Ok I decided to even the chapters out.
I’ll be striving to maintain a 20 chapter lead over there.
Story is now at 17500 words on the main doc.
Hope yall enjoy the chapter dump.
Aside from the little Vampire side excursion.
Leon’s whole trip to India ended up being about what he expected.
Barring anything unexpected, he could schedule a visit to Vlad Drakul during the Christmas break instead of waiting until next summer.
Establishing ties with Vampire nobility would be useful.
Not just towards his eventual goals, but also in the acquisition of rare materials.
Banned books and perhaps access to interesting locations that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Romania was a host spot for dark wizards, and dark magical creatures that didn’t exist anywhere else.
Arriving at home, Leon blinked in surprise when Gasket showed up carrying a whole bunch of wrapped gift boxes.
And planted them at his feet.
“Gasket kept your Birthday gifts secure while you were away master.” The elves proclaimed proudly.
Leon froze, he’d completely forgotten about his own birthday.
He’d forgotten to get something for Harry!
And thinking about it… he actually didn’t even know when Ron’s birthday was.
Looking at the pile of gifts that Gasket had brought to him, Leon felt a little ashamed to see a gift from Harry and one from his Aunt Petunia in the pile.
Sirius Black had even sent one, and Leon had barely said more than three words to the man!
“Damn, should have written that down…” Leon muttered to himself as he dug into the pile of presents while thinking of a present for Harry for when he next saw him, “Also, Thank you Gasket.
I completely forgot about my birthday.”
Gasket puffed up in pride, their eyes misting up at the acknowledgement.
“Would you happen to know when Ron’s birthday is?
I remember him getting gifts at Hogwarts, but I can’t for the life of me remember when it was.” Leon asked the Elves as he continued his unboxing.
“March 1st Master.” Gasket replied without a shred of hesitation.
“Ah, let me write that down.” Leon said, pulling out his notebook jotting it down in the birthdays section.
Leon unwrapped everything and ended up storing most of it in Coldharbour.
None of it was really useful, except the Ever-Inked-Quill, which Harry had sent him.
The Quill was enchanted to never run or drip and be pocket safe while always having ink ready to write.
Leon already had a few of these.
But it was the thought that counted, and he was always misplacing them, so having another one would come in handy eventually.
Looking into everything that he had stored up, Leon decided on giving Harry a vial of Phoenix tears.
He had an abundance of them, and Harry might actually use them someday.
Classy gift.
He’d give it to him while they were shopping for school supplies.
Now he would have to think of something to give Ron… Maybe a Chess set Bound entirely with Grand Dremora Souls?
That would be an ideal gift for him.
Leon would commission a unique Chess set, one with a dragon theme or something so that the pieces and board weren’t the same… probably portable too.
Shrinking function.
Leon wrote down his gift ideas.
Thinking about other people who he could give gifts to… It would be funny to find out Snapes birthday and send him a potion from his [Shop] with no indication as to who sent it.
A potion from the Elder Scrolls universe.
No explanation, no context, no return address.
That would be a great prank.
On a more serious note, Leon figured that he should probably figure out Christmas gifts for all the people who had sent him birthday gifts that he hadn’t expected presents from.
It was a surprisingly large number of people.
Even Hermione had sent him a book *Social Etiquette for Dummies* which made him laugh when saw the title.
After jotting down a few ideas.
Leon wrapped everything up and pulled out blank notebook an start sketching out some visuals for some of his other ideas.
Some concept art for future referral as it were.
Taking Grandmaster in painting and drawing had a purpose after all.
Bein able to put ideas down as words was one thing, being able to see your ideas on a page was completely another thing.
There were probably a dozen other skills that he was going to have to purchase sooner or later.
Engineering, Blueprint designing, and anything else that may help with some of his eventual goals.
His idea for enchanted power armor was just one thing to work on.
Then there was another thing that he had learned while on his trip in India.
Magic didn’t just fry technology.
