The Factory Must Grow - [Book 2: The Forge Must Glow]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Constructing a portal is a monumental undertaking, yet the Forerunners have guided dozens of civilizations to that end and know exactly what is needed. Thousands of laborers to source and process materials. Hundreds of brilliant artisans to design and fabricate complicated mechanisms. Dozens of powerful mages to weave the requisite magics. As the culmination of years of work, they tear a hole in the fabric between realities and travel between worlds. There is simply no reasonable way which only five people, prepared for a standard Isekai scenario yet now stranded on a hostile and alien world where meresurvivalis a challenge, could ever build a portal. But reasonable people don't become Forerunners. Additional tags: base/factory-building. Note: I tend to write things because I have some idea or obsession which I feel absolutely compelled to share with people. With Factory, that obsession is "Wow. Modern infrastructure is awesome. There's so much cool stuff that goes into literally everything we take for granted. I want to learn more about this and write it into a story." A huge thanks to Selkie Myth and the folks at Kart Studios for the cover art.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2025
Author: NorskDaedalus

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.6/ 5.0
Followers: 3,739
Views: 729,224

Chapters(102 total)

What readers say about The Factory Must Grow - [Book 2: The Forge Must Glow]

“I've sunk a lot of time and love into "factory" automation games. The games are way more fast-paced than this story, but the story is way more fast-paced than real production chains, real engineering, construction, extraction and processing.The unique magic…”
sid_cypherRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“Has an extremely in depth magic system and an interesting premise. Continues much of the worldbuilding from the encyclopedia arcana and brings it to life. May the fires of Technology come to life. I eagerly await new chapters for this. I don't know how writ…”
DoomByCookiesRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

