Yunyun studied the bucket of purple liquid. "That's it?"
"Yep," I confirmed, giving the paint one last stir.
"I can feel that it's magical somehow… and that it's working sort of like the Drain Touch spell, but at a much lower level," Wiz murmured as she held a hand over the bucket.
"It should," I grinned. Standing up, I lifted the bucket with telekinesis via my ring and carried it outside. Alright, so how do I…? Oh. Just push myself up and hold myself steady.
Lifting off the ground, I opened the bucket again and carefully applied a thin layer of paint over Wiz's adobe roof. Using a light application of heat from the ring to dry it quickly, I closed up the bucket and made my way back inside. Putting the bucket away in the back, I sat down at the bench and fiddled with the small mithril plate I'd made. Turning it on, I looked to Wiz and asked, "Well?"
She considered it for a moment, before nodding. "It's absorbing mana. A lot of mana, actually."
Tapping a spot on the plate, a small hologram appeared in the air above it, displaying two numbers. The first remained steady at 1116, while the second grew by that number every second.
Things you learn while repainting your house to be more energy efficient: paint has something known as an LRV, or light reflectance value—which is basically a percentage of how much light is reflected by that paint. The higher the LRV, the better. A high LRV meant less sunlight heating your home. On average, yearly and across the Earth, light hits surfaces with about one watt per square foot—that is, one joule per second per square foot worth of energy is transferred to any surface light hits, roughly. Some places get more, some get less. Seasons and weather affect this number as well. But the average yearly value is about that.
To cut a long explanation short, more light means more heat. Darker colors absorb more heat, lighter colors reflect heat. The paint I chose, mixed with mithril flakes, was enchanted to absorb mana and transfer it to a receiver for storage—and this specific shade had about a 93% efficiency for absorbing light. Wiz's roof was two 40'x15' sections, joined at the top. Easy math made that 1200 square feet, so 1116 joules per second.
Now, the question was, how much mana did that actually translate into?
"Too much mana! Shut it off!" Wiz warned, and I shut it off immediately.
"What's wrong?"
Wiz breathed a sigh of relief. "Mithril is an excellent metal for channeling mana, but while it can store mana, it can't store that much! At the rate you were going, it would have caught fire or exploded!" Reaching out, she laid her hand on it. "Feel it? It's already warm to the touch."
I reached out and held my hand over it and, sure enough, even with just a ten second charge it was kind of warm. Maybe… an increase of ten degrees Fahrenheit. Not at a point where I'd worry about a fire starting. Roughly one degree per second. Water boils at two-twelve. It's pretty warm in here, maybe about seventy-four. So… about two an a half minutes to get to a boil. That's, yeah, that's actually a lot of juice when you think about it.
Even without the raw numbers on just how much power the array was drawing… if Wiz was worried, I would be too. She was the expert in the field of magic, not me. "How much mana would you say is stored in there?"
"About… one thousand mana. A little over."
So, one mana is roughly equivalent to ten joules? But… no. Because I was producing way more than ten joules when I was using Saber of Light—
"You look confused," Yunyun giggled.
"I'm trying to work out mana to energy numbers. Just maintaining Saber of Light costs about ten mana per second, but it produces way more than ten mana per second worth of power…"
The pair shared a knowing look. "It's another of those things, like the divine growth system, that people have been trying to figure out forever," Yunyun began. "There are lots of different variables involved. Your Magic Power stat, which determines how strong any spell is, contributes to the amount of mana your body can hold at any one time, and how fast you regenerate mana after eating and resting. Also, how many skill points you've spent in the spell, which determines how effective and efficient the spell is, how much mana it costs to maintain, how long you can maintain it. But in the end, everyone comes to the same conclusion: there is a disparity in how much power you're spending and how much power a spell displays. That disparity could be as small as twice as much power as it should have, to thousands or tens of thousands of times as much power, in the case of spells such as Explosion."
"Don't feel bad," Wiz reached out and laid a hand on mine with a smile. "It's something almost every bright mage stumbles upon eventually, and they always come to the same conclusion. We're not sure where the extra power comes from. It could be mana just floating free in the world. Clerics believe it comes from the gods. No one knows." Then, she squeezed my hand. "Just don't worry about it too much!"
That… that was frustrating. I liked being able to put hard numbers to things. But they were telling me I wasn't the first and surely wouldn't be the last to try, and everyone before me had failed. So it's not like it was a problem unique to me.
Good news, then. I know it works. I know it can generate a lot of mana, very quickly, and store it. That mana, I can then use for spells. I don't need to worry about the output, focus on the input. …Even if logic in, garbage out hurts my brain and makes me want to figure out what's causing the problem. Like an itch I just want to scratch.
