Chương 108: Someone Invented a Lightsaber

Sieghart discovered within the first few minutes that entering the workshop had been considerably easier than navigating through it. Pieces of metal, wooden crates, damaged weapons, runic plates, tools, wires, half-finished mechanisms, and several completely unidentified objects occupied nearly every available surface. The explosion had improved none of that.

Fine gray dust covered the nearest worktables, several tools had fallen onto the floor, and fragments from some unfortunate magical component were embedded deeply enough in one wooden cabinet that removing them required actual effort. Before Sieghart could ask what exactly he was expected to do, the short woman who had identified him as the guild worker grabbed a broom from behind the counter and started pushing blackened debris toward the entrance.

"Help us clean first." Sieghart looked around the ruined section of workshop again, briefly wondering whether cleaning explosive debris had been mentioned anywhere inside Mira's description of the assignment. He was fairly certain that it had not, although perhaps she had categorized explosions beneath basic runic work.

"Does this happen often?"

"No." The taller man coughed.

"Not that often." The woman glared at him.

"Helpful." Sieghart sighed before putting his travel bag somewhere reasonably far from anything glowing, sparking, smoking, or otherwise displaying characteristics that normally preceded property damage. He then grabbed another broom and started moving pieces of broken material into a pile. The two workshop owners worked beside him rather than treating him like free labor, which improved Sieghart's opinion of them slightly.

They extinguished several smoldering sections, removed damaged components, and inspected nearby equipment for secondary problems caused by the explosion. Once the smoke cleared enough that breathing no longer felt like an optional challenge, the shorter woman finally removed her goggles completely and wiped soot from her face with one sleeve, somehow managing to spread it rather than actually cleaning anything.

"My name's Vessa." Vessa appeared somewhere in her early forties, though countless tiny burn marks across her hands and forearms made guessing her age slightly difficult. She was short and compactly built, with tangled black hair cut near her shoulders and sharp amber eyes that rarely stopped examining whatever stood nearby.

Her heavy leather apron contained enough pockets to qualify as portable storage, and nearly every one held some strange tool, chalk stick, metal component, measuring device, or piece of folded paper. Sieghart immediately suspected that half the workshop disappeared into those pockets whenever she misplaced something. The taller man raised one soot-covered hand while carrying several damaged pieces toward a metal disposal container near the rear wall.

Compared with Vessa, he looked considerably less prepared for explosions despite currently being covered by evidence suggesting regular exposure to them.

"Orin." Orin looked somewhere in his mid-thirties, unusually tall and thin enough that Sieghart wondered whether he regularly forgot meals whenever he became absorbed in his work. His pale-blond hair was tied behind his head, while rectangular spectacles rested crookedly across gray-blue eyes. His clothing consisted of a loose white shirt beneath another thick protective apron, although several burned holes suggested the protection was more theoretical than reliable.

His long fingers were stained with ink, oil, and the faint blue residue Sieghart associated with certain processed mana crystals. Vessa pointed toward herself and then toward Orin while continuing to sweep fragments from underneath one workbench, apparently deciding formal explanations were unnecessary once names had been exchanged.

"We're the ones who hired Lunar Arc."

"So you're my bosses for the week."

"Clients." Orin glanced over.

"Temporary bosses." Vessa pointed the broom at him.

"Don't encourage him." Sieghart continued cleaning while quietly studying everything surrounding them. Despite the terrible organization and recent explosion, many pieces of equipment inside the workshop possessed surprisingly sophisticated rune patterns compared with anything he had personally attempted. That contradiction interested him.

Vessa and Orin apparently understood magical engineering considerably better than they understood shelves, cleaning schedules, or the concept of placing dangerous experimental equipment somewhere farther away from the front entrance. While gathering broken fragments near one worktable, Sieghart finally found what appeared to have caused the explosion. The object had landed beneath a damaged chair, partially hidden by shredded paper and several twisted pieces of copper-colored metal. He lifted it carefully.

The object resembled an oversized pistol with a short, thick barrel and a reinforced grip large enough for an adult to hold using both hands. Several runic lines covered the exterior, though one section near the rear had been completely burned black. Sieghart immediately stopped moving.

"This exploded?" Vessa looked over.

"Yes." Sieghart examined the damaged object from slightly farther away after receiving confirmation, because holding a recently exploded prototype suddenly seemed less intelligent than it had several seconds earlier.

"What is it?"

"A portable hand cannon." Sieghart slowly turned it around, studying the heavy barrel and several internal channels visible through the damaged casing. The weapon looked like something designed specifically for people who considered ordinary magical weapons insufficiently dangerous.

