Chapter 79 - Rebecca’s Success and Doubts About Magical Power (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

“So these are the ‘Rebecca Crystals’ that you successfully produced… Mm, that’s right. They look like the same thing.” Seated in his own tent and looking at the big basket of things that Rebecca had excitedly brought over, Gawain nodded lightly.

It was a basket of dark-grayish, grotesquely strange substance. Some were loose like sand, while some were packed together, but regardless of their form, they were all almost evenly filled with countless tiny particles. And compared to the ‘waste residue’ that Rebecca had unintentionally produced, the products in this basket evidently contained more crystals. The average diameter of these crystals also seemed to have increased significantly.

This meant that Rebecca had not only found the formula, but she’d even figured out the way to improve the method of production.

Upon hearing Gawain’s words, even the iron-headed, straightforward Rebecca with low EQ instantly became embarrassed. The viscountess scratched her face, now black from the smoke and heat. When she smiled, she looked like a doofus who’d just turned seventeen and had set off explosives in a kiln. “Hehe… Lord Ancestor, do you really think this thing can be named as such? Isn’t it only really great people who get things named after them…”

“You invented these crystals. Isn’t that impressive enough?” Gawain looked at this nth+1 great-granddaughter who lacked confidence. “Mm, although there’s still a lot of room for improvement, this is indeed a ‘product’ that can be repeatedly produced. The name ‘Rebecca Crystals’ is well deserved.”

Rebecca entered a state of silly happiness. “Hehe, heheheh…”

“Stop your silly giggles for now. Tell me how exactly this was produced.” Gawain was at a loss of whether to laugh or to cry as he glanced at this iron-headed girl. “Although luck has a part to play in the emergence of any new material, I still want to know how such amazing luck befell us.”

“Oh, oh, as a matter of fact, it’s totally a coincidence.” Rebecca scratched her face. “They had actually been baked according to the primitive formula that you gave me. But I failed several times when I attempted to recreate the baking process. None of the mixture ratios worked. Subsequently, I suspected a problem with the furnaces, so I ordered people to check on their condition. In the end, it was found that a big piece had fallen off from the inner walls of one of the furnaces…”

“A big piece fell off?” Gawain frowned. He realized that the key to producing these ‘Rebecca Crystals’ was probably in those fallen pieces of the furnace wall. “So the materials used to build the furnace were also involved in the reaction?”

“That is one of the reasons. Because those furnaces were also heated using runes, there was quartz sand mixed in when they were being built. And other than quartz sand, another important factor is the rocks from the Dark Range.”

“Rocks from the Dark Range?” Gawain repeated.

“Yes, I compared quite a few records and found that there were two obvious differences between the products from that furnace and the other furnaces. One, quartz sand from the building of the furnace was mixed into the raw materials; two, the limestone in the raw materials was dug up from the Dark Range. The limestone from the other furnaces was from the banks of the White River; also, it was transported from the logging shed at the western side. When those are used as raw materials, even adding quartz sand is useless…”

Two conditions, quartz sand and limestone from the Dark Range is it…

Gawain pondered for a while. These two conditions were the accurate conclusion that Rebecca came to after multiple comparisons; there was no need to suspect their validity. Then exactly what role did these two materials play in this process?

The effect of quartz sand was plausible as it was a weak magic-conducting material. Though extremely cheap, it was still a genuine magic material. Besides, it was one of the raw materials to produce man-made crystals in itself. But what was with the limestone from the Dark Range?

Why couldn’t limestone extracted from other places work?

He threw these questions to the floor, leaving Rebecca stupefied.

The young viscountess had never considered these details. She scratched the back of her head as she mumbled, “I was too wrapped up in feeling happy. I’ve yet to think…”

“The Dark Range had once been enveloped by the Dark Wave,” Gawain said as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Till today, the mark of being corroded by the elemental tide still remains in many areas in the mountains. Perhaps it is this process that altered the properties of some minerals… that provided them with the attribute of being responsive to magic?”

In the situation where there was a lack of more experimental data and theoretical guidance, Gawain could only make such a bold guess. But regardless of the reason, Gawain was now sure of one thing — ‘Rebecca Crystals’ were absolutely unique in this world; at least in the Anzu Kingdom, it was.

In usual times, who would be so idle as to go dig up the Dark Range and bake rocks…

“After confirming that the key was with quartz sand and limestone from the Dark Range, I tried out several methods to increase the proportion of crystals and their quality.” Rebecca went on, “I found that increasing the proportion of quartz sand can increase the yield of crystals, but many crystals would shatter out of the furnace. Upping the proportion of limestone would enhance the product’s capacity to store magical power, but past a certain amount, there would instead be no crystals formed. And I also realized that the effects of temperature and baking duration are especially notable… There were too many variations that could be tested. I couldn’t finish them at the same time, so I baked one batch using the best method we have now. Na, they are the ones before you.”

Gawain asked bluntly, “Could laymen complete this process?”

“Yes, but the majority would not understand what the ‘cross-referencing’ and ‘observation group’ that you taught me means, so they can only produce according to the method taught to them,” Rebecca answered. “Moreover, they’re really careless. Even if they’ve been told how to do it, they would often get the compounding ratio wrong or remember the incorrect baking duration. The time control that is needed for producing crystals is much stricter than that for baking bricks!”

Improving the average quality of the labor force was imperative.

Yet he couldn’t even find a few cultural teachers that were up to standard… Everyone literate in words and numbers was already overworking; where would he find people to create an education system?