I decided to take their advice and give it up for now. "Okay, so what stores magic better than mithril?"
Wiz and Yunyun both hummed, Wiz bringing a finger up to her plush lips as she did. Finally, Yunyun said, "Orichalcum."
"Mm. That, manatite or coronatite. Coronatite would be better, actually. It doesn't have any limit to how much mana it can absorb, to my knowledge."
"What are manatite and coronatite?"
Wiz leaned forward, her breasts brushing my arm as she explained, "Manatite is found deep underground. It stores mana, but can only be used once. Coronatite is like manatite, only better. It's legendary for being able to be used over and over. It was once used in ancient times to fuel great works—things like moving castles."
"I've never seen it," Yunyun shook her head.
"Ah, I only have once," Wiz demurred. "Manatite is far more common. But veeeery expensive."
Humming, I pulled over a chair and sat down, pushing aside the plate. Something small that can use coronatite to store mana transmitted from the paint, and which won't blow the fuck up or catch fire. It would need to have no limit to the amount of mana it could safely store…
Ideas floated up, but I stopped. No, wait. Order of operations. I have a means of collecting and storing mana now. So, I need something that can use that mana to take materials I feed it, then reshape them as needed. A magical 3D printer that I can just fill with designs and turn out products. Small scale, for now. Something simple in design at the moment—it doesn't have to look pretty. I can use it to make parts for a better 3D printer, after all.
A design came to mind for something about the size and shape of a toaster oven. Just a box, really. With that, I began summoning sheets of mithril in the correct shapes and sizes.
"Alright. I think I've got it. This is going to take a while, though."
"That's fine! I want to watch," Yunyun said, leaning against my other side. "Although… I'm getting kind of hungry."
"Me too," I agreed, and Wiz nodded.
"I'll go get us lunch, then," the girl smiled.
"Thanks, Yunyun. Here," I fished into my money pouch and handed her some gold eris, "that should cover us."
"Ah, but, that is… I was going to pay."
"Nah, it's fine. Go ahead and get something for everyone."
"O-okay," Yunyun murmured, accepting the money and leaving.
Wiz chuckled, before making her way over to what passed as a kitchen. "I'll make us some tea."
"Hey Wiz," I asked as I scratched markings into the first mithril plate.
"Yes, Michael?"
"I noticed a bed roll in the corner. You're not sleeping here, are you?"
"Um, well, that is," she hemmed, turning away as she worked at starting water to boil. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
Wincing, I got up and made my way up behind her, before pulling her into a hug. The lich squeaked and dropped the beaker she had been filling with water, but I caught it with telekinesis and lowered it safely to the counter. Resting my hands on her belly, I slowly rubbed her as I squeezed her, resting my chin on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. We'll have to fix that, okay?"
"We, we will?"
"Mhmm."
I felt her tense in my arms a bit. After a moment, she confessed, "But I'm a lich. An undead."
"I know. I wasn't going to say anything."
"You know?"
"Pale, kind of cold, and you were very careful not to let me see your adventurer card. I don't hold it against you, Wiz. You look like you could use a friend."
I felt her cold hand settled on top of mine. "You really mean it?"
"Yeah."
"…I don't have many friends," she admitted.
"Well, now you have one more than you did." I gave her another squeeze, then let go and went back to the workbench. I did notice the way she followed me with her eyes for a while, before turning back to making tea, but I didn't say anything about it.
Yunyun soon brought back lunch and we ate together, me working on my project while the two arch wizards watched and spoke quietly.
Alright. Step one complete. I sighed quietly, stretching and cracking my neck in my chair as I finished putting the box together. Laying my hand on top of it, I felt the magic connect to my mind, waiting. Bringing up the designs I wanted from Crafter, I felt it acknowledge them before requesting materials. Conjuring up a couple of large bricks of mithril, I dropped them into the box, turned on the mana collector, and waited.
Only a few moments later, the machine audibly chimed. Shutting off the mana collector, I opened the box and pulled out what looked like a three inch cube and another ring. Slipping the ring on, I felt it connect to the cube.
"Alright, let's see what you can do," I murmured, turning the mana plate back on and having the cube connect to it.
Next, I told it to deconstruct the toaster sized box. The cube lifted up into the air, floated over to the box, and lifted it into the air, before breaking into eight smaller cubes that surrounded the toaster.
Confirm deconstruction and storage of target object into base materials? [Image]
I grinned and nodded, and a moment later, the entire toaster was swept over by what looked like a lattice of blue lasers, before it disappeared. The cubes snapped back together into a single cube and floated in front of me.
