Chương 92: 063 – Change and Energy

"Sera, 'venecite' is your civilization's name for QEC, right?" Loren said, still staring at the container.

"Yup!" Sera said, not looking bothered by the shortening of her name.

"Crystal with the physical feel and general consistency of sodium chloride salt, except clear with an iridescent sheen?"

"That's the one!"

"So the objects in that container down there are, in fact, QEC?"

"Of course!"

"Then I have to ask… why do they look like that?" Loren said, finally getting to the end of the Socratic line of questioning.

"It looks like that container is full of fruit-flavored sugar candy?" Sera blinked, and her eyes gained a distant look for a moment, before blinking again.

"Oh, I've never noticed that before. Yes, it does kind of look like a candy jar, doesn't it? We don't really make a lot of sugar candy here. Sugar is hard to source, and eating a lot of it rots your teeth, gives you diabetes, deadens your tongue to subtle flavors, and can lead to addiction." Loren stared at her. That sounded like something one of the old monsters would say when they were feeling grandmotherly.

If they were feeling grandfatherly, they'd talk about how it was so much harder in their day, and the current generation didn't appreciate what they had.

"Yes… but why are the contents of that container in different candy colors?"

"Oh! Sorry, sorry, got lost in the past for a bit there… It's because different girls made them, so they're different colors." Loren stared at her.

"What do you mean 'different girls made them'?"

"Uh, exactly what I said? Different girls made each shard of venecite. Most girls make a few shards just before they go to sleep to use up their magic for the day, since it tops up again overnight while they're sleeping." The stare intensified. That sounded suspiciously like… well, it sounded like something that the military would be interested in. That anyone part of a civilization developed enough to be traveling faster than light would be interested in. The conclusion was there. If she said it out loud…

"You can artificially crystallize venecite?" Phrasing the question that way was the kindest she could put it. Her suit's camera and microphone would have already recorded the direction the questions were going.

"Not me specifically, but yeah, pretty much," Sera said.

"Do you want to see?"

"…" Loren '…'-ed.

"Perhaps after they make the alloy? I believe they're starting soon."

"Oh, right. Ok, I'll tell Namine for later, then!" Loren just nodded, turning her attention back to what was happening on the floor. One of the large transparent crucibles was being filled with the previously mentioned ingots of presumably iron, which were easy to see in the clear container. Someone else was measuring out a black powder, presumably the required carbon. Amber light appeared as one of the Kaedekin used their magic, making a long, wide and shallow rectangular basin of glowing vennplate.

Loren was able to spot the Kaedekin that seemed to be responsible, who was nodding to herself before letting the basin disappear again. The Pyrotheurgist also noted the distinct lack of any apparent way to heat the crucible. … Oh. They were really going to do it that way, weren't they? … Eh, not her problem. A Kaedekin started waving towards them to try and get their attention. Loren recognized Homura. If nothing else, it was very hard to confuse one Kaedekin for another when their clothes were all so distinctive.

"All right everyone, we're about to start the forging process. I'll be explaining each step as we do it. As you can see, we've filled the crucible with ingots, ready to be liquified. We will now proceed to melt the iron." Everyone leaned forward eagerly, and someone finally said out loud what Loren had noticed.

"Wait, how are they planning to heat the metal? There's no furnace, or any other form of heat."

"Maybe they use electromagnetic induction?" someone suggested.

"If that crucible is also transparent steel, using induction to melt anything inside it sounds like an absolutely terrible idea," someone else noted dryly.

"It's probably alloyed to have a higher melting point than the steel they're making," yet another person mused.

"The crucible might not even be steel at all. It might be tungsten." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Loren rolled her eyes and turned towards Sera.

"So, what's the crucible made of?" she asked loudly enough for everyone else to hear.

"The outside casing is chramecirum steel alloyed to have a higher melting point, but the bulk of it is an aluminum oxide crucible," Sera said immediately.

"We used to do all steel, but we switched to alumina because the molten iron and steel doesn't bond to it as well, so it's easier to scrape all the molten steel out of the crucible during pouring. The steel casing is so that the crucibles can be picked up and poured. Aluminum oxide alone isn't strong enough to bear the crucible's weight, hence the steel."

"Huh. My compliments on the quality of your aluminum oxide," Loren said.

"I don't think any lab has ever managed to grow aluminum oxide that big with that level of clarity."

"Oh, we didn't grow it," Sera said.

"We just used Change to make white aluminum oxide transparent and reshaped it into a crucible. Much more efficient use of time and energy."

"…" Ah. She really should have figured they'd go directly to the magical solution. There was a murmur of confusion, and Loren turned away from Sera to see one of the other Kaedekin had taken off her top, showing bare arms and some kind of full-torso underwear before putting on a metallic apron. The Kaedekin got on top of a stool and touched the pile of ingots with her hand.

