We finally returned to Avalon after our way more extended trip than we had ever planned. However, I knew that our little endeavour was far more important than the campaign in Berna. My wives seemed relaxed, which was my aim to begin with, but I wasn't done with our vacation plans. I still wanted to spend some time in the amazing rainforest and stunning scenery of Ceallach's Dungeon. Before we could go anywhere, there was work waiting for all of us and the promised passes for the First Fleet personnel. What I had not anticipated was the fact that I had nothing to do. I wasn't really prepared for such a scenario so I had to improvise but, fortunately, I had an unwritten list of things I wanted to pursue. I didn't have to rank it because there was one thing I had promised myself to do once such an opportunity occurred. It was quite straightforward: find every single inhabitant of Bolia Village. Find everyone who tried to sacrifice Amber to the Castle of Blood Dungeon.

It wasn't like I had ever forgotten about them or, exactly, forgiven them... But... There was that teeny tiny part of me that always wondered what would have happened if they never tried in the first place? Would I have ever met Amber? Even if we were meant to meet anyway, would everything that happened, happen in the same way? I had my doubts. If not for Amber and her warnings, I would have been much less prepared for the world. That wasn't even the beginning... Without her at my side, from the very beginning, my memories would have been even more fucked up by Lord Dickhead's sabotage. Without Amber, I would surely fail to save Irene from the hands of slavers. Without Irene, Luna and Hestia would have surely died. If not for my paranoia about keeping my beloved women safe, I wasn't sure I would have managed to find Aoi's village in time to save her. Sebastian wouldn't have been spying on my neighbours, so I wouldn't know about Verksa's plot and, subsequently, I wouldn't have been able to intervene in Hilgvar to save Mia and Tia. I still could have met Lavender but I wasn't so sure I would have been the same man she fell in love with. However, without the closeness of my wives and knowledge of Luna, I would have been crystallised with little, if any, human feelings left.

No... Undeniably, when and how I met Amber back then was the most important event in the recent history of Aderon. It was a turning point and I will go as far as to say it was a world-changing event. I wouldn’t pretend that I was just an ordinary man because, the moment I found myself in Nilmerthis, I wasn't just a guy. I couldn't deny, with a straight face, that I wasn’t given unimaginable power and I was capable of saving or destroying the world. I was sent to this world with a mission and a bag full of surprises. I was a nuclear option in a chess game. As Urbil said, his Masters were shocked by my presence. I was never intended to be a play fair and by the rules Hero. The other Eternals summoned righteous heroes or just good guys with hopes they would deal with the Evil that planned to destroy this universe. Eriar had sent me without telling me whether I should be a guardian, a protector, or just a weapon aimed at that Evil. But, if I was just a weapon, it was Amber who aimed me at everything that needed to be destroyed. Who could say how my story would have gone without her at my side?

Amber is very important to me and, for that reason and that reason alone, why no one was allowed to raise their hand at her or any of my wives and threaten their safety. Sebastian, in his plentiful spare time, has been tracking them for almost a year now and he found almost all of them amongst his other tasks. Some of them were already dead - killed during the war with the Cridians. Unsurprisingly, some of them had connections with slavers so they were captured and executed along with the other slavers. Something was bothering me about the slavers, in general. Most of them were Lizardmen and, after I purged the Empire from the last traces of slavers, Lizardmen became a very rare sight. It was a thought worth, at least, a few questions or, maybe, a full investigation. Anyway... There were always enough Noble Slimes delegated to tracking and capturing tasks and it seemed that today was the day we would capture the last fugitives of Bolia Village. They have been on the run since that very first day when I replaced their Master as if the power that held them in that village disappeared. It very well could be the case they were victims also but it will be Amber who decides what to do with them. It would only be fair for the fate of the people who tried to kill her to be in her hands...

"My Lord?"

"Yes, Stella?" I opened my eyes and looked at the very perplexed Faé Scion.

"I'm afraid that Gravity Magic is beyond my current understanding." She nervously kneaded her hands together. "I read the Books and notes provided by the Metakans, but the spells just don't work."

"Hmm... Show me those books."