Material stored.
Composition summary:
Mithril: 100%, 40.767lbs.
Excellent. Now, next phase.
I began conjuring materials—a sample of every metal, mineral, and dead organic material in this world, each roughly the size and shape of a dime. Those that might react violently, or which were definitely radioactive, I summoned wrapped in a safe, secure, non-reactive layer of another material. In this way, I let Crafter do the heavy lifting, so instead of specifying exactly what I wanted it would give me a little of everything.
Then, I directed the crafting cube to break down and analyze every sample and test it for a number of factors: weight, mass, density, hardness, ductility, rigidity, durability, melting point, burning point—basically every physical property that could be tested. However, the big two I was looking for were mana conductivity and mana storage potential.
The cube absorbed the materials the same way it had before and settled down on the table as it began to churn away at the data. Knowing my connection through the control ring would alert me when it was finished, I stood and stretched, before pocketing the cube. Looking around, I saw that at some point, night had fallen. Yunyun was gone and Wiz, it seemed was fast asleep curled up on her sleeping roll. The woman shivered in her sleep and I shook my head.
Conjuring up a bolt of fleece and a bunch of cotton, along with thread, I quickly put together a thick blanket. Wiz sighed in her sleep as I dropped the blanket over her body, immediately latching on and wrapping herself up in it. She made a quiet, happy sound and smiled in her sleep, before her breathing evened out and she began to snore soundly.
I spotted a covered plate of food and a note sitting on the counter. Reading the note, I found it was from Yunyun. She and Wiz apparently hadn't wanted to bother me while I looked so busy, so they had eaten and departed for the day, or gone to bed in Wiz's case. I'd have to thank them later. In the meantime, I pulled the cover off the plate to reveal a roasted quicken quarter, a small loaf of bread (it was the size of a roll, but had a hard crust), and part of a wheel of cheese. Suddenly realizing just how hungry I was, I dug in, not even caring that it was cold.
About halfway into my meal, the cube let me know it was finished and sent me the results. Sadly, while it was essentially a magical computer with a mental connection, it wasn't actually all that smart. It had no creativity and couldn't make suggestions, only follow instructions—pretty much like any computer. Getting it to do more, or building a better model, was basically what all of this was about. Because I'd found a limitation to Crafter that I hadn't known about. Namely, it wasn't omniscient. It only knew as much as I did about the materials of this world, until I actively told it to produce samples. It had only known the properties of a normal periodic table, until I had it conjured something. It only knew how to use basic elements until it had summoned a sample, which meant it didn't know the best materials to use to produce anything until now.
Okay, give me an improved version of the construction cube and ring and a material list to make… ten.
Feeding the information directly into the cube via the ring, I began summoning materials in the necessary quantities. Mithril, orichalcum, coronatite, and more went into making the new cubes. Finally, I put the first cube to work, making exactly one upgraded cube.
As soon as the upgraded model was made, I had it consume the first cube (and its stored materials) and make a new cube and ring, which I replaced, before I had the spare start spitting out more cubes. In the meantime, I took the first of the new, shiny black cubes, and set to work making a new power source.
I need something small that I can wear. It needs to safely store and use mana with no limit to how much it can hold, take in, or use at a time. Built in safety features to make sure it doesn't hurt me. And… I hummed quietly as a thought occurred.
Can I make it use magic from outside the local system? Like, if I wanted to cast magic from outside this magic system. If I wanted to… be able to program it with spells to cast as needed later, and add new spells as the need arises? And if I'm making the equivalent of a magical weapon, I need to make sure it can't be stolen from me. So, it'll need to teleport back to me if it's more than ten yards from me, not work for anyone else, and teleport back if someone does try to use it. No use arming some potential enemy with something to use against me.
Crafter supplied me with an answer. I grinned and played with the design aesthetics a bit, because while it could allow me to build anything, actually determining how things looked was entirely my purview—I was supposed to be the one supplying the creativity, after all.
May as well go whole hog…
Then, I set about loading it up with pre-programmed spells. Flight, magical shielding, holograms, magical detection, mapping, attack spells—everything I could think of that would give someone who actually made me use it a very bad last day of their life, or which might just be useful to have.
I laughed quietly to myself as the cube spat out my new toy—roughly the size of a pocket watch, and very smooth to the touch, but strangely warm. Turning it on, it immediately began to glow with an inner light from what must be the coronatite taking in mana, transferred from what was stored in the mithril plate. I slipped the chain around my neck and dropped it down my shirt. Like all of my magical items, it responded to my thoughts and will. I had it produce a hologram telling me how much power it had available, and winced as it showed it was very low and draining quickly—along with what was using all the power. It was the cubes, of course.
