A/N: Like before, you can join the discord channel for questions and discussion with this invite code: X6WeHRn

This chapter takes the place of the Cato's Notes for this arc, I needed to show some of the advances being made while Cato is away.

No sooner than when the fires were out had Cato and the alchemists of the expedition crawling over the battlefield. Partially broken shells still leaking living fire and hissing pits, where the broiling liquid had seeped into the cracks between the old cobbles, littered the landscape. In the distance, a fire set by errant fireshells from the scouting squads found some combustibles, sending up a column of smoke to join the grey pallor in the sky.

Through this sulphurous terrain, there were prizes to be found.

Cato looked at Landar chivying her own gaggle of alchemists into picking up the pieces of fireshells to inspect. The battle might have been successful but Landar's impact detonators were still buggy. Well, he could leave the task to Landar. Cato had his own investigations to do.

Standing in front of the most intact worm, he could feel how intimidating it was. The two meter high specimen was slightly deflated and not the largest either. Its bulk still loomed over the humans gathered around it.

If not for the hole ripped into its side and the stillness, the rest of the worm looked as if it might still get up and move. Cato could only imagine how much more fearsome the beast was when it was still a threat.

He had to hand it to the scouts, those men and women had faced down a horror unlike any other and still maintained order.

"Ready?" Cato asked, looking at the four men stationed two on each side of the wound. They nodded back, swinging down their poles with long glinting billhooks at the end. The hole started at chest height and extended most of the way up to the top of the worm.

"Open it up!" he said. And they put their hooks into the sides of the worm, peeling back the wound. The dark hole into the interior of the worm was like a hole into the monster's maw. The other alchemists looked at each other dubiously.

Did he see something shining in there? Cato squinted but the light was gone.

"Come on, let's take a look, a lamp please?" he put his gloved hands into the hole to pull himself up. Huh, something really did shine back at him.

"Lamp?" Cato called again, pulling his head out of the boneworm. Still hanging on with his forearms on the lip of packed bone and crystal that passed for the thing's armour, Cato looked back to find the nearest alchemist holding out the liquid light lamp nervously.

The moment he took it off the woman's hands, she darted back a healthy distance from the monster.

Cato sighed, the things he did for science...

He pushed the lamp into the wound to get a look. Inside, the worm was indeed hollow, and the internal cavity was lined with what looked like zombie crystals, they were what had been glinting up at him. And these still held a bit of magic! This was the most intact specimen of the boneworms, the interiors of the others had been burnt into a charred mess.

Alright, best not to touch those crystals, given what they knew of zombie reanimation mechanics. There was no telling if this more structured aura could turn living humans into zombies. He hopped back down.

"We have masonry tools with the expedition, right? Hammer and chisels, that sort of thing?" Cato asked. One of the alchemists nodded back.

"Good," Cato nodded, "send a messenger to the camp and ask them to bring the set up. Let's break this thing open and see what makes it work. "

While waiting for the masons' cart, Cato dusted himself of zombie bits and joined Landar who was inspecting the jigsaw puzzle of shell pieces on the work table.

"Oh Cato," she glanced up as he approached but focused back on the bits and pieces again, "it's not looking good. "

Huh. From the pyrotechnics of the blasts, Cato would have thought the shells worked quite well, despite the bad rocketry tests.

"I think about a fifth of the shells are duds. Maybe as much as a quarter. " Landar explained when he asked. She held up a broken piece of shell casting with a pair of tongs.

"This bit is part of the living fire container, and see how its torn down this edge? That's not due to the bursting enchantment. The bursting enchantment pulls the shell apart in all directions, the stress is stretching the metal. This is something tearing the container in half, I think this shell hit something and the bottom sheared off. The worst part is that the failure caused most of the bursting enchantment to not trigger at all. The magic is still on this piece. "

She held out the thin steel and Cato noted the slight feeling of something on it that indicated magic.

"The shells without the detonator were mostly fired at the second half of this stretch but we're still finding shells that failed to properly detonate all the way up at to start of the street. The detonator action is still too slow, if the shell's tip doesn't hit first, it's likely the living fire gets spilled before the detonator can go off. "

Indeed with the shells traveling faster than the speed of sound, even the detonator signal accelerated by magic did not travel fast enough. And even though the shells as they were intended did not work well against the bone worms, the intent was to use them to break up zombie formations. That would require a reliable detonator.