"Portable?" Orin nodded.

"That part worked." Sieghart stared at him. Vessa sighed.

"The idea is simple. Stored mana activates a firing chamber, the internal formation shapes the ammunition spell, then the barrel reinforces and launches it. Assuming someone writes the ammunition lines correctly." Orin became very interested in reorganizing several nearby tools. Sieghart looked between them.

"You wrote them wrong." Vessa pointed at Orin.

"He wrote them backward."

"I wrote one section backward."

"The important section."

"The rest was excellent."

"The excellent parts exploded too." If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Sieghart lowered the prototype onto the workbench with extreme care. The mistake sounded small enough to be believable, which somehow made the entire field of runic engineering more frightening rather than less. A sword usually remained a sword if someone carved one line incorrectly into the handle.

Apparently, magical machinery responded to writing errors by attempting to remove walls from buildings. Sieghart folded his arms.

"I'm supposed to work here for one week." Vessa nodded.

"Yes."

"I don't want anything exploding in my face." Orin looked mildly offended.

"That was one accident."

"A small accident." Sieghart glanced toward the scorch marks reaching halfway across the ceiling, then toward the cabinet containing several metal fragments deeply embedded inside the wood. Their definition of small apparently differed significantly from his own.

"We're fine."

"That doesn't make it small." Orin finally placed the damaged prototype inside a reinforced metal box before closing several locks around it. Sieghart approved of this decision considerably more than wherever they had apparently stored it before. Vessa leaned against one workbench and gave him a more serious look, apparently recognizing that convincing their temporary assistant they were not suicidal might be beneficial before asking him to handle magical equipment.

"You won't be working on prototypes." Sieghart remained suspicious.

"We won't ask you to build anything dangerous either. The equipment you're handling has already been tested, inspected, and approved. You're mainly here because we need mana." That explanation matched what Mira had originally told him, which reduced Sieghart's concern slightly. It did not completely remove the image of a hand cannon attempting to assassinate its creators before breakfast. Vessa pointed toward a narrow door near the back of the workshop.

"The warehouse is behind there. We've got weapons and tools waiting for charge before the next shipment heads north. You can start whenever you're ready." Orin adjusted his spectacles before examining Sieghart more carefully, particularly his small frame and lack of obvious magical equipment. His expression suggested that Mira had told them very little about the person Lunar Arc was sending.

"It might take several days." Sieghart tilted his head.

"For one warehouse?"

"There's a lot." Orin gestured vaguely toward the rear building before continuing his explanation, apparently expecting Sieghart to possess the normal limitations of a young Restorer rather than an infinite mana pool he was deliberately concealing.

"Lunar Arc usually sends people who know meditation. They recharge their mana while working, so they can restore more equipment every day without exhausting themselves completely." Sieghart knew basic meditation existed for mana recovery, though Infinite Mana had made learning it one of the least useful investments imaginable. He had never needed to recover something that refused to decrease in the first place. Orin examined him again.

"You don't look like the meditation type." Sieghart wondered what someone capable of meditation was supposed to look like. Apparently, magical breathing techniques came with physical characteristics he had somehow failed to acquire.

"I'll manage." Vessa shrugged.

"Don't exhaust yourself. Nobody expects everything today." That would make pretending considerably easier. Sieghart headed toward the rear door before either of them remembered another prototype they wanted him to stand beside. The passage opened into a connected warehouse that was considerably larger than the workshop itself. His first reaction was surprise. His second was irritation. Weapons and magical tools were everywhere.

Swords leaned against walls without labels, several bows had been piled across wooden crates, staffs occupied three different corners, and boxes filled with smaller magical devices were stacked wherever enough floor space remained. Some pieces had tags indicating repairs, rentals, military shipments, or charging requirements, but the organization appeared to end there. Sieghart suspected Vessa and Orin simply remembered where everything was through some supernatural ability unrelated to magic.

"You have got to be kidding me." Nobody answered. Sieghart stepped farther inside and immediately discovered three identical crates containing completely different equipment. One held short swords, another contained damaged rune lamps, and the third contained what appeared to be medical heating tools. He could technically start charging things immediately. He refused.

Sieghart spent the next hour reorganizing the warehouse first, separating completed military equipment from damaged merchandise and civilian tools while carefully reading every available tag to avoid accidentally charging something awaiting repairs. Then he cleaned. Dust covered several shelves thickly enough that Sieghart suspected certain pieces had remained untouched for months.

