Everyone was excited when they heard that they would get to participate in the testing of the prototype battery. Not only would they be testing it there, Sibel would be bringing one of his own inventions to test it. The only one who didn’t seem too interested was Howler, but the rest of them quickly began to brainstorm what kind of invention he might bring.

“A carriage?” Rosalie guessed.

“I don’t think the battery is big enough to fuel a carriage,” Ruena disagreed.

“You don’t know that,” Rosalie argued, “We have no idea what kind of power liquid magic has. It might be more than enough to power a carriage.”

“But he won’t know either, so he will start smaller,” Ruena pointed out.

“Maybe he will bring multiple things?” Soral pitched in. That seemed like the most likely answer, but no one had any solid guesses on what kinds of things those might be or how he would connect them.

Now that it had come to this, Soral felt a bit silly for not just making a device made to connect with the battery. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about connections. He could only hope that Sibel had more foresight than he had.

And he did. He did not have any visible luggage with him, but Soral did notice several magic bags attached to his belt. The connection links were the first things Sibel produced to test once he arrived. They came in various shapes and sizes, with a few different pieces meant to connect with the battery. There was one that went into the battery like a straw, and another that secured to the top of the battery more like a suction cup.

“That’s a lot,” Rosalie commented, staring at all the varieties.

“What did you bring to test it with?” Soral asked, unable to hide his intense curiosity.

“Before that, is there a good place for testing?” Sibel asked, “I need to make sure it will work. A place with a large bench or table would be best.”

“The kitchen is off limits,” Ruena told Soral, as if sensing he was about to recommend it, “If anything goes wrong, the kitchen isn’t built to handle it.”

“But the lab is a bit…” Soral began. He didn’t want to say it in front of Sibel, but he wanted to show him even less. The lab was a complete and chaotic mess. There was a workbench and a table but both were cluttered with all sorts of plans, materials, and failed experiments they had yet to dispose of.

“It’s fine,” Sibel said with a smile, “I am curious to see the place you invented such a groundbreaking magic source.”

It was then that Rosalie got an evil little grin of her own. “I’ll take you right to it,” she told him, causing Soral to freeze in horror.

Soral and Ruena followed them a few steps behind. Luckily, Sibel didn’t seem to be bothered by the state of things as they entered, but rather appreciated the visible leftovers of their creation processes. He paused to look over a few crumpled papers with various plans and schematics scribbled on them with a gentle smile.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“So, what did you bring?” Soral pressed again, shoving as much as he could to the side, ignoring the sounds of them cascading to the ground.

“It won’t require that much space,” Sibel assured, stopping Soral from pushing anything else from the table.

He pulled out a large square metallic block and set it on the table with a thunk. There was an odd indent in the block with a rectangular wedge sticking up out of it. Once the block was stable, he attached his connection to it through a panel he removed at the side of this block. He was trying out the straw like one first.

There was a pause as Sibel held out his hand to Soral before he suddenly realized he still had the battery in his pocket.

“Sorry,” he said, and quickly handed it over.

Sibel took the battery and looked it over before trying out the connection. “Don’t stress so much,” he assured, “If this one doesn’t work, we will try until we find one that does.”

The straw on this one was a bit too thick to fit through the hole on their lid, so he tried for a narrower one. This worked, but caused a bit of the magic to overflow and leak from the attachment.

“This won’t work,” Sibel muttered, and carefully removed it. He switched to the suction type instead, which stopped any more drips from escaping. Soral noted that he was wearing gloves to handle the liquid magic, something he hadn’t even thought about.

This seemed to work so he hooked it up to the block and activated the block he had set on the workbench. The rectangle in the center of the indent started to spin slowly.

“It spins?” Rosalie asked, somewhat disappointed.

“It is meant to spin faster,” Sibel replied, “Let’s try another connector.”

They went through several more connector pieces before Sibel finally found one that satisfied him. It was a suction attachment with a tiny insert that just poked inside the battery. There was a small break in testing where he had to fix his block because the spinner spun so fast it nearly caught fire on one of the previous testings.

With the approved connection installed, Sibel pulled out a large glass jug that connected to the block in the indented bit. The spinner fit into a slot that matched up with a spinner inside the glass jug. There were metal blades in there.

“Is this a torture device?” Rosalie asked, appalled, as she took several steps back.

“Actually, it is my latest idea for a cooking tool,” Sibel told her.

“It’s a blender,” Soral realized, remembering it from his browsing of various cooking related things from Nicholas’s home.

Sibel glanced over at Soral. “A blender?”

“I… Someone I know just described something similar and called it that,” Soral backtracked.

“That is a nicer name than what I had, so let’s call it that,” Sibel decided, “Do you know what it is used for?”

“Yeah, smoothies. You put fruit and other things in there and make a tasty drink,” Soral told him, relieved when Sibel nodded along.

“That is certainly a good start. Now we need to test how this blender works with something inside it to blend.”

The liquid in the battery had barely gone down at all despite their various testing, so it seemed like it would be a reliable source. Ruena had already pointed out the spot where a magic gem would have run out.

Unwilling to sacrifice too many good ingredients, they through one slice of apple, a couple berries, and some milk into the jug and watched the blades easily pulverize them. It wasn’t quite as smooth as Soral remembered seeing, but it was certainly well mixed. He offered to be the guinea pig and taste the mixture.

To be honest, it tasted a bit disappointing, like milk with a hint of something fruity in it. The testing quickly evolved from a magic tool test to a smoothie creation gathering. By the end of it, everyone had consumed far too much smoothies, and was far too stuffed to fully enjoy the sandwiches that Sibel had brought for them.

Before Sibel left, he pulled Soral aside. “Since your battery is a success, you need to start thinking about what store you want our help to launch.”

“My shop?” Soral asked. With all of the smoothie shenanigans, he had forgotten all about it, “Maybe something food related?”

“Absolutely not,” Ruena interjected, “You need to start with something that doesn’t involve perishables.”

Soral frowned, then thought of what kind of shop they would actually need. “I know, since we are gathering a mercenary group, we will need uniforms,” he suggested, “How about a clothing shop?”

“That could work,” Ruena agreed, “Do you even know how to make clothing?”

“I do,” Soral replied with a grin, “I had to craft my disguise.”

“So a clothing shop for disguises?” Sibel asked, somewhat amused.

“Yeah,” Soral agreed, “We can call it the Disguise Clothing Shoppe, with that extra e that makes it look cooler.”

“You don’t need to decide now,” Sibel reminded, taking the still mostly full magic battery, “Let me know later once you are sure what you would like to do.”