Draith
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Chapter 157 - Not Too Consequental
🕑 Added 2025-07-10 14:00:13 +0000 UTCHaving a kaiju sized metal devil join my trial was a little unexpected, but ultimately, turned out to be not too consequential.
For one thing, it wasn't able to scale the peaks. It's roars were inconvenient, since they were loud enough I almost wished I was working next to Conflict as it snapped its fingers. Meanwhile, the kaiju devil’s breath when directed in my general direction was enough to set any loose paper flying. If it bumped into the peak I was on, it was enough to set everything shaking.
Yet it came with an upgrade to the trial that outweighed the downsides the kaiju devil brought.
The selection of starting supplies had been upgraded. Every one of the materials we'd got Conflict to produce for both Fang and the Howling Defier now lay next to the expanded work area.
Plucking one of the ingots from the crate and shaping it into a rough hook, I glanced back inside. Seemed that unlike when I'd first entered this stage, the materials were now replenishing themselves like they had in the first.
This… would be fun.
After dealing with the first metal devil and checking its supplies, my smile grew even wider. Instead of more of the same, the crate held a wide selection of low tier enchanting materials.
Defeating the metal-devils was a bit trickier than usual, since the kaiju devil didn't exactly stick to a schedule before slamming into the peaks.
Still, it only took me a couple hours to clear out all but the final peak.
Every single peak had yielded more enchanting materials, with the quality climbing as I got closer to the last.
With all the options available to me, I returned to the initial workbench and realized I had to prioritize. Despite the time distortion, there was just too much I could do with what I had laid out before me.
The first thing I did was come up with a list of tasks to rotate through.
First I'd work on components for our first train engine. Several parts should be pretty simple, borrowing a lot of the tedious design work from Earth. Things such as the wheels and linking mechanisms.
Replacing the engine was going to take collaboration with Inertia to complete, but there was a lot I could test.
The second thing I was going to work on was trying to develop a lightweight transparent material. For how small they were, the windows on the Howling Defier ate up a considerable amount of weight. I knew glass was a lot lighter, but I had no idea how to create any of the tougher variants. Amusingly, there was something else I'd stumbled across on one of my many built different binges that I thought I’d have a better chance with.
Transparent aluminum.
Technically, it was some sort of crystalline ceramic, with around thirty percent aluminum. Somehow, combining oxygen and nitrogen with aluminum could produce it.
I had no idea what sort of process it required though. Or what the ratios were.
Still, if I could even get a rough idea, it'd give us a fantastic place to start. Then Inertia could set her growing army of workers to the annoying task of figuring out the best composition and production process. We’d be doing the same with glass too after the Howling season passed, once I could set a bunch of refugees to work outside.
When I got tired of trying to work out transparent aluminum, I was going to be switch to my third design problem.
I hadn't expected to be able to work on it inside Conflict's trial, but one of the very last crates held first tier Worlds materials. Which meant I could practice my spatial storage safe building skills.
The work on the train parts progressed quickly, and I ended up getting lost in the process.
The first and most obvious component were the heavy wheels. But before that, I wanted to build the tools to build the parts. A lot of the engine car would be bespoke, but the nice thing about the rest of the train was the interchangeable parts.
Getting proper presses and molds took some effort. A couple Shape Tool enchantments did a lot of heavy lifting, acting as hydraulic jacks, which made it easier to assemble the rest.
The first thing I did was attempt to assemble a rolling press for printing the tracks we’d need. Only to realize that the entire press was nearly as complicated as the engine.
Would be better to get Inertia to help with it.
Instead, I shifted my focus to molds, and designing ones that we could produce with a minimum of magical assistance. I had infinite supplies inside the trial. We were much more limited outside.
Getting the mold for the wheels was easy. Most of the parts for the drive train weren’t too hard, though the brakes would require a lot of testing before I was confident they’d work as intended. Testing that was impossible in the trial, given my limited space.
The hitching components I actually created several different variations of. And once I had, it occurred to me how useful the might be for air linking too. Maybe we could build a zeppelin train or something someday.
The thought made me snicker as I set the clacking hitch I’d been testing to the side.
I might’ve gotten a bit carried away with train parts, since I even took the time to make a proper steam whistle. It was incredibly satisfying to use, but it made me realize I should probably get on to my next task. Was pretty sure I'd spent at least three days working on train stuff, if not more.
It was hard to gauge when there was no shifting sun, grumbling stomach or loving girlfriend to remind me.
Deciding to take a break, I plopped down on the edge, looking down at the kaiju devil.
After the first day it'd grown bored and settled down to curl up between the peaks. Even from where I was sitting, I could see it taking incredibly slow breaths.
If I wanted to investigate its body, I was going to need some way to defeat it, though that wasn't something I was worried about. Not unless it developed the ability to climb or break the peaks.
