A few weeks pass...

“So, watcha think, big guy?”

Babe the Blue Ox and I were looking at the whole map of Michigan, as seen through Commune with Nature.

He had a Wisdom Mark now, which meant he was connected to the Markspace if he wanted to be. I could tell he was still a little unsettled by all the bright, moving, very smart Human minds on the other side of his Markdoors, but their cheery goodwill and unmistakable reverence for him helped a lot.

At the same time, he realized that mentally he was nowhere near as mighty compared to certain Humans as he thought he was, and definitely not as intelligent.

He had incredible Will, however, hardly a surprise given his age and Void Magic, plus being a half-Emperor.

A Commune naturally revealed details and things that not even the best Elemental Awareness could sense, as it crossed all lines of magic and showed everything. Ley Lines, minerals, plants, powerful beings, geography and geology, civilized and wild, cities and rural and unsettled; places where magic or people had mucked with things, and places that were pristine.

We had the locations of every one of the Salt Seeds that were out there, and every single one of the boys had one of them marked, with Tox currently earmarked for an existing one that was a low Heavenly Seed, but he had to reach Archmage first.

It was one HELL of an incentive to reach Archmage. As for the others, they were all ‘merely’ high-grade Soul Seeds with a special Kicker effect against creatures of Water, Desiccation.

The ability to destroy water outright, and drive away Water Mana, was incredibly dangerous against Water-dwellers. The only place Salt Seeds had ever been found were old salt lakes or salt mines, all of them associated with seas or such spaces that had completely dried up. The most famous of them came out of the lands bordering the Sahara, some of which held old salt mines once excavated by slaves, now often laying empty just so they could build up a Salt Seed for sale instead.

The Seeds here in Michigan had not been tapped for at least a century. The assumption was that the Wolverine Emperor had been consuming them as part of his normal diet, and so they’d lain fallow for a very long time, building themselves up. Most of the Salt Seeds were of the Spirit level, just average Seeds with a highly desirable Kicker if you were powerful enough to make use of them, which generally had required being a Mage.

With the new Magery spells, that was no longer the case. A Sandstorm of Desication was a truly nasty attack spell!

Babe mentally followed the structure of the salt Formations underlying much of the borders of the state, and could only nod repeatedly.

Something had definitely spent a lot of time and effort arranging the layer of salt crystals down there for some other purpose. there were veins and striations in the rock which were extremely long and although well-concealed, had been made by a masterful user of Earth Magic with a broad and subtle grasp of what to do.

Pretty much all of the Michigan Peninsula was a huge retaining device for Mana. Largely Earth Magic, of course, but Void Magic was the other Magic involved here, which might very well be the reason for the much higher incidence of Void Mages coming from the state.

“It looks like the Seeds are a happy byproduct of what is going on here,” I told the Blue Ox, following the geomancy of the entire thing. “They weren’t planned, they just happened to come up because the slow movement of the Earth Mana through the mantle here happened to condense them.”

Babe considered the convergence point and where it was located, almost directly under St. Louis/Alma. That area had some of the best farmland in the state, and it was now easy to see why.

“We could certainly build something out there, but in all honesty, we should conceal it among some other things. A White Mana Zone would have to be tightly constrained, as giving up all that farmland will be difficult and expensive. It would be best to disguise it with something else.” I considered the implications of that, thoughts racing as he just watched, a little bedazzled by how fast I was thinking and all the areas I was touching on.

Oh, oh, I had an idea! “Briggs, Sama!” I /called out, and they popped in to Markspace with a thoughtstream each. “This geomantic Formation is designed to help elevate a Beast to Emperor status. I think we might be able to help Babe do the same thing, but we’re gonna have to make some additions to it...”

-Really?- Briggs /said, mentally crouching down to take a better look at the Commune’s results. -Huh, the flow is slow, but that’s a lot of weighty Mana being drawn in there, condensing in the middle... Earth and Void?- He mentally rubbed his chin. -I don’t know how much Mana is needed to evolve to Emperor Stage, but I imagine it won’t be small.-

Babe moo’d an approximate visualization amount, which might well be low.

-Wow, that IS a lot,- Sama /agreed, also studying the visualization. -What do you want to do, Fae?- she /asked, her smile hoping for something radical once again.

I flicked a mental hand, and great towers popped up all over the place on the internal view, but especially around St. Louis. Actually, they were massive windmills.

Both of them inclined their heads, while Babe looked confused. -Wind Towers?- Briggs /recognized them at a glance. -Why would we need them?-

“Well, we could harness an awful lot of Air Mana from them, even as we’re generating Lightning to pay for them and feed into the general power grid.”

Babe’s eyes narrowed. Air was his third Element...

White Mana Zones appeared atop all the Salt Seed spots scattered around the state. Pointedly, these were modified to send large amounts of Earth Mana into the ground... and Plant Mana, too, which would also follow the natural draw of the existing Geomantic Formation.

“This will regenerate the Salt Seeds pretty quickly, much faster than they would return naturally,” I noted. “But the key thing is they will pour in massive amounts of Earth and Plant Mana into this area.”

Plant Mana was Babe’s fourth Element...

