A large clock was hung up behind the stage, counting down from 3 hours. He didn’t spend more than a few seconds getting himself prepared for what he needed to do. The next few hour were going to be a grind.
He took stock of the materials given. Some thin iron plates for the chassis, a hollow brick made of bronze for the channels to be carved into, and some wood and plastic to be used at the contestants discrimination.
Ether batteries were relatively simple. A trained hand could assemble one in 10 minutes flat— given they had all the parts made and ready in front of them. Batteries could come in many shape and sizes, but Hunter wasn’t planning on being fancy. A simple brick-shaped construct would do the trick. He was going to sacrifice some style points, but he was hoping that the additions to the batteries function, and the clean network schematic he had planned would gain the judges approval and qualify him for the second round.
A basic battery performed the function of keeping the etherium flowing in a loop until it found a ground— in this case the ground for ether was always an activated drawstone. Luckily for Hunter, the drawstone only needs to be activated for a split second while the battery is attached and activated. It was why a human element was necessary to use a construct, etherium would only flow into or through a drawstone that a human was touching. But long ago, researchers found that the ether will continue to flow through a construct from a battery after the activating drawstone was released.
It appeared that once ether was flowing, it wouldn’t stop until it ran out, or its source was cut off. That was why there were different affinity ratings for different constructs. If your affinity was too low, you would have too much etherium drawn from you at once. No one had been able to prove it, but it was widely assumed that the body had channels for the ether to flow through, channels that directly affected the body.
A body that wasn’t acclimated to ether, and unable to bare a sudden increase in the amount of etherium flowing through it, could be strained to unhealthy degrees. A common sign of overuse of ether was a deep exhaustion, as if the whole body had just been under enormous pressure, and that it had taken all of the persons strength to support itself.
This was why Hunter needed to be careful when he was working. Too much etherium exposure would probably render him unconscious, unable to move for a few days. It took time to train the body enough to support more etherium, this was how Affinity would usually rise— the more you channel etherium through the body, the more etherium the body can handle.
But Hunter was a rare specimen. Asking him to design and create a construct with an affinity requirement of 15 could be seen as unfair— but Hunter knew how to get around his limitations. He’d been doing it for years, and improving his methods.
He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would be able to meet the minimum specifications of this round. He knew that his modifications— multiple output options, as well as a way to not only measure, but manually change the AR equivalence— would define him as a solid contender for the rest of the competition, so long as the final two rounds provided reasonable challenges.
Hunter knew that it would get Trey Oberon’s attention. But would it impress him?
If he wanted to impress him, he would need to go the extra mile, which was necessitated by the fact that he was going to need to be conservative with the materials he’d been given.
With the extraneous design elements, he’ll be forced to create a smaller battery, which means he’ll need to make a more efficient battery. Most of the internal space of a battery was taken up by a swirling design of etched channels and Link glyphs. The basic design of these batteries hadn’t changed in decades, the only improvements being the amount channels that could be etched into a surface. Machines were now designed to create very fine channels, etched incredibly close together. Etherium had never been measured in volume— it was such an illusive substance— but it’s been discovered that you could fit quite a bit of a charge into a single drawstone, which is much more than a single thread created out of finely ground drawstones, but the principle carried over. Despite appearances, even simple batteries could hold quite a bit of charge.
The biggest challenge was outputting the stored etherium. In order to stop it all from releasing at once, artisans had to design a way to restrict the flow of etherium. To that end, someone long ago discovered that another partial glyph, like the Link glyph his father had discovered and popularized, appeared to slow the flow of ether. It was called Channel Resistance, which was usually shortened to Res. The more Res glyphs you networked into your construct, the slower the etherium would flow, but only until it met another glyph.
There was also a hard limit on the amount of Res glyphs that you could use, and the way the glyph performed was highly unreliable. It would work with some constructs, but not others. The mechanism, to the mainstream, wasn’t very well known. Hunter, however, had his own intuition about this that his synergy theory seemed to explain quite nicely.
Channel Resistance had a certain desire to it, and its desire would conflict with other etheric desires, or ‘charges.’
Hunter was almost certain that people hypothesized about synergies, or something similar, but they didn’t have Hunters sensitivity to etherium, so they would be working in the dark— they wouldn’t recognize if any result they found would verify or falsify their hypothesis.
Hunter silently thanked his father. He often believed that his father had a similar sensitivity— but Hunter thought that it was stronger in him than it was in his dad. There is no way his dad would miss all these synergistic benefits if he’d felt what hunter did when etherium was pulled through a drawstone and into a glyph network.
Sometimes he wondered why he, of all people, felt what he felt, but he’d yet to find any proof to back up the idea that he'd inherited a mutation. The only person he'd be able to ask was his dad, so he was out of luck. He also wondered if whatever was behind his sensitivity was behind his affinity handicap.
There was no way of finding out, at least not yet. One day he’d get to the bottom of it, and maybe even fix his handicap.
