THREAD TREATMENT FLUID (CSA-112)
Mortal tier recipe. Natural gathering stage requirement
This recipe requires complete cleanliness to work, this can only be achieved through either machinery or Qi. The latter works simply by blocking any and all contaminants, this includes the dirt, oils, dead skin and all manner of things on your hands. Note that this product requires an environment with less than 0.5 microgram of dust per cubic metre of space.
Civilisations not crushed by their sense of greed begin heavily investing in long-term sustainability, and clothing is a massive part of that. You ideally wish for fabrics with durability mimicking [weak] cultivator goods but with the price of common fibres. The result is somewhat pricey treatments to improve these fluids.
Through economies of scale the usage of these treatments only increases the average price of these fibres by ~30% as opposed to the 5000% if done on a per-clothing basis.
INGREDIENTS AND RECIPE
* Silkflash amniotic fluids, 1 litre – non magical fluid
* C8-MS (HSSE magical alloy), 500 grams – spirit forming stage mineral
* Crystalline lifelines, 5 pieces – natural gathering stage body part
* Depth force crystals, 5 grams – spirit forming stage mineral
* Concentrated steel leaf oil, 10 ml – natural gathering stage fluid
On its own, steel leaf lacks the Qi concentration to become a magical plant. However, by removing so much of its non-magical components we can push that concentration beyond such a limit.
Silkflash is a breed of spiders known for creating webs in record time for their strength. They would make excellent silk producers if not for having drastically lowered production rates when stressed, like in farms for example. Their amniotic fluid is particularly good since it contains a sort of transference property. This is useful for the creature’s young as the eggs are generally infused with silk. This sort of transfer during gestation is the Silkflash’s source of intense web crafting.
As seen before, crystalline lifeforms are generally quite weird. These lifelines are the equivalent of the blood vessels apparent in some of them. In regular creatures they would almost surely die if you extracted these, but the crystal lifeforms differ from our oxygen desiring bodies. Life lines will regrow and eventually re-nourish the body parts previously without nutrients.
Depth force is also called Ocean force in some places. I’ve also heard less advanced civilisations call it abyss force, but this name is inherently wrong. Deep ocean crevices may be called an abyss, but in no way should they be confused for true pits of darkness. This intense crushing force is synonymous with water, creating an aura which forces all nearby particles to exert an equal force on you. Try to not touch these directly.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Ignore the ‘C8’ portion of the name. MS stands for Mystified Steel, an age old derivative of regular steel when alloyed with various magical metals. The A series refers to standard carbon-steel alloys, then the B series was steel alloys itself. The first forage into the B series was using stainless steel to create incredibly corrosion resistant metals.
Now, the C series is used for the modernised line of steels most commonly found in advanced worlds. There is also a D series, however the civilisations which use this technology are quite further along in advancement and threatened to sue then kill me if I said more… They’re pretty touchy about their stuff.
In your close to dust free environment you may begin the process.
The standard shaping for MS alloys are flat rectangular plates. Begin by milling holes along the horizontal and vertical lines of symmetry. Each one must be 0.5 cm in diameter and 2.5 cm from the next hole along its line. Start from the centre of the plate and work outwards to make this easier on yourself, and expect to create 5 holes.
Make sure to collect all the produced flakes and particulates. Melt them down using a 5000 C heat source.
Mix the steel leaf oil and amniotic fluids and directly add the depth force crystals. Prepare a flat-bottom tub and add the mixture in. Use some common-sense and grab hold of one with incredibly high pressure resistance.
Drop in the plate of C8-MS and turn your attention to the molten portion. We’ll be using this in tandem with the crystalline lifelines. Using a crushing method of your choice to reduce it to a fine powder and add the molten MS. Quickly mix the two before it solidifies back into a solid metal, aiming to create thousands of sand-sized grains of crystal coated metal. Use a hammer to then separate these grains from each other.
Add it to the tub and leave it in a clean environment for 120 hours. The crystal grains act like a grindstone, destroying not only themselves but the remaining plate. The reason we cut these holes from the plate is purely efficiency. Using molten metal from another source pushes this grinding time to over 500 hours.
After this period of time, you must remove the depth force crystals and sieve out any remaining particulates that have settled in the fluid.
You now have 1.6 litres of thread treatment fluid.
USAGE
Again this process must be done in a close to dust free environment.
Submerge the fibres of your choice into this fluid for precisely 32.7 seconds. As you only need a consistent coating around your selected fibre it is not even necessary to literally lower it into vats of this stuff. Different worlds and industries think of different ways to do this.
Every litre of this fluid is enough to transform 8000 km of thread. Or about 16 square-km of fabric. However, it is rarely used on the latter. Quite commonly, it is not the fabric that tears on a day-to-day interaction but rather the thread holding its seams together. Simply by stopping these seams from tearing you can massively increase the time any piece of clothing holds itself together.
Particularly fragile and weak fabrics are treated though.