An Anti-Hero's Origin

Wicked

^^ Gentile Golem ^^

While I had ended the subject with Invictus, and I was not the type of Rash my father was to run at a problem headfirst, I hadn't given up on ending and avenging the deaths of my people; this was my original quest, from the very beginning, after all: to stop the killing of Elves, and to provide them a place where they could live happy, safe lives, doing whatever they wanted. Whether that was learning trades or hunting monsters, I didn't care; the freedom of Choice was what mattered. So Justice was on my mind, but first I needed to ensure Safety for the Elves that remained.

To that end, the construction of the Vertical Forest continued at a rapid pace, with me relenting and blaming the speed on there being Transmutation Mages amongst the Refugees, in order to not make the Masons too suspicious of my Golems; there were quite a few Conjuration Mages amongst the Wood Elves, and they did help where they could by sorting and deconstructing the wreckage of their city, so that wasn't a lie, even as dishonest as it was. Within a month, the tower was nearing completion, the canopy being built one massive metal-and-glass leaf at a time, and the 'roots' were connected, anchoring the tower to the main Cavern Ring that held my crops; this helped to hold it still while the punishing winds of the sky so high up thrashed against it with constant hurricane-force winds, powering the fans disguised as leaves all over the trees and throughout the canopy; the energy gained by these winds was massive, and had our energy needs not increased with a thousand new residents, we would have doubled our previous surplus. For security, a network of 'vines' (silver pipes covering the entire outside of the tree,) were enchanted by Aster and I with the same enchantment as the Orchard Barrier Cage and placed across the exterior, making it nearly indestructible in the event of an attack or storm. They also acted as a fire-prevention method, as they covered every inch of the tree's exterior, with the ability to spray water all over any one room or level, then absorb it to prevent flooding, and repeat as many times as necessary.

The mana Crystal in Avingrad received a similar treatment, as I had a Vertical Forest Tower started over there as well, though it would take a bit longer to complete with only two hundred of them working like mad ants, instead of the eight hundred that had built the tower in Rockwell so quickly. The barrier had been expanded to the walls, creating a hundred-meter tall cage that covered all but the main gate, where ten meters of solid stone with a gravity enchantment and barrier enchantment blocked entry and exit, and was technically invisible from the outside. Anyone approaching would see a massive cliff made of sharp and unstable rocks, clearly unfit for travel, and would hopefully steer clear. The inside, however, was made to feel like a coastal tropical paradise for the Halo Birds that quickly became the main inhabitants. The tropical fruit trees that were their main source of nutrition (when they weren't killing humans) were grown to maturity in just a few days, and the barren soil was predictably not a problem, -what with the mineral treatment I used for all of my farming removing the toxic levels of salt from the soil without pause,- and farming then with my golems was even simpler; they were made of metal, after all, and the claws and beams of the Halo Birds couldn't harm them even if they tried. Once they spent a few weeks eating the fruits and recovering from their evacuated states, the now-plump Halo Birds were summoned into the tower and cleanly, humanely killed and butchered, the waste going to feed the trees just as in nature, with a few skipped steps.

As I'd predicted, the poultry was a big hit, and the low price I was selling it at was agreeable to most everyone, with several smaller merchant guilds joining my own and making plans to set up shops in my City. The guilds from the Hall of Research, whom I had momentarily forgotten about, had apparently been handled by Mother and Father even after the way we last spoke to one another, so they meekly joined their Guilds with mine all at once, all ten of them; they were decently profitable Guilds, but their fear coupled with their greed for a piece of the pie with my visible success overcame their pride, so the situation resolved itself to my liking. In this way, within seven months of beginning my Guild, I was officially the largest Guild on the Continent, and my prices began to slowly equalize with the other guilds as they began paying their employees slightly better, then brought their prices down to a reasonable range; I met them in the middle to allow us all to equally share in the profits and customers, instead of poaching all of their customers and employees with my lower prices and higher wages.