"Wait…are you saying I'm the mayor of the Silver and Bronze city now?!" I barked. Both Jane and Iris suddenly found a particular building extremely interesting and stared off in the direction. "LPP! TRI-CLOPS!"
"Okay! Fine! Yes, you are the splicer in charge of governing the silver and bronze city!" Jane huffed and crossed her arms. I stared at Iris and Jane then looked at Grandpa Seamus who was stifling a bout of laughter, then looked back down at the wall.
"How the hell did we build an entire wall around the gold city?!" I demanded.
"You can thank Grimm-Guard for the initial construction of the wall.
He used his mana attributes to create raised crystal spikes to separate the silver and gold cities and from there we had our construction teams paired with Orkand shape and flush out the design later. Our security teams are also the ones manning the checkpoints in and out of the silver city." Jane explained.
"WHAT?!" I bellowed and ran my hands through my unkempt locks. "Construction teams? Security teams? Checkpoints?!"
"Careful lassies, ya might be overloading Starlight's noggin there." Grandpa Seamus warned.
"Might? I'm well overloaded! Since when do we have construction teams or a security team larger than five people? And since when did we have employees to lease out to the college to run a freaking mana trolley?!!!!" I yelled.
"A lot has happened in the last six months Chase…" Jane said softly, looking down at her hands. "…between the war and supplying evo and enchanted items to not only Egypt but also Japan, Spain, and Neo-Germany…we had to make some changes. Especially since you weren't there to make them."
Jane's words struck like a mana train though they weren't accusatory or dripping with venom. They were simple statements of facts. The company, my company, had problems and new challenges they were facing and instead of being able to come to me to lead them I was holed away in a vault making enchanted items and evo cores like a mad man.
"Sorry…" I said softly. My tone made both Jane and Iris turn and look at me with shock. "…whatever reason you had for walling off the silver and bronze city has to of been a good one. I can't judge your decision when I'm not around to make different ones."
Iris placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and flashed me a reassuring smile. While Jane looked relieved at my words.
"Well the reason we had to build the wall was because of a few of the revitalization efforts we implemented in the silver and bronze city. Members of the gold city started getting jealous and making scenes. With the company now having contracts with the Japanese, Neo-German, Spanish, and Egyptian militaries, these scenes could cause majorly problems. So we made the wall, used your authority as the governor of the silver and bronze city to implement a rule that restricts access to the silver and bronze city from the gold city, and then bought all the property and land inside the silver and bronze city." Jane explained.
"You bought…all the property and land inside the silver and bronze cities…bought!" I exclaimed, exacerbated by Jane's last sentence.
"Well actually you bought all the land and property." Iris corrected me. "And not all the property, just the residential properties and most of the commercial properties."
"HOOOOOOOW!" I bellowed, making both the girls jump again.
"All the damage caused by your fight with the Red dragons and later high fire dragons, lowered property values and everything was a steal." Jane said sheepishly.
"Honestly we didn't even spend one full months worth of revenue just to pay for all of it…" Iris added. I stared at the two girls incredulously again then ran my hand down my face.
"I have a thousand more questions…but I don't think I can handle the answers right now." I said, then glanced down at city below. I saw the glint of a familiar mineral streaking down the middle of the street. "Are those manacite rails?"
"Yep!" Grandpa Seamus exclaimed proudly. "I designed a mana trolley system fer the silver city originally but then tha' college of yers got jealous as well as the gold city an' demanded a mana train."
"Uh-huh…and are those rails stretching all over the silver and bronze city…?" I asked, my voice's pitch rising slightly.
"Aye! Took ferever ta mine and refine enough raw manacite ta make the rails." Grandpa Seamus said.
I nodded wordlessly as my eyes followed a particular line of manacite rails, a little wider and sturdier than other rail lines it lead all the way to a building I could have sworn was standing where Moldworks should have been standing.
"Yeah….yep…um…Jane, Iris…what is that building back there?" I asked pointing back to the building I noticed earlier.
"Moldworks." Jane replied, having not yet noticed that my voice was getting higher pitched still. However that answer had broken the little mental restraint I had left which declared I was not going to ask more questions.
"That's Moldworks? Since when does Moldworks have a mana trolley line running straight into a station? Wait, it looks twice as large…no three times as large?!" I exclaimed.
