(Planet Tithia, Argo's Private Forge, Amanda's POV)
*Clang*
*Hiss*
*Crackle*
The forge burned hot, flames licking against the small metal device placed within the burner, as Amanda worked on tinkering the burning hot device, while Argo stood like an assistant beside her.
"Easy there lady, if you strike it too hard it will deform and spin under the tongs--" Argo warned, as he held the device steady over the flames with his experienced hands, even when Amanda struck it with a bit too much power.
"Master Argo, I need to hit it this hard to draw the mana lines inside, can you please hold it a tad bit firmer?" Amanda requested, her voice carrying a note of respect, for though she had been entrusted with this project, she never forgot whose forge she stood in or whose guidance made such progress possible.
Over the past 60 days, Master Argo had helped her tackle the impossible, as he progressively managed to find solutions to making the mana heart smaller and smaller, until today, where they finally attempted to make a mana heart the size of a pendant. If they succeeded, it would be the final design that Leo desperately wanted made, however, crafting it was undoubtedly a very challenging task.
"I am holding it firm enough, girl," Argo replied, his voice deep as iron, as he adjusted the angle by a fraction, the glow stabilizing instantly, "but the rune alignment is your task, not mine. If the etching falters, it will not matter how steady I hold it."
He admonished, as Amanda bit her lip before focusing harder, her chisel sliding with precision as sparks flew, carving the delicate channel across the crystal core until the flow of light hummed evenly through the lines.
*Click*
*Pulse*
The device shivered, then steadied, a faint azure glow pulsing like a heartbeat, as Amanda finally exhaled in relief, her chest swelling with excitement. "It's stable, Master Argo... it's actually holding," Amanda whispered, almost afraid to break the moment, though her voice trembled with joy as her eyes remained fixed on the small pendant sized device.
*WHIRR*
*FSHH*
The elder blacksmith leaned closer, his weathered face catching the reflection of the glow, his sharp eyes scrutinizing every detail of the device before giving a slow nod. "It's working as intended, it's drawing in impure mana and pushing out pure one. And the filter deterioration looks slower than we anticipated..... for at this pace, the filters will last us three full years before burning out, which is much longer than the one you had hoped for." He said, as Amanda's lips curved into a smile, her hands clasping together as she bowed slightly in gratitude.
"That is only because of your guidance, Master Argo. Without your hand steadying mine, this would have shattered like the last ten attempts." She shared, as Argo smiled at her remarks.
"Perhaps it would have," Argo replied, as he set the device down gently on the anvil, his heavy arms folding across his chest. "But the persistence was yours, not mine.... You are a brilliant blacksmith yourself, Lady Skyshard, never forget that."
Amanda shook her head quickly, her eyes glimmering as she gazed at the glowing mana heart pendant that now sat beside the forge. This was it! This was Leo's dream come true! And once they found a way to mass produce this device, she could finally help him sleep a comfortable night's sleep.
"We have already found a way to mass produce the TV-Sized purifiers, that purify entire rooms, Master Argo. And our assembly line has already produced more than 10,000 units of those purifiers in the past month alone, for the cost of about 500MP each. However, these pendants are the ones we need to figure out how to mass produce next. As the engineering on this is much more precision linked and challenging than the crude TV-Sized units ..." Amanda reminded, as Argo nodded in agreement with her assessment.
Currently, their goal was to produce 1 million TV-Sized units that could purify entire rooms, and 1 million pendants for personal carrying, as with an emergency arsenal of that size, they could then proceed to roll out the excess for common Cult welfare. "Once these are spread across the Cult, every barracks will have pure mana to breathe, and the quality of our soldiers will improve massively. Perhaps, given enough time, we can finally cover the entire Cult lands with these devices...." Amanda shared, as she foresaw a future where everyone could benefit from Leo's pure mana heart in the future, as quality of life for all commoners across the Cult improved as a result.
---
(At the same time, Planet Tithia, The Grand Library, Leo's POV)
Since Veyr was still busy learning [Sixth Sense] under the First Elder while he was done, Leo used the spare-time he had to research more about Time Stilled worlds, and which one specifically was the world housing the soul of the Primordial Dragon Moltherak, as after completing his paranoia training, he felt like this was the one fail-safe plan he needed to complete, to preserve his own sanity for the future.
He had already received the good news that Amanda and Argo were making rapid progress in the mass production of his mana heart, which gave him the peace of mind to now look for which exact spatial crack Moltherak was sealed behind, as to his unexpected joy, he found out that the anomaly where Moltherak was sealed, was most likely located at the edge of Cult controlled universe, only a few hundred million miles from Ixtal.
"If I don't find a way through to becoming Demi-God traditionally, I'll be sure to pay you a visit very soon, old friend, for I'm sure you managed to ascend to that tier, long before such technicalities existed..." Leo mused, as although he hoped he never had to visit such a horrid world again, he was prepared to do it, just in-case he had no other choice.
(More chapters in Buyers Club for TMT)