Despite my resolve to throw down railroad tunnels, I didn't imdiately leave the trial. There were still experints to run, parts to test.
Specifically, I wanted to build better tools.
There was a lot that could be done by a well trained machinist, even if they didn’t have magic. If I could provide Inertia with proper presses, lathes and a welder…
Well, we were going to need them if we wanted to build a half decent train engine.
The welder was actually the easiest, since enchanting let us bypass so of the restrictions of regular arc-welding, like a functional power grid.
Honestly, I’d had the tools to create one for a long ti, which I proved when it only took a couple hours to get a working prototype, using a tier 1 Storm affinity bone as the base. The power storage used the sa mana storage runes that resided in the petal rods, and the Spark spell provided the basis for the electricity. It looked a bit like an elongated file, except with silvery script running up its side, and a pair of prongs at the end.
Unfortunately, the prototype only allowed to use if for a minute before needing to be recharged. I’d wanted to build a better petal rod for Calbern, and building a better battery was a perfect example of getting two birds with one stone.
I’d learned a lot about mana storage since my initial inspection of the rods, most of it for short term use, such as in Lightning Bolt. But Secrets of Telthen had several designs that I mostly understood, that I was hopeful I could adjust.
The next few hours proved that they could definitely hold more mana, though making sure it stayed stable was… tricky.
Ever since I’d scribed my first spell, I’d considered myself a good hand at the delicate art of welding spells into reality, whether into my grimoires or an actual enchantnt.
The patience and precision required for even the simplest components of a third Order spell was proving I still had a lot of room to improve. At least I’d already had the goggles, so I was able to figure out the problem quick enough.
Several days of practice later, and I had my second successful prototype. It still had room for improvent, since it only had one setting, and it had a tendency to discharge at the slightest touch, but after an hour of testing it didn’t explode once.
It’d lasted most of that hour without needing be recharged either. An hour of welding was a lot of ti for such a portable tool. And we had plenty of low tier Storm affinity materials to make them with.
With the welder settled, I moved on to the presses. I’d already built several inside the trial, but they used Earth affinity materials, sothing we didn’t have much of. If I wanted a design that could be scaled up, I’d need to design sothing that worked with our available materials.
Granitas would allow us to create a truly terrifying press. In fact, when I did so testing with the small amount of tier one material the trial provided, using it to increase the effective ‘weight’ of the upper plate, I managed to squeeze the bottom plate from a full six inches thick down to one.
Very promising.
One of the popular chanics books I’d read when I was younger had said that powerful hydraulic presses were incredibly important for most large scale industry. Was pretty sure Granitas was going to make that step a lot easier for us.
While the basic principle had been proven, a tool was only as useful as its ability to be wielded, so once more I set to the task of building controls. I honestly cheated a little, and used several enchantnts that ran up a large physical dial. Rotating the dial allowed to rotate the enchantnt points that made contact, changing the flow of mana, which in turn, changed the pressure.
It’d probably need dozens, if not hundreds, of iterations to et Inertia’s standards, but that could be done later, once I started training so of her apprentices to do simple enchanting using the tools I’d developed to do the sa in the trial.
With the press only exerting the force I wanted, I stopped to stick one of the tal devil’s body’s inside, just out of curiosity.
At the sa setting I’d first used to squish the lower plate, I activated the enchantnt. The head shot out of the press, smashing into the peak across the way before tumbling down and landing on the kaiju devil’s head.
“Whoops,” I said with a chuckle as the kaiju devil grumbled and knocked into my peak. I rubbed my head as I considered the lathe. The headache was definitely getting to . Still, I figured I could handle another… I’d honestly lost track of ti, but I was certain I still had plenty of ti left.
The lathe really shouldn’t have been left for last. It wasn’t that it was particularly complicated. At its core, a lathe simply needed the ability to spin its contents quickly while maintaining stability as folk worked its contents. There were a lot of quality of life additions I could add, such as a clutch, but they weren’t necessary for the prototype. Without the assistance of enchantnt, maintaining both speed and stability would’ve been a trickier proposition. Even with it, the work required a level of precision that was difficult with the mounting headache.
