The next day, at breakfast Ars remembered something by looking at Olivia interacting with the Sunhalo family, he looked at her and said.
"Since you are in charge of education, why don't you go and check the school and daycare? You can pass the day there, on the other hand, I will go to the new villages to check them out."
She quickly agreed, since she was in charge of the education department and she loved children.
She looked at Ars, and replied calmly with a sunny smile.
"I will do what you suggested, it will be helpful for the future, and I get to interact with the children."
Ars nodded and prepared himself to leave, Solana brought his sword to him and he left shortly after.
He moved at high speeds towards the ceramic area where the first new village was located.
When he arrived, he found a few houses and a large ceramic workshop with a few kilns. In it he could see people working on various types of ceramics and pottery, from vases to tableware, to sculptures and art pieces.
The representative of the village quickly approached Ars and greeted him.
"Your majesty, it's an honor to welcome you to our little village. Allow me to take you to see the different things being created."
The representative then slowly showed everything to Ars, most of the things Ars already expected, but when he saw a sculpture of himself being made he shivered and asked about it.
"Shouldn't we be focusing on things that help everyone like pots, bowls and things like that? Why the sculpture of me?"
The representative with a very happy smile answered.
"Your majesty, that sculpture is the most requested item we have, almost everyone that comes, requests one from us. "
Ars couldn't say anything else, he could only complain in his mind.
Once done checking this new village, he thanked the representative and started moving towards the next destination, the mining village.
Once there besides the houses there was a masonry workshop close to the quarry, where you could see a bunch of workers cutting the rocks with the most precision they were capable of. These rocks would later be used mainly to build buildings and maybe a little bit to carve some statues.
Like before, a representative approached, greeted Ars and started giving him a tour.
"Your majesty, welcome to our new village, let me give you a quick tour!"
He started off with the quarry and surrounding structures and later on, the metal mining and processing buildings.
The area where the quarry was as expected, nothing too surprising, on the other hand the first thing Ars noticed on the metal side was a Blacksmiths' Forges where the metal was being processed and then forged into items like nails, axes, hammers, swords, etc.
Not too far, you could also see a refinery where the metal was being refined, most of that metal being iron that later would be turned into steel. Looking around, Ars laughed and commented.
"It seems the blacksmiths in the city all moved here."
The representative nodded, smiled and kept introducing Ars to the village.
"Our forge is divided in 2 parts the biggest one is the normal one where we use the refined metal to create products, the other is where we research new alloys, that are stronger in the desire purpose, for example we managed to create a steel that is harder, but it keeps the normal steel elasticity, so it will be good to create weapons and building parts, even as we speak, we are trying to research new alloys, hoping to help the country develop."
Ars nodded and thanked the representative, then he left for the last new village.
When he arrived he was surprised, this village was much larger than the others but he understood why, it looked like it was larger than the main city and the other 2 villages combined, he couldn't tell properly, since he had just arrived.
He started moving towards what appeared to be the center, and where a larger amount of small buildings were. When he arrived he was greeted by the representative like in the previous villages.
"Your majesty, this community welcomes you, hopefully the walk here was uneventful."
Ars nodded and the representative quickly started introducing the new village.
"In this village currently, there are 40 farms, 35 ranches, and then a few specialized buildings."
Ars was quickly shown the farms and ranches that were on the south part of the village. In the farms they had already started planning what to plant or even planting a lot of different vegetables.
On the other side the Ranches were almost empty, with the exception of an animal here and there, the representative explained.
"The seeds for the farms were not that hard to get, some of the people already had a few seeds with them, and at the north of the village there are a lot of fruits and vegetables from which we could acquire a few seeds, we may require more in the future but, for now it will do. The ranches on the other hand are having a bit of a hard time with few animals or none at all. "
Ars thought about it and it made sense, even if in the past this place was used to produce food for the previous inhabitants, unlike the plants, without human interaction the animals would grow more wild and aggressive over time, and now they were completely wild, domesticating them again would be a lengthy process, so Ars asked.
"Do you have a pen and a paper?"
The representative nodded and went to get them. When he came back, Ars started to write a list of necessary things to buy, in this case animals for the ranches, and some seeds.
Then he turned to the representative and added.
