"I need to borrow a few books on programming, networking, and phones."
"Okay?" Gorou asked. "Why?"
"Planning something."
"I also need to borrow some books on circuits, micro-chips, integrated boards, as well as a phone nobody is using."
"Do I get an explanation for this one?"
"Still planning something."
"How much do you all know about Gummi Blocks and phones?"
"That is an odd question, but some of us know much about such topics. Why?"
"I need all the help I can get to figure out Gummi Blocks and phones."
Phones! Complex little fuckers. All these circuits, and data storage, and signals...
I had forged a Keyblade from the Hearts and Will of all the Worlds with thirty seconds of preparation. I could flip the entirety of Scala ad Caelum upside down by snapping my fingers.
Making a phone?
Eighteen. Fucking. Hours. Working continuously. For the prototype. With the direct assistance of all the Worlds!
It is a good thing that I was once a programmer, because otherwise, I would have gotten nowhere, quickly. Without the assistance of the Worlds, it would have taken a lot longer still...
Having a trillion or so beings puzzling things out made for an effective think-tank. Especially when those beings were Worlds. Worlds may not live in the same way that normal people do, but that doesn't mean they're dumb. Quite the opposite, actually. Cosmic minds made for a surprising amount of intelligence and insight into the nature of existence, if... with moderately strange priorities.
But, regardless, they helped a lot. All of them figuring things out for me made it a lot easier. Eighteen hours, when you really think about it, isn't that much.
The good news is, the prototype worked. For the most part. All the basic functions of it, at least. After I duplicated it a few times, all the phones could call each other.
The Magic behind that was... complex. A bit of a hack-job, too, at first, but that had been fine, because it was a proof of concept more than anything else.
It took another three days after that to make something that wasn't offensive to look at. The prototype was a mess of haphazard shapes, Gummi-circuitry, loosely-bound Magic, all held together by not much more than hope and prayer.
The finished product was neat, slim and smooth. The Magic was bound tightly, held within the phone itself, harmonizing with the circuitry and nature of its own construction. Not, perhaps, the best it could be, but pretty good nonetheless.
Three days were spent on coding the thing, mixing Magic, dimensional shenanigans, and programming to make it all work. Two more after that was just exhaustively testing the thing, trying to break it, putting it through stress. A few things broke, and those flaws were quickly fixed.
By the end of it, I had what was basically an interdimensional smart-phone. Calls? Done. Texting? Yes. WiFi? Enabled. Camera? It had two. Secure? The Magic existed at a sub-level of the Worlds' own connection, and anything that wanted to get to it would have to go through the Worlds in order to even try.
Side effects?
The Magic existed at a sub-level of the Worlds' own connection, and, as such, the Worlds could fairly easily access it.
When the more technologically inclined Worlds had realized that, they had done the metaphysical equivalent of cracking their fingers and saying "I'm in" in their best hacker voice.
Which... was not necessarily bad, but I did have to disable my alert notification sounds for a while, because, otherwise, the phone would not stop beeping.
Now, the Worlds wanted to help, and I really couldn't fault them for that. But, they were just... constantly sending things. Literally anything.
Convincing them to stop had taken quite some time. Twelve something hours. Kinda lost track, after a while there. Only really managed to convince them in the end by telling them the distinction between what was important, what was useful, what I would be able to help with, and what wasn't any of the three.
Still, it all worked out, in the end. I had a communications system that would work damn near anywhere, which included a whole bunch of useful things.
I called it, for lack of better words, a 'Gummi Phone'.
And all of that was only one part of it.
Transportation? Yeah, that was still a thing. Thankfully, most of the principles behind the Gummi Phone still applied to Gummi Ships. It was the same underlying stuff, after all.
So, I had a starting point. The scale of it all may have been different, but that starting point made it a lot easier.
And, really? The nature of Gummi ships themselves made it much easier. A cockpit, some engines, some navigation systems, and you're good to go. Gummi Ships, per the nature of Gummi Blocks, could easily be made to pay no real attention to how physics should work. Aside from the cockpit, and all the associated systems within such as life support, controls, and such, it was mostly just Magic and dimensional shenanigans.
And those? Those are things I'm great at.
Making them fully modular? A little difficult, but still worth it. The moment that was done, it was as simple as designing each individual block, the basic shapes, the weapons, the engines, the maneuvering, the utilities, then using the Promise of Unity to make loads of spares, and then putting them together.
The first ship I made was basically a block. Like, literally a cube. It was a test to see if even the most completely unaerodynamic shapes could fly.
It did, by the way. For a few seconds. Because a pilot, I was not.
Yeah, I crashed the first ship into the water.
