Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 789: Forced Compromise

CH789 Forced Compromise

***

In the two weeks that followed since Alex and Sugud produced the first Mana Motor, Sugud worked to break the device down into components that could be manufactured separately and assembled afterwards.

Much like the crossbows they had developed previously, Alex simply didn’t have the time to partake in the production of every Mana Motor from start to finish.

He couldn’t afford to spend precious hours working alongside Sugud to build each unit individually.

With that in mind, Sugud disassembled the design into its constituent parts, isolating those that required Alex’s runic inscriptions.

Afterwards, he gathered the domain’s blacksmiths and directed them to mass-produce the non-runic components for the various classes of Mana Motors.

This allowed Alex to plan a single extended inscription session, during which he inscribed every completed runic component in one go before they were assembled into finished motors.

Even so, the process once again exposed one of Rune-Tech’s greatest weaknesses.

If Alex truly wanted to exploit the platform’s full potential and use it to accelerate the domain’s development, this bottleneck was something he would eventually have to solve.

Alex sat hard at work in the study of the Domain Lord’s manor, a room he had taken the liberty of converting into a digital workstation.

A projector terminal had been installed on his desk and connected directly to the Runic Server that powered the domain administration.

With OmniRune serving as both the operating system and the underlying infrastructure, the otherwise simple setup functioned remarkably similarly to the computer network systems of his previous life.

As the administrative staff continued the painstaking work of registering every citizen within the domain, OmniRune processed the collected data into useful reports and statistics.

Alex then distributed this information to the de facto heads of the various departments that had gradually formed within the domain’s administration to streamline its governance.

Using the reports, he tasked each department head with identifying weaknesses and opportunities for development within their respective areas of responsibility.

At that moment, Alex was reviewing the same information himself in preparation for a meeting with the department heads later that day.

About an hour later, three people entered the study without bothering to knock.

Alex finally looked up from the projected display.

He rubbed between his eyebrows, down the bridge of his nose, before covering his eyes with his hand.

For a brief moment, muscle memory from his previous life almost took over as he instinctively reached to remove the pair of blue-light glasses he used to wear during long hours at his computer.

Only then did he remember that they no longer existed.

A chuckle escaped Alex’s lips as the memories flooding back finally registered.

He had never truly needed those glasses.

He had worn them simply because they made him look more like a stereotypical engineer. Considering the kind of people he had worked with back then, it had been an important fashion statement.

Shaking his head, he turned to the new arrivals.

“Is it time already?” he asked with a faint smile.

“Yes, Master,” Udara replied.

“You lost track of time again? Why am I not surprised?” Zora said with an amused smile as she approached him alongside Eleanore and Udara.

Unsurprisingly, Alex had entrusted his wives with some of the most important responsibilities within the domain.

In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say they occupied the highest positions in the administration after him.

Eleanore was placed in charge of the Ministries of Construction and Commerce & Trade. Given her background as both an artisan and a merchant, the appointment was a natural fit for the domain’s current stage of development.

Alex entrusted Zora with the Ministries of the Interior and Education, making her responsible for the domain’s internal administration, educational institutions, and the coordination of long-term development projects.

The role aligned perfectly with the experience she had gained as the major-domo of the DragonHold Enclave, which had functioned not only as a territory but also, in many respects, as a large educational institution.

Meanwhile, Udara assumed responsibility for the Ministry of Information, and Military Intelligence. The appointment formalised the duties she had already been performing, giving her official authority over the domain’s intelligence network and information management. For someone who preferred to operate from the shadows, it was a role perfectly suited to her talents.

As the three women came to his side, Eleanore’s attention drifted to the projected display hovering above the desk.

“So, are you finally going to reveal your grand development plan now that you and Sugud have finished building your latest toy?” She said, looking intently at the screen.

To her disappointment, however, the projected display contained nothing resembling Alex’s future plans.

Instead, it was filled with reports, statistics, and analyses generated from the ever-growing database stored on the domain’s Runic Server.

There was nothing there that gave even the slightest hint of what Alex had planned next.

“It won’t be me driving the planning. It will be you—the heads of the domain’s various ministries and departments. Since we’re still a relatively small territory, we have a rare opportunity to experiment with different ideas and systems. We might as well use it to cultivate your abilities as leaders and administrators.” Alex said.

Zora stared at him without blinking for a long moment.

“You just want to delegate everything so you can spend more time on your pet projects,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Alex simply chuckled, neither confirming nor denying the accusation.

