*BOOOM!!!*

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*BOOOM!!!*

The whole mansion shook again as it had been shaking for the past 3 hours, with loud explosive sounds resounding through the underground cavern. The elven maids were all hustling around, busy cleaning up dust and debris that kept falling with each quake. Even high above the mansion, on the surface city of Latiase, tremors could be felt and everyone within the city had been worried. Guards had been scrambled to search the entire city for the cause but no results had turned up yet.

It has only been 4 days since Kiefer had arrived at Rashael’s place and he’s been immensely enjoying the company of, in his opinion, the only other intelligent life form on Aioa. Rashael soaked up all of Kiefer’s knowledge like a dry sponge and within hours of meeting and discussing, they were already planning major changes to the mansion to accommodate their future experiments.

Rashael showed Kiefer around the mansion in its entirety, from the plumbing system, to the elevator systems for not only him, but his servants as well. Apparently, the servants each had their own elevator leading up to the basement of their residences on the surface, within the city and close to necessary amenities. Rashael’s personal elevator that he and Kiefer took led up to an abandoned shack that had a barrier placed around it to prevent inquisitive intruders.

There was a fresh supply of water from an underground water stream that flowed constantly and most drainage leads into the end of the river. Kiefer had identified several problems during his trip and recommended changes to the infrastructure to make life easier and more comfortable in the future. After a quick brainstorming session with Rashael, Kiefer decided his first step would be to remove the elevator systems altogether.

With the help of Rashael, Keifer designed a large rune circle abut 2m in diameter and constructed the physical body of the rune out of orihalcom he procured from Rashael’s treasury. The runes came in pairs, with one on the surface and the other leading to the respective servant’s rooms. The runes would be installed on the walls and have the final key activation sequence missing. Each servant was then given a red circular rune activation sequence that hung around their neck by a string. When the small activation sequence is inserted into the middle of the rune on the wall, the entire rune, along with its twin on the surface turns into portals that are linked to each toher.

With this new system installed by the 2nd day of Kiefer’s arrival, movement between the surface and the mansion was already reduced from an hour long trip to an instant, making shopping trips to stock up on materials much easier.

In the past, the elevators had a weight and size limit, so the servants had to make several trip if they had a lot to transport. And if the item was too big such as beds and other furniture, they had to transport the raw materials down and construct the bed underground. However, with this new system, as long as it fit within 2m, and the servants can carry it, anything can be moved with ease between the surface and the mansion.

Kiefer’s next job, was to give Rashael some form of offensive power. Currently as Rashael had explained to Kiefer, he only specialized in healing and holy type magic, along with mana detection which he had learnt from Wanda’s demise. He could only play a support role in the upcoming battle against Drigor. Kiefer was thinking about how to deal with this problem when he realized that he had lost track of time.

Being underground and the ceiling constantly lit, there was no way to tell time unlike at the surface, so Kiefer decided to make something which he felt was long overdue. Not wanting to waste precious mana conductive metals for such a menial item, Kiefer resorted to manually crafting the components out of steel and wood. Luckily for him, Rashael had hired a master blacksmith and carpenter within his plethora of servants and Kiefer learnt the skills of the trade from them.

Kiefer first made a large basin out of wood to hold a water reservoir. Hanging the Reservoir up high on a metal frame in the courtyard, He drilled a tiny hole near the edge on the bottom of the wooden basin. He designed a miniature water wheel out of wood and fixed it onto the metal frame below the basin. Having given out the designs for the cogs and gears to the blacksmith earlier that day(?), Kiefer went to retrieve the items from the blacksmith once he was done with the water wheel.

With the axles and gears in place, Kiefer finally mounted a huge circular clock-face with numbers running up to 24 on the face. To end it all, after he attached the hour and minute hands, Kiefer placed a small portal rune below the water wheel and its twin on the underside of the basin cover. Kiefer proceeded to fill up the basin with water with a water spell and soon, water was flowing out of the hole into the bottom, spinning the wheel, entering the bottom portal and refilling the basin. As the wheel spun, the clock started getting into gear and the minute hand ticked.

Letting the Clock tower in the courtyard run for a while to make sure there were no problems, Kiefer returned to the surface to check on the actual time of the day. He needed to calibrate the clock to match the proper time by using the sun’s position. Using one of the servant’s portals instead of Rashael’s since it was more convenient, Kiefer left the house and was immediately blinded by the bright sunlight.

It was almost midday and the streets were busy. Filled with elves walking around in civilian clothes, the appearance of a human male set off a chain reaction and within moments, Kiefer was confronted by a Wolfman, a catgirl, and 2 foxmen. With swords drawn and spears pointed in his face, Kiefer could only chuckle at his carelessness as he raised his hands to show a form of submission.

Quickly, his hands and feet were chained up and forced to walk to the nearest guard house. Kiefer simply obediently followed their orders like a submissive human, walking slowly to drag time out. As he carefully observed the shadows of the buildings, Kiefer waited and dragged the walk out as long as possible until 20 minutes later, he was standing in front of the guard house. Watching the shadows become almost gone as the sun hit its peak in the sky, Kiefer disappeared, with only the sound of the chains hitting the ground resounding through the group of guards.

Within moments, Kiefer had teleported back to the closest portal he had set up recently and was soon back in front of the clock tower adjusting the clock’s hands. He set mid-day to be exactly at 24, with both the short hour hand and long minute hand pointing to the number situated at the top.

