Chapter 92: Amateur"s hand
"Keep your hand steady… Yeah, just like that…"
Standing behind Pavlo"s shoulder, Sander continued to speak in this monotone, sleepy voice. Yet instead of losing his focus and falling asleep, the young master of the Baskar family was doing rather nicely… As far as my untrained eye could see that is.
"Keep calm on the corner, just calmly let go of the stick…"
Instead of closely looking at the gem through several sets of a magnifying gla.s.s, the two men focused their eyes on the high-quality display of Sander"s laptop. Who could bother with trusting their own eyes, when a set of high-frequency cameras could replicate the level of details that the human eye could never notice?
"Just like that… And there we go, Pavlo"s first stone!"
Exclaiming with joy, Sander conveniently ignored a small pile of wasted products, the results of Pavlo"s learning attempts. Because in the end, it didn"t matter how hard it was to learn. All that I wanted to know, was whether a complete amateur, who had no real experience in either the trade itself or more tangible forms of manipulating magic energy like me, could still carve the stone out.
That was the level closest to how the machines could carve the stones, replacing the expensive, sloppy and slow human labour. Instead of constantly worrying about the loyalty of the recruited workers, I could simply let the mechanical muscles do the job. The fact that it would be ultimately several grades more precise than any human hand only added more incentives to investing in the automation of the process.
And for that sake, wasting about a dozen of formerly expensive gems was not something that my faction could even qualify as a cost. To be fair, it was easier to just add their price to the other orders I was placing, summing them up as just slight maintenance costs. Realistically speaking, all the tools and materials that Pavlo gathered in the room, would make up only a small fraction of the daily cost of the ongoing construction of my mansion alone, not to speak about all the other works going on around my faction"s claimed ground.
"Great."
Taking the finished product in my hand, I gently blew away at the stone"s surface to rid it of the dust. Watching as the small, colourful cloud quickly washed away in the air, a certain idea came to my mind. But it was still way too early for me to even be able to test it out. For now, the most important thing was to learn whether any part of the process of creating the proper magic stones could be done on earth.
"Now then…"
Placing the gem gently on the table, I looked up at Sander, only to see him already placing a new piece in the special hold of the drilling machine. Without saying a single word, he quickly took the seat behind the screen. Once his hand gently touched the joystick of the machine, a magical show began.
In just a moment, colourful sparkles started jumping to all sides from the stone as a diamond-powder coated drill made its first mark. The motions of the machine were perfectly fluid, free from all the hesitation and patience that marked Pavlo"s attempts.
In the hands of a professional, this expensive equipment finally proved its worth. In less than half of a minute, Sander turned around on his chair, grabbing the stone from the stand. Instead of relying on the cameras, he pulled down a small magnifying gla.s.s hanging on a special level from his gla.s.ses. It seemed that a craftsman like him still trusted his eye more than he would trust a camera.
"Yeah, that should do."
Taking just a few seconds to confirm his work, the middle-aged man raised his palm towards me with the carved stone on top of it.
"That"s how easy it is to complete this design. If that would be of any help, I could give something more challenging a try."
Clearly eager to secure the deal with me by any means necessary, Sander didn"t seem to mind to work for a bit more. In my position though, there was something else that I needed him to do. After all, Huskarl clearly stated that in order for the magic stone to be made, it had to turn from a single jewel to a proper magical stone before its runes would be carved on it!
"For now, it would be better if you could replicate the same design on all the types of gems that you brought. If it wasn"t dealt with before, all the costs will be covered. Right, Pavlo?"
Taking a look at the young man still gawking at the difference between the stone he made and the one made by a professional, I could see him swallowing his saliva before dressing up an uneasy expression on his face.
"You are most certainly right… Just please, keep it within reasonable limits. Those pebbles are not as cheap as the old age weapons…"
Shaking his head in anxiety, Pavlo almost made me laugh. Once again I couldn"t help but think of how little those stones would be worth when compared to what they were spending on a daily basis to keep just the construction going.
Ultimately though, my request was still fulfilled. Within less than half-an-hour, I was already carrying a small bag filled with colourful stones back to my bas.e.m.e.nt. This was the last part of the test that I wanted to set in place before returning right back to Ayda"s embrace. Considering that turning the carved stones into magic ones would be possible on earth, a.s.suming that carving the stones either with that special wand, by an experienced hand of a blacksmith or a complete amateur wouldn"t hinder the process…
I still had to find out which earthy stones were actually considered to be precious ones in regards to their ability to turn into magic stones. And if it was just a problem of obtaining a matter with a set way of atomic arrangement…
Then what would be stopping me from buying off all the graphene sheets available on the market?
But rather than thinking about it, as soon as I stepped into my bas.e.m.e.nt, I froze.
Even now I could still clearly remember that the sign of a carved stone turning into a magic stone would be a dim light emitted by it. This process was said to take about a day. But as I stepped into the underground room, barely an hour after I left the stones here… they were already shining like a light-bulb treated with current way above what it could hold!