Len balanced carefully as he climbed over the engine's cab, the metal warm from the fall's sun. The mountain loomed ahead, its steep slopes rose sharply on either side of the valley they entered. The slope's faces were scarred by countless rockfalls that had settled in the valley.

  The trees thinned out behind them as the ground became too steep and rocky to support much vegetation.

  The brakes squealed as Edward brought the train to a halt. The rails hung suspended from their feeders, no longer extending forward.

  Before they'd fully stopped, Rick and the other builders leapt from the forward rail laying platform and headed up the valley.

  Rick tapped the ground, pausing and moving up.

  Captain Sam's engineers were with him.

  All focused on Rick as he checked the ground—figuring out the best place to open up the tunnel.

  "Okay, lets go." Len alled to Gretchen, Harold, and Peter behind him before he dropped down from the first flatbed car where the wooden rails were made.

  He turned to get sheets of steel from Peter handing them down. The new enchantments.

  Wilbur was working with a team of soldiers checking and modifying the hoppers based on how they'd worked up to this point.

  Christina and her people were working with Edward around the train engine. Joe was moving from the last carriage forward, checking each carriage for wear-tear and damage and modifying as they could.

  Sentries had jumped off earlier, watching at the entrance of the valley. Soldiers without tasks took their mana blades and cut down uncommon grade trees that were hauled back up to the train.

  There was a focused efficiency to everyone's movements.

  Len walked alongside the platforms, noting the broken wheels and springs from the carts that had given out during their frantic escape. The wooden rails they'd created still hung suspended above, a testament to their desperate innovation.

  Peter grumbled as they walked down their length.

  "They did damn good for an ad-hoc on the run solution," Len said. "You should be proud Peter."

  Peter nodded and stood a bit taller.

  They reached the front of the platforms with the rail feeders and enchantment plates.

  The rail feeders have been modified as they'd run through the day becoming reinforced and more stable than the original version had been.

  Harold and Gretchen got up, deactivating their enchanted plates before using Spells to separate them from the platform's structure.

  Len and Peter recieved the plates and handed back new versions.

  "Make the old ones look like they were made by my kids," Harold chuckled.

  "They worked," Len said.

  The new Enchantments were much cleaner than the previous versions. They'd taken their time to create them.

  They were laid out in a set series, each enchantment doing a singular thing. The first would create and compress the tunnel, the second would create different layers of material at the bottom of the tunnel, the third would create sleepers as well as maintenance walkways on either side of the tracks while the fourth would compress and block the rest of the material within the intervening space.

  Len watched Rick move methodically across the valley floor, his boots crunching on loose stone. Rick's fingers traced patterns in the air as he tested the ground's stability. Finally, he stopped at a point where the valley walls drew closest together.

  "Here." Rick's hand pressed flat against the rock face. Blue light rippled out from his palm, spreading in a wide circle. The stone compressed together into a single entity.

  "Alright, this will be our entrance into the mountain, clear from here back to the train and start grading it," Rick stood up.

  Len knew doing such a spell would drain plenty of mana from him.

  The engineers moved in behind Rick, their shovels biting into the looser ground at the base of the cliff. As they worked, their movements became more fluid, their bodies adapting to the system's influence. Each shovelful they tossed back carried far more material than the tools should have held. The excess dirt and rock compacted itself as it landed, smoothing out the grade leading up to where the tunnel would begin.

  The face of the cliff emerged from the debris, a sheer wall of stone waiting to be breached.

  The shovelers moved to the side as Rick approached the exposed rock face, his hammer gleaming. The first strike rang out like a bell, stone cracked into perfectly formed stone blocks.

  "Two lines from the tunnel entrance," Captain Sam ordered. The engineers moved into position as Rick tossed back the first brick that must've weighed a few hundred pounds.

  The human chain threw back materials alternating on either side, At the bottom of the grade, others set the blocks into the ground as railway sleepers.

  Rick tossed the last brick, leaving a space big enough for the train engine and following cars to pass through.

  The sound of his strikes echoed differently now, bouncing off the newly formed tunnel walls as he disappeared deeper into the mountain.

