While ecological destruction was never going to be something he would personally classify as ‘good’, that was basically what building any large enough settlement would come down to, and on that world in particular, it was hard to really feel it would matter. With hundreds of races arriving there, along with whatever tag-alongs managed to join in the form of animal and plant life, there was no such thing as a natural ecosystem on that world, with no inch of it not feeling the mark of so many alien ecologies that left what would live and exist in any stretch of land a constantly shifting mess as some creatures died out and new ones moved in. Looking at it that way, there was little he could do to the world that would be worse than what had been happening to it ever since the first group of gods and believers landed down on it. The damage was already done.
And yet, despite that, that didn’t mean that Ben wanted to play a part in ruining it any more. He had no qualms with clearing a bit of land to build something, but radically altering entire miles of ecosystem for his own convenience was a bit too much for his taste, especially when there were sure to be unexpected consequences for such things. Sure, he could drain the water from the land, drying it out and making sure it wouldn’t be able to return to its current state, but any ecosystem also played parts in the ones around it too. Without the swamp there, chances were just as good that it would mean the new town he was going to create and any surrounding communities would start to flood depending on the season, if not suffer under other consequences he couldn’t predict. Why risk it when he could instead build something to exist in harmony with the land itself, at least to a greater extent than what they could currently hope for, and with those desires firmly in place the two of them began building what they needed to, going across the total area of the land and driving colossal stone columns into it, the first step in their construction.
Each one thicker than he was tall, hundreds of them were placed and secured, down deep enough to hit bedrock and leveled out once they were, each pillar looking to be the same height as they peeked out over the trees, all for Ben to begin the next step of enchanting on them. With the enchantments needed being simple, the designs of them needed to only do one thing. Move the air around them.
One of the few concerns he had about building in that area was the smell. Not horrible, yet undeniably one of decay, it wasn’t going to be a pleasant stench to live with and thus he dealt with it the easiest way he could, choosing to blow it away.
While the pettiest parts of him thought to aim it at the city who’d specifically rejected the refugees, he held himself back. No matter what flaws their mayor and some council members held, not everyone there deserved to deal with such a thing and he instead broke up the flow of gas instead, sending it off in either directions where there were no other settlements or else to ones that were too far away to ever reach, with a bit of mana crystal to power the effects and ending that part there.
Once done, when he flew above the tops of the other pillars again, he could instantly tell the difference, one problem dealt with as they moved onto the next. The pillars were placed to keep them from having to eradicate the swamp. From there, they needed to add a platform on top of it to build on, going to some of the extra land Phixth had managed to secure them to mine it.
Ben had asked for room to grow and he’d gotten it, with a few hundred meters to a few kilometers of space around the total swamp to work with and of it, the two had found the best spot they could to dig for materials, Thera picking a far smaller swath of land than what they otherwise would have had to destroy and dug deep into the ground below, getting all of the stone they’d need as a small mountain if the stuff floated in the sky above them, undoubtedly drawing the eyes of anyone else who might have been near enough to see it before it was flown back over and flattened out, going back for more in two more trips before the thick plate that would sit atop the pillars was in place, structurally strong enough to build a city on.
Yet also not done. The point of building the platform was to keep from destroying the swamp itself, but no access to sunlight would kill it all the same, something else he wanted to avoid and worked to do so as from there, Thera cut holes into that new platform. Not everywhere, Ben was more than particular about where they needed to go, but enough to let anyone see the ground below as they walked through it, giving them the next materials they would need as buildings were constructed from there.
Similar to what he’d done with the j?tunn, he built a series of apartment-like complexes throughout the new area, focusing on density of housing while at the same time making sure neighbourhoods were broken up with plenty to do. Restaurants, shops, and other stores were all given a place, creating various gathering points and leisure activities for the people who would live there, and while he didn’t dedicate churches to any one god, he made sure the land had a grand enough communal church for those who wanted somewhere to worship that he personally shaped statues of each god for, even if he let his favouritism slip through in some designs more than others. They had the body of the town shaped and down in what would have seemed like a snap to anyone watching, but with the main structures finished came the far harder part. Making the finer details.
A task so challenging that, now that he had the space, Ben pulled from his rings some things he’d been forced to spend the previous night making as materializers of all sorts came out, activated upon their release to begin spewing the endless materials that were going to be required. As skilled as Ben himself was in the act, there was simply too much for him to make even if he used all of Thera’s mana as well, allowing them to divide the work from there as he shaped what was needed and managed the materializers while she moved what he was creating into each building, creating the new workflow between them.
Pots, pans, plates, cutlery, furniture, pipes, and more. There was so much that one of his materializers could just spit out in the shape he needed from the start, requiring at most a few more minor modifications depending on what items were going to what family, given the vast swath of differences might exist between any two people, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to do. While all of those were going, he had raw materials being spat out to shape with his magic for other tasks and other items that required more effort than he wanted to build into a materializer. Spitting out string and yarn was easy, but he needed to be the one to weave it all into bedding and blankets and clothing, all of it floating in the sky around him as his powerful mind devoted a fraction of his attention to that task, making sure that everyone would move in with things to wear and a warm place to sleep.
