Chapter 798: New Blood & Transportation System
[The City of Sanctuary – The Election Day, Damian’s POV.]
Torvin Copperhand won. Damian had more or less assumed he would. There were very few mundane names that everyone in the Sanctuary knew by heart. Even little kids.
Austen and Ghislain were such names. But both were people whom most people had only heard stories and rumours about, with no personal connection to the everyday people of Sanctuary. Both had long since changed their circle of influence. It wasn’t anything wrong. With fame, one was expected to do certain things.
But Torvin wasn’t someone like that. Before he praised him in the first meeting, half the city knew his shop’s name. Master MCS was the nickname by which most people knew him. The MCS shop, now, after years, has grown into a multi-shop chain business. Every afternoon, Torvin’s shops cook for more than a thousand people.
Every day, each shop feeds thousands of the poor and lost. Some war widows with kids were entirely supported by this act of charity when Sanctuary was at war, with barely any funds to support its people. Now they also had Sanctum official shelter houses throughout the Sanctuary land, supporting thousands of people in need. It was possible because of the profits his potions and Sanctum shop products brought.
And still, whenever a hungry kid reached any shop with the MCS name on it, they always received food.
The common people loved the guy. No matter how many new shops opened, MCS was a brand beyond any competition. Ghislain and Austen were also solid candidates; the votes were clear, but how close the lady of the underworld was. Damian had done no favouritism at all; the people he was iffy about as candidates were long since removed or forced to drop out of the candidacy.
His problem with them was not breaking the law at times; everyone does that - it doesn’t just brand someone a criminal. Austen and his guys were even at times known for looting from nobles and giving half the loot to poor villagers and orphans. That too was a crime, but under the rule of Ashenvale, it was more or less understandable.
Damian wouldn’t let anyone partake in such unlawfulness in today’s time. Or at least he hoped to remove all reasons that would force people to do such things. From the reports Einar regularly submitted to him, the bandit and monster attacks were becoming fewer and fewer each month.
All the people the heads had rejected as candidates were either involved in crimes or had a connection to some shady nobles, trying to use them for themselves. He had made clear that bribery would not be tolerated. Even if the money was not exchanged hands, even the promises were considered as bribery.
In the end, Torvin was the one supported by both the nobles, following behind Baron Goldilocks and Lord Silas, and the commoners.
Damian congratulated the guy and did a small ceremony to welcome him to the high table of Sanctum. It was just for five years, but the perks and powers added with the status were not small at all. Once it was all done, Damian took the stage again,
"Lord Torvin Copperhand has been chosen to lead the Sanctuary. Well deserved and worthy. However, the passion and work done by other candidates have not gone unnoticed at all. Lady Ghislain and Lord Austen, if you agree, the Sanctum has a special job for you two. Accepting or rejecting does not change your position as a member of the House of Lords."
The entire hall had its eyes and ears glued to Damian; clearly, no one was expecting that even the losing candidates would be awarded with some extra benefits. Damian continued,
"Currently, there are no fixed three representatives present in the House of Lords for me or Sam. We both need one person capable of handling this duty. If you are interested, inform our assistants, and we will have a brief interview before you take on the responsibility."
Damian ended on that with a hall full of applause and cheering; the different groups supporting different candidates had at least gained something today.
The rest of the day, Damian and the other heads had a small meeting with the newest member of their table. The guy was too nervous and overwhelmed, but with time, his age-old experience came kicking in, and Torvin managed to present some of his very practical and optimistic views of the future of Sanctuary. It was just an introductory type thing, and they had not discussed anything too deep.
But what little they saw, all six of them were quite happy with that. With Souldealer, experience wasn’t anything they were lacking, but the views of a person who had lived his entire life among common people were indeed something they could use at times.
The meeting only lasted for an hour, Damian let Evrin and Souldealer handle the man’s relocation and stuff, he had other things to do today.
The runic engines were too much for a simple railway. He would have to add a lot of them, with the maintenance and constant refilling of oil, it wouldn’t be cheap at all. That plan had to go; the trains needed a new type of load-pulling system.
His weight manipulation spells could be used for storage compartments to reduce the strain on the engines. He couldn’t do that for the passenger cabins.
In the end, Damian decided to scrap the idea of trains altogether. It would need tracks, and he would have to experiment with the superconductor system through ice spells, design several cabins and internal runic systems, etc. Not something that can be done in a single day.
But he could use his existing design and go large-scale with it.
Damian had improved a lot since he had built the Dreamlight. If he only needed giant floating platforms that could travel in Sanctuary land, going from city to city. Then the workload was barely anything.
All he needed was a lot of Blazur alloy, some strong natural trees, and a lot of liquid mana. Weight manipulation spell, some giant controllable wind spells can push the open platform from all directions. He could use air shield domes or the golden barriers to protect people from bad weather and any flying birds or monsters.
Damian started the work and tried the biggest design possible, the platform of Blazur alloy was above 2 kilometers in size, but the simple wind spells were too weak a power to lift and control the massive circular platform with light structures on it. After some errors and rough trials, Damian found the limit of size that his powerful wind spells could handle.
700 meters circular full Blazur alloy platform.
For convenience, Damian added several simple structures to it. The top could be used as a control room, while the large hall and personal small cabins would provide privacy among other things. It was like a luxury ship, but instead of water, it floated on air.
It wasn’t supposed to go faster than 70-80 km/h. His trains might have been much faster, but there were pros in these flying ships, too. But he would never sell it; one could potentially take it anywhere they wished, doing nefarious things. Better to lock the controls to a limited people.
Damian made 60 such ships, twenty for each trading city. Though only ten would have sufficed, Damian wanted to use these things for local transportation after the event, now that he had made them. It would give him more time for land-based runic transportation machines.
Finished with that in the evening, Damian went to the new dungeon island to check on things. This was the only island that was both relatively safe and big enough to one day be transformed into a giant city. They had decided to name it New Dawn. A nod of respect to the now lost Dawnstar.
Leon and Mealor had named the island that he had given them to rule as Dawnstar. Not a number 2 or anything, the exact Dawnstar. Damian was not interfering with that region, but his people were present there, keeping an eye. Till now, the rules of Sanctuary had not been broken by the flock of nobles and Leon.
Maelor’s sister, for some reason, seems to have some trouble adjusting to this new place. Damian did not pay any mind to the gossip, though, just some whispering he had heard in Sanctum’s hallways.
Sam had levelled enough of the mountainous region to build a small town. For their needs, it was enough. The forest behind was also cleared by the army, and perimeters were set up so no monsters or animals, hidden from their senses, could come this side of the island. The land was cleared, and plans for buildings were ready. Damian just listened to Sam and Einar and placed nice wooden buildings after buildings in lines to create a new town.
They didn’t have time to use craftsmen. Damian only built the essential buildings needed for the event. After that, the craftsmen could make new buildings as new land would be put up for rent.