  Len could see the practiced efficiency in every movement. No wasted motion, no hesitation. Just the steady rhythm of Rick's hammer and the constant flow of stone blocks being carried out and set into place.

  "Alright I'm going to get started on growing boxes," Len said.

  Len and his group made their way back down the length of the train, their boots crunching on the loose stone beside the tracks. The distinct hiss and gurgle of water caught his attention as they passed the engine.

  Christina wiped her hands on her already grimy work pants. "Don't worry we've cleaned out the boiler and water tanks completely."

  Canteens tied together and a large water condensing enchantment were all over different openings.

  "Just had to patch up the holes in the boiler. Going to make it heavier though," Christina grimaced.

  "It'll be easier to have a level surface and not have as much lateral movement or ups and downs. Less strain on the rails." Len said.

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  "Unless we find a water source in the mountain, we'll need to carry our own supply the whole way." Christina said.

  "Yeah. I'm just about to deal with those other enchantments," Len said. "Have you seen my father?"

  "Edward?" Christina gestured toward the rear cars. "He's already started work on the growing beds. Didn't waste any time once we stopped."

  "Thanks!" Len raised his hand, looking at the newly extended platform and railing around the train's boiler to the doorways at either side of the cab.

  Len continued down the length of the train, noting the modifications being made. Soldiers had welded additional handrails along the sides of each car, making movement between them safer. Storage compartments lined the walls, carefully secured to prevent shifting during transit.

  The second flatbed car came into view, the items within the carts were being packed into the covered carriages.

  Wood had been planked up and fused together, turned into growing boxes.

  The wheel-less carts had been put on wooden stilts to create a second level of growing boxes. His father Edward stood among several wooden boxes, already filled with dark soil from beside the tracks.

  Soldiers tossed up shovelfuls of dirt with magical accuracy.

  "Started without me?" Len asked, stepping onto the flatbed.

  Edward looked up from where he was carefully removing seeds from a tomato. "Figured we shouldn't waste time. These growing boxes won't do us much good if we wait until we're in the mountain to start them."

  Several boxes had been arranged in rows, their interiors lined with cloth to prevent soil loss. Edward had organized the seeds by type—fruit seeds in one tin, vegetable seeds in another.

  "Smart using the cloth liner," Len observed. "Should help with water retention too."

  Edward nodded, continuing to extract seeds with practiced efficiency. "Been doing this longer than you've been alive, son. Though usually not on a moving train." He grinned.

  "I think I'll remember just how excited you were going over the edge of that gully for the rest of my life," Len said.

  Edward chuckled as Peter climbed up to the flatbed easily, Gretchen and Harold a bit awkward.

  "I'll leave Gretchen, Harold, and Peter with you," Len said. "They can start on the growing and water condensing enchantments while you build the rest of the boxes."

  "Alright, Peter start getting out these seeds here, leave a bit of the flesh. I'll check the boxes are laid out properly. I'll leave you to enchanting miss Gretchen and mister Harold."

  Len continued to the second carriage, the last carriage.

  Len approached the open door of the last carriage, the sound of hammering and sawing coming from behind a heavy cloth curtain. The smell of fresh-cut wood filled the air.

  The soldiers had built simple wooden boxes with seats on top. Not exactly luxury facilities, but they'd serve their purpose for the long journey through the mountain.

  Len pulled steel plate from his satchel and started carving material breakdown and directed airflow enchantments into it.

  "Pass me one of those rail spikes," Len called to a nearby soldier.

  The man tossed him a heavy iron spike, its surface already showing signs of rust.

  "Thanks." Len etched a controlled fire enchantment into the metal. The spell would generate just enough heat to burn away odors without creating actual flames.

  He added the plate to a bank of the boxes before going outside the train, and hammering the iron spike into the venting pipe, the warm end in the middle of the pipe.

  The combination of enchantments would handle waste processing and ventilation, converting everything into fertilizer for their growing operation while keeping the air fresh.

  Len secured the last plate and stood.

  "Catch you later lads."

  He left the crews working, walking up the train.

  Len made his way to the workshop carriage.

  After the train engine and its tender was the rail extruding flatbed, then the first cargo carriage that was set up as a living quarters, after than was the second flatbed that was being converted into a garden on wheels. After that was half supplies, half workshop with a second higher floor for people to sleep.