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Toys needed to be made for children and books and other bits of entertainment for the adults, as well as enough of that same reading material to fill a library as he both recreated some of what he’d read as we well as created his own copies of his various educational books, piling them up around him, eventually forced to stop just long enough to give Thera a circlet for her thought speed to let her keep up with the sheer demand of it all. It felt nearly endless right until it wasn’t, letting them move on to their next task; laying down the various pipes they’d made and that Thera had taken around town.
That was something entirely on Ben as he brought forth something that seemed to barely exist in that world before then, though on a much smaller scale for the wealthy and powerful or city-states with robust enough infrastructure to handle it. Plumbing, both to bring in water and take out waste, as well as the treatment facilities for both.
Water was the easiest of the two to deliver on of course, Ben making a large, central materializer specifically for that to deliver the water around and laid the pipe both underground and within the walls, subtly modifying what they’d already placed to hide it away and testing it to make sure it worked before creating a separate system for waste, along with a place for it all to lead to be treated. Both features alone would be enough to make that other city froth with envy, yet that wasn’t where he was going to stop as, once that too was completed, his next project began. Taking the iron beams that were already made, just enough of a few different magic materials in place to give it power, they began laying down tracks throughout the street, around both the holes in the ground for the vegetation below as well as the many walkways and streets that had been marked off, all to create something he knew for a fact existed nowhere else on the planet as that world received its first tram network.
Powered by mana, the two trams themselves that were built were made to do opposite loops around the city to take people to and from wherever they’d need to go. A convenience that existed nowhere else, with instead some carts in larger cities that acted like the buses of his old world. Otherwise, it was a matter of finding one's own way by either walking, taking one’s own cart if they had the animal to move it, or using the bikes Ben had introduced. All far different designs than one of the better modern conveniences he’d made.
And one I’ll have to submit a patent on tonight because when people first see this, I can already tell I’m going to be earning a buttload of money from other places wanting to get their own. Hell, maybe I’ll even get some work from people hiring me to build them.
He could imagine that such a thing would be enough to even be a tourist draw for some, wanting to see the mysterious new bit of transportation, with the only issue being that he would need to go into the heads of the few he’d selected to have the job of driving them and give them some quick lessons. Really, they basically ran themselves, but someone would need to be present to both stop at each location as well as make sure they didn’t hit anyone walking in front of them. Still, he couldn’t help but feel some pride as he looked at it when it was done, letting him move onto the last bit of work as far as construction went and one he’d only really finish the following day. He was going to build the city a gate.
While plenty would see no point in such a thing, seeing as how the other city was not even a half an hour walk away, that was the main bit of pettiness Ben intended to allow himself. When the world was going to hell, they were choosing not to help people who were only looking for a home, unwilling to give up even a decent piece of land for them, and that was enough to make him want them to regret that choice. Their location was protected by surrounding cities and nations, and for many, they were the closest gate city, which meant a variety of resources were constantly moving through it, but what if that was no longer true? What if there was another city now, just as close or even closer for plenty of them, for anyone to go through?
Traffic was likely to be up to halved as a result, and such a fact would be felt. For the new city, it would be nothing but a boon, an easy way to gain resources as they truly began to build up and begin trading, but for the original, they'd have no choice but to accept the loss. Even if they wanted to protest, gates were precious. Only a few had been made from his gate factory so far, not enough that they could ever consider closing a new one even if it did feel a bit redundant given the distance between the two. That, more than anything else, was a mark of the mistake that was not properly trying to help their fellow people in need, and for however long both cities stood, that reminder would not fade.
With the skill notifications going off in his head and the same title acquired by both of them, they were finally done, the day having long changed to night and left them to survey what they’d made. For the time, it was just a medium-sized town, plenty of empty homes for more refugees to immediately come through the gate network to move in once he got all of the nearby ones settled, but on and around the platform, there was still plenty of room to expand too, almost guaranteeing that the two of them would be called back to build more as more people needed to join such a space to escape the devastation of their homes but they’d already proven it could be quick enough work if it was needed, and it would get them paid. Besides, Ben hadn’t been shy in his advertising, with much of what he’d produced to get the coming townsfolk starting bearing the now traditional line of ‘brought to you by the church of Myriad’, meaning his god would be happy for the work too.
Which means we can clean up here, go back to our room for the night so Thera can rest, and then get everyone moved in tomorrow, he told himself, even if cleanup wasn’t exactly going to be a small thing either. While from the look of things, it might have seemed like he only needed to pack away his materializers and go on with his day, the area they’d mined nearby had left a massive pit in the ground, hundreds of meters deep that they couldn’t just not deal with, lest some poor person find themselves going through a long fall if they weren’t careful in their wanderings, leaving Ben to take every materializer he had and change the souls out in them to constantly produce some simple stone and hung them from the top of the pit to continuously produce before finally capping it off and putting a fence and signs around it with warnings while it was slowly filled up.
In a few weeks, that should be perfectly filled and safe, and the materializers should break down too. Okay, calling that a job well down.