Chapter 139 - Artican's Kingdom 03.
[Chapter Size: 3100 Words.]
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Thrid Person POV
Westeros, 296 AC.
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In an extremely beautiful place with various flowers and plants, while the light struck like a ray in the middle of that location, someone approached and went to the middle of it. Jon, wearing simple clothes, looked at his special garden, different from the one in the castle where he could place a vast collection of flowers that would make any Tyrell envious, exclusively for his wives to have a privileged view.
Here, things were a bit different; the colors were replaced by not so variable tones, and much of the smell was substituted by the toxic odor of some of his plants and flowers. This was the king's greenhouse, inaugurated two weeks ago, and he had spent more time here than anywhere else at the moment, occupied with his projects, after all, he had very limited time with the trip to Essos.
He was planning potions and medicine, while Seraphine was by his side. "Jon. Can you say this will work? I mean, it's kind of hard to believe... even for you..." The child of the forest looked at him with suspicion.
"I studied Valyrian steel and even dragonglass to create something like this, let's see if it works." Jon commented as he reached the middle of the place where there was a tree with many leaves around it with large cocoons at its tip. The strange tree was bathed in more sunlight than any other.
Jon approached, and this was his years-long project, which he finally put into practice after much study and applying his knowledge. He created a not-so-perfect portal, but he would improve it from now on, as he approached one of the cocoons and opened it, with Seraphine watching with great interest.
In the cocoon, it opened as if to show its fruit, but instead of something edible, a red crystal emerged from it. Jon calmly pulled it out without damaging the plant, and the crystal was seen by both with some admiration.
But the child of the forest saw the normal crystal and looked at Jon with some suspicion. "You spent two weeks energizing the Grand Weirwood for this crystal, does it really work?" she asked.
It was true that Jon had spent two weeks using his magic directly on the plant, which needed more of his energy to grow than any other he had ever used in his life. Jon was not shaken by Seraphine's skeptical tone and looked at the crystal attentively as it suddenly shone like a great bonfire, making the child of the forest, who always had an air of seriousness and erudition, become alarmed.
"Wait... it worked!!!" she exclaimed louder than she intended, looking at Jon and his crystal with caution.
"Yes..." Jon smiled at the light illuminating everything with a red hue.
This was his great project, to create magical crystals through his powers with a special plant, which would become a new transformation for Artica, a magical city with its own light, illuminating the streets and the families that made up this kingdom.
"This is amazing, King Jon!!" Leaf approached at that moment, carrying two babies in each arm, her own children whom she had given birth to in the last moons, looking with interest at the crystal, aware of Jon's plan and being more skeptical about it than Seraphine.
"Yes... but it's not perfect at all..." Jon had to admit, as the crystal began to lose its brightness and fade completely, as if it were losing its energy and dying.
"That's a shame..." Seraphine, who was quite excited that Jon's plan had worked, was a little disappointed that the crystal had died.
"You don't need to worry about that, it's just a prototype. It doesn't have infinite energy, but I can maintain it, I just have to make it store more energy so it doesn't go out so quickly." Jon spoke, still satisfied that he had made some progress on his project.
"If you increase the energy storage, it could stay on much longer, but how will you put energy into it, or will you be charging the crystals with magic every day?" Leaf asked.
"Of course not..." Jon replied immediately, still looking at the crystal. "There are two ways: either I try to bring the roots of the Grand Weirwood to the surface to fill the posts with crystals, or I genetically modify them and fuse a photosynthesis system, where they will be energized in their batteries by sunlight and illuminate Artica during the night... this will even make it easier for the people of Artica to use these crystals in their homes... that's why I am more confident in using the second method," Jon explained.
"You're talking about that complex system that plants use to turn sunlight into food for themselves?!" Seraphine murmured, stunned, while Leaf also looked at Jon in surprise.
"Yes... I'm confident I can do it in a few years." Jon said with a confident tone. "My children will see Artica illuminated when they become aware of themselves and will always remember the city lit up for the rest of their lives." Jon was confident he could achieve this in 2 or 3 years.
"If you plan this, then it will surely work, King Jon." Leaf smiled.
"Yes, Jon!" Seraphine said in a more cheerful tone. She called Jon without the title when they were alone, so Jon didn't mind.
"This is good... I'll work here half of my time in the coming weeks." Jon said as he prepared to leave his garden.
"Do you want me to prepare the vitamins?" Seraphine asked.
"I would like the children of the forest who learned alchemy with me to do it. After all, I need to put magic in the vitamins for the babies. I want my children to be immune to diseases and any infections in these first years of life." Jon said. He also worked to ensure that his children wouldn't suffer what a newborn baby would normally suffer, and he had to be delicate with the doses to give his children. Therefore, he included the children of the forest and their magic, which filtered perfectly for babies without harming them.
"It will be done, Jon." Seraphine said, and Jon nodded.
