The Way Ahead

Chapter 15: End of the Lime

Edwin was laying on his bed, playing with his latest notification. Sleeping wasnt his highest-level skill by any measure, but it did have a fairly steady growth, which was appreciated. Maybe it would start to taper off in time, but for the time being, a level every time he slept was so satisfying. Though he had no real way to measure the passage of time, he suspected he was sleeping for around eight hours but getting rest equivalent to ten or twelve. He hadnt felt this well-rested since, well uh actually, when was the last time he had managed to get a lot of sleep regularly? Certainly not college, not really high school either middle school, maybe? Or over a summer where he didnt have some internship or job so, back in early high school? That was kind of sad, come to think of it, but there wasnt that much he could do about it save making up for it now.

It was nice to just fidget with the floating text, though, contorting it into different configurations and display formats. Hmmm. It had been a while since he last checked his full status. How close was he to his next Path, anyway?

Name

Edwin Maxlin

Age

22 years

Race

Extraplanar Human

Class

Outsider Apprentice

Attributes

Mana 5

Skills

Athletics: 18

Basic Mana Sense: 23

Breathing: 11

Firestarting: 20

Flexibility: 8

Identify: 13

Improvisation: 12

Language: 4

Mana Infusion: 12

Mathematics: 2

Nutrition: 7

Research: 26

Seeing: 14

Sleeping: 11

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Outsider's Almanac: 25

Survival: 11

Throwing Weapons: 4

Visualization: 15

Walking: 19

Paths

Skill Points: 46

Very Much Yes- Eventually

Physical Alchemist 0/90, Micro-Biomancer 0/90, Path Less Traveled 0/90, Realm Traveler 0/120, Scientist 0/60

Promising

Stonehide Vanquisher 0/60, Titan Slayer 0/90, World Traveler 0/60, Researcher 0/60, Explorer 0/60, Outsider 0/60, Linguist 0/60

Maybe One Day

Survivor 0/60, Athlete 0/60, Daredevil 0/60, Pioneer 0/60, Novice Pyromancer 0/60

Meh

Lumberjack 0/60, Way of the Empty Hand 0/60, Trapper 0/60

No (expand)

Completed Paths (expand)

More than halfway there, very nice. Hm. A few of his skills were starting to fall behind, maybe it was worth trying to work on them, get a few easy skill points? Mathematics couldnt be that hard to level, as whatever standards the system used, it couldnt count stuff like calculus as low-level.

He didnt have a lot of paper, though. Maybe Outsiders Almanac could be used for that sort of thing? He was up to 43 characters at this point, which should be plenty for most equations. Grind two skills for the price of one. Hmm What level of grinding might be best suited for concrete creation? Shoot, it was acting up again. Maybe if his mathematics were better he might be able to determine proper ratios for his experiments better?

That seemed to work, and Edwin mentally cheered. Apparently, whatever compulsion he was under was no match for the justifications a college student trained themselves into explaining away their procrastination. Now he just needed to imagine montage training music playing while he did calculus in an imaginary text box

Level Up!

Mathematics Level 231

Visualization Level 1518

Outsiders Almanac Level 2627

That was a lot of levels, all at once. At a certain point, tossing around huge numbers and keeping track of a dozen different values in his head became almost trivial, and he was able to stop using the Almanac without slowing down. He doubted hed get that much of a level spike in anything else, though. He was just... good at math, hence his field of choice, and was hitting his limits for complicated formulas he could use to show off to the System for easy levels. Doing matrix multiplication with two three-by-three matrices entirely in his head was strange, but then again that was basically par for the course. Still, his excuses for doing math (and his patience) instead of directly working on his research was wearing thin, so it was probably time to actually do his work.

Pulling himself off his bed and doing stretches- had to get himself limber for what was probably going to be a lot of crushing rocks, after all- netted him a level in flexibility, selecting food to make a balanced meal upped his Nutrition, and throwing a mana-filled piece of bread at the wall got him a level in both Mana Infusion and Throwing Weapons. Eating a mana-infused roll got him another level in Nutrition. He tried to juggle, hoping that it might count as throwing practice, but his attempt was apparently pathetic enough he didnt get so much as a single notification.

