[Melas] Chapter 143. Trial and Error (Patreon)

“Alright, Luna,” I said as I straightened and raised the spell scroll. “You might want to step back for this.”

The black cat purred and hopped off my shoulder. She dashed off to the side, circling behind Aniyar as he watched me from behind some barriers.

“Are ye sure ‘bout this, Melas?” the Engineer asked, clearly nervous. He wore a suit of enchanted, protective armor from head to toe. He picked up Luna and covered her with his arms. “This just seems dangerous. Ye could make a mess of the testing room again. You’ll get in trouble with Bertrand, this time.”

It was just me, Aniyar, and Luna standing in the testing room for new, experimental weaponry. The last time I was here, I destroyed their sparring area. It wasn’t really my fault considering Aniyar goaded me into fighting one of the Golems. But I did get into a bit of trouble for that. (By trouble, I meant I had my food portion cut in half for a whole week.)

“Look, you said you wanted to make up for ditching me the other day, right? So, quit complaining and just observe as I revolutionize the world of manatech.” I rolled the scroll shut and stuffed it inside a box.

“What is that, anyway?” Aniyar stared curiously at my invention.

I protectively hovered over it. “I’m not telling you. It’s one of my secret projects.” It had been in the works for a while, but I had been sidetracked by the scrolls project. “Just watch.”

I removed all the mana crystals that was adorning the side of the large box. Then, taking a step back, I placed a hand where I’d inserted the scroll, taking in a deep breath and activating it.

The magic in the scroll came to life. It was a simple spell that had been inscribed— not much mana was even fused with the scroll itself. However, somehow, the scroll reacted violently with the runes on the box. It sparked— then sizzled, sending puffs of smoke up in the air.

Aniyar blinked. “Is that supposed to happen?”

“Nope,” I said, bailing out of there. “Get back!”

The box exploded. Bits of metal went flying everywhere. It was not a large blast, fortunately. It barely even took out the edge of the table. But the shrapnel had been what was dangerous. I used simple levitation spells to redirect the flying shrapnel, sighing as I took in what was left of the box.

“Well, that ended in failure.”

I heard the soft sounds of footsteps approaching me. It was not Aniyar. No offense to him, but he was too… large for that.

Luna walked up to me, purring loudly. I glared at the cat.

“I know…” That couldn’t have gone any worse.

“Alright, this time, it’ll work.”

I walked up to the stack of metal boxes and picked one up, bringing it to the testing area. A small crowd had joined Aniyar in watching me with Luna. These Dwarves were also Engineers— part of Project Gold, working with Aniyar. They’d actually helped me replicate and mass produce a sizable sum of these boxes for me.

I placed it on the reinforced table, taking in a deep breath. This time, I designed the scroll differently. Instead of giving the box a compartment to insert the scroll into, I kept the scroll to the side of the box. The bare fringes of the scroll touched the box as I activated it.

“It’s… glowing without a mana crystal,” a Dwarf named Iskander whispered.

“Shush, you’ll distract her.” Aniyar quickly hushed him.

I pursed my lips, trying to ignore the conversation as I watched the effects of the spell scroll slowly transfer to the box. The runes on the box shone brightly, burning red. My eyes grew wide, and Iskander gasped.

“It’s working!”

“Nope!” I quickly corrected him, taking a step back away from the table.

My audience exchanged confused looks, but I just raised my hand as a blue spell circle formed at the tip of my fingers. Then Aniyar finally noticed what was going on.

The box was literally burning red. It began to melt, molten iron spilling onto the table, pouring down the side to the floor. I pointed at the melting box and spoke softly.

“Frost Javelin.”

The crystalline spear lanced out, striking the table and the box, sending a cloud of steam up into the air. I waved a hand off and blinked as I stared at the damage.

“Oops.”

What was left of the melting box lay collapsed on the ground, no longer glowing red, but also very much in an unusable state. But what truly mattered was the state of the reinforced table— it had been a workbench used for power tools, and it was… completely broken. Destroyed by the Frost Javelin.

I scratched the back of my head. “That was not intentional.”

“Oi! Why would you do that?!” Aniyar leapt to his feet, shaking a fist at me. “You broke the damned workbench!”

