Project Overworld

Keith breathed out an elated sigh from the top of his base. He has been sitting there for an hour, enjoying the calm and beauty of the natural landscape.

His third year at the university was over, and he finally had some free time for himself. Not so much, though, because in a week from now he would have to go and attend to his watchmaking job.

Thus, he decided to get up and resume working on his automated factory. He only had a full week and some leftover days to finish it, since he intended to use that free time he had to advance and automatize his base as much as he could.

During the exam session, he only got to connect a few times inside Project Overworld, so he did not progress that much aside from monitoring his machines and stocking excess materials.

After filling the train to the brink with the tracks' parts, Keith hopped into the front of the vehicle and activated the motor by throwing charcoal into it.

He had been using a lot of charcoal recently instead of using regular coal to run the train because most of his coal production was being used to fuel the generators of his factory. The surplus was being stocked to be used later when his automated train would be finished.

After a few dozens of minutes, Keith stopped at the end of the actual railway and started working on expending it. He only had two miles left to do and most of the work would be done by the end of the week-end. That would left him with seven days to work on the automation parts and optimizing everything he could optimize before the start of his real-life job.

'Yeah, I have plenty of time to take care of this base.' Keith thought.

The following day, Keith had finally installed the whole railway connecting the factory to his base and was currently editing his coal filter's artificial intelligence so it would let some coal pass through another conveyor belt leading to the train station.

Keith worked for over half of the remaining days to the automated supplying process of the train. For that purpose, he made a hole at the top of the steam-powered vehicle so that coal could pour into it.

With that part being done, he was ready for the final test. Keith switched the button activating the whole process and climbed back into the head of the vehicle.

He heard the conveyor belts moving in the distance and soon the coal fell into the engine of the train. After having heating up, the train followed the tracks to turn-around and join the junction. The train's wheels throbbed while smoke was being released into the sky by the motor.

Suddenly, a sentence from a movie he watched several years ago came to his mind upon meeting with this situation : 'Full steam ahead!'.

A slight smile stretched over his lips as he was reminded with this memory, but he focused back on the trainway. He needed to monitor if everything was according to plan.

The coal seemed to supply the motor with the exact quantity it needed, while the structure seemed stable enough to handle quite a few rides. Keith was relieved by this fact, but kept his gaze focused on the tracks. He feared that a section might suddenly break as the wagons plowed over them. Worse, he worryied that the train may not slow down upon reaching his base.

However, a few minutes later, the vehicle started its smooth deceleration at the expected point and carefully stopped into the base's station.

'Well, that's a relief.' Keith thought as he softly sighed. 'Everything's working according to plan. However, I've been quite lazy in making this train... It is using much more energy than it needs to.'

Upon thinking he could have used the electricity produced by the factory directly, Keith called himself an idiot. He obviously thought about it before even starting producing the materials needed for the train. However, he had decided to postphone this idea and make the vehicle coal-dependant to test if everything was working before using electricity. He feared that it would be harder to use with electricity, but the power needed to supply the train with coal was ridiculously high.

'Let's make it electrical then!'

Keith had three days to take care of it, and he intended to use them to their full extent.

Meanwhile, Amber was getting ready for the announcement of the first server-wise event. She had been talking to her team about the new edition of the 'Invention showdown' which was being renamed 'Inventopia'. It was a bit chilish to Amber's liking, but it was much easier to remember and more original than the old name.

They have been arranging everything related to it, be it forum posts to advertise the event or the location it would be taking place. Until now, the date and location of the event had not been unveiled to the public, but the great announcement was being made today.

Amber left the town hall and climbed up the stage that had been placed in the middle of Midgard city's park. The conversations fell silent as she started her speech : "As some of you may know, we have been announcing the second edition of the 'Inventopia' event for a few days on various forum posts. 'Inventopia' is a showdown in which everyone can participate to introduce their best inventions. The second edition will be taking place in a month from now and is set to held at the outskirt of Midgard city, in a special building we'll be constructing in the following weeks."

She took a brief pause in her speech and finished : "Everyone, do your best until then and let the creativity be your motor."

This last sentence was not trivial, as it was set to be the new slogan of Midgard municipal team. As for the annoucement, it seemed to have the expected effect as everyone was cheering and discussing about their plans for this second edition. The fact that it was open to everyone was a huge game-changer and people will surely come up with interesting ideas.

Amber came back to her office, with a joyful smile on her face.

'I'll sure be enjoying next month's festivities. Let the best creators express their art.'