Cato mused over the pieces and met her eye, "do you think it might be worthwhile to look into physical explosives for detonators?"

He recalled vaguely something about cones and shaped charges that defeated armour. It might be worthwhile to create a proper anti-armour shell.

Dear Cato,

We have reached the location of the Gate. The Summoning Circle. Where this adventure all began.

Perhaps the start of your story was not a good memory, but mine was somewhat neutral. And for a high schooler like me or a university student like you, we have come a long way.

I certainly didn't see myself as a revolutionary figure. Much less a successful one.

While foisting the construction of the new government of Illastein onto Queen Amarante was possibly the best decision I could have made, I still feel bad about essentially stirring up trouble and then leaving the rubble behind for others to clean up. They could certainly use the name of the Hero to try to hold the country together.

Queen Amarante might be a fairy tale princess too obsessed with legend and the past, but she at least has a good heart and I know she will not take advantage of the Illastein people. Much better than me waking up one day as dictator.

On the other hand, the bloodiness of the revolution has had a silver lining. The clearing of old interests and the complete overturning of the economy has allowed your industrial aid to take root far faster than anywhere else. Despite the setbacks of the civil war, I fully expect Illastein to adopt an industrial method faster than the other countries. Quite a similar effect that your Chancellor achieved.

I only wish it had not taken so much blood.

The country Inath has been slower to adopt the industrial process than Minmay due to the opposition of the nobles. However, Queen Amarante is fully behind the empowerment of the common people and your suggestion of mentioning the needs of a middle class has mostly convinced her. She still does not like the prospect of industrial warfare, but I believe that the Queen is able to avert war among the human countries.

In any case, the ruins of First Landing are now crawling with every sort of bounty hunter. News of the Legendary Sword has spread and everyone wants to be the one to find it despite the empty towers having been scoured clean through the ages.

Amarante fully expects me to find the Sword. Her only reason why I should be the one is that I am the 'Hero' and therefore the Sword will be found by me. Ancient prophecies aside, I have no idea where to begin.

Please send help.

Morey

Ex-revolutionary, sometime hero

Dear Morey,

I hope this letter does not miss you on your way to First Landing.

I am getting engaged to Landar, and part of the requirement for the Iris Clan's support is that I join the expedition to the North. So I'm going off on an adventure after all.

Or perhaps not. Maybe having seven thousand people would be a bit of a stretch to consider them part of my 'party' like yours.

For that reason, our communication may be delayed. If you have urgent requests, you may direct these, un-ciphered of course, to the University who are receiving my mail. I have instructed them to lend some time to your needs.

The hopes of this expedition are to make contact with the people living to the north and hopefully, find the origin of the zombies. Amarante's more recent legends indicate the zombies first appeared before the Federation had been formed, somewhere north east from this ruin. Further past the river, there is a large and deep forest that the First and Tsar never fully colonized. The zombies came first out of the forest.

I am not hopeful of the second of these objectives. There aren't any supplies and venturing into the wilderness and ruins amid the zombies is not a good prospect.

The first however seems doable. The city itself has been estimated to have fallen no more than two years ago. The stonework and wood are relatively new and the damage has not yet had time to be weathered. I expect the peoples of this plain to have been driven westward by the zombies, with cities and towns falling one after another. Similar to how the Algami Plains to Ranra's east had fallen.

Minmay and Fort Yang merely caught some of the wandering groups that had gotten lost or wandered south, until this city fell and Fort Yang lost its 'protection'. The recent surge is likely population that used to stay in this city or perhaps one further to the west.

I wonder if contact could be peaceful, if us people could work together to fight back against the monsters. The army expects to be welcomed with open arms, having come in a mission to defend the people and move them south.

I have doubts that it would be so easy.

Cato

Head of Minmay University, sometime adventurer

The room was spartan, lacking in all decoration. All the fittings were stainless metal or industrial concrete, the furniture plain but sturdy wood. Unlike the gathering rooms of major parties and larger alliances, the room held no trophies or letters of writ from times past. There was no boasting of wealth or experience here, only a calm efficiency.

The Minmay Guard central planning room held maps. Maps of every country in the Federation, copies of maps of the monster lands beyond. Maps of cities, maps of smaller regions, and their copies. There were filing cabinets of reference reports, deemed of significant value either in information about enemies or about their weapons' performance. Accounts of important past battles. Assessments of threats and capabilities.

