Chapter 37: The Correct Way to Make Paper

Styx finally reached the new ore vein which turned out to be a copper vein with a considerable amount of tin mixed in with it. There were also traces of other materials, but he currently had no method of refining them out of the tin and copper.

Klair and Kale had returned from their former village and had been unable to acquire any seeds or other materials. The elder council had stuck their heels in the mud when the topic was brought up and refused to budge. They already had a food shortage, and were unwilling to part with anything except for more food, an amount which Styx couldn't produce at the moment.

Another discovery he had was that he was at a shortage of miners and gnomes. He needed more miners to increase the mining speed of the copper and tin ores, while more gnomes were needed to increase the amount of furnaces refining the ore. They weren't very dextrous monsters, but they could get the job done.

One of the forest assassins or treant spirits could do a better job, but it was all about matching the correct tool to complete the correct job.

The next item on the agenda was his experiments with mana stones and magic arrays.

The magic stones were the most basic item. They were essentially magic batteries, except they could also hold a specific attribute mana, which worked better when used in its related application.

One could use either a fire or an earth attribute magic stone to heat up a bucket of water with a basic heating magic array, but the fire magic stone would heat it up for longer, and faster, than the earth attribute magic stone.

There were different types of stones and gems of each attribute, such as a brimstone gem. A magic stone basically covered any material which could store and release mana.

The magic arrays were much like electronic circuits, except they were far more esoteric with rules that even he couldn't understand. They drew logic from primordial laws, and there were many countless systems in which they could be designed to perform various functions.

The actual magic array needed to be either created with mana, or a product which could conduct mana.

Styx created a basic light array out of mana steel first, a high mana conductivity material. On a stone slab was a basic circle with basic arcane glyphs for converting mana into light along with a component in the upper right corner for absorbing ambient mana.

The array immediately activated and created a light blue ball of light above it, but Styx couldn't turn it off without breaking the array to interrupt it.

"Rhea, bring Theo down to experiment room #2, I need you two to carry some objects."

"Of course, please give me a moment."

Hearing the voice in her mind, Rhea stopped training and went to bring Theo from the plantation field.

The two of them saw the stone slab with an activated light array on it and were curious.

"What do you need us to do?" Rhea asked curiously gazing at the ball of light.

"I want you two to carry this item to the plantation field and place it near the flowers where the ambient mana is denser."

"Ah, sure, is that all?"

"Yes, that is all."

Rhea didn't complain that the task was too simple and immediately ordered Theo around to help her carry the stone slab between the two of them.

She was the very embodiment of shyness and assertiveness. She was shy about intimacy matters at first, but later took on a very dominant position in the act and pressed Theo beneath her. She was polite and respectful towards others, but would order Theo around whenever she wanted.

'Surely these stone elves must secretly be matriarchal by nature, right?' Styx silently questioned himself as he never tired of watching the interactions of the two.

After the two delivered the light array stone slab to the garden where the various species of mana flowers were growing, the light ball abruptly increased to nearly three times the size.

"Is this meant to happen?" Theo asked Rhea, whom was his window to communicating with Styx.

"He says that it isn't, but it was suspected that it might. There is apparently no limiter on the mana absorption array and it cannot control how much it absorbs."

"That… I don't understand anything of that…"

"…Neither do I."

~~~~~

Styx wanted to try tamper with the magic circle, but he had zero foundational knowledge on arrays and the rules of various underlying systems behind their functionality. He could vaguely understand some small parts of why the array worked based on the introductory book and its brief explanations on different parts of the array.

He tested the same array out with standard steel, wolfbone steel, copper, tin and bronze. Bronze was just an alloy of tin and bronze and relatively easy to make, but it was relatively useless as a mana conductivity, being worse than both tin and copper, which were only average themselves.

Steel had the same low conductivity as bronze, each barely producing even the shadow of a ball of light, while wolfbone steel seemed to have above average mana conductivity, but still far below mana steel.

He wanted to keep recording this information down, but carving countless experimental material into stone walls was a long and tedious process. He needed paper.

Styx decided he needed to start making new machines. He created several rotary mana engines with manasteel and ardonite wheels. These were made as coarse as possible with countless teeth and on adjustable sliders.

With several of these machines set up, the shroom gnomes dragged in several freshly cut up and bark stripped trees. They then fed them into the grinders, each powered by an attributeless quarts mana stone.

The wheels spun incredibly fast under the mana influx and another gnome controlled the slider, locking it in place and causing it to tear apart the wood with an incredibly loud grating noise.

The rotary mana engines screamed under stress, but they managed to hold together as several giant dumpster-like containers were filled with wood chips.

Styx knew he then needed to remove the lignin, but didn't have the proper chemicals for it. He suspected that the human dungeon cities would have a full production process of paper as he had seen it used through Therina's sight when she was in the nearby dungeon city.

Instead, he had to make do with what he could in boiling it in various concoctions of his own, producing a substandard effect, but somehow producing some effectiveness.

The forest assassins then took over the process and threshed the fibers before feeding them into new machines Styx designed for rolling out the paper.

The end product was a slightly yellow paper. It wasn't exactly uniform in thickness as he was lacking in any form of precision equipment, so the rollers themselves weren't very high quality.

It would have to do for now, but he would still improve the production line in the future.

Rhea was called back again by Styx, this time she was to use a finely carved graphite wooden pencil to start recording all of his experimental data for himself. A large stack of paper would allow him to record far more data than stone wall carvings.

"I'm happy to do it, but please at least make a table for me to work on," The dark elf stated while grabbing her ears to drown out the noise of Styx's new machinery. "Can it also please be somewhere quieter? I will go deaf if I have to work here."

"You won't go deaf as I will help take care of your body. You are managing to grasp your own mana network too by now, aren't you?"

"If I don't go deaf, I will go insane."

The dark elf was very adamant on this matter and Styx could only acquiesce to her request and moved the standard research room to an area of the dungeon less noisy. He made a mental not that she needed ear protection, one specific to match her long elven ears.

He created a large office for her with an ornate wooden desk on one end and several benches for him to leave samples for her to use as reference for the research notes.

The first task was to make a detailed list of alloys, what properties of them he knew, and any other information about them such as their market value.

The next was information on arrays and the laws of magic, which was abysmal right now, but would eventually add up to something far more tangible.

Rhea's elvish was a bit rusty and didn't look very good compared to what she had wanted to write, but it was still a beautiful script to Styx, which was more than enough.

