Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 857: Rune Inscription Drone Project

CH857 Rune Inscription Drone Project

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After the fall of the Frontier Stronghold and the absorption of much of Mirador City’s population into the Frontier March, the north-east of the Celahan Empire entered a strangely quiet period.

Many people viewed this as merely the calm before a storm, as they expected a reaction to come from Arvendon, the capital city of the Brandford Marquisate.

Only very few people believed Marquis Brandford would leave things be with the Frontier March.

Whether it was the not-so-secret political loss he suffered from the fall of the Frontier Stronghold or the well-known secret between House Brandford and House Skywalker, it seemed impossible for Marquis Brandford to simply remain an observer in the face of the Frontier March’s momentum.

These observers believed there was certainly some machination going on in the background, unseen by the public.

While observers continued to speculate about the future of the Frontier March and the north-east, the Frontier March continued its developmental momentum.

Developmental projects seemed to be ongoing everywhere in the domain, without signs of stopping anytime soon. From the resource-rich mountains of Ashwell to the busy quarry of Castin and the verdant wealth of the Fonterra Bastide, the Frontier March was a beehive of activity.

Even the valley entrance of the march was seeing significant development. With the immigrants from Mirador City and the Frontier Stronghold settled there, the Ministry of Interior directed that temporary residential construction begin in the area while the higher-ups settled on the construction plans for the expected city to be built there.

Building a city could not be rushed. There was a need for a proper plan to be put in place before proper construction could begin. Unfortunately, none of the domain’s higher-ups knew the first thing about building a city from scratch.

Not even Zora, with her experience in the Enclave city’s management, could help much. Most of her experience involved running a city that had already been built.

When Alex reached out to Raven Horn to use the Syndicate’s channels to hire an experienced city architect, he unfortunately found out that the earliest the architect could be free from their current obligations was three months from now.

Then, adding travel time, that period could stretch to half a year.

Even if Alex was willing to use a Space Gate to bring the architect over—which he wasn’t—three months was still far too much time as far as he was concerned.

Those three months were enough to get the Interplanar Gate back to Pangea up and running.

As long as he could return to Pangea, whether through the Enclave’s influence via Zora, Eleanore’s influence in artisan circles, or his own channels through the Golden Palace, Alex believed he would be able to secure the services of a more skilled architect to design a suitable city for him.

In that case, it was better to hold off on rushing the city’s construction and wait until after their return from Pangea to begin things properly.

Hence, the construction of general temporary residences for the people formerly of Mirador City.

It was not ideal, but it was the best option as far as Alex was concerned.

Speaking of the now-famous Count of Skywalker, it was officially announced to the domain that Alex had gone into seclusion to develop a new mystic art that would further aid the development of the domain.

In the meantime, his wife—and Minister of the Interior—Countess Zora had taken over leadership of the domain’s administration.

While it was significant news to the public, to the domain’s workers—whether in the civil service or even the military—this wasn’t newsworthy, as the Count had always been a rather hands-off domain lord.

The machinery of governance in the domain continued without any hiccups whatsoever.

Then again, with Udara and her Ministry of Information (and Propaganda) carefully managing sentiments within the domain—and, rumouredly, outside of it—it was hard to see anything going awry in the domain anyway.

Similar to Alex, Eleanore was also out of the public eye as she began focusing more on her research. However, unlike Alex, Eleanore didn’t completely seclude herself, as she remained in contact with her officials in the Ministry of Trade and Commerce as well as the Ministry of Works and Construction.

Fortunately, she didn’t need to participate much in the day-to-day operations, as officials like Lady Rosa Mercier and Fabien Ingram held the reins well in the two ministries.

Alex secluded himself in Eleanore’s underground facility in order to complete the template for his Rune-inscribing drones and his research into potentially influencing bloodlines with Rune Tattoos.

Eleanore’s underground biotech facility became the ideal secluded home for his research because one of its rooms—or rather, labs—was essentially used by Ava’s hive in its partnership with Eleanore.

The room housed different cocoon-like forms where the drone bodies Eleanore used for her research were grown under her supervision.

The lab also had access to a subterranean tunnel leading to Ava’s hive mountain, which was used by the drones to deliver the bio-gel (vulture drone carrion honey) and the gene cores of newly designed drone bodies to be grown on-site.

Thanks to this access tunnel, the entire laboratory facility became the ideal location for Alex to carry out his research.

The gene core for whatever drone he designed could be synthesised by Ava and quickly delivered to the lab for growth under Alex’s supervision.

However, just for fairness and diligence, Alex had the drones open up another, more secret room, which he used to install a Space Gate connected to the domain lord’s manor in the Fonterra Bastide, where Zora and Udara were stationed, to the best of his knowledge.

This way, he and his wives could easily and quickly visit each other without any time delay.

With this, for the most part, Alex was able to put down his hat as husband and domain lord and embrace his true nature as a researcher and engineer, fully engrossing himself in his latest research endeavour.

One that left many people, particularly his wives excited—and a bit worried—about what he would create this time.

Alex took over Lab 5 as his personal lab within the facility and brought over his workstation and equipment from the Sanctuary pocket dimension.

Alex prepared the workstation in the lab, eerily similar to a desk workstation back in his previous life.

He connected his Beta Bracer to a runic holographic projector screen and interfaced with it like a holographic computer.

While he could do most of the design work internally in his mind through Orion, Alex still chose the external method because it was more familiar. He also didn’t want to give up the satisfaction of playing around with projected holo-screens.

Practically speaking, though, the work was done in Orion, and the external projection was only for Alex’s amusement and the joy of fiddling with a holo-screen, which he believed would improve his productivity as opposed to doing everything mentally.

‘It is fun and all to mentally ponder and muse over a problem in my mind, but I shouldn’t completely throw away the satisfaction that comes from moving my hands to build something. That has its own importance in the process,’ Alex told himself.

Between the two research targets for this period of seclusion, Alex focused his attention on the one that had the most utility, i.e. the Rune-inscribing drone.

Alex sat at his workstation before a projected screen displaying an empty window in Orion’s simulation programme.

He sat there, deeply pondering how he should go about designing the drone.

***