlines to run some turbines on this floor, but I'm happy to switch them out for compressed air instead.

"Are you sure that we can't just have you make all the thread for us." She laughs while examining the top-quality thread. "Or, at least have you teach me that trick?"

"I would if I could." I say with a rueful expression. "But, I doubt anyone less than another Plantkin or maybe a grandmaster nature mage could manage the same trick. Don't worry though; I'll keep you stocked with as much thread as you need. At least, until we have a spinning wheel that can produce something of similar quality and quantity, that is."

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"Where did you say that Sinclair took off to?" She asks with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

"Heheheh." I shake my head at her. "He's working on a gift for the Queen right now. It's just a small one, but I'm sure he's trying to make everything as perfect as he can."

"The Q-Queen?" Her eyes go wide.

"Mhm." I nod. "I'll be heading to the Capital soon and, since I've made a bit of a splash since arriving here, I'm sure she's going to want a meeting with me."

"A bit of a splash?" She breaks into nervous laughter. "I know Melanie said that I would get used to you, but I'm not sure that's possible."

"Yeah, yeah." I roll my eyes at the weaver. "So, do you or your team need anything else? I think I have all the basics covered, but I don't know if I'm missing something if no one tells me."

"Well, a couple of them were wondering when the ovens will be installed." The ice-boxes and water heaters I can handle with magic for now since those don't need constant supervision. But, I wasn't about to run everyone's ovens for them, so I just left place-holders for those until I could get them built.

"Alright, I can work on those next." I really am sick of making lights and looking for any excuse not to do more. "Just let me know if anything else comes up, okay?"

"Will do." She nods sharply.

...

After checking in on Amelia, and finding her still entranced with the supercritical water. And, Apricot entranced with Amelia's magical manipulation of that water. I head back outside to my faux vacation spot to build a stove.

From what I've seen most people use wood-burning stoves or cook straight over their fireplaces. Even Amelia's family only has a hybrid oven with wood being used for most things, and the enchantments for small stuff like heating a kettle for tea.

I like this idea because it saves me the work of enchanting a full oven and finding a way to keep it stocked with enough mana to run. I briefly thought about making a biodigester to produce methane to make it somewhat cleaner, but natural gas is a lot harder to store than something like propane. Sure, I could make charcoal for everyone, or even try to build an alcohol stove, but why give myself more work.

"Hmm? That alcohol burner might be a good idea for the boilers and water heaters." My gaze drifts off into the middle-distance as designs form in my head. "If I make one of those old spring-style thermostats and tie it into a touch rune I could control the temperature automatically. Yeah, that should work; I could even use one to control the radiant heating and cooling. Nnh, I need more metals." I know they use two different ones with different thermal expansion rates, but I have no idea which ones were used. "Great another project."

Shaking my head to clear it of distracting thoughts, I go back to duplicating the oven I saw at the Rialta's. I had planned to hire a smith to make these for me, but that's not needed anymore. And, since they're made from cast iron, I don't have to hassle with making tiny crystals like with steel.

Only Melanie and Felicia's apartments get direct copies of the oven. The family apartments and the communal kitchens get a slightly smaller design, and the studio apartments are even smaller.

"Now that they have fire, I need to make sure they don't burn down all my hard work." I laugh and start making fire extinguishers and sprinklers. "Ugh! I'll need to design some sort of pressure gauge for these." Unfortunately, I have no idea where to even start on that.

After making all of that, I go ahead and create a second air compressor since Amelia is still hogging the first. Pulling everything into storage, I head downstairs to hook the compressor up next to the original.

"Are you having fun?" I ask Amelia in a teasing manner, she still has the same goofy smile on her face as when I left her earlier.

"Yes." She sticks her tongue out at me. I dart in to suck on that tongue, but she pulls back with a laugh. "Maybe later, Babe. I feel like I'm close to something here."

"Oh, fine. I need to fill some fire extinguishers anyway." I say with a sigh. "I can just see the disapproving look on Adriana's face if I installed the ovens without having the fire safety stuff in place first. I'm a little surprised that she hasn't shown up yet to pester me."

"Mhm." Amelia nods distractedly, already focused back on her pressurized water, making me and Apricot laugh. I'm usually the one to get caught up like that.

...

"...Conjure Water! Yes!!!" Amelia crows and starts laughing as she finally manages to summon supercritical water at subcritical pressure and temperature. "I told you I could do it."

"Oh, I did not doubt that." I smile at her knowing that I likely would never be able to do the same, I just have too many preconceptions that it should be impossible. "You are one amazing mage, and the progress that you've made since we met is insane. But, I am glad that you took my advice to practice behind a blast shield first."

"Hehehehe." Apricot giggles when our crazy water mage goes from prideful for her accomplishments to sheepish over the destruction she just caused a few minutes ago.

"Oh, and before you go playing around with it too much." I materialize a leaf right above her ball of magic water. "I'm sure that it's less dangerous without the heat and pressure, but supercritical water is only used for one thing that I know of. Decomposition of living matter." She gulps as the leaf slowly starts to dissolve. "You've basically turned water into a slow-acting liquid fire."

"Seriously?" Melanie asks, startled. She, along with everyone else in the lab was drawn over by Amelia's first explosive attempt.

"Only in the most general sense." I correct. "I know I wrote down a bit about redox reactions for you guys. Technically rust and the way the body uses sugar is the same reaction. I just want to make sure Amelia doesn't hurt herself on accident, and fire is a good analogy for that."

"Wait, wait." She pulls her copy of my notes on chemistry from storage and starts poring over them. "I know this..."

"Tch." I shake my head in mock-disappointment at the alchemist. "Complaining that I haven't written down enough for you when you haven't even read what I did write down."

"Oh, hush." She waves her hand at me in an annoyed manner. "I'm still getting used to all these new terms you introduced."

"Sure you are, Mel. Sure you are." Elliot takes the chance to join in teasing his friend. "Every alchemist in the Guild is green with envy at you right now, and here you are squandering the opportunity of a lifetime."

"Shut up." She barks at him. "If the rest of them knew what dealing with him on a regular basis was like, then the last thing they would be is envious."

"You're going to give me a reputation if you keep talking like that." I tease and start laughing when she blushes.

"You know what I meant." Melanie grumbles but we're all laughing now.

***