It was one of those things that he had simply believed because that was what got stated in the books and movies.
But looking into it, that didn’t make sense at all.
The entrance to the ministry of magic was through a telephone booth.
With an actual phone that could be used to make calls.
That wouldn’t work if magic just fried technology outright.
There was also that kid that was running around Hogwarts with a polaroid camera… There was even the flying motorcycle and car.
Leon actually felt a little stupid for believing that particular thing.
Diagon Alley was in the heart of London, and it practically bled magic into its surroundings like fountain.
Yet muggles in the area were not constantly dealing with power grid failures and broken electronics.
After spending some time researching, it turned out that Hogwarts, and specific Wards could fry technology.
But Hogwarts seemingly did it to calculators, or devices meant for cheating the process of learning.
Examples like Colin Creevey’s camera being perfectly functional were the exceptions.
The fact that Magic and Tech could be combined… Leon’s mind raced with the possibilities that that opened up.
If he wanted, he could probably start a power company and use enchantments to generate electricity.
It would be fairly easy to conceal power generation as something technological and skirt around the statute of secrecy and other laws surrounding magic and muggles.
Like designing a proprietary ‘Fusion’ reactor.
It wouldn’t actually be fusion, just some magical lights and stuff.
But it could easily explain endless power generation.
And that was just one idea.
One that would make him absurdly wealthy in the Muggle World no doubt.
But that was only the lower end of possibilities.
The basics really.
A space exploration company with proprietary gravity plating, satellites, and more.
Brooms could literally fly all the way to the moon and back.
As long as one had some life support magic.
Cheap and easy access to space was another way that Leon could earn unfathomable wealth in the Muggle world.
Not to mention the possibilities of making a test run for the plane meld using Mars or something.
And just like that, Leon suddenly felt like he didn’t have enough time to do any of the things that were constantly popping up in his mind now.
He jotted down pages and pages of ideas for the future.
But even going full tilt for a decade wouldn’t be enough time to cover half of what he wrote down.
That was fine though.
He didn’t have to rush.
Even though he didn’t have to rush.
Leon definitely wrote down a rough outline of a plan though.
After aligning his thoughts, Leon decided to address things that he actually could do.
First he checked in with the Mortys to see how the seed population in the Vivarium was doing.
“Master, these mortals you brought us… Most of them have significant mental issues.” Morty-1 explained, “We don’t know if their mental issues are inherited by blood or developed.
Perhaps it is a combination of both.
But even with the mind wipes and integration of new information… I fear that they and their descendants will be less than optimal.
The majority of these Mortals should be in asylums.”
Leon shrugged, “That means that they’ll work pretty well for my Madness domain.
I kind of expected that.
Especially from the US population, they stopped using insane asylums in the 50s or something like that.
People with severe issues are no longer taken care of, they just end up on the streets.”
“Mortals are seemingly incapable of utilizing Logic.
Especially Muggle Mortals.
We should do something about that.” Morty-1 said.
“There really isn’t anything to do about it.
I realized a long time ago that people are just stupid, and that’s ok.
Not everyone needs to be smart.
The world would be better if more people were smart.
But that’s never going to happen.” Leon raised his hands in a helpless gesture, “It’s just something we have to live with.”
Morty-1 scoffed, “We could mitigate stupidity through corrective action!
Cull the ones that are malfunctioning and only allow pairings between the smarter ones.
It would only take a few generations to raise the average mental capacity across the board.”
“That is a project that requires absolute power and control over the entire population.
You may be able to do that inside the Vivarium with all of the advantages… But the entire planet is another matter entirely.
And I don’t intend to interfere with the planet all that much once my final plan is complete.
I’ll just get rid of their more troublesome elements and let them do as they please.
Their souls will all be mine in the end. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Once they join the ranks of Dremora, their intelligence issues can be corrected.” Leon said dismissively.
After checking in on the Vivarium, Leon shifted his attention to the Goblin Smiths who were running various experiments.