Reaching out to the cubes, I had them finish the current cube in progress, then stop production. Once that was done, I collected the cubes and slipped them into my pouch. Humming quietly to myself, I had the new computation orb run the numbers on making more paint. When they came back positive, I summoned some more mithril and the needed materials to make paint and buckets, then fed them to the cube. A moment later, it spat out buckets of paint in a variety of tasteful colors.
Seeing that it was low, and I still had mana to spare for the day, I fed it what felt like—and the sensor spell baked in told me—was ninety percent of my mana. Then, I left Wiz's shop with paint buckets in tow, making sure to lock up on the way out.
Alright, let's try out flight. But first, dark vision. With a thought, the world lit up around me—not quite daylight level, but definitely enough to see by. Taking to the air slowly, I eased into the spell, wobbling and drifting a bit before I got the hang of it. Flying over to the nearest building, I opened up a paint can and began using telekinesis to layer it on and heat to quickly dry it. Then, I moved on to the next building, and the next. Some, I left painted in a clear coat so that the original red of the adobe showed through. Others, I got artistic and painted each tile a different color.
By the time I was finished with the entire city, the computation orb told me it was past two in the morning. Tiredly, I stored the rest of the paint away and flew to the guild, dropping down behind the building where no one was looking and slipping in the back door. I made my way up to my room and crashed, but only after using the orb to cast a cleaning spell on myself.
I moved the new display case into place with telekinesis, before setting it down. "What do you think?"
"Hmm…"
"A little more that way?"
I sighed, then moved the case. "Great so we're done—"
"Maybe… back the other way?"
With a sigh, I moved the case a few inches and stopped. Looking at the two women expectantly, I waited. When they nodded, I rolled my eyes—it was in the exact spot I had put it the first time. "Right. Now for stock."
"We probably shouldn't have too many at once," Yunyun suggested.
"Why's that?" Wiz asked, honey colored eyes wide with curiosity.
"Flood the market. The individual values of each piece go down," I explained. Opening the back, I had the cube I had out spit out the freshly modified silver rings I'd made and put them onto cases. The new modification was a bit of an anti-theft measure. If put on outside of ten yards from the display case, the ring would refuse to come off. Then, it would begin to shock the wearer, while loudly sounding an alarm and screaming the phrase 'I am a thief' over and over… at two hundred decibels.
The only way they wouldn't do it was with a small wand with a series of five rings around its outside, with notches numbering 0 to 9, sort of like a combination lock. Exactly like a combination lock, actually. Wiz and Yunyun were the only ones, aside from myself, who knew the combination to unlock the rings, and the wand's rings would spin to random numbers after each use. Overkill? Maybe. But better to have it than not.
Because I wasn't fucking around with thieves.
"Alright. What about spells?"
"Do you know teleport? That one might be good." Wiz asked, and I shook my head.
"Can you teach me?"
"Of course!"
We took a moment for her to demonstrate and I bought the spell on my card.
Teleport – Cost: 3.
Remaining: 4.
"More expensive though. A lot more expensive, because it's a travel spell and it would be saving skill points. Ten thousand, easily," Yunyun suggested. "And at that price, if I didn't already have the spell, I'd save up just to buy it."
"Right. Ring? Necklace? Something else?"
"Everything else you've got on display is a ring. Something like a necklace would stand out more," Wiz suggested.
"Mm. That, and give people the impression that it's automatically worth more. People like feeling that they've gotten their money's worth," I mused. Taking her suggestion, I sent the mental image of a simple necklace with a bauble hanging on it to the cube, along with the magical scribbles to make it so that its wearer could cast the Teleport spell. The cube opened up above my hand and the space between the individual parts filled with blue light, before a necklace dropped into my hand.
The chain was made of fine silver braided cable, while the pendant hung on it looked like a bird in flight—with gold, copper, and other metals making up it's very textured and detailed surface, and a gem for an eye. Yunyun and Wiz gasped at the sight of it. Sending them a curious look, I saw the longing on their faces and chuckled. Slipping the necklace into the display case, I sent an order to the cube to spit out two more necklaces—a bird and a flower. Specifically, a robin, and a purple dianthus.
Moving behind Yunyun, I slipped the robin necklace around her neck and latched it, before gathering her hair up and slipping the necklace under it. Then, I repeated the process with Wiz. "There. They aren't enchanted yet, so you can decide what you want on them."
