Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"That's why I was silent about it," Sitra explained her lack of actions earlier as soon as everyone else in the room looked up at her with varying degrees of surprise on their faces. "I hoped to use this as a favor I could trade to enlist your cooperation..." she said, only to cut her sentence short and shake her shoulders. "Now it's not all that valuable, isn't it?" she asked the rhetorical question. 

"Wait a second..." Markus stopped anyone else from making any decisive claims, taking a closer look at the map. "Did the people who drew this attached some notes to this thing?" he asked, raising his eyes at the girl. 

"They did, but Castor was the one carrying them," Sitra replied. Her face darkened due to the unpleasant memory. "I remember a few things, but I can't promise to be able to explain every last detail," she added after a moment. 

'She's acting... No, she looks strange,' Layn thought, keenly observing the girl. As the one who knew her the longest out of the three men in the room, he could notice the lack of the usual fires in the girl's eyes. 

She turned from the cheeky and overconfident individual to a simple soldier without any real thought in her head. While that could be explained by Castor's death's impact on her, Layn couldn't really believe something like that would be enough to completely break the girl like that. 

"Still, this thing is done in way greater detail than my piece," Markus said, lowering his face even further over the wooden sheet. "But we need to add some changes. This map implies using the six-block structure, something that won't really work out with the solutions I have in mind," Markus said, pointing his finger at one of the smaller details. 

"Six-block structure?" Layn asked, ignorant about the topic as much as a living human being could be. "You mean that there are six housing units per block?" he asked, noticing the group of eight squares below Markus' finger. 

"Yeah," Layn's old friend nodded his head in response. "When I was traveling from the Warcamp to this place, I thought about several ways to improve the standard of living for everyone," Markus said, reaching to the back and pulling another sheet of paper from there. "Here, take a look a this," he said, unrolling it directly at Sitra's map. 

"The hell is... Wait a second..." Layn stared at the schematic presented by his old friend for a moment when his eyes suddenly opened up wide. "Is this something like... an engine room?" he asked, raising his eyes at Markus. 

"More or less," Markus confirmed Layn's guess with yet another nod of his head. "I planned to install it in every industrial area. By placing one steam engine inside and feeding it with a sufficient amount of fuel, we could forcefully enter the steam age without all the necessary yet costly requirements one would fulfill to do it in the more natural way," Markus explained his idea. "I originally aimed to build a similar structure in the housing areas, just that instead of the engine, we would put a boiler inside," Markus said, pointing to the parts that would have to be changed on his picture. 

"You thought about it so far already," Layn muttered, full of awe for his friend's achievement. "How are we going to get the engines without coal and iron, though?" the archmage asked. 

'I know there is that underwater structure that is likely full of resources of all kinds,' Layn thought but ended up shaking his head a moment later. 'No, unless absolutely necessary, I don't want to dabble in the goodies out there,' he thought. 'Breaking the balance of monsters appearing and killing each other could potentially bring far more costs than benefits of using the materials that place is made with,' he concluded. 

"That's one of the problems I decided not to think about," Markus replied, shaking his shoulders. "We don't know the details about this place. We don't know the details of the lands of other overlords. Only when we confirm that there are no deposits in either of those can we start thinking about what else can be used to replace those," Markus said, shaking his arms once again. 

"Man, I get where you are coming from," Layn said, lowering his head while at it. "I know that we can use the knowledge of the future to rush ahead with technology... But don't forget that everything that we know was created over ages of development and trials." Layn looked down at the schematics proposed by Markus. "Just look at those springs. While I'm not great at physics, I'm good at maths. If I'm right, then there is no way to create a spring capable of withstanding the potential burden in this place," Layn said, pointing his finger at the specific details of the blueprint. "Not with our current means, that is," he added, trying not to discourage his friend too much. 

"That's why I called it an idea in the first place," Markus replied, raising his head from the blueprint with a wide smile. "Now that we are here, it's time to start thinking about how we can deal with all those problems," he added, his smile widening even further. 

"If I may ask..." Sitra said in a silent voice, even going as far as to raise her hand.

"Speak freely," Layn said, allowing the girl some voice in the discussion. 

"While I didn't follow the last few minutes worth of your talk at all," she started, averting her eyes either out of shyness or just embarrassment, "if it comes to the lack of technicians and craftsmen, then isn't allying with my faction the most straightforward way to solve it?" she asked, leaning her head over her shoulder to accent how confused she was. 

"That might actually be the case," Layn said, releasing a deep sight. 

"I agree..." Markus agreed with Layn, moving his eyes on the girl. 

"So," Al finally raised his head, entering the discussion for the first time since the talks moved over what he and his people expected from the camp. "When are we going to a war?"