Iron set his pencil aside and, along with Eliza, looked over the final schematic spread out on the table. Every filtration system was hidden within decorative niches, and the arrangement of elements fit harmoniously into the overall composition.
"Well, that's it. Now we just need to find and gather all this stuff," Iron said, scanning the list of required components.
Eliza leaned in closer, ran her eyes over the list, and said confidently:
"I've seen a lot of these things in our river. They definitely have the right seaweed, stones, and plants there. I can go over there right now and collect everything."
"Yeah, go for it," Iron nodded.
Eliza gave a quick nod, rolled up her share of the notes, and quickly left the office. The moment the door clicked shut behind her, the silence of the room came crashing down on Iron. He let out a heavy sigh and dropped his head onto the desk, resting his forehead against his crossed arms.
Damn it... Still not enough power. Why?..
He sat like that for half a minute, trying to suppress his mounting frustration.
"If things keep going at this pace, we'll only be able to visit them in three months..." Iron said quietly into the emptiness of the office.
A few seconds later, Iron finally rose from his chair.
Space collapsed around him, instantly transporting him deep into the forest.
Almost an hour passed.
Eliza returned from the river with baskets full of thick seaweed, river flowers, and smooth stones. Together with Iron, they descended into the underground labyrinth.
Before arranging everything, Iron needed to create the main decorations they'd discussed.
To make the sunken castle, Iron took a chunk of heavy mineral rock, compressed it with a magic field, and channeled a thermal pulse. The minerals instantly softened, changed their density, and fused together into an elegant stone structure complete with towers, arches, and arrow slits. For the flying ship, Iron combined flexible wood fibers and durable metallic veins, weaving them into the lightweight frame of a soaring vessel with a hold and a deck.
The main difficulty lay in the installation. Since the entire glass labyrinth was sealed from all sides and filled to the brim with water, reaching inside by hand was impossible.
Iron stretched his hand out in front of him, focused his gaze, and used a spatial shift. One by one, the elements began vanishing from the hall and materializing right inside the hermetically sealed glass sections. The castle settled onto the bottom of the central cube, kicking up a light cloud of sand. The flying ship came to a stop in the water of the side section, as if hovering above the seabed. The seaweed, bright underwater plants, and smooth stones followed right into the water.
After performing a series of precise spatial shifts, Iron felt a wave of mild nausea rise within him.
Eliza, meanwhile, pressed her palms against the glass, watching with a radiant smile as the fish immediately darted toward the sunken castle and began swimming through the hold of the wooden ship, weaving between the swaying stalks of seaweed.
Seeing her genuine joy, Iron just gave a faint smirk. Holding onto the wall, he turned toward the ladder, climbed back up to his office, and sank into his desk chair.
Yeah... My head is pounding, Iron sighed mentally, gently rubbing his temples. I really need to start working out and getting into physical shape.
Deciding not to put off his thoughts about training, Iron walked out of the Main Building and headed deep into the forest. Before long, whistling sounds reached his ears.
Pushing a little further through the tall trees, Iron stepped out into a small clearing and spotted Noah. He was completely engrossed in practicing his fencing techniques.
"Noah, you know, we've never actually had a serious fight, right?" Iron asked loudly, stopping at the edge of the clearing.
His sword cut through the air as Noah cast a fleeting glance at Iron and replied dryly:
"So what if we haven't?"
"How about we test our strength?" Iron suggested with a faint smirk.
Noah completed his final lunge, smoothly lowered his blade, and turned to face him:
"Bring it. But don't complain later and don't blame me if you accidentally die."
"Yeah, sure," Iron chuckled.
Noah immediately dropped into his usual combat stance, ready for a lightning-fast strike. But Iron just spread his hands out:
"Hold on. I don't have a sword. We're going in empty-handed."
"Empty-handed?" Noah repeated, frowning slightly.
"Exactly."
Noah instantly sheathed his sword and shifted into a hand-to-hand stance. Almost without a pause, he closed the distance with a lightning-fast step forward and threw a sharp, straight punch right at Iron's head.
The engineer instantly dodged to the side, intercepted Noah's outstretched arm, and immediately moved in for a shoulder throw. However, Noah ripped his arm free from the grapple and, right out of a spin, launched his left leg down from above, aiming straight for the back of Iron's head.
Iron managed to bring up a block, catching Noah's leg in mid-air, and instantly retaliated with a powerful spinning right kick straight to the gut. The blow knocked the wind out of Noah, sending him staggering slightly to the right as he struggled to regain his balance.
"Where did all that confidence go, Noah?" Iron taunted, watching him.
A flurry of strikes followed: Noah attacked—Iron dodged and blocked; Iron counterattacked, and Noah deftly sidestepped the attack, transitioning into another assault.
