Cat With a Raygun

Joe had several projects he wanted to work on in town. The first thing he wanted to do was work on his idea for making cheaper arcane devices. He teleported out to a forest further south of Rust's Edge to cut down the tops of several trees. He didn't want to always go for the local trees to spread out the loss of trees so they could be restored faster. He got another level of Logging and cast Speed Plant Growth on every tree after he took the top of it to help it regrow faster. He used Harvest to get a couple Chests of Extra Storage and the rest he took as charcoal that he filled the chests with, except for several planks of wood he had another use for later.

Next Joe returned to his workshop and started up his smelting furnaces and started making copper ingots from the huge pile of copper ore he had in the corner after collecting all the copper Otto had bought for him in Trenos. If this worked Joe might be better off traveling to the source and buying it directly, but that was a project for the future. Joe raised his Smelting by another level by the time he made a dozen ingots, which was enough to test the viability of his idea. He used the other planks of wood he brought to make a box for the ingots. In the box he carved the patterns for the Meditation skill that he had incorporated into his armor and filled them with the remaining magisteel from the hammers project.

Joe put the dozen copper ingots into the box, along with more raw copper ore to fill the remaining space, then teleported with it to the mana diamond cavern below the mines. He set the box next to the spring right by the stone pedestal with the mana diamond and could immediately see the box working to draw the manachlorian power into the box's contents.

After going back to his workshop Joe could get started on his next project, as the first one would be a while before he knew if it worked or not. Joe took his sketch book and went out to the river and started traveling north until he found what looked like a good spot. Instead of sitting on the cold ground, Joe used Levitation to sit in mid air while he sketched out designs for a new building that would extend slightly into the river from the western bank. Joe's Schematic Drafting went up another level from the designing of the new building.

It took Joe and Kerras four days to gather all the stone and wood they would need for the new building. Joe's Stone Cutting went up 2 levels and his Logging went up another level along with his Endurance. Afterwards Joe, Kerras, and Malcolm only took three days to actually build the new lumber mill working together. Joe's Carpentry and Masonry each went up by another level. Kerras gained a level as a Mason and learned a new spell, which he demonstrated for Joe to learn.

Meld Stone (Level 1). This spell allows the caster to combine multiple pieces of stone or brick together to form a single structure. Stones can be melded together in an area up to 1 cubic meter per spell level. Multiple castings can add additional stone or brick to larger pieces or existing foundations.

Stamina cost: 150 stamina per casting

Now that the outside of the new lumber mill was complete, Joe would need to work on the insides. Malcolm asked when they would be installing the water wheel to power the saw mechanism and Joe informed him that it wouldn't have a wheel. The saw would instead be an arcane device. It would still be powered by the flow of the river, but no wheel would be involved in collecting the energy flow. Before that could be made, though, Joe needed more steel. Rather than take from the town's supply of ore, Joe decided to mine for himself. It had been a while since he last mined and he could use the extra strength from leveling up the skill.

- - - - -

It took another week before Joe finished the mundane internal parts of the lumber mill, although he made them using non-mundane methods. He made wood and steel tracks for the logs and cut wood to travel along. Instead of metal rollers he used stone, utilizing the Shape Stone spell to get them the perfect shape. His Mining skill had gone up one level, his Shape Stone spell three levels, and his Spell Conduit skill 2 more levels. Now the actual hard parts had to be made.

Joe ranked up his Test Pattern ability because he was changing the pattern for Levitation and combining it with Speed Boost before he eventually got a version that worked within Test Pattern to make a spinning blade work at high speeds. Joe also didn't want it to be a safety hazard, so he was able to extract the part from the Harvest pattern that only let it work on bodies to ensure the blade would not spin against any living creature.

Joe made two saws, one vertical and one horizontal. Next, instead of a crane to move logs from the river to the mill, Joe designed an arcane lift using the levitation spell as its basis. Several arcane lifts were made that could operate throughout the mill to move the lumber through the various sections of the mill as it was worked from a raw log to finished planks of wood.

