"We can't wait any longer."
After pacing for a while, Caleb finally decided he was going to share the Advanced Hextech Tome.
Even though he already understood the basics, the advanced material in that book was still far too difficult for him to fully master.
Better to hand it over to the science crowd.
Otherwise, the combat strength of the twin cities would never truly improve.
On that front, Caleb felt the three of them could divide the work perfectly and each play to their strengths.
Heimerdinger had experience. Jayce knew how to adapt. Viktor had principles.
As for the business side, the Ferros family's accountants should be able to handle the numbers.
Camille was a noblewoman who kept her word, and of course Caleb had held back the most critical information anyway.
Problems were piling up one after another like a tangled knot.
Caleb felt like his hair was falling out by the handful.
He was in the prime of his life, going bald was not an option.
If he kept digging into code himself, he was going to fry his brain.
No, this really had to be handed over to Jayce and the others.
"Are we there yet, Caleb?"
Yuumi's complaining voice broke through his thoughts and pulled him back.
The timing of his arrival in this world really could not have been worse, he had shown up right as Shurima was waking up.
After ordering three bowls of fish, Caleb sat there gloomily stuffing pieces into his mouth.
"So they really just eat this with their hands here?"
Even now, though Zaun's environment had improved a lot, it still could not compare to Piltover.
Everything was a problem.
Yuumi, meanwhile, had her head down and was eating happily. She did not even need sauce, the fish itself already suited her taste perfectly.
Kai'Sa had no complaints either. Compared to eating in the Void, this was far easier.
Caleb had eaten here before. How should he put it… it was definitely better than prison food.
These days he could come and go from Stillwater Hold whenever he wanted, but there really was not much point anymore.
Caleb was still thinking over what needed to be done first.
The situation with Noxus did not look promising. As for the Shadow Isles, he still had no idea what was going on there.
The Void in Icathia would not be breaking through to the surface anytime soon, so that problem was manageable for now.
But the rise of Shurima was absolutely impossible to ignore.
And the kind of thing he wanted to discuss could only be discussed with someone important like Swain, even if there was a demon living inside him.
Then again, Caleb had a darkin living inside the spear on his back.
If it really came to a fight, Caleb was not too nervous on home turf. After all, he had a cat backing him up.
And Swain, a man capable of seeing the secrets hidden in the shadows, would obviously not be as direct and straightforward as Ambessa.
When that time came, the Black Rose would have to be taken into account.
If the mages from that place were present, Caleb's odds of winning would drop sharply.
It had to be said, some of those mages had lived for an absurdly long time, long enough to hold proof they could manipulate all of Noxus itself.
For now, Talon had already been allowed to spread the word, because when it came to Shurima's restoration, Caleb still had no clear plan.
And there was one even more important factor.
Tariffs.
Every single day, Noxian warships came and went through the twin cities' port, constantly feeding this powerful empire.
Piltover, constrained by Councilor Mel's pressure, had never seriously considered raising tariffs all these years.
That meant that almost every day, those military ships could keep funneling lifeblood into the empire through the harbor at virtually no cost.
For the old Piltover, these enormous profits had been tolerable as long as stability was maintained.
But after Caleb threw out his bombshell, those mistaken ideas were bound to be corrected.
Whoever won, they would support them?
Caleb would offer them a deal they could not refuse.
Just like last time, when he had managed to pull four votes out of the council's seven seats.
This time, though, the other councilors who had quietly taken the loss before would definitely be much more careful with their choices.
Fortune favors the bold.
Under the current circumstances, Caleb felt it was still worth gambling on a temporary peace with Noxus.
After all, they had no idea the technology in his hands could push the entire twin cities' combat power up by an enormous leap.
And even if they could not break free from Noxian control in the short term, they still had to raise tariffs.
Without an economic foundation, Caleb could hardly conjure up those enormously expensive mechs out of thin air.
Nothing happened that night.
"So early in the morning, and you call all of us here like it's some huge secret?"
Heimerdinger raised his brows, puzzled.
"First, I need all four of you to promise me that not a single word of what I'm about to say leaves this room."
The four people Caleb had summoned were Ekko, Jayce, Viktor, and Heimerdinger.
Two from Piltover, two from Zaun.
"All right."
Seeing how serious Caleb looked, even Ekko understood immediately that this was no small matter.
The other three nodded in quick agreement as well.
In Heimerdinger's eyes, Caleb was still young, yet during his trip escorting Ziggs to Bandle City, he had already learned the hidden secrets of southern Shurima.
That information was tremendously important to the twin cities.
If a powerful empire had truly risen in the south, then Piltover's current model of relying on Noxus would not last forever.
That much was crystal clear to Heimerdinger.
But he was not a businessman, and his understanding of something like tariffs was still shallow.
So Caleb planned to give hextech a hard shove forward.
He was going to make it shock the world.
"This book, don't ask where it came from. I don't know either, and I can't even guarantee it's all correct."
Caleb tossed out the Advanced Hextech Tome, and the moment the four of them saw the title, they all crowded around it at once.
Hextech was already this advanced, and there was still a more advanced stage beyond it?
How flourishing would the technology tree on those pages have to be?
That alone was something Heimerdinger had never dared imagine.
"Hold on. There's a price."
Caleb's voice immediately made them calm down.
"I need this thing built."
Without hesitation, Caleb slapped down the blueprint for Mecha Malphite.
He himself was still walking the path of strengthening his own body, a mix of martial power and magic. As for the romance of building mechs, that could stay with these science fanatics.
As long as he got to pilot one once in a while, that was enough.
"I've looked at Zaun's geology. As mining keeps going deeper, the safety margin is getting lower and lower."
"So we need a tunneling machine. It has to be able to reshape Zaun's extremely low terrain from below, and also serve as a way to defend the city."
"The calculations for something like that would be staggering," Viktor said with a smile.
The Governor's demand was wildly unreasonable, but in Viktor's rational mind, outrageous ideas that left people speechless had always been perfectly in character for him.
"And even if we build it, accidents would still be unavoidable while changing the terrain…"
Jayce spoke hesitantly.
If they really could make it, then this would be a project of enormous long-term value.
The problem was that when the canal had been dug before, an accident had happened, and Zaun had lost districts, elevation, and part of its population.
When it came to things he could not be sure of, Jayce honestly did not like taking pointless risks.
"That brings me to the third thing I wanted to tell you this morning."
At that, Ekko was completely awake now.
The Z-Drive he had mastered only counted as a side path to all this?
"For the sake of future calculations, and to make sure there are no mistakes…"
Caleb put extra emphasis on the words no mistakes.
"I'm commissioning you to build a computer!"
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