“Good morning Clarissa, it has been a while,” I greeted her.

“Good morning, Michael. Not that long, but it is good to see you again. How are you doing?” I considered that question.

“Not too good,” I admitted. It had taken time to come to terms with the issue, but Captain Francis had pointed a couple of things out to me. Thinking on them, made me realize there were issues. I let out a long sigh. Even the crunchy mystery bacon that was on the breakfast table in front of me, wasn’t overly tempting.

Clarissa was silent as she got some jam, waiting for me to continue. “Messing with energy and one’s brain is not a good mix. I have been focusing more on the present, and there has been less restraint,” I replied.

“You think it is something else or what the Astrologer did?” Clarissa asked me.

“Probably the Astrologer, unless any studies have come up with anything?” Clarissa shook her head at that question. “Then it is removing the tumor and focusing my own energy to remove it. Since I level out the energy, the small changes in my brain are smoothed out. Since energy is thought, and thought is energy…” I trailed off.

“It levels your thoughts. That is concerning. I assume you have a plan?” Clarissa asked me.

“Time. After the tournament and city upgrade, there will be a lot of time. I plan to spend at least a hundred days making sure the curse damage is gone. Once that happens, then making sure I am calmer and more thoughtful. That rest period will help. I have been doing too much while trying to deal with the curse damage in my head which compounded the problem,” I explained.

“I am glad to hear you figured things out. Samantha had been slightly worried about you,” Clarissa said.

“That is fair. I did put a lot of pressure on her. She isn’t going to melt down?” I asked.

“No. I was thinking about making her your personal assistant while you are here in the capital.” I considered that offer.

“That won’t be a problem on my end. Surprised you want someone else to deal with me,” I replied.

“If it is important, you can always bother me. But for little things, it is better to delegate. Also, it will be good to relax,” Clarissa said.

“Really?” I asked.

“Good management is about proper delegation. Realistically, I should only be making one or two decisions a day, not putting out fires. Upper-level management takes a different mindset,” she replied.

“Well, I have no complaints.” I picked up a piece of crunchy bacon.

“I am glad to hear that. We have the celebration planned from day 1,001 to day 1,005. The schedule should be finalized in the next five days and given out. You will need to make the closing speech,” Clarissa said.

“Not the opening one?” I asked.

“People remember the closing one better. Also, if you are doing it, people will stick around to the end. Better for business. Since we are shutting down for the next five days after that,” she replied.

“The upgrade. You sure you want to push ahead with it?” I asked. I hadn’t fixed my skills yet. I wasn’t complaining, but there was a risk to the city.

“Yes. It is important for several reasons. Getting Magnite as a crafting material will be important for enchantment testing and other city upgrades. Also, sugar is a key commodity. Letting the Forbidden City have a monopoly on it will create issues.”

“As for preparations, the City Shield has been upgraded to level 4. That took sixty million points. We also have emergency level 2 city shields at each gate. The walls have been upgraded to level 4 for a hundred and fifty million points,” she added. My eyes went wide at that.

“We can afford that? And extra shields?” I asked in surprise.

“The efficiency of cities have been increasing and I have most of the level 3 grinding teams still coming to Purgatory. I am getting the city tax and the Imperial Government tax. As for the extra shields, they are for emergencies if there is an attack. Having only a single City Shield is too big a point of failure. The gates each have one.”

“If there is an attack, they can quickly activate it so our forces can mobilize. Better than trying to sound any kind of alarm,” I added.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Yes. There are also procedures in place. Two officers have to agree to it if as well. That should prevent any accidents from occurring.” I nodded at this.

“Then airships? When are those happening?” I asked.

“As the last item. We purchased a small airship assembly building,” Clarissa said and then hesitated before driving knives into my soul. “We are looking at ten million to build the smallest type of airship.”

“That isn’t that bad. I can afford it out of my reserves,” I replied.

“I had one purchased to check the operational costs. It is exorbitant. You have seen the control mechanism. Three rods, the left one for lift, the middle for engine thrust, and the right one for engine power,” Clarissa explained, and I nodded at this.

“Well the power is listed numerically, zero, one, two, and four. Those are amounts in the thousands per second, in terms of point consumption. One hour of basic operation is 3.6 million points.”

“But the engine could only hold up to ten million?” I asked.

“Floating in place takes nothing and thrust is maintained for a while. The real trick is that airships operate on ballistic principles. Using force generation to propel themselves. The engine is a force generator. The balloon on top is just ballast.”