  The last carriage was the bathrooms, any remaining supplies and a place for people to relax.

  All the cargo cars had doors cut into them so people could walk through the train.

  Christina and her team had transformed the workshop car into an organized chaos of metal parts. Stripped components from the engine lay categorized on makeshift shelves, while lengths of pipe stood stacked against one wall.

  He picked up one of the pipes, and turned it around. His mind wandered to possibilities - armored plating covering the train's vulnerable spots. A whole train made of steel, weapon mounts at strategic points.

  "Christina, what's our inventory looking like?" Len turned the pipe over in his hands.

  "We've got some extra steel plates - probably overpacked there. Four complete wheel assemblies for trains and about five dozen pipes of varying gauges." she gestured at the pipe in his hands.

  "About that explosion when we were racing down the gully, you know what it was?" Len asked.

  "Those carts had some enchanted cores in them, was a good chunk of our building materials strapped down to that flatbed.

  Len noticed one engineer with a rifle apart on a crate-table.

  We'll get powder in the future, though right now we need something.

  The rifles could work, but really they were going to need new designs to handle the pressure that would come with the new rounds.

  He turned the pipe over in his hands. Could put a really big round through one of these.

  "A really big round would have a powerful enchantment on it." Len muttered.

  "You say something?" Christina asked.

  "Just thinking that if we want to kill something like those bears in the future, we're going to need something stronger, bigger—heavy hitting. Also this gives me an idea for getting some air into the tunnel. Mind if I borrow this?"

  "Go right ahead."

  "Thanks." Len left and continued walking up the train towards the tunnel.

  The growing beds were filled with plants and shoots were already coming out of the ground, wooden trellises and supports caught the twisting vines and supported other plants.

  Gretchen, Peter and Edward as well as some soldiers were working diligently to get their crops in the dirt.

  Enough for some extra food, not going to be enough to replace the air we're breathing though.

  Len scraped paint from the steel pipe with his knife, revealing the dull metal beneath. He weaved around people working on the train or bringing trees back as he carved the first enchantment into the surface.

  The first was a vibration spell, designed to mimic a constant resonating strike that would transmit through what the pipe was pointed at.

  The second enchantment was identical to the pressure enchantments that were inside the train's engine. It would draw air from whatever the pipe was pointed at and increase air pressure.

  The sound of Rick's hammer grew louder as Len approached the tunnel entrance. Stone blocks lined both sides of the passage, stacked neatly by the engineers.

  Len picked his way carefully around the stacked blocks, finding handholds in the rough stone of the valley wall. He climbed higher, testing each foothold before putting his weight on it. He put the pipe over his shoulder as he tilted his body forward, trying to disturb the scree as little as possible.

  Reaching a stable position adjacent to the tunnel entrance just ten or so meters up he kneeled down and angled the pipe down slightly aiming for the tunnel beneath.

  He pushed the pipe into the ground and activated the enchantments.

  Stone and dirt started falling out of the pipe as it carved into the slope, creating a ventilation shaft.

  After several minutes Len paused the pipe and looked through it, casting a spell on his eyes he could see down the hole.

  Looks like nearly fifty meters that has to go through the tunnel.

  Len removed his pipe and started moving up the hill, repeating the process.

  Might be a good way to cut out the material inside the tunnel. Compress it into a circle. Then have a cut out shape of what you want the tunnel to look like, vibrating cutting projecting edges along the shape, and others to crack it up. have it hooked up to a big hopper like the ones we're feeding the wood into and it pushes out blocks on the other side.

  Len kept working adding in ventilation shafts, just checking his math to make sure that he was lined up with where the tunnel would be.

  A bang went off in the distance—towards the mouth of the valley they were in.

  Len put the pipe back and turned, all work came to a pause as a flare rose in the sky.

  He spotted the sentry legging it back towards them from where he had been atop the ridge.

  "Keep going!" Captain Sam yelled.

  The block human train continued to add to the massive piles they'd already made.

  Len pulled out his pipe deactivating the enchantments and started running-falling down the slope towards the train.