As the husband and wives continued their banter, a knock sounded at the door before another visitor entered.

“Sugud! Good. Just the person I wanted to see.”

Alex rose from his seat and almost hurried over to the dwarf-elf hybrid, subtly taking the opportunity to escape the loose encirclement his wives had formed around him.

“How may I be of service, Young Master Alex?” Sugud asked after exchanging greetings with everyone.

Alex invited Sugud to sit on one of the sofas before taking the seat opposite him.

Then, his expression turned unusually serious.

“Sugud, you’ve surveyed the domain thoroughly. Based on everything you’ve seen, what do you think our chances are of building an Interplanar Gate capable of returning us to Pangea?” Alex asked.

The question caught Sugud by surprise.

Nevertheless, he carefully considered it before answering.

An Interplanar Gate was no ordinary construct.

Its construction required experts from the three major artisan disciplines working together in tandem.

Fortunately, they already fulfilled that requirement through Alex, Sugud, and Eleanore.

That, however, was merely the beginning.

Actually constructing such a gate was an entirely different matter.

Unlike the original gate they had used to leave Pangea, they would have to build this one completely from scratch, without relying on an existing paired gateway.

The Interplanar Teleportation Grand Formation and the interplanar coordinates for Pangea that Alex had deciphered solved only half the problem.

The greater challenge lay in constructing the physical anchoring gate itself—a monumental engineering project that depended upon an enormous industrial foundation and countless supporting industries.

Sugud let out a long sigh before looking at Alex solemnly.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not yet.”

“Although the domain possesses most of the raw resources we’ll ultimately require, we currently lack the intermediate materials needed to build the gate itself. Producing those materials will require us to first develop the territory’s industrial base.”

“Which industries, specifically?” Alex asked.

Sugud could only shrug helplessly.

“That’s difficult to answer,” he admitted. “Most intermediate-material industries are deeply interconnected. Developing one usually depends on several others already existing.”

He paused before concluding,

“If our goal is to build an Interplanar Gate, then sooner or later we’ll need to establish nearly every major industrial sector within the territory before we can make any meaningful progress.”

“So, you’re saying we essentially need to develop every basic and intermediate industry that the domain can support?” Alex asked, folding his arms.

“Yes,” Sugud replied, nodding, the corners of his lips twitching helplessly.

Alex sighed and fell into thought.

He was admittedly disappointed that Sugud couldn’t identify the exact industries they needed so they could focus their efforts on those alone.

Then again, that wasn’t exactly the dwarf-elf hybrid’s area of expertise.

Sugud could undoubtedly oversee the construction of the gate itself—as long as all the necessary materials were placed before him—but that didn’t mean he fully understood the industrial progression required to manufacture every one of those materials.

Alex himself had attempted to map it out.

Unfortunately, the deeper he dug, the more the industrial chain devolved into an impossibly tangled web of interconnected industries, eventually forcing him to abandon the exercise and hope someone else might untangle it.

‘Like Sugud said… it’s complicated.’

‘Even after narrowing my focus to just cement and steel, I still ended up with a long list of prerequisite industries.’

‘Steel requires iron and charcoal—or coke,’ Alex thought.

‘That means we first need a proper mining industry to extract the ore, followed by smelting facilities to refine it.

‘Building those facilities requires construction materials such as sand, clay, stone, bricks, cement… which means we first need quarries, lime production, brickworks, and cement manufacturing.’

‘Charcoal production demands a sustainable timber industry, while coke requires coal mining and coking furnaces.

‘And each time I trace one material back to its source, three more supporting industries appear…’

Alex rubbed his forehead with a weary sigh.

‘I suppose Sugud is right.

‘Rather than chasing only the industries needed for the Interplanar Gate, we should focus on establishing every basic and intermediate industry the domain can reasonably sustain.

‘Once that industrial foundation exists, building the gate will simply become another engineering project instead of an impossible dream.’

Having reached that conclusion, Alex reluctantly shelved his plan to rush the construction of the Interplanar Gate.

‘We’ve already been stranded here for over a year,’ he reminded himself.

‘Waiting a few more months to build a foundation that benefits both the domain and my long-term interplanar ambitions is a reasonable compromise.’

With his decision made, Alex rose to his feet.

Together with his wives and Sugud, he headed towards the meeting hall, where the domain’s other department heads had already begun to gather.

***