Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

Wolfe woke up in the morning to a deep rumbling in the ground, more intense than when the Treant was on its way over and an intense pull at his mana storage that exceeded anything that he had felt before. Whatever they were casting up there was massive, but he only felt happiness and excitement from the Witches through the link.

The noise startled Stephanie so much that she almost jumped off his chest, then settled back down and kneaded his chest with her paws as if that would make him a better pillow.

[They spent all night working on the Castle plans, and now they're starting with the rough-in. With the help of the Faerie, they can move the trees instead of cutting them down to make a large enough clearing.

The little winged one had a great idea for the castle wall, which was to rearrange the trees into a solid ring of Fae Redwoods with a door in them. Then they'll build the keep in the middle and set up the rest of the buildings through the remaining trees.

Since it's a Fae Forest, they decided that layers of buildings in the trees connected by walkways with one tall spire of stone were more appropriate than a whole stone castle, and they all knew fairytales that described Fae Cities, and this is what they came up with.] Stephanie explained.

The rumbling that he had heard was the trees above the Den being rearranged to suit the new floorplan and reshaped with a mix of Fae and Witch magic to create the living homes and walkways that were needed to build the castle itself.

From the feeling of it, everyone was out there, and they were going all out to get the castle built. With ten Rank Two Witches, they should have plenty of power available, but they were drawing from his storage faster than he could replace it as well.

As a preventative measure, since he didn't know how long this would take, Wolfe increased the mana-gathering array in his room to the maximum and pulled as much as possible into his rapidly depleting Mana Focuses.

The increased density also let more mana flow through the link, and the draw increased to match, making him wonder what in the world they were up to. Not even creating the entire Fae Forest had taken this much power, and they were still going.

After nearly two hours, where one of his Familiars was guiding them to adjust the flow when his storage got low, the ritual up above had finally finished, and the flow of mana abruptly stopped.

A familiar shrill voice echoed down the tunnel that led out of the Den, and Wolfe smiled. "I told those stupid redwoods that I could do it every bit as well as they could. Ha, look at that. We finished all the defensive spells in one go."

Coconut the Treant was very proud of themselves, and the witches must have been feeding the Fae creature mana to complete the spells protecting this place that did not come from the abilities of Witch Magic.

Wolfe picked Stephanie up and activated an armour spell to put himself in a dapper black business suit with a red shirt to go up and see the scenery. His old go-to of a snow camouflage ghillie suit wasn't really suited to the new environment, and he hadn't had time to pick a new outfit. The 'Demon Lord' look would have to do for the day while he picked out appropriate wear for the nearly tropical Fae woods.

Or perhaps this was right. If you were lost in the woods, seeing things that weren't there, and constantly finding yourself at the same spot, wouldn't a well-dressed man seem like just the sort of hallucination that you shouldn't believe? Making everyone believe that he was part of the illusion was an excellent disguise in this place.

The witches who were gathered around the shack that marked the entrance to the Den, which now looked more like a forgotten gardening shack than a hovel in the waste, all smirked when he came out dressed as a proper Demon Lord and then stopped to look around.

The long cliff that the Den had been built along had been modified, and it was now a terraced waterfall covered in ponds for most of its visible length, and the forest was notably thinner around him, with a solid wall of trees fifty meters away.

Wolfe looked to the right, and there was a seemingly natural gap in the trees that served as the gate on this side, but he could see that there was a portcullis drawn up, which could close it in an instant.

Running from the doorway and past the first few ponds on top of the ridgeline, a stone pathway marked the way from the gate and up the cliff to the single white stone spire that reached the treetops, with a large platform at the top, allowing the defenders to shoot downward into the courtyard, should it be breached, or to simply enjoy the sunlight and sit around when they had time off.

It was a scene straight out of a fairytale children's movie, and they had clearly put a lot of thought not only into aesthetics but also into the practical matters of a working fortification.

Getting up there wouldn't be easy without magic since it was hundreds of metres in the air, but Wolfe could add that sort of device easily enough. It only took up and down on a gravity magic spell to make a basic elevator platform, and even with his limited spell-casting skills, a two-directional gravity spell barely counted as magic.

"Good morning, ladies. I like what you've done with the place." He greeted the nearest group of witches with a smile.

"Just the man we've been waiting for. They've got a long list of things that they couldn't do with their magic, like the tabletops and some gold railings. We did come up with some cool things, though. Well, the defensive spells are also cool, but that doesn't count.

But the wind nets under the walkways keep anyone from falling. Those are pretty awesome, and the houses are all built into the trees. They just grew expanded areas of the trunk and turned them into living quarters.

Then there are the walkways themselves. They're actually living vines. And the windows are the greatest part. They're Air Magic, so you can't see them, but they don't let anything pass through, so you don't get dust and leaves in the house.

The Fae all insist that it's not going to get cold here, so there's no heating, but we can worry about that if it changes." She informed Wolfe with an eager smile.

"So, what took such a massive amount of mana? It was more than we spent to make this entire Fae Forest in the first place." Wolfe asked.

"Oh, that would be the tower. There is so much magic on that thing that it's insane. The Fae wanted it to be the focal point for the Forest, so Coconut layered spell after spell on it to do basically anything we wanted in the area, from repairing the walkways, reshaping the trees, changing the weather, maintaining the hedges, changing the flowers in the flowerbeds. It's like a command center, and it's all controlled from a crystal orb up at the top of the tower in a hidden room below the main platform level."

"Alright, that is pretty cool. I didn't think that it would take that much mana. It just caught me off guard." Wolfe agreed.

Katerina the Faerie flew over at that point and landed on Stephanie, who was still in Wolfe's arms.

"It wasn't the maintenance spell that took so much. Coconut was having trouble with the Wastes and their magic trying to encroach on the Forest, so she took the effort to create a creeping spell to help stabilize the area around the Fae Forest so that the Frozen Wastes won't mess with the outer edges.

Given some time, it will spread and normalize the region, but you know how Treants are. They don't really care how long it takes as long as they don't have to worry about it again."

Wolfe had gotten that impression from the Redwood. They didn't seem to have a sense of time. Everything was simply done when it got done. Even their sudden meeting didn't feel hurried, it just happened, and then he came to inform Coconut of the verdict.