Eliza walked unhurriedly along the forest path, holding an axe in her hand. Every few steps, she would toss it up; the axe would spin once in the air, and she would catch it right at the base of the handle.
The rhythmic chopping and shouts of the workers were already echoing from deep within the thicket. Stepping into a clearing, Eliza immediately spotted Clerk’s group, busy harvesting timber. Without missing a beat, she walked up to the nearest trunk, swung her axe, and with a light crunch, lopped off the lower branches, joining the work without a word.
While working, Eliza carefully surveyed the logging site. Her eyes locked onto the four newcomers Noah had brought in just recently.
Vadya particularly caught Eliza’s attention. He was torturing both himself and the tree: planting his feet into the ground, he was hacking away with all his might, striking straight down at a ninety-degree angle. With strikes like that, the blade kept getting stubbornly stuck in the bark, the recoil jolted his arms, and the wood gave way with great difficulty.
After watching this for a couple of minutes, Eliza stepped closer.
"Hey, you're going to wreck your arms like that," her voice rang out.
Vadya flinched, stopped, and started breathing heavily. Eliza stood next to him and showed him how to properly position his feet for balance, how to hold the axe, and the correct angle to strike.
"Don't just hack at random. Strike at a forty-five-degree angle and let the weight of the axe do the work."
Vadya listened carefully, nodded a couple of times, and tried to repeat it. He adjusted his grip, took a deep swing, and brought the blade down on the trunk.
Crunch!
The axe bit much deeper, but the cut still came out crooked, and the pesky branch only broke halfway off.
He looked at the result in frustration, but Eliza just gave a slight smirk and nodded.
"Well, for a first try, it's not bad."
Leaving Vadya to practice the motion, Eliza turned around and calmly walked toward Kren and the rest of the newcomers to check how they were doing.
About thirty minutes passed. Iron was putting the finishing touches on the lighting system installation.
Having finished checking the fixtures on the floors, he stepped into the small connecting passageway that linked the Main Building to the right wing. Iron carefully inspected the structure: both the floor and the ceiling were encased in glass.
"All that's left is to put an aquarium in here," he muttered quietly to himself, evaluating the strength of the glass base.
Exiting the first passageway, Iron crossed the hall and headed for the opposite door. The connecting tunnel between the Main Building and the left wing presented an identical picture.
Satisfied that the surface passageways were ready, Iron returned to the central hall and went into his own office. Walking past the sofas and the massive semi-circular desk, he pushed his chair aside and looked down at the floor.
A perfectly flush square hatch was set into the wooden floor. Iron grabbed the hidden handle and easily flipped the lid open. A vertical ladder leading down was hidden beneath the hatch.
The entire underground space was lined with sheets of smooth gray metal. Iron quickly descended the steps and found himself in a narrow underground corridor.
Standing in total darkness, he reached out and flicked a switch mounted directly into the metal wall. Instantly, round recessed lights flickered on one after another along the ceiling.
Walking down the illuminated metal corridor, Iron reached a fork. An enormous, open underground hall stretched out before him, with narrow tunnels branching off to the right and left, leading directly underneath the wings of the Main Building.
Standing in the middle of the empty hall, Iron weighed his options and said:
"Lumon, which option do you think is better? The first is to flood this entire room with water and make one giant aquarium. Or the second: put the aquariums in the right and left passageways, and leave this central space for other needs?"
"Analysis of the provided parameters is complete," Lumon's even voice echoed in his head. "The second option is the most rational. Utilizing the central sector for strategic, military, or political objectives will increase security, while aquariums in the lateral tunnels will provide the desired visual effect."
"Yeah, I think so too," Iron nodded.
He climbed the ladder back to his office, walked through the quiet hall, and stepped out into the fresh air. Looking over the camp, he continued thinking:
A military bunker is definitely the logical and safe choice... Hmm... Wait, I've got an idea!
A new blueprint instantly formed in his mind. On the move, Iron asked Lumon:
"How much quartz sand or finished glass do we have left?"
