Chapter 150
Chapter 150
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 150
Chapter Title: The Drained Prototype
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"......"
"......"
An awkward silence settled between Meiko and me.
She was worried that I might have noticed she had seen the illusion magic circle.
I was keeping quiet to hide her secret.
We each stayed silent for different reasons.
My mentor, who had come to the shop, sipped her tea while stealing glances at me.
"Does it suit your taste?"
"Ah, yeah...... It's good. I had no idea you had a talent for this, Max."
After taking a sip of tea, she let out a sigh and glanced at me as I wrote the letter.
"By the way, what are you doing right now?"
"I'm writing a letter."
"A letter? W-why a letter all of a sudden?"
People who have something to hide tend to show excessive interest in others.
Out of anxiety that the other person might discover their secret.
I swept my gaze over Meiko, who was staring at me with uneasy eyes, and feigned ignorance.
"I don't know if it was an intruder or some sudden glitch, but all the mana batteries I had set aside as backups got completely drained."
"An, an, an, an intruder? W-w-who? Wait, can you even tell that?"
You're the culprit. Her expression made it so obvious that I almost said it.
"There were no signs of external intrusion. But the backup batteries were completely depleted."
"Ah...... C-can't you recharge them?"
I looked at Meiko.
She was biting her lower lip and watching my reaction.
"They're prototypes, so they're not rechargeable. They were temporary gifts to begin with. That's why I'm writing to ask for finished versions."
"Oh, the batteries you made with help from those dwarves last time."
"Yes. They're portable too."
"......"
Meiko kept stealing glances at me before inching closer.
"S-so, if you get the finished versions, could you recharge them?"
"Probably. I specifically asked for ones that can be recharged with mana."
"I see."
"If someone did intrude and drain them, we should summon the guards right away and make them pay."
"N-no way! Who would intrude? No matter how lightly they view illusion mages, no one would dare break into our shop."
Meiko's flustered waving of her hands was adorable.
There was something fun about watching my mentor panic.
She smiled awkwardly and spoke in a voice that trailed off.
"B-besides, if someone intruded, there should be missing items too, right? But there aren't any. Isn't that so?"
"Well, that's true, but......"
Should I tease her a bit?
"How do you know that, Master?"
"H-huh? Know what?"
"That nothing was stolen. Did I tell you?"
"Huh? Oh...... W-well, if something was stolen, you would've told me, but you didn't say anything. So I figured nothing was taken."
Her voice grew louder as she made her hasty excuse.
Her face turned bright red, which was so cute that I couldn't help but chuckle.
With a soft laugh, I decided to overlook her sudden indulgence in the illusion magic.
-Big sis will teach you everything.
-This is your pussy.
-White pee, squirt squirt?
The image of Meiko unleashing her desires on my regressed form was still vivid.
A devotee of the Goddess Church, so weak to lust.
Even the saintess couldn't overcome her desires, so maybe it was inevitable.
'Helping her relieve stress like this isn't bad.'
I'll pretend not to know for a while.
Still, she's my master, so charging her might feel a bit off.
'As long as it doesn't get too extreme......'
For now, just watching is fine.
Of course, if the dependency gets too severe, I'll have to intervene.
But not yet.
"Anyway, I won't call the guards over something uncertain. They came once before, and it was a huge hassle."
"R-right? Haha, having guards show up at a shop like this would cause all sorts of problems."
Meiko's awkward smile lifted at the corners.
"Anyway, give me a moment to finish this letter. Please relax, Master."
"Got it!"
Meiko stepped back, took another sip of tea, and glanced at me again.
'Is it because of the regressed illusion?'
Meiko was staring at me far more than usual.
It felt like she was scanning me from head to toe, slowly and suspiciously.
As if she needed to etch my current appearance into her eyes.
'No way she's planning to model the next illusion after me for even more detail?'
As a fellow illusion mage, Meiko was certainly capable of it.
Somehow, it made me uneasy.
Just my imagination?
Pushing aside the unease, I continued writing the letter to Tio, the mana battery creator.
"Done."
In the workshop, the dwarf who had been working tirelessly in front of the dwarven forge while wearing goggles took them off with a bright smile.
Seeing the perfect mana battery completed in the dwarven fire, the dwarf wiped away the flowing sweat and soot on her face and stood up.
"I finally did it. A mana battery with zero mana loss, constant recharge capability, minimized size for portability!"
