Kingdom Building Game: Starting Out With A Million Upgrade Points!-Chapter 163: • A Gamble on the Heavens

His hair was a wild mess, covered in soot. His coat, patched together from all kinds of fabric, flapped as he rushed between his inventions.

Without looking up, he spoke.

"Ah. Right, right. You must be the emperor."

Varian’s face gave nothing away. "And you must be the man planning to change the way wars are fought."

The finally turned. His goggles, smeared with grease, hid his eyes. With a quick flick, he pushed them up onto his forehead, revealing a pair of green mayanically excited eyes.

"Planning to? My dear Emperor, I already have."

Veydris cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, this is Edric Valtz."

Edric gave an exaggerated bow—but then accidentally tripped over a pile of gears, landing face-first into a half-built turbine. Sparks flew.

"Bah! That was on purpose!" Edric grumbled, standing up and dusting himself off. "You have to know how something breaks before you can make it perfect."

Varian raised an eyebrow. "You sound way too comfortable with failure."

Edric smirked. "Failure is just a step taken necessary for success, Your Majesty. If people quit after a few explosions, we’d still be living in caves."

Varian stared at him—the same cold, unreadable stare that had sent men to their graves.

Edric, either too smart or too crazy to care, just grinned wider.

Varian crossed his arms. "Show me this ’Airship.’"

Edric’s grin stretched wider. "Ah, now we’re talking!"

He pointed to a massive curtain at the far end of the workshop. With a snap of his fingers, mechanical arms whirred, pulling it away.

And there it was.

The curtain dropped, revealing a massive airship—nearly a hundred feet long—its hull crafted from polished brass and dark steel.

The front was shaped like a warship’s prow, reinforced with layered plating that curved into a sharp ram. Along the sides, glowing blue runes pulsed across the smooth hull, stabilizing flight, while rows of vent-like exhaust ports channeled bursts of steam and mana.

Above, a glass-windowed command deck jutted out like a naval dreadnought’s bridge. At the rear, two massive cylindrical engines, wrapped in enchanted copper coils, connected to four dark ironwood propellers coated in alchemical lacquer, angled for precise control.

Varian stepped closer, pressing a hand against the cold steel.

"This will fly?"

Edric let out a sharp laugh. "Oh, Your Majesty... Not only will it fly—it will dominate the skies."

Varian exhaled slowly.

Varian’s fingers traced the cold steel of the airship’s hull, his expression calm.

The weight of what stood before him was evident—not just a machine, but a weapon of war, a tool to reshape his empire’s reach.

Yet, he was not a man who took grand claims at face value.

He turned his gaze back to Edric.

"I will be the judge of that."

Edric’s manic grin didn’t waver, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes—excitement, anticipation, or perhaps just the endless calculations of a mind that never stopped working.

Varian stepped back, arms folding across his chest.

"How much did it cost to create this thing?"

At that, Edric’s grin stretched even wider, if such a thing were possible. "Ah! A proper question! The answer, Your Majesty, is a lot."

Varian’s stare remained flat. "Be specific."

Edric threw up his hands. "Fine, fine! Materials alone? Fifty thousand gold royals. Factoring in labor, custom alchemical processes, experimental enchantments, and my own genius? Easily another twenty thousand."

Veydris Kain let out the barest cough behind him. Even he hadn’t been given the full price before now.

Varian, however, remained unmoved.

"Seventy thousand gold," he repeated, tone as dry as a sunbaked wasteland. "For a single airship."

Edric scratched his chin, clearly considering something. Then he gave a small shrug. "Give or take a few explosions along the way."

Veydris tensed, but Edric waved a soot-streaked hand dismissively. "Oh, please. You don’t create something this revolutionary without a few setbacks! But I assure you, every detonation was in the name of progress."

Varian’s gaze was like ice. "And how long did it take?"

Edric perked up. "Ah! Now there’s a fun answer. The framework? Six months. The propulsion system? Eight months. Stabilization? That took a bit longer—trial and error, you see. So, nearly two years in total."

Varian’s fingers tapped against the metal. "Two years."

"Indeed, Your Majesty!" Edric puffed out his chest, clearly proud. "Two years to bring mankind one step closer to the heavens! Why, do you know how many scholars, alchemists, and enchanters have tried and failed to—"

Varian held up a hand, and Edric immediately fell silent.

The emperor’s mind was already at work, calculating. Seventy thousand gold. Two years of effort. If these airships truly worked as promised, they would render traditional siege warfare obsolete. But at that price and that timeline...

He turned back to Edric.

"How fast can you build the next one?"

Edric’s grin stretched so wide it looked almost inhuman, his green eyes glinting with his barely contained excitement.

He leaned forward, rubbing his soot-streaked hands together like a man about to unveil a grand trick. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Oh-ho! Now that’s the right question, Your Majesty." His voice was filled with anticipation. "With your full support? As in, all the resources, funding, and manpower I could ever want?"

Varian gave a slow nod. "Hypothetically."

Edric let out a sharp cackle, spinning on his heel as if the very thought electrified him.

"Then hypothetically speaking—" he turned back, his grin bordering on manic—"I could produce ten times this amount in a quarter of the time."

Veydris stiffened. "You’re claiming you could build ten airships in six months?"

Edric’s grin didn’t falter. "Oh, absolutely! These hands are capable of miracles given the right conditions. You see, the first one always takes the longest—trial, error, reworking theories, unexpected boom moments—" he waved his hands dramatically before smirking, "—but now? Now I have the blueprint. The process is understood. Refinement is all that’s left."

He spread his arms wide as if addressing an invisible audience. "Give me a proper manufacturing district, an entire research facility, and workshops filled with enchanters and artificers, and I will flood your skies with machines of war."