Chapter 103: Talk My Foot

To be honest, after Rebecca’s hint, Gawain suddenly realized that this little “repulsion trick” was probably the greatest surprise this world had given him: simple, low-cost, stable, and quite effective.

Anyone familiar with magical devices wouldn’t find this basic spell strange. Whether it’s an automatically opening magic door or something else, as long as there’s a mechanism that needs to be pushed, there’s bound to be a “repulsion charm” involved. How much force can it output? As a spell, its power depends entirely on how much mana you can supply and the quality of the magical materials used. From Gawain’s perspective, its conversion efficiency was extremely high: the treasure vault doors in the mountains were cast from heavy purple steel, each door weighing several tons, yet the ancient mechanism controlling their opening and closing could operate smoothly with almost no mechanical optimization. Of course, that was thanks to the ancient technology of the Gondor Empire—their refined magical crystals were insanely powerful. But even the “inferior” modern versions weren’t bad; magical traps capable of pushing huge stones around weren’t exactly rare!

Yet all these magical devices used repulsion arrays in a very crude, brute-force way—just pushing hard and fast, relying on sheer power, rarely bothering with levers or gears to optimize the process.

So Gawain had high hopes for the magical engine. He believed that even if he built it with cheap materials, the power it could provide would be incredible.

After the “piston-style” magical engine was proposed, without waiting for Rebecca and Hetty to finish modifying the blueprints and working out the details, he immediately thought about taking the repulsion array further—applying it to a motor-like structure.

A motor made of a stator and rotor naturally had extra advantages: its structure was relatively simple, so the failure rate would be much lower; the “repulsion points” on the rotor could operate at full load right from startup, providing high initial torque, unlike the piston engine which lacked torque at low speeds and only reached maximum torque at higher RPMs; its size could be compressed to very small dimensions, offering higher volume efficiency when powered by the magic network; and thanks to the unique nature of magical technology, the “rotor-style magical engine” didn’t need brushes or a mechanical device to switch rune triggers frequently, which reduced wear and tear and extended the machine’s overall lifespan—a very cost-effective design.

But it also had obvious drawbacks—ignoring the usual pros and cons of electric motors versus internal combustion engines on Earth, from the perspective of this world’s technology, Gawain’s rotor-style magical engine required a large number of “repulsion points” distributed all over the casing to ensure balanced and continuous thrust. Placing so many independent arrays together meant they couldn’t interfere with each other, had to output precisely consistent force, and maintain exact distances from the rotor, and so on. This lowered the mechanical complexity but raised the difficulty in drawing the arrays, which required highly skilled technicians—much harder to train than mechanical engineers. This complexity was a far bigger headache.

Still, the idea was too tempting to abandon.

So he grabbed a blank sheet of paper and, under the curious gazes of Amber, Rebecca, and Hetty, quickly sketched out a rough design.

A ring-shaped casing, an internal rotor with many angled blades (the repulsion targets), and numerous symmetrically arranged repulsion arrays on the casing…

The structure was that simple.

“What’s this…” Hetty raised an eyebrow, curious but hesitant.

Gawain put down his pen, a bit excited: “The second-generation machine.”

The three others stared at him dumbfounded, utterly confused. After a moment, Amber looked at him like he was some kind of monster: “How does your brain even work?”

“Don’t insult my ancestor!” Rebecca snapped, grabbing her staff and tapping its head against Amber’s forehead. Then she turned to Gawain and asked, “Ancestor, how does your brain work?”

Gawain was speechless.

Two seconds later, Rebecca realized what she’d said and quickly put away her staff, apologizing sincerely: “Sorry, ancestor, I spoke without thinking again…”

“No, that’s not the point,” the half-elf lady who had just narrowly escaped a staff-to-the-head incident wasn’t done. She glared and exclaimed, “We haven’t even finished discussing your first-generation sketch, and you’ve already whipped up a second one? And it looks like it wasn’t even born from the same mother! You must have a whole bunch of blueprints just waiting in your head, right?!”

Gawain nearly choked on his saliva. Was this a lucky guess or what?

“It’s just an immature idea,” he quickly composed himself and looked at the more methodical Hetty. “The principle is simple. What do you think about its feasibility?”

“It’s definitely much simpler, and theoretically very feasible… but practically, it won’t be easy,” Hetty said after a glance, pointing out the exact problem Gawain had anticipated. “Having so many repulsion arrays arranged so symmetrically and densely is basically a recipe for magical resonance. They will 100% interfere with each other. Whether it can even start moving is questionable.”

