Three days.
That's how long it took me to rewrite the kingdom's future.
The moment I activated Tier II of the Frame, I rerouted 20% of all royal resources into a single directive:
Build the Forge District.
Not a smithy. Not a black market.
But a living city-engine, dedicated to fusion: magic and machine.
We weren't going to survive the Crimson Dominion with swords and siege towers. We needed drones. Mechs. Rail cannons. Mana reactors. And we needed them now.
My team began with five.
Now it was over two thousand.
Frame Nodes sprouted like roots beneath the capital. Nano-runes etched their way into stone, and quantum schematics spun in the air like constellations.
Frameforge Protocol – Task Queue Initialized
• Project Vulcan I: Core Reactor – [42%]
• Aegis Strider Mk. I – [27%]
• Skybreaker Drone Wing Alpha – [12%]
• OmniForge AI Prototype – [Pending Approval]*
And at the heart of it all stood the Forge Core, a mana-reactive hub built inside the old catacombs.
Its pulse throbbed like a newborn sun.
I walked the line of production, armor plating underfoot, steam hissing from vents, workers yelling across glowing diagrams as raw ore was transmuted in real time.
"Increase the mana-tempered alloy ratio by point-five percent," I told a forgemaster. "The outer layer's shatter coefficient is still too high."
He blinked, nodded, and scribbled notes as my system displayed heat maps in my vision. Every mistake, I corrected. Every inefficiency, I crushed.
This wasn't about speed.
This was about ascendancy.
But not everyone welcomed change.
The Old Guard—the noble caste, the traditional mages, the war priests—they watched from their towers and temples with narrowed eyes.
"This is heresy," whispered one court advisor. "Wires in place of will? Steel in place of spirit?"
I didn't answer.
Not with words.
I showed them a prototype.
The Aegis Strider.
Three meters tall.
Arc-rune cannon on its shoulder. Aetherium-core engine. Pilot-optional.
It bowed to me, then walked across the hall on six legs without leaving a mark.
"Spirit," I said flatly, "is nothing without survival."
Still, I wasn't blind.
I knew eyes were on me.
Spies had already been caught in the mines—some wearing false colors of my allies.
Others… wore no face at all.
Literally.
Golems shaped like men, filled with ink and silence.
Crimson Dominion agents.
And then there was the letter.
Delivered by one of my personal guards, it had no signature—only a symbol:
∞
Inside was a single sentence:
"You are not the only one who remembers Earth."
I read it ten times.
Then I burned it.
At midnight, I sat in the command balcony of the Forge District, staring down at the glowing streets of innovation.
Elira was asleep, her aura dim but peaceful.
I had ten thousand tasks queued. A war to prepare. A sister to protect. A world to rewrite.
And now… the first sign that someone else from Earth was alive.
I cracked my knuckles.
New Project Unlocked: Earth-Locked Memory Archive – Status: Sealed
New Subplot Activated: The Other One
Forge District Status: Phase I Complete
Bonus Stat Boost: +3 Strength, +4 Mana
And somewhere, far beyond my reach, I felt the Dominion stir.
The game had begun.