As Hunter thought, his hands had been busy. He didn’t know how long the judges would be testing the battery for, so he went with the assumption that it would be tested indefinitely. That meant it would need to be able to hold a charge for as long as possible, which meant it would need more channels. This would be the most tedious part of the build. He quickly sketched out a plan, but decided to pull out one of his secret techniques— instead of having spirals of channels that met up with a bunch of strategically place link glyphs, he created a crosshatch pattern along the surface of the copper brick they’d been given. He’d made one out of wood before, but it was a much simpler project. Channels carved in wood could become uneven due to the woods’ grain, and this project demanded nothing short of perfection.
The material wasn’t as important as the channels. The copper brick was both a challenge and a boon. It meant mistakes would be more difficult to work around, and etching would also be a little bit more time consuming— the benefit was a product that would be sturdier, last longer, and a material that could be recycled if they needed it for something else.
He linked his crosshatched channels to a few link glyphs, and prepared another material that would hold all of the Res glyphs which he would install later.
He planned to have the Res glyphs attached to a series of latches that could be pulled or released. He had a design in mind, one that he’d used a few times before and would be relatively quick to craft, but what it added in ease of assembly it lacked in durability. Hopefully they wouldn’t play around with the switches too much, or his extra work would be wasted when a few of the glyphs failed to align properly.
Lining up the crosshatch output to the final link glyph would be the most time consuming part of the job, as he would need to check quite a few intersections along the way to ensure that his design was conducting etherium the way he hoped it was. The crosshatch would allow for the etherium to flow a lot more freely, and it would distribute itself much more efficiently than it would in a normal battery. Etherium was kind of like water, in that way. It would fill the container it was poured into.
Using this crosshatch would bypass the need for extraneous materials. Most people thought that more spiral channels to cycle the etherium meant the stored etherium charge would last longer— but Hunter discovered that you didn’t need to cycle the etherium at all. At least, not directly. It would create its own cycle if you gave it an environment with enough free movement. The few link glyphs he’d placed strategically would act like whirlpools, which would pull etherium in and then spit it back out without a change in its state, or its desire— its ‘charge’ wouldn’t change. But as it left, it would leave room in the glyph for more etherium to enter.
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He had to add at least four glyphs to ensure that all of the etherium stored in the crosshatch channels would move. Etherium that wasn’t in motion through a channel would dissipate. No one knew why, and Hunter didn’t know either. Whether it was a natural property of etherium, or a consequence of using drawstones as a medium of conducting etherium was unknown.
A few quick tests assured him that his design worked. The crosshatch channels and the glyphs didn’t take too long to carve. He cut the wood into thin rods which he would attach to the longest lines of the chassis he’d assembled— a rectangular prism measuring 10 by 5 inches— which would act as guides. so that it would be easier to line up the copper brick and the etched channels with the Res glyphs he was etching into the latches. The switches he would soon install on the side of the chassis would allow the battery’s user to toggle through the different output settings.
Hunter paused, and slapped himself on the side of the head. He can’t believe he’d been so shortsighted.
Why go through the trouble of setting up as series of binary switches, when a sliding switch would be able to do the job more easily. Thankfully, he wasn’t too far into the design. He could use the latches he’d just created, but now he would just have to line them along the inner wall of the chassis. He could also carve along one of the material guides he’d already installed into the chassis in order to conduct the etherium to the Res Glyphs and into the output nodes.
He took off one of the walls of the batteries’ case, made the changes he imagined, and lined up the latches. The latches were attached to a series of plastic strips with various lengths, which would drag the latches into place as the slider moved. Using a latch-like design made it a bit more difficult for the pieces to move once they were in place, which made the construct feel much more professional. It would take a small bit of effort to move the slider back, but it wouldn’t damage the latches too much. As long as they weren’t constantly spamming the slider side to side, it should stand up to whatever they throw at it during the assessment period.
The latches were assembled vertically. Once one was in place, the slider would begin to pull the next latch into place. This way, the user would always be in control of exactly how much resistance was in place.
He looked up at the clock. One hour remaining.
The battery was done, the sliding switch was done, all he had to do now was test his work thoroughly. He thanked himself once again for bringing the third arm, and changed out the battery that he’d been using. He attached the new battery to various points along the copper brick, then the brick and various latches simultaneously, and tested what he felt when the switch was at its different activation points.
It worked. He machined and installed the battery’s input and output sockets along the case, then tested the battery one more time from both ends. It still worked.
He glanced back at the clock. 10 more minutes.
He assembled it all together as carefully as he could. At this point, his hands were shaking and he felt like he could sleep for a few good hours. Constantly activating the batteries drained him, but at this point it was nothing he wasn’t used to.
He dreaded what the next day would bring. There would be two rounds tomorrow, and he hoped he had enough stamina to get through them both.
He was proud of his final product. If he had more time and AR, he’d have loved to use a cylinder— the shape that Oberon typically used for its last few generations of ether batteries. But designing around a cylinder would been incredibly tedious and time consuming. The crosshatch would have worked, but carving it on a rounded surface was a bit different than a flat surface like the small copper brick. It would have been a lot more difficult to design as switch for it as well. Not impossible, but he would want a lot more time to plan and create that sort of thing.
It would have looked cooler, though. Apparently, that’s worth points. As the clock counted down the final few minutes, he saw that most of the other teams were done. The team nearest him, the one that had tried to get him disqualified, had created a sphere.
