Chapter 108: Replacement

"Your excellency, the party that we sent to the dungeon has returned. From what I heard…"

Stepping into the room, the messenger that brought the news quickly stopped talking upon noticing how silent the place was. Looking around, he quickly located the man he was looking for, sitting a fair distance away from Sander's workplace. Even though it was clear that he wasn't doing anything, the focus visible in his eyes was more than enough to stop the courier from bothering the bishop once again.

"Leave the report and make yourself scarce."

Even though I didn't intend on being rude, I had no spare capacity in my brain to even process what he was doing. Being the disturbance that the courier was already, I hoped he could catch the straightforward hint in my words. In the end, as long as only I was bothered by the disturbance, nothing wrong would happen. But if Sander were to lose the focus on the job he was currently performing, the effects could be not only quite costly but also dangerously volatile. 

"On your order, your excellency."

Catching the courier bowing his head down before placing a small pile of papers on a nearby table with the corner of my eyes, I quickly turned my attention back to the table where Sander was doing his magic. Although we still have yet to obtain the tools that would allow us to start the production of the artefacts on an industrial scale, the batch of devices that finally arrived this morning cut on the needless expenses.

Right now, in order to obtain the charged stone dust, or star-dust how we started calling it between the two of us due to how shiny it was, all the middle-aged craftsman had to do, was put a stone into a special machine before pressing the button. 

The tool itself was fairly simple. The simplicity of its design quickly proved to also be its downfall on any larger scale. With the entire tool being just a simple cube, it consisted of three special and three normal walls. From the top, the top side of the tool could be opened to feed the stones into the mechanism. One of the side walls was connected by a set of short yet sturdy rods to the engine, with the inner part of this wall decorated with several grinding discs covered in diamond powder. The last of the peculiar wall was at the bottom of the cube, consisting of a special mesh that separated the tool itself from the container where the dust would be stored.

But there was one fatal flaw to this mechanism. The grinding fiscs that were responsible for turning the charged stones into actually semi-product that we required… They were using up at an astonishing rate! After all, even in the jewellery industry, this kind of tool was used just to gently shape and polish the diamonds, not to completely grind them into dust!

"And it's done."

Pulling out a special tray from the bottom part of the tool, Sander poured all the newly-made stardust into a small, round container. Putting the now empty tray back to the device, he threw two more stones through the upper wall before setting the process to start once again.

"Are you sure you want to go with this design? Don't you think something easier would be better for now? I mean, if you make even the slightest mistake, we might be unable to understand what's the actual problem with that new type of stone of yours."

Watching how Sander used a syringe with a thick needle to suck on the prepared stardust paste, I could feel my insides tightening. What was now filling the plastic container of this handy tool, was made out of stones worth several times more than my family entire wealth from before the apocalypse, mansion included.

Yet as painful as it was to see the stones turning into what others would consider being their most useless form, it was all for the purpose of just testing. Only once all the tests would conclude, would all those expensive actions pay back for their costs.

"Yeah. Doing a simple design would only result in a waste of material. Even if we could order a huge amount of the stones, there is only so many of them circulating through the market. Don't worry, I won't make any mistakes. This level of handiwork…"

Bringing the right corner of his lips up, Sander smiled gently as he brought a hard, paper form onto a special pedestal. With all the lights that stood on his desk focused on this single place, he then proceeded to cover the white spots on the form with the stardust paste. Even though it didn't seem to be his standard tool, this damned middle-aged man was still pretty good at moving the tip of the needle around.

In just a few moments, the core platter of the new stone was ready. Consisting of a layer of stardust pasta placed on top of an oiled cartoon form, it didn't seem like anything worth one's attention. And as if this fake look it had managed to fool Sander, he crudely grasped the thing before placing it on a special, tungsten stand.

With the form now ready, Sander pulled out an acetylene torch, before pointing its muzzle at the form and pressing the trigger. With a slight flash, the barrel of the tool exploded with a thin, extremely hot fire, nearly instantly scorching the oiled cartoon out of existence.