At one point, Iron pulled his fist back for a straight punch dead in Noah's face. Seeing the incoming fist, Noah shifted to the side to dodge it. But that was exactly what Iron had been waiting for—right before contact, he sharply altered the strike's trajectory to the left, calculating Noah's movement, and his fist landed perfectly on target.
Not giving Noah a chance to recover, Iron immediately drew his left arm back for the next punch. But Noah caught his fist mid-flight and was already preparing to answer with a right counter. Iron instantly dodged to the side, intercepted Noah's outstretched arm, and immediately went for a shoulder throw.
Boom!
Noah crashed heavily onto his back, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Iron stood frozen over him, looking down, and said:
"You might be good at fencing, but you're absolutely terrible in close quarters. You should really work on that, Noah."
Suddenly, Lumon's voice echoed in Iron's head:
"Warning. A sudden spike in critical threat detected. Elevated chance of a lethal outcome."
Before Iron could even process the warning, Noah instantly sprang to his feet and unleashed a devastating blow with his left hand straight into Iron's jaw.
The engineer couldn't get a block up in time; he flew backward and slammed into the trunk of an oak tree with a dry crack.
Noah was already advancing on him with clenched fists. Iron, rubbing his jaw, hastily threw his open hands up:
"Okay, okay! You win! You beat me fair and square!"
Noticing Noah freeze for a second, Iron added with a crooked smirk:
"You deserve a prize for winning. Your prize is that I'm going to teach you real martial arts."
Noah closed the gap in a flash, grabbed him by the lapels, and hissed through his teeth:
"Are you mocking me?!"
"Not at all," Iron replied calmly, gently pushing his hand away. He stood up, dusted off his clothes, and continued:
"I just noticed that you're terrible at hand-to-hand combat, and your strikes are way too predictable. Not counting that last one, of course. In the past, I had to fight a lot to defend myself, so I have the experience."
Noah drew his fist back again, ready to deck him one more time, but Iron's words made him freeze.
"And how am I supposed to train in this martial art of yours? With who?" Noah asked grimly.
"With me, obviously, who else? Or on monsters," Iron shrugged. "You're doing everything wrong, but you're not hopeless."
Iron paused, stepped closer, and looked Noah dead in the eye:
"Just move however you want in the moment. It's not a professional tournament with referee rules, after all."
Noah looked at him in confusion:
"And that's it?"
"Well, yeah, that's it," Iron smiled. Taking a couple of steps toward the camp, he looked over his shoulder and added:
"By the way, that works in fencing too, not just fistfights. Become unpredictable."
With those words, Iron finally turned around and walked down the path. Noah was left standing in the clearing, repeating to himself with a thoughtful look:
"Become unpredictable... Become unpredictable... Ugh, what a load of crap."
Iron, meanwhile, sighed as he walked toward the camp:
Right... I wanted to get a proper workout in with Noah... Oh well, I'd better go deal with camp matters instead.
On the way to the camp, Lumon's even voice echoed in Iron's head:
"Warning. Activity from two subjects detected within a radius of several kilometers. A large furry monster is attacking humans."
"Teleport me," Iron commanded without a second thought.
Space instantly folded, and the next moment Iron was standing in the thick of the forest. In front of him, screaming desperately and pressing themselves against a tree trunk, stood two terrified girls. Towering over them was a massive, ferocious furry monster. Iron simply snapped his fingers. A flash instantly incinerated the beast's insides, and it collapsed onto the grass.
And why am I even saving them? Iron smirked to himself, stepping toward the shell-shocked, stammering girls.
Without wasting time questioning them on the spot, he quietly asked Lumon:
"How many teleports are left right now?"
"Factoring in your mass and current reserves, you have approximately five teleports remaining," he reported.
"Perfect, teleport us to the camp," Iron said aloud.
A split second later, the trio found themselves right in the middle of the camp square. The girls gasped and looked around in shock.
"And how many now?" Iron clarified.
"Two teleports remain."
Iron frowned:
"Now the numbers add up... But then why did you give me one limit for teleports during the war, when in reality it turned out to be completely different?"
"My algorithms calculate your available teleportation capacity based on your current physical and magical state. During the war, you were fighting continuously, which caused severe fluctuations in your energy. One moment you felt perfectly fine, and the next, your fatigue suddenly spiked. That is what led to the constant shifts in the metrics."
"I see, but you still should have warned me," Iron muttered, then turned to the girls. "So, where are you from? And what were you doing in the forest?"
The girls took a step back, frantically looking around at the unfamiliar buildings, and one of them stammered out:
"We... we don't know..."
Iron let out a heavy sigh:
"...Alright, let's head into my office."
He turned around and led them into the Main Building, preparing to question them thoroughly.
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