"How does this thing even work?"
[Do you want me to explain?]
William nodded, and the system started explaining the mechanics of the machine.
[Elemental mana is just pure mana behaving differently, having varying states of existence.]
[This machine forces atmospheric mana to bend into the required state and then condenses that bent mana into crystallized forms called mana stones.]
[These stones have a superior quality to those made by the Church because they are made in a mana-rich environment like the domain of infinity.]
William nodded at the reasoning. "But I am still confused. How do these infinite machines, like the chocolate one, even work when they don’t have any energy source connected to them? Where do they draw fuel to run from?"
[They are not fuelless host, in reality the only thing these machines run on is pure mana, and as long as it is present in the surrounding area, these machines will run seamlessly, so realistically these machines can be stopped if mana ever runs out from the air around them; it’s just that the domain recovers mana faster than even millions of these machines could consume for years.]
"Whoa!! So I can theoretically hoard thousands of machines using free purchases and set up a production line for different elemental stones, right?"
[Host, you saw the price for each machine, right?]
[If you use the free purchase opportunity for 2 years, you will still only get 24 of these machines, which will give you a rate of 240 stones per day, and taking time dilation into account, it will give you 87600 stones per day and 2.6 million stones per month for a rough estimate, and that is the scale at which the church operates even though their methods are crude and unprincipled.]
"What are you implying?" William furrowed his brows.
[The only thing I want to say is that scaling this up will take time; it will take a few years to reach the scale you imagine.]
"Sigh!! "Alright, I guess," William said before descending towards Amorphous’s figure, who was currently operating the machine as well as inspecting it with curiosity.
For him, the machine was a never-before-seen artifact.
The machine William had bought currently was capable of producing light elemental stones only.
Although at first he wanted to produce sun elemental stones since they seemed more effective against demons, William still decided to go with light element stones since they were easier to trade for and would not raise questions about origins.
His motive was to break the monopoly of the church over these stones while not letting them realise until very late that there was a third source of light stones on the continent after the church and the dwarves.
Light stones being smuggled and sold in black was a common thing on Aris, while sun elemental stones were not even something anyone had heard of.
Currently, William has been making amorphous produce these stones for over 1.5 months, and the total number of stones he has accumulated is over 164,000, which is a good number.
William saw the neatly lined crates of light stones arranged; with a swipe of his hands, he stored the crates in his inventory.
He decided to supply these stones to the current ongoing conflict over the academy and also save some for the upcoming fight against the Clayman cult, for which he had a special surprise planned for the cult.
"Good day, amorphous," William greeted the tired figure of the demon, who immediately knelt on the ground saluting William.
Will noticed several burns on his hands after handling light stones for almost a century inside the domain.
The pit he lived in was rich in demonic energy, which increased Amorphous’s regeneration speed, but still, Amorphous needed to come out of the pit to use the machine.
William shook his head; he did not want to pity the demon, but the pathetic state that Amorphous was in did not make him satisfied. William felt the need to reward the slave for his hard work, although the emotion was not so deep as to think about it much.
William at first gave Amorphous a mana-resistant suit to save him from burning, which happened due to his proximity to the stones.
Then William browsed the shop and purchased a few recreational items from his past life, mainly a television that ran pre-recorded movies from Earth, almost every movie ever made was fed into the television, and the thing ran on a monter core, which was an easy source of energy for William.
William had known about this item for quite some time; it was sold only for a few sp in the shop, but he himself had never felt the need to purchase it.
[Mark my words, this guy is going to binge through every perverted porn adult film available on this television.]
"Well, as long as he labors for me daily, such a reward is alright, I think," William said
He had made Amourphous work quite a lot from the start, and now he felt that he needed to give the demon a source of motivation to work more.
William also replaced the bland rations with a bit tastier ones, although they would run out in a few years; William just decided to resupply the stock when he came back later.
And Amorphous was not the sole person getting this reward; a few seconds passed, and two figures appeared beside William. They were Barash and Roinin.
William gave them televisions and rations too before telling them to settle down for some time in the domain.
These guys were solely responsible for expanding his slave network in every cult, so William rewarded these two as well.
He then left the domain at once, looking to carry out the next stage of his plan, which was contacting Maris and also writing a few divine mails.
***
Riverdale Empire, imperial palace.
Emperor’s study
"Your majesty, Duke Sinclair has come forward and accepted your offer to join the attack. We have yet to get any replies from the Duke of Draconis and Duke Ravenclaw. Duke Winter has straight-up declined your offer."
Aurelius heard his butler summarize the reports for today.
In two days, he wanted to attack the Clayman cult’s headquarters as symbolic revenge against the cult’s past actions, and this was also a chance to stabilize his image in front of the public.
"Figures, Duke Winter has acted like my Daniel’s pet for so many years now, I think it’s time I make him taste the bitter side of his choices."
Aurelius’s butler looked at him with concern; he could clearly see the desperation and the frustration to desperately achieve something significant in the emperor’s eyes.
"Your majesty, isn’t it too soon for us to attack the headquarters of the Clayman cults? We haven’t even strategized properly; the supply of light stones is also hindered, and the world academy is already fighting a battle in its domain."
Aurelius looked at his butler without any flared expression. He spoke,
"No one would expect us to attack the cult at this point; that is exactly why we need to use this time to our advantage. I want to hit the cult when it least expects it."
"If we take them off guard, we will be able to smoothly erase the existence of the Clayman cult from the face of Aris."
Before the butler could add anything else, the space rippled around them. Aurelius’s head snapped towards the fluctuation.
A portal opened up in front of him, and his eyes widened. The hounds hiding in the shadows immediately moved to shield Aurelius while a few launched attacks at the portal.
To their shock, those attacks dissolved instantly after coming in contact with the portal, and in response, a golden butterfly emerged instead.
Aurelius saw the butterfly and immediately ordered, "Halt!!"
He had heard descriptions from others when he had attended the recent meeting with the world leaders in the academy; this golden butterfly was a sign.
The attacks halted, and the golden butterfly fluttered towards Aurelius before landing in his palm and turning into a scroll.
"Eternal Sovereign," Aurelius muttered as he looked at the scroll in shock.