Chapter 78 - Rune Trigger and Amber’s Slacking Time (1/2)
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Gawain’s praise was, of course, rather pleasing to Rebecca; she almost came forward wagging her tail to ask to be praised more (if she had a tail). Meanwhile, Gawain conscientiously examined the structure of this modern furnace after praising her. He’d already found many aspects that he hadn’t planned for at the start, and a part of these additional structures could possibly be Hummel’s reformation according to his experiences as a blacksmith, while the rest would definitely be Rebecca’s work. After all, Hummel did not know how to make changes in runes and magic circles.
“What is this structure for?” Gawain pointed to the linked pedal, connecting rod and steel plate at the bottom of the furnace. These structures appeared to be very small and delicate; Hummel had probably forged them bit by bit using a hammer. A part of it was fitted with the stone slab on the ground, while another seemed to be related to the magic circle structure of the furnace. This had Gawain coming up with some vague guesses.
“Oh, oh, didn’t you say that you wanted a switch for magic circles that even blacksmiths who are laymen would be able to control? So I designed this structure.” Rebecca explained with a beam. “Although the modern furnace can be continuously operated, it has to be switched off sometimes. So look, this pedal can move this steel plate. There is a rune on the steel plate and another on the obsidian slab on the furnace. This pair of runes is ineffective if separated, but when put together, they become a part of the entire magic circle…”
Rebecca explained while demonstrating for Gawain. She stepped on the pedal with force. The connected steel plate then turned and fitted into the indentation at the bottom of the furnace. Gawain then saw that it had a basic elemental rune carved on the flip side — which happened to be the missing part of the furnace’s magic circle.
This was a switch, a structure that was extremely simple but full of creativity.
Before the appearance of this, mages essentially controlled the operation of magic circles directly using their own magical power.
However, blacksmiths did not know how to control magical power, so they clearly needed this.
And as the steel plate flipped out, the magic circuit throughout the entire furnace was connected. Gawain sensed a current briefly surge through the air. Following that, some glowing patterns emerged on the stone slabs on the ground, and the magic circles on the side of the furnace were also activated. The runes on them lit up one by one. Firewood had long been placed in the chamber; at present, as the magic circles were activated, this firewood began to burn and instantly burst into raging flames, burning far stronger and hotter than usual flames from firewood.
Rebecca had removed her foot, but the steel plate was already set in the indentation of the furnace with the help of gear latches. Despite the precision of this entire structure being no match for industrial products — as they just needed to push the crude rune up for it to take effect — its operating mode was already nearly perfect.
“Step again, and it goes back!” Rebecca pointed at the latches between those connecting rods with a rather pleased smile. “I named this entire set ‘rune trigger’, a mechanism that can be toggled and operated by runes! Let me tell you. Don’t assume that it was as simple as taking a few runes apart and reassembling them. I experimented for a long time before concluding that this pair of runes was the most stable, most universal combination…”
Girl, you’ve given this thing a super posh name!
Catching Gawain’s slightly disoriented gaze, Rebecca finally ended her ceaseless blah blah that stemmed from her being overly excited. She asked with some hope and nervousness, “Um… Lord Ancestor, what do you think of this? Oh yes, other than this rune trigger, everything else about this furnace was reformed by Hummel.”
“Very good, very good. Both of you have done well!” Gawain commended sincerely; then he noticed that the old blacksmith wasn’t present. Thus, he asked curiously, “Where did Hummel go?”
Rebecca scratched her hair. “Because we need even more black stones and red clay to build more new furnaces, he brought a few apprentices and people from the search party to look for materials in the mountains. The search party mentioned that they’d seen black stones in the mountains when they returned yesterday.”
Gawain let out an “oh” in response before it suddenly struck him that he was here for proper business. Therefore, he tapped his head and said, “Ah yes, I have something for you. Look at this. Do you have any impression?” He brought out a darkish-gray and ugly hardened substance. This was the last piece of ‘waste residue’ he had left after giving all the rest to Heidi.
Rebecca recognized it instantly. “Ah, isn’t this the waste from my failed baking previously?”
“Look carefully in here.” Gawain could tell that even Rebecca hadn’t really noticed there was something else mixed in the ‘waste residue’ she’d created. “See these grains of crystalline solids? Do you still remember how you baked these?”
Rebecca only noticed those bits of crumbs then. Honestly speaking, as the wastes all looked about the same, she wasn’t able to differentiate the products by batches just by looking. Fortunately, she’d strictly followed Gawain’s ‘operating rules’ and conscientiously recorded the ratio of materials, duration, temperature, and kiln serial number of every batch that she’d baked. They just needed to verify that this was one of the first few batches and then redo them following the records for that day. They would then be able to easily confirm how these things came by.
Hearing that Rebecca had diligently made records and that they could easily recreate the operating details from the records, Gawain really heaved a sigh of relief. In this ‘medieval’ background, ‘detailed notes’ almost did not exist in the average person’s mind; only mages devoted to various magic research would have a shallow concept of this. However, Rebecca was not a mage who could do research; this was reflected in her simplistic fireballs that had always been either big, super big, ultra big, or many, many levels bigger. Hence, this girl lacked the proper habits that one should have when doing experiments.
Thankfully, she was very obedient and was thorough with all that Gawain tasked her with.
While Gawain was studying how to introduce ‘the art of explosion’1 as soon as possible into this era, a certain half-elf bandit who was idle after eating and drinking to her heart’s content was strolling in the dense woods of the Dark Range.
Of course, a more creative way of putting it would be — patrolling the borders of the territory or, even, searching for potential danger and wealth in the Dark Range… They had almost the same meaning anyway! … Anyone who knew this person would know that she was merely slacking.
Carrying her two treasured little daggers and humming an untuned song, Amber leaped between rocks and branches as if she was walking on flat ground. With the help of the pervasive shadows in the woods, her form would disappear into the air from time to time and then suddenly appear tens of meters away, even up to a hundred meters. Sometimes, as her figure flickered, a wild fruit from an unknown source would be on her little dagger. Then, she would take one or two bites out of it before casually tossing it away.
To Amber who was an elf and also a master of the shadows, these dark woods were like a paradise tailor-made for her.