Chương 237

The news of the fallen coast silenced the war room, removing the last traces of political posturing. For a long moment, the only sound was the distant pounding of the Earth Forges. Then, Borin shifted. The stubborn dwarf disappeared, replaced entirely by the Clanlord who ruled this part of the Adamantine Range.

"Seal the deep roads," Borin ordered.

"Stoke the primary furnaces to maximum capacity and open the armories. Every dwarf capable of lifting a hammer or casting a ward is now on active duty. We will operate on a war footing." The dwarven generals snapped out of their stupor, giving sharp salutes before rushing out of the chamber to carry out his commands. Samael took out a slender silver tuning fork and a roll of treated parchment from his robes.

"I need to inform Archmage Valentia and the Sanctum immediately. They are expecting a land-based march from the Ironwoods, not an amphibious assault on your western flank. Our entire defensive line might be exposed to a pincer attack." He didn't mention that for it to happen, the Adamantine Forge would have to fall, but judging by the scowl on Borin's face, he didn't miss that. Still, he didn't attempt to stop Samael. Orion watched closely as the Collegium warmage prepared to cast.

The witches of the Lunar Sanctum used crystal orbs for communication, relying on light magic's reflective qualities to send messages, but only the strongest could hold full conversations. Samael's approach was completely different. He spread out the parchment and quickly drew a series of interconnected runes across it with a stylus. Once the message was finished, he struck the silver tuning fork against the edge of the table.

A resonant note filled the air, and Samael pressed the vibrating base of the fork directly against the center of the parchment. A moment later, the paper dissolved into a cloud of glowing blue ash, which swirled in a spiral, catching an invisible current in the Field, and shot upward, passing harmlessly through the solid stone ceiling as it sped eastward. Orion must have been staring too hard, because Samael seemed to notice his fascination and offered a faint smile.

"A neat trick, isn't it? We encode our intent into acoustic vibrations and weave them directly into the Weave's mana currents. It is faster, impossible to intercept, and leaves no physical trace." Its job done, he pocketed the tuning fork.

"If you do join the Collegium when this is over, Voidwalker, I'll gladly teach you the theorems behind it."

"I will keep the offer in mind," Orion replied politely, though the prospect of studying such elegant mechanics was truly tempting. It seems less interactive than the orbs, which let two witches speak directly, but this probably works better for keeping secrets, and I hardly sensed any mana use. Daelin interrupted the exchange, tapping Orion on the shoulder.

"The warriors in the west will do their part to hold the Iron State back for as long as they can, but we need to do ours. If we're going to update the defenses before the next attack, we need a working prototype of your Barrage weapon. Follow me." Leaving Samael in the war room to coordinate the overarching strategy with Borin, Orion and Pauline followed Daelin back out into the corridors. They took a different route this time, descending a wide, spiraling ramp that led directly into the manufacturing floors. Wow.

I doubt anyone from another faction has ever been openly invited to see this. The immense scale of the dwarven industry displayed before them was astonishing. The cavern floor stretched for at least a mile as a vast network of interconnected foundries, cooling vats, and assembly lines. Rivers of molten iron flowed in perfectly straight channels, supplying both heat and raw material to the hundreds of smiths working at their anvils.

Automated runic trip-hammers rose and fell in perfect unison, their strikes forming a deafening rhythm that shook the stone beneath Orion's boots. It was an orchestra of heat, sweat, and steel, moving with such efficiency that it far surpassed the Iron State's foundry he had seen beneath Silverpeak. But then again, that was a covert operation. This is the result of centuries of work, fully backed by a clan. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Daelin guided them to a secluded engineering bay where a team of skilled artisans had already disassembled a traditional magma projector. The weapon's barrel was fully exposed, revealing the detailed matrices etched into its inner lining.

"The standard projector uses compression arrays to gather magma and pressure-release runes to fire it in a continuous stream," Daelin explained, gesturing to the dismantled components.

"It works fabulously against Ice elementals and the sort of monsters powerful enough to dare attack us, but now we need to swap the compression chambers for acceleration feeds and use the solid slag byproducts as ammunition." Orion stepped back to let a dwarf pass, leaning on a sturdy workbench. He intentionally stayed silent despite having many questions, choosing to let the dwarves do their work. These were the master craftsmen of this domain.

Intervening too much would only create resentment and slow the process, so he concentrated on observing and studying how the mana flowed as the engineers carefully unspooled the old enchantments. The dwarves worked with incredible speed, grinding away the compression runes and etching new, jagged acceleration matrices into the bronze. However, as they began to reassemble the feed line, an older engineer paused, rubbing his soot-stained forehead in frustration.

"The slag chunks are too irregular," the engineer grumbled, pointing to a bin of jagged, cooled rock.

"If we speed them up through a smooth barrel, they will bounce against the runic lining and fracture before they even exit the weapon. We'll lose half our velocity to internal friction, and the launcher won't be good for more than a few dozen shots." Daelin frowned, tracing the shape of the barrel and seemingly noticing the same problem. Once it was clear that the artisans were confused about how to solve it, he looked at Orion, silently inviting his input.

