thomasdarkrose
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Vol. 6 - Captivity - Chapter 13
🕑 Added 2019-10-25 23:42:23 +0000 UTCThomas actually lied to Clad, there was no fun to be had with the next phase of making the materials for the grenades. And since it wasn't something he needed to do personally, he turned to Clad and said, "Grab an axe and chop the bars up into little squares. Try to keep them as even as possible so that each square really is a square and not a rectangle. They will be used as the shrapnel inside of the grenades. While you do that I'll work on something else."
Clad did as he was told and went to work while Thomas went over to the crate of Firestone and grabbed a hunk of it. He used his mortar and pestle to carefully grind the Firestone into a fine powder. Honestly, he wanted to try purifying the Firestone to see what would happen. He refrained from doing so because, frankly, the stuff scared the crap out of him. Gunpowder was at least stable, Firestone was unstable and risked detonation if it was messed with. He even had to grind it slowly to keep friction from generating too much heat!
While Clad was chopping iron stock into small cubes, Thomas was carefully grinding chunk after chunk of Firestone into a fine powder and carefully storing it in a container he found in the pile of junk and materials he had to work with. By the time Clad was finished, Thomas had a decent amount of powder to work with. Feeling like he had enough Firestone powder, Thomas collected some sheets of plain leather and started cutting out squares of it. Once he had twenty-one squares he used his Transmutation to reshape them into simple bags with a hole in the top. These would be the interior of the grenades and hold the firestone powder. With the shells, shrapnel, bags, and powder completed he only needed to make one more thing, the pins that would act as the detonators.
The pins were extremely simple to make as they were just a flat disc with a spike sticking out that was stuck inside of the Firestone powder. The only painful part of making them was that each pin needed to be enchanted separately by hand. To make the pins he just grabbed an iron ingot and used Transmutation to form them. For the pirate's grenades he wasn't above taking as many shortcuts as he could manage. Once the pins were formed he had all the pieces he needed to make the grenades so he turned to look at Clad, "Get Yorik, I need to ask him something."
With a nod, Clad left. Not wanting to waste any time Thomas started to grind up some mana crystals and add the Alchemist's Oil to the powder to make some enchanting medium. When Clad returned with Yorik, Thomas cut to the chase and asked, "How long do you want the delay for the detonation to be?"
Yorik thought for a bit and finally decided on a time, "Ten seconds should do it."
Thomas gave Yorik a nod, "No problem. I just wanted to be sure before I started the enchantments."
Yorik frowned at Thomas, "Is that all?"
Thomas just gave a smile and nodded. Yorik grunted and left the workshop. Strictly speaking, Thomas could have just had Clad act as a go-between and have Clad ask the question. Instead, he chose to waste a bit of Yorik's time just to annoy him. Once Yorik left, Thomas got back to work with a small smile on his face. It was a small bit of pleasure to annoy his captor and he reveled in it. Thomas chose to use the same fire rune for the pins as he did for his greatsword, only with a different intent behind it. Once mana was channeled into the enchantment it would retain the mana for ten seconds then use it all to superheat the tip of the spike and ignite the Firestone powder. Simple but very effective.
As he was about to start his carving he stopped as a question popped into his mind, 'Just how long can mana stay inside of an enchantment before it becomes useless?' He'd never really experimented with that and didn't know the answer. He was sure the size of the enchantment would affect how long it could maintain the mana stored within it but from all the books he read he knew permanent enchantments were impossible. Charged mana crystals could power enchantments but even then there was a time limit on how long it would last. As he pondered over the question a thought slowly formed that brought a smile to his face. Thinking about the grenades and their timers reminded him of another similar weapon and thinking about using mana crystals to power enchantments brought the whole picture together in his mind.
The picture in his mind was of a functional device of devastating power and nasty surprises. Mines! If he created a pin that instantly discharged mana into heat along with a nearby charged mana crystal only separated by a spring, he could make a mine! Once stepped on the spring would compress and bring the mana crystal into contact with the enchantment and cause an immediate detonation! He brought the thought another step further. If he reversed the pressure of the spring and held it in place with a pin he could attach a tripwire to it. Once the tripwire pulled the pin out the spring would release and BOOM! A claymore!
He had no intention of sharing these thoughts with the pirates or even trying to make them while he was in their custody. One he had the thought though, he couldn't stop the ideas from rampaging inside of his skull. All kinds of different explosive weapons came to mind. All of them could be triggered by either compressing or releasing a spring that put a charged mana crystal in contact with an enchanted pin. Even the thought of an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade), and grenade launchers popped into his mind. With that single spark of inspiration, he thought of dozens of different ways to use it.
It didn't even have to necessarily be an explosive using Firestone. What if he packed the grenades for the grenade launcher with an amalgamation mana crystal and used it as a catalyst for an enchanted spell? Firey explosions, penetrating water blasts, slicing wind blasts, battering earth explosions and so much more. Yes, he could cast these spells himself with ease but why would he use his own mana pool for that when he could pre-charge the various grenades and just pull out the one he needed when he needed it? He could have dozens, even hundreds of grenades sitting around waiting to be used! Mines, Claymores, RPG's, grenade launchers, and hell even mortars were all possible!
A whole new world of ideas flooded his mind and it royally pissed him off that he couldn't begin to experiment immediately. He could not reveal these ideas to the pirates no matter what. He took a few deep breaths to calm and clear his mind. For now, he needed to focus on producing grenades for them. He refocused his mind on the intent for the grenade pin enchantment and began carving the fire rune. He worked as quickly as he could while still maintaining a certain level of quality. Even if he could get away with making shoddy products for the pirates, he still had his own pride in his work. Everything had to work properly.
