26. New continent & Increasing wealth

F - I declare open the twentieth council of the seven wise sages.

C - Where is Silvia?

O - She left me a note about that. ‘’Gotta do it, so we can keep this resort just for holidays instead.’’

C - So we’ll relocate headquarters?

A - She mentioned she would go to rise a new island in international waters for that purpose. That way the capital of Utopia won’t be on any country’s land.

D - Wouldn’t the UN offices in Iceland do?

F - It would rapidly create a new megalopolis at this place, overshadowing the capitals and disturbing this island. It’s best to keep it away to avoid destabilising the countries.

C - And where’s Josephine?

D - She’s overseeing the opening of trade routes toward the coastal cities that would be facing the new island. Since we’re planning to have embassies to come in time. Needless to say, our consortium will oversee the shipyards that will manufacture the ships able to reach Silvia’s island.

O - I’ve got the updated list of the Robot-Silvias that claim successful position in governments and noble courts. I’ll show you on the map.

The wide map against the wall was annotated colourfully and Orea went over the changes as if she was giving a weather forecast.

O - We expect the secessionists movement to grow in the west of the European Union, and the Kingdom of Spain remains little favourable to our suggestions.

A - Do you think there could be a civil war in European Union? Should we do something?

F - That’s the difficult question... We will go ourselves me and Orea, trying to peace things out. But it seems angel replicants (aka Robot-Silvia) won’t do as diplomatic gift for the secessionist movements. So if it comes to war, we have yet to decide our course of action, aside obviously helping the citizens of both sides.

D - We have a few angels in noble positions in the other countries like Italy and Portugal. Should they help?

F - Probably not yet, they don’t hold much influence in these countries, and zero in the troubling area.

C - Maybe we should leave them decide their own fate, and adjust ourselves later. Unless you think this could spread like wildfire in a revolution against us?

O - I don’t think it could, we’re still well perceived everywhere else, but... We could lose this area for good. And they have a fair chance to become hostile against the new United Nations we want to build as Utopia.

C - I think Josephine would suggest to use economic incentive, or strangulation, to help... Should we?

D - We could try to buy them instead of threatening them... Do try that Orea. If they’re offered enough reassurance in the form of financial incentives, they might calm down and reconsider. And otherwise, I don’t think we should dry them to misery.

F - We should just leave them be, and defend if they become openly hostile.

A - I’m planning to help Silvia open the first embassies on the island, but let me know if help is needed to secure the borders and roads.

O - We’ll do. Hopefully, it will settle easily.

~

I flew over a nice spot in the Arctic ocean with the help of Basileus. Maybe twenty minutes flight from the coast of Iceland, but far enough you don’t see it anymore.

Incidentally, it was straight on the path of many trade routes. So the island to be could stand as a bridge between the lands that never reached each other in this era.

S - So around here is about the same distance between the two continents?

B - Yes. And it has a few nice iron and ores veins deep under the sea.

S - Alright, let’s do it then. Nanites, I call you!

N - Yes!

And rapidly, the oceanic floor began to rise.

The water splashed around, as the nanites helped me rise a gigantic column of granite from the ocean floor.

A perfect monolith cylinder, maybe three hundred metres wide, gradually began to grow, as the magma below cooled down, solidifying.

It created enormous clouds as the temperature of the water rapidly climbed, but the island was appearing.

S - Hey nanites, there’s no risk it will blow up as a volcano right?

N - OH NO! No, we’re joking, we’ll solidify the crust, there’s no risk. Plus the volcanic activities of this planet have slowed down significantly since we were put on it.

Hm, I’ll have to look into that someday. Was that the source of their energy?

But for now, our island capital was rising above water!

It looked like a UFO starting to lift off, water flowing over its surface to make waterfalls on every side.

I rose it until we were exhausted, about fifty metres high. That would do...

We'd be able to dig tunnels to make paths to ports at sea level, and be safe above. And I could grow more of these cylinders later.

I was sure our dwarven friends would be eager to prospect the ores from this virgin mountain.

Although they might hate the travel by sea! But we would make it worth their while, definitely.

We’d need to hire agronomists and architects as well if we wanted to make this oceanic rock liveable.

But that should be alright.

S - Oh! I’ll need to invite the dragons to build a city inside the rock too. I wonder how they feel about undersea level?

B - Undersea would be challenging...

Basileus landed on the wet rock.

As promised, I gave my friend a cute scales painting. Like the nanites, these machines had their own tastes in life. And they liked painting for the colourful sake of it apparently.

They were just not allowed to say it publicly.

S - Just between you and me!

B - Of course.

Until that too would become allowed as normal.

~

While Josephine and Dominika were establishing the shipyards and trade routes to the ports, we recruited sea hunters and other transport companies for the first expeditions toward the monolith. The island for the next UN.

I wished it was a nekomimi island, but that would have to wait.

We carved the first tunnels up to the cylinder’s surface, and port pontoons through unrestrained magic.

The bravest of the dwarves, the first one to come along with us on this daring expedition, had sparkles in her eyes when she saw the surface of the cylinder, rich in ores.

