And no, it wasn't because he tried all sorts of things trying to play with Eriane before he finally gave up and ended up drawing guns they liked. Eriane simply didn't like anything else. They had tried dolls, playing house, sports, cards, even fis.h.i.+ng. She had no interest in any of that.

But anyway.

One morning, Phoebe started hearing banging noises and quickly rushed out to find Remian knocking a hole in a bucket.

"Why are you poking a hole in the bucket?" Phoebe stared.

"For water." Remian said, as if it all made sense.

It did not make sense, to Phoebe. It really didn't. If he wanted water, the bucket would have helped much more without a hole in it!

But even more strangely, Remian started to layer cloth at the bottom of the bucket-with-hole.

"What are you doing?" Phoebe gaped.

"I'm making a water filter." Remian explained.

"A what…?" Phoebe didn't know what to think.

After that, he layered charcoal, then sand, then pebbles…

"There!" Remian said, nodding to himself in satisfaction. "That's as basic and rudimentary a filter as they come."

"I don't get it." Phoebe admitted.

"You put water in the bucket, and let it seep through all the layers. By the time it comes out the bottom, it should be more or less drinkable."

"Is this supposed to replace magic gourds?" Phoebe eyed it suspiciously. "Clean water magically?"

"Something like that. But it's just a basic rudimentary filter. Once we get the electricity up, I'm going to have Arnold build a distiller."

***

The next day, he completely blew Arnold's mind with an oversized Frame that he referred to as a Hauler, a powered Frame that ran on electricity.

"For now, it'll need to be wired to a wall socket, or some sort of battery." Remian explained. "But once the Lenisu Bulbs are ready, we could use that with a biotech converter."

"A what, now?" Arnold was in a daze.

"Oh, and the materials might have to wait until we can get the arc furnace working." Remian added. "How's that going?"

"I don't even know half of what your drawings mean!" Arnold barked in frustration.

***

And then he sent some drawings to Mindy that blew even her mind.

"What is THIS?!" Mindy gaped. "A metal ball?"

"It's a rudimentary pod that uses 360 degree propulsion vehicle that uses plasma actuators." Remian explained. "Think of it as a super-maneuverable fightercraft. It flies by ionizing air. It's like you electrically grab the pod and move it in any direction you want, forward, backwards, left, right, anywhere. Doesn't need to turn or anything. Power and weight could be an issue, but if we could manage micro-actuators small enough, it'll be easier."

"How about we start with something that doesn't use so much power or super-tiny parts? Considering we haven't even got Craggy Falls' s electrical grid up yet? Fan propellers, maybe, like Libertaria?"

"Old tech. Steam Age. Right. Right…" Remian muttered to himself, then picked up Mindy's drawing of the Dream Yacht. "Frigate-cla.s.s? Or Galleon-cla.s.s. Galleon, I think, or it won't have the capacity to justify the price…"

"R-Remian? What are you thinking about? Please give me back my drawings." Mindy gulped nervously.

"Mmm. Pre-fabricated walls made of carbon fibre composites… hydrogen veins in the walls. No, no, need to be older tech. Older!" Remian frowned, then lit up. "Sky Tree wood! Sky Tree sap! Sky Tree everything!"

"Sky Trees? You mean those giant trees to the south-west of the Nine Kings Range?" Mindy was blur.

"Yes! Those! We'll use anti-gravitic biotech! We don't need to recreate items when we have living things that already do them!" Remian exclaimed. "Like Lenisu bulbs! The way forward… is with biotech! At least, for now!"

"But wouldn't you need an airs.h.i.+p just to get to the south? Before that, you'd have to fight off the Spectres to get to the Sky Trees." Mindy pointed out.

"Right. I need… I need…" Remian frowned. "Kelpies and Mastiffs. And Sky Barges. No, wait. Not enough mana. But we won't need much cargo capacity if the wood can fly on their own. We just need enough Life Force, which means… martialists! We need the military!"

"Uh… right. Have fun with that." Mindy threw up her hands.

***

"You want to do what?" George stared.

"Raise the level of martial prowess across all the military forces by inst.i.tutionalizing militant orders." Remian explained.

"You want to start martial sects?" George tried to understand.

"No, not sects. Militant orders. More discipline, less selfish ambition." Remian paused. "We want well-equipped, highly trained martialists with strong adherence to codes of honor. We want knights. State-funded knights, not feudalistic."

"Isn't that just a bunch of heavy cavalry?"

"No, we need them to be martialists. We need Life Force to run biotech." Remian explained. "We need honorable martialists who can power biotech airs.h.i.+ps and Armored Frames, not horse-riders in metal apparel."

"Biotech Frames huh? Can Biotech really replace magic runes?" George questioned. To be honest, the weakening of magic and the thought of Frames losing all their power also made him nervous.

"We might need them to train in Psionics too." Remian figured. "But yes, I think it can be done."

"So what do you intend to do? Recruit and train a new unit?"

"No time. We'll have to convert the old ones." Remian grimaced. "I think maybe… three Orders. Convert the Temple Knights to the Order of Light. The Iron Legion becomes the Order of Iron… no, let's upgrade the name too, iron is too outdated... have them call themselves the Order of Steel. The mercenaries can be called the Order of Sand."

"Look, I like the idea of beefing up martial training for our guys, but let's not replace all our metal stuff with wood just yet, okay? Let's take things one step at a time."

"Time… there's no time…" Remian muttered to himself, as he left George scratching his head behind his back. "We only have two hundred years! And that's a.s.suming nothing goes wrong!"

"Two hundred years?!" George yelped. "I probably won't even live that long!"

***

Remian made a call. "Tim? Any luck finding out where the Dragon Empire gets mana from?"

