One Last System



"Planning is all fun and nice, but when it comes to putting those plans into motion…"

Before I could control myself, a few words of complaint escaped from my mouth.

I was sitting in a rundown shed with nothing but an entire pile of various stones and pebbles to my left and several sets of engraving tools to my right. 

There were quite a few precious stones and crystals mixed into the pile, giving me the ability to use better-quality materials for the more crucial or more vulnerable parts of the formation. 

Still, the bulk of the job was all about engraving simple runes into ordinary rocks while hoping that they wouldn't break. 

Instead of doing things the way I always did them of going one stone after the other while working my way through the magical circuit in my head, right now… 

Right now, I attempted a more industrial way of processing. 

"Runes, runes, runes…" I muttered as I repeated the same series of steps for the thousandth time. 

Pick a stone, carve three runes on it, and put it aside. Pick a stone, carve the same three runes on it, and put it aside. Pick a stone…

Instead of the blueprints for both the mainframe and each of the formations requested by the craftsmen, I had a single sheet of paper with a list of stones that I had to prepare. 

'It's all because I overachieved with the mainframe,' I thought while holding back my groan. 

'And I thought that I would never be stuck with a simple, menial job in this world…'

Complaints kept on coming to my head, filling every second of my time in the shed with mental torture. 

And yet, my fingers kept on moving. My mana kept on flowing, allowing me to infuse all the stones with a tiny bit of energy as I carved them out. 

"And…" I muttered as my carving knife repeated the same set of motions for the last time in the last two hours. "The last one…" I sighed when I placed the last runic stone of its kind aside. 

My eyes moved to the side, allowing me to glance at the list of necessary stones for all my projects. 

Boom!

A loud noise came from the outside of the shed. 

'It seems Mia's working hard too,' I thought. 

Upon finalizing the last few details of my scheme, we didn't waste time idling around. Instead, Mia got to the job of clearing the area for the construction of the production zone while I retreated into the shed to do my part. 

'It's all because of that damn mainframe!'

The blueprint for the heart of the production was simply too complex for me to craft the necessary stones just by looking at the blueprint. And it was a lot better to craft all the necessary ones in one sitting. 

Since most of the formation stones were created from ordinary rocks, I had to really focus to make the most out of their limited quality. As such, two stones that I made one after the other would keep the same general quality, while the two stones that I would create while taking a break in between could vary. 

And as minor as it was, my attention to the details right now would pay off with much easier maintenance of the thing down the line.

"Let's keep going," I muttered to myself while picking up the feather and dipping its sharpened end into the small bottle of scavenged ink. Then, with a single swipe of my hand, I crossed out the piece that I'd finished manufacturing. 

"Next is… this one," I whispered while tracing my finger down and taking a look at the next position in the list. "A condensing stone, huh?" 

I fixed my posture and sat upright on a small bench. I then pulled my hands out in front of me before stretching my fingers and my wrists for a while. Then, I picked the tools again before taking a stone from the right, engraving it with four runes this time, and then letting it fall down on another pile. I picked the stone…

Knock, knock, knock!

What seemed like an eternity and a measly quarter of the pile of stones later, the sound of knocking woke me up from my daze. 

"Come on in!" I called while wondering what kind of sect patriarch would be ever seen buried to his belt in crafting materials. 

"How are you doing?" Levi asked as he came in with a platter of simple food in his hand. On the other, he held a sizeable cup filled with something bubbly. 

"I want to die," I admitted before taking a quick look around the shed. 

The stones that I created over the past few hours were worth a small fortune already. 

Sadly, the global market has now crumbled into pieces. And right now, all those stones would instead lay the foundation for the processing plant that I hoped to use to revive the economy of not only the city but also all the other communities of survivors around. 

Yes, communities of survivors. 

Despite how bleak the situation looked to be, I had no doubt that the majority of people managed to somehow survive. 

With the mana abominations being attracted to the borderlands, as long as one survived the moment of invasion and the massacre that followed, their chances would only continue to grow with each passing second. 

Those people would be struggling to provide the basic necessities for themselves, making them the best possible customers for a budging economy I was trying to create. 

Desperate enough to do all kinds of jobs and more than happy to buy anything that my future industry would produce. 

"Keep up the good work," Levi said with an irritating smile, clearly happy to see his former student swarmed with work. 

"Oh, I will," I said, putting up a bright smile on my face that contracted with my words from before. "After all, once I'm done, I will be going back to the bed warmed up by my wife, while you will be alone, rotting all on your own!"