bookpower Chapter 289 – Gamma
Chapter 289 – Gamma
Chapter 289 – Gamma
The smell of charred components and failed prototypes littered the floor in Sasha's personal workshop. She was working on finalizing their sixth revision of the boiler-sized machine, which they were hoping would be the perfect counterpart for Mikan and Leon's completed spell. All the previous ones burned up in their tests, so this time around, it should work... Hopefully.
In the corner of the room, Merlin leaned over a disassembled instrument, his hands deftly sorting through the dismantled formation within Otto's device that allowed him to view the images that his spies took of the train more than a year ago. Merlin furrowed his brows as he deciphered the inscriptions etched into the machinery's inner walls, overlying three of them. Even though they already copied everything, he was still studying the original, making sure they didn't miss any hidden function that it may be capable of.
"Ishillian technology never ceases to surprise me. Sometimes, they invent something nice, and then they do nothing with it." He muttered, holding up a CC core encased in polished steel. "It’s not as well implemented as ours, but the principles... they’re very close. I wonder if they have things like this widespread amongst their most loyal servants. Because I am pretty sure they never publicized something like this. Maybe not even between their branches in the family."
"I highly doubt it," Sasha smirked in answer. "They withheld how to make mortar. Do you think they would tell others they can produce something like this? But... why not ask your old self?"
"He wouldn't share." He shrugged. "I know; I sometimes feel like him. When Leon says he doesn't mind others copying our inventions, I feel myself squirming. I want to keep it within us—within Avalon alone."
"The old Ishillian instincts, huh?" Sasha joked, chuckling, making Merlin smile too.
"Most likely. Luckily, it is Leon's decision, so I can relax! Anyway, this particular thing will be useful for us in the future. I think we can finally achieve our next-generation helmets for our soldiers! The way they used layered spells here was the last piece to make it truly viable and to shrink it to a wearable size. And..." He turned towards the machine Sasha was working on.
"This is still way too bulky for that. And we didn't even get it to work yet!"
"I know." He raised his hands, dropped the topic, and came over. While Sasha was checking the structural integrity, Merlin was doing the same to the formations and CC slots within the machine.
It was then that Mikan arrived, knocking on her workshop's wall so as not to scare them with her presence. Sometimes, they were lost in their work and didn't even notice that Luna brought them food, getting scared when someone tapped their shoulders.
"Hey! How's it coming together?" she asked as she glanced at the shattered remnants of the original gadget—an artifact that was now nothing more than scrap metal.
"Almost there." Sasha smiled, looking at her before returning to work. "I’ve reworked the focusing mechanism to channel your spell through this matrix of mirrors. The hardest part was calibrating it to accept the intensity modulation."
"I understood none of that." She muttered.
"Once Merlin finishes and adds the last CC set, we’ll start testing. Hopefully, it won't fall apart this time around." She added with a sigh, looking at the by now wholly metallic, cylinder-shaped instrument.
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Hours later, the prototype stood on the ground, out in our testing field. It was a curious amalgamation of brass plating and steel support beams, hiding a complex matrix of mirrors to bounce off light, produced by a way too complex magic formation.
"Pretty bulky." I exclaimed, walking around it as it reached up to my chest in height. Looking at the top, a projection lens was encased in a rotating ring, akin to our gyroscopes, acting as its crown jewel. "Let's fire it up!"
"Here goes nothing..." Sasha muttered, slotting the activating CC in as everything was already prepared and ready for our live test in the early evening.
"It looks... fragile." Merlin, standing at a safe distance, raised an eyebrow as the gyroscope atop the machine began rotating and spinning until it stabilized into a clear pattern.
"It has been attached to its frame," Sasha answered, her arms crossed, watching it. The first prototype was indeed fragile. The moment it began to spin, it flew off the top, shattering. "The manual adjustment of the spell has yet to be implemented as we don't know what frequencies we will need to set it to. Mikan, it is your turn to adjust the spell within, and let us see if this works as intended! Stop at set intervals so we can establish the required states for a manual dial."
"Mikan, that’s too high!" Sasha warned at once.
"I just need a moment to—" Mikan began, but her words faltered as the rat collapsed while starting to smoke, releasing a horrid smell. The projection cut off abruptly as the device’s newly added failsafe was also triggered, preventing it from damaging itself and ejecting all the CCs fueling it at once.
We all froze at that moment. Sasha recovered first and rushed to examine the rat, but it was too late.
"Don't touch it!" I warned, coming over and looking at the cage.
The poor bastard was boiled alive; it was still smoking and its flesh bubbling, its insides oozing out as it was turned to plasma within its carcass. Damn... this could be a very dangerous weapon. A true death ray, something that nations would kill for in my old life.
"At least the safety measures worked..." Sasha muttered, just as intrigued as Merlin. Yes, it was horrifying but... revealing. Turning around, I saw how Mikan looked on, horrified, her eyes watering, so I quickly stepped over and hugged her to soothe her feelings.
"The spell at maximum intensity must have reached a level you wrote about." Sasha bobbed her head, holding a stick and poking the rat while talking to me, "Likely a burst of concentrated energy, akin to what you called a gamma ray."
"I didn’t mean to..." Mikan’s hands trembled as she held onto me. "I just wanted to see how far it could go. I didn't think our spell could reproduce... that...."
"Well, we learned its limit," Merlin spoke gently, though his tone carried a tinge of pride. "We created something that can reproduce a cosmic strength. That’s the purpose of experimentation! But this machine is a weapon as much as it is a tool. We must treat it with care and with the utmost secrecy." This time around, he was now just as solemn as anyone would be, no longer fantasizing but planning for the future. It was already here.
And I agreed.
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We spent the next few days refining the device even further. Sasha finally added a dial that could be used to change its intensity. We also added more safeguards to prevent the spell from exceeding the determined safe thresholds, ensuring that its power could be harnessed without causing harm. If it goes beyond what living tissue can handle, it will eject all its CC to shut it off at once. Still, the incident weighed heavily on Mikan.
She devoted herself to perfecting the spell’s applications. She adjusted its parameters to allow for specialized uses—an MRI-like mode that mapped internal structures with precision and a scanner for identifying magical anomalies within living beings. It was an idea that came to her after remembering how Otto's mages blew themselves up. Then, she came up with even a setting for detecting concealed objects within magically reinforced places, like Otto's base that Pion and the others raided.
When it was deemed a finished product, we gathered in my office, where Merlin spoke first.
"This invention has the power to change the power dynamic between us and any enemy we may face in the future. I already have a formation in my mind that could use it to its fullest. Still, its requirement would be akin to using a beast core."
"I don't think we should use it as a weapon." Mikan added, raising her hand like a student.
"We’ll control its allocation. From now on, this is a spell and device that is among our top-secret knowledge. We will issue the refined version to our hospital, which will be used to detect injuries and illnesses. The army will have its own variants for the same reason. When teaching them how to use it, the knowledge of what else it's capable of is not to be revealed."
"The safety methods are stable and holding," Sasha reported. "They won't be able to overload it, as I built a four-layered one. It will self-destruct at the last one if everything else fails. I also added a security spell. If someone tries to open it without knowing where to disable it first, it will destroy the machine."
"Make sure everyone knows that fiddling with it is punishable by being sent on the Walk." I declared, and then I turned to Merlin.
We didn't say anything as we talked about this privately. Only Sasha, he, and I knew about my final decision: The weaponized version would be installed onto our airship. It will be a weapon of last resort... Something I wanted to have if Pascal decided to do something drastic, and remembering Katherine's demise, I could easily see it happening.