Chapter 104: Dangers of the stone
"Fascinating… While it"s only a random guess, I need to test something insanely quick."
Back in time, when I thought about being a politician or some kind of great personage of the business world, I never imagined how frantic this kind of life could actually be. As soon as the conference with the higher-ups of the faction finished, I was already running towards a small hall that I organised for Sander beforehand. Knowing the results of the testing of the stones in advance, I had no doubts that my idea and investment would get approved.
Yet another downside of ruling in the adult world. Even despite being the de-facto leader of the entire faction, both practical and spiritual, I still had to account for the opinions of my subordinates. Thinking about it, I couldn"t help but recall all those sect systems that I learned about in the various novels I read.
But instead of thinking about the possible ways to reorganise the entire political alliance into something more centrally-oriented with the help of those precious artefacts, I had something else to focus my attention on.
"Sure. What is it?"
Looking at Sander before me, I could see the sparks of excitement blossoming in his eyes. All the material and mundane matters aside, he was filled with the pure joy of a craftsman venturing to develop new and age-changing means of his craft.
"I will need at least a fair bit of the stone… But it will go to waste, whether the results will be positive or not."
Lowering his eyes to the side, Sander appeared to be quite hesitant, as if recognising the value of each charged gem.
"Not a problem. It"s obvious that the testing stage will require a lot of resources. I"m prepared for that. Here you go."
The only stop I made before reaching for what would soon become Sander"s workshop, was my bas.e.m.e.nt. With yet another batch of the stones, this time mostly coming from Ayda"s world, this middle-aged craftsman would soon turn a medieval-level of craft into a modern, technology-based manufacturing process.
That was one of the additional conclusions of the meeting. To pour any amount of money necessary for this particular technology to develop. By the time I was leaving the conference room, at least four of the officials declared willingness to look not only for the precious stones in their own businesses and other shops but also for people that could potentially fit the jobs that we were about to create.
"But don"t leave me hanging. What did you figure out?"
Pa.s.sing the shiny stone to the surprisingly delicate hand of the craftsman, I could see the corners of his lips raising in a shy smile.
"From what you told me and what I saw in that book, there is basically a single major obstacle that stops us from carving whatever we want on the stones. I will explain it on the go, is that okay?"
Without even a single use of the official form that I was bearing, Sander didn"t even wait for my response as he took the stone with him and sat in front of one of the tables that were set all over the huge room. Putting the stone on a special pedestal in the middle of a particular machine, he pressed the power b.u.t.ton of his tool before turning his head back towards me.
"In essence, we can think of those stones as energy-conducting material. While I have yet to understand the reason why it works like that, some kind of runes acts like circuits that force certain change on the energy flowing through it."
Turning his head back towards the machine, Sander grabbed the handle of his tool before starting to slowly grind the gem down into dust. Given the lack of proper tools to do something like that right off the bat, the process was extremely wasteful, with most of the precious stone turning into nothing more but a mist that surrounded Sander"s workplace.
"To make it simple, it"s proper to imagine each stone as nothing more but an even pile, made out of layers. Something like a reversed pyramid."
With the stone now entirely gone, Sander gently gathered all the dust that rested on the machine into one place, before suddenly moving away from his desk.
"On each of the layers, one can infuse only a single order. Move faster, turn into fire, compress… Thinking about it, there are at least seventeen different basic commands that we can use. From what I saw while browsing through the book, most of the later runes are nothing more but a combination of several ones."
After washing his hands and putting on his gloves that he pulled out from a drawer along with some kind of metal bottle, Sander returned to his desk before placing his new utensil on the table.
"The main problem with carving those stones is the fact that we can only carve the second layer through the hole we make in the first one. Once we reach the third or fourth layer, it"s practically impossible to keep going without altering the structure of the upper layers."
Opening the bottle up, Sander brought it over the pile of gem dust, before dripping several droplets of a thick, yellowish liquid on top of the dust. Putting the bottle away, he took something like a tiny paddle, before mixing the solution with gentle strokes. After a few moments, the dust and creamish liquid turned into a thick, condensed paste.
"This test will not only let me know whether we can fill the holes we made previously without destroying the structure within the stone. What"s more, if it will be successful… No, nevermind. Let"s test it first."
Not even asking directly for it, Sander extended his hand towards me. After a momentary surprise, I caught his drift, pulling out another stone and placing it on the craftsman"s hand.
"Let"s start with something pretty simple. Those two runes… Yeah, they will work pretty nicely."
Taking yet another tool looking like a huge pen with an extremely tiny needle on top, Sander brought what seemed to be the blade to the gem"s surface. With just a few strokes, he carved out both of the runes, one beneath the other… Before suddenly pulling his tool side-ways, adding a huge scar to the surface of the practically perfect artefact.
"Now, we apply the paste…"
Watching the proceedings with my breath tightly held within my lungs, I couldn"t help but get a little bit scared because of what I was seeing. And because of what I already saw in the apocalypse world.
With every discovery of a new kind or usability of magic, I was getting more and more certain that magic as a whole, was exactly the same in every single world possible. The one thing that differed, was the way in which living beings utilised it for their own purposes. And as great as it sounded for someone like me, with a nearly endless supply of different world and mindsets to learn from, it also meant that anything I saw in other worlds, could happen on earth.
And seeing how quickly a craftsman of the old world managed to come up with something that could revolutionise this craft when compared to the aeons old traditions of Ayda"s world… I couldn"t help but notice that I just made the first step towards exactly the same outcome as I saw in that apocalyptic world.
"And it"s done."
Putting his tools away, Sander grabbed the stone between his fingers. Putting on a special utensil on his head, he lowered a short, metallic tube onto his eye. Inspecting the surface of the finished product for a while, he took down the strange zooming tool before releasing a deep sigh.
"To make sure you understand what it means. If this paste will work exactly as the stone normally would… We will be able to simply cut the stones into thing layers, before carving each, specific rune on it. Once we will have all the parts necessary, we could use this paste to connect them. This means we will be able to abandon the idea of using the stones as mother nature made them, turning them into anything we will want. And with the one other observation I made…"
Putting his head down a bit, Sander suddenly raised it back before bringing his hand up.
"But first, let"s test whether it actually works."
Putting a smug smile, Sander pressed his finger against the upper rune of the stone. Instantly, what was a dim light before, turned into a bright ray of light. With the stone itself holding all the energy necessary to fuel such a simple set of runes, just a single command rune and activator were enough to create such a simple artefact. But rather than being happy for obtaining yet another tool, I just stood in place, terrified of how quickly things were progressing. If the existing engineering technology and concepts could be applied with the better quality of the gem dust pasta replacing the silicon of the already existing processors…
It seemed that the possibility of the technology reaching the level that doomed the apocalypse world I saw wasn"t all that distant.
"Eh… Sir, the other thing that I think I discovered… Is a peculiar quality of the more complex rune structures I saw in the book."
Suddenly turning all serious and respectful, Sander looked me deeply into the eyes.
"If I"m right, then there are two factors that we need to account for when creating any stones in the future. First, the bigger the circuit, the more energy will it use. But what"s even more dan… important, is that each layer of the runes seems to multiply how condensed the energy within the stone is."