Nana didn't take long to fully master her new avatar. The miniature statue, a smaller-scale but fully functional replica, responded with surprising docility to her will. At least within the shelter, she was able to use virtually all of her abilities, albeit on a clearly reduced scale, as if every action passed through a filter that limited its scope and power.

  What was truly revealing wasn't just the real-time control, but the flexibility. Nana discovered she could operate the statue in two distinct ways. In the first, she took direct control, sharing her consciousness between both bodies. In this state, both statues could think, analyze, and react independently, as if they were two active extensions of the same mind. The advantage was obvious: total responsiveness, adaptation to unforeseen events, and cognitive efficiency. The disadvantage, however, soon became apparent. Dividing her consciousness generated constant stress, a growing mental pressure that, if maintained for too long, would eventually exhaust even someone like her.

  The second option proved to be far more practical. In this mode, Nana could leave the avatar running on autopilot, assigning it a specific task that it would execute without deviation, until completion… or until some limitation prevented it. The price to pay was the complete inability to react to unexpected situations. But, in return, Nana experienced no mental strain. It was like programming a living machine.

  They soon realized that this second method was ideal for addressing the labor shortage, and the ultimate test came when the avatar was put to work at the workshop's lathe, machining a barrel for a new rifle. The statue performed the task with impeccable mechanical precision, following each step exactly as instructed. However, the work was never completed. Halfway through, the avatar simply stopped.

  The statue proved incapable of memorizing overly long or complex work sequences, revealing clear limitations in its operational capacity. The conclusion was immediate: the solution wasn't to perfect a single avatar, but to create more.

  With the experience gained from the first attempt, and with Ashoka's help, Joel dedicated several days to producing new avatars for Nana. During this process, they also discovered something unexpected. By increasing the size of the spirit fragment used in the creation of each statue, not only did its memory capacity improve, but its final size and operational stability also increased.

  The drawback was the mental toll. Increasing the size of the fragment placed an enormous burden on Nana. After creating these more advanced avatars, she experienced brief episodes of mental instability, requiring time to fully recover. It wasn't permanent damage, but it was a clear warning that they were pushing the limits of her own structure.

  In the end, they opted for a balance. Only two statues with advanced memory were manufactured, capable of handling complex tasks and lengthy processes, along with nine others of the initial version, simpler but perfectly suited for repetitive work. The combination proved ideal: sufficient cognitive capacity without jeopardizing Nana's stability. A perfect number to operate the workshop at full capacity.

  The result was a spectacle as efficient as it was unsettling. Metal automatons moved among the machines, working with almost unnatural coordination. The workshop functioned like a veritable assembly line, where the new rifles took shape piece by piece. The most advanced avatars handled the delicate and critical tasks, while the others performed simple and repetitive jobs.

  During the construction of the new statues, Nana couldn't help but experiment with her own limits. She attempted to take direct control of as many avatars as possible, seeking to determine the maximum capacity of her mind, with rather direct results. She discovered that she could only control three avatars simultaneously before her consciousness became completely overwhelmed, causing her to suddenly lose control. An unpleasant but eye-opening experience. She speculated that this limit wasn't fixed and would likely increase as she leveled up and strengthened her existence.

  For Joel, that event couldn't have been more opportune. The existence of Nana's avatars fit almost perfectly with his long-term plans. She was the entity he trusted most, the only one he would never hesitate to entrust with something so critical. He couldn't help but imagine a future where enormous industrial complexes rose both underground and above ground, operated by silent armies of statues bearing Nana's face, working tirelessly, without fatigue, and without question.

  For many, that vision might be unsettling, even terrifying. For Joel, however, it was a potentially achievable dream.

  Very soon, the workshop began producing almost autonomously. Rifles and ammunition rolled off the assembly line with increasing regularity. At first, production was modest: two rifles a day and barely a few hundred cartridges. However, as the avatars adapted to the work pace, memorized tasks better, and obvious inefficiencies in the process were corrected, everything indicated that those numbers would only increase over time.

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  Joel discovered that his role had been reduced to something surprisingly simple. While the statues worked, his only real concern was ensuring the supply of raw materials: iron for the cannons and mechanisms, lead for the projectiles… and gunpowder. Iron and lead weren't a major problem. Both could be obtained relatively easily from nearby cities and then refined in the shelter's furnace without much trouble.

  Gunpowder, however, remained a bottleneck. Up until that point, Joel had only been able to solve it in one way: by conjuring it directly from his memories. A practical short-term solution, but completely unacceptable for a project that aspired to total self-sufficiency. If the goal was to produce weapons on a large scale, he needed a real and stable source of nitrate. The problem was that on Gaea, there wasn't even a clear nomenclature for that compound.

