October 25, 2152
Before dawn, Emory was already awake and ready for the day. She started by finishing the manuals she started the day before which took until midmorning. There wasn't a lot of new information, but she did learn the reason for why the process was split between core expansion and core purification. The first part, the training she taught her friends and many others, was to push the core to nearly its maximum size. Her father had confirmed that there were indeed individual limits to how large a person's mana pool could be, but these limits were far greater than the average person expected. This explained why her group had grown so much because the limits humanity taught were much lower than how far they could really go. However, since she had used so much magik when casting Contract on her friends, they would all have much larger mana pools than the average person. However, core purification was extremely important as well because it allowed the magik core to passively draw in magik unlike a vessel that only held magik a person actively drew into their body. Finally, just because a person had a fully formed core, it didn't mean that they couldn't increase the size of their mana pool. It only meant that the average person would increase their size by ten percent over the course of their lifetime. With the extended life these new people would have, it would be a much slower process.
Finally, around noon, Emory decided she needed to stretch and walk a little bit to break up the monotony of reading books one after another. She wandered aimlessly through the camp, checking on the general routine of it all, before she eventually made her way to the crafting building. Mags, who was just polishing some gear, jumped out of her seat when she saw Emory walk through the doors to the workspace.
Mags yelped, "Emory! I haven't seen you in forever! What brings you in?"
"Not much," Emory shrugged, "I just needed to stand up and walk around, so I'm checking in on different people. How are things going?"
"Ugh so slow. It's mostly been repairs and upkeep, which is fine, but I want to create stuff, not just be a glorified handywoman. Say, since you stopped by, I have something to show you," Mags mentioned as she walked over to a large cabinet. She brought out a metal saucer the size of a hula hoop and long silver tube that looked like a mounted cannon of some kind.
"What are these?" Emory asked as she examined the two devices, "Did you get so bored that you started making things?"
Mags scoffed, "Don't you remember the drawings you gave me when we first got here? Well, most of the ideas didn't pan out mechanically, but I was able to modify some pieces and get you these. The saucers are pressure sensor magik landmines while this big tube is a magik cannon."
"I completely forgot about that," Emory exclaimed, "Tell me about how they work."
"The landmines are pretty straightforward. They're enchanted with a sphere of your choice then planted a few inches below ground. Someone steps on them which causes an explosion of the type of magik you put in them. The test data is a little sketchy on how effective they would be against the Uthid, but it'll neutralize any Mantoan that steps on one," Mags explained clearly.
"Interesting," Emory nodded, "And what about scaling? How many of these could be built in a day?"
Mags rubbed her chin, "Maybe a hundred or so, assuming you had enough people to keep enchanting them. It also depends on how many cannons you would want as well."
"Tell me about the cannons then," Emory replied while she did some calculations in her head.
"These bad boys shoot out a concentrated blast of one of the user's spheres," Mags responded confidently, "With a guided sight on top, you can find a target up to a mile away and hit all those within a twenty-foot radius of the point of impact. The best part is you can continue to fire for long periods of time because each shot takes only a small percentage of your total mana pool."
Emory raised an eyebrow, "How were you able to accomplish such a feat? Normally, you would need an equal amount of condensed magik to create an area of effect from magik."
"Cutting edge forging is all about blending magik with technology," Mags emphasized, "All magik produces a slight electromagnetic force, mostly in the form of photons. Using supercharged magnets, I was able to condense the magik to no larger than the width of a single hair."
"That's incredible. Most people can't concentrate their magik that finely, so this would be a big leap forward depending on how man we had available. With that in mind, how many of these could we make per day?" Emory praised Mags.
"Only twenty-five or so," Mags answered sheepishly, "That's if all the work time was dedicated to making them. They take about two hours to forge, but some of that time is waiting. After the first one gets started, you can overlap the projects."
Emory curled her lip, "That's a bit depressing. Well, we better get started then. Please upload the schematics to Jask so I can have all the outposts working on these."
Mags pulled out the drawings from a drawer in the table and scanned them using her wristwatch. After a couple clicks on her wrist, she gave Emory a thumbs up. Emory then used Jask to send messages to the other outposts to start construction on these as soon as possible. She didn't know when the Apleem would strike next, but when they did, they could consolidate and distribute these cannons to the outposts under threat. Additionally, they could use the travel time to make some of the landmines and distribute those as well. If the Apleem that landed were mostly Mantoan, these tools would be incredibly effective. On the other hand, if they were mostly Uthid, humanity would need every tool in their arsenal to even the playing field. Since Mags had already started working on more cannons, Emory waved goodbye and snuck out of the room.
To pull off all the enchanting needing to be done, Emory started rounding up all troops that had the Creation sphere as well as a variety of others to create variations of the landmines. Using Jask to organize and categorize the troops into different spheres, the process for Yuzuno only took about an hour and could be easily replicated at each of the other outposts. Once the lists of personnel were created, she sent messages to the other leaders to let them know what the plan was. Afterwards, she sent more messages to the people on the lists to explain the change in duties. By the time Emory wrapped up all the directing, it was late afternoon.
With the rest of the day, Emory went back to her cabin to continue working on the Transformation spell. She finished reading through all the literature in the early evening, which was the perfect time since she still had to meet with all her friends before Shepherd arrived the next day. Instead of going and getting them all and bringing them back to Yuzuno, she planned to remotely teleport them like Athos showed her. She sent them all a message to be ready in a few minutes and to turn over conditional control of the outposts to the Council leaders that were on each of their planets. After waiting a few minutes, Emory snapped her fingers in rapid succession by the teleportation pad, and, one by one, they all appeared. It was the first time most of them had seen each other in person in a couple months, so they took a few minutes to greet each other and lightly catch up. In that short time, all six of them had improved their Arcane spheres to level three, meaning they all had fully formed magik cores, albeit borrowed ones for the moment. Once they got done catching up, Emory led them all to the Command Center, picking up Tethys along the way. Except Tethys, they were all a little shocked about the door to one of the conference rooms that still remained off the hinges.
Gatrie asked carefully, "What happened here? Did some wild animal get in somehow?"
"I got a little frustrated earlier," Emory blushed, "Someone thought they could hide things from me." The group stopped momentarily as their jaws dropped while the implications of Emory's current strength rattled around inside their heads. Once they recovered, they followed Emory into the room opposite the one with the torn door and sat down around a boardroom table.