"Lilith, are you there?"
As soon as Annan spoke, Lilith's projection appeared before him.
"Too many users are currently making inquiries. Please try your question again later."
"Uh..."
Apparently, he had celebrated Free City's early arrival in the age of Wisdom too soon. During the day, especially working hours, Lilith was often too busy to answer.
Annan had permission to make Lilith prioritize him, but he rarely had any need to use it.
For Lilith to respond at any time, the Mage Tower would need at least a fifth or sixth floor.
Construction on the Mage Tower clanged away day and night. Annan did the math: each floor cost about 700,000 Gold Narls—and that was just the tower itself, without extras like Magic Circles.
The expense was secondary. Even excluding the money sink that was the Gold Depository, Free City's quarterly revenue exceeded that figure. The problem was that a single floor took six or seven months at best. At that rate, reaching a hundred floors would take "only" fifty years!
Annan's face went blank. For an ordinary territory, fifty years spanned generations of family legacy.
Just imagine: fifty years from now, Olmedo and the others would be old and ugly, their faces sagging with wrinkles, each of them looking like an Old Ancestor. Cathy would be a little old lady, her child taller and stronger than Annan, while he would still look like a little boy... The horror was beyond description!
Annan's shoulders slumped. The feeling that time was slipping away came over him again.
When the Wilhelm Merchant delivered Mountain Copper a while back, he had hinted that, if Annan was in a hurry, a mere two- or threefold price increase could cut construction time to two months—
Again, the expense was secondary. Annan was sure the Wealth