Demon's Virtue

673  From City to Fortress

The metal settled in its place as a narrow stream was carved into its surface. With a satisfied smile, Eiro looked at the last bit of work that he had completed for the circuit spanning the Monster city. Gondos, who was assisting him with the work of carving out the channels that were needed for Eiro's mana to flow through, floated around and looked at the fine and precise placement of the metal.

"Let us hope this much work was worth it," the earth spirit pointed out, "Considering how much mana you have used over the last fortnite, it has to be."

Eiro scoffed and shook his head, "Compared to how much mana I'm going to need to use to start this thing up, that much was nothing. On the days that I wasn't coming here, I was constantly pulling out the mana that was crystalizing in my chest cavity the moment it reformed. I must have collected 15 Million mana worth by now," the Demon pointed out, rubbing his chest with an annoyed expression. He sighed and pressed his finger against the metal that he was holding in his hand. There was still quite a lot leftover, since he took more just in case something was broken since he was last here. Once the circuit was up and running, the channels themselves would be a lot more durable, but right now, a lot of things could still happen to them.

Using his magic, Eiro pulled a small nugget of steel off the ingot in his hand, throwing it over toward Gondos. The earth spirit caught it in his hands, and the stone that was covering his hands soon grew over the metal, devouring it whole, "I am still surprised you had managed to convince Armodeus to create the steel for this by hand."

"It was better that way. If the steel was of the exact same quality throughout, the strength of the circuit would improve a lot. Also, you can't tell me that Armodeus' steel doesn't taste pretty good," Eiro pointed out. Gondos slowly nodded his head, as strands of steel were travelling through his body, as though he were digesting it with every fiber of his being. And at the same time, Eiro also placed the steel to his mouth and took a large bite out of it. His teeth were strengthened using some gemstones that he ate a few weeks ago specifically for this, all the whilst also super-heating them with fire magic so that he could just melt the metal instead of having to forcefully bite through it.

Surprisingly enough, Eiro started to enjoy the taste of non-organic things. While in the beginning, he would simply eat things like that to increase his proficiency with this absorption ability, the more that he did it, the more he grew to actually enjoy the taste. Especially metals had something special to them that was particularly enjoyable. Him and Gondos actually bonded over this, as, while it wasn't necessary for them, earth spirits did enjoy absorbing some high-quality minerals every once in a while. It was something like a treat for them. And since Nelli and Sarius were in the spirit realms, still accompanying the copies of Eiro as they made their way through the Book Towers, the original and Gondos had quite some time for themselves. The spirits were the only ones that accompanied Eiro at all times. Even Bavet was only with Eiro when he went out into public lately.

Eiro looked at the Golem floating next to him with a smile, swallowing the last bit of steel that he had been holding up until a moment ago. He moved the metal to the same place that he moved most of it for now, splitting it between the carapace growing on his lower back and tail, as well as his bones to strengthen them further. At this point, Eiro was probably six or seven times heavier than he used to be.

"Let's go and activate the circuit, shall we?" the Demon suggested. Initially, he didn't want to do it on his own, without Partax there, but as it turned out, the halfling didn't really care all too much. He knew that the circuit would work, and by the time it was fully designed, he was aware that his own work on it was done, so he simply concentrated on some other matters, such as finishing the design for the Academy's circuit. Solomon had a few requests that he gave to Eiro, which Partax was now trying to add into the designs that he had already created beforehand, so it was a welcome way to keep him busy, for everyone in the manor. Partax had a way with his words. And that way was to never stop talking.

Eiro spread out his wings and pushed himself into the air. He looked around and glanced at the center point of the city, the central plaza, before quickly flying over there with a few flaps of his wings. He carefully landed, making sure to get used to the extra weight he put on after eating that steel just earlier, and then walked over into the center of the plaza. Originally, before this city was taken over by the monsters eight years ago, there was a large and intricate fountain here, though at this point, there was just the rough outline. Eiro repaired it a little bit, or at least, made it look a little better, so that it could be properly integrated into the circuit as its centerpiece, though it was really only necessary to be accessed from here for either booting it up or shutting it down. Otherwise, the circuit was really quite self-sufficient and intelligent, able to respond to certain stimuli at different parts of the city.

Eiro pushed his hand into his bag, and quickly pulled out a large, light blue tinted crystal. It was Eiro's crystalized mana that he had fused into a single crystal so that he could carry it around more easily. The Demon squatted down in the center of the old fountain, holding the crystal over the part where the circuit had to be supplied with mana. From there, he soon started to purify the mana inside of the crystal. While common mana was able to crystalize with this amount, pure mana had to have much, much more, probably hundreds of times more, to be able to properly crystalize, and even then it wasn't particularly stable, so it didn't make much sense for Eiro to prepare this beforehand. Instead, Eiro just kept the whole thing around, also leaving him with some crystalized essence as the pure mana flowed into the circuit.

The moment that the centerpiece had been saturated with this pure mana, a number of the runic sigils placed around it started to glow, and Eiro's mana was starting to be automatically distributed throughout the city into every part of the circuit. The channels were giving off a faint glow that wasn't particularly visible in the sunlight, but that also meant that nobody would be too taken aback by the circuit suddenly activating without warning.

Eiro spread out his senses, actually quickly fusing to increase his sensitivity to mana some more, and waited to make sure that the pure mana really reached every corner of the circuit. It took about an hour for it to really solidly flow through every section, but before long, it was done. Eiro smiled with satisfaction, happy to see that the circuit really worked without any issues. Or rather, that nothing had fatally broken since Eiro had started carving everything out. It took far, far too long for him to want to go back and fix something that he had already done about two weeks ago.

That being the case, this still wasn't done. Right now, it was just so that the mana had spread through every part of the circuit. Less complex circuits would simply activate the moment that this was the case, but something at this scale was practically a machine, and something with that complexity needed some guidance, at the very least in the beginning of the process. Eiro placed his palm onto one of the runic symbols at the edge of the fountain's base, activating the specific process assigned to this symbol. This one was in charge of a protective surveillance. Of course, not the kind where everyone's most minute actions were tracked, but one where harmful magics or individuals could be tracked. Things like curses or directly specified mana signatures would be tracked, and if they were sensed, it was possible to react to it a lot quicker. For this, there were some respondent lights placed into the city hall, where someone would be able to spot this with ease.

Otherwise, there were a number of protective barriers with different purposes and rules set up, some protecting the city from large-scale physical attacks, others doing the same for large-scale magical attacks. It would be possible to see large amounts of unknown mana approaching from far away, meaning that it was possible to avoid an invasion like with the Cavern Ants. Beyond this, there were some other more specific defensive matters set up. Small-scale barriers that could directly confine individuals that were tracked for certain reasons, such as for being afflicted with a curse or being violent. There were also strengthening and weakening magics put into place that would come into effect should a battle really occur here, as well as a number of pre-saved spells that could be deployed from a number of locations within the city to directly attack even heavy-hitting enemy forces.

With just this circuit, this place turned from a rundown old city, right into a fortress with defences like no other city.

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