"If you need any other different seeds or animals, just add it to the list. Once the list has everything you guys need, go to Rook and say I sent you, give him the list and he will go buy the items on the list from nearby kingdoms or villages. "
The representative was quite excited, and almost broke off running to complete the list, but Ars grabbed him and commented.
"You can do that after finishing the tour."
The representative blushed realizing he got too excited, so he apologized before continuing the tour.
"Other than the farms and the ranches for now we have a few communal buildings, where we can process animal products. The first we have here is the cheese workshop, followed by the leather workshop, then wineries and breweries, there are also a few silos, and a mill, finally we have a few smokers."
Ars nodded and started thinking, in the first village there were around 50 people there, in the second a bit over 100, and in the last one close to 150. The kingdom currently had around 600, with the current military number being close to 230, there were around 40 people in the construction crew, and the remaining ones were split between some facilities in the main city. He could only think he really needed more people urgently.
Since he was done investigating the new villages, he started going back. When he arrived there were a few people waiting for him. At first he was confused, but then he remembered that he did say that today he would show them why he wasn't in a rush to build proper houses yet.
He looked around and asked Nene.
"Is everyone here?"
She looked around and then nodded, so Ars added.
"In that case, follow me."
He went to a bookshelf and pushed it to the side, much to the surprise of most people there with only a few exceptions.
With the exception of Ars, all of them were looking around at the cave-like tunnel that led them to a door that was already open, then kept following Ars through the stairs until they reached the interior of the dome, most of them were frozen in disbelief and surprised by the dome and even more by the amount of machines inside it.
They followed Ars to a machine that seemed to have a window to another world, with the edge of the window made of energy. Ars smiled at their expressions, clicked on a button and walked into the window. They all did the same, and when they arrived at the other side they were all completely shocked.
Nene asked.
"Is this another island far away from ours? This place feels harder to move around, like my body is heavier."
Ars smiled and proceeded to explain.
"No, this is an entire different planet, and this entire planet is part of my kingdom, there is no other intelligent race here other than the sea kings and some animals, and this is the reason i'm not rushing to build houses on the other side, in the future many citizens will migrate here, so no need to rush and build a lot of houses for now, for now this place time flows at a different rate from the other side, so even if we stay a long time here in the other side it will be only at few minutes at most, it also means that people here will age at a quicker rate, compared to the other side, but at the same time a second here feels and is the same as one second on the other side, but times just passes faster here. And yes this entire planet will be my kingdom in its complete form, and the other side will serve as an entrance and a front to hide this part of it. But the time flow will slowly become the same over time."
They were all shocked silly, they stood there with their mouths open not knowing what to say, this was explosive news for them, but this also made Ars decision to not rush the houses made more sense, since once people started migrating here, there would be a lot of empty houses, leaving the kingdom looking almost like a ghost city, once the kingdom had more people and stabilized, then it would be a good time to build the official houses.
Then Ars led them back to the dome, some were still shocked, others scared and others were excited about the idea of the new planet full of places to explore, and new places to create stuff. Then Ars added.
"And yes that place has a higher gravity than our planet so you will feel heavier there."
They all nodded without thinking too much. Then they left the dome back to Ars home. Then something clicked for Nene, and she commented.
"Now I finally understand why the king's house is made by the side of the hill and not on top of it."
Rosar then added, still a little bit absently minded.
"Then we should give priority to getting more residents. Compared to the area we can use and occupy, the area we are using is so small… But at the same time we need more temporary houses and even more work places. Right now we are missing a whole lot of people and we don't even have all the occupations we could have just for this island..."
Rook agreed with her and looked at Ars before requesting.
"Indeed, I would like to have permission to create a task force for now, with its main role being finding and rescuing people willing to come live in this kingdom, and trading with the outside."
Ars nodded and joked a bit to lift the heavy atmosphere.
"You just want to go on a paid vacation while you travel the seas!
Then Ars got a bit serious.
"But we could do that and not only for refugees, anyone who wants to come and has a clean background could come."
Rook asked, a bit confused.
"You mean, making sure they are not pirates?"
Ars nodded and very seriously replied.
"A little bit of that, but I would prefer some pirates over the world government, and I will explain straight away before some of you get the wrong idea. Some pirates exist because they wanna be free, survive or go on adventures, they are rare but they do exist, though the majority are scum, on the other hand an undercover world government agent will be constantly trying to stab us in the back."