~~~~~

Irie was called into the Silver Wheel Investment Company to be introduced to the new team of adventurers who had been recruited and screened for the dungeon raid.

"Irie, you arrived quicker than anticipated," The company liaison that she was familiar with greeted her at the door.

"And yet you are already here waiting for me," She brushed her hair behind her ear and nonchalantly answered.

The liaison waved her into the company and guided her to where all the other adventurers were waiting for the meeting where they will get to know their party members better before the dungeon raid.

"I hear you have been petitioning for a higher position in the company," He said as if a passing remark.

"Indeed I have, I feel like a can give more back to the company that way."

"There have been a few higher ups who have had their feathers rustled over that."

"I bet. It's their jobs that I'm after."

"As amusing as it is, don't forget that promotions only come with results."

"There are many ways to achieve results, and just as many methods of getting promotions."

The liaison shot her a look out of the corner of his eyes, feeling like she was a viper waiting to strike.

"Those are some dangerous words."

"Ones which are capable of achieving great profits for the company."

The liaison shrugged his shoulders in response and stated "it is yet to be seen" before opening the door to a room with a group of ten human and one male racoon beastman adventurers.

Kalvin, the company's Second Step Hunter, was also present. He sat in the commanding position at the top of the table when Irie stood next to himself and took charge of the introductions of each person's abilities and past experiences.

Kalvin was greatly taken aback by Irie's sudden aggressive approach in leading the party, when she had normally always docilely followed his orders. He was unsure what brough upon such a change, but before he could even say anything, she had established herself as a de facto leader of the raid party.

"What are you doing?" Kalvin hissed under his breath as she sat beside him.

As passionate as his feelings were toward her, he couldn't let her challenge his authority in the party so blatantly.

"Please don't worry, I'm looking to get some promotions in the company, so I need to achieve some merits."

"And if you fail? This isn't a standard dungeon, remember, it is designed by an insidious dungeon lord who rapes innocent women and has no mercy in killing."

"I have you with me, don't I? How could I fail?"

Irie broadly smiled and shuffled her seat closer to him, allowing the expensive perfume she had bought under Styx's guidance to directly enter his senses.

Kalvin swallowed at the closeness of the beautiful woman whom he fancied, her scent causing him to lose himself in thoughts of infatuation. It wasn't a powerful scent by any means, but it made him want to keep smelling it.

"Yes… but… even I can fail, you know… Like last time."

"Don't worry about it so much."

Irie went to pat his arm, but Styx interfered and told her he would cut it off if she took things too far, causing her to have an awkward lapse where she quickly withdrew it and gave him a charming smile.

The meeting then ended and everyone headed back to their personal abodes to prepare for the dungeon raid tomorrow. Naturally, not a single aspect of this escaped Styx, whom was formulating his own plans.

~~~~~

"I'm such an idiot!" Styx complained to Rhea who was writing down notes, causing her to slip and make a mistake on the paper in her notes.

"What…?" Rhea shyly asked while worried about the scribble she accidentally did on the paper.

"I was worried about making the best chemical for extracting the lignin from the wood, which is a part of the process of creating high quality paper… but…"

"But?"

"But I should be handling these processes with magic! The combination of magic and science, this is the path forward! I was trying to do everything the hard way, so I was being idiotic!"

Magic and science was beyond Rhea's knowledge, let along the magitech production from joining the two together, so she could only nod her head and keep agreeing with Styx