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Chapter 135 : Chapter 135
Chapter 135. Magitech Internal Combustion Engine
Inside Logaris’s private laboratory.
Logaris sat at a long table buried beneath piles of blueprints, holding a quill as he rapidly wrote something on a sheet of parchment.
“If a soldier cannot even recognize the words ‘ballistic correction,’ then the magitech rifle in his hands is nothing more than a fire poker.”
He muttered to himself as the tip of his pen drew a final heavy stroke across the page.
He stuffed the freshly drafted “Northern Territory First Legion Literacy Plan and Required Reading List” into an envelope, along with a tome as thick as a brick titled Elementary Common Tongue Spelling Standards, and tossed them both to the attendant standing nearby.
“Deliver this to Akash,” Logaris said without looking up. “Tell him this is tonight’s extra course. If, after half a month, there are still soldiers confusing ‘left’ and ‘right,’ I will deduct his commander’s allowance.”
“Y-Yes!” The attendant, clutching a stack of books taller than himself, dashed out like a startled rabbit.
After dealing with these trivial matters, Logaris stood up and stretched, his joints cracking audibly.
Now came the real work.
He walked over to the experiment table, his gaze falling on several sealed lockboxes.
Opening them, he revealed the treasures he had spent a fortune to acquire from the underground black market of the royal capital—several ingots of Starpattern Steel glowing with a deep blue light, and a crystal vial filled with a slowly flowing silver-white liquid.
Liquid Mithril. Its current market price was fifty Golden Lion Coins per gram.
“What a waste,” Logaris sighed, though his hands moved with flawless efficiency.
He activated the laboratory’s defensive barrier. With a low hum, all external noise was instantly cut off, leaving only his breathing and the quiet murmur of the magitech furnace as it preheated.
The current mana internal combustion engine was nothing short of industrial garbage.
Crude, bulky, and oversized—the barrel-like combustion chamber alone occupied half of an entire carriage. Every ignition was like setting off a smoke bomb, spewing thick black fumes that could stain the snow of Winter City into zebra stripes.
If the power source problem was not solved, all talk of mechanization was meaningless.
Logaris took out the Memory Crystal he had retrieved from the Dragon Ruins and infused it with mana.
A complex three-dimensional projection instantly unfolded in midair.
It was the structural diagram of a high-pressure sac used by ancient dragons to store dragon breath.
“Streamlined structure, high pressure resistance… if applied to the combustion chamber…”
A fervent light gleamed in Logaris’s eyes. His left hand rapidly constructed a new magitech model in the air, while his right controlled two alchemical mechanical arms, which lifted a piece of Starpattern Steel and fed it into the high-temperature furnace.
Hiss—!
Under three thousand degrees of heat, the Starpattern Steel began to soften, transforming into a brilliant blue mass of light.
Logaris narrowed his eyes. His mana, guided by his mental power, acted like countless delicate surgical blades, cutting into the glowing mass and reshaping its internal structure.
This required terrifying levels of concentration and precision.
The slightest mistake would reduce this precious material to worthless slag.
Time lost all meaning here.
Day and night blurred together in the laboratory, with only the flickering furnace light marking the passage of time.
When hungry, he drank a bottle of nutrient solution. When tired, he cast a “Refresh” spell on himself.
Until the third night.
At last, the object on the workbench took shape.
It was a metal construct no larger than two suitcases, its surface bearing a mesmerizing dark-blue matte finish. Complex mana-conducting patterns spread across it like veins.
At its core, within hair-thin conduits, flowed the expensive Liquid Mithril.
Beep—
The Communication Crystal nearby suddenly lit up, interrupting Logaris just as he was about to perform the final assembly.
He frowned and accepted the connection.
Aaron’s somewhat tired face appeared in midair.
“Professor, routine report time.” Aaron glanced at the tools in Logaris’s hands and tactfully sped up his speech. “I am not interrupting, am I?”
“Stop wasting time,” Logaris said, holding a precision tweezer as he adjusted the angle of a valve. “Get to the point.”
“Uh… the allocation of supplies and personnel is proceeding smoothly, no major issues. The main thing is the movements of His Highness Alectos Huiyin.”
Aaron flipped through his notes, his tone carrying a hint of amazement. “That prince has been… how should I put it—too diligent. He has been living in the library lately. Aside from eating and sleeping, he barely even leaves to use the restroom.”
“What is he reading?”
“The History of Human Warfare, Geopolitics, Fundamentals of Coordination and Logistics… all heavy volumes like that.” Aaron clicked his tongue. “Not only that, aside from reading, he frequently seeks combat training from two generals of the Demi-Human Empire. He practically never rests.”
Logaris paused briefly, a faint, amused smile forming at the corner of his lips.
“Because he is afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Ulzok and Kane, those two generals of the Demi-Human Empire, have placed their bets on him. That expectation weighs on him like a mountain.” Logaris set down the tweezers and wiped the grease from his hands. “He knows that, as he is now, he is far from being a qualified king.”
“Should we intervene?”
“No. Give him a green channel.” Logaris said calmly. “Let him access whatever books he wants. Aside from restricted high-level knowledge, he is still our ally for now. There is no need to guard against him too heavily.”
After all, a war between the kingdom and the Valeria Empire was inevitable in the future. Securing the support of the Demi-Human Empire would be ideal.
At the very least, they could not allow the Demi-Human Empire to side with Valeria.
After ending the communication, Logaris turned his attention back to the metal construct.
“The final step.”
He took a deep breath and picked up the last polished focusing crystal, carefully setting it into the core slot.
Click.
A crisp locking sound echoed.
The ambient mana density in the entire laboratory suddenly dropped by a level, as if a black hole had begun greedily devouring the surrounding energy.
The once-dormant patterns on the metal construct instantly activated. Blue streams of light surged wildly across its surface, accompanied by a deep, rhythmic hum like a beating heart.
Buzz—buzz—buzz!
Success.
Logaris carried the prototype into the adjacent testing chamber, securing it onto a several-ton black iron base before connecting it to a mana supply line.
“Ignition.”
He pressed the activation switch.
Boom!
There was no choking black smoke, nor the deafening roar that seemed to shake one’s lungs apart.
Instead, the suitcase-sized machine trembled sharply, then released a clear, high-frequency whine.
The rotor began spinning wildly, so fast that it appeared as nothing more than a blur.
The pressure gauge on the testing platform instantly maxed out, the needle slamming straight past the red zone!
Crack—
The several-ton black iron base used to secure the machine could not withstand the terrifying torque. Its surface split apart with spiderweb-like fractures.
Logaris immediately cut off the mana supply.
The machine’s whine gradually subsided, but the residual heat still surged outward, even ruffling his hair.
“Output is five times that of the first generation, with only one-tenth the volume.”
Looking at the outrageous data displayed on the instruments, Logaris nodded in satisfaction.
“And a mana conversion efficiency of forty percent… This is practically a work of art.”