  Joel spent days visiting alchemy shops, asking vague questions and describing properties without having a precise name to offer. The results were, for the most part, disappointing. Not even the most experienced alchemists seemed to understand exactly what he was looking for.

  However, the answer came from an unexpected place. In some agricultural supply stores, he found a rather peculiar type of fertilizer. It was a mixture of different soils, grayish or whitish in color, imported—according to the merchants—from the islands of the Duchy of Drest. It wasn't an expensive product, nor was it rare, and it was mainly used to revitalize depleted soils.

  Based on its appearance, origin, and use, the fertilizer had all the characteristics of saltpeter. It was very likely obtained from ancient deposits of animal guano, perhaps millennia-old accumulations of seabird droppings, processed in a rudimentary way without anyone fully understanding its true chemical value.

  Joel wasted no time and bought several sacks, taking them back to the shelter for analysis. The procedure was straightforward, almost disappointingly simple. Nitrate is highly soluble in water, so all it took was hot water to extract the salts from the earthy material. Then, as the solution cooled, nitrate crystals began to form on their own, slowly settling at the bottom of the containers.

  It was exactly what he needed. With this method, Joel had finally secured a stable source of the main component of black powder. He no longer depended solely on his own power to keep his fledgling arms industry running.

  All that remained was to wait for all the work to pay off and for enough rifles to be manufactured to equip his future soldiers, so the mercenary company could begin its real training.

  In a completely different project, and while the shelter continued to transform at a breakneck pace, Ashoka worked on his own research with Nana, almost always out of sight of the others. Those tasks were usually carried out at night, when the shelter was shrouded in silence and only a few lights remained lit in the deepest chambers.

  He longed to resume his exploration of Joel's spirit world as soon as possible, convinced that there lay the origin of those impossible dreams, where perhaps he could discover the fate of all those who had once taken control of the man's body. However, that curiosity was constantly checked by a much more immediate concern. The emotional effects of opening and closing Joel's mental barrier had not yet completely subsided.

  Although Joel himself had demonstrated a surprising capacity for adaptation, Ashoka couldn't ignore the risk and decided to stay by his side, remaining vigilant for any signs of deterioration in the man's mental health.

  Meanwhile, the monk chose to focus his efforts on a project Nana was undertaking, one that would directly benefit several of the refuge's inhabitants.

  It all stemmed from a request by Liam. The young man wished to find a way to conceal his magical power and pass himself off as a mystical warrior of Gaea. This would allow him to move more freely, avoid suspicion, and, in the long run, become a much more useful asset to Joel's plans.

  Nana's experience in the study of mystical artifacts, as well as the crystal-making project, proved crucial from the outset. Her profound knowledge of Gaea's characteristic energy allowed her to manipulate it with ease. However, the real challenge was not to imitate that energy, but to hide a completely different one: the unmistakable aura possessed by all magicians from the four worlds.

  Ashoka had already proven capable of creating artifacts like the medallion Joel used, which could completely conceal its wearer's presence, as long as they didn't use magic. But designing something that could camouflage even the active use of magical abilities, passing them off as techniques belonging to mystic warriors, was far beyond what he believed possible.

  Even so, Nana wasn't about to give up without trying, even if it was just to achieve a partial solution.

  They both decided to divide the problem into two fronts. Ashoka focused on what he did best: perfecting camouflage. Nana, for her part, concentrated on a project she had been developing in the background for some time: an advanced mystic armor, designed to grant its wearer abilities comparable to those of a true mystic warrior. This armor, however, would use energy crystals as its power source.

  Thanks to her understanding of electricity and the parallel she had identified between it and Gaea's energy, Nana managed to design an armor whose entire structure functioned as a conduit system. Behaving similarly to the natural energy channels of a mystic warrior. She had many bodies available at the crystal factory, so she was able to learn a great deal from them.

  The initial results were remarkable. The armor allowed for a drastic reduction in its own weight, increased structural strength, and, in certain configurations, the release of simple elemental attacks, such as fire or water. Nothing comparable yet to the magic of a mystic master, but more than enough to mimic a well-equipped mystic warrior.

  In Gaea, mystic warriors—at least from the expert rank down—could not manifest magical abilities outside their own bodies. That possibility was reserved for masters or higher. However, this did not prevent them from using mystic artifacts to overcome this limitation, which is why such objects were so coveted… and so expensive.

  Nana's armor fit perfectly into that category. To the untrained eye, its wearer would be nothing more than a mystic warrior equipped with multiple high-level artifacts. The true challenge now lay with Ashoka: to ensure that the armor completely concealed the aura of the mage who used it.