"The current raw material reserve is critically low. The deficit is over seventy percent."
"Yeah, that's not enough."
He stopped in the middle of the courtyard and called out:
"Elyria!"
The spirit materialized right in front of his face. Crossing her little arms over her chest, Elyria asked in displeasure:
"What is it?"
"Can you make me some glass?" Iron asked. "Just materialize a few solid glass panes."
"Glass?!" Elyria’s eyes went wide with indignation. "I have no idea how to make that! You're the brainiac here, you make it!"
"Then make me some sand. But not regular sand, quartz."
"Well, sand is no problem," the spirit grumbled.
Elyria waved her little hand, and a mountain of sparkling quartz sand instantly formed right above the ground. Before it could spill onto the dirt, Iron reached out, and the sand hovered in mid-air.
"This should be enough," Iron said. "But I'll call you if I need more."
The spirit just snorted and vanished.
Clenching his fist, Iron channeled a pinpoint thermodynamic pulse, heating the grains of sand to their melting point and shaping them into the first massive, thick, and ultra-durable glass slabs.
After forming several more heavy rectangular panes, Iron instantly teleported along with them to the underground hall.
Using a directed pulse, he lifted the first enormous pane and set it right into the right-hand passageway, onto the floor. Layering a reinforcing spell over it, Iron made sure the glass was firmly locked into its grooves. Next, he lined the right and left sides of the passageway with glass panels, and temporarily just leaned another rectangular pane against the wall inside the tunnel.
Then came the rest. From the remaining sand, Iron cast another series of panes and systematically began encasing the walls of the left passageway, the central narrow passage by the ladder, and basically the entire floor and walls of the underground hall.
However, at the exact moment he cast the pane to seal off the left passageway and set it by the wall, he completely ran out of sand.
"Lumon, teleport the remaining sand here," Iron commanded.
"Automatic relocation of unflagged raw materials is impossible. Your physical presence is required."
"Weird, but fine," Iron sighed.
He collapsed space and appeared next to the leftover sand. Using magic to lift it, Iron immediately returned underground.
The engineer got right down to the most difficult part: forming the glass labyrinth. He had decided to turn the vast open space into an underground aquarium complex with winding glass corridors.
Passing through the narrow, meter-wide passage by the ladder, Iron stepped into the hall. Turning to the right and stepping right up to the wall, he extended his arm forward. Magic instantly heated the sand, and the first glass partition took shape along his arm. Sidestepping and keeping his arm steady, Iron built the wall pane by pane all the way to the central passageway. Finishing one line, he turned around, stepped back, and built a parallel row in the exact same way, leaving a deep, transparent corridor between the glass walls.
Then it was time for the central sector. In the center of the hall, Iron formed a massive glass cube—a large aquarium section that could be circled from either side. But he deliberately left the right side of the cube open to finish the internal calibration.
Taking a couple more steps deeper into the hall, Iron simultaneously extended both arms to the sides. To his right and left, two enormous glass panes emerged from thin air, stretching perfectly toward the passageways of the right and left wings.
He walked forward, carefully inspecting the joints: the panels fit perfectly into place, merging seamlessly with the side walls.
Grabbing the rectangular panes he’d left earlier, Iron used them to seal the entrances to the right and left tunnels. Wrapping up the job, he walked up to the central cube, finished building its missing right wall, and then neatly encased the upper partitions near the meter-wide passage by the ladder in glass.
Using thermal pulses, Iron fused all the joints and seams together. Before his eyes, the individual glass panes fused into a single, seamless transparent structure capable of withstanding colossal water pressure.
He unhurriedly walked through the winding corridors of the finished labyrinth.
"Turned out pretty good, I think," he muttered, looking at the result.
Satisfied that all the structures were sound, Iron returned to the narrow meter-wide exit, climbed the metal ladder back to his office, slammed the hatch behind his desk shut, and popped out of the Main Building into the fresh air.
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