146 Chapter 143 Broken (1/2)
After that he went to see the craftsmen. Joseph wanted to go first to the potters, to check on molds. Advanced EARTH allowed one to learn ESSENTIAL EARTH, even if you didn't have six earth spells. It would be extremely rare to reach advanced knowledge of any base rune with how magic was studied in this realm. It would be rare even among his own mages, before the hyper-training week.
EARTH TO STONE, on essential earth, allowed the creation of adamant, a hard diamond like rock. And using it again, transformed it to orichalc.u.m. However, ESSENTIAL EARTH could also be cast with ENCHANT, to turn existing stone into its essential version, so essential obsidian arrow heads were ridiculously sharp and easy to make. Essential sand melted by essential flame could create pure essential gla.s.s which was capable of withstanding essential acid.
Thin gla.s.s globes filled with fuels, or acid, were prepared in large quant.i.ties as catapult grape shot and DETONATE reagents. The shatter rune was traced on the gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s in silver, by normal silver smiths, and activated by mages to detonate them.
They had also modified some ballista and crossbows to fire the arrows. It wasn't nearly as efficient as casting a spell like rain of acid, but it both allowed non-mages to increase the fighting capability significantly, and more importantly, had the mages and craftsmen working together, so friends.h.i.+ps could develop and the fear of magic was reduced. Most of the other new weapons and armors weren't ready yet.
Moving on from there, he arrived at the new repair stations. The rune for REPAIR was inlaid in enchanted silver, on a table. They were using several ideas from his past lives, involving molds. A master craftsman made the mold, and then they poured in whatever needed to be made from regular molten metal, to essential clay, depending on the item. Once it hardened, they broke the mold away, destroying it, but leaving the pieces on the table while the finished product was moved further along by apprentices. Then, any of the mages could provide the mana to stimulate the repair rune, restoring the mold. This allowed the masters to put all of their efforts into making only a few perfect molds.
So far, the only problem had been making enough high-quality enchanted silver. Normal enchanted silver could be used on any spells not requiring magery, but repair required magery two in order to learn. The way to get around it, was to add blood from a magical creature, or mage, and the resulting metal increased in grade. Thus, he could make grade three enchanted silver.
Joseph had memories from enough previous lives where blood tests were common, that it didn't really bother him to make the enchanted silver. The problem was that he couldn't provide enough. He had tried to experiment with a small piece of the heat stone he had from the barbarians, and it could make grade two enchanted silver, so it didn't have to be mage blood. Unfortunately, he had little else, in the way of magical items, to work with. The enchanted silver made from crus.h.i.+ng a power stone only made it to grade one, and it was just to inefficient to enchant more powerful items in order to destroy them and then create the enchanted silver.
He was fortunate in that the spells in the LIFE rune were all weakened to the point they didn't require magery, even if they normally did. It should only take a few more months before every street had a functional set of LIFE tools the neighborhood could share. At this point, he didn't think the silver supplies would last. He was just glad the enchanted silver grades could still transmit mana, even if they couldn't be used to make runes. Just the thought of needing mage blood for the entire mana transmission grid was frightening.
If only he could find some non-intelligent magical beasts to domesticate quickly, he would try enchanted silver with magical bloodlines, but the results were much less consistent and he refused to bleed Stella for the attempt, even when she offered, because she couldn't stand to watch him bloodletting. Progress was all about the small sacrifices so that he didn't have the larger losses. Bleeding a bit to keep his people safe, was not a problem.
That said, almost half of the grade 3 enchanted silver he had made during the nine years of time out, was designated for his biggest project. Using TELEPATHY to directly give Derek, Blade, and Nancy the information, they had been working on it with their apprentices since they awoke from their mage trances, and only needed him to finish the last castings. Zack and Lily were also there for the final touches.
Selena had been just about sleeping there, waiting for him to activate a real CAGED SUN. It took him another three hours to finish the construction. DRAW POWER converted any recognized power source into mana. However, it simply didn't work with magically created fuel. This couldn't be violated. The loop hole was to create a multi-stage system. CAGED SUN created incredible amounts of light and heat, that was then sent to vaporize water into steam, which then turned a turbine, resulting in mechanical motion, which was wrapped in purified copper between two super magnets, that created electricity.
The inefficiencies are actually the only reason the spell worked. If he hadn't invented a spell that basically made a miniature sun for the power source, the losses at each stage wouldn't be worth it, especially when maintaining the force s.h.i.+elds that prevented a nuclear fusion detonation in the middle of his little rogue kingdom.
CAGED SUN was simply so powerful, that even harvesting only 10% of its actual energy still gave tens of thousands of units of mana every hour. Once the wasteland was cleansed, he could build a much larger one, but this should work for their defenses for now. He also needed to refine several steps so the losses weren't as significant, and install more turbines and generators, but only Selena, himself, and one baby had magery 3 to supply blood for making the required enchanted silver.
”Maybe the elves would be willing to trade some blood for something? Hmm.”
”Joseph, you are slightly concerning me.”
”Oh, sorry Stella. Sister Selena, it will stay working until we move. You don't have to watch it.”
The mana produced was continuous, so it quickly traveled throughout all the enchanted silver lines. They had power to the workshop devices they'd already made, and any remaining mana leaked out, strengthening the local mana. It would take a few hundred years to get the mana back to the level that it was in Sylva's time, but it could start to recover now.
”Also, even if I'm the only enchanter in the kingdom, I can grab a line and drain the entire network now, when I need to, as well for creating items, gates, or altering the terrain permanently.”
Stella looked at him as he picked up a coil of the enchanted silver.
”Joseph, you always smile like that before you do something crazy.”
He chuckled.
”I won't be hurt it's fine.”
ESSENTIAL EARTH.
Every bit of dirt for dozens of miles was made magical.