She explains how the little creativities help keep her focused and starts explaining them whenever she makes a significant change. She keeps them limited to aesthetic and not functional changes.
After three days she informs them that the fifth is her last unless something changes. More variety, more creative license, money: at least one of the three, preferably two.
Never mind, money's good enough as long as they continue to grumble only small to medium amounts at the occasional engraving into a seawall or artful curve to a rebuilt building's foundations like she's been doing so far. She doesn't mention the series of hidden 山 she keeps putting down.
After nine days in total, they've covered every major coastal city and a few inland ones. She says that she's repaired enough for now, maybe she'll come back in three months if they hire her. One last day to finish the current city, mostly fix a rail line, and do touch-ups on wherever they want, and she'd like to go back to New York.
Yeah, she kind of expected that. A subtle I-told-you-we-aren't-compatible to one of the diplomats is the last word she gives on the subject.
Detecting defects in and repairing to pristine condition the following: Concrete-and-steel buildings. Concrete-and-steel bridges. Arbitrary concrete-and-steel structures. Tunnels and caves of all kinds.
Reshaping metal and stone to arbitrary forms I.E. as art or for manufacturing. Detecting the potential for earthquakes, suppressing earthquakes. Large scale hydrokinesis suitable for reversing flooding or similar applications. Mixing metal alloys or plating objects in metal without heat, electricity, or equipment.
Creating a long, long list of stones and minerals with an explanation of how making rare materials also produces less valuable but nonhazardous byproducts.
And more things that it would be tedious to list here.
She doesn't particularly want to join the Protectorate. Bureaucracy rubs her the wrong way. Can it be arranged so the Protectorate could occasionally hire her to do things but she doesn't officially join?
Would it be a problem if she declares herself a public hero but doesn't hero particularly often?
That sounds like the right course of action then. She can still make money doing non-emergency things, correct?
So she starts filling out the first layers of paperwork she needs to do that, at least the ones she can do on the plane.
When she arrives back in New York she starts sending the paperwork where it needs to go for the second step. With lots of back and forth email with her lawyer for the exact details.
She's really not sure what all these categories are for, but fills things out diligently and loses patience at only a moderate rate.