All that effort still left Edwin five skill points short of completing Physical Alchemist, though. Maybe tomorrow, he mused, Though maybe I should start being more selective about when I fill out paths, if early levels for things like Mathematics are so easy to come by, I wouldn't want to waste that opportunity. I do absolutely need some kind of alchemy skill, though, and I think its not just the compulsion.

He ran out of procrastination attempts, sadly, so Edwin found himself dragged back to his workbench. Looking into his basins, he wrinkled his nose in annoyance. Fishing out one of the crushed limestone chunks, he turned over the wet stone in his hand. It didnt seem to have shrunk in the slightest. Still, he needed to be sure. With a heave, he moved the cauldrons- mentally cursing his lack of foresight, he should have had it in position before he filled it with water- over top a magical heating stone (somehow made of Blackstone, despite the materials alleged anti-magical properties) and waited for the water to boil off.

There might have been some slight residue on the inside of the cauldron, though Edwin wasnt entirely sure if it was just his imagination. It wasnt enough for the Almanac to pick up on it as distinct from the metal if it was there.

So, attempting to soak limestone was a bust. Then again, it was never likely that a common type of rock would be water soluble, but he also needed to check to be sure. Still, that left him without much of an idea as to where to go from there. Crushing it, maybe? Limestone dust? It would still be insoluble then, though. Maybe if he burned it?

Congratulations! For creating an improvised explosive, you have unlocked the Bomber path!

Level Up!

Improvisation Level 1214

Firestarting 2021

Right. Dust explosions were a thing. That was not his proudest moment, but Edwin didnt think he had done much worse than just singe some of his eyebrows. Interestingly, no dwarves rushed in to see what the sudden burst of flame was about, which suggested they had limited surveillance over his activities. In itself, that fact made his escape attempts far simpler, though he couldnt assume they wouldnt be looking at any given time, just they werent right now.

There was a lot of powder still laying around, now dispersed as a thin coat across every surface, which Edwin was able to gather into a powder and identify as limestone. Did it not just burn up in the explosion? Ooooh. He had swept up a big pile of dust from the counter, without caring much about keeping it pure. There had probably been something else that had burned, causing the explosion. Maybe coal dust? Wouldnt surprise him. That would have been much worse if the limestone had been combustible. He probably wouldnt have survived in that case, if just whatever traces of flammable materials that had gotten mixed in resulted in that much of a fireball.

Edwins latest attempt at burning limestone was going much smoother, though he hesitated to even think such a thing, lest it mess everything up. The powdered limestone was being heated inside a kiln which was probably meant for metals, but worked just fine for rock dust this time. It was at minimum now a pale yellow color and even registering as a different substance to his Almanac. Once it had cooled, weighing it revealed the new powder, hopefully lime, had lost roughly half its weight from the heating process. Both promising signs, though the real test would come with him attempting to make something with it. If concrete required more or different active ingredients than just lime, he didnt know what hed do, but first he divided his mound of powder in two, infusing one with magic, and leaving the other as a control.

Next, he carefully measured out an equal amount of water for his two batches, then mixed it into his mundane batch, followed by doing the same for the magical one. He was not expecting his cauldrons to quickly heat up, making him snatch his hand from its surface just in time for the mana-infused batch to outright explode, sending superheated water all over the room.

Okay, thats it. Proper PPE for me when dealing with unknown chemicals and magic. What the heck just happened?

By the time Edwin returned to his workstation, he was fully equipped with a thick leather lab coat reminiscent of a trench coat, safety glasses (the quality of the glass left something to be desired, but it was at least mostly see-through), a breathing mask made of some kind of fabric Edwin didnt recognize, and surprisingly pliable leather gloves. The vast gulf between the quality of his leather and cotton clothing, and the glass in his goggles, was somewhat surprising, but then again, would dwarves really need that much in the way of glasswork? He only had a few implements made of the stuff, and they wouldnt exactly need windows. Heck, if the smoked goggles he had seen on the dwarf who found him were any indication, maybe they intentionally didnt want super clear glass. Did daylight or generally bright light hurt their eyes? If they were a mostly subterranean race, it would make a fair amount of sense

But anyway! There was science to be done! Hed been away from actively working on the mixture for too long, and it was showing. The nonmagical lime mixture had hardened in the intervening hours into a stony, though somewhat brittle, coating that reminded Edwin vaguely of dried plaster. While that may have been an excellent indication he was at least on the right track, it was the second batch that had him most excited. While still a powder, there was a thin layer of some kind of different powder on the surface, centered around where he had poured his water onto the lime. Very careful addition of a few drops of water to the unreacted powder gave off intense waves of heat, boiling what little had been added away and leaving another thin layer of the reacted substance. Presumably, dumping too much water into the Infused lime had caused a steam explosion, which in turn got rid of all the extra water, leaving the lime reacted with nothing to spare.

