Prototype Device

Time had steadily passed. Mira spent time in Torch's training room to steady his mental state and ensure there was no side effects from excessive use of {Limitation Acupuncture}. Givale followed her interest in the process of blacksmithing, convincing The Gated Arena's blacksmiths to allow her to watch. Tilia immersed herself in the study of mage and summoner clothing, spending most of her time in the Arcane Academy's library. Jarvis found a proper place to host a funeral for Mantid and continued his care and study of Forge. Yielya started her journey to find the Holy Realm, utilizing her intuition and a bit of luck to find the right way. 

Kan'na was still working with Torch for her commission. It took about a whole day of real time, or about three days in-game, before Torch exited his workshop. He carried a strange cylinder object. A mana crystal embedded at one end, the other held a claw-like shape. Within the claw's 'palm' lied a lens. He looked about before spotting Kan'na.

Approaching her caused him to be stunned. He looked at the several magic circles spinning about, and a lot of his items stuck within these circles. Staring at these he asked, "So. . . what's all this?"

Kan'na looked up towards him, "Oh you're alive! I had to figure out the purpose of a lot of your stuff so I borrowed a few pieces to study. The magic circles are testing every inch to figure out how it works."

"You can do that with magic?"

"Kind of. This kind of method heavily relies on my own understanding of mana and its workings.", Kan'na dusted off her linen clothing before standing up.

Eyeing the device in Torch's hands she asked, "This is?"

"A prototype idea, far too bulky to be the standard design but it should prove the concept."

Kan'na clasped her hands together happily, "Wonderful! Can I see it in action?"

"I'll have to hook it up to properly test it. Which is why I'm here. . . your turn."

Kan'na immediately understood and motioned for a circuit board to float into her hands. With a flourish she smiled and said, "This unit, it's meant to handle the visual input from your eye modules correct?"

Torch was mildly surprised but his metallic face failed to show any emotion, "It is."

"Right, with that knowledge a lot of your circuit boards act as a sort of bridge to connect all the modules. They all handle various information and direct it towards some sort of master module. Good idea, I use a similar idea with my more complex magic circles. However!", Kan'na tossed aside the circuit board, "Mana swirls to a point, these straight lines are useless. You want something like this."

A magic circle formed at her hand. As part of the example she formed several more magic circles and slowly merged them together to form a Magic Concatenation. Torch examined this for a moment and asked, "What does this have to do with my boards?"

"You're wasting a lot of space and material keeping everything in order. It should be much easier--and miles more efficient--to keep something in a shape like this. Now I went and took a peak at your storage and noticed you had a large stockpile of high quality mana crystals."

Torch wanted his eyebrow to twitch upon hearing how Kan'na helped herself to all his secrets. Keeping his composure he added, "They're used in a lot of modules. Mostly they're turned into wires."

"Oh perfect. I feared you were using them as batteries. Could you lend me one? I'll pay for it if needed."

"Just show me what you want to do with it."

Kan'na smiled and gently clasped her hands. A magic circle formed and teleported one of the crystals in front of her. Grabbing it she gently molded and pressed the crystal as if it were made of clay. Magic circles formed to assist with this process as she turned the crystal into a disk. Slowly tiny runes began to carve onto its surface.

"I've always wanted to try this, but obtaining a mana crystal of this kind requires more than money. So I usually turn lower quality crystals into ink for my scrolls. However in theory since mana crystals boast the greatest mana conductivity, this kind of method should work leagues better than a scroll.", Kan'na began to ramble about her theories as she completed the disc.

As the final rune carved Kan'na lifted it with a smile, "Bingo! This should do the exact same thing as that circuit board. Except I made it with just one ingredient and by hand."

Tucking his device under an arm Torch approached Kan'na and extended a hand. Handing over the disc Torch inspected it for a moment before a system notification popped up.

< Congratulations! >

< You've found a new module! >

< Grading Module. . . >

< Done! >

< The Module has been graded as S class! >

< Congratulations! >

< You've encountered your first S grade Module >

< A quest has been automatically given to you! >

S grade?! The Knights of the Round used A grade modules! Unlike the rarity system of A World's Legacy, his own modules had their individual ratings following the simple system of the Adventurer's Guild. When a device combines different quality modules they're assessed during the rating of the finished product. Due to a lot of shortcuts his creations rarely surpassed B grade. 

This was clearly something incredible! Raising it up to a light he asked, "It's purely made of mana crystal? How did you create something like this?"

"I just engraved runes into its surface as instructions. It works a lot like my magic circles, except this can operate with just a tiny bit of mana as activation. Originally it was just a theory I had."

"This counts as just a theory?", Torch lowered the disc and stared at Kan'na.

Spreading out her hands Kan'na explained, "I mean I didn't have access to such a high quality mana crystal before. Even if I did it would be so rare it would be more efficient to make more ink out of it for several scrolls. Using just one for a single outcome seems like a bit of a waste.

"That was the case at least, until I saw your huge stockpile of these crystals."

Torch handed the disc back over and said simply, "Change of deals. You show me how to make these, work with me to make a production line. That'll be enough as payment, I'll be sure the machine you want perfectly matches your needs."

"That won't be an issue at all."

"Good, then let's test this out first."

Carrying his device towards one of the assembly machines Torch quickly disassembled one of the arms. Screws fell to the ground carelessly and Torch even used a metal cutter to slice apart the welded materials. Rudimentarily attaching the device onto the arm he welded the machine back together. Reaching into his forearm Torch pulled out a wire and connected it to the assembly machine. Tapping at his forearm he set a few basic coded instructions for it to work.

The machine whirred to life and Torch controlled the device to move about. Then a carrier spider crawled underneath and opened its box. The contents consisted of a singular metal ingot. Kan'na took a peek at this ingot and recognized it as ordinary steel. Torch casually placed this ingot onto the assembly machine and fired up the device.

The claws of the machine clicked and whirred as they adjusted towards the correct position. A glow formed at the lens and a tiny glowing dot of light formed in the lens' path. Tapping at his forearm Torch input a few instructions and this tiny dot moved back and forth as if on a slider.

Nodding to himself he then moved this dot towards the ingot. The arm of the assembly machine moved to adjust the position of the light. Slowly a circle was engraved onto the ingot. He then tapped a few times and controlled the dot to enter the ingot itself. The arm moved a bit more before Torch turned off the device.

Picking up the ingot he sliced it in half. Inside revealed a straight line, a sort of hole that traveled within the ingot. Tossing a half towards Kan'na he asked, "Something like this?"

Inspecting the half of the ingot Kan'na was quite surprised at the success of the first prototype. Indeed the tiny dot of light acted as a point of engraving. Additionally it was able to engrave inside of the ingot itself. There was naturally a few points Kan'na was worried about, but that can be solved over time.

A smile formed on her lips as she felt her theories coming together, "This is exactly what we need. There's a lot of work to be done, but this is the right path!"

Torch found his willingness to participate with this commission to have skyrocketed upon finding out Kan'na was capable of creating S grade modules. Thus he happily asked, although his voice remained emotionless, "What needs improvement?"

"There's a point of entry before you could engrave inside the ingot. We need to remove that if possible. Additionally the lines are too shaky, they need to be machined to perfection."

"The latter issue is easy to solve. This was a proof of concept so it was a very rudimentary set up. The first is more troubling. Its only designed to create the engraving point at the claws. In order for there to be no entry point that would require turning off and on the device while the engraving point is inside of the target? That's out of my control."

Kan'na flourished the disc, "That just means we need to upgrade."