The ship was fine. Kept operating underwater, too, which was great. When the cockpit failed to flood, I knew we'd done a pretty good job.
Blasting out of the water had been an absolute joy.
Still... All that?
It really, really highlighted the need to get other people involved in this. I spent a week just on phones. It had taken another to get the Gummi Ships actually working.
Those kinds of breaks were just... not going to work, considering the scale the work ahead. And, worse, neither of those two things would improve unless I devoted time to them. If I had even just one other person to springboard the work on that with, how much time could I have saved?
Probably a lot.
I had my advantages. When it came to Darkness, matters of the Heart, Magic, dimensional shenanigans, or other things of those natures, I'd always be able to offer something. Sure I'd made the phones work, and work well, at that, but getting a project done wasn't the same as doing a project efficiently.
Still, can't take that time back, now. Or, I can, but resorting to time travel for something so base is just... not a wise decision.
Regardless, that's the major hurdles out of the way. I'd need some facilities to make and modify Gummi Ships on a useful size and time scale, but I'd already needed to shift Scala ad Caelum around a bit...
No reason not to do it then. Or, rather, now, since that's the last thing left.
"Work with me for a moment, Scala ad Caelum."
"What is it you need?"
"We're going to do some landscaping." Cityscaping? There's no actual land here, just floating buildings...
Meh.
I let myself resonate with Scala ad Caelum, held my hands up, and tapped my foot against the ground.
Ba-bum.
All around, the countless floating towns in this World shivered.
And, slowly, began to come closer.
The town below me began to glow, waves of light running up and down its form. The first nearby town collided with this one, and, instead of causing a catastrophe as it probably should have, it instead melded with it, white and gold merging with white and gold. Here, Scala ad Caelum lends its help, as the original town shifts its appearance a little, growing outwards, with a new ring of buildings appearing around the central hills.
I smirked.
The next town hit, and the same thing happened. Then came the next, and, again, it was the same thing. Faster and faster, the floating towns came and merged with the central town, and that town quickly expanded more and more, widening with more and more buildings.
Soon, it couldn't be called a town, too large for that. A floating city, with an expanse of white-gold buildings.
By the time it finished, the countless copies had formed into a single gigantic expanse of a city. The central tower was still there, upon a mountain of other buildings, holding its original form. Other towers, however, were now interspersed through the city, non quite as tall or ornate as the central one, but all of them much higher than the buildings around them. Networks of cables and hanging gondola still connected the city, just originating from specific buildings instead of near-randomly from the mountain towns. The port that extends from the outermost ring is suitably vast, encompassing the entirety of the city.
Underneath the waters, Daybreak Town has stretched out, again. More closely resembling its original shape, though again, it was still broken and ruined.
Still, even with all this, we're not done yet. I hold my hands up, and twist them, and space twists with them. I put space where space ought not to be, slipping sub-dimensions into the material of the city. The first layer of these subdimensions will be used as a transportation network, no part of the city more than three minutes from any other part. It's an easy task, considering how familiar I am with manipulating space. I link the entrances to it with a number of tunnel entrances that appear around Scala ad Caelum, forming a quick and efficient system.
The second layer will be used for a different purpose. It connects to the first, and opens into vast, wide spaces, perfect for storing massive amounts of materials. I weave Magic into them, spells of preservation, of protection, and of care. Whatever is stored in there would not decay, and would be free of anything that could harm it.
The third layer is not connected to either of the previous two. I bind it only to the central tower, lock it from the outside. In there, I'm going to put machinery, the Gummi workshop and factory, the magical laboratories, the artificers tools. Everything we'll need, but not just yet...
I make a fourth, but for the moment, leave it unbound to anything. Into it, I weave an illusionary Magic, and build a fake copy of Scala ad Caelum. It will take inspiration from the real thing, and alter itself to hold the same shape. Training grounds, because Keybearers could and did get excessive, and having them train somewhere where things won't get damaged and will return to its original shape eternally is just good foreplanning.
I add six more, but for the moment, leave them blank and empty. I'll make use of them later, but that will be later.
Several more hours pass as I make some changes, shifting the layout of the city slightly, altering the dimensional connections and links. I weave a few spells into the land itself, ideas of cleanliness and health... Little things, but it all adds up.
When I'm done, I put my hands on my hips, considering my work. I twirl my finger a bit, and a building rotates 0.5 degrees. After a few seconds, I nod, and let the magic end. The stops glowing, the waves of light moving along the walls fading...
The city is still white, gold, and filled with windmills, but hey... It lends a certain charm. I think I could grow fond of it.
Well, either way...
Almost everything is done. Just have to do a bit more personalization, and then all I'll need is apprentices.