Controlling Destiny - 21 Funding Issues

Ultrix walked out of the medical ward without a scratch. However, his heart was still beating quite quickly.

[Damn, I hope that no one’s found out that the ‘terrorist attack’ was my botched experiment.] He thought to himself.

Walking back to his dorm building, he noticed that the entire mess was all cleaned up already and that even the holes in the wall were all patched up nicely.

Pressing his hand against the wall with curiosity, Ultrix gently gave it a little push.

Somehow, the wall seemed to be perfectly fine. Pushing a bit harder, there was still no movement.

[Huh, that’s pretty cool.] Ultrix thought. It was amazing how fast the clean-up crew was able to patch up the mess and with such high quality as well.

Walking through the entire building, Ultrix noticed that almost everything was back to the way that it was before.

[Well then,] Ultrix thought to himself, perhaps it’s time to make another attempt at those fireballs.

Slowly drawing in some magicules, Ultrix created an orb the size of an orange.

Concentrating on the magicules, Ultrix inscribed a basic rune onto it that created a web of air around the magicules.

This way, the magicules were forced to stay tightly together without dissipating.

However, before Ultrix could figure out what to do with the magicule sphere, it exploded with a soft pop and a slight whooshing sound.

Ultrix immediately tried again, but like before, barely after creating the web of air around the magicule sphere, it too dissipated.

Ultrix rubbed his forehead in frustration. [Is there no way to do this?] He thought to himself sadly.

Studying the way that the magicules dissipated, Ultrix eventually realized that the magicules were not actually dissipating but slowly exploding.

Like a balloon that flies too high and explodes from the pressure, the same was happening to his magicules.

The internal stress of energy was too much for Ultrix’s thin layer of air to contain, thus releasing in a small ‘pop’ and the whooshing noise.

“Hmmm,” Ultrix said out loud. [Guess there’s more work to be done!]

Magmus looked around the empty hall waiting for all of the elders to show up for the meeting.

Slowly, the elders filed through the double doors one by one.

Soon, the hall was filled yet again with the elders and sounds of quiet discussion filled the room.

Sitting at the head of the table, headmaster Magmus smiled as he looked around the room at all of the elders.

However, his smile turned sad as he looked towards the empty seat which had belonged to madam Mavris.

However, being the kind of person that he was, Magmus did not dilly dally on the thought for too long. After all, there was more important work to be done.

Clearing his throat, Magmus stood up from his chair and gently waved his hand to grab the attention of the chatting elders.

Silence returned to the hall, and Magmus began his usual introduction.

“Good evening, elders of the Academy.” Magmus began.

“We are here today to discuss the funding matter yet again.”

“Wait, Headmaster Magmus, what about the terrorist attack on the dorm?” an elder butted in.

“The intruder has already been apprehended and I have dealt with the situation correctly,” Magmus casually lied.

“I see, as expected of headmaster Magmus.” the elder replied. A few nods of approval all went around the room.

[Thank goodness they believe me about that,] Magmus thought to himself in relief while subtly wiping the sweat off of his forehead.

Taking a short drink of water, Magmus continued with the meeting.

“From our previous meeting, we have finally arrived at a few potential ways to solve our crisis.”

“As all of you know by now, our main concern is the lack of food that we can serve through the event.”

“Luckily, our growth affinity elder might have a few plans. Elder Nubelle, the stage is yours.”

An elder dressed in a green robe stood up from her chair. Flower blossoms fell gently from her robe and thick vines entwined around her body.

“Indeed, our growth department is working hard with the agriculture department to try to not only increase production but also to increase yield amounts.

As we speak, my department is working tirelessly to create runic artifacts that can further increase the richness of not only the soil but also the water that is used to grow the crops and feed the livestock.

“That’s great, elder Nubelle, but can your department grow crops and raise livestock fast enough for the event? Last time I checked, 2 weeks is hardly enough time to grow enough food for thousands of people.”

Elder Nubelle’s expression slightly darkened but her overall atmosphere did not change. “Elder Karias, I understand your concerns, but I am confident in my department’s abilities.”

“We can provide enough to support at least 80 to 90 percent of the resources. The rest can easily be shipped in from neighboring kingdoms and traded.”

“Are there any further concerns or comments?” Headmaster Magmus asked the room.

The elders looked at each other momentarily before shaking their heads.

“Thank you, elder Nubelle,” Magmus said politely before drinking another cup of water.

“Now that we have solved that issue, we shall move onto the other issue of accommodations.”

“As you all know, although a lot of the event-goers are going to be from our Academy and have dorms here, a majority of the event audience will be from across the kingdom.”

“As such, the inns around the city will be filled up.”

“To accommodate all of the estimated event attendees lawfully and safely, we have renovated our old Academy village as a means of trying to allow as much living space as possible.”

“However, even still with an entire village renovated, we still need to accommodate roughly 25 to 35 percent more people.”

Elder Karias spoke up at this point and addressed the other elders. “I have thought long and hard about the accommodation issue, and I am certain that the Terra Firma department along with my Combustion department and the Aqua department might be able to work something out.”

Magmus eyed the elder curiously and waved his hand for the elder to go on.

“It’s quite simple,” elder Karias said with a light chuckle. “Since the Terra Firma department is specialized in shaping the terrain, and the Aqua department can control water, I suggest that we can create efficient and temporary mud-brick housing for the event-goers.”

“Through testing, we have concluded that we can create enough housing for 40 persons each day. Pumping up our production rates slightly, we can perhaps even create enough housing for 60 persons each day.”

“By the end of the next 2 weeks, we should be able to produce at least enough housing for roughly 700 persons.”

Headmaster Magmus nodded approvingly. Housing for 700 persons would be a huge help in meeting the quota for the event attendees. That was nearly enough housing to create a secondary village.

“Well, since it appears that the housing issue is also established, our last issue of funding lies in capturing magical beasts for our event coliseum section.”

The elders nodded. Their current magical beasts were mostly domesticated for transportation purposes and they did not have a lot of combat-related animals.

“Luckily for us, the adventurer’s guild has lent us a hand in this matter and is willing to rent us a few magic beasts of various tiers for this event.”

“However, as payment for their services, they have tasked us with a few difficult quests that their adventurers have been struggling with the past few weeks.”

The elders murmured to each other about the various quests.

“Do not worry,” Magmus responded to the elder’s worried tones, “I have personally looked into these quests and most of them are not very dangerous.”

“They are mostly hunting tasks for magical beasts that non-affinity wielders have trouble doing. I am certain that our Academy’s pupils will not have any issues.”

“In the case of the harder quests, we as elders can always lend a hand to the quests.”

The other elders nodded at this and murmured to each other quietly.

“I’ve always wanted to go on quests again,” an elder piped up flexing his arms slightly.

Headmaster Magmus chuckled slightly. “Indeed, this old sack of bones could use a bit of a workout,” he chuckled, pointing to his bony arms.

Joyous chatter once again returned to the meeting hall as the elders all broke into conversations about old adventures they used to go on together and about how much fun they would have going on quests yet again.