Satisfied that his new clock was working properly, kiefer finally returned to his original objective – to develop a method for Rashael to take an offensive role. As a titan, Rashael was extremely weak physically, barely being able to overpower Kiefer in his non-enhanced mode. Not only did he not have strength, he was slow to boot, so running away would be a major problem with him dragging the team down. It was as if this titan was created for the sole purpose of having a non-combative stance.

His supportive capabilities though, were incredible. Kiefer had not actually seen it first hand, but Rashael claimed to be able to heal any injury no matter how serious in an instant. The only side effect though, is the patient will have to go through the agony he experienced getting the injury again. With his ultimate skill, Rashael can even bring the dead back to life, not as an undead, but actually back to normal. This skill worked only if the deceased had offed it within 5 minutes.

His healing abilities aside, Rashael is capable of detecting any mana usage and the actual spell that is being used within a 50km spherical radius. Kiefer planned to use this to his advantage, with plans to develop mana dependent coms devices for everyone on the team. With this, Rashael could stay back and pinpoint any magical attacks and relay information swiftly.

Rashael’s abilities aside, his strongest suit is by far his intelligence. It would seem that all the technology within Latiase and Luminas originated from him, and boy was he rich. Rashael was smart, rich and hopelessly useless without his magical devices. It kind of reminded Kiefer of a certain man in a flying iron suit.

With all the riches at hand, Kiefer went unhindered in his schemes for development. Just by looking at his armor, Rashael immediately pointed out one fatal flaw.

“That’s a full mithril armor isn’t it? And to think you are capable of doing a 100% mana infusion. Reminds me of a children’s fairy tale I read a long time ago. I’m assuming you thought of it after reading about the armor that Grandu gave the hero, amiright?” Rashael asked cheekily, amused that Kiefer actually tried to imitate a children’s book.

“And so what if I did? No harm in chasing dreams is there?” Kiefer rebutted, holding his breastplate in front of him to inspect.

“Well, you know the story is somewhat true, except the hero died in the battle and the armor was destroyed. But obviously since they couldn’t put that in a children’s book, they changed the outcome of the battle. There is one critical flaw with that armor.” Rashael said calmly, knowing it would tempt Kiefer to ask more.

“Oh, and what might that be?” Kiefer asked back, trying to sound like it did not bother him, not willing to give in to Rashael’s attempts to see his flustered side.

“Tell me something brother, do you know what Mana overload is?” Rashael asked again, trying to guide Kiefer to an revelation.

“Yes I do, and that’s why I make sure to not have full mana when I fight.” Kiefer answered back, clearly already knowing what Rashael was hinting at.

“Well, why not include something that can store mana? That way you can fight at full mana capacity without having to worry about the overload. The storage unit will handle any excess mana and you can even draw mana from it.” Rashael kept tempting Kiefer.

“That would be ideal, but there’s just 2 problems. Firstly, I’ve researched all known metals and rocks and crystals I’ve come across and so far, none have the capability to store mana. Second, even if such a convenient thing were to exist, I would have to remake my armour from scratch to accommodate such an item and I barely have enough mithril left. I doubt you will be willing to provide me with the mithril for my own personal use would you?” (Kiefer)

Kiefer stared at Rashael, awaiting in the stone cold silence as he watched Rashael’s face smirk. A smirk that only meant Rashael was right and Kiefer was mistaken. Rashael still remained silent, watching Kiefer intently.

“You.. ... ... don’t tell me you really?” Kiefer asked in a low voice in disbelief, to which Rashael kept grinning and nodded his head.

“Fine then where am I going to get more mithril? I’m sure as hell not going to buy it from you. You are definitely going to overcharge me for it.” Kiefer sighed.

“You don’t really have to get more mithril you know? Just melt your armor down to ingots. The heat will destroy the mana infusion and turn it back into a raw mithril form. You mean you didn’t know this?” Rashael asked in amazement. Kiefer shook his head furiously, surprised that such a simple solution was in front of his face all along.

“Haha! Good good!” Rashael was clearly happy. He was able to prove that there are things he knows that Kiefer did not. After all, such trivial things were important to him when it came to a competition on knowledge. “However! I just provided you information for free, so I expect that favor to be returned.”

“And upgrading your elevator systems and constructing the clocktower wasn’t enough?” Kiefer returned the question. “I’ll take the information you have provided me with along with whatever that mysterious material that can store mana in exchange for the remodeling and information from my world.”

“Fine!” Rashael pouted, “I want to know everything you know, and also I want to see your abilities, plus I want you to remodel the backyard and extend the cavern, plus develop some way for me to be useful in a battle. In exchange, I’ll give you my most prized possession, a moon crystal. Most moon stones are the size of a bean and they can already store plenty of mana and cost upwards of a few hundred platinum coins. I’m sure you can guess how much mana a moon crystal this size can store.” Rashael proudly claimed, as her took out a large clear white diamond crystal from a locked chest. The crystal was the size of Kiefer’s head, and it was a flat kite shape.

Equipping his full armour, Kiefer replenished his mana to full, and held the large crystal in his hands as he started pouring mana into the crystal. It turned a silver shade, before Kiefer ran out of mana. Repeating the process over 20 times, Kiefer stored more than 20 times his maximum capacity inside the crystal and it turned a navy blue colour. Rashael explained that it will eventually turn black when full.

Satisfied, Kiefer began formulating plans to create weapons for Rashael that will be effective in long range, as well as a way for him to move swiftly through the battle field, his primary idea based on using the portal runes.