Breeze accelerated the process considerably, although he kept the spell weak enough to avoid filling the entire warehouse with airborne dirt. Once the area finally looked like a place where professional equipment could reasonably be stored rather than the aftermath of a poorly organized robbery, Sieghart selected the first group of weapons awaiting shipment. Charging them was simple.

He touched the first weapon, identified the internal storage structure, and slowly transferred mana into it while carefully limiting his output. Completely filling everything instantly would defeat the purpose of disguising how abnormal he was. The process reminded him of the Firian campaign, although these weapons displayed considerably more variety. Some stored raw mana for simple reinforcement, while others converted that energy through prepared runes into elemental or physical effects.

Sieghart examined each one while charging it. His old bow had contained magical structures as well, yet using the finished weapon never taught him how those formations had been constructed. The difference between operating something and understanding its creation remained frustratingly large. The completed weapons showed only the result. Their runes were already linked. The materials had already been prepared. The mana channels had already been established.

Sieghart could observe where energy traveled, but he could not determine why one line had been carved deeper than another or why certain materials had been chosen. It was similar to examining a finished book while trying to understand how ink had been manufactured. Useful information existed there. Just not enough of it. Sieghart continued transferring mana while thinking about another limitation.

If he could somehow perceive the flow inside each weapon more clearly, perhaps finished equipment could still teach him considerably more than he currently assumed. He already felt mana. Every mage did. That was not the same thing as precisely observing how it moved through microscopic channels inside metal, crystal, wood, or whatever strange materials craftsmen chose for enchanted equipment. Perhaps Perception mattered. Perhaps another spell existed.

After Psionics and Necromancy, Sieghart no longer assumed the magical categories inside his System were limited to anything Lunar Arc currently taught. There might be an entire discipline dedicated to supernatural senses waiting for the correct breakthrough. That possibility became another item on his increasingly unreasonable list of things to study. He wanted better runes. Better Mana Swords. Telekinetic control. Ways to manipulate spells from farther away. Information about corrupted cores.

Information about Seraphina. Now magical perception joined everything else. Sieghart sighed.

"I need another lifetime." Technically, he had already received one. Complaining felt very ungrateful. He returned his attention to the weapons and continued charging them at a deliberately moderate pace. Whenever one reached capacity, Sieghart placed it on a newly organized shelf before selecting another. Several hours passed comfortably. Nobody interrupted him. Nothing exploded.

Sieghart began wondering whether perhaps the assignment would actually remain simple once the terrible introduction ended, though experience prevented him from saying that thought aloud. Eventually, he reached a collection of unusual weapons stored inside a long wooden case near the rear wall. Most had tags identifying them as repaired experimental models awaiting charge and inspection before transport. That immediately interested him. Sieghart opened the case.

Several strange weapons rested inside, including a segmented spear, a compact bow with no visible string, two circular devices he could not immediately identify, and something resembling nothing more than a sword handle. Sieghart picked up the handle. It possessed a proper crossguard, wrapped grip, and metal pommel, yet absolutely no blade extended from it. Several thin runes ran around the guard before disappearing into the interior structure.

"Broken?" No response came from the weapon. Sieghart found a small charging port near the bottom of the grip and began supplying mana carefully. The internal storage accepted considerably more energy than he expected from something so small. That made it more interesting. Sieghart sharpened his concentration, following the mana as best he could while it traveled through several internal channels.

Unlike ordinary enchanted swords, the energy appeared designed to move directly toward the empty guard rather than reinforce physical material. After several seconds, the storage reached capacity. A faint line appeared across the guard. Sieghart turned the weapon over. There was a button beneath his thumb. He stared at it. The workshop had exploded earlier because someone built an experimental magical hand cannon incorrectly. Pressing unknown buttons inside the same building was objectively stupid.

Sieghart considered this carefully. Then he pressed it. A brilliant blade of concentrated light erupted from the empty handle with a sharp humming sound, extending nearly a meter before stabilizing into a narrow luminous saber. Sieghart froze. The weapon illuminated the dim warehouse strongly enough to throw his shadow across several shelves. Mana continuously circulated through the handle while the blade maintained itself without any physical material supporting its shape. He stared at it. Then he stared harder.

Memories from his previous life immediately supplied the comparison.

"No way." Sieghart moved the weapon slowly through the air. The glowing blade produced another low hum. His mouth opened slightly. Of all the ridiculous magical technologies he had encountered since reincarnating, this one somehow managed to feel the least original and most impressive at exactly the same time. Someone in this world had invented a lightsaber. Sieghart smiled. Perhaps this job was worth the explosions after all.