From the catwalk, Loren could feel only a mild heat on her soul coming from the Kaedekin as the air above the ingots began to ripple with haze, before that quickly vanished as the Kaedekin kept all the heat contained to the iron. The amount of control and efficiency that implied was considerable. All the other 'quantum engineers' on the ship would feel a lot hotter at the same distance. Of course, at the moment there was nothing to see, just someone with her hand on some ingots.

"Rekka is now melting the ingots," Homura explained.

"She's using both Change Flame and Energy Flame, as the combination ensures more stable heat diffusion, and allows the iron to stay molten without active input. The latter is important, because the iron needs to be stirred once the carbon has been added to allow it to evenly spread through the metal." To Loren's senses, the ingots were slowly growing hotter. The speed was likely a safety measure in case there were any bubbles in the ingots. No one wanted anything exploding.

"Once she's liquified the metal up to 2000 degrees Celsius, we can start adding the carbon. The carbon has been specifically premeasured for the number of ingots in the crucible to produce low-carbon steel."

"What do you mean 'change flame'?" someone asked, immediately latching on to what sounded like terminology.

"Ah, we're using our Flame to melt the iron," Homura said.

"Outside of the College, girls would use vennplasma, or one of the new venngrams to simply increase its temperature directly, but since most of the girls here are Flames, this is how we do it. Change Flame and Energy Flame are two of the four specialized subcategories of Flame.

Change Flame makes things change, such as turning matter to a different state, altering something's chemical manifestation, modifying something's existing dimensions, translating data from one language to another, turning people into frogs, that sort of thing. Energy Flame is more straightforward. It's the form of Flame that interacts with and manipulates energy, in this case heat. Either alone can melt the iron, but using both is more energy efficient since they synergize together."

"What do you mean when you say 'Flame'?" someone asked, and Loren smothered her smile. She knew where this was going. Stupid antiquated linguistics… It was Princess Megumi who answer.

"Yes, we know it's confusing," she laughed.

"'Flame' is used to refer to the magic, the people who use the magic, and the manifestation of using the magic. In our defense, it was like that when we got it. At some point in the history of the Earth the Mass Production Models came from, someone decided to use the same word for three different nouns. It helps if you just thing of it as Flame magic used by a Flame wizard who makes Flame, until you get used to it." Loren managed to resist the urge to nod along.

"So this is another form of magic the Kaedekin can do?" Falling Stillness said. Princess Megumi nodded.

"Exactly!"

"We have liquid!" Rekka announced, and there were exclamations from the normies as they went back to looking at her properly and realized she was sticking her hand into the crucible of now-molten iron, pulling up a handful of the molten goo. She started pulling at the syrupy iron, folding her hands back together, and pulling some more, her arms extended to keep the resulting threads of metal away from her clothes.

"Almost at the right consistency!" She dropped the iron she was holding back into the crucible as glowing bits cooled into solid scale on her skin, which she methodically peeled off and dropped back into the rest of the mass.

"Where's the stirring stick?"

"Here!" Another Kaedekin stepped forward with a long metal rod. Rekka gripped it in both hands before sticking one end into the molten metal and began stirring.

"…" Everyone on the catwalk not a Kaedekin stared at Rekka. Even Loren couldn't stop herself from doing so, and she knew the woman was perfectly fine. She was just wondering what the molten metal had felt like. Finally, someone hesitantly asked, "Is that safe? Shouldn't she be wearing more protective clothing than just an apron?"

"Shouldn't she be wearing gloves?" someone else said.

"Shouldn't she be wearing full-body heat protection?"

"Don't worry, it's fine," Princess Megumi said cheerfully.

"Flames like us are immune to heat. A little thing like this is no problem at all! Anyway, now that the iron is molten, we'll be stirring in the carbon!" Indeed, other Kaedekin down at the floor were doing just that, carefully pouring in a large bucket of black carbon powder as Rekka stirred using the long metal rod. Loren was amused to note the bucket was also transparent. It made sense—laboratory containers were transparent whenever possible—but it was still strangely funny.

"While she's stirring, Rekka will continue to use Change Flame, but this time it will be to make sure that all the carbon properly bonds to the iron. This ensures that the steel is the same quality all throughout."

"Done!" Homura nodded.

"Now comes a quality control step. We pour out the steel and let it solidify to make sure that it's the right kind of steel. If it's not, we melt it down again and use more Change Flame to fix the distribution of the carbon. If we miscalculated, add a little bit more iron to bond with the excess carbon. The ratio is usually right though. Our buddies double check our math. Speaking of which, please form the mold! Let's get ready to pour!"