“Wait, so once it is going, it won’t slow down? What about air resistance?” I asked.

“Doesn’t impact the airship,” she replied.

“Wait, but the middle control rod had center, right, left, up, and down. There was no reverse. How do they stop? I have seen them come to a stop,” I said, and Clarissa nodded.

“Center means stabilize in the center. Power controls forward momentum. So, airships can be quickly brought to a halt,” Clarissa explained.

“If getting up to speed is that simple, why is cost such a problem?” I asked.

“You go up, monsters come. Not just flying worms either, but other types as well. That means you need massive speed, which means constant acceleration and then deceleration. That takes a lot of points. The airships are fragile. Any repair costs the full ten million. A scratch or a chunk of it missing, the cost is the same. And you can only repair at a repair bay on the Airship Tower.”

“That’s a lot to take in,” I replied.

“Trust me, I was hoping we could have a small fleet to project our power. But unless you have a strong team on board, or a way to repel the monsters, you are going to be burning through points. It doesn’t matter how high off the ground you are. Once you start moving, attacks will happen. It is too much of a hassle,” Clarissa replied.

“But the Avatar got around that,” I muttered loudly. “She probably has a way to keep monsters away,” I replied.

“Maybe, but I wasn’t about to move her without your permission. The tests were run, but the real risk, is you go to fast, keep accelerating, not enough points to slow down. Where would you end up? We haven’t found the edge of this place.”

“No wonder the Divine Empress didn’t want to use one,” I replied.

“It makes sense. You go faster than your Body stat can handle, and you can inadvertently kill yourself. Well we didn’t get that much speed to fully test, since the airship we did get was damaged. It is a point sink. And I have other priorities since they aren’t practical at the moment,” Clarissa explained.

“Leaving me to do the testing out of my budget,” I replied.

“Yes. But it stands to reason you could float over a zone and no monsters would come. Just hover in place. A lot more testing needs to be done. And the risks are very high as well,” Clarissa added.

“Surprised you managed to get it back just damaged.”

“We stayed near the city and had teams on the wall just in case to lay down covering beams. But it was a close thing. Airships are going to be in your area for the foreseeable future if you want one,” Clarissa explained.

“And the facilities, if I want to build a bigger one?” I asked.

“On you for now. If the city or other people order them, they can pay you a service fee. But we are going to be investing heavily into enchanting, defenses, and cannons for the city walls going forward,” Clarissa explained. Those were expensive as well. They cost five million each and cost one million a shot for level 1 beam cannons.

“That will quickly add up,” I replied.

“We can’t afford another government in exile. That is why Purgatory is going to be heavily fortified. Millions of points going into its defenses. Quadruple the number of Wall Towers from four to sixteen. Cannons on all of them as well. Increasing the defenses of the inner city also,” Clarissa explained.

“And the investment into teams for the economy?” I asked.

“That is happening as well. We are spread a bit thin at the moment, but there is a process in place. I also want to find people who don’t just get tired out there if we invest in them. They are long term sources of tax revenue and will help drive the economy.” I nodded at this.

“Anything you need from me?” I asked.

“Just don’t cause a disaster with your Monster Battle Arenas. I know you are refereeing as well, but we can’t afford a huge incident,” Clarissa explained. I nodded at this.

“If it was me. I would summon a lot of monsters to attack in surprise during the middle of the tournament. The soldiers have the Sense stat?” I asked.

“Some do. Tethers will be checked and the City Map will be used and watched by multiple people. I am probably going to purchase a second City Map building as well just to monitor the city, while the main one is to monitor the surrounding area and support monitoring the city during big events by my auditors,” Clarissa explained.

“One to look at the population, the other at key people?” I asked.

“Exactly. Hopefully that way any imposters or threats can be found before them become serious. I am taking security to the next level. It would have been nice to have a couple of airships for rapid deployments, but that isn’t happening,” Clarissa said with a slight frown. I munched on my crispy mystery bacon.

“I almost feel like I am slacking, but I have been gathering information about level 4 monsters and the surrounding zones. Urg, they are such a pain, since they can attack in groups and the zones themselves are all hellish in some way,” I complained.

“Poke any more level 5 zones?” Clarissa asked me.

“No. I am going to sort out my skills and everything else, before I do that. Otherwise there is too much risk. I can’t afford to take level 5 zones lightly. Will need more stats as well,” I sighed while thinking about everything that was required. The higher the level of monster, the more headache inducing it was to deal with.