•••

We teleported to Stella's private laboratory within the Magic Tower of the Royal University of Avalon. The Scions rarely slept or needed to rest but I provided them with a private space nonetheless. Stella had transformed her apartment into another study room where she was able to leave her notes and untested devices unattended without any worry that students would touch them. However, I noticed that she had a huge hammock stretched between the massive branches of her spawner tree where it was fused with the tower itself. It looked like she could remember and enjoyed a comfortable space for rest. In addition, her room was quite peculiar in that it was divided into sections by powerful magic fields. Stella kept a lot of strange stuff sorted in the magic areas while it competed for her attention. In the middle of the room was a simple wooden desk with just a few books and a single, backless chair. I followed her to it and, as we were crossing the boundaries of the barrier, I felt immense pressure. She wasn't taking any chances for another explosion. I read through the books and notes provided by the Metakans as she handed them to me. I skimmed over them just to have a general idea of what could have stumped Stella. However, I wasn't sure about the problem. This magic seemed so... Simple.

"Why are you so nervous, Stella?"

"It's just... So frustrating, my Lord! I know that shouldn't be hard and, yet, I can't even make a single spell work!"

"All right, Stella..." I slowly nodded and took a seat. "Please tell me, what do you think gravity is?"

"Gravity is just a force that holds us confined to Nilmerthis." She said confidently and I smiled as I shook my head in denial.

"It's not that simple. Gravity is, most accurately, described by the general theory of relativity which describes gravity not as a force but as the curvature of space-time caused by an uneven distribution of mass and, subsequently, causing masses to move along geodesic lines." I offered her a bit of Wikipedia. "For most applications, however, gravity is well approximated by Newton's law of universal gravitation which describes gravity as a force causing any two bodies to be attracted toward each other with a magnitude proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them."

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

"Hmmm... In that case, every physical object has gravity." She pointed out with a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

"That's correct." I nodded with a bright smile. "No matter how minuscule, as long as the object has mass it will have gravity. While, for most basic applications the Newtonian theory is sufficient, we are speaking about magic. While I seriously doubt that a full application of relativistic theory would be required to understand that magic, I think you lacked a single piece of knowledge to move forward."

I produced copies of a few physics textbooks from my hidden library. They were nothing special, just a few high school, college, and graduate-level textbooks but I believed they would be enough to kick-start any proper research if I ever needed advanced physics. I wasn't just expecting that I would need to summon the wisdom of Newton and Einstein so early on. However, to think of it, the development of Arcadian technology was absurdly uneven. Especially the military tech tree, if I cared to say so. I chuckled to myself, suddenly remembering that old meme of Roman Legionnaires leaving in a Chinook helicopter. At least, the Royal University of Avalon was progressing at an outstanding pace to speed up any other technical branch that was lacking.

"I think I remember some part of it but I wouldn't call myself a reliable source after, God knows, how many of my memories were erased." I smiled at her which was, at this point, an exercise in futility because she was already immersed in the books. There was something wholesome about the Faé reading a middle school physics textbook with sparks of enthusiasm and joy in her eyes.

"Thank you, my Lord..." She replied without really listening to the second half of what I said.

I shook my head in disbelief as I smiled at the image when I teleported away. My office was quiet, as usual, when I arrived. Somewhere out there was a bustling city - by many, it was already called the capital of the world. In a sense, that was true, at least, for those people who called Avalon their home. It was the centre of their world. The marble floor was pristine and polished while my footsteps softly echoed as I moved about the office. There weren't many decorations or trinkets to bring life to this room because it wasn't a place I wanted to spend any more time than was necessary. My desk, a large, twenty-person-long war table with chairs, and large maps were the only things that were there. I slowly walked towards my desk and looked out the huge panoramic window. The magnificent view of my city always made me smile. I found a single sheet of paper on my desk that listed things Eva believed were worthy of my attention. There... weren't many of them.

"Hector Breonia executed by Derek Vetulia and, with that, the Union is finally united..." I shook my head as I sat in my chair. "Luie Vetulia was found dead a few days later after he committed suicide."