Alloying Ebony with Goblin silver, Carbon, and other elements to see the results.
As he inspected the various workshops he spotted samples taken from his others realms.
Ebony from the Hunting Grounds was different shade of color from the Ebony of Coldharbour.
Ebony from the Shivering Isles was also a different shade.
The Ebony from Apocrypha was even more starkly different instead of just a very dark color it was Vanta Black, like it drank the light around it.
Ebony from the Colored Rooms was an oddball in that it was pure white and iridescent.
From the experiments that Leon could see being conducted, the various Ebony samples from different realms seemed to have wildly different properties and uses depending on the Realm it came from.
Ebony from Coldharbour, the Hunting Grounds, and the Shivering Isles were good for weapons and armor, or for structural support.
Ebony from the Colored Rooms was similar, good for structural support, armor or weapons, but it contained an extreme purifying effect as well.
Pipes made with White Ebony would naturally purify liquids passing through them.
Weapons would banish undead or destroy them outright.
The strangest of the Ebony came from Apocrypha.
The Goblin Dremora had figured out that it could be ground down into ink that contained incredible magical properties.
Apocryphal Ebony Ink was perfect for laying runic enchantments, creating books that never decay, and probably other uses as well.
But the stuff didn’t seem to be good for forging.
But those were not the only materials that these industrious Goblin Dremora were experimenting with.
Leon spotted entire workshops dedicated to various sample testing of across the board.
“What’s all this then,” Leon asked one of the Master Smiths inside a room with hundreds of different samples.
“My Lord, we are cataloging the elemental differences between the various Realms.” The Silver Goblin Dremora said.
Leon gestured for him to elaborate.
“Ah, well, you see, My Lord.
Several Smiths noticed that copper from one realm had slightly different properties than copper from the Hunting Grounds.
It was an accidental discovery.
But it changed everything!
We started testing… And we haven’t stopped.
All five of the realms possess slightly different properties even in the same materials.
This means that possible alloys and applications are wildly different from what we are used to.
It will take decades, perhaps centuries, to tap into the intricacies of multi-realm alloys and cross realm material applications.”
Leon had never really thought about that.
The metaphysics of each realm was different.
How could the actual physics not also be slightly different.
“Any significant discoveries?”
“White Ebony!
That stuff is a hundred times better at purification and filtration than anything we’ve ever seen.
Used right, we can create crucibles that deem only a specific alloy mixture as Pure, and everything else will just get filtered out by the effects of the White Ebony.” The Silver tapped his chin for a moment before obviously recalling something else, “Oh!
And projectiles made with Hunting Ground Ebony gain a small tracking effect when launched.
And Apocryphal Ebony?
When ground down into ink, any pages that get written on with that ink become nearly indestructible and fireproof.
Some of the others are working on more applications.
I’m testing material tensile and compressive strength.
While Leon was genuinely curious about all the applications.
He was just glad that the Goblin Dremora were taking the initiative and making discoveries.
Who knew what all of this could lead to one day.
“Is everything being recorded?
Catalogued and archived for every Goblin smith to use as reference?” Leon asked.
The master smith scratched the back of his head with a confused look, “I’m… not sure My Lord.”
Leon thought for a moment before responding, “Gather all the Master Smiths, tell them all to come to the Palace.
This is too important to let it all just be individual discoveries and kept among the Masters.”
The Silver Goblin Smith straightened, “At once My Lord!
How soon?”
“Immediately.” Leon replied and changed course to return to the Palace.
A couple of hours later, Leon was seated on his throne before a congregation of Goblins Dremora, both Gold and Silver.
The Palace’s throne room was more than enough to accommodate the throng of Master Smiths.
“I have gathered you all to discuss a few things.
First, I noticed that many of you are taking the initiative to explore and develop new alloys and materials.
I applaud the effort and am greatly pleased by this.
But I needed to address something.
Soon, there will be millions of Goblin Dremora, deeper into the future your numbers will be uncountable and ever growing.
We need a way to teach the newcomers.