Which it might, once I defeated the last devil atop the final peak. Still, if I couldn't figure out a way to beat the Kaiju-sized devil, I'd just hop on the last peak and end the trial. Nothing said I had to defeat the metal devils.
I blinked as I had that thought.
Huh. I should definitely see what happened if I beat the trial without fighting a single one of the devils.
Next time.
Pushing to my feet, I got back to work. First, I set to work with a new set of filters. Figuring out which was nitrogen and which was oxygen was tricky. Until I remembered that one would snuff out flames while the other… would do the opposite.
A few minutes after I started the tests, I was glad we weren't actually present in the trials. While I'd successfully identified the oxygen filter, it turned out that my eyebrows weren't subject to the general protection provided by the trial.
Rubbing at the smooth unburnt skin where my left eyebrow should’ve been, I looked down at the oxygen filter enchantment. Or what remained of it anyway. It looked more like a half-melted hubcap than the original intricate set of runes it’d been a minute before.
Throwing it to the side, I went back to work.
Despite getting the filters set up, I quickly came across a new challenge. I didn't have pure aluminum. I had several bars that probably had aluminum in them, as part of the alloy. And they were all useless. My filters wouldn't work on a block of metal. Even if they did, I didn’t have one for aluminum.
Unless I got struck by a burst of inspiration, I'd already hit my limit for developing transparent aluminum. Would need to visit Keeper or possibly trade a favor with Conflict to get further.
Which meant I got to start on the really fun part. The spatial storage.
Building a rough steel box, I worked the improved version of the enchantment Bevel and I had tried into its sides, carefully double checking my work before attempting to activate it.
Plus side. Safe did not implode, turning into Worlds mana.
Downside… it was the design Bevel and I came up with to build inside the enchanting workshop. The only way to interact with the safe was to use spells keyed to it.
Which I couldn't use inside the trial.
The next storage container was made out of large sheets of metal, practically smothered with runes. I would’ve called it a crate, if I’d ever planned to put anything inside the non-dimensional portion. The overall internal spatial storage would be the same size as the smaller safe, which actually made it a rather poor storage item, at a glance. Except it should negate the weight.
Still, that didn’t matter, since it was a proof of concept. I’d gone big because the larger box made it easier to scribe all the extra runes that were required to even interact with the Fronting thing without casting any spells.
The first attempt imploded, taking all my work with it.
I sat down, going over my notes, trying to figure out if I’d messed up on the design or the execution, and failing to figure out the answer.
The second attempt did the opposite of the first, the space expanding outward to warp several materials I'd left nearby before fading. Picking up a hammer I'd used to build the actual box, I stared at the handle. It had been twisted in a way that hurt my head to look at. As if the material was no longer constrained to just three dimensions.
Even as I watched the hammer settled into a still twisted but no longer extra-dimensional object.
Note to self, add remote activation for testing.
The next storage box was set several steps up the stairs, with little legs to keep it level, well out of range of my workspace. I pressed the mechanical button I'd rigged up, watching the box carefully with a pair of enchanted goggles strapped in place. The same ones I'd developed when I'd first taken the trial.
With the goggles, I was able to see the point of failure as the box disappeared into oblivion.
A damn mana delay rune was cycling the mana instead causing it to create a feedback loop that sucked everything inside once it passed the critical point.
Once that was done, I had to hunt down the part that kept making it explode. Which turned out to be a failure to account for the thin atmosphere. Something a proper storage item would account for automatically but I’d ignored to ‘keep it simple’.
After adding the pressure regulator runes back in, it took another ten boxes to get all the wrinkles sorted out. By which point, I was pretty sure I'd been inside the trial for over a week. The pressure in my head was there, but it hadn't gotten bad, so I sat down to look down at the kaiju devil while clicking the storage box button.
A shovel I'd chosen as the test prop continued to plop in and out of existence with each press of the button. I wasn't really paying attention. Throughout my experiments, ideas for our trains had been percolating in the back of my mind.
And I realized that between my magic and our airships, a lot of the worst parts of setting up a train route could be easily bypassed. The train itself was still going to take a lot of work, but I could create protected tunnels as fast as I could walk.
It was going to be tedious, but by the time the Howling season came to an end, we were going to have subway tunnels leading from one end of Cape Aeternia to the other.
Comments
Dennis
either it requires a certain amount of depth in the 3rd dimension or he just hasn't thought of making it flat yet. Too focused on getting it to work.
Disclancer
Question? Why does the storage container have to be modeled after an actual container? Surely a sheet of metal would be more space efficient for storage as cargo containers on train/airships or mounting in room. If an actual threshold is needed maybe something like a door shaped sheet with raised bevels to outline a activated portal? I dunno, just brainstorming as due the connection off "box made off big sheets"