The men and women in the room were the Minmay Guard's central staff. Veterans from past conflicts or retired leaders of parties that had been absorbed by the Guard. Their experience reflected this, stern and unyielding, or perhaps they were just mirroring the mood of Curasym, Leader of the Minmay Guard.

"The new reports from the Northern expedition have arrived, I believe everyone has had time to review it. Today, we are focusing on the performance of our weapons, what worked and what did not. What aspects of the weapons can be improved and what new capabilities we need. "

With that introduction, Curasym turned towards the first woman. Hino, the leader of the Minmay knights that had been reduced to peacekeeping and patrols, had been asked to review the mainstay of the army's weapons.

"I will be reviewing the effectiveness of the Model 2, along with evaluating combat doctrine and suggested improvements. The Model 2, being the proposed improvement over the new model gun has performed satisfactorily in the field. The automatic reloading for ten shots has allowed wielders to fire faster and more accurately, something that the improvements in barrel and bullet precisions have helped as well. In its standard role, the Model 2 allows almost three times the firing speed along with twice the effective range at two hundred meters.

The ability to customize the weapon slightly with attachments has allowed variants for different roles, the most prominent being trading off the automatic loading for a fully covered longer barrel with increased range and power.

The initial adoption of individual squad tactics suggested by Cato had been hampered in the new model gun by its poor rate of fire as well as lack of range. In defensive battles, our Guards defaulted to massed fire behind trench works in order to deal significant damage. With the Model 2, I suggest we re-evaluate the feasibility of squads smaller than thirty due to their higher rate of fire.

The reports of the encounters with these bone worms indicate that our guns are no more effective than force bolts. With that in mind, additional training to avoid panic firing and to volley fire force bolts.

On areas for improvement.

The pellet rounds should be removed. Despite the theoretical short range usefulness of a spray of small pellets, the Model 2 is almost never in a position to use it effectively. At short ranges, fire shell launching or bayonets are more powerful and easier to use. Removing this function should reduce the complexity of the spell forming stock and allow for a slightly reduced cost.

Secondly, the fireshell launcher attachment has been well received but is reported to be awkward to use as well as inaccurate. A better way to launch fireshells or larger armour piercing bullets is required while still retaining portability. This would fill a gap in our capability between infantry weapons and spell cannons while not being as short ranged as flamers. "

That such a weapon would be most beneficial to the knights who primarily worked in small teams that couldn't lug around a heavy weapon like a spell cannon was unstated but understood.

"If Landar's rockets can be adapted to fire horizontally-"

Curasym cut the man off before the review could be derailed, "Omal, suggestions for later. Your report on Landar's rockets?"

Being one of the university's first alchemists, Omal had been working with Landar on her more sensitive projects. That missing hand of his might be an inconvenience in the lab but he made up for it with his keen mind.

"Sorry. Yes, the rockets," the alchemist nodded and shuffled his notes, "the rockets performed satisfactorily, with an inaccuracy of about two hundred meters at a range of two kilometers. Which is a little worse than hoped despite the efforts put into making the rocket bodies. Still, the time fuses on the rockets worked well enough in the field, like in testing, and the airburst of living fire makes them more effective than even the best impact fuses. The saturation coverage of fire at the target leaves very little untouched by the fire, I am told.

That and the ability to conduct extremely long range bombardment with a high volume of fire within a short time makes the rockets a powerful weapon that can break entire armies if used effectively.

Cato has mentioned that larger, longer ranged rockets are quite feasible, and there exists a possibility of rockets correcting their paths while in flight as the aiming systems improve. It is clear that despite the success of Landar's rockets, there is room for improvement in almost every area. If the rockets could be made three centimeters larger, we could have gotten another kilometer of range with only ten percent more cost.

Similarly, there is also a parallel to the recent findings of the Hero of past superweapons. Imagine if you will, a rocket a hundred times the size in every dimension, one that could deliver tons of living fire to any target within hundreds or thousands of kilometers. Now imagine these were launched in the same massed fire like we did in this field trial. Now that's a superweapon that can destroy entire cities from a whole country away. "

"We're a little far off from making one of those," Curasym nodded, "thank you for your input however. Omal, your suggestion?"