Adding water to the reacted Infused lime powder yielded a white putty-like substance which was, oddly, mostly devoid of mana, and which hardened into something approximating solid rock the moment he Infused it. Edwin wasnt really sure initially how to tell if it would revert to the paste form once he removed mana from it, and a few minutes of struggling, trying to reach inside and use his Basic Mana Manipulation to pull the magic from the rock, but once he did manage it (Strangely not getting any skill levels for his efforts), it returned mostly to its uncured state.

Edwins Logbook

Day 2

Result of prior attempt to make lime from limestone: failure. Limestone is not water soluble.

Hypothesis: Limestone needs to be heated, then forms lime.

Trial: Expose limestone powder to flame

Result: Dust explosion. Probably due to other contaminants, but I lack the proper safety equipment to try and replicate it for the time being.

Trial: Set limestone powder inside of a kiln. Set to maximum heat to see if any reaction occurs

Result: Success! Resulting powder is yellow-white and registers as a different material than limestone to Outsiders Almanac

Hypothesis: Formed substance can be used as a basis for concrete

Trial: Mix water into Infused and non-infused Lime, see if resulting mixture dries into something resembling concrete in any way

Result: non-infused lime dries into a plaster-like substance after mixed with water (exothermic reaction). Apparent success.

Result: Infused lime is incredibly exothermic when mixed with water. Risk of steam explosion if not careful. Resulting mixture is a paste initially, but cures instantly into a white rock when Infused

Hypothesis: Removing mana from cured Infused Lime will revert it to a paste

Trial: Attempt to remove mana

Result: De-cured Infused Lime is pliable and malleable though still solid. Acts similarly to a putty.

Material notes:

Limestone: Produces lime at high temperatures. Infused Limestone has increased toughness.

Lime: Mixes with water to create something like plaster in an exothermic reaction. Infused Lime has the exothermic reaction strongly enhanced (possible steam explosion grenades? Investigate further).

Plaster(?): Cures into a rock-like substance that isnt terribly tough. Infused plaster is itself barely magical (where did the magic go? Was it used up in the reaction?) and when water is added, turns into Lime Putty.

Lime Putty: Slightly elastic, not bouncy, deforms easily, highly malleable. Hardens over time. Denser than water. Cures instantly when Infused, or naturally over time and removing mana from the putty removes the curing. When cured, it is very hard (comparable to Infused limestone) and is even capable of holding a cutting edge, though not an especially sharp one.

Level Up!

Research Level 2627

Now that he had a vague idea of what to do, Edwin was more than capable of setting up a new batch of limestone inside his kiln, but tried varying the size somewhat. Heck, he could do this sort of iterative production run process in his sleep, with all his internships and on-campus research classes. Limestone dust, which was so exhausting to make (he hoped hed find a method which bypassed its need, but wasnt holding his breath), limestone pebbles, from the size of pea gravel to as big as a tennis ball, lined the furnace as the magical flames powering it fired up and got the process underway. Hopefully he wouldnt have to grind all the limestone he had to deal with by hand, but as always, only one way to find out. While his rocks were cooking, though, he had some time to kill. His efforts removing mana from the Infused plaster was interesting, and he wondered if something similar might be possible with Blackstone.

While no amount of prodding, coaxing, or anything else in Edwins power and imagination managed to coax even the barest hint of mana from the Blackstone it resided in, he wasnt entirely discouraged. Sure, that meant that his attempt was either mistaken or he wasnt strong enough to pull it off, and that Blackstone was likely an order of magnitude more complicated than anything he could make. So instead, it was time to change tracks slightly. It was time to leverage the natural world around him to do his work for him. It was time to turn rocks into weapons.

It was time to do science.