Joe had two more things he wanted to put in the lumber mill before he would consider it completed. The most important was a power source, but that was rather easy. The harder thing to make was a recycling machine to take care of leftover pieces of wood. The way his Harvest spell worked it couldn't affect more than one target at a time, but he wanted the arcane recycler to do precisely that. That way even sawdust could be loaded into the machine and turned into useful charcoal.

Joe gave his Test Pattern ability another workout, but not enough to rank it up again yet before he finally got a working pattern to affect multiple objects at once. He even got it to recognize any amount of sawdust inside the machine as a single object, which would cut back on energy costs.

By the time Joe was done with the lumber mill he had gained another two levels of Arcane Gadgeteer and another level in Mage. He continued to put his unassigned points into Intelligence. Of course he got another new spell for his Mage level.

Sudden Wind (Level 1). This spell allows the caster to create a gust of wind in a direction of his choice. The maximum force of the wind is determined by the caster's Intelligence. The wind can persist for up to a minute per level of the spell.

Mana cost: 15 mana per casting

- - - - -

“And this is how you move the logs up from the water,” Joe explained to Malcolm, Ferric, and the others who wanted a tour of the new facility. Joe grabbed a metal rod connected by a cable to a metal box installed against the wall. He pointed at a log he had Kerras float down the river and pressed a button on the log.

“Now, you must keep this button pushed down to keep the lift active and then you just move the rod to make the object you've grabbed with it move. There are more lifts next to each station to move the products around.”

Ferric looked in awe at the entire process. “This is amazing, Joe. And all of this works on its own?”

“Well, more or less. Depending on how much you use the various devices the system may require time to recharge. I can install batteries to expand the power storage so this place can run longer. Additionally, each station can be powered directly by the user's mana or stamina. In fact, I'd recommend doing that rather than use the power systems I installed as that can help train your Stamina Growth or Mana Channeling skill, unless you have need for those resources soon after doing things here.”

Gymmie looked excited by the machines around, “Does this mean I can use this place even though I don't have stamina or mana yet?”

“Why, yes, you certainly could.”

“Now, Gymmie, don't get any wild ideas. Those saw blades are mighty dangerous and I don't know if I want you near them when you don't have much Toughness,” Malcolm sternly told his son.

“Oh, don't worry about that, Malcolm. I installed safety mechanisms on the blades. Ferric, could you activate the vertical saw?”

Ferric went to the station and activated it the way Joe had shown earlier and the blade started spinning. Joe manually pushed the log he had brought up from the river a minute ago through the blade. When the log was almost at the end where his hand was pushing on it the blade suddenly stopped.

“See? The blade will not spin if a living creature is in its path. While the blade itself is certainly pointy, it's not really that sharp, it relies on its speed and strength to cut through the wood, so it can't do much, even to someone like Gymmie if he accidentally touches it.”

“Joe, I've seen lumber mills in big cities before, but none of them can handle the kinds of loads we'll be able to process here in the time we can do it with your arcane saws. This can revolutionize the industry,” Malcolm said.

“Sadly, probably not. Until I can find a way to do it without magisteel, I doubt anyone will be wanting to make the investment it would cost. It took me 10 ingots of magisteel to make everything, and that doesn't even include the extra energy storage I'm thinking of adding.”

“They're fools, then. This place is worth the cost, from what I can see. We can also use the concept of your heater devices to make wood kilns to create finished wood ready for working.”

“I'll read up on how wood kilns wood and then I'm sure I can put something together.”

“Excellent,” Malcolm said. “Ferric, if Joe can get his steelwood seeds to grow and these saws can handle that kind of material then we can make a fortune before the magisteel is ever discovered. No one has ever had a mass production of steelwood lumber.”

Ferric laughed, “It would certainly make us popular without being targeted, but I like the idea of revolutionizing everything, not just the lumber industry. That requires magisteel becoming more mainstream. Or just having Joe design everything.”

- - - - -

Joe was sketching out some ideas for his next project when there was a knock at his door. It was Ferric.

“Good evening, Ferric. Have a seat. Would you like me to warm up anything for you?”

“No, that's alright, Joe. I don't know if I'm going to be here long,” Ferric said cryptically.

Confused Joe asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I'm not sure. I guess it depends on whether or not you're ready to share who you really are.”