Asher returned to the Basin.
The mont his feet touched the ground; he walked straight toward the edge of the lake.
This was the heart of the entire region.
He stepped forward. The surface broke around him as he dove in while being covered in a barrier.
When he reached the bottom, he found the fairy city.
Tiny hos sat nestled between large coral formations that had hardened over ti.
The structures were no bigger than a closed fist, but their structure showed careful design.
Dod roofs, narrow towers, even small archways that led from one pod to another.
Every corner of the place was made with purpose, like each fairy had known exactly how much space they needed and refused to waste any more.
A jelly-like shield coated the entire thing. It clung to the coral and pulsed gently, not allowing water to sipped through.
He narrowed his eyes and muttered aloud. "I should take this with , so they won't have to rebuild from scratch."
(Oh, what a caring husband. Aren't you being too kind to the fairy queen?) Pantheon shot another remark, his tone half amused, half sharp.
"Shut up,"
(Just saying,) Pantheon added, drawing out the words. (You've been awfully generous lately. Offering territory, giving away high position, now preserving little coral dollhouses. Very kind for soone who don't care about wealth and authority at all.)
(Lucy giving you the go signal, and Hailey's influence is doing wonders on your boring personality,) Pantheon added, its grin audible through the words.
Asher ignored the ancient dragon.
Raising his hand, he focused on the base of the coral cluster. Threads of magic ran beneath it, clinging to the roots like veins.
A soft hum echoed through the water as the entire miniature city shuddered.
The jelly-like shield rippled, adjusting to the sudden movent but didn't break.
With a slow pull, he uprooted the whole structure. Coral snapped quietly at the edges, but the core remained intact.
It drifted upward, slow and weightless, like a bubble rising from the seafloor. He guided it closer, inspecting it one last ti.
Next, he reached into his side, unsealing the dinsional bag.
Space bent slightly as the bag opened wider than its shape allowed. With a careful push, he stored the coral city inside.
The protective barrier pulsed once as it vanished into the pocket dinsion, sealed away until he needed it again.
Then, he clasped his hands together, creating a space where water couldn't enter, allowing him to focus.
When that was done, he moved to the next step.
He extended his hand and focused.
The ground under the lake trembled as stone moved beneath the surface.
He didn't rush. A single mistake could collapse the structure before it even ford.
Layer by layer, he shaped the earth into a hollow sphere, anchoring it deep into the basin's crust.
The size matched a five-story building, wide enough to serve as the sanctuary's heart.
'It's not enough,'
To make it more stable, he reached into his space bag and pulled out several chunks of rare tal.
Materials he got from Eryx.
He crushed the tals with a thought, lting them.
The liquified alloy moved, held together by his will.
With a slow wave, he guided the glowing mixture into the hollow sphere. It filled the inside layer by layer; seeping into every crevice and joint he had shaped earlier.
The sphere was only a mold. A container to hold the tal in shape while it cooled and bonded.
When he finished, he floated down and placed his hand on the surface of the sphere.
The tal had cooled just enough to be soft under his touch, but it was already bonding as a single mass. There wasn't a single seam or gap—no weak point to exploit.
It was solid. Dense. Exactly what he needed.
The spell Pantheon gave him was a more advanced thod of forming a magic circle.
Traditional magic circles were mostly flat—two-dinsional, and sotis three when carved into large structures or weapons.
But this one relied on four dinsions—not just length, width, and height, but ti as well.
The three dinsions were easy enough to grasp. But ti? That was trickier. That's why the core was shaped like a perfect sphere—because it had to rotate at a steady, exact pace to keep everything balanced.
To make that possible, it had to stay in sync with the planet's rotation, which served as the most stable anchor.
Not even the Titan's rampage was able throw it off.
He began by slicing the round tal into twelve equal parts.
Using a laser-like spell, he cut with precision, making sure each part was perfectly clean.
Any mistake, even a small one, would throw off the balance later.
Once the twelve sections were in place, he added a pole in the center. This pole acted like a gear, allowing each of the twelve segnts to rotate on its own.
Next, he started embedding the dragon symbols, beginning with the smallest piece located at the bottom.
As he moved from one segnt to the next, the symbols grew more in numbers, matching the size and position of each rotating part.
Once that was done, he fixed the pole into the ground. From a distance, the entire core now looked like a giant spinning top, perfectly balanced and circular in shape.
Next, he built small pillars around the tal core. Each one was carefully placed, then connected to the base of the main pole.
Their purpose was to draw in energy from the environnt and direct it into the core.
It may have sounded easy, but it actually took him more than an hour to set it up.
'Now for the outside,' he muttered, flying out of the lake and turning his gaze to the steep mountain nearby.
He began constructing tall, tower-like pillars, each one carefully aligned to form a perfect circle.
Once the outer pillars were in place, he created thick and enhanced tal pipelines beneath the ground, linking them all to the central structure hidden below the surface.
Just like the pillars, they would be powered by the sa energy drawn from the environnt, keeping the entire system stable and connected.
'The air is getting colder,' He lift his hand and closed his eyes, sensing from the horizon that he only had a few hours before the ice reached the west.
BLINK!
He teleported back to the round core and placed his hand on it, injecting energy to kickstart the process.
'Activate,' he muttered.
The core began to rotate, humming as it released energy. The pillars near it ca to life, followed by those on the edge of the basin.
Symbols on the tower like pillars glowed, and an invisible barrier slowly ford around the area.
In an instant, the temperature of the entire place began to stabilize.
With the land already brimming with energy, the effect of the pillars beca imdiate.
Plants grown here would now take a quarter of the usual ti to mature, making it ideal for farming. Not only that, but the produce would also contain more nutrients.
'The main issue is fixed. Now I just need to make sure it's safe,' he muttered, teleporting again and finding himself outside the basin area.
He raised his hand, and a magic circle ford in the sky.
CRACK!
Lightning rained down on the barrier.
But instead of blocking or reflecting it, the invisible shield lit up and redirected the electric charges toward the pillars, adding more energy to it.
It worked as designed.
'This barrier is really powerful. Too bad it requires a lot of preparation to set up and isn't designed to be portable,' he said, tapping his chin, satisfied with the result.
He knew so very powerful beasts would adapt to the cold, and the sanctuary would likely attract them, so having a defense layer was a must.
The pillars were also designed so that if the barrier were at risk of breaking, they could launch an attack capable of wiping out everything within a one-kiloter radius.
"This should be more than enough to give them a head start. If they still end up dead after all this, it's not on ," he spoke out loud.
(Brat, you did your part. No need to feel guilty. You're a higher lifeform—just doing this much is already more kindness than they deserve.)
Asher didn't respond. There was no point arguing with Pantheon on this. The ancient dragon was born strong, unlike him—he knew what it was like to be a weak human.
He stretched his arms, pleased with the job he did before teleporting back to the main city.
The mont he arrived; the crowd burst into cheers.
Most of them wore heavy clothing now. The cold had started to seep through the barrier, which was only ant to be temporary. Its strength had also faded over ti.
Among the crowd, one group caught his attention. A woman in robe led them, breathing heavily from excitent as she looked at him.
"Lord Asher," she said, bowing her head. "My na is Camilla, representative of the Ashborns."
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