My next stop was the academy. I had to get things started before we could leave for the Dominion. Hopefully it would not take too much time to explain my ideas. Coming up with an engine was the only part where I needed to be involved, the engineering would best be done by others.
Now, how would I design an engine? Introducing a steam engine would be a possibility. The problem with non magical science was, I would need to spend a lot of time teaching people. This world heavily used magic. For lamps, showers and other modern conveniences that they managed to replicate. Going a magical route would be a lot easier. And using a ritual to power the engine would mean spell slots were the fuel. Of course, it meant hiring mages to run the train.
For now, I simply wanted an engine that turned using magic. And I wanted it to be a ritual, so any mage could power the engine. Thankfully I had my arcane knowledge, which should help with finding the right runes.
I met with Nicholas in his office and described my idea.
“An intriguing project. But you are not the first to propose a magical carriage. The rails and the design are new, but magically powering a horse carriage has been tried before.” He said.
“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Why haven’t I seen any so far?”
“They all had problems. Mages usually tried to put a spell on the wheels themselves. But they had trouble with the speed and steering. Your idea of having one engine that turns the wheels would certainly help. It means you only need to worry about one spell. The rails are probably a good idea as well. How would you manage the speed though?” He wondered.
That was potentially a problem. A magical engine might always run at the same power level. A ritual with a controlled power output might be too complex. But there was a simply solution. “We can disconnect the engine.”
He blinked. “What?”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“See, we have an engine that essentially turns a cog. That cog is connected to different cogs, which turn the wheels. That is how we transfer the power from the engine to the wheels. We would need to engineer a proper transmission system…” Having an engine run on one power level all the time might still be a problem. Maybe we could at least use multiple engines and connect, or disconnect, them to reach different levels of speed. Or we could take some of the power to turn something else, maybe.
I came to the realization that my actual knowledge about cars, trains and engines was somewhat limited. I remembered a few things from school but I was never that interested. I had never worked on my own car. Actually, my knowledge about technology as a whole was limited. I did not know how a lot of things worked. It simply was not required in the modern world. And I always had Wikipedia to look things up, if needed. Replicating modern tech always sounded so easy. Maybe I was just bad at it.
Sadly, Wikipedia was out of my reach. And funnily enough, thanks to my reincarnation, I actually knew more about magic than technology. Maybe I needed to focus more on that. How could I have different levels of power from my engine? What about a summoning? Shani had taught me that low level elementals were not sentient. Using them would be fine. A ritual to summon a fire elemental would be doable. Or maybe air?
“What about elementals?” I said.
“What about them?” Nicholas asked.
“We could summon some, have them power the engines. An elemental can be commanded. We can use fire, or lightning, to power something.” Could I replicate an electric motor? Damn, why did I not pay more attention in school. There was some electromagnetism involved… right? Maybe I should try a steam engine with the help of fire and water elementals.
“How would fire turn a wheel?” Nicholas asked.
Suddenly an idea hit me. I grinned. “Ok, forget my previous ideas. We are going with a jet engine!”
“A jet engine?” He asked. At this point he looked really confused.
“Oh yeah. We are going to put a tube on the top of the train. It will suck in air at the front, compress it and blow it out the back with a lot of power.”
Lightning was my element and it was part of the air domain. I was really confident I could create a magical jet. I would not even need to worry about a transmission. And with the rails, we would not need to worry too much about steering. I just needed good brakes and a way to adjust the power of the jet. Maybe I could use air elementals. The centre could be a container that magically compressed the air. We could feed it air from an elemental. And we could control how much we opened the container with the compressed air. We could decide how much air we fed into it.
“You are certain that would work?” He asked.
“Sure. I just need a good smith. Maybe we should make the engine with mithril, or adamantium. We probably want some enchantments. We certainly have to make sure it does not explode.”
I felt smug. I really liked my jet engine idea. Nicholas, on the other hand, looked slightly terrified.