Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1794.01.24]
Zeph stirred in his bed as the vestiges of a dream vaporized from his memory. He dreamed about Earth, of the times before the Apocalypse. It was a pleasant one – he could still feel an indescribable warmth in his chest. The details were fleeting, but the impression of home still permeated his mind. Warped by the dreamscape as they were, the familiar shapes of his earthly room and nearby corridors were the last to flee from his mind as reality assessed its dominance.
He was lying on his bed in his underground apartment on Corora, in the Lurona city. A gentle light of luminescent pipes painted the dark walls in blues and greens.
He glanced at the wadokei on the wall. It was almost the 10th cycle already. He overslept, but it was a self-imposed declaration. He didn’t have any real responsibilities to take care of.
Moving away from the bed, he started recounting his plans for the day.
Yesterday’s stroll didn’t bring any effects, but Zeph wasn’t discouraged. The Gibbons were working in hiding, it would be ridiculous to invite him right after noticing his presence. Assuming they had noticed the leaflet and his presence in the first place. The leaflet itself wasn’t a proper identification mark either way.
But he hoped they noticed his readiness, at the very least.
Either way, he needed a full-fledged badge. The dark yellow color necessary for one was the main problem. It would make him stand out without a reason. It would be instantly obvious that he was trying to show it.
He had a better idea for the item. One that would surprise the locals but was a standard technique on Earth.
To dilute the message.
After refreshing himself in the bathroom, he immediately walked to the central office of the Guild – the one hidden underground.
His commission was simple – to make a yellow overcoat with the leaflet’s pattern embedded on it. The color was somehow unusual, but certain skins took that shade of yellow if they weren’t processed properly. By wearing such a thing, he would look more like a Corora’s equivalent of a beggar, but he couldn’t care much about that. Moreover, it would be a chance to lose a tail, assuming he would have one.
Walking through passages hosting less fortunate citizens in such attire wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye. He wanted to see the condition of the poorer parts of the city anyway.
He also made sure the commission was classified. That way he would have to wait for a day for it to be fulfilled but the chances of information leak would drop drastically.
Instead of wasting time, he decided to return to his apartment and read from the ‘Memories of the Earth’ Skill. It was the highest time to crack one of the mysteries he had to ignore until now.
~~~
To see through Gru’s ‘egg’, it was necessary to recreate the x-ray crystallography. He would first try to compare it with a pure Manasolid using simplified spectrophotometry, but to confirm if any kind of genetic information could be contained within, he needed to check the atomic structure. He could also experiment with other methods – like destabilizing it and analyzing physical remnants – but from what he knew, Manasolids should behave like crystalline structures, so the method seemed to be perfectly suited for the task. And he didn’t want to damage the thing before learning what it could be.
Of course, the first step was to recreate an X-ray tube and check if Manasolids weren’t absorbing that radiation. Still, he had to search through his Skill to remember the structure of the lamp. It had been written down in the plastic books he had brought to Corora before the System consumed them. The knowledge and blueprints were a part of his Skill now, and relatively easy to interpret – the Soul memories of him compiling and reading the contents were quite vivid.
It was a second ‘blueprint’ that he tried to uncover by using this knowledge. The first was about ballistic weaponry and, especially, about the shells.
Irra was close to finalizing the details of mass production, but the composition of the exploding part of a shell was problematic. Because of the lack of raw materials on the market, mass production of gunpowder was impossible. Irra managed to find something with similar effects – and easily made from available materials – but it was still being tested. The most worrying part was that the reaction wasn’t repeatable. For example, if the air was full of certain Heat-related Magicules, the explosion could break the weapon’s barrel.
His own pistol wouldn’t work on a higher stratum, as he had learned. Earth’s gunpowder was of outstanding quality but everything had its limits. The more the speed of the bullet differed, the worse would be his aim. A constant risk of malfunction didn’t sound like a reasonable risk either – he already lost one of his pistols by oversaturating the bullet with Stiffen Spell.
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On the other hand, a Mana-saturated shell would be safe from external influences.
But developing a Spell-compatible or enchanted shell would also require structural changes in the weapon. Mainly, it would have to be made from much more durable materials. According to Ghrughah’s initial assessment, on each stratum they would have to apply materials from higher strata, which would make the weapon way too costly for normal users. It was one of the major reasons for Ghrughah and P’pfel to dump the project and focus on magnetic-driven weaponry.
Either way, he had to wait a little longer for Irra to balance her powder. Until then, he would have to be careful with the 40 shells he was left with.
After a few hours of meditation, he started writing down instructions. X-ray tube was theoretically simple to make – just a tungsten anode and normal cathode encased in glass. A beam of electrons would fall at a slanted plate of anode at around 45 degrees, producing a cone of radiation that would escape through the glass walls. But there were three technical problems.