It took him a couple of hours to enchant the twenty-one pins for the grenades but when they were done there was only a single step left, assembly. Thomas picked up one top and one bottom half of a grenade, a pile of the small iron cubes, and a leather bag. He immediately dismissed the thought of placing the cubes inside of the grenade by hand and instead used his magnetic magic to pick them up and align them inside of the bottom half of the grenade so that the entire interior was lined with them. Once they were placed the natural curvature of the shell kept them from moving or falling down.
He placed the leather bag inside of the shell and conjured a scoop in thin air out of metal magic. He used it to collect some Firestone powder then transformed the scoop into a funnel to pour the powder into the leather bag. It took two scoops to fill the whole bag and pack it tightly. For the top half of the grenade, he repeated the process of using magnetic magic to get the shrapnel cubes placed inside of it. However, he maintained the magnetism to hold them in place since they would slide and fall out due to the hole in the middle of it. With the magnetism holding the cubes in place he picked up the hemisphere and placed it on top of the bottom half. With the top half placed on the grenade, he released his magnetic magic. The bag of Firestone powder would hold the metal cubes in place.
With the top and bottom halves touching but not sealed, he took the next step and activated his Transmutation. Mixing was used just at the seam to perfectly fuse the two halves into a single, unblemished, whole. He then retrieved one of the enchanted pins and stuck it into the hole at the top of the grenade. Thanks to that hole and the hole in the bag the tip of the pin was in direct contact with the Firestone powder. With another used of Transmutation and mixing, he fused the edges of the pin with the top of the grenade and securely locked it in place.
System Notice: You have created a Normal rarity Fragmentation Grenade. Quality: Excellent. You have gained 220 Magitech Engineering experience.
Thomas tossed the grenade to Clad who was surprised but still managed to catch it in his hands, "First grenade completed. To use it all you have to do is channel mana into it and ten seconds later, BOOM! it will explode. Be sure not to be holding it when it detonates."
With a smirk, Thomas returned to assembling the next grenade while Clad left the workshop. With the use of his magic, it only took a few minutes to assemble each grenade. Truly, the hard part about making them was just making the parts. There looked to be enough shrapnel cubes to make at least fifty or so grenades, maybe more. As he was assembling his thrid grenade he heard the muffled sound of an explosion in the distance. He couldn't help but smirk. It looked like Yorik couldn't wait to test out the potency of the grenades.
A couple of minutes and another assembled grenade later, Yorik came into the workshop with a wide grin on his face, "You really weren't lying! That grenade was amazing!"
Thomas eyed Yorik with a smirk, "Thought I might be lying huh?"
Yorik just shrugged his shoulders and shamelessly said, "Yeah, I did think you were lying. Good thing you're not." He looked over the small assembly line that Thomas had going and smiled, "Looks like we'll have a fair number to use by the next time we set out."
"Well, minus the one you just blew up, there will be twenty grenades in this batch. The next one I'll make as many as I can with the shrapnel I've got left.", said Thomas as he went back to assembling grenades.
Yorik watched for a bit more before leaving the workshop. Since he wasn't paying attention, Thomas missed the greed flashing in Yorik's eyes. With these weapons, he would become a real terror on the seas. The only question in his mind was how long he could keep Thomas captive for. It was a delicate balance that he had to walk with his captive. One step too far and he would lose the goose that layed the golden eggs, or grenades, as the case may be.
After Yorik left, Clad had returned and quietly watched Thomas assembling the grenades. When the sun started to set, Thomas just used his 'All Seeing Eyes' to see what he was doing and continued on. He didn't stop until there were twenty completed grenades sitting on the table in front of him. Thomas left packing up the grenades to Clad. If the man was going to be his assistant then let him assist. While Clad worked, Thomas made his way over to his sleeping space and got comfortable. Another day, another bunch of experience for his Magitech Engineering.
After getting comfortable he pulled out the list of requests and looked at the first one. His interest was perked at what was requested. The request was for a polearm with a machete-like blade that was capable of cutting through things as touch as an anchor chain. The description reminded him of a modified bardiche or glaive. Though, if he remembered correctly, billhooks were a more common pirate weapon. Maybe not though. Either way, he decided he would base this pirate's request on a glaive with a one and a half meter long handle. That should provide a good reach. To make it capable of slicing through metal he would have to use a metal embryo to form the blade.
It wouldn't take him long to make such a weapon so he checked the next request on the list to see if it was something he could create. The next request actually wasn't for a weapon but instead for a portable stove. At first, he thought it was an odd request but as he read the details he understood why it had been requested. They wanted one with an adjustable temperature. He wasn't sure if he could make it properly but it sounded interesting so he decided that he would give it a try tomorrow after making the weapon.
With his two projects selected he stored the list away and closed his eyes so he could meditate using Serenity and fall asleep peacefully.
Comments
Zed
Touch 》tough
Erik Zorger
It would be great if he was able to hide a remote like trigger in the runes so he was able to set them off from a distance, and link the trigger to himself. Then he could blow up the grenades on the pirates if he had to. He could make it sound based and have a certain frequency set for the trigger so he could do a large area sonic blast and set off all grenades in a large area around him. How cool would it be for him to set off crates of grenades in the pirates weapons locker, or mid battle have most of the pirates just blow themselves up.