"I was just going to point out that infantry can carry single rockets to use at spell cannon ranges or for anti-material use," the alchemist said. The others in the review board murmured as the possibilities of rocket weapons started to become clear.

Despite the way that Landar's... pyromaniac proclivities rubbed off on her subordinates, the effectiveness of the rockets was not in question. The alchemist's perspective on the technical advantages was true but it neglected the primary assessment that Curasym had made. The weapon was the most expensive and the least cost effective in terms of money spent to destruction delivered. Its inaccuracy did not help matters either.

But the weapon required very little manpower for its impact. The whole hundred rocket trial had taken one spotter on a balloon, maybe four soldiers on the ground to set the rockets up and one artillerist to calculate the range. Soldiers using rockets could deliver far more firepower than anything else, even spell cannons.

For a industrially powerful and people short Minmay, this was a weapon that fit their circumstances.

"We'll put that down as a successful field trial then. I expect the expedition wants more rockets?" Curasym asked.

"They want more of everything, sir," said Willio, "bullets for guns and for spell cannons, more fireshells, more shields, more carts. You make the weapons, they'll find a use for it. "

The Ironworker company leader had branched out into weapon manufacturing, one that he had been asked to lead due to his experience in large scale production with hazardous machinery. Steel manufactories were dangerous enough on a good day, ammunition manufactories that dealt with living fire by the tons was something that Curasym was happy to leave in his hands.

That missing tip of Willio's smallest finger on his left hand spoke of how dangerous those factories were. Despite stringent safety standards, the factory that filled the rocket and fireshell casings with living fire was isolated inside a hundred meter buffer zone of bare concrete. And a good thing too, that factory had burned down three times while getting the process right. Scaling up production from small workshops to feeding the ammunition use of an army of thousands of soldiers had been fraught with dangerous lessons.

And that army had already shot away half their total ammunition just getting to and securing that ruin.

"Speaking of spell cannons, Willio, what is your input on Cato's suggested solid shot?" Curasym asked.

"Easy enough to make in large quantities. A steel shell with copper or lead filling is strong enough for his purpose, powerful and cheap. We could probably make and ship a small stock in a week, with thousands more ready to go with the next reinforcement of spell cannons. I could make these from a standard ironworks floor, with less risk and greater output.

More important, I think, is the living fire shells. These are considerably more complex and dangerous. Not to mention that the University are continuing Landar's experiments into fuses, shield breaking enchantments and other potential changes. Frankly, Cato's other suggestion of making explosive warheads with nitrocellulose, that we have yet to formulate, are going to be even more challenging.

Living fire is bad enough, I'm not really comfortable with working with stockpiles of things that Cato's warnings say can shatter concrete with just a few handfuls. One mistake could wipe out the entire plant and kill hundreds. And mistakes always happen. If I were to build this, I'd not want it anywhere near Minmay. "

It made sense to Curasym. Development had been advancing at a breakneck pace and the ironworkers' factories were pushing the boundaries of engineering every day. They were trying to stretch beyond what they could do, learning along the way, and that did not give anyone confidence with handling materials even more dangerous than the tricky living fire. At least those could be quenched with the compressed nitrogen tanks issued for fire safety. Explosives gave no time at all to react.

The commander turned to Hino for the military analysis.

"The larger model of spell cannons are sufficiently powerful. The shells were reasonably effective even against the worms that guns were not. Pure magic attacks remain just as magic power inefficient as ever. The current model of spell cannons is thus a useful weapon for destroying dense concentrations of enemies or armoured and fortified targets.

However, the spell cannons are doing too many things. The spell cannons perform multiple roles, with mass target, hard targets and air targets all being what the spell cannon is supposed to kill. There is even a suggestion here to add a higher projectile velocity mode to the spell cannon at high angle to mimic rocket fire but in slower and more sustained bombardment.

As they are now, the spell cannon can be described as the worst of all possibilities. In particular, the anti air role requires an ability to track rapidly moving targets, something that ground targets don't do, and this limits the barrel weight and thus length and therefore the accuracy at range.

I suggest that we divide the roles the spellcannons are expected to play and design them to fit. Anti-material, anti-swarm, artillery, anti-air. Smaller squad portable versions and heavier army weapons. It shouldn't be too hard, we already know how to do these things. Right, Willio?"

