Steel and Mana

Chapter 289 – Gamma

The smell of charred components and failed prototypes littered the floor in Sasha's personal workshop. She was working on finalizing their sixth revision of the boiler-sized machine, which they were hoping would be the perfect counterpart for Mikan and Leon's completed spell. All the previous ones burned up in their tests, so this time around, it should work... Hopefully.

In the corner of the room, Merlin leaned over a disassembled instrument, his hands deftly sorting through the dismantled formation within Otto's device that allowed him to view the images that his spies took of the train more than a year ago. Merlin furrowed his brows as he deciphered the inscriptions etched into the machinery's inner walls, overlying three of them. Even though they already copied everything, he was still studying the original, making sure they didn't miss any hidden function that it may be capable of.

"Ishillian technology never ceases to surprise me. Sometimes, they invent something nice, and then they do nothing with it." He muttered, holding up a CC core encased in polished steel. "It’s not as well implemented as ours, but the principles... they’re very close. I wonder if they have things like this widespread amongst their most loyal servants. Because I am pretty sure they never publicized something like this. Maybe not even between their branches in the family."

"I highly doubt it," Sasha smirked in answer. "They withheld how to make mortar. Do you think they would tell others they can produce something like this? But... why not ask your old self?"

"He wouldn't share." He shrugged. "I know; I sometimes feel like him. When Leon says he doesn't mind others copying our inventions, I feel myself squirming. I want to keep it within us—within Avalon alone."

"The old Ishillian instincts, huh?" Sasha joked, chuckling, making Merlin smile too.

"Most likely. Luckily, it is Leon's decision, so I can relax! Anyway, this particular thing will be useful for us in the future. I think we can finally achieve our next-generation helmets for our soldiers! The way they used layered spells here was the last piece to make it truly viable and to shrink it to a wearable size. And..." He turned towards the machine Sasha was working on.

"This is still way too bulky for that. And we didn't even get it to work yet!"

"I know." He raised his hands, dropped the topic, and came over. While Sasha was checking the structural integrity, Merlin was doing the same to the formations and CC slots within the machine.

It was then that Mikan arrived, knocking on her workshop's wall so as not to scare them with her presence. Sometimes, they were lost in their work and didn't even notice that Luna brought them food, getting scared when someone tapped their shoulders.

"Hey! How's it coming together?" she asked as she glanced at the shattered remnants of the original gadget—an artifact that was now nothing more than scrap metal.

"Almost there." Sasha smiled, looking at her before returning to work. "I’ve reworked the focusing mechanism to channel your spell through this matrix of mirrors. The hardest part was calibrating it to accept the intensity modulation."

"I understood none of that." She muttered.

"Once Merlin finishes and adds the last CC set, we’ll start testing. Hopefully, it won't fall apart this time around." She added with a sigh, looking at the by now wholly metallic, cylinder-shaped instrument.

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Hours later, the prototype stood on the ground, out in our testing field. It was a curious amalgamation of brass plating and steel support beams, hiding a complex matrix of mirrors to bounce off light, produced by a way too complex magic formation.

"Pretty bulky." I exclaimed, walking around it as it reached up to my chest in height. Looking at the top, a projection lens was encased in a rotating ring, akin to our gyroscopes, acting as its crown jewel. "Let's fire it up!"

"Here goes nothing..." Sasha muttered, slotting the activating CC in as everything was already prepared and ready for our live test in the early evening.

"It looks... fragile." Merlin, standing at a safe distance, raised an eyebrow as the gyroscope atop the machine began rotating and spinning until it stabilized into a clear pattern.

"It has been attached to its frame," Sasha answered, her arms crossed, watching it. The first prototype was indeed fragile. The moment it began to spin, it flew off the top, shattering. "The manual adjustment of the spell has yet to be implemented as we don't know what frequencies we will need to set it to. Mikan, it is your turn to adjust the spell within, and let us see if this works as intended! Stop at set intervals so we can establish the required states for a manual dial."

Mikan nodded, beginning to focus. It was her spell in the end, so she could feel it, and she could also adjust its strength while her fingers began twitching as if typing something.

The next moment, the spinning gyro at the top lit up in visible light, and a projection flickered to life, casting a faint blue light into the air.

"The counter spell seems to work properly." Merlin nodded, "We have visual. Now... let's aim the invisible beam at our first subject!" He grinned as Mikan moved her hands, and a metallic, sliding door opened on the cylinder, letting the spell hit a chest placed two meters ahead of it.

After a bit of anxious waiting, an image formed in the blue projection—a translucent rendering of the chest, revealing its contents as though its wooden frame was made of glass. They could see the tools inside perfectly outlined, some of them looking half-translucent, showing the one under or behind them.

"Yes!" Sasha laughed out, beaming with happiness and proud of their success.

"Can we adjust the depth?" I asked, transfixed on the image, feeling that it was even better than the machines in my old world.

Mikan nodded to my question, twitching one of her fingers. The projection shifted, peeling back multiple layers. First, the box vanished completely, leaving only the tools suspended in midair. Then, the tools themselves dissolved, replaced by the bench it was sitting on.

"It’s working better than I hoped," Mikan expressed, a smile turning her lips upward. "This level of clarity—"

Her words were cut off as a spark crackled from the device. The projection stuttered, and a high-pitched whine filled the air. Sasha darted forward, flipping a switch to cut the power and extract the CCs, powering it down at once.

"Overloaded," she said grimly, examining the smoking components and opening one of the side panels. "Some of the internal support melted... and dropped the mirrors. But the mechanism is sound. We just need to refine them so they become even more resistant."

