Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

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The senior officers were all gathered in the dining hall with a ton of questions on their minds when Wolfe arrived, as they had been in the middle of holding a meeting there when the whole appearance of the Den had changed in an instant.

The look of shock on their faces from suddenly being surrounded by marble and gold, even if they realized that it was an illusion, was well worth not having warned anyone in advance that he was about to cast such a large-scale spell.

"Greetings, everyone. I am just here to do some renovations to the tables and chairs. Don't mind me. I will only be a few minutes." Wolfe informed them, then looked at the number of chairs.

"Okay, maybe more than a few minutes, but I will be finished with your spots in a minute." He amended.

Converting the table was exactly the same as doing the one in his room. He just had to focus on the object and the final design, but the spell itself didn't change.

The process made him realize very quickly why the Magi didn't care about the fancy trappings of the mundane world. They could make their surroundings look every bit as amazing as anything that human hands could make, and it only took them a few seconds and a bit of magic.

But since the rest of the world had great difficulties seeing through the spells, it would look to them like the Magi lived in incredible opulence that no other nation could match, and it was certain to invoke envy among their visitors, no matter how many times you told them that it was just an illusion and none of the amazing things that they were seeing actually existed.

Though, if you could see it and touch it, did it matter if it was made of magic and not a physical object? Was it subjectively real, despite being only surface-deep?

That logic wouldn't apply to coins or other precious metals, but for a throne that was never going to be disassembled, was a magical one any less comfortable or visually impressive than a physical one? It might not serve as a show of wealth, but it would awe your guests just the same.

[You're having deep philosophical thoughts about the nature of reality while in the middle of making table covers for the communal dining hall.] Stephanie reminded him, pulling Wolfe back to reality.

[Thanks, I got distracted there for a moment.] Wolfe mentally shrugged off the lapse in focus, making the Familiar Cat facepalm in secondhand embarrassment.

Wolfe did the first batch of chairs using the assistance of the Servants while the officers were still seated in them and chuckled as they suddenly found themselves on fancy gold and marble versions of the original crude stone chairs and comfortably sunk into the magical cushions.

"What do you think? I'm renovating the place to work on my spellcraft, and I'm getting pretty good at it if I do say so myself." Wolfe bragged.

"Are we living in a palace?" Priya asked.

"A palace would need gardens. We should carve some out later and have Mister Wolfe here fancy them up for us. Just look at this table. It's amazing." The Myrrh Colonel agreed.

"Most of the locals usually travel to find food or safety with the spring thaw, but I think we will stay here long term, so there is no reason not to make it as liveable as possible. You all have done a wonderful job of starting to make it self-sufficient, so why should it look like we are merely surviving in a bunker?" Wolfe suggested.

"The Sylvan Coven will be overjoyed. They've been trying to get an advanced village inside the borders of the Frozen Wastes for ages, but they could never get one to stick. It always got overrun the same way that the frontline camps did.

I think that we will have to make more room for visitors though. Once the locals get in here, they are not going to want to leave after just delivering a message." The Colonel laughed.

Those had been Priya Company's instructions while they were at the front line as well, to turn it into a long-term village. Wolfe just hadn't realized that it wasn't the first time that they had attempted such a thing and failed.

"Well, I like it. It's a good thing that we dug everything with tall ceilings as well. It made it less claustrophobic to start with, but now it gives an impressive vaulted ceiling look.

But that brings us to the topic we were discussing before you decided to renovate our entire home at once. Should we start building more than a few observation posts aboveground?

Even a single building would be a good marker to let travellers know where we are and claim the territory, but I'm not sure if that would cause more problems than it solved."

It was a serious issue for a group in their situation. For one, it was nice to see the sunlight all the time, like when he was scouting. But it would also be a target for the monsters and any renegade humans and witches in the area, as well as the Mundane Army, who had shown no reservations about using extreme measures against anything that opposed them.

They might have lost this round, but Wolfe didn't believe for a minute that this would be the last he heard of them or that they were going to give up so easily if they really did need the witches' magic to compensate for their declining natural resources.

"I've got a question. We freed all the prisoners that they tried to take back through the Wastes over the last few days, but how many other ways could they get them back home?

I've heard that the oceans aren't safe, but they likely have some ability to deal with ocean monsters if they can herd the ones on land. Plus, they have jets and helicopters.

Do you think that we have had a few calm days because they've already taken all the prisoners that they needed?" Wolfe asked.

The witches shared a disturbed look but shook their heads. Most of them hadn't thought much about why the mundane army had been taking so many prisoners, only about what it would take to rescue them. So, they hadn't questioned any of the soldiers and didn't know that the goal was to get enough magic users to keep their nation running without any imports from their hostile neighbours.

Priya pointed at her radio and shrugged before answering. "I haven't heard of any planes leaving the area, and they're pretty easy to spot for the flying scouts.

It's possible that they snuck a naval fleet to the shore, though. The villages there were abandoned after the gas attacks, so they might have gotten by without being detected."