Chapter 862: Freedom
Eisen"s pen traced over the map in front of him as he planned out all the routes for the railroad to be built. Girland was standing next to him, double-checking the map data with her knowledge of the topography of the lands that the railway would pa.s.s through.
"With the current state of the railroad plans, there should be no issue to start the construction as soon as we have the materials prepared," Girland explained, holding her hands behind her back while the old man slowly stood up from his seat.
"Perfect. Bring this map to Xenia then, she should be able to have one of the construction orbs calculate the actual amount of materials that we need."
"Of course," Girland nodded her head, "However, what do you want to do about the excavated stone in the parts where tunnels will be constructed?"
The old man thought about it for a moment, "Well, the way that they"re set up is that all the excavated is momentarily compressed and set aside as bonus materials, and could then be used to fill in any gaps underneath the rails automatically. But we will inevitably end up with a ton of excess...
depending on the quality, I would like to reuse them for the bridges that we"ll be building between the islands as much as possible," Eisen explained, "As for the parts that aren"t useful for that... we"ll have them compressed down and momentarily stored in a temporary storage facility on each of the islands.
Once the trains are actually up and running, we can transport them to a central storage, and then send them out whenever we do find a use for them."
"In that case, I will begin the preparations needed to construct those temporary storage facilities and find people to manage them," Girland quickly replied.
"That would be great. But it doesn"t have to be anything special. It"s stone, it can all be left outside. Well, except for that one island, the one with the Rock-eaters? We might need a barrier for the storage there. I"ll make something for that before we start construction there...
especially since that"s quite a mountainous island, so we"re going to have a lot of tunnels there..." the old man let out a deep sigh.
Managing all of this was a lot more annoying than he thought, and until now, he had only planned out the most barebones parts of the rail network; the connections between each of the islands and the location of their "main" railways leading to each island"s central station.
On top of that, he worked out the more complex networks here on the Capital Island, the one on the island where the treaty meeting was going to happen, as well as on the two harbor-islands where the different envoys would arrive. Four total.
The island toward the central continent was already in the middle of being developed as a city, since it was the place where most of the trading with the central continent was happening from, and the island toward the giants" country was similarly starting up. Find adventures at m v lem|p-yr
Since those were the main contact points, their rail networks obviously had to be on the more complex side to make the transport of both materials and people actually as efficient as it could be. And at the same time, since the Capital Island was in the dead center of the archipelago, it also needed to act as a hub for travel and transport within the country itself.
That meant that three of the four railway and station networks that he had to figure out were actually the top three most complex.
The only part that made this less stressful was that those construction-orbs that Xenia had created were just as capable in de-construction as they were in the original construction.
Once the initial prototype tests were done in the open field at the edge of the island, the orb cleaned up after itself to the point where Eisen felt confident in letting basically all the materials be reused for other rails.
"How is Evalia looking on the plans for the stations?" Eisen asked, and Girland seemed to think for just a moment.
"When I last spoke with her, she was investigating the three other islands for inspiration, and took a closer look at the locations of each island"s central station, as well as the intermediary stations whose locations had already been set in stone.
I believe her and the team of architects and masons accompanying her managed to complete a large portion of those stations already, but the central stations are still work in progress," Girland explained. She was the only one that could travel throughout this country almost instantaneously, so she had a lot of information to keep track of.
"...Do I have anything else on my schedule for the time being?" the old man wondered, but Girland shook her head, "Not currently, all has been taken care of. However, you did plan on improving the prototype for the train and instruct the town craftsmen on how to create the different train carriages soon."
The old man ran his fingers through his beard, "Well, that last part can wait, the train that the envoys will see will be built by me. But alright, that does make things easier. I"ll head to my workshop now, let me know if you need anything."
"Of course. Do not hesitate to call on me either," Girland replied, before quickly disappearing in a a blue cloud. Eisen stepped out to the balcony of his study. A part of the railing was missing, since Eisen had removed it to make coming and going easier.
The old man quickly stepped off the balcony and transformed, spreading out his wings as he flew to the gardens, dropping down right in front of his workshop.
"Welcome back," Constant smiled at the old man, "What are you working on today?"
"Just making something that I promised I"d make," Eisen replied, rubbing his hand through the guardian"s hair as he walked by, stepping down into the storoage-bas.e.m.e.nt.
"And what would that be?"
"Some a.s.sistants."
Constant slightly tilted his head, "Aren"t I your a.s.sistant?"
"Not for me," Eisen replied as he turned on the lights. He looked around the room and stepped up to the shelves with the compressed crystals and gems, "Girland requested that I make her some Core Helpers so that she can take care of more things. She wasn"t originally built to really take care of a whole country"s business on her own."
"Ah, I see!" Constant replied, "How can I help?"
"Well, first and foremost, you can come with me and take a seat," Eisen explained, and Constant raised his brows confused. Once Eisen grabbed all the materials he would need later, Constant sat down on a stool, and Eisen squatted down in front of him, "Could you give me your arm?"
The core helper did as asked, holding forward his arm. Eisen smiled and grabbed it, pressed his palm onto Constant"s forearm. He closed his eyes, and Constant could feel something intrude. A tiny bit of mana pulsing through his veins, coming not from the artificial soul inside of him, but from outside, from Eisen. This continued for about twenty whole minutes that Constant fought through nervously.
And then, Eisen released his hand, and s.h.i.+vers ran through the guardian as he could feel something just... change.
"Alright, there we go," the old man replied, "It was really just a small change, but it took me a while to figure out what I could alter safely."
"What... what did you just do?" Constant jumped off the stool,
"I changed your enchantments," Eisen explained, and Constant"s eyes widened.
"Seriously? You mean you- I can go wherever I want now?"
"Of course. I should have done this a long time ago, buddy," the old man said, smiling as Constant jumped to him for a hug, "However, you need to be careful. When you"re outside of the original area, you won"t be able to connect to it at all, okay? That means you won"t know what"s going on here, you won"t be able to teleport around, and you can"t just return back here through a teleport either.
You"ll be like any other guardian living in town."
"That"s fine!! Thank you so much!" Constant smiled broadly, "Do you mind if I..."
"Go ahead, I"ll be fine for now. I"ll have someone fetch you if I need anything. Have fun, alright?"
Constant immediately nodded his head, rus.h.i.+ng out the door of the workshop.