Chapter one hundred
I spent the next week touring all the sites of Berlin that I could.
I visited the giant furnaces whose smock stack I saw when I first gazed at the city. They used enchantments to run them so the smoke I saw wasn't burning fossil fuels but other byproducts from the smelting process. I realized that the reason they haven't figured out the way to make orichalcum was because their furnaces didn't burn hot enough. The dwarves had the ability to slowly manipulate metal, that means that metals don't need to be molten before they could remove impurities or create alloys because even in a semi-molten state they could use their magic to achieve their goals. The furnaces were designed with that in mind, which was all well and good but the process to create orichalcum requires pretty high temperatures for the appropriate reactions to occur. This made them unable to create orichalcum. I went back wondering if it was a good idea to inform them of this little tidbit.
The next place I visited was the mana crystal plant. It was a high security area but with Walter's help I was granted access. The item that produced the crystals was a simple metal box which had been enchanted with 'crystalize' and 'essence' on it. I was very surprised that that combination of runes would cause mana to crystalize . What did this mean? Does this mean that mana is the 'essence' of reality or was there something I was missing. That day I went back to Walter's mansion full of questions with no answers.
The next day Ansel insisted on taking me around to visit each of the twenty six destroyers. The interesting thing about the destroyers was that no two were ever alike. Most were modeled after animals, some looked nothing like anything in nature. The most notable ones included one that looked like a sting ray and had six giant propellers that allowed it to fly and maneuver in several ways. It was the only one that could fly and I was told that each crew member had to go through intensive training before they were even allowed on the destroyer. I could tell that those that were a part of the flying destroyer's crew were afforded special treatment, they wore different uniforms from other destroyer crews and always seem to draw attention wherever they went. I was told that the positions were always sought after and all that managed to get a position were highly respected and revered.
Another design that caught my eye was one that looked like a samurai. It was a giant man in samurai like armor that was holding a giant sword. He had two cannons, one on each shoulder. He had giant pistons on his legs so I was sure he had terrific jumping power. It was the only destroyer shaped like a human and it could be piloted by a crew that was as few as fifty.
Besides those two I saw ones that look like spiders , centipedes , lions , wolves and things of that nature. None of them were really special even though all of them were impressive.
Once the week was out I learned a couple of very important things. But the most important one was that the dwarves were good ,hard working ,down to earth people. I saw their day to day struggles and it struck a deep chord in my soul. The things that I tried to create in New Hope were all here made by their own hard work and determination. I liked this people and I wanted to help these people as much as I could, I wanted to give these people my legacy.
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I decided that I was going to create a library in Walter's estate. I made a large building on his needlessly large lawn and then used telekinesis and some tools to make multiple walls around it. I created enchantments with the ability to tell if somebody was lying or not. Then I made a sheet of questions that I thought would determine if a person was worthy of entering the building, mostly morality questions. The security around the building was nearly impenetrable, I even used some sentinel steel to block magic. The only way to enter the building is to truthfully answer the questions and be deemed worthy. When Walter asked me what I was doing , I told him that I was making a special library and he was very excited.
Even with all my magic it took two weeks for me to be satisfied with my work. The moral questions were reviewed many times, and I was even able to create a tool that allowed a person who has the information to determine whether a third party was worthy. So now anybody who came to the library will have the item to check if they can share the knowledge with somebody or not. I taught Walter the runes to make the tool and also made a couple of hundred and left it with him.
The next two days I sat down and simply supplied Jules with mana as she filled the library with books on everything from science to engineering. As an AI she had stored a lot of books in her memory and she was using her own flesh to make the books that we thought would help the dwarves. After two days the large library was full, I even wrote down some runes that would be useful along with my observations on the ether and mana into a small book.
Right after I was done writing the small book my god eyes suddenly opened without my permission. I immediately tried to close them because I knew that the buffer zone in my brain didn't work anymore, but however hard I tried I couldn't stop the flow of chaotic information into my mind. I saw the past and the future, I saw the cosmos and subatomic particles, I saw spirits and gods. I was seeing everything.
After a while, it could have been a second , it could have been a year because time had no meaning here, the flow of information became less chaotic. No that is not correct , the way I was perceiving the information changed and it started being less and less chaotic. In fact it started to make more and more sense until in the end what I was perceiving turned from an all encompassing chaos to a crystal ball on a table. I was somehow sitting on a chair near the table gazing at the ball and sitting across from me was a teenager with short spiky hair wearing a T-shirt and ripped up jeans. She smiled at me and said,
"Welcome John, I've been waiting for you."