Kingdom Of The Weak

"You want me to plant… what?" George stared blankly.

"These. They"re the seeds of Lenisu Vines. They"ll take about three years or so to mature before we can harvest Lenisu Bulbs." Remian looked at him seriously. "These Bulbs are extremely important, George. I honestly believe they are the future of our world."

"Are they good to eat?" George asked doubtfully. "Or some sort of medicine?"

"Better. They"re an energy source, like mana crystals."

George gaped. "We can grow mana crystals?!"

"Not exactly. They produce electricity, not mana. Think of them as super-lemons."

"What do lemons have to do with electricity?"

"Uh… someday, I"ll have to show you with a couple of wires. Just don"t try it with Lenisu Bulbs; you"ll die."

"But these… these are alien plants, aren"t they? Can they even survive on this world? Can they survive competing with the local plant-life?"

"I think so. Actually, I"d be worried that the plant-life of our world might not be able to survive them."

George shuddered. "Perhaps you"re asking the wrong guy to plant these."

"What do you mean?"

"This sort of dangerous plant is best grown on islands. Tim is nearer to the Midlands Sea. There are islands there…"

"Half, then. I"ll give Tim half, while you handle the other half. We need lots and lots of these vines, George. We need entire forests of them, enough to supply the entire world."

"But… but the Wilds…!"

"I"ll talk to Mal"thor. He"ll love the idea."

"He will?"

"Trust me. He"ll even love the taste."

"The… taste?!"

"Apparently Draconians love snacking on these Bulbs."

Then the subject turned to architecture and underground (or built-into-hills, more like) colonies with lots of sunlight and open s.p.a.ces. Considering the locations of the Iron Mines, the Gem Mines, and the Misty Steel Mines, they discussed building subterranean arcologies until night fell.

And then Arnold got kidnapped. There was no other way to describe what happened. Despite all his protests, Remian practically hauled him away in the middle of the night and started filling his head with ideas about metal that were literally out of this world.

That conversation lasted until morning, after which, Arnold was seen walking around in a speechless daze for the better part of an hour.

By that time, Remian already had his hands on Jim…

***

Mindy, at the time, was beating up three guys who were local spoiled brats. Thinking the world of themselves and very little of that tired and dirty Wildlands girl wandering around the airport asking about some guy, they made the mistake of provoking her in three different ways.

One guy insulted her as dirty and cheap and unworthy of his attention even as a loose woman very quickly gained a mouthful of loose teeth. He was also introduced to the first-hand experience of what being dirty really felt like.

Seeing that, a second guy tried to proposition this strong and pretty girl into being his personal, intimate maid, the kind who could handle his attire and undress him… he very quickly landed up hanging from his belt at the top of a flagpole while Mindy showed her abilities of handling his apparel. Bereft of most of his clothing, he spent half the day shaking in the breeze together with the proud flag of the Dragon Empire.

Then their friend the third guy threatened her with his well-recognized status as the son of some n.o.ble or the other. This guy ended up even higher, joining the well-recognized adornments atop the town"s bell tower, his ears ringing with the bells upon every hour that pa.s.sed until lunch time.

Mindy might have lost most of her powers, but she was definitely more than capable of handling some local silkpants young masters and their entire entourage of bodyguards with only a little effort.

Having thus laid low one guy and exalted two others (one at 30ft, the other at 50ft alt.i.tude above sea level) Mindy thereafter left the inquiries to the cleaner, better-dressed Loh, who was able to tout the ident.i.ty of a Member of Tian Di (Club, not Sect, but don"t tell them that!). She herself finally went to an Information Broker thinking to buy the information she desired, only to find that they couldn"t sell it to her no matter what she paid; they"d never heard of Remian, never heard of anyone who returned from other worlds or some such. Several of them suggested she look for him in some good, entertaining fantasy novels.

At last, George called her and told her Remian had already arrived. As to his condition, he seemed to have his head in the clouds and kept talking about all sorts of weird, new ideas, but physically he seemed fine and better than he"d been when they last saw him, in fact.

