BXBX NOVEL Chapter 150 - Heat-Ray Gun
Chapter 150: Heat-Ray Gun
“Cough cough.” Gawain coughed rather awkwardly and then patted Rebecca’s head. “Things are very complicated. I will tell you about it when there’s a chance, but don’t ask about it for the time being. Let’s take a look at your results first.”
Rebecca was an especially straightforward girl, but another good thing was that it was especially easy to divert her attention —— one just had to speak of a topic that she was interested in. Hearing Gawain, she instantly beamed with a smile and then started pulling out the items inside the bag with Jenni. “Yes, yes, yes. Look at these. We’ve designed the rune combinations! Let me tell you, rune logic is a really miraculous thing. Although all the runes were calculated on paper, as long as we combine them strictly according to the formulas and rules, the effect was bound to be the same as the calculated result…”
Gawain saw Rebecca take out several scrolls as well as a metal plate that was already carved with runes. His eyes brightened at once. “You two have already created the finished product?”
“A test subject.” Rebecca scratched her hair a little embarrassedly. “Because we really couldn’t resist the temptation to test and see the final effect, so we approached Egg Egg and asked for an interchangeable base plate. The two of us busied for half the afternoon and hand-carved a prototype.”
Gawain’s gaze landed on those blueprints then. He saw runes and patterns of lines that were many times more complicated than the magic web unit, but all the runes and connecting lines were even simpler and more concise than the conventional magic circle. It was a drawing style entirely different from traditional rules for drawing magic circles —— all the useless structures had been simplified; not one bit of ornamental patterns was left. Precise mathematical calculation had every rune arranged in just the right spot, and the energy ratio between all the runes had reached a perfect balance. It was exactly because of such extreme rationality that despite this magic circle having close to double the amount of effective runes than the usual ‘Scorching Ray’ magic circle, its impression instead appeared to be even more crisp and direct than a conventional magic circle.
And after this rune formation that was unusually aesthetic was carved on an interchangeable base plate that was pressed into shape through a one-time stamping by a machine, it even gave Gawain an illusion of industrial art.
Gawain picked up that interchangeable base plate. It was only the size of a palm and made of pure copper that was extremely cheap. Inside the notches of the runes, quartz sand powder and hardened blood-tree resin with a dim glow could be seen. —— No expensive materials were used, nor were there fancy carving techniques. Gawain could almost be sure that it would be extremely effortless to make such magic circles into industrial mass-produced products.
“You carved this?” He lifted his head and looked towards Jenni who was standing at the side.
Jenni quickly straightened up and nodded most respectfully. “Yes, Lord.”
Gawain laughed. “Very good… Has it been tested?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said delightedly. “It was tested using the energy supply from the Magic Web! Look, there’s a groove beside the fire rune above the sharp corner. That is where scorching rays would be released!”
Gawain looked at the interchangeable base plate. Above one of the corners of this hexagonal base plate, the final energy flushing point that was the fire rune could be seen. From the middle of the rune to the top of the base plate, a unique groove could be seen. A small section of quartz column was packed in the groove. If the magic circle was activated, scorching rays would be launched along this groove, as well as the quartz column in the groove. —— Its effective range was up to three to four hundred meters, and if a quartz column of higher grade was used, or the rune was further strengthened, its effective range still had room for improvement.
“The problem is that this thing can only be used within range of the Magic Web.” Rebecca puffed her cheeks. “Because this plate itself is unable to produce magical power, if it were to be used in a place without the Magic Web, we would have to use magic storage crystals to provide energy for it or hand it to a Mage to use it. But having a Mage use it would be rather pointless.”
Her implied meaning was that not every Mage only had one mastered skill of throwing fireballs like she did. Coming out with a scorching ray was as easy as spraying water for them; they wouldn’t need this at all…
Gawain smiled and brought out from under the desk, the ‘Magic Capacitor’ that he had been researching this whole time and that only needed to be assembled.
“I’d thought of this problem long ago, and I’ve already found a solution.”
“What is this?” Rebecca looked at the new interchangeable base plate that Gawain brought out in curiosity, and recognized the rune combination on it at one glance. “This is… Magic Web’s fundamental unit? You’re saying to use such fundamental units to supply energy to the scorching-ray magic circle? It won’t work. I’ve tried it before. The amount of energy produced by Magic Web’s fundamental unit isn’t enough at all. Four fundamental units stacked together won’t even do. It must be a large magic web…”
“But that might not be the case if these magic storage crystals are added in.” Gawain pointed at those cheap magic storage crystals on the desk and then gathered everything into the bag. “There’s no time to lose. We’ll go to the Mechanical Manufacturing Facility right now and get Nicholas Egg to help assemble these things!”
“Sure, sure!” Rebecca instantly leaped up with joy; then she tugged on Jenni who was still a little dazed and headed out. “Let’s go, let’s go! Getting Egg Egg to help is the fastest way!”
And before Gawain stood up, the nearby air suddenly contorted. Amber who’d been pretending to be absent the entire time but had actually been secretly watching throughout finally couldn’t contain herself and jumped out. “I’ll go too, I’ll go too!”
