Elevation of Mana Chapter 174 Catching Up

There were different levels of elders, and while it was a group I'd just joined Jina was an old, old hand to it. That was a good part of why I needed her.

“So you want me to reinforce our entire border?” she asked as we moved through the conversation. “I don't hate the idea but I believe you're overestimating my abilities.”

“That's because I don't want you to do it alone. If we've got waves of monsters coming in, we need to stop them, and the council needs to be convinced to send people to do just that rather than just someone to figure out what is going on. They won't listen to me, but I doubt they'll ignore you if you push for it. They're not stupid enough to risk you coming in and taking over the whole city.”

“Doing that might not be the worst thing you've ever proposed,” she mumbled.

“No it would, you'd hate it and we both know it. In a week you'd be killing people just to shut them up.”

“And you wouldn't?” she asked, and I didn't feel the need to comment.

“We also probably don't need to worry about the whole border, mostly just the western edge, and even then, the mountains will help a lot. Those damn things have been a barrier to our people for as long as anyone can remember, and I don't doubt that the beasts everyone's complaining about are coming through the few passes that actually make it through them. Close those gaps and we should see the numbers plummet.”

“And what exactly will you be doing to help? I've heard you say you were readying to, but no evidence of it.”

“You doubt that I'm preparing things?” I asked.

“No, but others might and telling them what you're doing will settle them, particularly if they understand it.”

“They wouldn't though,” I pointed out.

“People are more clever than you give them credit for. Even if you only show me what you're up to it'll be enough for me to tell them you're doing something.”

“I'm making a platform for weapons, one we can fight and scout safely from.”

“That's hardly difficult to understand.”

“How it works isn't, and the fact is that it will take me several seasons to finish it at least. Even then it's only a proof, like the first weapons I made for your grandfather, enough to show that it can be done.”

“So it could fail?”

“Yes, it could. I'm fairly sure that it won't, but this is all new to me, and so it could.”

“Still, I'd like to see it.”

I shrugged, that was fine, as there was nothing in that particular workshop she could make mischief over right now. So we took a quick walk and soon found ourselves in my workspace, her eyes growing wide at the piles and piles of metal pieces I'd been making for some time now.

“That is so much metal,” Jina whispered as she looked at all of it. “All the tools all the weapons that it could make.”

“It's quite a bit, but just because I'm using it for this project doesn't mean weapons and tools aren't getting made. Even in the other shops here they're doing that kind of thing now, and you forget I'm no longer the only one who can work with metal like this. Others are making things too, heaps and heaps of them.”

It was easy to see her surprise, and to understand it. While I might be able to get literal tons of steel and bronze now that wasn't the case everywhere. Even most of the other metalworkers in the city couldn't get the sheer amounts that I used casually, and they were sought after. Outside of Atal metal and those who could do anything with it were still vanishingly rare. In the whole of the western half of our lands there was probably less steel, maybe even metal in general than was in this room alone.

The knowledge was spreading, that wasn't to be misunderstood, and the items were too, but that didn't mean they were doing it fast. Without me around to guide and challenge them, a lot of the smiths had gotten complacent, and once I returned from my previous journey I had things I was doing rather than teaching. So the average metalworker was taking their sweet time, and not one of them could match me for how much of the stuff I was gathering at once.

“If we'd had this for the war,” she asked.

“This took time to build Jina, and reflecting on what could have been won't help. At any rate while these tools are great, they wouldn't have matched the magic.”

She nodded. “Thank you, so what is all of this?”

“A frame,” I explained, frames were something people had used even before I arrived in this world, either for houses or for other tools.

“It's going to be... very large.”

It was going to be a small, but still functionally sized blimp. “Yes.”

“Very well, Ill tell your council you've convinced me that you're doing what you need to. Please though, don't go too far.”

“I try not to.”

She laughed at that, really laughed.

“You fail.”

“Maybe, but I do try. Mind if I ask about something else now?”

“What?”

“How's the village? Did those women end up resettling?”

“They did, though if you wanted to know that you could have visited. They're doing well, most of the original group is no more, but that didn't surprise me. They were never right after what happened to them, and while some of them tried to heal the young always seem to die. It's so much worse when they're injured like that too.” She looked almost sad as she spoke.

“You didn't help them?” I asked.

“I did some, but at a certain point you have to let little birds fly. You'll understand in another century or two I think. If you coddle them too much they're stunted, and can never really soar like they should.”

“You said most were gone, so some lived I suppose.”

“Indeed they did, one of the ones who was a child when you came through has grown into a leader now. Rather than collapse into her own mind or lash out she used her pain to build.”

“That's good to hear, perhaps one day we'll meet.”