Chapter 508: Ignition

The moment Heddy heard that, her expression froze—slime monster excrement?!

Over there, Rebecca was still nodding excitedly. “Yeah, yeah! We’ve got a whole big pond of them in the backyard of the Magic Engineering Research Institute! And one of those slime monsters, I caught it myself…”

Now Gawain finally understood what Heddy had meant earlier when she reported that Rebecca was raising slime monsters…

“You really have a wild imagination!” Heddy’s face twisted into a strange expression. “I’m honestly curious how you managed to connect those two things…”

Gawain couldn’t help but press a hand to his forehead. “Why do I feel a little… grossed out?”

“It’s not gross at all,” Rebecca quickly replied. “Even though it’s slime monster excrement, slime monsters are basically elemental creatures. What they secrete is more like a byproduct of alchemical reactions—a kind of mixed slag, but clean. Auntie, didn’t you once tell me that mages in the Violet Kingdom even use slime monster secretions as a facial treatment to improve their skin?”

Heddy covered her face. “…That was actually an insult…”

Rebecca scratched her head. “Huh? Really?”

Listening to their conversation, Gawain quickly came to accept the source of the “tire” material before him.

He knew about slime monsters—weak but incredibly resilient magical creatures that usually live near mana hotspots. They’re a fusion of earth element and biomass. Wild slime monsters aren’t aggressive, but because they dwell near mana concentrations, stronger magical beasts often roam nearby, making them hard to catch. Still, since they’re not particularly useful, only a few mages seek them out for specific materials; most people don’t pay them much attention.

As elemental beings, slime monsters consume soil and decaying plants, leaving behind various gel-like secretions—that’s their “excrement.” But as Rebecca said, if you adjust your mindset, it’s really just a byproduct of magical reactions…

No matter how you look at it, drawing inspiration from slime monster secretions—and even thinking to make tires out of them—is truly a fresh and unconventional idea.

With a curious expression, Heddy poked the grayish-white, slightly elastic “tire” with her finger. “You must have treated it, right? Normal slime monster secretions should be softer than this, and smell stronger…”

“We mixed in very fine quartz sand,” Rebecca nodded, “and used giantwood tree resin to remove the odor. It worked pretty well, but I think there’s still room for improvement. Also, to get the secretions to meet our standards, we tested many different ‘feeds.’ This current formula definitely isn’t the best yet…”

Slime monsters are peculiar elemental creatures—they eat anything, then perform complex magical reactions on what they consume, drawing energy from the process. Their physiology is like a continuous alchemical reaction. So depending on what they eat, their secretions vary widely—though they’re mostly gels of different viscosities and hardness.

Gawain gave a slight nod as he looked at the grayish “tire.”

This world probably has no natural rubber, and humans will never be able to produce petroleum-based synthetic rubber. But alternatives have emerged.

A lowly, primitive magical creature has solved a major problem in magic engineering. Regardless of how Rebecca came up with the idea, that fact alone gave Gawain enough confidence in the future.

“Can it move now?” Gawain pointed at the prototype magitek vehicle on the mechanical platform, his heart full of anticipation.

“Of course~~” Rebecca said cheerfully. “We already tested it hovering before you arrived and fixed a bunch of small issues. Now it can move perfectly. We haven’t tried driving it outside yet, but I think it could.”

“No time to waste. Show me.”

“Alright~~” Rebecca had been waiting for this moment. She immediately agreed and hurried toward the mechanical platform—eager to personally demonstrate this marvel of magitek engineering.

Gawain watched as Rebecca climbed onto the platform, then climbed up onto the steel-framed mechanical beast. He saw her sit in the crude seat welded directly to the frame, then start pulling levers and twisting wrenches in front of the controls. One by one, runes on the chassis lit up, a low hum rose from the connection between the power spine and the mana engine, and countless gears and levers began to vibrate slightly, building up surging power—

Heddy listened to the sounds coming from the machine and watched Rebecca’s excited fiddling with the levers, worry creasing her face. “Ancestor, are you sure this thing is safe?”

“Trust her,” Gawain said quietly. “And trust the countless technicians who have worked on this for so long.”

Heddy opened her mouth as if to say more, but all her words caught in her throat when she saw what happened next—

The heavy industrial beast, forged from black steel with countless exposed mechanical parts, let out a low, guttural roar. The rotary mana engine powered all the mechanisms into motion. Amid the vibrations and noise, its four wheels slowly began to turn.