My voice echoed in the office and I smiled but there was no happiness behind that smile. With their deaths, another war was avoided and another one of my homeland's borders was stabilised. That left me with two main problems to deal with. The first, arguably more important, was also far more troublesome than the other. Guessing where the forces of Void and Chaos were going to strike next wasn't exactly productive. Annoyingly, the forces of Evil and their Hero could hide forever in their dimension or emerge on another continent and I wouldn't be able to do much about them. The other of my problems was hiding among the trees of the Great Northern Wilderness. So, out of two, it was Vestargo I had to do something about sooner as opposed to later. The Emperor of the Ancient Forest was, undoubtedly, aware of me and he was, most probably, preparing for the unavoidable war. That was why I was going to be the first one to strike this time.

I had already sent my spies to Navell to determine if they even survived the last monster incursion that reached Arcadian borders. The Confederation of Navell was the last beacon of civilisation at the edge of the world inhabited by people. As its name suggested, it was a Confederation of city-states that were connected by various treaties but they weren't a uniform country. To be honest, living so close to the ancient forest required some degree of boldness or courage. I had to learn what was going on there but I couldn't afford to send just a single destroyer. Sending an entire fleet might be seen as an act of war. To get past those restrictions, it was time to send my spies. No matter how fast my Noble Slimes were, I couldn't expect any reports for, at least, the next week or, even, two. Since Navell shared the longest border with lands considered the Great Northern Wilderness, they should be far better informed about Vestargo than other countries were. Their knowledge might be crucial for my war efforts. Arcadia shared a border with the Ancient Forest by way of the mountains but that hardly counted since there was no easy way to cross them. My Navy could attack across the mountains but establishing a permanent base would be a death sentence for any Mortal accidentally stuck there.

For better or worse, Arcadia was surrounded by mountains which provided a natural barrier from enemies trying to attack us. It was all fun and games until it was inconvenient for me. Just a quick glance at the map made it obvious that I had to establish a foothold north of Poplar City. I, most probably, will have to build a mountain stronghold... Oh, that was a great idea: a fortress carved into the mountains with a tunnel through or under the mountains and I could create a predictable contact point with Vestargo's forces. So far, it seemed that only monsters of the Ancient Forest were the ones attacking so it was time to return the favour. Of course, I could set the forest on fire but I wasn't that stupid. Watching a world burn was less appealing if you had already seen one in flames. The Ancient Forest was so huge that, literally, setting it on fire could have dire consequences for the entire world and I wasn't ready to see what the consequences would be. So, before I tackled anything hiding there, I need to develop a new kind of ordnance. If Stella is successful in harnessing the Gravity Magic, I will have to ask Amber to make some black hole warheads for me. A black hole wouldn't set anything ablaze, after all...

The fact that Vestargo had already attacked me, even if he lost, meant that he had a better idea about me than I did about him. I couldn't really predict what he could do or how long it would take him to prepare a full-scale invasion. I had four Legions ready to deploy alongside the Royal Navy's First Fleet but, compared to the vastness of the Ancient Forest, it was like a single droplet of water in the ocean. The new ships were under construction but, with only ten shipyards certified to build Navy ships, it was hard to keep up with demand. Especially with our resource bottleneck until we start seriously mining in Iceleon. Fortunately, I had enough mana to raise another two or three Legions however, I was thinking about expanding the Living Armours and Wyverns spawners. That was going to consume a lot of my mana but it would still be a good investment considering how powerful my Mobile Infantry was. The Dragon Warriors were still waiting for any significant battle to test their mettle but, even as scouts, they were incredible. Still, I will need at least one more Legion in case I need to close any gaps... With a shrug, I accepted the slightly simplified and suspiciously intricate World System pop-up. The tenth legion will need some time to form so I still had enough time to think of a name. Then, I expanded the capacity of those two spawners.

I leaned back in my chair and turned toward the window with a flat smile. The sky was spotless except for a few fluffy clouds that lazily roamed the endless blue. I put my hands behind my head and took in the serene view. I smiled viciously and spoke the ultimate wisdom to follow. "Si vis pacem..."