I found myself immediately mobbed as the pair latched on and hugged me, wearing happy smiles as they did. I hugged back, enjoying the way they felt against me. "Now, make sure to show them off and if anyone asks where you got it, tell them Wiz sells them. Actually, if you'll let go, Wiz I'll make a bunch without enchantments and give you a stock to sell."
"Yes!" the lich agreed happily, and the pair let me go. Soon enough, I had an entire selection of highly detailed necklaces made, depicting various animals and plants, along with some that were just gems cut into geometric shapes. "Alright. Let's go do some advertising. Wiz, we'll catch you later."
"O-okay!"
With that, Yunyun and I left the shop. As we stepped outside, Yunyun latched onto my side with a happy smile, hugging my arm into her chest as she did. "So, where are we going to advertise, Michael?"
"All over. We'll take a little shopping trip, buy some essentials, and you'll stand there and be pretty while showing off your new accessory." Given the length, it hung right above the valley of her large, pale breasts, so I imagined it wouldn't be hard to draw attention at all.
"You think I'm pretty?"
"Nope," I denied immediately, before turning to smile down at her. "I think you're beautiful." Her pretty red eyes went wide, lighting up as she blushed and squeezed my arm harder. "Now, after we get some food to store for later, we'll go visit the guild and talk to Luna or whoever's available about land. I'm tired of living out of the rented guild room. I want a home of my own. So I'll buy the land, then just build it to my specifications."
Humming, as though just remembering, I asked, "Don't you live out of the guild?"
"Ahaha," Yunyun laughed in embarrassment. "Yes, while I'm in the city working as an adventurer. I'm, well, I'm sending the money home. But the rented room is enough for me!"
Shaking my head, I made my offer. "Look. You, me, and Wiz are working together on this. The rooms are small and her shop doesn't have much room for a real workspace. And neither of them is really as private as I'd like. It would be more convenient for us to all work out of the same place and just use the shop as, you know, a shop. A storefront to sell goods. But developing and testing them should be done somewhere secure and in the field, respectively. So, what do you think? New place. Your own room. Private bath. Whatever you want. Rent free, as long as we're working together. The same offer I'm going to make to Wiz."
Staring up at me with wide red eyes, Yunyun blushed progressively harder, before finally nodding once and burying her face against my upper arm. Seeing as it looked like she'd had a bit too much excitement for the moment, I decided to give her a bit of a break for a while and let her cool down.
We entered the market and started looking for food. My floating cube gained some odd looks, but when I handed it my purchases and they disappeared, people just dismissed it as a magic item for storage and went about their day, their curiosity satisfied. While we were there, however, I took the time to update my mental list of market prices and, after going around and asking what a few of the big buyers were looking for, I took a moment to step into an alley, conjure materials, and feed them to my cube. Then, I went back and constructed what they wanted on the spot for ridiculous profit. And because they had seen me storing things with it, they assumed (wrongly) that I was simply selling things I already had.
A fat stack of fresh eris in my money pouch to the tune of about ten thousand, we made our way to the guild. Luna wasn't in, but one of the girls there was willing to take us to a government office and help us through the process, for a few eris. That's how we spent the rest of the morning, going over paperwork and descriptions of land. I arranged each available plot of land and our group traded the guild worker for a girl from the city clerk's office, who took us around with a map and showed us where everything was.
Our first stop, the one I liked best from the description, was on the north side of the city, right up against the river.
"All of the land here is actually pretty cheap, because no one wants to spend the time developing it," the girl explained as we trekked down a path along the bank of the river. "It's outside of the city center and access in is limited because of the lack of roads."
"Makes sense," I nodded at the explanation.
Yunyun hummed, looking around as we walked. "It would take a lot of work to do anything with it. It's pretty dense."
"Exactly why no one wants to bother," the clerk sighed. "To be honest, we would be thrilled if someone bought it and did something with it." Looking at her map and our surroundings, she nodded. "Alright, this is where the property starts."
"Here?" I asked, gesturing at the ground below us, right on the bank of the river that ran through the city, and she nodded. Looking out towards the north, along the river, I could see the city wall in the distance, maybe five hundred yards away. A command to my cube created a steel pole, the end of which was painted orange. I stuck it into the ground.
"You came prepared with markers?" she asked, and I nodded. "I see. That makes this easier! We head west from here."
It took us about an hour to walk out the property line, laying down flagging stakes as we went. The place was huge—easily forty acres worth of forest butting up against the river, stretching nearly to the city wall.
"So, what do you think?"
I turned to look at Yunyun, who nodded once. "I like it. It's pretty. And quiet. Away from the bustle of the main streets. It's almost like we're not even in the city. Actually… it reminds me of home."
Turning back to the clerk, I asked, "How much?"