Chapter 109: Magical brick (1/2)
”Everyone! Gather round!” Layn shouted, instantly drawing the attention of the few mercenaries that just so happened to just come back with a new shipment of logs.
”Sir?” Surprised by the sudden change to the routine, the mercenaries only looked up at the archmage, before dropping their jobs in a way that wouldn't destroy all their efforts so far before following his order.
”We don't need much more wood. What we have already should be enough.” Layn pointed his hand at the massive piles of logs that the mercenaries busied themselves with gather for the entire day. ”Because from now on, we have a new building material.” Layn smiled before pointing his hand at a lump of clay that Irea brought with her.
”Clay? What, are we going to pave the roads with it?” Some of the mercenaries started asking around, in hopes of someone else understanding the intent behind Layn's words.
”No, we are going to turn this useless type of earth, type of earth that nothing would grow at, into a building material far superior to the wood!” Layn shouted, spreading his arms wide. ”In other words,” his tone normalized, making him appear as if he was talking about something as important as yesterday's dinner, ”we will be making bricks.”
Layn smiled before stepping down from the small hill he used to make himself more visible. To his side, both Irea and Pavrien were trying to make a sense of just what he was talking about.
”First, we take this clay.” Layn went for the practical showcase rather than for the theory alone. ”Then, we crush it.” Not bothering to give his mercenaries any time for the message to sink in, Layn used a bit of his cultivation-given strength to crush the lump of clay he held in his hand.
”Great, now we have smaller pieces of it,” Irea rolled her eyes, slightly disturbing the archmage.
”Just stay with me,” Layn smiled in response, before dropping all the small bits of clay to the ground. ”Now, we need to add water.” Rather than walking all the way to the shore, Layn simply used a bit of his magic to grab hold of a small ball of water before dropping it at the crushed bits.
'Well, it's not how it was made back in the future, but it should still work,' he thought to himself, forcing the clay pieces around the puddle he created. Once the mixture turned relatively even in color, Layn squeezed.
For a moment, the water continued to fall out of the suddenly condensed mixture, only for its flow to quickly slow down before turning into a measly drip.
”What you have right now, is what I like to call a brick-paste,” Layn claimed while breathing a sigh of relief. In a normal scenario, bits of clay would be gathered in a container, before a small quantity of water would be added. Then, the workers would tirelessly work to crush the mixture evenly, before adding a bit more water or clay, just to ultimately bring it to a viscosity similar to the paste Layn created with his magic.
'In the end, it's all about the simple, physical processes, isn't it?' the archmage thought to himself, before focusing on his magic a bit more. Because this time, it wasn't about simple crushing or mixing the mixture.
At first, Layn created a set of four, flat barriers. Ones that simply blocked its two sides from ever interacting. And right in the middle of each of those barriers, he placed roughly a fourth of the mixture he prepared.
”Now, when this clay and water thingy is around as thick as what we just did, we add some straw.” Layn kneeled down before doing something with his hands for the very first time since the show started. Yet, he didn't do anything great or heavy. With a single swipe of his hand, he pulled out a bit of grass along with the earth it had its roots in, before splitting the dirt into four roughly even pieces and placing them in the wet clumps of clay mix.
”Then, we mix it all once again!” Layn shouted joyfully, repeating all the steps from before. Once again, a bit of water was added to the mix just so that the mixture wouldn't turn any more vicious than it already was. Given how the Archmage didn't bother to separate the grass from the dirt, he had no other choice but to counteract this addition of stable mass with a bit of water.
”Now that we are done, we form it,” Layn explained, changing the shape of his barriers. At first, he drew imaginary lines in a shape of a square, with the lump of clay in the middle. Then, along the lines from before, he bent the barrier at the right angle, and then he did it again to turn it from a single sheet of barrier into a cubical one.
The lay was trapped inside the barrier now. Yet, rather than being satisfied with his results, Layn started to condense the barrier. The smaller it grew, the stronger it became given how the same amount of magic now had to create a smaller surface of the barrier.
Pressured by the barriers closing on it, the evenly-mixed pasta started to fill up all the blank spots, before turning into a perfect cube. At some point, Layn's magic could no longer compress any further as the resistance of the matter inside became greater than the energy the barrier had at its disposal.