"The fucker tried to scam us!"

Was the first thing Mar exclaimed after having absorbed the blueprints who then became Blueprints along with the miracle that Alaric had sold the Swarm. The three structures were useful enough that was not the issue, but what Mar had discovered was that normally people using these blueprints would have required an entire team of specialized Enchanters and Architects. He probably had suspected that their Interface would streamline the process, but Mar doubted that he knew it would eliminate the need for those specialists entirely.

* New Blueprint: Magical Academy: A perfect insitution designed to train Magic Users of all stripes, this center of learning has rooms for teaching magic, to store enchanted items, to experiment with mystical forces, and to craft magical items in general. Has been Gained

* New Blueprint: Anti-Sympathy Array: This array serves to protect settlements, areas, and specific buildings from being scried or affected mystically from a distance through sympathetic links. Has been Gained

* New Blueprint: Leyline Amplifier: This building serves to attract and amplify local leylines to create an artifical magical nexus that serves to both increase the ambient mana of the area as well as produce dross. Has been Gained

The Miracle that Alaric had sold was without any hidden drawbacks as far as Mar had been able to determine. It had simply become a new Power called Magic Destruction, which let them destroy woven magic if they invested enough power into it. As far as abilities went it was a rather important one as Mar was lacking in means to counter magic, something that had become painfully clear during the Hor campaign. That little Elementalist had been able to disperse their spore clouds as well as keeping insects at bay, and she had only been a middling Magician as far as they understood it. What would a true Archmage be capable of by comparison?

Mar had decided to not build the new buildings in the Hor settlement even if they had been viable for it, which was only the case for the Anti-Sympathy Array. Or rather they would not build it now, as while it was undoubtedly useful Mar did not want to worry their foes too much. Mar had made enough waves and if they suspected what they were truly capable of then the entire world would descend on Mar and hunt them with every means at their disposal. It was better that they thought Mar was a...regional threat, a monster with pretentions of godhood rather than the genuine article.

It was one of the reasons that Mar had ordered Nasi to pose in the town square while the elderly and children of Hor were ordered to construct sculptures of him. The fiction of the Thrall-King Spider was still a necessary one, and anyone scrying Hor would see what they wanted to see. "Slaves" stroking the overinflated ego of a simple if cunning monster. While the true designs of the Sovereign Swarm remained obfuscated by this illusion.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Suddenly Mar felt a...shift as several new fragments joined the rest. Normally this was unimportant as new creatures joined the Sovereign in a continious stream at this point, no what made this particular incident interesting was...the nature of the beings added or rather born to the Swarm. Mar felt the Biomass Refinery being completed and unlike a lot of the preliminary buildings that had been constructed in Hor, this was a living construct.

"Fascinating."

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Mar opened their eyes in the factory as the final layers were completed and the rather massive structure stood ready, where once an entire towndistrict had been before. The building had multiple floors and looked more like a modern factory than the workshop that Mar had originally envisioned when examining the Blueprint. The center of the factory was dominated by a massive conveyor belt that seemed to be composed of a hybrid of skin and bark. It led to what at first Mar thought was an open maw until they realized it was not as much a mouth as it was a machine...a machine that happened to be full of teeth. Blunted teeth, sharpened teeth, teeth that looked like sawblades. and teeth that looked like other contraptions meant to rend, tear, smash, or cut materials. The machine looked like it could fit three medium sized trees into it at the same time.

Out from the processor there were several massive intestines that led to large fleshsacks that probably could store tonnes worth of proto-Biomass. Mar felt that these large sacks were incubators of some kind...meant to finalize the transformation of the Biomass and excrete it to various work stations where the workers could shape the substances into materials.

The eyes that Mar looked through seemed to have the function of security cameras as they both surrounded the interior and the exterior of the facility. But they were far from the strangest thing that Mar could sense inside of building, no that honor fell on the neurons that stretched through the entire construct in wafer thin lengths along thin lines of spidersilk that seemed to form a kind of natural electrical network. No power was coursing through it yet, but when it...and there Mar felt the network connect to two Energy Pylons while two million fragments loosened themselves from their hosts and focused almost all of their attention to the Hor Collective.

Power started coursing through the facility and Mar felt the semi-divine and semi-magical bio energy course through the neurons and the machines that Mar felt...woke to life as the factory opened its doors to the curious humans outside of it. The Hor collective was directing young men and women into the building to start working on the tonnes of biomaterial that had been and still was carted to Hor as farm after farm was dismantled.

"We might have to adjust our plans now."

Mar said as they witnessed their very own industrail revolution begin as the first logs were being carried into the refinery, soon this facility would process enough Biomass to sustain all of the needs that the Sovereign Swarm presently had. Therefore, they reached out through the Swarm and spoke to the Logistics-Collective, Ysandra, and Old Yoss, while transfering the images from the factory to them.

"There has been a new development to our schemes. Move the third settlement forward on our schedule, we are going to have to start working there soon."