I took a second to catch my breath as the mana left my body to create the shield that blocked the punch that was coming for my left. I spun around and raised my hand calling forth a fireball and shot it at Hadrian to get him to back off as I turned to my newest summon, who went by Ivan by the way, and sent the magic shield forward fast as lightning and knocked him off his feet.

Right when I was turning back to make sure Hadrian was still down he tapped my shoulder and started talking before I could say anything. “My lord we have won this match as well are you sure we should not take a break?” I took a second to wipe the sweat off my brow before responding.

“Yes I figure we should. My reserves are almost depleted, and I can feel the fatigue catching up with me.” He nodded and went to help Ivan up as I sat down for a second. I figure I should explain what just happened.

About a week ago when I finished the transmutation ritual to craft the armor that Ivan wears and then subsequently summoned him I felt like absolute horse-shit. So after telling Ivan what I expected of him I told the two of them everyday from now until I feel I’m good enough we would train either until I collapsed or one of them had touched me.

See what I didn’t expect was just how good they were at tapping me on the shoulder. Like for real usually each round will last at most five minutes before they get me. Though thankfully for myself every session I’m getting better and better slowly.

This session I lasted a whole eight-minutes before I was tagged by Hadrian. While that may not seem like a lot to you, but you try using magic you have only had for a week and a half to fend off two super soldiers.

Other than that though the week has been going well I used my magic to create us the beginnings of an underground base that I plan to turn into my capital for my Empire. While it is pretty slow going with just myself working on it.

At least I can feel safe knowing that I have Ivan, and Hadrian to defend me while I’m working. Though there have been a few occasions were those roman knockoffs would come a little too close for comfort.

I think they have mages that have been detecting the run off of my magic and are trying to find me. That or there just foraging parties looking for food to take back to the main army. Either way yesterday I set up some wards that should have the less magically inclined of the lot simply overlooking the area where i’m building.

I snap out of my daze as I hear footsteps coming towards me and see it’s Ivan coming towards me. Right when he looks like he’s about to say something I interrupt him and speak. “What can I do for you Ivan?”

He doesn’t hesitate before responding. “Milord if you don’t mind me asking, but why have you not summoned anyone to help you create our base of operations?” I get why he’s asking that after all it was one of the first things I thought of doing to speed up the process, But the simple fact is I don’t have the equipment to outfit a mage or worker.

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And even if I did I also don’t have enough food to feed them with. So while I could summon a mage or worker to help me right now it’s just not economical to summon either of them. “You know we don’t have the resources to feed and equip more of your people.” He seemed to be deep in thought for a second before responding.

“Well why don’t you simply create some automated machines that can create the base for you?” My brain short circuited for a second before I looked to see if I did have any such devices. As I looked through it didn’t take me long to see that yes I could make such a device.

In fact It wasn’t even that hard to make in a material of magical sense. I would just create a simple nanite that would take the mana from the air and some of the material from around it and construct more of itself in the way all nanites do before then they would combine and create and small two-by two foot cylinder.

After that all you had to do was set it in the area you wanted the construct and program what you wanted into it and the nanites would go to work creating what you wanted. Meaning that other than giving myself some practice in transmutation construction I had wasted my time.

With a sigh I looked up at him and said, “Thank you for reminding me I should have the nanite matrix created shortly be ready to program it for me.” He saluted me and sat there waiting for me to get to work.

So I cracked my back, grabbed a piece of wood and started the spell. “Maschine von Ulm der mikroskopischen Bezeichnung!” And it turned the metallic color that showed that the spell was in progress and slowly shrunk smaller, and smaller until I couldn’t see it anymore. The only way I knew what there was the slight mental connection I had to through the magic.

Then when I felt the spell finally end I dropped it on the ground and gave it the order to start it’s construction sequence. After that I simply sat and waited for the next few minutes as the speck of black metallic coloration grew and grew until I could actually see it building it self from the ground up.

Once it was done I had Ivan set it in the center of the site of my construction and set it to start construction of the underground structure that would become my base. “So how long should it be before it’s done Ivan?” He looked over to me before responding, “It should be done in about a day and a half my lord at the latest.”

With a sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have to be without a home base much longer I sat down and went to sleep. I hadn’t gotten a good night's rest for over a day and it was starting to affect me in adverse ways and right not that just wasn’t in the cards for me at the moment. As the darkness overtook me I couldn’t help but wonder what the next few day’s would hold for me.