“Look, I was trying to stop it from melting the table, alright?” I shifted slightly, uncomfortable.

“By destroying it entirely?” Iskander piped up, a mixture of confusion and amazement in his face.

“Shut up, Iskander.” Aniyar crossed his arms. He turned back to me. “You could’ve a simpler spell to cool it, not a damned Tier 4 spell!”

Was he really referring to spells with tiers? Gennady really had too much influence over Jahar’taw, huh?

“I would’ve done that,” I protested, “if I knew any other spell that would work in this situation.”

Aniyar gave me a dubious look. “You mean you don’t know a simple freezing spell? A Cold Winds spell?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “I told you. I only know combat spells. And, you know, most combat spells just go boom.”

The Dwarf Engineer sighed. Then he turned to Iskander and the rest of his crew, arms on his hips. “Well, lads, it’s time you begin mopping up. Chop, chop. Get to work.”

“Oh, c’mon!”

“Goddess grace us, ye lazy fat bastard—”

“Why do we have ta clean up?”

“You volunteered for it when you decided to watch this wreck. Now move it!” He clapped his hands together as Iskander dragged himself over to me, bringing an actual broom.

I bit my lower lip, feeling bad about forcing them to clean up after me. “Let me help,” I said to Iskander.

“Oh, sure.” He handed the broom over to me. “You can just sweep off the dust there. Don’t worry too much about it.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Yeah. But you’ve got to tell me more about these things you’re making. They’re fascinating.” Iskander picked up the remains of the scroll. “Aniyar briefed me on it, but I didn’t think it was possible. It powers a mana tool without even using a mana crystal… the applications…”

“I know, right?” I felt my lips curl up as I watched how intrigued he was with my work. “Well, if you must know—”

—--

“Yeah, so it doesn’t use mana crystals at all. I call it crystal-less mana tech.”

Aishat listened to the recording as it played back to her in the small tape recorder. Her brows furrowed, a dark shadow coming over her face.

The Princess had heard of that girl’s experiments and requested one of the guard’s to place an audio recorder in the testing room. When she got it back, she didn’t like what she heard.

“So, it’s powered by pure mana?” a Dwarf— presumably someone called Iskander— asked, curious.

“Mhm. It won’t cost nearly as much as a mana crystal, too. Its price would depend on how long each of these scrolls took to make— also the price of the materials used to make them.”

“And how do you produce these scrolls?”

Aishat listened as there was a brief lull in the conversation. All she heard was the shuffling of feet.

“Magic…?” Melas finally said.

“Woah.” Surprisingly enough, the Dwarf wasn’t upset about it.

It annoyed Aishat. How far had the MTC fallen that its Engineers had no gripe with magic, but only fascination.

The Princess got to her feet, turning to her butler. “Nariman,” she said, handing the tape recorder to him. “Have these copied and be prepared to spread the word around.”

“Of course, Princess Aishat.” The elderly Dwarf bowed. “May I ask who you’d like to be informed of this matter?”

Her eyes flickered as the recording continued.

“...and you plan to pitch this to investors?” Iskander asked.

“Mhm. Once I get it working, I’m thinking of starting a company under Gennady. We’ll sell these products to rich folks at first— market it as the next big revolutionary thing. I’ve got a ton of ideas for it.”

Aishat closed her eyes. “Everyone of note you can.”

“Yes, Princess Aishat.”

—--

“Ok, it should work this time.”

I clapped my hands together, praying to any deity out there that would hear me. Even that jerk god who killed me. If he was out there, listening, he better help me out here. He owed me at least that much.

“You’ve said that every day for the past week,” Aniyar snorted, leaning back on a chair.

He was much more relaxed now than the first few trial attempts. Probably because he now knew the box wouldn’t blow up the entire room if it failed to synergize with the scroll.

Iskander took notes as he watched from the side, and a rather large crowd of Dwarves stood beside him. It wasn’t just Engineers from Project Gold. Now there were Scientists and Inventors from all around the MTC coming to see my crystal-less mana tool succeed or fail spectacularly. It had become something of a spectacle, watching the different ways the box malfunction and caused some level of destruction.

They murmured excitedly amongst themselves as I steeled myself.

“Five copper tha it works.”

