This particular town was situated in a valley, between two rather large and long hills that bordered the trade route, the terrain was mountainous and had a lot of ore deposits. While this strategic placement allowed the town to be rich in ores and be a major trade route, The spirit animals that dwelled in the mountains caused troubles for the town, rather frequently,

The town Greystone had a city wall that was at least 20 foot high, the wall had a black blood stain all over the stone texture. Sophy explained the problem of spirit animals raiding the city, and Robert understood the need for such a large city wall. There was a large banner in the gate showing a ferocious black dragon, representing the authority of black dragon clan over the town.

Entering through the raised grills of the gate, they entered a large street.

The sides had all sort of weapon shops and blacksmiths, the atmosphere reeked of smoke that was arousing from all these workshops. There were carts filled with metals and ores being brought into these shops with horses and by oxen.

It was sunrise and the orange-yellow light of the sun illuminated the smog, from the carriage Robert could see many people near the streets bowing towards the carriage.

They reached a large shop bearing the black dragon banner. It was a four-story building filled with everything from raw ores to high-end weapons. They walked into the top floor of the building to find a large hall that leads to the living quarters of the Black dragon family. Although it was not as spacious as the luxurious mansion in the Goldfair city, this was certainly a place for living for the nobles.

Robert didn’t spend much time up in the living quarters and went down to the store to explore. The floor right beneath the living area was filled with various types of magical equipment. There were light orbs that can light up whole buildings. There were magically enchanted locks that had a sound alarm in it, there was some kind of biometric locks that opened on touch.

What he was interested in was not really the final products, he wanted to see how these things were made. Half of the floor was a magical workshop, walking in, he felt like he had walked into an electronic workshop, there were papers with magical runes in a table.A skinny man that was in his forties was putting in a crystal ball into the middle of a magical rune in a paper. He was wearing a white cloak.

The runes in the paper reminded Robert of a simple light bulb and switch circuit. Instead of a battery, there was a spirit stone and a dark stone. There was already a crystal ball in the paper, and the man was certainly trying to increase the power of the thing by putting in another crystal ball. There was already a lot of burned paper lying around the man, and the floor was scattered with exploded crystal balls.

“Try connecting them in series instead of parallel”, Robert said.

The man who was trying to fix the crystal ball into the runes was so immersed in his work that he didn’t see Robert sneaking up behind him. He jumped in scare and dropped the crystal ball, adding to the pile of broken crystals on the floor.

“Sorry, You are not supposed to be here,” The man told Robert.

After explaining that he was with Sophy the man introduced himself.

“I am Darell, the chief researcher of magic runes of black dragon clan. The people at Capital city wont even allow me to research in peace there,”

Darell had run away from the capital city as he was tired of all the responsibilities that were placed upon him there. He just wanted to live a carefree life, he just wanted to do his research and make more inventions when he can and just live his life like that. In the capital, he was made to bath every day and eat food at times, there were maids and servants that didn’t even allow him to work overtime. Darell just wanted to work.

Robert only gave a brief introduction of himself before changing the subject back to the magic runes.

“Have you tried to connect it in series?”, Robert took a paper and pen and drew a series circuit the same way the magic runes were drawn.

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After seeing this, Darell frowned for a second before trying it out. After putting the two crystal lights into the circuit in series, he told Robert to walk back as he expected it to explode.

But instead of exploding, both the lights lighted up brightly, Darell was so happy that he hugged Robert so tightly making him suffocate. Then he ran out to the store to bring in everyone he saw to show this. Only he knew how much research he had put into this thing. He had tried to increase the power of spirit stones, only to watch the crystal balls explode. He has tried many different materials for the crystal balls. What he didn’t dare to tweak were the magic runes that had been in use since ancient times.

But this man, Robert had just walked in and made a small tweak in the design making it work!

Darell didn’t want to leave Robert alone after this, he dragged Robert into the laboratory to ask nonstop questions.

Robert used this opportunity to understand the magic runes of this world. They were very similar to the electronics on earth. There was a power source the spirit stone, which provided magic power. The channels were made of an alchemical potion. The power flowed from the spirit stone into the dark stone and anything that was in between them got the magic power.

The crystal balls that lit up earlier were made of crystal and an alchemical preparation from animals that glowed in the dark. There was also small motor like things that made it possible to have locks other moving mechanisms.

Robert spent a lot of time with Darell learning everything he can about this art. Darell was surprised that this young man Robert was able to understand even the toughest runes at a glance. Even the best scholars in the capital were unable to learn these things this easily.

What he didn’t know was that these so-called runes were all for serving purposes of different components in an electrical circuit.

There was a glyph which had intricate design that didn’t touch one another, but formed a single lined design. It was used for reducing the magic power, but Robert understood the design at a glance. It was supposed to increase the length of the circuit and thus increasing the resistance. Similar to the resistor in the Earth and was made of certain special alchemical preparations.

There was also a glyph that looked like two zigzag lines with a small amount of space between them. Robert guessed that it must be a capacitor, and his guess was right. It was used to store magic for short term! A similar usage as that of the capacitor.

Robert went down to the part that sold raw materials to see if he could find anything interesting there. He saw ores of different kinds, but nothing surprising.

Robert spent the rest of the day designing a flintlock mechanism. He had only seen the flintlock gun in pictures and videos and had no idea about their structures. The only thing he was sure of was that he needed a spring for that thing to work. He worked with the blacksmiths to create a spring mechanism for the prototype and let them forge many types of designs that he had doodled. He also wanted the blacksmiths to create barrels for the guns that he was going to create.

Sophy was busy setting up a new factory for the production of gunpowder and cannons. As the Black Dragon clan controlled the city, getting a blacksmith shack to be converted into the forge for the cannon was easy. She also took over a food mill in order to grind the raw materials for the gunpowder.

Everyone was busy that day, the magic runes researcher Darell had many insights from Robert that he refused to go to sleep and insisted on continuing his work at night. The blacksmiths were forging black iron into the weird shapes that Robert had drawn. The merchants were busy acquiring raw materials. The usually silent atmosphere of the shop was now loud from all the activity.

The news of Goldfair city reached them that evening. The Snake skulls had taken over the city and executed the top tier of the major families. Thugs were running amok in the city. The Snake skulls have imposed a hefty tax upon the merchants and worst of all, no one is allowed to leave the city unless they produced bail money that was only returned upon their return.