Izad had soon however a sad or tired look in her eyes when she saw me and Cécile carving our tunnels while walking as if ploughing through mist and snow. We didn’t bring any pickaxes nor rven modern instruments no. The huge amount of rocks and precious nuggets rolling at our feet and down to the sea in a continuous stream seemed to pinch her heart dearly.

But we reached the surface, and what was once at the bottom of the sea made her faint.

Once washed from the sediment and algae, the bottom of the sea, the surface of the island, was a few-centimetres-thick layer of metallic nuggets. Remnants from the last volcanic activity in the area, washed by the acidity of the water. Stone and organic life turned to sand and dust, but metals and ceramic fell and remained.

After a good wash from rain, it was a glittering metallic land, as if the entire content of a full mine was scattered there. And a good mine, given the dwarf’s reaction to its sight. She wasn’t ready.

C - Should we start building something?

S - Hm... A round table, and seven chairs. Or no, no, wait! A monolith! A huge black monolith! One metre by nine by eighty-one! The Zohar will have to wait for more gold and some drawings before we can replicate it here, but the 2001’s one is easy!

C - Forget I even asked...

~

A - I declare open the 21st council of the seven wise sages. On today’s agenda, what are the reports for the wealth and knowledge programs? That’s a lot to go around.

F - Indubitably. The free education programs supported by volunteer nobility and industries willing to partake have begun to go full scale, after the successful results in Denmark. Education level will spread, freely. The arrival of books from the new printing shops established in European Union have been delayed, but they’re steadily growing in scale.

S - The paper industries of the old empire had some setbacks but we’re picking that up. The amount of books should double by the end of the year. The teachers on a paid basis will take a while to get up to speed, but we're signing partnerships.

J - The rebuilding of railways and trains for the landlocked countries is also hitting setbacks in the south because of the terrain, but there’s progress. We’re still making ridiculous profits transporting merchandises through our teleportation magic, so the consolidation of the trade association is growing steadily. The new magi-technologies developed on the island sell well. It’s the current infrastructures that are a step behind. We’ll focus on that in the upcoming months.

C - The productivity advices for agriculture, lumberjack, agronomy production and mining operations are steadily being spread. I’ve recruited more people to share them, and the Robot-Silvias in high position are helping giving these new theories credibility. Noble families and merchant houses here and there are considering sending embassies to the island, but few have done it.

A - How are we doing with the embassies on the island?

S - Slower than I expected. So far it’s just a dwarven haven! They’re mining and refining the ores there. So we’ll have a steady stockpile of ingots for the future technologies that will come. We still need to clarify what the system will allow or not in rockets, reactors and new nano-technologies. There are loopholes, but anyway, it’s for later... The university of utopia however has officially opened, with the focus on combining nanites and dragon technology to our needs and benefits as humans. Well, it’s just beginning, but it’ll grow rapidly I'm sure. There isn’t much to see yet there, but the university is opened. Next will be the great library, and gradually, the embassies. It’s a little early for us to move headquarters there though. Maybe in a month?

O - We’re a little spread everywhere with our hands full... But things seem to progress well and good. Are we missing something?

D - Medicinal treaties have already been shared with the WHO ane governments. So the hospitals are improving their quality of treatments. Healing spells from the nanites are turned into potent medicines.

J - The bulk manufacture of medicines in the damaged lands of Europe is slow to start but it’s on its way. As soon as we have railroads reconnecting every capital and steady ships rotation to the island, everything will jump ahead. Money wise, we, in theory, control about 15% of the world’s wealth currently. I think that will double by the end of the year, and quadruple after the trains can begin moving merchandises like in ancient times.

We were unfair competition now buying everything.

F - No issues with bankruptcy anywhere?

J - So far, it doesn’t seem we’ve ran anyone out of business.

S - About the cat eared girls enforcement project, we’re way behind my expectations. I think we should.

A - Silvia...

S - Uh...

O - And, happiness wise. How are things?

C - Everyone is weirded out by what’s going on. People in the streets and not just top leaders now are aware of our congregation and that we’re doing something big. They just don’t understand what we’re doing so far.

F - I guess we should start giving more explanations to everyone before that worry grows bad.

S - Yeah.

A - But criminality and international tensions have dropped enough that national police forces we visit notice the difference. And they’ve begun spreading the idea that an era of peace might have begun. Of course everyone high in power remains vigilant, but that feeling that soldiers and police are less needed lately, it’s beginning to spread.

O - Oh good. We should publicize that.

C - A good knight is a bored knight. Right Aster?

A - Well... In an ideal world...

S - You’ll always be my knight Aster.

A - ♥!

C - These two lovebirds, I swear...

F - Anything else we forgot?

S - I don’t think so. The dragons are helping gathering minerals and ores they don’t need, for later. The rediscovery of autonomous and intelligent nanotechnologies will take a while, but there’s no rush yet since magic compensate in most daily necessities. So long dragons are our friends, we have high technology on our side.

F - Alright then. Meeting adjourned. Now, a toast!

Everyone cheered, as these meetings were also the mark that we were starting a few days’ holidays together, peacefully in our winter resort station.

It was good to be all together again regularly.

As for the utopia we were building, it was still very abstract for most people out there, but it was steadily growing.

It will work.

We sages would make it work.

~