Following that, after a lot of unfair raging and shouting at her communications crystal, Mindy quit abusing George"s ears and finally allowed herself to relax. Putting down her worries after all this time, she crawled into bed with a small smile on her face, a wordless apology to poor George, and went to sleep.

Afterward… maybe she"d just stick around the Dragon Empire for some fun, since she was already here… or something. Maybe. She"ll figure that out when she woke up. For now, she just needed sleep.

Of course, before the day was over, a whole gang of thugs burst into her inn looking to cause her trouble on behalf of certain embara.s.sed young masters who shall not be named. They interrupted her sleep.

Consequently, it was they who went to sleep soon after…

***

After completely blowing George"s, Arnold"s, and Jim"s minds, Remian had a long discussion with Tim.

Tim left that conversation half-stumbling around in a daze, as if he"d looked Phoebe right in the face for at least five seconds. He called his subordinates in KarGoth and even called Mandy back at Ashdale. All of a sudden, he wanted to buy the very latest, most advanced industrial machinery the world had to offer… just to make even more advanced industrial machinery.

"You want to build a what?" Izhan scratched his head, not knowing what to make of Tim"s sudden ambitions.

"An Arc Furnace! We"re going to use lightning instead of fire!" Tim tried to explain from his limited understanding of what Remian was rambling about.

This was the easier method, Tim believed, compared to the other one Remian talked about, the one where lightning was not released and remained trapped inside "induction coils". He said that an induction furnace was like an induction cooker, only for metals… Tim had no clue what that even meant. Using arc lightning in a furnace was about as far as his imagination and understanding could safely take him without crossing over into the realms of madness.

"B-but… to cast lightning magic… that much mana…"

"No, no, we won"t be using mana."

"Then?"

"At the beginning, we"re going to be getting some help from the Deepsilver Lord."

"The Lord of the Black Depths?"

"A super electric eel, in short." Tim paused. "But that"s our long term goal. More urgently, we need to raise our production of copper."

"Copper? Whatever for?"

"For conductivity. It"s cheaper than silver, at least."

"What in the world is "conductivity"?"

"Ask Remian." Tim groaned, holding his head. "Or wait until he has it taught in his new school curriculum."

"You want me to go back to school?!" Izhan balked.

"Just think about how to produce more copper!" Tim barked. "If we need to build more buildings or expand the district, then let me know! We"re going to need a crazy amount of it, and soon!"

"W-what do you want to do?!"

"Everything!" Tim groaned. "There"s just too many… I don"t even know where to start!"

***

Actually, the plan was to start from early Cla.s.s-2 machinery and power harnessing, such as the waterwheel and windmill, to develop an industry that did not rely on magic.

But George sank that plan due to their currently reliance of magic in everything, from medical needs to their main industrial productivity. This was especially true with Frames; it was practically a KarGoth specialty, and a unique advantage they enjoyed over all other nations. To throw that away for nothing was simply unacceptable. For equipment as sophisticated as Frames, using electricity would take them extremely long, maybe generations, before they were developed enough. Just how sophisticated were Frames? Arnold had gone to the point of inscribing runes into different parts of the new Frame experimental designs and making them customizable and replaceable parts. The newest idea he had was to make Frames that could easily change their damaged parts or swap power sources or heavy equipment just by plugging them out or in.

Unfortunately all that would require even more mages, and powerful ones at that, highly skilled in a select variety of crafts and magics, like runesmithing… which Remian shot down on the spot. At this point, such mages were already in extremely high demand, very, very expensive to hire, and trying to attract even one of them over was going to cost them a hand and a foot.

No, they needed to turn towards cheaper designs, lower costs so that more people could afford to use them, because Frames really boosted the productivity and abilities of just about everyone and everything around KarGoth.

In other words, Remian"s original grand plan was already sunk, and George"s original grand plan was already blown away, so everybody was stuck in a lost state, not quite sure where they were going while the two main architects generally agreed to come up with something-in-between as they went along.