"I'll be going then. I need to do a few things before returning to the castle." Jon said as he left the place with the children of the forest who worked there, bidding him farewell. He exited through the doors while the royal guards waited for him, with a small crowd waiting to see the king. Since the royal guards were at the door of that structure used particularly by the king, it meant that he was there, as every day Jon had been working.
He waved calmly to everyone and followed on Panis, his horse, to a platform, instead of the castle or another place. "Should we wait for you at the castle, my king?" The royal guard asked, and Jon nodded.
"Exactly, I'll be out of the city for a few hours and tell my queens I'll be home for our banquet." Jon said while the men nodded, and Jon proceeded up the platform, which was empty. The place had more than 50 square meters, and it didn't take long for something to appear in the sky of Artica as Eragon began to descend to that location.
Jon saw his dragon with the whole nearby crowd as it landed in the place, roaring loudly, echoing throughout the blacksmiths' district, while some sounds of things falling were heard with some dwarves cursing Eragon with all their might.
"Can you stop being so conspicuous...?" Jon looked at the dragon with a disappointed look while it just snorted smoke from its nose as if it didn't care.
'This dragon is starting to get rebellious... maybe it has entered adolescence or something...' Jon couldn't help but think as he quickly mounted it, and the dragon took off into the sky, ascending above Artica, surpassing the Grand Weirwood. Jon, looking down, could see the red leaves hiding most of the city center, and he guided Eragon to the southwest and south of Artica, passing through the grass fields with thousands of horses being cared for there and heading to the area of green forests. He followed to a specific forest while Eragon descended to a huge open area due to a rocky formation in it.
The dragon landed, its giant weight cracking the ground and knocking down some of the rocks in the place. Jon dismounted while looking at Eragon. "I'll be here for a while. If you want to fly around the region, feel free." Jon said.
But Eragon, hearing that, simply launched frozen flames below him, creating a bed of ice with frozen spikes growing around him, and Jon just shrugged, seeing his dragon begin to lie down for a nap.
Jon descended until he reached the forest, where thousands of lives filled the place, and he saw many wolves approaching him, among them his main wolf, Ghost, with his parents and siblings.
"It's so good to see you again." Jon had to visit them, especially four wolves among the others: Shadow, Blackarrow, Ghost's parents, and Grass, Sun. These four wolves were the first he had encountered after finding Caraxes and before going to Icehill Farm.
He spent his time for the first time in the wolf forest, while packs and packs of wolves approached him, recognizing him as the alpha. Jon could easily control all those wolves; he could devastate thousands of men with a command and didn't even need to exert much effort, as his blood was naturally linked to the animal, unlike Eragon.
Thus, he spent hours with his animals before asking Ghost to go home, as he wanted to keep him close to his wives, and he asked him to take a red-furred she-wolf with him, one he had mated with during his time in western Westeros, wanting to leave some of his offspring for his children as well.
Jon returned to the city atop Eragon, landing at the castle while being greeted by Seryna and Ygritte. He gathered Arya, and they went to dine together. Jon entered his room sometime later, which was filled with dragon eggs, constantly heated by braziers in the room without disturbing them. Jon woke up the next day and went to his special lava bath, refreshing himself as he could. No one else could do this, as it was something that had satisfied him for over seven years since he started this practice, doing it every possible day.
Returning to the blacksmiths' district, he decided to spend his day in the king's forge, organizing the place to start his functions, which were nothing less than studying Valyrian steel. He had only the knowledge, but it was still difficult to create.
Eragon arrived a moment later, landing outside and entering through an opening in the building created for him, and looked at Jon, listening to his father's instructions. "I need you to help me transform this common metal into Valyrian steel." Jon began, picking up many ingots and placing them in front of him on molds where they would be melted.
"Start burning them!" Jon exclaimed, and Eragon launched his enormous hot flames at Jon in front of the metal, causing it to begin to boil easily. Jon's clothes were incinerated at that moment, but it didn't stop him from being fine. As he felt the flames covering him, he picked up a hammer with magical runes around it and began to wait for the ingot to start turning into hot liquid, and it happened easily. Jon began to hammer it, without spreading the molten iron, waiting for it to transform into magical metal.
This continued for a while as Jon constantly hammered. Eragon finally tired and began to falter in his flames, unable to continue after twenty minutes of breathing fire, while Jon appeared naked, hammering the metal as it cooled at that moment.
Jon continued while Eragon was his only witness, watching Jon continue to hammer the metal for ten minutes. But in the end, he sighed, failing, seeing the metal remain common with almost no magic.
"It looks like we failed again, buddy... just like all our attempts." Jon concluded, but he didn't seem disappointed.
Eragon looked at him and snorted, as if blaming Jon. "Is it my fault? Alright... I still don't know the reason. In Valyria, they did it with adult dragons... and they also used a Valyrian steel forge... maybe that's the secret... I'll have to see." Jon said thoughtfully.
