19 - Chapter 18 - Day 1753
Gauri had seen wealth before, the family was doing extremely well and had been growing the business for decades. The family was wealthier than a lot of the noble families. It was why they were treated so well in the kingdom.
However, watching Adya casually throw out 10,000 tier 1 mana stones shook Gauri to the core. It wasn't about wealth. This sack only represented 1000 Gold coins. There were plenty of families that could casually spend 1000 Gold and not notice. Granted they were few and far between, but it was definitely possible. It was the casualness of the gesture, and the throwaway comment, that she wouldn't even notice the loss. A part of her really didn’t want to know, and yet, she had to to find out. Just how many mana stones had Adya produced and stored away in the past 5 years.
“Just how, how many stones do you have?” asked Gauri in a hushed whisper.
“Let me ask you another question mother,” responded Adya, much more comfortable after her mothers reassurances “What would be the combined wealth of our family if we converted everything into gold?”
“I am not sure exactly,” replied Gauri. “I would say somewhere between 1Bn to 2Bn gold, maybe a little more depending on getting a good price for everything.”
“I am currently sitting on around 300M gold,” replied a smirking Adya in hushed tones. “In addition, I can probably produce around 40M gold per day if I do nothing else.”
Gauri was left sitting in stunned silence. How, just how was she supposed to move close to 3Bn mana stones. There was no way in hell that volume would go unnoticed. The only reason that the mana stones were so cheap, was that the price had been fixed a long time ago. The prices were strictly enforced. Generally mana stones were mined, and that volume would represent the production capacity of several high grade mines per year. The fixed price was the only reason mana stones had not jumped in price. Had that been the case they would easily be 100s times higher due to scarcity.
The issue was, mana stones were not just a currency but a consumable resource. It could be used by mana users to refill mana reserves. It was used as a power source in formations and arrays. But mostly it was used by the cultivators who absorbed the mana stones to push their cultivation forward. Without a constant supply, large parts of the economy would grind to a halt. And her little girl could produce millions of them a day.
She took out a few stones, and compared them to each other. They were all exactly the same. That would be another issue. Mined mana stones were of similar sizes, but not the exact same shape and size. There was always a small amount of variance. Anyone who got ahold of a number of her daughters mana stones, would easily realise that they were not mined, but created by a standard process. They would be the start of a lot of dangerous questions.
While Gauri was lost in her thoughts, Adya attempted to create a tier 1 mana stone manually, and failed spectacularly. There seemed to be no way for her to dilute the density of her mana, at least not at this stage. So she was stuck producing tier 2 mana stones. Each one would be worth 1 Gold, but that was irrelevant. If she could not even exchange her tier 1 mana stones, what was she supposed to do with the tier 2 mana stones? Another secret that she would have to reveal to her mother.
“Mother, there is another little complication,” said Adya hesitantly, “I have managed to tier up my mana, so now I can only create tier 2 mana stones. I currently have no way to produce tier 1 mana stones any more.” Adya created a few tier 2 mana stones and placed them in front of her mother. The tier 2 mana stones were noticeable darker than the tier 1 variants.
The mana stones triggered a memory for Gauri, “Did you leave a couple of mana stones in your crib when you were still a baby?” asked an even more incredulous Gauri.
“I had almost forgotten about that.” replied Adya. “Yes, I remember you paying the healer with a mana stone, and I was trying to work out their value. Though, since there was no real response to your finding the mana stones, I didn’t really learn anything.”
“So you were fully aware even at that young age?” asked Gauri. “And you remember everything from that age too?”
“Yes mother, I have been aware since I was born.” replied Adya. “My memory is excellent, so yes I do remember everything.”
“It’s a pity that we can’t convert the mana stones into something else,” mused Gauri, as she looked into the mana stone in her hand. “The problem with mana stones is that they are difficult to store and difficult to handle. Most people much prefer gold coins, it really is a pity that we can’t create mana coins instead of mana stones. But that is just a dream, no one has found a way to reshape the mana stones into anything else. The moment anyone tries to move the mana, it is released and the stone crumbles away. If the mana is not used, it is lost.”
Gauri was not really talking to Adya, more talking out loud but it still gave Adya an idea, if she could make it work, it might change a lot of things. “Mother, what would happen if I could design and create a machine that would take mana stones, and convert them to coins?” she asked. “We could even look at adding details on the coins, much like gold coins.”
“If anyone created that, it would change mana based currency for everyone.” replied Gauri. “Apparently artificers have been looking for ways to do that forever, don't tell me you think you can create something no one else has ever done.”
In response Adya held up her hand and created a mana coin manually. It had the same shape and size as a gold coin. It said tier 2 on one side and 100 mana on the other. She handed it to her astounded mother. “The problem is not in creating the coins,” said Adya. “Moreover, the issue is creating a machine that can do the same without me.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“If you could make the machine, not only would we be able to sell the machine to every single mana stone mine in the world, but we could also hide your stones in the newly created coins.” replied Gauri. “Is it really possible?”