-Huh.- Briggs stroked his chin further, his eyes gleaming. “I think I understand what you’re doing here. Instead of building up two Elements for Babe to tap, we’re going for all four.-

-While concealing what we are doing behind other obvious intentions,- Sama /agreed. -We can make excuses on where and why we put Refractory Towers down in places, sure, but they still need to be productive, right?-

-I personally don’t think that will be much of an issue,- Briggs /nodded. -Typeless Mages and the things we are getting into production are going to be high in demand. The only thing restraining it is going to be the Zones in the Fingers, as the supply lines will be longer. I’d rather run a rail line than build a trucking road, it should run cleaner. We can make the compounds mostly self-sufficient, it will be all about supply.-

“Most of them are very close to the water. Is terraforming a dock for resupply on the list?” We all looked at Babe, even as I popped up a mental display of sinuous platforms snaking out into the water, where ships could unload supplies to the White Mana Zones... or pick them up.

-We’d also need to clear a square mile or so of forest from around the sites,- Sama /pointed out apologetically. -The Formations, layout, and foundation of what we are trying to do will require it. On the flip side, natural areas at the edge of the Zone that we don’t cut down are going to be incredibly vital as they absorb the White Mana.-

Babe snorted once. He’d sensed a similar effect on the existing White Mana Zones, so he understood what she meant, and it had been why he hadn’t been so opposed to them existing.

-Sure, not an issue, we’ll work with the existing manaflows as smoothly as possible,- Briggs /agreed. -Producing stuff will actually be a cover for the real reason they are there, but a cover that isn’t a cover is the best kind to have. No reason to have them lose money, we can have people doing productive work there of the best kind.-

-Question.- Sama was staring at the whole Formation. -The Formation only stores Earth and Void Mana, although granted it is a lot of it. How are we storing the Air and Plant Mana?-

“The Air Mana we’ll feed into a central Refractory Tower with a nice little spigot and very tight White Mana Zone, which Babe will be visiting a lot and drinking in constantly. The rest of it will be captured by the Formation the Wind Towers are going to be in.”

-Basically providing tons of free Lightning power to the grid!- Briggs /grinned at the cover story. -What about the Plant Mana?-

“It’s already got the most fertile fields in the state. I propose going all-in on the effect, and getting the aid of the local farmers. We’ll store the Plant Mana in the ground, transforming the soil even further, and use the crops, harvesting and plowing to continually return it to the soil.”

-That means... we’re going to have to plan ahead on this,- Sama /said seriously. -When Babe goes for his evolution, that’ll rip the Plant Mana out of everything around to help power the evolution.-

“Yeah, it’ll destroy the current fields, and they’ll be shit for another year after that,” I agreed. “But that’s not the same as destroyed forever. The Formation will still be there, and so will our pumps. Destruction, a full year of recovery, springtime the next the fields will be back to normal, and they’ll only improve again after that if we keep at it.”

Babe lowed, and we all nodded. -That Formation looks made to do this thing, Babe. No way it will burn out, so no chance of searing the whole landscape with this. It’s not some Forbidden Curse attack magic or something,- Briggs /said wisely. -Look at the size of those Salt formations and the geology there. The conduits are basically made to transfer more energy than we could possibly need. The ones who set this up didn’t want to destroy everything, either.-

Babe nodded in relief, making more chewing noises.

Sama /hissed for us. -Oh, yeah, there’s going to be people who do NOT want to see you promote, sure. Probably all the way up to the national and international level. That’s why we don’t want to make it apparent what we are doing. Everything here is going to have a secondary purpose. About the only thing that might be a clue is you drinking in some Air Magic from the Tower we have to put up, but considering you aren’t famous for Air Magic, that can be explained as your Magic being relatively weak and you’re trying to buff it up.-

-The big thing is going to be prepping the farmers for the falling hammer when it is time,- Briggs /added thoughtfully. -However, the years leading up to that are going to be DAMN FINE for them.-

“So we need to talk to the Farmer’s Cooperative to coordinate with them, and probably have to Geas the lot of them so they don’t talk about it,” I sighed. “On the other hand, with the right crop choices... yeah, anyone farming in that area for those years is going to get damn rich.”

-You know, we can probably get a government sanction for the Wind Towers and everything. After all, we’re doing it for Babe. We should be working with the farmers in Babe’s name, and they trust him. We’ve got some of the best farmland in the whole damn country because of him, even if there’s people who don’t want to believe it,- Briggs /mused.

Sama nodded agreement. -The farms here are literally awesome compared to many other places. You don’t have the Beasts causing havoc and tearing stuff down, and the Blue Ox Tradition is very strong here, with excellent farmer-mages helping with the soil and stuff, and a strong Collective that stays united when it counts. The only thing I’ve seen equaling it is parts of Napa Valley, which has more Plant Mages per square mile than anyplace else in the country, and they pay through the nose for them, too, if they aren’t family.-

“I think Vidalia would argue with your Napa people, and the Husker Fields in Illinois aren’t far behind, if at all,” I pointed out.

Babe hurfed in amusement. Husker the Boar took care of southern Illinois down there, much like Babe did here. They weren’t enemies, more like friendly rivals, and they’d participated in a couple well-known Wolf-hunts when some Ruler Wolves had crossed the Mississippi for one reason or another, especially having a mad-on for the older Boar.

Vidalia was another place with a lot of Plant Mages, although the cultivated ground down there that was famous was only a tithe of Michigan’s. There were a lot of wild areas in Georgia, so farming wasn’t as safe and widespread as it was up here.