Jon saw Eragon look dissatisfied when he mentioned adult dragons, after all, Eragon didn't like to seem weak, but Jon didn't care, as he wasn't an adult dragon after all.
"Anyway... let's wait a few days before trying again." Jon said, and Eragon watched him donning a set of clothes kept there for him, as if he had anticipated this result, and began to leave the king's forge. Outside, Jon found a large group of dwarves with Thor.
"He didn't succeed..." one dwarf guessed, looking at another and tossing a bag of gold to the first, indicating they had been betting on his success.
"I told you using a dragon was a bad idea," another dwarf commented.
"Eragon is essential for this, just as the Valyrians used their dragons for the creation of their steel, I will use my own dragon," Jon said with a severe tone. Sometimes, the dwarves' antipathy towards dragons was tiresome to hear.
The dwarf who had spoken lowered his head in a tone of apology while Thor watched him. "Do you think you'll succeed?" he asked curiously, and Jon nodded.
"Yes, although I think I'll need a Valyrian steel forge for this," Jon said.
"Wait! My king, you need a Valyrian steel forge to create Valyrian steel?!" one of the dwarves looked at Jon, not understanding.
"Yes... I plan to enter Valyria," Jon declared, leaving everyone surprised. Knowing the current state of the place after seeing the magical steel and learning more about it, they even stopped at the entrance to see if Jon had succeeded in making it, as dwarves loved metal, and Valyrian steel enchanted them more than Eldenmetal.
Jon planned to enhance it with the runes placed on the steel he created himself, making the future Valyrian steel armor even lighter. "Thor, come with me." Jon said, entering through another door of the structure, leading to a meeting room where Jon discussed kingdom matters when he wasn't in the senate with Thor.
"I need these projects." He said, taking out a sheet and handing it to the dwarf.
The dwarf took the sheet and began to analyze it. "You want a large structure in that unused mountain in the south. Why do you want something so big? Do you want to house what in that mountain, a handful of dragons?!" he exclaimed, surprised by the open structures around it, with dozens of meters around the mountain.
"Good that you guessed, it saves me time to explain." Jon said, smiling.
"You can't be serious! How?!" Thor exclaimed immediately.
"I have more than a dozen dragon eggs. I'm sure there were some dwarves helping to carry them from Oldtown, so I'm surprised you don't know about them yet." Jon said, almost laughing.
"Twelve! You want to put twelve more dragons in Artica?!" he exclaimed, stunned by this information. As a dwarf, he didn't like dragons either, but Jon knew he was obliged to get used to this scenario.
"Twelve, I plan to have hundreds of them by the time I die in this world, Thor. Don't underestimate me." Jon taunted while the dwarf almost fainted.
"Fine, it will be done!" he said in a bad mood while Jon nodded.
"I'm going then. I'll spend the rest of the day at the castle." Jon declared as he left the forge, took his horse with his guards, and returned to the castle.
He spent some time with his wives, but his attention turned to the book as soon as they went to sleep, with the pregnancy arriving in less than seven days. He got out of bed and took the book, asking Eragon to pick him up as he flew out of the castle after telling the guards he would be out for the rest of the night.
"He took the book..." Seryna murmured.
"Why does he need to leave here with it?! He could read it right here." Ygritte immediately complained from her side of the bed.
"I know... but Jon has been reluctant to read what was written for moons... maybe it's something very important he feels," Seryna murmured.
"Jon usually kills White Walkers, is in the midst of giant wolves, rides a dragon... but hesitates to read a book? I refuse to believe my husband is afraid of a few words written on paper." Ygritte said in the end.
"I know... but if this time is different... I also have a strange feeling about that book... Something will happen by the time the sun rises the next day." Seryna murmured with a tone of concern, and Ygritte couldn't disagree with that.
"Then Jon needs me!" Ygritte immediately switched from a rebellious woman to someone concerned about her husband.
"I doubt you can reach him..." Seryna mocked. "Jon wants to stay away; it's better to let him resolve this. You know he would be here if he wanted to be close. Trust him, he'll know how to handle it alone." Seryna said, urging Ygritte to sleep.
"..." Ygritte remained silent and nodded in the end, but she couldn't sleep for the rest of the night, thinking about her husband.
Jon decided to read it more than 100 meters above the ground in the enormous branches of the Grand Weirwood. Wanting to see what was inside away from anyone so he could read in peace, Eragon landed, and he dismounted, but the dragon didn't leave him. The tree was so gigantic that Eragon could sleep in its branches. Jon simply sat on the tip of one of the trunks, feeling the night breeze in Artica, as he took the book to read.
'Diary of High Septon Maynard... Let's see what you hide...' Jon murmured as he began to read it at that moment, starting from the beginning until he finished it entirely.
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