In a world without magic and falling behind in tech, most people would think that starting a city in a tough place is a crazy idea. But for Adam, building a city didn't seem like an impossible task.
After safely freeing the frozen heads of Snow Worms, Adam cleverly used two sturdy elemental threads to tie around their heads. With this setup, he guided them underground like regular farm animals. Down there, they acted like huge natural diggers, breaking up the soil and laying the groundwork for a city foundation.
What really caught Adam's attention about using Snow Worms was how they took care of themselves. These creatures ate the ice they moved, so there was no need for extra cleanup. What was even cooler was that as they ate the ice, each Snow Worm would actually grow a new head, which would then split off and become its own creature.
This got Adam thinking. Once the dragon-man, who was knocked out from a tough soul contract, woke up, he could take over the digging. Meanwhile, Adam could go catch more Snow Worms, cut them in half, and make even more of them. Doing this, Adam could tackle both the digging issue and gather Energy stones to build the city walls.
In this strange world, where his pocket dimension wasn't working, Energy Stones had become super important. While Adam couldn't put runes on them, he found out that old magic arrays still worked just fine. The magic arrays he got from his previous trips to Ceylon Island were really useful for this.
In simple terms, just adding a basic defense magic array would make his future City of Freedom a lot more appealing.
The buzz of construction filled this foreign world as workers and magical beings got busy under Adam's smart planning.
The next day, the dragonkin woke up. Sadly, it looked like his soul was damaged, probably from the stress of the soul contract. He was now more like a programmed robot, only able to follow orders.
Adam was a bit down but not crushed. Once the city was done and thriving, it would draw risk-taking adventurers. With the right rewards, these adventurers could bring him all kinds of test subjects, even possibly a young dragon.
After checking out the dragonkin's bad state, Adam decided to put him to work. Using his own dragon blood, he strengthened the dragon-man's weaker bloodline. Then he put jittery Kambi, who was eagerly waiting for a job, in charge of the next construction steps. After setting this up, Adam flew alone into the vast, unknown icy lands.
He had two goals: to find big magical creatures that could help build the city and to get more Snow Worms.
Things were going well for Adam. While the icy plains appeared empty, they were actually full of hidden, underground creatures. Thanks to Adam's power, he found all the big magical beasts he wanted. Two days later, he came back to where the city was being built, guiding along five massive Snow Worms and dozens of yetis.
The devil took over the dragonkin, Rice, fully controlling him. With this new addition, the construction of the city sped up like never before. Adam's main job was to keep the Snow Worms eating. The Energy Stones they spat out were then strategically set around the city, which was made from ice blocks, following ancient magical blueprints.
Kambi got a new task: Adam told him to go meet the so-called savage tribes that lived on these icy plains.
After enduring three cycles of blizzards, the first city on these icy plains was finished. When Adam poured in the first wave of elemental energy, the magic formations lit up, wrapping the City of Freedom in a transparent, thin safety shield. For the first time ever, a completely secure refuge existed on the icy plains.
"Master, are you leaving right now? Who's going to handle the city's opening ceremony?" the devil asked, curious.
Just as the blizzard had stopped and the icy plains were calm, Adam decided it was a good time to explore the world's edge. About the opening ceremony, he said, "You can manage it as Rice. I shouldn't show up for now."
The devil hesitated, then got a bit excited. "What about the city's Lord? Is that also going to be me?"
Adam nodded. His body had been growing every single day since he'd arrived on these icy plains a month ago. Nodding was getting tricky because his dragon horns kept hitting the low walls.
"The City of Freedom is brand new. I doubt anyone will even show up for the ceremony. Kambi has been missing for a month; he's either dead in a snowstorm or killed by the locals," Adam said, pulling out his horns, which put a damper on the devil's excitement. Kambi's real master was Lina, and Adam couldn't be sure what had happened to him.
The devil made a face but stayed pumped. "No problem, Master. The City of Freedom will get famous because its Lord is THE Garfield!"
"Something's definitely off with this Plane." Five days later, Adam found himself standing a hundred kilometers from the edge of the world, talking to himself.
A hundred kilometers seemed to be the safe distance. Adam had a feeling that one more step would make his dragon body fall apart, forcing him to reveal his mage identity and activate Mage Armor to survive.
From what mages understand about world boundaries, it should be a stable, cloudy, mysterious fog-like structure. But right now, the boundary in front of Adam was glowing in all sorts of colors, looking like the Northern Lights, and sending out bursts of dangerous and scary energy.
The signs were getting clearer: the crystal walls of the Dragon Plane were slowly deteriorating due to some strange energy, causing its core essence to change. At the moment, Adam wasn't sure if this was an attack or some sort of cosmic collision.
He stayed close to the boundary for over ten days. In the long life of a Plane, this time was nothing at all. Yet, Adam saw that the safe zone had moved almost a millimeter back into the Plane.
If things kept going this way, it wouldn't be more than a few hundred years before the living space for the Dragon Plane's residents got drastically smaller. When that happened, devastating conflicts within the Plane would break out for sure.
Adam realized that his first exploration mission was running into a serious issue. Originally, considering the Dragon Plane's status, a group and a couple of towers would have been sufficient for the expedition. But if another Plane, one that could actually invade other Planes, was also eyeing the Dragon Plane, then his mission would have to level up. It looked like a battle between two different levels of civilizations could be coming.
"Get back to previous power level, absorb knowledge, focus on the Dragon Slayer Guild," Adam thought, listing his most urgent tasks. His earlier relaxed approach wouldn't work anymore; he had to move quickly now.
Five days afterward, Adam came back to the City of Freedom. Just then, the demon greeted him with some welcome news: "Master, Kambi has made it back."
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