"I think this is already a success." I clapped before anyone could start feeling disappointed. "I think this warrants a little celebration~!"

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With our morale still high, the issue was resolved in a few days, and we moved on to biological tests. First, a small cage containing a rat was placed in front of the device. Mikan’s adjustments were more cautious this time, and the projection sprang to life with a soft, steady glow.

The image had a constant blue hue, but that didn't matter. What was important was that the rat appeared in stunning detail. First, its fur and skin were visible, and the tiny heartbeat created faint ripples in the image. As Mikan twisted the dials, the layers peeled away like in a comic book, revealing muscles, organs, and the delicate structure of its skeleton.

"This could save countless lives," Mikan murmured, awe in her voice. "Imagine detecting illnesses, injuries—things that would have been impossible to see otherwise!"

"And what about military applications? If this can see through walls or armor..." Merlin added at once, "If we can put this into our soldier's helmets, they will be able to see the enemy before they see them!"

"We can discuss this later. When it is not a massive cylinder that weighs a lot." I cut in before they could continue, "When we are sure the spell won't cause tissue to break down and cause cancer."

"Cancer?" They asked, and I just shrugged, not explaining it then and there.

We continued our experiments in the coming days, observing our animals to look for changes in their health or behavior. So far, none seemed to exist as we tested the device’s range and precision. We also discovered that by fine-tuning the spell’s intensity, we could shift the projection’s focus to different materials—wood, stone, and even metal. Walls became transparent, revealing hidden compartments—well, at least if we had built one into a wall. The possibilities seemed endless. Especially if we can use this to keep in mind and find raw resources. We wouldn't need to rely on luck but penetrate the mountains and see where we should start digging.

However, it was during one such test that the device’s darker potential finally showed itself. Mikan, intrigued by the upper limits of the spell’s intensity, pushed the modulation higher than ever before. Sasha also suggested it, wanting to test the new compounded materials she made. The projection sharpened, its glow turning an eerie shade of violet. The rat on the bench suddenly went still and twitched unnaturally.

"Mikan, that’s too high!" Sasha warned at once.

"I just need a moment to—" Mikan began, but her words faltered as the rat collapsed while starting to smoke, releasing a horrid smell. The projection cut off abruptly as the device’s newly added failsafe was also triggered, preventing it from damaging itself and ejecting all the CCs fueling it at once.

We all froze at that moment. Sasha recovered first and rushed to examine the rat, but it was too late.

"Don't touch it!" I warned, coming over and looking at the cage.

The poor bastard was boiled alive; it was still smoking and its flesh bubbling, its insides oozing out as it was turned to plasma within its carcass. Damn... this could be a very dangerous weapon. A true death ray, something that nations would kill for in my old life.

"At least the safety measures worked..." Sasha muttered, just as intrigued as Merlin. Yes, it was horrifying but... revealing. Turning around, I saw how Mikan looked on, horrified, her eyes watering, so I quickly stepped over and hugged her to soothe her feelings.

"The spell at maximum intensity must have reached a level you wrote about." Sasha bobbed her head, holding a stick and poking the rat while talking to me, "Likely a burst of concentrated energy, akin to what you called a gamma ray."

"I didn’t mean to..." Mikan’s hands trembled as she held onto me. "I just wanted to see how far it could go. I didn't think our spell could reproduce... that...."

"Well, we learned its limit," Merlin spoke gently, though his tone carried a tinge of pride. "We created something that can reproduce a cosmic strength. That’s the purpose of experimentation! But this machine is a weapon as much as it is a tool. We must treat it with care and with the utmost secrecy." This time around, he was now just as solemn as anyone would be, no longer fantasizing but planning for the future. It was already here.

And I agreed.

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We spent the next few days refining the device even further. Sasha finally added a dial that could be used to change its intensity. We also added more safeguards to prevent the spell from exceeding the determined safe thresholds, ensuring that its power could be harnessed without causing harm. If it goes beyond what living tissue can handle, it will eject all its CC to shut it off at once. Still, the incident weighed heavily on Mikan.

She devoted herself to perfecting the spell’s applications. She adjusted its parameters to allow for specialized uses—an MRI-like mode that mapped internal structures with precision and a scanner for identifying magical anomalies within living beings. It was an idea that came to her after remembering how Otto's mages blew themselves up. Then, she came up with even a setting for detecting concealed objects within magically reinforced places, like Otto's base that Pion and the others raided.

When it was deemed a finished product, we gathered in my office, where Merlin spoke first.

"This invention has the power to change the power dynamic between us and any enemy we may face in the future. I already have a formation in my mind that could use it to its fullest. Still, its requirement would be akin to using a beast core."

"I don't think we should use it as a weapon." Mikan added, raising her hand like a student.

"We’ll control its allocation. From now on, this is a spell and device that is among our top-secret knowledge. We will issue the refined version to our hospital, which will be used to detect injuries and illnesses. The army will have its own variants for the same reason. When teaching them how to use it, the knowledge of what else it's capable of is not to be revealed."

"The safety methods are stable and holding," Sasha reported. "They won't be able to overload it, as I built a four-layered one. It will self-destruct at the last one if everything else fails. I also added a security spell. If someone tries to open it without knowing where to disable it first, it will destroy the machine."

"Make sure everyone knows that fiddling with it is punishable by being sent on the Walk." I declared, and then I turned to Merlin.

We didn't say anything as we talked about this privately. Only Sasha, he, and I knew about my final decision: The weaponized version would be installed onto our airship. It will be a weapon of last resort... Something I wanted to have if Pascal decided to do something drastic, and remembering Katherine's demise, I could easily see it happening.