sid_cypherRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I've sunk a lot of time and love into "factory" automation games. The games are way more fast-paced than this story, but the story is way more fast-paced than real production chains, real engineering, construction, extraction and processing.The unique magic system that makes our characters superhuman and unlocks fast bootstrapping does speed their progress up to time frames of weeks and months, as opposed to decades and centuries. Unlike in games, though, the initial "factory" growth is rich with discoveries, mistakes and failures, realistically so.As a coder Comp.Sci grad who plays Turing Complete and Zach-likes for fun, sometimes I personally feel like I've been in Oliver the Archmage-Enchanter's shoes in the past. The story just resonates.
DoomByCookiesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Has an extremely in depth magic system and an interesting premise. Continues much of the worldbuilding from the encyclopedia arcana and brings it to life. May the fires of Technology come to life. I eagerly await new chapters for this.
I don't know how writers do this, because I'm having trouble writing a mere 50 words for a review when they pump out thousands.
EthrimRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Never have I ever read pages mage speak, but it is amazing to do so. This book is great. Can't stop reading it.
It starts with the mage trying to talk with the system, trying to identify what world they have landed on. Very formal wording, but it's all meaningful. The spell fails the first few times, simply because of some bad assumptions. The magic really needs to be bootstrapped from nothing and you can feel how hard it is. The other characters are also wel written and diverse, the interspaced diversions of all the things that come with working together as a group to build a shelter on a works devoid of civilization is great. For me personally, I most enjoy the mage (and I feel so far that is where the focus lies) but seeing how the other characters few him is invaluable for understanding him and how great he is. Also, without the other characters I have a feeling the story would just be him sitting in his workshop and figuring things out, so the variety they bring is great.
My favorite moment (spoilers, maybe?) is when the mage finally gets his first set of wards working, he jumps with a shout of success, when he's suddenly bull rushed into the pond by the healer, because he forgot to account for the dust in the shelter resulting in some huge fireball, including the ending banter between the mage and the ranger.
You may notice I'm referring to characters by their class role, this is not a short coming off the author, but my own. However, each character is unique resulting in a diverse cast. We start with the mage (researcher who would basically prefer being holed up in a laboratory somewhere) the ranger (outgoing girl who enjoys needling the mage and is basically just a ranger reincarnate) the stoic soldier character, the foolish healer who shows inklings that he is an intuitive prodigy (not because he's smart, he's decidedly not, but because he's actually great at manipulating mana, it's just that his book smarts is severely lacking) and ofcourse the leader, a s
SereniphileRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
There are a few different types of people who will love this story.The two most obvious are intricate magic lovers, and factorio players.The turnoff for a lot of people is that this story is going to beslow. The early arc specifically involves the characters being lost, out of their depth, and struggling.The idea is that the magic stuff doesn’t work properly without infrastructure they can’t build yet, which they expected to already have. I’m enjoying it immensely, but I see complaints about it in the comments. As an engineer, I’m well aware how useless my skills are in a wilderness situation, so Oliver’s struggles are extremely relatable to me.the outline for this story is literally wizard factorio, and I love it.but yes, the characters can’t do everything they expect to be able to. Magic is too difficult to do much with right now.And this Magic System is incredible. I adore the weight and complexity of everything. The powers all make sense to me, it’s all very cool. It’s not as litrpg as it looks on the tin, but that’s because they haven’t built their System interface yet.I do love the characters; all of them. Most of them are very much neurodivergent and here in the early days they’re struggling to get along. I have no problem with this, personally. They’re going to need time to bond and build up their found family vibes. I’m confident it’ll happengrammar: I’ve seen nothing wrong. This is a quality product.Can’t wait to see where this goes
SrgtpoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Well written characters in a novel and detailed situation. Loads of promise. Looking forward to seeing where it goes. Multiple POVs nicely distinct with detailed coherent world building. Only read 5 or so chapters at time of review but immediately followed after the first one. Other words in order to get me to 50. What do you call a man with no shin? Tony.
lordnikelasRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
People had been recommending this story to me for a while and I finally picked it up!This is a very interesting survival-crafting story where the main character is basically having to reinvent (magi-)technology from scratch; the magic system is pretty much locked by the fact that there's no supplies. So, stone age and upwards!Main group is 5 people who probably would have been a decent party if they weren't dumped in the middle of a jungle with no beds; a lot of snark and griping, plenty of overwork, and some interesting pseudo-spectrum representation. (If you're used to life with an enhanced emotion-reading skill from the System, and that gets ripped away... you start having a little bit of issue reading people. Gets bemoaned upon occasion.) Also, lots and lots of chanting at the universe.Downsides: This is one of those slow-roll kinda LitRPG stories. There's skills, classes and a System in the universe at large but the main party is somewhere where that isn't accessible... yet. If you like or want blue boxes, that's still a ways off!
seimsiskRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I really liked the first few chapters, can't say much about the characters yet but they do seem to have pretty distinct personalities, each one has a very different voice, and the way magic and Skills work in this story is very unique. I'm intrigued. I do feel like the blurb gives away too much.
ArdelorezoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Wonderful worldbuilding, nice small cast of characters and I love how the magic and environment is and is explored.
Being a fan of isekais (this is the best "why isekai" explanation ever <3) and having a few hundred hours in factorio might help make this so excellent.
I feel the grammar and pace have been very nice and the way magic works has been excellent in worldbuilding and showing what the MC is thinking and doing and this has been generally a great pleasure
Ava of flowersRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I really love the -idea- of stories about building up a town or a faction, but this is one of the few that I've ever really enjoyed. The world building is a lot of fun, and I'm a huge sucker for magic systems based around convincing reality to do what you want - even if Oliver is a bit clunky with his phrasing at first. The writing itself is largely without flaw, and any I mistakes I do come across when reading tend to be very minor.
The characters start out as kind of thin on the ground personality-wise, but they grow both as individuals and as a group over time. All of the characters being based around one place also avoids the thing I hate most about multi-pov stories: a chapter break taking you away from the things you actually care about. I also don't -dislike- any of the characters, which avoids the thing I hate second most about multi-pov stories :P
I've been following the story for a fair while now, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes in the future. There are a lot of thoroughly sign-posted events on the horizon that should be fun.
CatapusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I love the magic system! It feels real and simple with emergent complexity! I also love the way that the system is integrated into the story! Some stories rely on a system far too much and never bother to explain what it is where it came from and how it works, and after some amount of suspended disbelief it starts to pull you out of the world. But they're building up a lesser version of the system from scratch here, which allows Daedalus(/Oliver) to explain in detail how it works!
Also as an avid Factorio addict I live for exponentially increasing production and logistics.
Also the characters are alive and the world feels fleshed out.
Anyways, very good! One of my favourites! You can tell I like it because I told you explicitly!