"You do realize I'm in the middle of a raiding war with Paleres?"

"I know, but this is important!"

Tim sighed. "All I know is that all the mana crystals come from the Capital's Royal Sector, directly supervised by the Imperial Family itself. Most of it is sold by the First Prince, though the Second and Third Prince have been known to release one or two into an auction. The Fourth Princess has also been known to deliver mana crystals to the hospitals under her administration. I'll keep searching and let you know when I find out more."

"Great. Thanks, Tim."

Then, he called Darian.

***

Darian gaped. "You want the Temple Knights to make a deep incursion into the Far South for a tree?"

"Not just any Tree! A Tree that, if powered by Life Force, could very well fly on its own!" Remian stated. "Although it could need quite a volume of Life Force. The point is, Sky Tree Wood could build airs.h.i.+ps that require martial power instead of magical power."

"It can?" Darian sounded surprised. "Little flying frisbees are one thing, but whole airs.h.i.+ps?"

"Whole airs.h.i.+ps. But there's only so many Sky Trees around right now. We need to multiply them, and have the priests bless and speed up their growth as much as possible while we still have mana!"

The thing about the Sky Trees in the Far South was that they were wild and very much uncared for. Properly taken care of, these Trees had enormous potential valuable enough for the Conglomerate to trade for. Actually bringing out that potential, though, depended heavily on the quality of martialists on the job.

"So this trip is to look for seedlings, then?"

"Seedlings, and enough wood to build a Galleon." Remian clarified. "We need a non-magical airs.h.i.+p, fast!"

"Will you be going on this logging trip?"

"No, I'll be trying to make pyrolitic graphite and combalt-chromium composite alloys."

"You're going to do what?!"

"I'll be melting stuff down and blowing things up!" Remian ended the call with that.

For a minute there, Darian was left blinking at the comms crystal wondering if his brother had gone mad.

***

To be honest, Remian was wondering the same thing. The image he held in his mind of his world's future was in serious flux. Possibilities and potential flickered in vague concepts by the dozens all at the same time, combining, separating, solidifying and fading into mist...

Eventually, three roads began to coalesce in his thoughts.

The first road was the safest, most tried route, that of electronics. At the far end of it, a warp gate led to Conglomerate s.p.a.ce, and the people of his world flew through it on ma.s.sive stars.h.i.+ps. The first steps on this stable route was already begun, and in his mind, it looked like a steam engine arriving at a ma.s.sive railway station at Craggy Falls. In a matter of years, that train would be replaced by an electric one, and then a magnetic levitation train running in a vacuum tube.

The second road was a gamble, but with much quicker results. At the far end of it, precious giant trees were traded to the Conglomerate in exchange for an extremely expensive pick-up. The nearer images on this road involved living in tree-houses with the Wilds, and an airs.h.i.+p completely made of black wood.

Then there was the third road, which was a much bigger gamble, but one with the potential to pay off the most quickly. At the far end of this road, Remian opened a new Warp Portal using Chaos Magic. At the near end, they were sneakily smuggling mana crystals from whatever source the Draconians had all while trying to avoid war with an enraged Dragon Empire. This would have the quickest results while allowing them to pretty much live the way people in this world always had; using mana.

Suddenly, the flicker of a fourth road appeared, an even more unlikely one, but there nonetheless. At the far end of this road, Remian used Psionic power to open a Warp Rift and began to roam the worlds Elsewhere, trading for profit until he could afford to hire a ma.s.sive interstellar convoy to evacuate his planet.

Yeah, that last one would be easy if he were a Cla.s.s-9 Psionic, but he was currently only a Cla.s.s-6, and had no more access to advanced training facilities or virtual acceleration. Also, despite having the inherent powers necessary, he had yet to physically manifest his Psionic powers. Virtual qualifications were great, but up till now, Remian had never yet formed even a Psi-Blade in the real world. Psi-Blades were something just about every Cla.s.s-5 Psionic could manage. Darian, in comparison, was already practiced with Silhouettes, which was something in the domain of Cla.s.s-6. Didn't that mean he was already a seasoned Cla.s.s-6 Psionic? How far was he from Cla.s.s-7? Was he already a Cla.s.s-7 capable of sneaking around with Psi-Shrouds? Had he ever used Kinetic Barriers? Remian didn't know.

What about Doom? Or even Fel? They trained in Psionics too, right? What level had they reached?

But thinking back, Remian couldn't remember seeing any of them use Kinetic Barriers. Then again, if they had employed Psi Shrouds, he wouldn't know about it. In other words, if either of them had reached Cla.s.s-7, they either didn't show it, or didn't know how to use the advanced Psionic techniques that the Conglomerate knew about.

Looking at the total lack of materials like Psiorin and Resonance Crystals on this world though, Remian suspected that Cla.s.s-6 might be an unofficial ceiling for Psionics here. In other words, opening a Warp Rift with Psionic powers was most unlikely, even for someone with talents in Warp Energy.

Technology, Qi, Mana, or Psionic power… there were four ways to save the people of this world, but this world was severely lacking in all four.

One thing Remian knew for certain; he must never rely on himself. The job of saving the people of this world was more than one person alone could handle. Even if he went for Chaos Magic, he should call in the Magi or the Church of Light to help. If he went for Psionic Power, he should be able to get Doom, Fel and Darian to a.s.sist, maybe even the Five Emperors. Trying to be a hero and saving the entire world based on his own strength was ridiculous. In the bigger picture, everyone and everything on this world was just incredibly weak. Everything he was doing, everything he was getting those around him to do, was nothing more than simply struggling to survive.

And until they could solidify a route to survival, Remian's main recourse was to try everything.

Somewhere, somehow, SOMETHING had to work!