The Ironworker wiggled his hands, "depends on how fast the University come with designs. And if the benefits of specialized weapons outweighs the simpler logistics and numbers of the current models. If you have ideas on what these specialized spell cannons need to do..."

Glances went around the table as a certain realization dawned.

Before this, the University had been leading in nearly every area of innovation. Ideas flowed outwards, born from the collaboration of knowledgeable specialists, sponsored by the Chancellor and other interests who hoped they got something useful. When the available space for innovations was large, and the researchers could go anywhere and do anything and still yield useful results, this had worked. But it was poorly focused and did not always refine the ideas for specific purposes, especially those disconnected from the University's goals.

The military had been given guns and spellcannons, and proceeded to use the weapons designed by people who had never actually fought and had only after action reports and a vague grasp of tactics. Cato's world's history had been a guidepost but this was not ideal for getting the most militarily useful weapons for their situation.

"Perhaps we have been doing things wrong," Willio said slowly, "how about this. We should create a list of requirements, a wishlist of the traits we want to see in our weapons. Envision the roles they will play in our forces and the tactics to use them. Then we put the challenge to the University who make the designs to fulfill the roles. Recruit a small number of the design groups from the University to think of more roles and weapons and tactics. "

"Maybe even a research and training division. Who test new weapons, new ideas for the military. " Hino mused, only partially to herself.

"That is a good idea. Hino, Willio, I shall propose this to the Chancellor," Curasym said. This meeting had been more productive than he had predicted.

The men and women were lost in idle daydreams of what a dedicated military design group could do.

"Alright, that concludes the first weapon review meeting of the Minmay Guard. We meet in two hours to discuss budget allocations," Curasym smiled faintly. Budget discussions were much more cutthroat and he was not looking forward to that phase of the performance review.

He did not believe any of the other central staff liked it either but it had to be done.

The garrison left behind at Fort Yang was demoralized and discipline was poor. One could blame the sense that they had been abandoned, left behind while others went ahead to make history. Or the mostly fresh recruits were poorly disciplined and barely trained. Or perhaps they were just bored with doing nothing but training. Zombie attacks had trickled down to the stray group and the occasional lone nightcryer.

All of these reasons were true, but the primary problem was the sheer emptiness of the Fort.

Fort Yang had been the site of multiple attacks, some of the most ferocious battles against monsters and the greatest victories in Federation history. Its defenses reflected this history. As the battles had escalated and so too the defending forces and funding, the Fort had expanded from a stretch of low wall with the occasional tower into a sprawling network of trenches and wire, walls and strongpoints, minefields and kill zones. Behind the defensive lines lay barracks, repair workshops, underground supply storage and mana wells. It was practically a small town by itself, even if no civilians lived there.

The strongest defensive structure in recent history, provided it was used.

The garrison of a thousand trainee soldiers were barely enough to keep everything running while still manning the defences.

Today however, that would change.

The garrison commander, a promoted captain under Erin, had been expecting reinforcements from Ektal and when the messengers had come in, he discovered that the detailed report had been delayed by bad weather.

It arrived barely a day before more than seven thousand new recruits marching up the route.

Chaos was too light of a term for what resulted.

Elma bowed as his superior began the tour. Willio had come all the way from Minmay city to this Corbin town to review the progress on Elma's project. Trailing behind the two heads of their Ironworker companies, one home and one branch, was a gaggle of alchemists, scientists and engineers. As Cato called them.

Elma hoped the demonstrations worked.

"Here is the first demonstration of the new Water welding technique," Elma said, gesturing at the row of round glass viewports. The glass on a vacuum chamber had been so reinforced that they were more expensive than the steel wall of the entire construction. Off to the side, the steam engine driven pump clattered to a halt as the workers sealed the chamber, then the internal magical air accelerator ceased, it had finished pushing what few molecules remained into the pump before being driven out of the chamber.

"This method we have found to be the easiest to execute but has the most requirements. It suffices for research and demonstration purposes but the need for a vacuum chamber makes vacuum welding impractical. Please, use the viewports to watch the process. "

The two square rods of steel were held up in the holder above a vat of what Elma could see was elemental Water. The magical barrier lined trough did not allow the Water to contact it and suspended inside a vacuum chamber as it was, the mass of Water had almost nothing dissolved in it.

"When using elemental Water to strip the top layer off a surface of metal within a vacuum chamber, we can join two such treated pieces with a simple contact and hammering," Elma explained.