"We renovated…." Jane and Iris said in unison with practice professionalism.
I glanced down at the streets below. The scars of my battle with the red dragons and the poverty their occupation of the silver city were all but gone. Buildings that were once dilapidated, half destroyed, or just condemned, stood completely repaired. Showing signs of habitation and even thriving. The sidewalks were flooded with people, normies and splicer alike, walking without fear as they went on about their day.
"And the silver city…?" I asked, getting interrupted by the girls.
"We renovated, taking a portion of the profits Sho'lajah Artifact Company made in recent months and funneling it back into the community in order to promote healing and revitalization." Jane and Iris replied in unison using the same tone of practiced professionalism as earlier.
"The whole city?"
"Yes." The girls replied in unison. I nodded softly, staring at Jane and Iris in the eyes. None of us blinking for several seconds before I closed my eyes and took a long and slow deep breath.
"HOW FUCKING MUCH DID ALL THIS COST?!" I bellowed.
"Not that much…only a hundred fifteen…no…a hundred twenty billion." Jane said with the same ease as one would comment about the weather instead of saying that they spent more money than they made at Evo-cution before the assassination attempt.
"A HUNDRED AND TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS?!" I screamed.
"That's more than I thought…" Grandpa Seamus muttered while scratching his chin.
"Its actually not that much." Iris turned and said to Grandpa Seamus.
"It's the total cost of materials, labor, and payroll for all the work done in the silver and bronze city. Admittedly most of the cost came from work done in the bronze city." Jane said.
"That's still a shit ton of money!" I barked.
"For a lesser noble." Iris muttered ruefully.
"It's more than I have!" I exclaimed, waving my arms in a animated fashion that made me look more like a flailing fish than a splicer.
"No its not." Jane and Iris said in unison.
"That's like not even half a month of profits." Jane said casually.
"What?" I said flatly. Jane and Iris shared a look then Jane leaned in close.
"You do realize that we are selling enchanted items and evos to multiple countries at war? While we've been selling evos and enchanted items to Japan for a discounted price, every other country; including Egypt; has been paying full price. It's…let me just put it this way, Egypt's chancellor of commerce is going to have to hire enough tax workers to fill the royal palace in order to properly calculate Sho'lajah Artifact Company's taxes."
"…." I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. My mind officially stopped working as I tried to imagine just how much my finances have increased to require a comparison of that magnitude.
"I think ya broke Starlight…" Grandpa Seamus said.
I didn't say anything to that remark, my mind still doing a full restart as we flew towards the center of the silver city. Where a large and odd looking building that seemed to take up several city block was starting to come into the view. It was a seven story building; incredibly tall for any building not made by ancient splicers or impossibility persistent royals; the architecture was familiar and foreign at the same time. Like ancient Scottish architecture mixed with chaos theory.
The entire building looked to be built out of a combination of stone, granite, and manacite. It looked pristine and dominating, an arcane pearl meant to stand out and drawn attention. Obviously meant to be the crown jewel of the entire silver and bronze city. On the roof of the building was a landing pad with the Sho'lajah Artifact Company emblem painted across the entire pad.
Pangia guided her void drake towards the landing pad, instructing it to glide in on approach and break into a low hover over the landing pad then touching down for a landing. The void drake lowered its body as low as possible to make disembarking easier. Pangia climbed down first then turns to help down somebody else.
Grandpa Seamus was helped down first with both the help of Pangia as well as Jane and Iris. Then both of the girls climbed down as well. I absentmindedly followed the others and climbed down onto the landing pad. Seeing me stare off into the distance Iris waved her hand in front of my face.
"Earth to Star Child…" Iris called out to me. I blinked several times before I looked to Jane who was standing in beside Iris and Grandpa Seamusm
"Jane, just how much money do I have?" I asked finally.
Jane sighed then glanced over at Pangia. Reading the silent cue Pangia hopped onto her void drake and quickly took off, leaving me alone on the roof with Jane, Iris and my Grandfather. Jane watched as Pangia and her void drake disappeared into the clouds then turned and looked back at me.
"Your current wealth, resources, and territory exceeds seven hundred billion..." Jane said casually. I took a second to absorb this new startling revelation then took a deep breath and let it out.
"I see…okay moving on!"