Despite the headache, I was able to get a fully functioning lathe after relatively little experinting. Using another oversized dial with separated enchantnts, I was even able to simulate having speed controls.
Unfortunately, the prototype took up a solid six foot by four foot chunk of the limited space on the peak. I used it to build Fancy Club 3.0. More commonly referred to as a baseball bat, back on Earth.
Giving it a couple swings, I felt a tear co to my eye. I’d had a lot of fun playing softball, back before I’d been pulled out of school. Not that I’d been any good, but I had fond mories.
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Setting the bat to the side, I looked over my improved tools. There were two more things I wanted to build before I moved on.
A good while later, as I looked at the powered cart I'd put together, it occurred to that I'd probably spent a lot more ti in the trial than I should’ve. The throbbing pain in my head had stopped increasing at so point, though I couldn’t say when.
Dismissing the thought, I ran a hand along the silvery runes running over the inside walls of the cart. While the plan was to use Forgehearts for the actual train engines, I'd realized I could enchant a rough equivalent using Gust and the filter enchantnts.
For all of a minute, I'd considered laying tracks over the steps before deciding that was a bridge too far.
Chuckling to myself, I aid the cart down towards one of the lower peaks, away from the workspace. I'd considered riding it but I wasn't Calbern. Gave myself even odds of going over the steps on the first bump, even if the cart might’ve been fine.
Instead, I pressed the very clacky button from a safe distance, watching the cart lurch forward and start its descent.
The fact it lurched and started rolling was enough to call it a success. Unfortunately, my attempts to give the cart so suspension clearly hadn't worked. Five steps down, it clanked to the side and the entire cart teetered over, plumting into the clouds below.
Not onto the kaiju though. I'd been careful to avoid that after the press incident.
With the cart completed, I looked around.
It was… I could stay and do more… but I was really starting to miss my people. If Tamrie knew how long I’d spent inside the trial on my own… well, it was probably a good thing I didn’t actually know either. With no fanfare, I took out the tal-devil on the final peak, charging up the stairs even as my latest mini-zeppelin design dropped an anvil on it. Sure enough, the mont the last tal devil went splat, the kaiju stirred to life.
But by that point I was already standing on the peak. The trial ca to an end, and to my surprise, I was the first one out. And other than the headache, I was fine. Casting Restore Form to take the edge off, I noticed Calbern waiting by Bevel’s portal.
A second later, Bevel pulled free, dropping to her knees. I was moving even as she gasped. Calbern was already kneeling next to her. By the ti I got to her, she was smiling up at us. "Wow… I feel…"
"Yeah, that first one's pretty intense," I said, offering my hand.
"Can't wait to see if it worked," Bevel said, accepting my hand and letting pull her to her feet as I cast Restore Form on her. "Did you get the scanner done?"
"Not sure. Wasn't able to test it inside," I said, shaking my head. I'd originally pushed it back, but after I’d finished the other tools, I’d swapped between working on the scanner and the cart.
"Can you test it now?" Bevel asked, hoping in place for a second before stopping and holding perfectly still. "I'm ready."
I chuckled. "Need to enchant it first. And I don't have the materials on ."
By that point, Nexxa and Vaserra had finished their own trials, each of them slumping. With them out, the door next to us shifted back to Calbern's image. The disruption drew our attention, but then I was moving over to check on the ladies.
Vaserra was lying on the ground, staring upward, tears beading in the corners of her eyes. She quickly blinked them away when she saw , giving a fierce smile.
Not far away, Nexxa rolled onto her side, pressing at her head. "That… I've been hit gentler by dragons."
"That bad, huh?" I said, running a Restore Form through her just in case.
"Oh, that's better," Nexxa said with a sigh, smiling up at . "Think I might've pushed harder than I should've."