Meanwhile, the operators had activated the mechanism inside. Without a way to transmit mechanical motion into the chamber that wouldn't break the hard vacuum, the mechanism inside was purely magical. The two rods sitting in their holders dipped into the trough of pure elemental Water for a few seconds. That was enough for the top layer of the metals to be dissolved into the dangerous solvent. They were withdrawn and the surfaces scraped clean with a brush of a magical barrier.

With a single motion, the gears brought the rods into position against each other, one end perpendicular to the other rod's end. The L shape formed was then pounded in place with a strike of a hammer and the whole piece brought out to the airlock.

"As you can see, once so welded, the pieces of the metal merge easily. " Elma said as Willio inspected the join carefully. The observers took their turns, peering at the join with a microscope. Elma knew it was futile, he had done it himself before too.

"Impressive. " Willio said.

It was true, a weld that clean was impossible even for the best heat welding operation.

"But costly," Elma added. "Vacuum chambers this good are not cheap, nor is the magical power needed to drive mechanisms inside. The Water has to be created inside and has to be pure instead of neutralized with air, it is very dangerous. The calibration of the mounts needed to align the pieces perfectly is also significant. Altogether, this method produces the best pieces, with the longest manufacturing time and highest cost. "

"That's a normal tradeoff. I presume you have a more practical version?"

"That we do. "

Elma lead the group over to the next worktable, with two separate rods clamped in place.

The alchemist operating the equipment got a nod to start once all the people watching were in place.

"First, we push the ends of the metal close together but not touching, a bubble of Water is conjured around the join location, held in place with magical barriers. This strips the surface layer of the metal off the pieces. Unfortunately, due to the presence of air inside the Water bubble as well as the Water itself, hammering the pieces together like in the vacuum produces weak joins with microscopic bubbles of trapped Water.

Instead, we employ a multi layer technique, expanding another bubble inside the first. The inner bubble of Water is isolated from the outer with a magical barrier and is insulated from the atmosphere by the outer bubble. In perfect conditions, the inner bubble would contain no air, but in practice, we find the magical barrier leaks. With each successive bubble, the amount of air impurity decreases but more layers of metal are stripped off the pieces.

Next, the pieces are brought into contact and charged with disruption magic to cause the Water in the innermost bubble to revert to pure magic which is allowed to escape. The Water being removed deposits its dissolved metal into the join, sealing it.

In a controlled workshop environment, a four or five layered bubble gives almost as good a join as vacuum welding without degrading the pieces beyond a millimeter. For welding used in the open, as long as its not raining, a three layer bubble is more easily controlled and still gives decent strength. "

All while Elma was speaking, the alchemist was going through the welding process in time with each step that Elma described. The woman sitting at the equipment bench had the steadiest hand and the most experience at operating the welding equipment.

"It seems to me that this setup isn't going to work outdoors," Willio pointed out.

Indeed, said equipment didn't look like much, a trio of programmed spellforming wands held in place with more clamps and exact positioning. For a prototype demonstration, this would work. But even on the factory floor, the current setup was too small and the welds it could do were limited to joins less than two inches across.

Also, the process was nowhere near as easy as Elma had described. Variables like the temperature and the speed of the disruption effect as well as the pressure placed on the join all affected the precipitation conditions.

Cato had written to them about what little he remembered of crystallization conditions, woefully short of the lengthy list they had found. The bubble technique was simply the most successful of schemes to isolate the join, working out the precipitation conditions that did not result in powdered iron was the part that had taken most of the research time. Different steel formulae or heat treatment would require slightly different programs for ideal welding and a join between two different steels would be again different.

Extending the technique to stone like Cato hoped would require re-researching the crystallization conditions from scratch. And stone was far more heterogenous than steel.

"More work is required, but we have a working technique that we believe has great potential for improvement and further research," Elma replied to his superior.

Willio nodded and spoke slowly. "You know, I came to Corbin just after the review meeting for the Guards' weapons and the Minmay Guards are going to start their own research group. What you have been doing here is nothing less than being a research group. I think it should be time to formally recognize the Corbin branch as the Minmay Ironworker's research group," he looked at Elma, "you seem to have done well, I hope you would be willing to lead it. "

A great bubble of pride seemed to grow under his chest, Elma nodded rapidly. "Of course!" Visions of the Ironworkers being a rival to this University flashed past.

