Trying to hire on graduates while also doing additional electrical development for a power grid kept me very busy. I ultimately had to prioritize who I should dedicate the most time to trying to hire. This was a bit of a tricky problem because I had to weigh the likelihood of actually succeeding in hiring someone to the benefit they'd have. So, despite the fact that the older of the Karnosk brothers would have the largest benefit, he was at the bottom of the list, since the odds were quite low of me successfully convincing him, and it'd likely take a large amount of time to do so.

As a result, as you can imagine, I ultimately did not convince him to enter into any kind of employment. There will be a second opportunity this next year with his younger brother though, at which point I might be able to convince them both. The easiest to hire was the mathematically inclined demon. I would have been shocked if he had declined given how the society on Kembora has operated for decades.

I managed to get the other two dwarves to sign on to certain employment contracts. The geology oriented dwarf has a three year contract to assist in identifying minerals in the Kemboran mines. He's being paid at a fairly high rate, which was my choice to speed negotiations along for my own sake. In a similar manner, I'm paying the dwarf who was previously the head of the self-propelled wagon club a hefty sum on a five year contract, mostly for his connections.

To begin with, he'll be operating as a club advisor, where he'll work with the self-propelled wagon club, and a few other clubs. When I have a bit more free time to organize things, I'll transition him over to helping to manage the development of automobiles, at which point the club will also form a partnership with that business. Technically, the current model of self-propelled wagon would probably be able to be sold, but given the current feelings on the mainland towards fluorite crystal power, I'd prefer that some additional development is done first.

As for my own research work that I had to complete, I managed to get things sized for the gauge of wire we'll use for centralized power transmission, developed the necessary transformers, and started doing some of the design work for telephones. Since we lack easy to make flexible insulators, the wiring will be buried in the ground with lightstone conduit surrounding it to prevent water intrusion. I have plans to design an electric arc furnace to use for smelting as a power consumer for all these power plants, and I'd also like to start a course on electrical engineering so that I can have others work on these designs.

This break was again filled with numerous meetings. With the first full class graduation having happened now, we had a lot to evaluate and discuss at both the academy and within the ministers meetings. This was technically the second graduation, but considering how few graduated the first time due to how things went with the first class, this felt like a more appropriate marker. We had about a fifty percent success rate with hiring on individuals that we were aiming for, which I consider to be a quite high rate.

There is some anticipation about how this will overall impact the mainland, with so many students returning with the knowledge we've given, but that is something time will have to tell. The actual first graduation of a few dozen students seemed to at least have a somewhat positive impact in the handful of places they returned to around the dwarven continent and on Kembora, though it isn't really widespread enough to make more than a footnote.

Academic meetings that we had focused on two things: new courses and pathways for students based on new hires and feedback, and expanding facilities for more clubs and better quality of life. Ultimately, what we decided on was that I'd dole out a certain amount of financing for each department, and they could make their own choices on what to build or not build. They were also welcome to collect or earn money in other ways to expand and build, as long as they get it approved. This method will be used to handle most things, save for a handful of clubs that aren't tied to any particular department.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

As for our ministers meetings, there were a number of updates on multiple fronts. First, rather than building a direct line power facility to power pumps for mining deeper, Zeb has decided it would be better to utilize the power plants I designed. As such, I need to design new pumps and infrastructure to utilize what will be the electrical standard for the power plants. They've built out one test facility, and Zeb says that one team dedicated to working on them with some extra hired help for hauling can build out four to five facilities a year, and half that if they're also the ones installing the conduits and connecting wires.

We also had the first handful of successful train journeys to and from Korsask. One round trip was a short train with passengers, and others hauled mixed supplies. We began transporting rails and ballast material for building more rails to Korsask in preparation for future railway construction, but we also transported some of our military supplies they were still buying, along with some railcars full of salt to trade.

We don't have many people lining up to utilize it yet, but that could change. We do have two trips for passengers planned at the end of the winter break to bring students back to the academy. When they return during the summer break, they might spread the word and begin to increase the popularity of railways. It cuts the journey time between the two cities by 80%, is more comfortable than a wooden wagon, and even after it goes from free to paid it should be cheaper than paying for a wagon or horse to transport you.

There hasn't been any word from the humans or elves lately either, which is raising some red flags among the ministers. The last time we went an extended period without an update, the humans suddenly started selling fluorite powered machines. I doubt that the accident that occurred fully deterred them from copying our technologies. If anything, it shows they are experimenting with them, and likely are working on implementations of our other technologies as well.

Some of the ministers are also voicing concerns about the amount of money we're sinking into the academy without any real rate of return so far. That's understandable, given the scale of operations, but I assured them in a few more years things will begin to come to fruition. It's a much longer term project before it begins to pay itself back. For now that seemed to satisfy them.

I've also been notified that we have almost finished the construction of another large mana crystal. So we need to determine what we plan to do with it. Many ideas were bounced around. Things like installing it on the next island in our island chain, installing it on the other side of Kembora, selling it to Kao, one minister even suggested we should sell it to some of the humans who are more favorable to us at a discount to deepen ties with them though the idea was fiercely contested by other ministers.

For now, we haven't settled on any particular use for it. It's valuable, and wherever we install it will benefit from it being there, but there are a lot of questions as to where can utilize it best. The idea of selling it to the mainland is honestly a pretty good one. While the mainland technically has two such crystals now, one in Korsask and one in our trade city, only one is under mainland control. By comparison, we have three under our control.

We would need to be very careful about giving them to the mainland, however, as we've seen it disrupt the balance of power to the degree of sparking a civil war before. It is possible that we should start preparing to install it on our third island alongside a new city there. While we aren't utilizing all of Kembora or Drazvok's land and ocean resources yet, we'll eventually grow to the point of needing more for food. Getting the third island started on that path may be our best choice. From what I can tell from our maps of it, it's actually the best island we have for food production. It is more heavily eroded with more valleys and lower total elevation. It will require the most work to terraform to be productive, but it has the most potential, especially when it comes to artificial tide pools.

The actual vote for what to do with the crystal will be happening over the summer, so it's a ways away, and I'll have to discuss with Zeb about our construction capabilities before I make my own decision on the matter.

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