Humming, he stepped closer to get a better look at the problem.

"You need to stabilize the projectiles using angular momentum," he eventually suggested, picking up a piece of chalk. He drew a quick diagram of the barrel's interior, adding a series of spiraling grooves along the length of the bronze.

"If you rifle the barrel and adjust the acceleration matrices to push the slag along those grooves, it will impart a rapid spin to the rock. The spin will gyroscopically stabilize the irregular chunks, preventing them from bouncing against the sides and greatly increasing your effective range and the weapon's resilience." The older engineer stared at the chalk drawing for a long moment, his eyes widening slightly as things clicked into place.

He let out a hearty laugh, slapping Orion on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble.

"Rifling!" the engineer cheered.

"By the Ancestors, it's so simple it's brilliant. We just have to carve the grooves, align the runes to the spiral, and the slag will spit true." It also had the benefit of only requiring them to work on the inner barrel, rather than redo the entire thing, so while it would add a bit of time to their work, it saved much more in the long run. The team instantly began modifying the launcher, their enthusiasm renewed by the elegant solution.

While the engineers focused on carving the rifling, Daelin signaled Orion to come over to a smaller table away from the main assembly line.

"You have a good eye for mechanics, and I do not doubt your intelligence," Daelin noted, crossing his arms.

"But you seem to be reading something every time you watch any work of magic. I watched you do it in the war room, and I saw you doing it just now." Orion blinked, caught off guard by the observation. Should I feign ignorance? No one but Mom noticed until I told them, and revealing what I can do would be a disadvantage… But he seems to have something in mind.

"It's a habit. My Trait demands intense focus to analyze the underlying data of the Field." Daelin hummed, as if that confirmed his hypothesis, and Orion had to wonder how much the young dwarf had learned by watching him. It was a bit jarring because he was usually in that position.

"Your Trait seems to be bottlenecked," Daelin said to him gently. As a Runesmith, he understood how magic interacted with physical media better than almost anyone else, which was the only thing stopping Orion from dismissing him. He then pointed to the spectacles resting on the bridge of Orion's nose.

"You are trying to push an advanced analytical Trait through a basic enchanted crystal. The material itself seems quite conductive, but I can see it hasn't been optimized properly. This forces your mind to do much of the heavy lifting, straining you and probably limiting the amount of data you can safely retrieve." Orion hesitated. The System Detecting Glasses were among his most valuable possessions, giving him the ability to measure the world around him, which was almost impossible for anyone below tier four.

The idea of having someone else tamper with them was inherently risky.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked carefully. Daelin reached into a pocket and pulled out a spool of wire, no thicker than a human hair. The metal was a captivating mix of deep silver and pitch black, seeming to absorb the light around it.

"This is Adamantite," Daelin said, letting the wire catch the glow of the nearby forge.

"It is one of the most magically conductive materials on the continent. Give me the glasses, and I will reforge the frames and etch a network of microscopic conduits directly into the lenses. Instead of fighting the glass, your Trait will flow through the adamantite, allowing the spectacles to share the processing burden." It was a very generous offer, considering how costly such a material must have been, and a strong display of trust. Daelin was offering a coveted dwarven resource to aid an outsider.

Orion took a deep breath and finally decided that diplomacy depended on mutual trust. He reached up, took off the glasses, and handed them to the dwarven prince. The world immediately returned to normal, losing the sharp edges he had grown so used to after reworking them. Pauline shifted uneasily in the corner, clearly upset by the vulnerability, but she stayed silent, trusting he knew what he was doing. Daelin didn't give him time to reconsider, placing the glasses on the anvil and getting to work.

The process was mesmerizing to watch. He used a set of incredibly fine tools, carefully coaxing the adamantine wire to fuse seamlessly with the existing frames through focused bursts of heat coming from the table itself, which proved to be much more than just a workbench.

With a magnifying loupe pressed to his eye, Daelin spent a long time etching invisible pathways into the outer edges of the lenses, connecting the glass to the conductive metal, and being extremely careful to avoid damaging the matrices Orion himself had imprinted on the surface. It was painstaking work, the kind that only thousands of hours of practice could enable, and Orion, despite his much deeper understanding of material sciences, simply lacked the practice to match it.

Eventually, after nearly two hours, Daelin stood up, cracking his back.

"Push your mana into the frame," he instructed, stepping back.

"Sync it to your specific signature while the metal cools, or the conduits will reject your Trait." Orion didn't need to be told twice, feeling oddly naked without his glasses, and gently rested his fingertips against the still-warm metal. He poured a steady flow of neutral mana into the adamantine, and the metal hummed beneath his touch, followed by a flash of light across the lenses before settling into a polished shine.

Daelin picked them up, inspecting his work with a critical eye, before giving a satisfied nod and handing them back.

"Try them on." Orion slid the glasses back onto his face.