A Curse of Competence

7

^^ Ilene and Demos's Workshop ^^

Four years was quite the length of time to spend being told that Magic would be impossible, even with the Skills necessary, but I did trust Demos' expertise on the matter, as the subject was beyond my current understanding, so I waited patiently, carefully learning how most of my skills worked, somewhat. Most of them didn't work at all, due to what Demos called 'Mana Deficiency', like I was missing a Nutrient that was required for them to activate, but I wasn't going to waste my time pining for abilities that didn't yet work; instead, I spent four years teaching basic physics, chemistry, and mathematics to the people who'd professed themselves to be my 'Tutors', as well as designing things that didn't require Magic, the most in-depth of which was Father's Ship, which had arrived up the river from its latest mission off around the coast of this continent and was sitting in the River just beyond the illusory Bramble Wall.

With some basic, simple changes, an old-fashioned screw-type propeller could be added to the ship, increasing its speed at least quintuple its current with only one easy change. Slightly altering the dimensions of the sails would also have an estimated effect of ten percent increase in speed and thirty percent increase in maneuverability and control during gales. Using what little Magic could be learned from reading all of Demos' books, the 'engine' for the screw would be powered by a steam engine made entirely of Magic, thusly removing the need for a coal storage room as well as a boiler and much of the massive machinery that needed to be implanted in a ship for a steam screw; with just a small item the size of a wardrobe, the necessary force for the screw could be created and controlled from the Helm without any issue. Cosmetically, there would be no change, as all of the equipment was below the waterline, and from outside it simply looked like a propeller was replacing the rudder; for the interior, the only change was that one portion of the cargo hold was walled off, decreasing the eighty-meter long room to about seventy five meters, instead.

Power was of course required for such things, and while having the Wizards aboard earn their keep in that way would be amusing, it would also be inefficient, so instead, at the front of the ship under the waterline, -as well as along the hull and keel of the ship, turning everything below the waterline into what looked like an herd of barnacles,- a series of small fist-sized slip turbines would be installed that would gather rotational kinetic energy from the water as it was pressed forward, powering the screw and all of the other changes that would be added to the ship with their gathered 'Mana' instead of Electricity.

That seemed like enough changes to effectively increase its speed to nearly ten times its previous speeds, even with no surplus, which seemed unlikely given my calculations about the available energy gathered from the speed of the ship and the water pressure, so I took my blueprints to Demos, asking him to fact-check the assumptions I'd made about all the Magic required; I wasn't even an adept in Magic, after all, so I needed a Master's eyes to look over and make sure I'd made no mistakes.

"Impossible." Blunt as always, Demos sternly rejected my plans, setting them between us and pointing at my Magic steam engine. "While the Mana released by water as it turns into steam is indeed powerful, the attempt of trapping it in a mana stone, which is the centerpiece of this system, would shatter the stone entirely and likely result in your death. And these little water wheels, you can't just collect Mana like that, and they certainly can't store it in a Mana Stone; Mana Stones are Conduits, easing the process of transforming mana into elemental effects, but they cannot store mana."

I nodded slowly, examining the engine a bit and deciding that the system would be mostly fine without any storage system, so long as the mana moved properly; the plans required nothing beyond the power of the turbines, but he'd considered them worthless, leading to his faulty idea that the system required power to be kept within the crystals, but I'd always intended them firstly as simple conduits for the mana gathered by the decompression of water into steam, so I could really find no faults in my plans at all, given that information... but still, having a method to store mana would help me, considering I couldn't use Magic or my Skills without Mana, and I currently had none. "I see... so if I had something that could store mana, the entire issue would resolve itself?"