"Work with the university, I'm sure they'll be able to help you as well as make use of the techniques you have discovered here. "

And that bubble was gone. "But sir, the University publishes their discoveries for anyone! If we teach them this welding technique, others can copy it!" Elma protested.

"One thing I've learnt, working with the University," Willio said, all the rest of the tour group watching their leader, "is that the more researchers working together there are, the more ideas there seem to be. We'll be benefiting from this arrangement, never doubt that.

Besides, we'll still be first. Won't we?"

The raised eyebrow in his direction had Elma nodding reflexively. "Yes, sir. We will be first. "

The main spellcasting range of the Inath central Academy did not usually host such august bodies as the Queen and her General. It showed in the way the chairs and refreshments were mismatched and hastily arranged, despite the fact that someone had clearly tried to make it worthy of the Federation's premier monarch. Queen Amarante didn't seem to mind however.

The attending students and staff stayed a healthy distance away from where Vorril planted himself, standing guard just behind the queen's shoulder.

"People have said that with the University up north, the Academy has a competitor. " The slightly fat man giving the speech looked for all the world like an overweight pet Reki puffing itself up in front of the audience, but his skill was real, and so were the rest of the staff in attendance. The Academy did not tolerate too much nepotism. Otto's skill lay more in alchemy than in spellstorm however.

"I have never for a moment believed these rumours. The Academy deserves its place and today, you'll see why. Behold, the greatest invention of this era!"

Otto held up his right arm, and the glove on it. Dotted with a complex mesh of lines and a few small gems, it certainly looked interesting. The magic on it, though, was so complicated that no one was able to understand it just by looking.

"This is the Academy's spellformer. Invented by us, made by us and used by us, we shall catapult to greatness! Witness me today!"

With a grand overwrought gesture, he swung his arm out. And the glove did something in time with his own risen magic, instantly coalescing into a series of small balls in front of him. Another wave of his hand and the balls blasted down range to explode into the trademark puffs of fire of a firebolt.

The audience exploded in excitement.

"Did you just cast a seven shot spellstorm in a second?" Vorril's question cut over the sudden din.

Instead of answering, the lead alchemist of the Academy simply raised his hand and waved it in a big circle, loosing bolts of magic to float in the air. When the circle of twelve readied spells was complete, the same hand flick and flare of magic blasted them forwards.

Half the balls went left, half went right. And not divided into a simple half circle either, every alternate ball split from its neighbours, looking as if the circle had divided in two. The coordinated dance ended with a ring of fire and a ring of blasting force.

This was no simple spellstorm. A spellstorm of two different spells was a mark of mastery, but was always done by separating the first half of the spells and the second. Alternating between two different spells like that was considered impossible.

"You are a spellstorm of the sixth rank, and of not great casting speed either," Vorril noted over the stunned silence.

"Indeed. That has not changed, unassisted, that is," the man explained. It was the reason why he was an alchemist employed by the Academy and not with one of the many famous parties in Inath.

"You have my attention," Vorril said.

"The concept is something I have been working on for some time," Otto started pacing, gesturing at the audience as if conducting a play. "Even before the Hero arrived in fact. While something like the spellforming wand has sometimes been made successfully, the making such enchantments have always been difficult. Enchantments that cast spells are too complex to be reliable, as our collaborator, First Staff, can attest to.

Her Staff is a spellforming wand like that made by the University, only one so complex and still beset by flaws that only she can use it.

The magic circle as introduced by Cato from Ektal has solved the production problems and presented new ways to structure spells. I and my assistants first aided First Staff in correcting the flaws of her custom enchantments, then with her help, created this prototype. With this glove to take over the casting of complex spell components, or even channel power from an external source, any caster that trains to use these can reap the benefits I have shown.

This spellformer is merely the first of many. No longer does the Academy remain silent to this challenge raised by the University. With this, we can reclaim our premier position as the greatest magical academy of the Federation!"

Vorril looked back at his wife, expecting to read some objection on her face to a potential new weapon. Instead, he found her with a wry smile.

"My queen?"

She murmured back, unheard by the rest of the excited audience. "Otto thinks that he has reclaimed the lead from a rival. I wonder how he'll react when he finds that Cato will be overjoyed that others have used his inventions to make their own. "