At first, I got a bit worried since I left Glacien to go and take us anywhere she deemed fit. She was a smart animal, but she was still a beast. My idea and her idea of what a good place should be were vastly different.

  Moreover, she kept zigzagging in some areas as if she didn’t know where she should go and I found traces of footsteps nearby, but we never found anyone in the way. She did her job well in avoiding troublesome people altogether. So, perhaps my worries were unfounded.

  After three days, she eventually began to lead us to the summit of a mountain. That made me stop working to see where she would be leading us. The terrain was quite rough too, so I couldn’t focus on my work.

  The mountain looked pretty high and while the wagon could be pulled in such terrain; it didn’t look like it was a place that was explored often. We could live in peace and calm here…

  “I guess I need to make some camouflage walls to keep us from being seen from a distance. That would need a constant supply of mana cores, too. There are plenty of trees here, so I can make a decent house. Even if I am not a carpenter, my other skills and tools are decent enough for this. No worries.”

  Glacien knew that we needed to make a base near a dungeon or labyrinth, so she shouldn’t take us to a place that didn’t fit the criteria. Eventually, we reached the summit of the mountain and then the wagon slowed down. However, I couldn’t find the signs of a labyrinth.

  “Is there a labyrinth, or at least a dungeon here, girl?”

  “Awoo!”

  “... Maybe it is a different type, then.”

  Glacien instincts never failed until now, so I decided not to assume anything for now. The terrain was a bit curved, but it wasn’t a real problem. I could level this much in no time using a bit of magic, but maybe I shouldn’t since that would increase the area in which I had to hide. For now, Alissandra didn’t need to move around, so I could focus on a small area.

  When the wagon stopped, I jumped from it and then checked the surroundings… yep, I couldn’t see any signs of a labyrinth. However, all of a sudden, Glacien began to dig into the ground. I didn’t think that she had anything to bury, so it made me wonder if there was something there that she wanted.

  She kept digging for a while and gave her strength. Soon she was inside a hole. This might take a while, so I decided to work on making a decent shelter for the night. There were plenty of trees around, but it was annoying that I had to also get their stumps out and then cover their signs.

  Still, that much work was easily done with a bit of magic, so when the sun was setting, I already had made a dog house that could fit Glacien and since she liked to sleep while curling up around Alissandra, that would be a good shelter for both of them.

  “I didn’t need a blueprint for this, but it still came out perfectly… I guess my ability to visualize things improved with my dexterity, too.”

  I went to check the hole that Glacien was digging and it was already ten meters deep. It was quite large too, so it seemed that she was determined to make the entrance of something here. I asked her for a suitable place close to a dungeon or a labyrinth, but I didn’t think that she might want to create one.

  There was the possibility that there was a hidden labyrinth here, but I never heard that they could exist underground without an entrance. If that was the case, it was hard to imagine how much the monsters could breed inside. An impossible army could be waiting for us down there… or at least a dungeon that is about to break and unleash who knows how many monsters.

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  “All right, you can start digging for oil or gold tomorrow. Let’s do something about all this dirt on your body.”

  Water wasn’t a problem for us with the flask of water, so cleaning Glacien was easy. This gave me the idea of creating a hot bath here. This should be possible in the mountains… I didn’t have the chance to enjoy one since I was reborn in this world, after all.

  A hot open bath while watching the stars in such a place. This looked like a pretty good idea. It would help me get rid of my edge and then live a normal life for a while. Living a normal life was a good thing, but maybe not so much about getting rid of my edge. I needed to stay focused.

  “I should make a system like the wagon, where all the camouflage walls receive energy from a single spot. It would make it easy to expand it later. It would be easier to see how much energy is being consumed daily as well. I could also adjust the amount of energy being used according to the weather conditions and the time of the day.”

  There were many other things that I had to consider first before something like that, so I definitely was putting the wagon in front of the horses. Still, I wrote down those ideas just in case.

  Since I didn’t have to fight for a while, I could keep focusing on the work and improving the conditions of the place, but as soon as I have the chance to fight, I should go all out given that the world was about to enter an age of strife and I couldn’t fall behind.

  “I want to live in peace for a while, but I need to get ready for war. People can only truly live in peace when their enemies know that disaster can happen if those people decide to fight in wars. To make sure that no one will bother me, it is time to put all those ideas into practice…”

  I checked my notes and then read everything that I wrote down when it comes to ideas and blueprints. Some of them became useless over the years, but others were still very much possible despite being very difficult projects that showed a lot of my vision and greed as well.

  My eyes stopped on a certain project… a flying fortress. That kind of thing would be really interesting to build and see in action. Still, all the parts necessary to make something like this would be insanely difficult to create. However, creating some small prototypes and going from there should be very possible even now.

  “One step at a time… one step at a time.”

  I finished giving Alissandra her meal, and I could tell that she was quite sleepy already. So, I put her in her basket and met Glacien curl around it and inside our new base, version 1.001. I didn’t do many things that were really tiresome that day, so I kept working since I wasn’t sleepy. The bow was almost ready, and I didn’t want to start a new project without finishing this one, and it should be over soon as well.

  At this point in time, it had become a project that I was doing the same thing over and over again, but the focus on quality was still there. Soon enough, I confirmed the results of my hard work. The final version of the bow was massive. I couldn’t even pull the string to its limits given its size, which was almost fifteen meters. However, I could attach it to some platform and use it like a crossbow.

  I went from Mythic, skipped Ancient and headed straight into Ascended. I couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction thanks to it. The bow was that impressive and I finally could rest a bit. Maybe I could shave some parts to make it smaller and easier to use, but it was fine… It was better to keep this bow as a last resort to scare and surprise the crap out of my enemies.

  As I tried to calm down for a short nap before the morning arrived, my mind didn’t allow me. The ideas for my next project wouldn’t stop flooding in, each more vivid and exciting than the last. Blueprints seemed to sketch themselves in my mind, and potential solutions to challenges I hadn’t even encountered yet started to take shape.

  I tossed and turned, but it was no use. The excitement of creation had taken hold, and my excitement refused to let me rest. In the end, I gave up on the idea of sleep entirely. Thanks to the inspiration, I rose, gathered my tools, and began to work. The quiet of the night seemed to amplify my focus, the cool mountain air refreshing my mind as I delved into my next ambitious project. It was time to start working on my fortress.