NOVEL NEXT [Vol.5] Ch.7 Procurement
For the first half of the month, I spent time growing a larger crystal to test how crystal size affects the effectiveness of the mana draining liquid. I ran a few tests with smaller crystals, and had interesting results, which warranted growing a larger crystal for further extrapolation. With smaller crystals, the length of time it took for them to break generally increased, until you reached about the medium size of the natural crystals. Beyond that point, I had to increase the concentration of the mana draining liquid to keep them from breaking as soon as they reached the surface. Even then, I couldn't use much smaller crystals, as they didn't have enough energy to drive the convection current in the liquid.
This would imply that increasing the crystal size should decrease how long it takes for the crystal to break, except I know that as their size grows and they're in air, it takes them longer to break on the surface, up until the point where they don't break at all. Which means I need more data points to attempt to fully understand what effect increasing crystal size has on the whole operation. I'd expect that regardless, adding the liquid will only increase the time it takes for a crystal to break, but how much each effect contributes to the duration is completely unknown. Which is why I have a grown crystal now, which is is twice the height of the natural crystals I initially tested.
Some basic math seems to indicate that for a crystal which is twice as tall or eight times the volume, you need four times the volume of liquid to keep it on the surface for the same amount of time. In other words, the volume of liquid needed increases with the square of the height of a crystal, but with a caveat that you do gain some amount of extra time on the surface without breaking based on how long the crystal would normally take to break while on the surface.
Given some rough estimates, I think if I make a container to go onto a cart for most of the trip, then get the strongest in the village to help haul the container the rest of the way from the village to the lab, we can probably transport a 3 foot crystal during the eclipse after next. I'll need time to grow the crystal so I'll miss the next eclipse, unfortunately.
On another hand, I'm debating offering up a low paid job for some of the members of the construction crew to help me with growing the crystal. In the past, a few months of working with crystals when close to reaching the level cap has granted access to mana affinity, which over the life of a demon can contribute a significant amount to their total mana pool. I wouldn't really need help with growing the crystal, since I can work 24 hours a day, but it seems wise to help some goblins gain access to a rare trait, so I'll ask Zeb to send his lowest prestige stone shaping goblins who are closest to their next prestige.
If I have them helping, I can probably actually operate three apparatuses at the same time with a surplus of the crystal material being made, so I can make a few crystals in the smaller two apparatuses in parallel so the next time I go to grow crystals it won't take as long. Normally, getting enough crystal material would be the bottleneck, but I can't really operate the apparatuses while half asleep. I can, however, keep extending our exploratory tunnels to find more crystal bubbles during that time, which should provide us with more than enough crystal material, as long as I keep finding them at the same rate I did in the past.
Of the goblins Zeb was in charge of, only two fit the criteria that I gave for mana affinity. Having the extra set of hands during the day is nice though. They trade off on making charcoal from wood that I collect at night, and processing the vacuum containers that I make while working with the apparatuses for growing crystals. I'm basically doing the work of four people, while together they're doing one person's work, but that's fine. They're very low prestige after all, and I've lived many years and gained a lot of abilities and stats. One of the two goblins did prestige in the last few days, and gained mana affinity, so even if the other one doesn't get it, I don't feel like it's been a waste having them here.
I'm almost done growing the 3 foot crystal, and we're now four days from the eclipse. I've also grown four 1 foot crystals, and two 2 foot crystals. In the future, I can use these as seeds for future larger crystals. I've also extended the exploratory mine tunnel a significant distance. Although it's only anecdotal, it does feel like I've started to find fewer crystal bubbles as I've gotten further from the original cave. That said, I could always make branching paths from the existing tunnel to stay closer to the cave, and I expect I'd continue finding a lot of the crystals. In other words, I don't think I'm close to depleting the supply of the crystals any time soon.
I finished the crystal and the container with a day to spare, and got Zaka and two hobgoblins to agree to help me move the heavy crystal container during the eclipse tomorrow. I also informed Konkur that yesterday I ran into a new rock layer in the exploratory tunnel. I brought him some samples. Within that layer, I also didn't find any immediate crystal pockets, so I suspect that I won't find any within that layer, but I can't say for certain.
It is nice having someone else that I can trust the new rock discovery to, rather than trying to figure out if it has any usefulness myself. Though I might end up working with him after I transport the crystal if it seems like that rock is valuable in any way. After I get the crystal set up for Tiberius, I won't have any projects of my own that I'll be working on anyway, so it might be useful for me to assist them if it speeds up the development of a new resource.
Early in the morning, the eclipse began. Overnight I drained the crystal of it's mana, and then moved it into the large container before moving it on a cart to begin the process of bringing it down the mountain. With the help of the two goblins, we were able to transfer it from one cart to the next, and get the container down to the city after six hours of work. We had about an hour and a half of eclipse left to transport the container from the city to the lab, and about two and a half hours after that before we risked the crystal breaking. I planned everything to give us about thirty minutes of leeway.
If I planned for more leeway, then the container would become excessively heavy, making the transport process more difficult, and would slow us down even more. There might have been a size a little smaller, or a little bigger which would have been better, but this seemed to be a good estimate, so I went with it. If we waited four months, a majority of the eclipse would happen at night, and I could have shrunk the container drastically, but considering we could make it work as is, I figured we should go for it.
Ultimately, we made it to the basement with about ten minutes to spare. I hadn't done a trial run, and the path was a bit more difficult for Zaka and the hobgoblins than I expected. There still isn't an actual road to the lab, and there are tree stumps scattered about in the path, so hauling a large object which obscured vision was tricky. I made a mental note that if the lab shows any results, I should ask Zeb to build a road with a cart rail to it, which would make these sort of tasks significantly easier.
After I unloaded the crystal from its carrying container and into the tank that Tiberius wanted me to make for him, I noticed that he had already filled a few of the holding containers I made for him with blood. He had almost two months to procure it, so I'm not surprised he has some, I just hope that it is, in fact, fish blood. At this depth, it'll take a little bit of time for the crystal to charge up all the way, so all of us returned to the city, since there wasn't much else to do at the lab.