So, from this day forth, everything will be recorded and compiled.
Records of every experiment will be archived for reference by future smiths and craftsmen.” Leon paused to allow them to digest what he was saying, “I will not tell you how this needs to be accomplished.
You can figure this out yourselves.
What I want to avoid is millions of new craftsmen in the future needing to run through all of the same experimental phases, rehashing the same things to reinvent the same things that you all have already accomplished.”
The throne room exploded with Master Smiths chattering among themselves as they began debating.
Leon dismissed them from the throne room; they could work it all out themselves.
He just needed to make sure that this trend started.
With that done, Leon shifted over to the Hunting Grounds and took in the changes that had happened there.
Grasslands were spreading in a near exponential fashion.
Forests were cropping up everywhere.
Nuckelavee were busy culling predators that were breeding too fast while simultaneously helping to expand the growth of the ecosystems.
Leon had provided them with more samples from his travels.
New magical plants, new mundane plants.
Varieties of birds, rats, bees, ants and more that he had picked up from the Americas and India.
He’d cleared out a few garden sections at supermarkets and purchased a variety of fruit and vegetables that hadn’t already been present too.
The growth was explosive.
The ecosystems were flourishing.
The Island that he had transplanted had undergone some drastic changes.
The Goblins had dug tunnels below the inlet and were expanding their underground kingdom like it was going out of style.
Fresh new ore veins they sought after now that their mines were no longer regenerating.
The Centaurs had spread and appeared to have a friendly relationship with the Nuckelavee and had begun assisting them in spreading and conserving the ecology of their new realm.
The overall spread of the ecosystems in the Hunting Grounds looked like it had been developing for fifteen to twenty years instead of less than a year.
But the situation in the Shivering Isles was very different.
Its environment didn’t boost the growth of its ecosystems.
The growth was appropriate for less than a year’s worth of development.
Surprisingly, the Nuckelavee had already started planting things in the Colored Rooms as well.
But it wasn’t looking good.
The majority of what they had transplanted looked like it was wilting and unable to grow in the various interconnected dimensions that were the Colored Rooms.
The biggest surprise was Apocrypha.
The Nuckelavee had managed to plant various things within.
The plants were growing directly out of the black books that covered the islands.
After spotting this Leon summoned one of the Nuckelavee that was tending the plants in Apocrypha and asked him about it.
“The books that make up the ‘land’ or ‘stone’ or anything like that seem to have the physical properties of whatever role that book is taking.
If the book is ‘Fertile Soil’ then a plant will take root there easily and require no water or fertilizer.” The Nuckelavee explained, “We expect progress in Apocrypha to outstrip all other realms save the Hunting Grounds.
Many of these books represent ‘Perfect Growth Medium’ that can sustain and grow anything, Plant, Fungi, Alge.
And we can essentially use these books as mobile pots that never need tending.
The Caretakers are using them in the Hunting Grounds to help the spread of the rarer herbs and fungi.”
Leon looked around Apocrypha in disbelief.
Previously, he had basically dismissed this realm as something that would eventually become useful as a library for his Dremora.
Now… it could still serve that function.
But the fact that the books contained various properties based on the material that they represented?
Apocrypha may end up being his most valuable Realm given time.
“Keep up the good work.” Leon said to the Nuckelavee before dismissing the creature to go about its previous business.
Things were looking up.
And Leon was pretty satisfied with the direction everything was moving.
Nodding to himself, Leon decided to pull up his status screen and check on everything.
Race: Oblivion Lord
Named Realm/s: Coldharbour, The Hunting Grounds, The Shivering Isles, Apocrypha, The Colored Rooms
Unnamed Realm/s: None
Avatar/s: [Coldharbour 1/1(Human/changeable)] [HP-Earthly Realm 1/1(human/wizard)]
Mind: 5
Body: 5
Spirit: 5
OP: 132987
[Shop]
[Task: Steal at least 10,000 Gold Coins worth of items/valuables/trinkets.
