The Dawn of a New Era

Ezra was busy all day. He notified his father that he would skip his combat training for a week to focus on testing and experimentation with new devices. His father agreed. He still couldn't shirk dinner and accompanying Hestia during walks in this period so he was juggling a lot of responsibilities with the time he had.

The challenge with Erela was decided to be set the next month and she would start her administrative duties at that time. Ezra had ample time to plan for that while the challenge ran its course. He didn't have any idea on how she would actually manage Crihavik, but he himself had few plans of his own. Reitz sent agents to investigate and observe her but so far there was no news of note on Erela. Reitz's agents did not pick up any hidden motivation or contacts but everything had yet to unfold

Also, the deal with Heinrich was smooth, they had talked of selling mostly sugar, fruit jams made from mangoes, strawberries and other fruits not found in the empire, ceramics and the new types of liquor which Ezra had developed: Whiskey, Beer and Rum.

The other food products found in Bren could not be marketed as the sufficient preservation methods were not yet available and he had only a few choices in preservation techniques because the development of chemical preservatives was not yet in production.

Ezra realized his mistake in forgetting to create the chemical preservative and so he put it in a list of plans for industrialization. He scheduled it after he had established the university. Food, of course, was the fundamental energy source of this machine called industrialization and so more ways to preserve food meant more food in general.

He also tasked Heinrich to find corn, since it was apparently not a known crop in the empire. He drew the illustrations and gave it to him so that he could find it. Corn was relatively easy to grow and in the modern age, it was found everywhere. Corn syrup was even used as a cheap sugar substitute because it was ubiquitous.

The presented products were not yet mass produced because he had focused on other pursuits, so everything was still in its demand testing phase, mostly he had focused on engineering and chemical production research. He was still in a dilemma on how to create factories wherein it would not attract much notice of the other surrounding domains. Any disruption in the activity of out of the norm was sure to be recognized.

He had come up with a plan using the university as a cover but he had yet a way to implement this. Worse comes to worst, he would just buy slaves en masse and provide sufficient shelter, food and wages for them for mass producing the metals needed for industrialization.

Metals were always in demand and if Bren would produce more metals then it would garner the eyes of nobles. Ezra was not selfish with his knowledge, he just wanted to be careful, envy is a dangerous enemy. Also, whatever economic benefit industrialization was to produce, he wanted Bren to experience it first.

With more and more people flocking to Bren due to trade, it was getting harder and harder to keep tabs on suspicious people. It was also harder to manufacture unique products that would attract trade but also not too out of the ordinary.

The terms of the trade were simple a 60 – 40 profit split scheme at a price set by Ezra himself, this did not account for the possible price that Heinrich would sell them at, nevertheless Ezra was satisfied.

Heinrich would present the books and if the stocks were not bought the actual proof would be just to present the products that were not sold. It was simple enough but at least Ezra knew that it was hard to cheat on the deal, the products he created were original. Heinrich conceded easily to Ezra's demands. Ezra surmised that the primary motive of Heinrich was the bank that was why he agreed automatically to the terms.

Ezra had begun to consider delegating to Heinrich the spread of the bank in hard to reach places. He had received information on Sylph Altum and it from the information, it sounded like it was megacorporation but was mainly focused on the northern part of the empire and they had just retailer agents in Fulmen.

It was composed of many noble families and had a complex profit-sharing scheme because selling equities wasn't even conceptualized yet. Thus, mostly what the conglomerate did was keep books on what each domain had supplied to them and shared profit with them. It was really a convoluted method of keeping track of profit.

The organization was divided into hierarchies as well, although he still had no reports on the complete structure of Sylph Altum. From what he surmised Heinrich was pretty high in rank because he could make decisions on the acquisition of new products.

With everything in order Ezra moved back to engineering magical devices however, he was stuck with his ideas for the magical crystal dust alloy. The conductivity when using his own aura didn't translate when using magic cores to power the metal. The variability of conductivity per magic core varied from one to three centimetres and was even more erratic when he used the multicoloured cores.

This conductivity was not useful at all unless you placed the cores directly outside the alloy. It still very much acted like a crystal and it was giving him a lot of problems.

He was having a hard time coming up with magical units of measurement. There seemed to be a discrepancy between magic aura and the magic power from the magic cores which caused him grief and a headache.

