After the revised testing procedures involving ground birds were finished, the new, 36-inch fluorite doped with iron finished growing. Well, it didn't actually grow as intended. While the beginning of the crystal seemed to grow as intended, it fractured into multiple smaller growths off the top, meaning we really only had a singular 18-inch crystal, and tons of smaller ones. While I could have potentially used the 18-inch crystal, I decided to break it down, make some changes, and try again.

So, I tinkered with a few changes to the growth chamber. I extended the growth time to 20 days from the 18 it was set to before, and I modified the shape of the furnace portion. The furnace previously formed a ring around the chamber, designed to equally heat it. However, based on the fact that the small crystals started to precipitate on the faces of the large crystal, I adjusted the furnace shape to be a diamond, matching where the crystal faces should grow. Hopefully this will result in the temperature near the crystal surface being more even, though I'll have to wait 20 days to find out if that actually helps or not.

Those modifications took two days, and in the middle of making the changes, I received word of another development happening. About a quarter of the dwarves that we rescued from Kao's island have decided that they're tired of waiting to go back to the mainland. They've decided that they'd prefer to risk the trip in canoes like we made to rescue them, rather than wait any longer.

I think they expected either Zaka or I to object, based on how they decided to present themselves for the situation. They gave notice in the morning that they wanted to hold a meeting with Zaka and myself, and showed up en masse at the time of the meeting, with many appearing disgruntled or upset. Considering that it was a minority of the dwarves we rescued, I'm guessing that they'd thought we were taking advantage of them somehow, and that we could, at any time, simply reinstall a large mana crystal, and allow them to return.

I mean, it's not actually that unreasonable of an assumption, if you consider the kinds of technology that they've been seeing getting constructed in the past few years. Though making exceptionally large mana crystals isn't really on the table unless we find another deposit of crystals or they wait an unknown number of years until we get enough argon to effectively use our existing supplies.

I explained our situation, and how we're also attempting to get large mana crystals online again, and while they seemed to at least be less immediately upset, they still wanted to return. So, I offered that we'd help them build whatever boats they need for their trip. I also let them know that they could exchange our money for dwarven coin to return home with, and that I'd send them back with enough spare coin to pay for a message to be sent back via the elven communication method, so they could let other dwarves here know if the journey is safe or not if they make it back.

While I appreciate having the spare dwarven workforce, which has been significantly speeding up our mining and construction projects, I'm not looking to make our relationship with the dwarven country any worse than it's already become. That doesn't mean, however, that I'm not conscious of the potential for spying. While I doubt that any of the dwarves could recreate any of our more advanced machines from only seeing their outsides, I don't want to take any chances.

After the dwarves left the meeting, I talked with Zaka about getting some of the military to guard a few locations around the clock. I have three processes that I want to keep secret, and now that some of the dwarves are planning on leaving, they might be inclined to try to find some extra information that they could sell back home. I keep the vacuum chambers for mana crystals sealed, but I still want some guards at the cave on the mountain to protect that. I also want the stairs in the lab guarded, to protect the fluorite growth process from prying eyes. Finally, I also want the cryogenics facility guarded.

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Thanks to the dwarven civil war, I've already seen how much of an upset to existing power structures some of our technologies have caused. Part of the reason I built the lab away from everything else was for safety reasons, but now, I'm also seeing that it's probably useful to keep things secretive for strategic purposes as well. I'll need to talk with the workers that I've already hired to work on these processes, and see if they've already leaked information. For the most part, other than the demons who seem to be addicted to gambling, the demons and dwarves don't actually interact all that much. The demons who do gamble also don't really hold down jobs for long, so none of them have worked long term in any of my facilities that are important, so the odds of any major information having leaked is quite low.

Things are only going to get more complicated in the next few years, because I have quite a few technology ideas that will utilize our artificial fluorite, and each technology will require more and more people working to produce the machines utilizing the products. Thinking about it that way, I should talk to Zeb about building out a village around the lab space. Realistically, it would function more as a military base, and I'd want it to be walled and stationed with guards, just like the city.

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Zeb was less eager to help build out walls around the lab's area as compared to the fluorite facility from before. Admittedly, we do have a goblin in critical condition now, and the wall is less about productivity, and more about safety. There are other concerns as well related to building a village here, even if it's a small one. There isn't a very steady source of water here, for starters. However, I convinced him that during the spring, when the reservoir is unable to be dug out further, rather than have those teams go to build out the aqueduct and road, they should come here to help build out a wall.

I was also able to bring him around to the idea of building housing over here. The lab does have it's own mana crystal underground, so it won't be any slower than building in the main city, and once demons move from the city to here, it's functionally the same as building in the city, as far as total population is concerned.

The lab is closer to the city than some of the other villages, so sourcing our water there, at least temporarily, shouldn't be a concern. I proved out that we could build a well for water, and in fact, it's still here, though it does need to be repaired for it to work again. I would just say we should build another aqueduct down at this altitude to supply our water, but the next valley would be somewhat useless to gather from, since just uphill in that valley is our sulfide ore roasting facility, so all the water that we'd collect would likely be tainted by lead and arsenic.

However, we could dig a few water channels into the hillside to get a small stream of water out of the mountain, and then create a smaller reservoir that we could pull that water from. Even a very small stream should produce enough water for us, as long as it's collected for the whole day. Which means I'm going to be juggling a few different jobs at a time for a little while. I'll need to keep up with our fluorite supply to make sure we can continue to grow crystals to fuel production moving forward, I also will need to design our initial engines that use our heat fluorite when we get our first large crystal.

I also need to plan out what this walled in area will look like, where the housing should go, and how large of an area I want encompassed. In addition it will need a reservoir, and water tunnel. Finally, I'll also want to build a much larger cryogenics facility over here, and potentially decommission the one at the reservoir. If I'm going to be scaling everything up, I may as well shut down the other facility once the larger one is online, since I'd prefer to keep this sort of technology secret. Which means I'm actually going to need a lot of space walled in over here, since there are quite a few facilities that need built, if you consider I want to have a dedicated blacksmith and smelting area where we can cast replaceable parts for stirling and steam engines.