First, there should be a vacuum in the tube and people here didn’t have a good technology to achieve that. Not to mention, a glass that could withstand it.
Second, power. He could use the batteries that their guild invented, but the calculations on the voltage would be tricky. Also, he would have to use a compression chamber to lower the Ambient Mana density and get rid of the fluctuations in the electric current. Thankfully, their Guild now possessed its own compression chambers. They weren’t big, but would suffice.
Third, a material reactive to Röntgen radiation to catch the image from the scattering in the Manasolid sample. Thankfully, he didn’t need to apply math and Group Theory to calculate the exact crystal structure from the image – that could take way too long without a computer. Deciphering the distribution of dots on the image was challenging on many fronts. But no, he just wanted to know if there would be any difference and how big those could be.
After writing everything down, he left his abode to inform the people involved.
~~~
In a weakly illuminated corner of Ghrughah’s dark and cluttered workshop Zeph, P’pfel, and the giant sat by an almost empty table, leaning over Zeph’s notes and simple drawings they have made. Only the echoes of working furnaces accompanied their silent discussion.
The two craftsmen weren’t that busy anymore, making his request for a meeting trivial to accept.
“Light on the other side of the scale than infrared, you say?” the professor asked, scratching his chin. Then, he looked at Zeph excitedly. “I’ve never thought about that! And how big is the whole scale?”
He shrugged. “You can assume it’s infinite. Although, knowing that something can exist and producing it are two very different things.”
“Sounds like something I should work on, definitely. Only…” he sighed depressingly. “That knowledge puts me even more in your dept…”
“We can exchange favors,” Ghrughah proposed. “I am sure Zeph would want to decrease his gold debt to me.”
He shrugged again. “Up to you two. Anyway, can you make it?”
“Doable, if time-consuming,” the giant grumbled. “Appropriate crystal, I can find. Even modified glass should work. The vacuum, I will have to work manually on it.”
“Same here,” the professor nodded. “But we will have to work together. I can prepare a few samples of light-reactive materials, but I can do nothing without testing. Can I buy the device after you finish your examination?” He asked Zeph.
“Yes, but we need to work out a better source of power. I was planning to use our batteries, but that won’t work for a prolonged usage.”
“Do you have an idea?” the Gremling asked curiously.
“I know how to build something that will produce a static electric… stream,” Zeph had to improvise a little, he wasn’t sure about the proper technical terms, even when using Rui. “But it will work properly only in a Manaless environment.”
The giant and the midget exchanged glances.
“What do you want for the diagram?” the Gremling turned to him and asked.
“It’s worthless in Mana environments – the System will give us nothing for it,” he mused. “So, if you manage to somehow stabilize the electric stream outside of the chamber, just show me how you did it,” he decided. “You want to build it right away, I presume?”
They nodded instantly.
“Eh, less work for me, I suppose,” he smiled slightly. “Ghrughah, do you have a Manasolid of the same type or am I going into a big debt again?”
“What type it was?” the giant asked, looking at P’pfel.
“Hydrargyrum-based, lesser, pure variant,” the professor immediately recited. Being Memory-imbalanced had its good sides, it seemed. “Stable at standardized level 65 compression chamber, octagonal offshoots, highly symmetrical, so type Si6. Volume around 2.5 cubic fingers.”
“I have two Si8 for levels 90 and 100. Is that close enough?” he asked, turning to Zeph.
He smiled. “No idea. Is the crystalline structure similar?”
“Similar is a good word,” P’pfel said with a snort. “We can check a few more types and see how that influences the results of examination,” he proposed lightly. “We should have a few more in the Guild. We paid quite a lot to prepare for the Tournament.”
The giant nodded and leaned backwards in his seat. “I have two more. Manual stabilization?”
“Will you manage that in a Manaless room?” Zeph asked with a slight worry. They didn’t have any other good method of isolating them from the environment. If any of the borrowed ones destabilized, Kwan would literally rip their heads off.
“With a framework for moving my Veil, yes.”
“With no doubt?”
“I already did that a few times already,” the giant nonchalantly informed. “I would be worried more about possible destabilization when under that invisible light.”
“We can start slowly,” he agreed. “And on the smallest one to minimize losses.”
“Collective responsibility?” the Gremling asked, playing with his glasses.
“That’s the idea,” Zeph said seriously. “Any more questions?”
A few seconds of silence ensued.
“Let’s not waste time then!” P’pfel the wild exclaimed finally, rubbing his hands with greed. “I need space for an alchemical station!” he jumped from his seat saying that.
Ghrughah leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, and interlocked his fingers. A toothy smile and a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Let’s plan the scale of our creation first.”
Zeph chuckled darkly, leaning back and crossing his legs. “First, we plan for the whole Guild. But later…” A shadow of madness crossed his gaze as his imagination broke free for a moment.