"Sire, it still the same. It seems we can't ascribe specific units to it yet. Each stone varies on output and it seems that for different red crystals, there are different energy and heat expenditures with each core, it's not really consistent. It's like for different pairs, different yields occur. The alloys, on the other hand, have a consistent output but the problem lies on their conductivity." Aegeus said, over the years that he had known Ezra, the child emphasized on the use of units for measurement. He had been taught some fundamental Newtonian physics by Ezra.

"Yeah, it's really weird. I'm having a hard time computing it." Even with AMP, he could not see any patterns in the output. If something was not predictable enough then it's utilization would go down if there was not any consistency.

His magic core powered technological devices were still yet to be accomplished, the reproducible results only happened when Ezra used his own magic aura. So far none of the other people could imbibe their own magic aura on the cores. This baffled Ezra because there were objects that could do this like the sword that his father had given him which the locals called enchanted artefacts.

"Maybe we should research on more materials that are affected by magic aura. Like that black cloth, I was wrapped in before, the one that scrambled my magic aura and that magic dampening amulet from the Deimos."

"But we still don't know where to get these, milord," Aegeus replied.

"Yeah, I don't even think I should rattle that cage yet. One of the agents we sent two years ago to search that cloth hasn't reported. I hope I meet a demon hunter soon though," Ezra sighed

"I've never heard of such a cloth though, milord, as for the amulet, I only know that every High-ranking Demon Hunter has one."

"Yes, it is quite odd I've asked around and that cloth seems to really be special I wonder where it is made from. Anyway, we should ask the help of Anton in the experimentation and test of different materials,"

"For now, let's test breaking the cores into bits, I could use my magic aura but that would just make it explode, I did that once and the effects weren't all too pleasant," Ezra said as he recalled the library scene.

"Besides it would be hard to gather the pieces," he continued, "I guess I'll just smash it. Let's see what happens if we mix it with our new alloy or steel in general."

Using magic crystals, he had no leads yet and that was why he explored the cores. Anton, Ezra's chief chemist, still didn't find anything to react to the chemicals in cores when even when they were in powder form. However, they did mix uniformly in water. He hadn't tested it when making an alloy out of it yet and this was one of the current projects he had.

The really frustrating thing about the magic cores was that there was no sign of magic depletion unless you used your magic aura to sense it. The magic cores were uniform and consistent in their output when paired with a magic crystal but once the core was depleted it would immediately stop. So Ezra didn't have a way to mechanically anticipate when the depletion would occur.

It wasn't like a firehose that when the valve was turned off the water flow would lessen to a drip it was more like a light bulb that when you turned off it would immediately go out. But what was good news was that the cores seemed to be a renewable resource, over time it got back to its original magical capacity.

It was hard to monitor though and sometimes he brought some cores in his room to observe the process of filing up, during these times he didn't sleep and just recorded them, but he made sure his mother was not around lest he was punished again. Using his magic he could go without sleep for about three days and still feel no effects.

Arran came bursting in the lab as the doors swung open.

"Milord, I have completed it to your specifications on the solleret you had me make," Arran was smiling.

Ezra instinctively looked at Arran. He had commissioned steel boots which Arran thought was a solleret, a part of knight's armour.

"Let's test it!" Ezra was excited, the glee on his face couldn't be measured. Ezra put on the steel boots immediately, each boot had two holes in the on the soles. This part had the magical alloy embedded in it.

"Quick, quick! Get the notebook, let's document this," Ezra beckoned to Arran and Aegeus.

"You followed it to the letter?"

"Yes, milord, with your specifications, to the tee, the solleret is made to stand up to 2000 degrees of heat. As for the core components, the peripherals are filled with a wind magic crystal alloy, its centre is made up of fire crystal alloy"

"Did you do the recommended ratio of the powder? Wind magic crystals are hard to get in our domain, they're quite pricey too." Ezra replied.

"I did my best, Lord Ezra, I can't say I did it perfectly though," Arran said humbly.

"If my calculations are correct, this will mimic combustion, so you guys should observe this as perfectly as you can."

"Of course, milord," both of them said at the same time. The two were a bit tense, especially Arran who made the boots.

Ezra braced himself, it was obvious that he was excited, his broad smile couldn't be erased, "Starting the first test of Aura Powered Rocket Boots."