Which seemed silly, but he wasn’t going to judge. They had people here who would do that for him.
Hunter was proud of his work. It was a simple, if challenging round. He only hoped that it would be enough to impress the judges.
He studied the attitudes of the teams around him. Most seemed happy with how things turned out. Despite having more manpower than him, it appeared that they’d all taken about the same amount of time that he had.
He was surprised that the crowd had stayed the same size. They were probably family and friends, following these teams to Oberon’s domain from all around the world.
He felt a rare moment of self pity, but he didn’t have much time to wallow in it. The clock struck zero, and a buzzer sounded.
“Contestants, your time is up. An attendant will soon arrive to collect your battery. If there is anything that you want the judges to know about your submission, you can tell the attendant and they’ll write it down. Results will be announced at 4 p.m., and will also be posted near the entrance of the stadium in case you miss the announcement in person. For those of you who aren’t selected to pass on to the next round, Oberon Enterprises thanks you for participating in this years Global Youth Artisan Competition! All disqualified participants may remain for the remainder of the competition to cheer on all of the remaining teams. To those who are selected for round two, I congratulate you in advance and look forward to seeing you here tomorrow!”
The battery that he’d made seemed so small and light for all the weight he was placing on it.
As the attendants filtered through the stadium, he saw other designs when they passed his workstation. Some seemed similar to his, encased in either a cubic or rectangular chassis. Others appeared utterly open and exposed— a bold choice, but Hunter would bet that it was incompetence, rather than confidence. Still, all the attendants had apparently been trained in professional etiquette, not a single look of disapproval was to be seen.
Other teams showed no such restraint. The derision Hunter was enjoying earlier was now directed elsewhere, in all directions.
An attendant showed up to take Hunters entry, and he briefed her on his design choices. She nodded, exposing not a shred of an opinion about his entry. A couple of teams noticed his battery and pointed at it, discussing amongst themselves. Hunter didn’t think too much of it, they were doing it with every entry that passed by close enough to observe.
Hunter was confident that there would be very few teams who had a similar product to his, functionally speaking. The crosshatch was something he invented himself, inspired by design elements he’d seen his father experimenting with years ago as well as some exploration of his own over the last few years. The typical spiraling-channel design would make it far more difficult to manually change the batteries output— the channels would take up most of the batteries space, and the Res glyphs would need to be precise. The crosshatch allowed for dynamism in the ether’s flow. The typical battery design didn’t come close.
The spirals created a situation where the ether could only flow in one direction once it met the res glyph, the sudden bottleneck would always lead to a some dissipation. The crosshatch allowed the ether to find new avenues to flow through when it encountered the Res glyphs. Less dissipation, more efficient design, better product.
He imagined that Oberon Enterprises was going to be very ‘inspired’ by his submission. Although he presumed they’d include him in any deal to distribute it as their own.
They were here to attract talent after all, not to push talent away.
Hunter had about 80 credits left from the 95 he’d brought with him. He had spent 5 at the cafe back in Seckina, and he figured he’d earned himself another coffee. He was gonna need it.
He followed the other teams out of the stadium. As he left the stadium lobby and breathed in the fresh Capital air, he was stopped by a young man he recognized from the competition.
“Hunter, right?”
Hunter considered ignoring them. He was exhausted, he needed a coffee, or a nap. But the young man’s posture didn’t seem confrontational. Hunter mentally crossed his fingers that this conversation wouldn’t take long.
“That’s right,” Hunter said.
The young man scratched the back of his head and grinned.
“Sorry about how other teams were treating you, but we come in peace, promise,” he said. Hunter felt incredibly tense. He took a deep breath and relaxed.
“Yeah, sorry. It’s been a long day already,” Hunter said.
“Me and the team were about to grab something to eat. You want to come join us?” the young man asked.
“Sure, I was gonna grab some coffee anyways.” Hunter said after considering it for a second. He needed more information about the competition, and thought that these people might be able to help him with that. Besides, if these they ended up proving difficult to get along with, he could just leave.
“Great!” the young man said, holding out his hand for Hunter to shake, “I’m Jeremy.”
“Hunter. Koar,” Hunter said, shaking the offered hand.
“Yeah, we heard,” someone else, Hunter presumed it was one of Jeremy’s teammates said as three others gathered around Jeremy.
“Nicole,” one of them stepped forward to introduce herself. She was shorter than average, and had glasses that looked like they could see into another galaxy.
Jeremey gestured to the rest of the team.
“This is Stephan,” he said, indicating someone who was about as tall as Hunter. Stephan nodded with a smile, “and Rodney.”
Rodney had his arms crossed and looked at Hunter doubtfully. He offered a short nod and looked away.
“Don’t take it personally,” Nicole said, “he’s like that with everyone until he gets to know them.”
“You know the type, brilliant enough that they can’t understand why normal people aren’t able to keep up with them,” Stephan said, earning a scowl from Rodney.
Hunter frowned but nodded.
He didn’t know the type, and wasn't sure that he and Rodney were going to get along.
“Alright,” Hunter said, “are we getting coffee?”
Nicole nodded enthusiastically.