AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Lew tried to make some small talk to brush away his previous indiscretion. Fortunately, the 40 minutes they spent walking from the reception to the Ministry’s office was enough to restore their usual friendly exchange. The Tunnel was divided into five sections of roughly three kilometers, and the Ministry was located in the third section.

Each section has its own effect and power supplies, which could be connected to other areas when needed. After several tests, the Alchemists concluded that extending the elemental effects through more than a couple of kilometers would drain too much from the crystals and weaken the properties. So, they had to steel their hearts and use the extra crystals they recently got to power the Tunnel. In truth, the complete renovations had been going on for a year now, but they still had to remodel two sections.

On a straight line, the underground path had to cross a little more than ten kilometers of Mountains, but cutting through caves was the easiest and safest way through it, so they ended up with a 15 kilometers tunnel. Surrounding their magical underground road, they found another 105 caves, connected directly or behind rocks but close enough to dig a connection.

Initially, they only used the 19 caves directly connected to the tunnel because they were easy to access, but the remodeling plan proposed to open 52 more in two years. At this point, they had only opened 21 caves. Dozens of unseen problems appeared, and much of the initial plan had to be adapted. For one, most of the new caves had a different level from the tunnel, and some were several meters lower.

The truth was that the method to find the caves didn’t account for level differences. The magic reader could track the energy that flowed through the walls in direction to paths of less resistance, the natural caves. Though they could roughly guess the distance of the cave by the strength of the flow, they couldn’t identify specific details.

Actually, the difference in level was far from being a severe problem. It only delayed their progress. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the surprises they found inside of the caves, such as water and ores resources, and the worse, beasts. Usually, getting access to more resources could hardly count as a hindrance. Still, it would delay their advance and require an adaptation since the cave would no longer be appropriete for other purposes.

In fact, the plan to open a path from the mine to the Tunnel had already given them access to more mineral resources than they needed. The water caves, on the other hand, were extremely useful for the operation of the city.

Now the Tunnel was officially considered the first city of AK aside from the Capital. Considering the sheer amount of people living under the Green Mountains and the expanding mining operations, the Council decided to name the place a city and put some effort into developing it, thus the renovation plan. However, due to their workforce limitations, they would only provide essential services for now. The five food stores were the first basic facilities brought to the Tunnel, but soon, a small school, a health center, a financial services center, and a city planner’s office would also be built.

The city design proposed an expansion towards the two sides of the tunnel. The Ministry of Defense facilities were built on the right, while the other civilian and governmental buildings rested on the left, towards the mine. The two sides division was chosen primarily because of security reasons. Although they didn’t have any outsiders walking through the city, it was better to prepare for the future. Roughly, only 20 percent of the caves are located on the right side, so reserving it for the Defense’s buildings was the obvious decision.

Officially, the Ministry would only have four entrances connected to the tunnel, reducing the risk of infiltration and the costs with security considerably. The first access was the big gate near the tunnel’s entrance, which remained closed at all times aside from military mobilization.

The second access was the heavily guarded military quarter located in the second section of the tunnel, with access restricted to the military. The following entry was the Ministry’s office in the third section. The office’s reception wasn’t restricted, but the buildings connect to it were.

The commanding center of operations could only be accessed by the Minister, the generals, special agents, and the working staff. Similarly, only the Minister and the agents could access AK Intelligence Agency, which was also connected to the office. The last connection gave access to the production facilities and storage located at the fourth section of the tunnel. Currently, this area was only used as an armory, but the Council already approved the construction of some military production workshops. Unfortunately, AK didn’t have experienced personnel to keep two production sites at this time.

On the left side, besides the resource caves and the recreational areas, the tunnel was also connected to a couple of unfinished residential areas. Since the Defense’s facilities were fully operational, the next step of the city plan was to house the families of the soldiers and agents stationed on the base. It would be difficult to keep the families together during war or missions, but it didn’t make sense to separate them the entire year. Of course, some might prefer to stay in the capital, but the Council had an obligation to offer them a choice.

Lew and his escorts passed through the security procedures before finally entering the command room. For now, the access was limited to spiritual signature checking, but Lew had requested something more restrictive from Karl. Even though the Alchemists already had an improved design, they would require spare MQ bubble crystal, which wasn’t available for the time being.

The staff officer responsible for the command’s management and the respective secretary paused at Minister’s arrival. Fortunately, they recovered from shock fast enough to offer salute before it could be considered a breach of military discipline.

Lew had grown up in a military camp, so he knew the importance of maintaining a strict protocol, so even the smallest and meaningless breaches would force him to pass down some punishment. In the officer’s defense, they weren’t expecting his arrival. The Minister had already delayed the transfer for a month, so nobody expected he would just give up by now.