“What if we increase the diameter, spacing out the repulsion points?”

“…Feasibility still isn’t high. I understand your idea—they need to relay the force continuously for maximum efficiency, so the distance can’t be too large. Instead of spacing them out, it’s better to add anti-magic structures between the arrays to block interference. But that would be… terrifyingly expensive.”

Gawain winced. Anti-magic materials—even the cheapest were precious metals among magical materials. Using them in mass-produced machines would be so costly that even if he died on the spot and was buried, Rebecca and Hetty charging admission for the whole country to come see wouldn’t cover the cost. What a ridiculous analogy.

“Then let’s build a prototype when we have the resources. It’ll be a technical investment,” Gawain sighed. “First, get the piston-style prototype done. Most parts can be handcrafted by Hammer and his apprentices. The more difficult parts and the repulsion mechanisms can be handled by the new rune craftsmen. Remember, don’t worry about cost for the first machine—just make sure it runs safely and stably. Even if we have to sacrifice some performance, that’s fine.”

Hetty and Rebecca left with a pile of blueprints. Considering Hetty’s administrative burden, Gawain assigned the main task of building the magical engine prototype to Rebecca, with Hetty providing technical support. This made Rebecca extremely happy.

After they left the tent, Gawain gathered the remaining blueprints and handed them to Betty, who was squatting nearby, practicing writing with a small twig. “Put these away. By the way, I had the carpenter make you a small desk. It’ll be delivered to your tent this evening, along with a set of stationery and some blank paper—use them sparingly.”

Betty blinked in surprise, then beamed with joy and bowed so hard she almost toppled forward. “Thank you, master! You’re the best!”

The little maid practically skipped away.

Gawain smiled, watching her bounce off, then shook his head with amusement. Amber gave him a strange look. “I don’t get it. You’re so busy all the time, yet you still take care of that silly girl so much… Could it be your real fetish is this kind of thing? Ugh—people like you always end up making moves on your own maids… Hey, hey, ow ow ow!”

Gawain gave Amber’s ear a hard twist, annoyed. “What fetish, what moves? I just like how hardworking and eager to learn she is. Can’t you keep your mind clean for once?”

Amber rubbed her ear, fuming. “Don’t you always say my mind’s clean?”

Gawain: “…I meant it’s empty and useless!”

“Huh? So you were complimenting me all along?!”

Gawain shot a glance at the embarrassing half-elf and strode toward the tent’s entrance.

Amber couldn’t help but follow, curious. “Where are you going? To sneak some snacks? Take me with you!”

Once Amber caught up, Gawain casually said, “I’m going to have a little heart-to-heart with that big metal ball. It’s been stuck in the tent for so long, it should be willing to talk now.”

Amber lost interest immediately. “Oh, then I’m not coming.”

Gawain reached out and tried to grab her under the arm to take her along.

But this time he failed: Amber, having learned from previous experience, slipped into the shadows the moment he grabbed her, and Gawain’s hand came up empty. The half-elf thief was already ten meters away.

“Go talk to the ball yourself~” Amber called out triumphantly from a distance. “I’m off to mooch a meal from Betty~~”

Gawain could only laugh helplessly at his willful “official bodyguard,” waved goodbye, and turned away.

In front of a special tent on the southern side of the camp, Gawain asked the guard about the metal sphere: “Any movement from that thing inside the tent?”

“No,” the dutiful soldier stood at attention. “We’ve been guarding here the whole time. That ancient magical device just stays put inside the tent, no sign of going anywhere.”

“Ancient magical device” was Gawain’s explanation to the soldiers who had seen the metal orb. Apparently, they had accepted it.

After a few encouraging words to the vigilant guard, Gawain stepped into the tent.

The metal sphere floated about half a meter above the ground in the center, looking like a sci-fi hovering device.

But the high-tech-looking ball started grumbling: “Damn, I thought you’d just forget about me here! All we’ve got standing guard are a bunch of dumb soldiers, or that annoying old man who keeps coming in, or that female human who loves wearing red dresses. So boring. I swear, if I didn’t value my promises, I would’ve left first thing this morning…”

Ignoring the ball’s nagging, Gawain walked up to it. “I’m here to talk. First, let me confirm one thing—you’re not from around here… a ball, right?”

(End of chapter)