"Calm down. I know what I'm doing. I wasted so much time mixing the ingredients because I added a special adhesive to the formula. Since we are not using the normal stone as a base, heat-hardening is the way to go."

Just like the craftsman said, after a few minutes of working his magic, Sander put his fiery tool aside before picking the thin, almost see-through crystal rune from the rack. 

"It's done. Now, let's assemble all the parts…"

Contrary to how the artefacts were made in Ayda's world, Sander didn't even bother using the simple charged stones for anything outside of the source of energy. According to his own words, he already had some plans on how to replace this crucial element with those circuits of his. Regretfully, with how all their tests were still on pretty much primitive stage, that idea was nothing more but a song of a future.

What I took for the hardest part of the entire test, assembling the parts into a finished product, turned out to be even easier than making each of the parts in the first place. Using the stardust formula from the previous tests to glue each of the seven plates together, Sander quickly whipped out a simple stand for the entire thing. 

"Take a look. This small pyramid is the formula. Its bottom layer is the activator, its top plate directs the energy. All you need to do is to press the pyramid on those springs to make it touch the stone below to activate the entire artefact. Do you want to give it a try?"

Smiling with a mysterious glint in his eyes, Sander brought the finished product on his open palm to me. But instead of grabbing it and instantly seeing whether it would work, I only let out a deep sigh before standing up from my chair and moving away from the craftsman's hand.

"I have no idea what runes did you made it from. While I could recognise push and compress, I have no clue what the rest of them was. Mind telling me what this thing is supposed to do in the first place?"

Moving away from the workshop area in the room, I quickly grabbed the set of letters that the courier brought to me before returning to my seat. Back in my comfortable position, I started reading through the reports while waiting for Sander's answer.

"I figured out that if we could properly utilize those artefacts, then we wouldn't need to use the standard tools. While the cost of them was a factor in this idea of mine, more than that I was worried that someone could track those orders down and figure out what we are doing. That's how I came up with a simple question."

Taking a short break from speaking, Sander approached the window of the room only to look outside for a moment. Unable to see what he was looking at, I could only guess that he was satisfied with the results of his inspection. But rather than wasting the time looking at his theatrical performance, I continued to read through the reports. 

Surprisingly, it seemed that not only the first group sent to the dungeon managed to achieve some success, but they also managed to find some potential neophytes. From what they claimed, those potential new friends of the faction were pretty impressed with what those artefacts of mine could do, instantly jumping at the opportunity to join the faction capable of providing them with those artefacts. 

"Kira… It would be great if you could take a look at this."

Forcing me to detract my focus from the reports, Sander called me out. Putting the papers hesitatingly to the side, I looked at the craftsman brimming with anticipation. Seeing him in a state like this, I couldn't help but smile. 

After all, depending on the results, it could be one of the brightest and happiest day he could ever live through.

"Okay, I'm watching. Begin."

Fighting my slight annoyance off, I cast my eyes on the artefact in Sander's hand. Hearing my order, he simply pulled his fingers against a small, wooden plate that covered the upper part of the pyramid, with a small hole in its middle where the top of the handmade crystal could peek through. Fighting against the force of the springs for a moment, Sander quickly forced the bottom layer of the pyramid to press against the fueling stone…

BOOM!

The window that the craftsman looked through just a moment ago shattered. Along with a huge chunk of the wall that kept it in place. As if some titan smashed a hammer against the side of the building from the inside of it, all the debris fell out to the ground. And now I understood just what he was checking through that window a few moments ago.

"As I said, what we lack right now, are tools to properly start the production of this stardust paste. With all the stones that everyone is buying right now, we won't have to worry about the supply for a short while. But with this artefact... "

Finally, I understood what Sander was planning. Back when he showed me this grinding tool of his, he put a great emphasis on how inferior this kind of technology was when compared to the modern way of crushing the stones. 

And seeing the effects of a single activation of this new artefact he just made, I would have to be insanely stupid not to connect all the dots of hints he was giving me through the entire presentation.

"Good. But I have one question. When will you be able to finish the necessary tools? After all, with this test of yours, we confirmed that this stardust paste can actually replace the stones in their natural state!"