"Been there," I said, plopping down between her and Vaserra, my gaze shifting towards where Bevel was regaling Calbern with everything she’d done inside. It seed Bevel hadn't fought either the regular tal devil or the kaiju version. She'd used the materials to build a trap for the little one, then sent it tumbling under the kaiju's foot. When it got crushed, her trial had finished.
Once she was done, Calbern and I both congratulated her on her cleverness. Then he inclined his head in my direction before laying his hand on the door and freezing in place.
We all watched him silently, expecting him to be back pretty quickly.
"Is it supposed to take this long?" Nexxa asked almost two minutes later.
Bevel was next to Calbern, walking back and forth, not touching him, but obviously worried enough to want to.
"I… don't know. We haven't actually seen how long it takes from the outside. We'll have to ask how long we took once he's done," I said.
It took another three minutes before Calbern slumped slightly. He caught himself before he hit the ground, blinking rapidly as he regained his posture. "Quite bracing," he said when he noticed us all looking his direction.
Behind him, the door shifted once more. In addition to the kaijus, a massive horde of monsters filled the door. They stretched beyond the horizon, with hundreds climbing up one of the kaiju who was focused on a man running along the back of another.
"Seriously, our trials aren't even close to similar," I said, staring at the new image. "Did you just fight off an apocalypse?"
"Not as such, master Percival. I rely had to retrieve a collection of seven Pri Devils's enhancent cores," Calbern replied, inclining his head slightly in our direction.
"I… think I'm gonna want more details on what that ans," I said, shaking my head. "But first, how long did it take for us to complete our trials?"
"Five seconds or so, master Percival," Calbern replied, his eyebrow inching up a fraction. "Did I take longer once more?"
"I'd say so," Nexxa said, cracking her neck. "At least five minutes."
"Papa was worried," Bevel said, squeezing my knee.
Nexxa raised her eyebrows at that, turning towards and mouthing the word 'Papa'.
I mouthed the word 'later' back.
After a quick nod from Nexxa, I pushed to my feet while grilling Calbern on the details of his latest trial.
"They were labeled such by Conflict, master Percival," Calbern clarified, gesturing at the larger beings on his door. Only one of the ‘Pri Devils’ looked like a tal devil. "And within each of them, nestled just beneath the brain, was a sizable crystalline structure. That structure was the core I was tasked to retrieve."
"How did you have ti to harvest the cores after they died? Heck, how did you even kill them?"
"Tell us the full story!" Bevel added, taking each of our hands and leading us towards the ramp.
Calbern chuckled, but he indulged Bevel as we climbed the stairs. It was pretty grueso. Nothing worse than what Bevel'd seen in person.
She really hadn't had a kind childhood. I reached over and ruffled her hair. Which got her to glance up at , her brow scrunched in confusion. But then she was drawn back in as Calbern described diving into one of the Pri Devil's mouths.
Which was one of the most exploitable weaknesses, apparently. Calbern dove through the soft tissue, gaining direct access to the brain and the core that was attached. Removing the core tended to kill the Pri Devil's they were attached to, though not always.
"That's Fronting disgusting," Nexxa said with a laugh. "Prefer my way of doing it."
"Oh, and how did you handle your trial, lady Nexxa?" Calbern replied, inclining his head slightly in her direction.
"Went up top and studied the big one. Then used a bunch of traps on the little one, letting it get itself stuck. Studied it too. Then I spent a while working on my spell designs before finishing it off by dropping a big rock from the top of the arena," Nexxa said with a shrug.
We all looked towards Vaserra next. She smiled, running a hand along her totem braided red hair. "I crafted several crude weapons, then fended off the smaller one with each of them. Once I was satisfied, I sought out the giant. It was an excellent hunt."
Our conversation was interrupted by Conflict stepping past us, not even looking down as it moved to a group of rollerbugs who'd rolled in. I was about to turn back to Vaserra when I noticed what they had strung up between them.
"Is that… a person?"
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