The Factory Must Grow - [Book 3: The Wheels Must Turn]

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: 742,451

Chapters(102 total)

What readers say about The Factory Must Grow - [Book 3: The Wheels Must Turn]

“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…”
SrgtpoRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“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 f…”
seimsiskRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

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.
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
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 be slow. 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 happen
grammar: I’ve seen nothing wrong. This is a quality product.
Can’t wait to see where this goes
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.
AkumaU1Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Very cool concept and story so far. I'm cautiously optimistic as to where this will go, as the concept of buulding every - and I mean literally everything - from scratch is both fun and daunting. The story is setting itself up for the long hau, which in my opinion is honestly great.
The 5 characters with different POVs is a great way to break things up a little bit, but the different POVs might not be for everyone.
The different characters also allow different types of writing to come through. One character is whimsical and jokey. Another is serious and rugged. Then we have cool, calm, and collected, but secretly has a lot of doubts. The main character (or at least the guy that has had the most POV-time until now) is analytical and overthinks stuff a lot, which can sometimes become a bit much, but most of the time when I'm tired of him, we have a couple of chapters from someone else's point of view.
Definitely a must-try for people that enjoy magic, crafting, and solid world building delivered in a way that makes it fun to digest.
The magic is interesting and fun. It will eventually turn into something more litRPG-y which I'm excited about, but the start is very basic and primitive in terms of tech level. I enjoy how they need to build things from scratch to do anything. Makes me feel like I'm playing a survival crafting game combined with a factory building game, which is exactly what I think the author is going for.
Andrew616Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This seems like a fun story, the characters seem decent, but the systems seems to be really well fleshed out, and the world really well put together. We have the big goal, and a looming unknown danger that's just going to ruin everything, along with some fun base building and exploring going on with the chance for some fun ROG growth sprinkled in, so all told, I think I like it!
ShadowOfHAvocRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This story is very unique. I don't think I have ever seen let alone read a book that was based on the idea of factorio let alone one with magitech. Whilst a very unique idea I never got drawn in to any of the crafting/magitech stuff in the first few chapters. This story also has limited itself to 5 characters, what with them all stuck together on a planet with no sentient natives. Yes there is fauna that is hostile but besides the local fauna and interpersonal conflicts I don't see any way for the author to generate conflicts to progress the characters or the story.
The magic system is pretty interesting and in my opinion quite well thought out however the way it is being explained to us is an issue. So far the Oliver POV chapters are the ones that progress our main understanding of the magic system and quite frankly they are boring and are a chore to read. They may be well written but the way the subject matter is explained or implemented along with Oliver as a character are just lacking. Oliver's chapters are used as a convient way to info dump the magic system and his chapters end up feeling like I am reading a technical manual and not a story.
I am curious how the author will progress this story, but sadly not enough to continue it. This is a unique story which may end up being quite good in the future but for now I just don't see how the story can advance in a believable way, let alone an interesting way for the readers.
compass96Royal Road
★★★★ 3.5
It's pretty good but it's very difficult to remain interested when you can't connect with the characters. The perspective shifting makes it difficult to be invested because when i get into the story, it pauses on that perspective and moves to another one and in doing so keeps me waiting to go back to what I want to read.
The characters are pretty interesting and there's a range of attitudes and behaviours. I enjoy Oliver's perspective and mindset although he's a bit exasperating (but it's the interesting type) while Alyssa is full blown annoying. Unfortunately, she has the second most perspectives. I actually like Henrietta the most as a character but her scenes often are about others and not her bringing something unique to the story. She marshals everyone's strengths but I think she's the best when she's doing her own thing. Clark is dumb but lovable and Jacob is completely absent.
I was into it so much in the beginning (part of that was the 20 chapter drop, thanks for that) but the pace has slowed down. I thought it would be more survival but it's oddly leisurely. I keep on waiting for the plot to start and I think there's been too much of a release of tension.
Despite this though, I think this has the potential to be a genuinely interesting story. I like the worldbuilding and the way you deliver history without info-dumping. The magic system seems intriguing and well presented and I can't wait to see more. I'll probably take a break and come back when there are more chapters so I can read in bulk.