“The hell?” Leon stared at the Task menu in shock, “When the hell did I complete this?
I don’t remember stealing anything…”
He mentally reviewed everything that he had acquired since he’d gotten the task.
He couldn’t figure it out… then his eyes widened as realization dawned on him.
“…It was the People…” Leon muttered to himself.
It was a sobering realization.
Apparently, humans are counted as Valuables of some sort.
That didn’t really feel right to him.
But he dismissed it.
This was an unexpected boon.
Mentally he accepted the reward and felt his Awareness expanding to encompass a new Realm.
Evergloam.
New energy rushed through him, his avatars once again strengthened as his stats shifted to 6 across the board.
Though it was still exciting to see the numbers going up.
It didn’t feel as amazing as it had the first few times.
It no longer felt like a monumental success, and more like just another step in the right direction.
Nevertheless, he did a little jig as he concentrated on his newest realm.
Looking over Evergloam was the first time since Leon first became aware of Coldharbour where he actually felt the enormity of the Realm he had gained.
It was hard to comprehend The Hunting Grounds because it was infinite, Leon’s mind struggled to truly assign scale to it properly.
The same applied for most of his realms.
Coldharbour’s mines extended infinitely deep making the planet like a T.A.R.D.I.S, bigger on the inside.
The Colored Rooms was an infinite series of interconnected planes filled with light and crystals and all that stuff.
The Shivering Isles was infinite oceans with islands dotted everywhere.
Apocrypha was also infinite oceans and islands made entirely of books.
But Evergloam was a singular massive continent cast in perpetual nigh time with only a moon for lighting.
And the Continent was like one of those Cultivator story continents with Chinese math.
The continent was over a million miles long and wide.
Dotted here and there with abandoned castle structures, towns and other buildings separated by tens of thousands of miles.
And every shadow contained a sub-dimension, pocket realms that varied from things like hidden library’s to entire continental land masses.
As the moon in the sky shifted, access to these sub-dimensions changed and shifted.
The sense of how vast Evergloam was significantly different since it was almost comprehensible.
Though, like all of his other realms so far, it was devoid of anything resembling life.
No trees, no flowers, no grasses or mosses or mushrooms.
And this realm was going to come with some challenges for introducing flora and fauna.
Perpetual nighttime with only moonlight was going to make plants difficult to grow.
Or require a new type of ecosystem altogether.
The Nuckelavee were going to have fun.
After admiring his new realm for a moment, Leon pulled up his tasks once more to see what his next one was going to be.
Race: Oblivion Lord
Named Realm/s: Coldharbour, The Hunting Grounds, The Shivering Isles, Apocrypha, The Colored Rooms, Evergloam
Unnamed Realm/s: None
Avatar/s: [Coldharbour 1/1(Human/changeable)] [HP-Earthly Realm 1/1(human/wizard)]
Mind: 6
Body: 6
Spirit: 6
OP: 134553
[Shop]
[Task: Steal a Diary without taking any other Valuables.
Reward: Spiral Skein]
Leon stared at the Task for several long moments before he burst out laughing.
“There is no way that this is a coincidence!” He finally said to himself as he calmed down.
Tomorrow, Leon had already intended to steal a Diary.
Tom Riddle’s Diary to be exact.
This Task literally could not have come at a better time!
What kind of insane luck was this?
Shaking his head, Leon pushed away all the thoughts and schemes that were crowding his mind and pulled out his to-do list.
He had really failed this Summer Break at finding a good work/life balance.
He tended to get too deeply tied up in one or the other and forget about stuff or get sidetracked.
But the other items on his list were all mostly completed.
Only getting Tom’s Diary and adding a new Morty to the team was still there.
Homework had been completed early.
Seed population acquired and prepped.
Dremora army posted within the Vivarium and ready to go.
But he had piled on dozens of new tasks.
New things that he would need to do to progress… New plans to work towards.
But one will never accomplish anything if they spread themselves across a million things.
