Luckily, with the kids around, it isn’t possible for me to get lost in my thoughts for long. Once everyone is done eating, Sarah and Bella leave while the kids start watching some anime. I am not quite ready to get back to work, so I join the kids and watch anime with them for a while.

  I wait until all the kids have fallen asleep before I head back down to my workshop. When I return to working on the city project I am able to look at it in a slightly different way. Instead of focusing on the mountain, I focus on the city’s location within the mountain.

  Using the city as the core, I try drawing out a formation that will do what I want. I quickly realize that it will work, but it is going to take a lot of work and will have to be perfectly precise. I am going to have to bury items inside the mountain at specific points to get this to work.

  To test out the theory, I make a small scale model of the mountain and the formation. It works, but it isn’t doing exactly what I want it to, I must have made a mistake somewhere. I check and double-check my work, but I can’t figure out what I missed or messed up.

  I tinker with the model, trying everything I can think of, for over an hour before I give up. I gather up the model and all the papers for the plans, then I gate to the southern empire. As I am heading to the guest suite I contact Lin and ask her to meet me there.

  While I am waiting for her to arrive I set up the model and organize the papers. I am really hoping that she is going to be able to help me figure out how to make this work. I haven’t been able to come up with an alternative plan, if this won’t work I don’t know what I can do.

  Lin walks in and says “It makes me happy that you missed me so much!”

  “I did miss you, but I am here because I need your help.”

  Lin says “I know, I was just teasing you. So, what is all of this?”

  “Plans for upgrading the enchantments of the elven city. I am having problems getting this formation to work.”

  Lin says “I don’t recognize this formation. What is it meant to do?”

  “It is meant to allow the enchantments to interact with others outside the mountain. It is a basic communication formation, but it has been modified to be three dimensional.”

  Lin says “Oh, I recognize it now. Isn’t this only half of it though?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lin says “Well, you modified it so that the city is the center of the formation, but then you only did half of it. For the city to be the center you need the formation both above and below the city.”

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  “Really? Crap, you are right! I am an idiot!”

  Lin says “No you aren’t, this idea itself is genius. You just missed a portion of it. You should be able to fix it now, right?”

  “I could, but it isn’t going to work. I can’t go putting half of it into the spider area. I am going to have to figure out another way to do this. Do you have any ideas?”

  Lin says “You could still use this formation. You would just need to make the city the bottom point rather than the center. Like this.”

  I watch as Lin makes changes to my model and as soon as she is done the model starts working. Just like that, she has solved a problem that I couldn’t figure out even after a couple of hours. I shapeshift into human form, press myself against her back, and wrap my arms around her.

  “What would I do without you?”

  Lin says “Well, you would certainly have to spend more time reading! Other than that, I think you would manage fairly well.”

  “Don’t even joke like that. I would be completely lost and miserable without you!”

  Lin smiles and says “Good answer!”

  She then turns in my arms and gives me a long passionate kiss, which quickly leads to other things. Needless to say, the papers and the model end up knocked off the table and scattered across the floor. We have our fun and then I pick up the papers while Lin calls down to have food sent up.

  I put the model away for later reference and then lay out the papers so Lin can look over them. I may be better than she is at enchantments, but she still looks at things in a different way. She almost always has helpful suggestions for me and is good at catching my mistakes as well.

  While we are waiting for the food to arrive, Lin looks over the plans for the city. As expected, she points out a few issues and gives me a few suggestions for improvements. I make notes about everything she tells me and then put everything away when the food arrives.

  We have a nice intimate meal together and then move to the bedroom to have some more fun. I return to the castle after Lin falls asleep and start reworking the plan for the city. I could probably do with a little sleep, but it is not bad enough that I need to sleep.

  I don’t want to waste the time, I want to get this plan worked out and start making changes. Due to the sheer amount of enchantments, I expect the process to take at least a couple of days. That is just for the city itself, putting the formation into the mountain might take even longer.

  Of course, before that I will need to get both Core and Yui to agree to me making the changes. I don’t think that the formation will affect the tower, but I plan to ask Yui anyway. It is just polite and it is always possible that Yui will spot something that Lin and I both missed.

  Besides, as much as Lin has learned, Yui still has access to more knowledge than she does. Of course, Yui cheats since she can remember everything without having to even try. Still, Yui is basically a treasure trove of magical knowledge, so having her take a look is a good idea.

  It takes me a while to fix all the errors that Lin pointed out and make sure they didn’t cause additional errors. Then I move on to seeing if I can make use of Lin’s suggestions to make improvements. The problem is that every change I make leads to more changes needing to be made.

  By the time I am finally done and am convinced that there is nothing more I can do, hours have passed. I head upstairs to have a snack and find that the kids are gone again, probably with Sarah. I eat a quick meal, gather my papers, and then gate myself to the tower to talk to Yui.

  Yui says “Hello, Ash. What can I do for you?”

  “I have come up with a plan to modify the enchantments of the elven city. It will involve some changes to the mountain as well. As such I wanted you to look over them and make sure it won’t affect the tower. Also, any improvements or mistakes you can spot in it would be helpful.”