In Pomperaque, Manguino's spies described to him that Harvard Bartlett's army was being used to build up the cities, and that they grew at a surprising rate.
On the advice from his wife Eckma and several of the noble Cardinals, Manguino thought that the idea of an army building force was brilliant, and he thought that Besten had engaged itself in such a programme only to rise above Pomperaque, as an economic power.
He set Phoride's entire army to work in building the city into one great mass of moving machinery and light.
Using the knowledge available in the gadgets that had once belonged to Brook, towering buildings were built and were powered by currents of energy — electricity.
Light illuminated the evenings in the city of Pomperaque from tall glass posts that were filled with conductive gases that glowed when energy was passed through them, and the citizens travelled around in little propelled carts with wheels that were set upon endless tubes of steel that also utilized the same electrical forces.
The city's incinerators were converted to produce the power since the furnaces constantly
burned some kind of waste material throughout the entire day and night, and huge storage batteries, such as those in the Blue Mansion, were built to preserve energy for emergency use.
Pomperaque grew into a grandeur never before seen by those living there, and it hardly took a year to complete.
The sudden boost in the lifestyles of those in Phoride made many of Phoride's citizens, from the peasantry to the elite Prominants feel alive again, and many returned to praising Manguino.
Manguino was proud of his own brilliance and praised himself.