Adya asked Sai the question. Sai took a few moments to analyse their understanding of formations and looked at their own skill.
Sai: It should be possible to replicate our skill into a formation. We would have to ensure we understand each step, then convert it to the formation language. We would also need to find a way to power the device and to hide the details of the formation, so that no one else would be able to copy our work. It should, in theory, be simple, but simple does not mean easy.
Adya: we were already looking at gaining a better understanding of how the system designs and manages skills and spells. So it won't be adding anything new to our workload, just starting from a different application. Put together a detailed plan for how to proceed.
“In theory, it should be possible for me to create such a device mother.” replied Adya, “But it will take me some time to ensure it works properly and practically. In the meantime, I still need to work on the loyalty tattoo first so we can put the bandits to work. I also need to convert my existing mana stones to gold so I can get materials.”
“Don’t worry about that for the time being.” replied Gauri, “I will provide you with the funds you need, I don’t want any more of these mana stones out there.” She handed the sack of tier 1 mana stones and the tier 2 coin back to Adya. “Put those away, we don’t want any of them getting out, as it will lead back to us. Until we have a solution to hide the stones, they stay locked up.”
“It’s so annoying mother,” replied Adya. “having so much in the way of resources, but not being able to actually use any of it. Shall I cancel the deal to exchange 100 tier 1s a week too?”
“Let me have your contact looked into.” replied Gauri. “We can decide after that.”
“What are we going to do about the shadowed hand and the noble brat.” asked Adya. “Both could cause us many problems.”
“Let me worry about them for now.” replied Gauri. “You spend time on the two projects we just talked about. And not a word of this conversation to anyone else.”
After that they spent time just chatting, with Gauri inundating Adya with a lot of questions going into detail on both her history and skills. They stayed talking until well after dinner. It was a very tired Adya who returned back to her room that night.
She crashed into bed without even changing and was soon fast asleep.
The next morning, she woke late. Forming her cores, pushing he control to be able to create formations and then the long conversation with her mother had really tired her out. She had always wondered why emotional stress made someone more tired than mental stress or physical stress. Whatever the case, she felt much lighter after the conversation with her mother. Like a massive weight had been taken off her shoulders. She had not even realised how much she worried about the whole thing.
She put her idle thoughts aside, she had a plan for what she needed to achieve. After preparing for the day and a luxurious breakfast, she sat down to start working on the loyalty tattoo.
She did not want to create a slave brand, like the ones that had been used by the shadowed hand, but it was a good starting point. She drew that formation from memory, and then started to dissect the symbols to make sense of it. Some of the symbols made sense to her, as they were clearly described in the book that she had seen at the artificers workshop.
Other symbols she had no idea about, or even a good place to start. It was like trying to learn a language without knowing the full alphabet. Her translation powers were actually useless too. While the skill allowed her to read what was written, and understand the words, the skill would not give her the missing parts of the alphabet.
She spent countless hours iterating through designs, trying to fill in some of the missing gaps in her language model. Once she had achieved what she could in that regard, she started the task of incorporating her understanding of this world's formation language into the unified and codified language she had created. By this point she had been at it for more than a week.
After that came the testing, she would carefully draw out formations to test their effects. She started with the designs copied from the artificer, and then tried to replicate the exact same effect using her own language. Slowly but surely she was improving her self made model and her accuracy and success started to increase. It was another month before she could translate any of the formations between the two languages without flaws. Her language model had been systematically redesigned to work with the magical framework, yet to give her the flexibility of a true programming language. She could recreate the slave tattoo in her language, and had even tested a temporary version of the tattoo on herself.
Her mother had continued to support her during this entire period, ensuring she had access to all the resources she needed. She also made sure Adya spent at least some time outside her room training, and just taking walks. She didn’t want her young daughter to spend all her time hunched over a desk.
Once Adya was confident that she understood the language, even though she still felt it was incomplete, she started work on her version of a loyalty tattoo. To start with she articulated the problems she was trying to solve.
She needed the tattoo to enforce her orders on the recipient. If they went against the intent of her orders, then they should suffer some form of punishment. Their punishment should scale and be conditional. They should not be able to remove or block the formation from working. The formation should protect itself from external tampering. The formation should recognise external intrusion and attempts to bypass orders via magical means, such as mental compulsion, illusions or mind reading and react to break the effect.
Of course, the level of effect would be dictated by the availability of mana. Once she had a crystalised problem statement, she started to write an algorithm to provide a solution.
It took her another week to create an algorithm that she thought should work, and another few days to convert the algorithm into her formation language. If she didn't have Sai helping to test scenarios and dry run through her pseudocode, it would have taken her substantially longer to reach the same stage.
Once she was confident in her final design, she tested some temporary tattoos on herself. It had been almost 60 days since she first started the process and she finally felt ready to test with another person. The only one who could know what she was doing was her mother.
Would her mother agree to be subjected to the tattoo, or would they need to find another less willing volunteer. She sent Phillipa to fetch her mother, so she could find out.