Leon needed to focus on individual tasks to completion, then move on.
No matter how interesting a side topic arose in the midst of whatever he was working on.
Leon proceeded to pull out multiple different blank notebooks and labeled each of them.
Since he had so many things popping up, Leon felt like he needed to organize them a bit better than just filling a single notebook.
One for long-term plans, one for potential business interests, one for short term goals, and another for miscellaneous.
Taking out his original notebook he quickly separated everything out between the different books.
With everything organized, Leon felt like it was actually less than he’d thought it was.
And yet it was still enough that he doubted twenty years would be enough to get through it all.
Not unless he somehow stumbled into billions of OP overnight or something like that.
And his system seemed purposefully designed to bottleneck his OP generation.
With close to 135k points at the moment, Leon was torn as to whether he should spend more on knowledge for himself, or if he should purchase a Novice Tier Magicka book for the Mortys and Goblin Dremora to study while in the Vivarium.
With several hundred years to build off of Novice level knowledge, they vary well could develop a great deal of understanding, which would make them far more useful in the future.
After thinking it over for several minutes, Leon concluded that he was better served waiting to make purchases for his personal benefit.
As useful as it would be to have his Dremora capable of using their Magicka, having them develop with their inherit magics as Dremora would promote significantly different approaches to Magicka in the future that could lead to mixed systems that were stronger as a whole.
The Mortys are masters of dark magic in the wizarding world.
And now they were applying that logic to the materials and resources of Elder Scrolls universe.
They had already discovered new uses for Ebony, and even Soul Crystals that were found in Coldharbour’s mines.
If he fully introduced Magicka to them, they would change their approach and potentially miss out on something extraordinary.
With that in mind, Leon looked through the various items in the [Shop] creating a short list of the knowledge/disciplines/skills that he wanted to purchase.
Smithing started out in the same pricing scheme as schools of magic, at first, Leon didn’t understand why as he scrolled through the lists.
But after a few minutes of searching, he thought he had figured out the reason for the expense.
There was no discrete Woodworking skill, or a dozen other skills like Engineering that he thought of when he thought of crafting.
He suspected that they were all rolled up into Smithing.
That would explain its difference from stuff like Painting and Calligraphy that started at only 200 OP.
The Shortlist included the rest of the Magical disciplines and smithing.
Which was actually 35 separate items.
The sheer number of different ‘Schools’ of magic came from the fact that magicka isn’t a fixed system.
The sheer variety of ways that it could interact with the underlying fabric of reality was mind boggling.
Leon understood this pretty well since he’d absorbed the classical ones already.
They were called ‘schools’ because they were ‘schools of thought’ a way of tuning magicka to achieve specific effects.
Some of them didn’t even use Magicka, but pure soul power and essence.
Leon was not about to make the mistake of purchasing a whole plethora of different schools all at once.
He settled on doing six at once, since that was the number in his stat block.
Did that make sense?
Maybe not.
But Leon could deal with it if he went catatonic again.
Selecting Smithing, Thu’um, Blood, Flesh, Soul and Shadow magic at the Novice Tier.
Leon closed his eyes and pressed the acceptance on the purchase.
Information instantly seared itself into the very fabric of Leon’s being.
Too much information.
Not from the Magical Schools, but from Smithing!
He had been very right about it being a lot of things all bundled up into one package.
It included metallurgy, engineering, architecture, woodworking, blade-smithing, armor-smithing, and tools… lots and lots of tools.
The sheer amount of information in just the Smithing purchase would have left Leon flopping like a fish.
Let alone the decade of magical information that also poured in.
Leon found himself, once again, drooling all over himself as his mind churned with information that should have taken decades of dedicated study to learn.
When he finally recovered, Leon wiped off the drool and didn’t even bother pulling out his notebook.
He just resigned himself to the fact that this was the price he had to pay for progress that skipped decades of normal learning.
It was too bad he couldn’t do it for Harry Potter magic.
He had to do that the hard way.