“Nah, I bet ye six copper tha it fails and blows up again.”

“A silver, from me. But no explosion.”

“A silver as well! However, I reckon it melts—”

I ignored their gossiping, looking back one last time to find some semblance of support. Aniyar, obviously, didn’t give me any. Iskander was too focused on each step I took that I couldn’t get anything but a curious look from him. Bertrand had been piqued by the rumors and visited yesterday, however he wasn’t here today.

Sighing, I turned back to the metal box, ready to begin the trial with no support. However, some soft meowing drew my attention. I glanced over at Luna as she strutted up to me. I shooed her.

“Go back. It’s dangerous here.”

She purred and sidled up next to my feet. I hesitated.

Aniyar called out,” Oi, Luna, get back—”

“It’s fine,” I cut him off. I picked up the black cat, a small smile spreading across my face. “You’ve been watching me every day, haven’t you? You’ve seen me working in my room. You trust in me.”

Luna, of course, couldn’t speak. But she nuzzled up against my hand. With that, I nodded and placed her on my shoulder.

“Alright, let’s do this.”

I stepped up to the metal box, the same steps I’d taken every single day. I touched it gently, activating the mana crystals on its side. They glowed with no issue. No defects. Now if I just remove the mana crystals and replace them with this scroll, it should work without a problem.

I took apart the mana crystals one by one, placing them in my pocket and produced the scroll. I unfurled it, checking the etchings on the surface of the parchment. There were no ostensible errors.

Lastly, I ensured that I’d poured enough mana into the scroll. No— what was more important was that I didn’t pour too much mana into it. It felt like it had more than enough, so I decided to rid the scroll of just a bit of extraneous mana. I tugged the mana out of the scroll, returning it to the surroundings.

And with that, I was ready.

“Let’s do this.”

Everyone watched me with bated breath as I held up the scroll. I didn’t insert it into the metal box. I didn’t form some complex, unnecessary wiring system to connect the box to the scroll. And I certainly didn’t try to use the scroll on the box from afar. I had tried all those. Each trial ended in disaster.

No— this time, I did something quite simple. I wet the back side of the scroll with glue and placed on the empty space of the metal box— where the mana crystals would be. Then I placed my hand in the middle of the scroll, closing my eyes.

“Please.”

I spoke as I activated the scroll. I pulled back, holding a hand protectively over Luna in case something went wrong. The metal box shook as the scroll shone brightly— before dimming into a weaker orange glow. The contraption within the box whirred, its gears turning as my eyes grew wide.

Inside of the metal box, a weak heat emanated out, but nothing exploded. It just stood there, one side of the box open, letting out heat.

“It… it works!” I exclaimed.

My audience exchanged dubious looks, but I threw a hand in the air.

“Finally! It works!”

And the moment of silence ended. Iskander leapt to his feet and dashed over to the box. “It’s really working! All its machinations are moving as designed!”

Nto everyone was as excited as him. In fact, there was some level of disappointment amongst those who came to watch sparks fly. But those with a more open mind were talking about the possibilities of these scrolls.

“Without the need of mana crystals, we can replace the—”

“And even if it’s not as efficient, it can—”

“Hell, is this for real?” Aniyar walked up to me, wide-eyed.

I nodded, grinning. “I told you it’d work.”

Luna purred in agreement from my shoulder.

“So, what does it do?” He leaned forward, inspecting the metal box from the side. It had two holes on it— one was a square-like hole at the bottom, while the other was a smaller slit-like hole at the top.

“Oh, let me show you—” I produced something I’d had stuffed away in my bag. I inserted it into the slit-like hole at the top of the box as more than one Dwarf peered over to see what this thing did. “Now, you wait…”

Ten seconds passed before—

Ching!

The bread I’d inserted fell out of the hole at the botto mof the box, onto a metal grate.

“It’s a toaster!” I beamed. I looked around for approval and found silence.

…

I shifted uncomfortably at all the staring. I held up the crispy piece of sliced bread.

“It… toasts bread?”

And at that, Luna leapt off my shoulder and snatched the toasted bread off my hand. I crossed my arms.

“At least Luna approves of it.”

Author's Note:

A bit late, but my sleep schedule is borked.