“Ancestor, look! It’s moving!!”

Rebecca shouted joyfully, pulling another lever on the left side of the machine. With a series of clicks as gears shifted, the wheels spun faster. Amid the cacophony and shaking, the massive machine rolled off the platform. Like a human infant’s first cry upon entering the world, its sound was loud and raucous.

The mechanical scholars and magitek technicians around the platform cheered and applauded enthusiastically.

Gawain knew the Nicholas Core’s machining precision could be very high—but that was with perfected blueprints. When building prototypes, to verify the design and increase success rates, to leave enough safety margins for all mechanical parts, and to allow engineers to monitor wear and facilitate disassembly and modification, these initial machines always had acceptable tolerances between parts. These tolerances caused the noise and vibration during operation. Though chaotic and loud, the mechanical scholars found the sounds familiar and comforting.

They signaled the birth of a new mechanical creation—the clashing and grinding of gears and levers was the proud announcement of a new mechanical spirit entering the world.

Rebecca drove the crude prototype off the platform, then controlled it as it circled the spacious workshop floor again and again. The young lady who should have been dressed in elegant noble gowns, sitting on a terrace adorned with flowers and gold, sipping tea and admiring blossoms, was now clad in a dirty researcher’s coat, sitting amid iron frames and parts, shouting louder than the machine beneath her—

“Ancestor, look! Auntie, look! It really moves! It can even run!!”

She laughed like a child.

Amid Rebecca’s joyful laughter, the magitek vehicle’s lever was pushed into a higher gear. Within the workshop’s space, the complex machine accelerated again, roaring loudly as the mana engine drove the gear train, propelling the vehicle swiftly toward the workshop’s exit. Clearly, Rebecca intended to take it outside.

A flicker of worry crossed Heddy’s face, but Gawain gently pressed her shoulder.

Heddy exhaled softly, setting aside unnecessary concerns. With a legendary figure watching over them, neither Rebecca nor her “mechanical friend” should cause any major trouble.

But just as she relaxed, the machine—already at the workshop door—suddenly emitted a strange screeching sound. Accompanied by a series of metallic clanks, the vehicle slowly came to a halt amid heavy vibrations. The magical runes on the power spine went dark one by one.

Gawain and Heddy exchanged a glance, then a crowd rushed over to the stalled machine.

Rebecca pulled levers and stomped on pedals, but when she couldn’t restart it, she climbed down from the seat, face full of frustration.

“It’s broken.”

She said miserably to Gawain.

But before he could comfort her, Rebecca turned away, pulling a wrench and screwdriver from her pocket. She began struggling to remove the cover between the mana engine and the mechanical compartment.

A swarm of technicians gathered around, and the Nicholas Core floated above the vehicle, helping Rebecca extract jammed and even warped gears from the transmission and differential.

In front of Gawain and Heddy, the mechanical scholars and magitek technicians began discussing:

“The gear shift seems jammed…”

“The differential looks fine… it was damaged by inertia after the transmission suddenly locked up.”

“How could it jam? It worked fine during isolated tests.”

“Maybe the lubricant’s effectiveness dropped due to heat from friction?”

“No, that can’t be. The alchemical grease we use in automatons withstands much higher temperatures than gear friction.”

“Hey, look at this connecting rod—it seems to have jammed! It came loose during the vibrations! The connection method here is flawed!”

Just as Gawain hesitated whether to step in, the technicians seemed to have reached a conclusion.

Rebecca emerged from the crowd, her face and hands smeared with grease, but her eyes—once full of frustration—now sparkled again. “Ancestor, we figured it out! One connecting rod’s connection was faulty…”

“This is our mistake,” a mechanical scholar in blue overalls stepped forward. Gawain recognized him as one of Hammer’s apprentices. “We underestimated the impact of vibrations.”

“It’s okay. Prototype failures are normal.” Gawain’s tone held no blame. On the contrary, his cheerful mood was undiminished by this minor mechanical hiccup.

Though there was a malfunction, it was just an unavoidable part of development—the real significance of today’s test was that Rebecca drove the prototype magitek vehicle off the platform.

This meant that, at least overall, the magitek vehicle’s design was a success.

He lifted his gaze toward the mechanical platform at the workshop’s center, then back to the prototype quietly parked by the door.

From rolling off the platform, to testing inside the workshop, to reaching the exit—the first magitek vehicle had traveled only four or five hundred meters.

But that was enough. A full four or five hundred meters.

(End of chapter)