Invent ~ 15!

Joe was originally going to attempt to raise the warehouse by himself, but when he looked at the overall schematics of the ritual, and the blueprints of the building, he grew concerned that the mana cost would be as large as the structure itself. “Stan, I don't suppose you have a big ol’ mana pool, do you?”

“I'm here to administrate, not to subject myself to the rigors of magecraft. If I wanted to do intensely laborious work, I would have remained in the Legion.” Stan informed Joe with his unfortunate voice. Before the owner of the area could voice his displeasure at his new employees view on pitching in, another voice cut into the conversation.

“I have roughly twenty-five hundred mana! Does donating it to you get me a free room?” Daniella's chipper tone reached Joe’s ears, and he perked up instantly.

Turning to face her directly, Joe pretended to think about his answer as he tapped on his chin. “I suppose I could see putting you up for the night in the barracks for a single mana donation like this. Now, if you would like to get on the regular schedule, I'm sure my fine City Administrator here would be more than happy to-”

“No reputation offered, no room granted.” Stan stated firmly as he crossed his arms and glared at Daniella. “I'm not going to be known for taking care of a city that has a poor reputation pool.”

Both of the humans stared at the Dwarf with frozen expressions, knowing that they had both simply been joking around. Joe took in a deep breath, let it out slowly as he forced a proper smile back on his face. “Stan, I am more than certain that since I own the land and am putting up the buildings, I get to decide what to charge for rent, correct? All of that money is going to go to me, and I will give a portion of it as taxes to the town at large?”

Stan’s face shifted to slowly dawning horror, “You mean to tell me that you are not just donating all of these buildings to the town?”

“Stan, Stan, why in Eternium would I do something like that?” Joe chuckled softly, though his eyes were as hard as flint.

“But you can just put a building up in a few minutes! Why would I assume that you are not giving ownership of them to the town?” Stan jabbed a finger at Joe’s chest. “I even gave you a discount on that Core!”

“Not sure why that would matter, but let's review the facts. Stan,” Joe looked his administrator in the eye and held his scandalized gaze, “not only does it take a mess of Mana investment, as well as a core, I also need blueprints, a ritual diagram, and all of the materials to build a building just like any other construction crew would. Now tell me, if I have all of that expertise, resources, ability to use it, as well as own the land… why would I give up control of what I make to a third party?”

“…Exposure?” came Stan’s weak reply. “Then people can see what you can do?”

“People die of exposure, Stan. At least I know now why your building didn't have any art in it. Also, they can see what I can do while paying me rent.” Joe was chuckling softly at this point. “Wanna try again?”

“Altruism? Patriotism?”

“No, Stan. Capitalism.” Joe rebutted, his word pulling a *hiss* out of Stan, who clutched at his chest like a vampire that had just been staked.

“People always want to be paid.” Stan muttered as he shook his head sadly. “Why do they need my reputation more than I do?”

“Well, look at that, Daniella! I just found a job for you. Besides your normal work as an architect, can I pay you to make sure that Stan is paying people promptly and fairly for the work that they do?” Joe’s chuckling died as he noted the horror on Daniella's face. “You okay over there?”

“Joe, set me up with a room here and I will do that for free for the next three months.” She told him firmly. “That should be long enough for people to get used to arguing for proper salaries.”

“See, not everyone wants to be paid for the work they do!” Stan tried desperately to convince Joe. “We shouldn't pay them if they don't require payment!”

“I really want to like you, Stan. Help me make that happen.” Joe motioned for Daniella to join him in his expanding ritual circle. “Anyway, meet your new assistant! Daniella, this should not do anything funky, since it is only a Common-ranked building. There should be minimal flying through the air for us, no bodily implosions, very few surprises overall.”

“Have those… been issues, in the past?” She looked at the shimmering ritual with sudden concern.

“The issues mostly took care of themselves. If not, I could always use the practice Resurrecting people.” Joe waved his hand back and forth. That was all they could say before the ritual started and the mana began to flow out of them. Daniella cried out, and Joe realized that she may have never channeled so much mana for such a sustained amount of time before. “Direct the flow of mana! Don’t just let it tear its own way out!”

Of course, he was not having that issue, since his mana was diffused through his entire body and not locked into any single core area. He hadn’t found any downsides to this, beyond the fact that his Coalescence skill had seemingly stagnated. He wasn’t sure if it was his advice or something else that got his new partner to succeed, but her jaw firmed up and no blood was trickling from her lips. Joe quietly congratulated himself, “I must be getting better at teaching this sort of thing!”

The walls of the massive storage warehouse came together in the strangely organic look that all of his buildings had, his aspects converting into stone, wood, metal, or glass as needed. As the final touches came together, Joe pushed to take the full mana burden on himself, knowing that there was no way someone not a Champion of a Deity could have a mana pool like his at this level.

Quest updated: Novice Rituarchitect II. Buildings created: 4/10.

Rituarchitect Class experience gained: 50.

Architect of Artifacts has increased the structure by 10!

Warehouse (11,000 feet of storage). Durability: 5,500/5,500.

Daniella was panting as she looked over the building that had a slightly strange look to it. “This is amazing. How did you learn how to do it? This is a class, right? Can you teach the class to others, what sort of base class do I need?”

“I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that an architect wants a class that can create buildings.” Joe chuckled as they walked forward to look over the building properly. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that this is actually a combination of three classes that work together. If you had the first specialization alone, which lets you raise structures, you’d have a serious disadvantage. The actual cost for all of this is astro-abyssal-nomical. My main class gets an eighty-five percent cost reduction on rituals, and my third class makes it so that I don’t need to have the exact materials needed to build it. Instead, I can convert other things into what I need.”

“I’m guessing that’s why these walls are grainless, even when they’re clearly wood?” Daniella ran her fingers over different sections of the building, noting how smooth it was. “It’s almost like the hives those carpenter wasps made back on earth… or a cartoon drawing of a building. It looks almost unreal.”

“Huh. Maybe a lack of shading, or texture?” Joe looked over the warehouse, then the other buildings in the distance. Now that he was thinking through things from her perspective, the buildings he had made did almost look two-dimensional. There was a kind of ‘material’ look that just wasn’t present, and they were perfectly smooth. “I can see that. Happily, they work as they should. Stan, feel free to start storing materials here. Daniella, make sure the city pays me a fair, if reduced rate, for rent of the warehouse space.”

“Yes, sir!” She threw him a mocking salute, winked, and followed a grumbling Stan into the building.

Joe watched her go, a corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. Something about her resonated with him very well. He shook off the feeling, trying to analyze it. “Maybe she just has a lot of points devoted to Charisma, Joe. Don’t do anything stupid. She’s shown nothing but professionalism to you, don’t take that as anything else.”

He started walking out of the green district, and into the blue-light district. “Let’s get the smithy up so I can make a core enchanter, then convert a few cores to batteries, allowing me to upgrade my weapons, all so that I can protect against monsters as I convert garbage into making more buildings. Ugh. Haven’t had a task list like this since I used to play video games.”