Rebecca was startled by this rascal who suddenly appeared. She shot a big fireball flying over with a casual raise of her hand. “Wah!”
If it weren’t for Gawain’s speedy reaction, dispersing the big fireball with a smack of his palm, he probably wouldn’t have been able to stay in the tent that night…
The Mechanical Manufacturing Facility was brightly lit; the sounds of machines operating never stopped.
The originally empty workshed had now become the territory of steel and machines. Cast metal from the steelworks was transported here in batches then processed into all sorts of spare parts according to blueprints or further strengthened and recast by Nicholas Egg, whereas the human craftsmen serve as assistants, learning about the principles of mechanics in the blueprints while assembling the spare parts that Nicholas Egg produced into various machines. ——The majority of them were fundamental machine tools, while the rest were ‘special orders’ coming directly from the Lord and others that were a little more urgent.
In Gawain’s impression, that large-scale industrial assembly line was still really far away. However, the present Mechanical Manufacturing Facility already had the atmosphere of machines roaring and operating non-stop. Some of the most basic spare parts no longer needed to be personally cast by Nicholas Egg; those machine tools set at a side of the work shed were able to produce those basic spare parts. Meanwhile, the ones driving the machine tools were the two first-generation Magic Powered Engine that had been optimized — in order to ensure that these two engines had plenty of motive power, Rebecca had buried the first batch of Honeycomb Magic Web nodes inside the Mechanical Manufacturing Facility. Now it seemed that everything was operating very smoothly.
When Gawain and company entered the work shed, what greeted them was a bustling scene. The Magic Powered Engine drove the processing machinery to operate in the western side of the shed, producing a steady flow of all kinds of machinery spare parts (as well as the various metal-tool accessories urgently needed in the territory). The human craftsmen busied between the machines; they had somewhat adapted to such an all-new production work. The middle of the work shed was the space of the metal-ball alien — he floated there, the surrounding few meters around him a no-man’s land. Large amounts of cast metal were hauled into the air by an unknown force and swiftly molded into all kinds of sturdy spare parts that were still difficult to forge using machines or by hand. Following that, the molded parts would automatically fall to the few stacking areas nearby for the human craftsmen to use.
Gawain watched the metal-ball alien who had a pile of spare parts floating all around them and thought, this really looked like the Return of a Million Swords…
Following that, he stepped forward, while Rebecca started greeting from far out. “Egg Egg! We’re here to get you to lend us a hand!”
Nicholas Egg heard the call and quickly cleared the floating spare parts to a side for the time being and turned in Gawain’s direction. “Ah, more matters —— feudal lord is here too?”
In normal circumstances, Gawain wouldn’t be able to tell whether Nicholas Egg had turned around at all. This was because this metal-ball alien was smooth all around; the slightest difference between his front, back, left and right couldn’t be perceived. But this time, he saw that the other party had turned around with one look —— because he realized that a face had actually been drawn on him!
In the instant he saw the face, Gawain stopped in his steps and was even close to falling to the ground. ——He couldn’t be blamed for this; anyone who saw an ’emoji’ with a diameter of 1.3 meters floating before himself and greeting him wouldn’t be able to stay composed!
Gawain stared agape at Nicholas Egg’s ‘face’; he stared at those curved eyes, slanting gaze, mouth shape that was asking for a beating and was speechless for a good five seconds. Following that, the first thought that came to him was: which fellow transmigrator had secretly sneaked into his territory?!
Who drew this ‘knowing smile’ emoticon expression!
He was just about to question someone, yet unexpectedly, Rebecca spoke up grinningly after noticing her ancestor’s shocked expression. “Lord Ancestor? You were startled! Did I draw well?”
Gawain turned around with a creak in his neck. He stared at Rebecca with wide eyes. “You drew this for him?”
“Yes!” Rebecca nodded very naturally. “I couldn’t figure out which side was his front each time I talked to Egg Egg. He also complained to others that there were always people suddenly speaking up behind him and giving him a scare when he’s working. Subsequently, I came up with an idea and drew a face for him…”
“You… casually drew it?” Gawain surveyed this young lady who always had shocking actions and attempted with great effort to find the shadow of a transmigrator on her. “Don’t you think that this expression looks weird?”
“I just wanted to draw a smiley face.” Rebecca scratched her hair. “But my hand really wobbled a little when I was drawing… Of course, it could also be possible that it trembled several times, so the eyes look a little weird.”
The corner of Gawain’s lips twitched. “What are other people’s reactions when they see him with this face?”
Rebecca thought carefully for a moment and nodded. “Pretty joyous.”
Jenni who was at the side also nodded. “Mm, they were pretty joyous.”
Gawain: “…”
And at this point, Nicholas Egg had floated over to Gawain. This gigantic emoticon swayed up and down. “What do you think of my new iMage? I feel that it’s much easier interacting with you humans now that I have a face.”
“As—as long as you’re happy.” Gawain worked hard to maintain his expression and took out the materials that he had brought. “Let’s get down to business first. I want you to help me assemble a new kind of… weapon.”
“Oh? It’s a weapon instead of a machine this time?” Nicholas Egg sounded very interested. “What is it?”
“I temporarily named it —— heat-ray gun.”