The most basic battery, designed to provide regular mana access after a single charge.
It was on another level from previous batteries in efficiency and capacity.
Inside the cylindrical navy-blue mass was an enormous amount of mana.
Lutan, which repels mana.
Mana water, made by grinding mana stones like water.
This was an improved version of the prototype portable battery made with those.
Mikel, the mineral most compatible with mana.
By using mikel, which has the opposite property to lutan that repels mana, she created pathways for even more efficient mana flow.
She made internal passages with mikel inside a core of lutan.
The lutan prevented mana from escaping, ensuring no loss, while the mikel passages kept the mana circulating continuously.
It was a battery where mana circulated internally without evaporating into the air, yielding high output with relatively low energy.
Various complex formulas and techniques were involved besides that, but they're too intricate to detail here.
Thanks to all this.
"It's portable yet has over four times the capacity of previous mana storage devices. And it's rechargeable too!"
A revolutionary invention.
Just rechargeable mana? No, that's not it.
Rechargeable stationary batteries for mana already existed aplenty.
Many mana items used in the empire and dwarf world now relied on rechargeable batteries.
Since they could be recharged, products could be used semi-permanently once installed.
But applying that to portable batteries was another matter.
It was conventional wisdom that small cores couldn't handle mana recharging.
Why? Because the core and battery couldn't withstand the energy during charging.
Overheating, exploding, or melting was common.
She solved it using the opposing properties of mikel and lutan.
Portable batteries alone were already absurdly innovative.
Portable devices existed in name, but their size and inefficiency meant no one truly used them portably.
'Most mana users just injected mana on the spot as needed.'
They only activated after mana injection—items ordinary people couldn't even dream of touching.
But with this portable mana battery, things changed.
With enough money, even non-mana users could cast magic anytime.
Well, not attack spells, but they could use various mana-powered devices.
Of course, the cost would be astronomical.
"Success. Thanks to that human's help, I finally made the finished product."
Without Max's help, she wouldn't have even attempted it.
The dwarf Tio—no, Tia, the female dwarf who disguised herself as a man named Tio to set up an office in the dwarf factory—smiled at the battery she had completed.
"Now I just need to send it off......"
Right then.
Ding-dong!
An alarm rang in her office.
Having finished her work, Tia cleared her throat and adjusted her voice tone.
With a somewhat androgynous voice, she called out.
"Who is it?"
She asked toward the door.
"A letter for you."
She opened the door and stepped out, where a much taller human handed her an envelope.
"A letter from the empire. Sender: Max."
"Max!"
Hearing her benefactor's name, she beamed as she took the letter.
As she tried to open it, the delivery man didn't leave.
"It's COD."
"Ah......"
She handed over the postage charged as cash on delivery.
This amount was nothing to her, the inventor of the manacon.
Even before inventing this battery, she had made many inventions and was quite wealthy by dwarf standards.
"What could the letter say? What help is he offering this time......"
They had exchanged letters occasionally, sharing ideas and progress on this battery.
Thanks to Max's advice, she had overcome every roadblock, so she read his letter with great anticipation.
Her eyes curved into crescents as she checked it.
"He used up the prototype's mana? It's non-rechargeable, so he's waiting for a rechargeable version?"
Heh heh heh heh.
Letting out a low chuckle, she looked at the cylindrical battery on her workbench.
"Good timing on the letter, human. I just finished a version perfect for you."
With a laugh, she decided to take the battery along.
She had originally planned to unveil this revolutionary invention at the dwarf academy.
To prove to the countless dwarves who dismissed her for being female that a female dwarf could work with ores and factories just fine.
But she changed her mind.
On second thought, this wasn't solely her achievement.
Max the human had been immensely helpful in creating this finished product.
Combining lutan and mana water, making the prototype, advice during production, and the idea to use mikel for recharging.
Without Max's advice, she'd still be fumbling alone.
"Announcing it together with the human who helped makes more sense."
The greatest invention from dwarf-human collaboration.
There was a better place than the dwarf academy to announce it.
The empire's university, home to the continent's top talents: the Imperial Academy.
She had a reason to visit the empire after a long time.
"He'll love this, right?"
Tia's face stayed lit with a smile.
"And after so long, I can use that human's invention, the illusion magic circle."
Her cheeks flushed slightly as she finished speaking.