10 Chapter 9 - Experimental Logs
(Author's Notes - The Experimental Logs of Angus' trinket creation trials leading to just past the attack against the first Stray Devil they fight in the anime, Viser. I also kind of enjoyed this idea of word vomiting fake magic theory. Very little character interaction in this chapter sorry. You have been warned.)
(Angus) - "Experiment 8 - Test Failed. Reason - Magic goes haywire. Results - Loss of magic control during the trinket construction. Complete Failure. Proposed Plan - Try to create a high magic level area to calm oneself during the experiment production. No good again, huh. I was closer this time though. However, I'm still far away from it working. *Sigh* ..."
That night Issei had met with Kalawarner and got in trouble with revealing him still being alive to Kalawarner when he was walking around at night. Meanwhile, Angus continued to try to finish at least the trinket to take Issei's left arm's place as a sacrifice.
(Angus) - "Experiment 12 - Test Failed. Reason - Unknown. Results - Appears to have a magic problem somewhere. A failure again. Proposed Plan - Attempt experimental analysis of why it works the way it does without the dissection of the newest trinket. Why is it having another magic problem? The last time went haywire on me and caused the trinket to explode and scared poor Koneko, who eating her sweets, into coming inside the room to check what happened. *Sigh* This time seems to be a lack of magic that was leading to its failure to activate? I can only assume."
(Angus) - "Experiment 15 - Test Failed. Reason - Magic loss. Results - Loss of magic, possible damage in trinket. Failure. Proposed Plan - Get new materials and try again. Lack of material may have made it to brittle. Hmm... This time it was likely due to skimping out on materials as I was running out. Perhaps I should just go steal some more scrap materials from the nearest junkyard somewhere close. It seems the more brittle the material it is the easier it is for the magic to escape by itself. If that's the case even if it worked then it would last for too short of a time. Nope, yep, let's go steal scrap materials from the scrap yard."
Angus was walking around town asking about a scrap yard to anyway who seemed to be at least be 30 years of age. While Angus was walking around town he noticed he saw Issei leaving the direction of the church with a girl that looked like Asia Argento walking towards the church on the mountain. Thinking this might be a good chance to introduce himself to Issei, Angus decided to go up and speak to him.
(Angus) - "Hey, the kid with the brown hair and brown eyes!"
(Issei) - "Hmm? Are you speaking to me?"
(Angus) - "Yes, you. Nice to meet you kid. My name is Angus Apocalypse, though you can just call me Angus, I came from out of town not too long ago. I wanted to speak to you real fast. I saw you show the girl to the church. I wanted to ask if you if your town has a scrap yard or something near the town. If the town does can you point me in the direction of it?"
(Issei) - "Uh, nice to meet you Angus-san. I'm Hyoudou Issei. You can just call me Issei. And, as far as I know, this town doesn't have a scrap yard or something like that."
(Angus) - "Alright then, thanks for the information then Issei-kun. Also, would you like a few words of advice?"
(Issei) - "Advice?"
(Angus) - "As another devil to a newer devil who seems to not know. You should stay away from any of the damn churches or you might die without knowing how you got stabbed by a spear of light otherwise get strong enough to the point where they won't be willing to attack you without a big reason to do so kid."
(Issei) - "Huh?"
Before Issei registered what happened Angus already left through the alley to the side of the buildings and started traveling through the shadows back towards the old school building and decided to just recycle the failed experiments rather than keeping them in order to remember what he did wrong with them otherwise he would at most have another 5 trials at making it. While the problem was that he needed at least another few tens of attempts to get something working out of it. Having left the still gawking Issei behind already, Angus arrived back at the old school building shortly afterward due to his quick in shadow traveling movement speed due to his skills. After arriving, Angus went back to his room to continue working on the trinket.
(Angus) - "Experiment 17 - Test Failed. Reason - Trinket Collapse. Results - The trinket appeared to work before collapsing after the magic powers of the trinket started to be absorbed and caused the material to turn extremely brittle resulting in a collapse. What causes it to completely collapse? In Experimental Trial 15 the magic loss didn't collapse the bracelet trinket either. Perhaps the activation cost is higher than the maintenance cost of holding the spell? Like how a car uses more energy it has to turn on than keep it going for a little while?"
(Angus) - "Experiment 19 - Test Failed. Reason - Unknown. Results - Seemed to work but fall apart after approximately 7 seconds before stopping to work, yet, it didn't collapse due to excessive magic loss as it did in Experimental Trial 17. Another complete failure again. Proposed Plan - Repeat experimentation and try to find the reason for early trinket stoppage before attempting the next experiment. Perhaps it was a lack of magic in the material this time? But, if I add more into just these plain iron bracelets and steel bracelets then it would cause the magic to go haywire again like in Experimental Trial 8 all over again. The only possibility I can think of is to try to resmelt the last piece of iron with the first trinket that failed in order to create a larger material base. Then, using the larger amount of material I can include a small droplet of blood in a small glass container inside of the bracelet. The magic would theoretically enter the glass and into my blood droplet there to be stored. While if it's needed it can be extracted by a mechanism to open the glass and let the blood mix with the bracelet trinket allowing it to create an additional boost in magic amount temporarily one time allowing it to be used as a sacrificial replacement. At the same time, this would allow my first goal to be completed."
(Angus) - "Experiment 20 - A success! Finally! Reason - Who cares I guess it worked! Results - What do I need to even write about in this journal! It worked! That's it! It lasted for 15 seconds before stopping! That was better than my goal of 10 seconds like in the anime. It, however, seems to need to be resmelted down and recrafted again to be refilled with a new blood droplet capsule. Proposed Plan - Try to find a new alternative to having to melt it down and remaking it by adding a possible miniature removable chamber to make it more economical on the time and energy needed? I just want to save on the time and energy needed for this. However, the idea of that would make it harder. It would be easier to make a revolving chamber like a revolver but in that case, it should be on an actual weapon instead... That wouldn't work. So I guess just a chamber that can open if you push on it the right way? I guess I can try that in the next trails later on. For now, I need to ask Rias if I can get her family to allow me to get more research supplies I guess. Perhaps, I can also ask Sona since it's been a little while I spoke to her."
Having decided to go speak to Sona the next day Angus cleaned up the lab area before remaking the trinket that worked by melting it down and reforging it into a new one with a new blood droplet capsule inside. When he tried to store it inside his inventory it barred him from doing so and displayed a message to him.
(System) - "Name the new item before inserting."
(Angus) - "Set the new name as 'Energy Exchange Trinket'."
(System) - "Item X has now become Item 'Energy Exchange Trinket'."
(Author's Note - This 'system' is just an automatic user interface for the inventory to make certain parts of it easier to use for the user.)
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(Author's Note - I accidentally deleted this part so when I got back from vacation and saved it and my computer crashed causing it to permanently disappear. Really thinking I should write in a google doc first and just transfer it over. I got a bit pissed off at that and almost threw my computer if it wasn't for the fact that the computer costs around a thousand dollars at least. Nevertheless, I once again shall freely write this scene again instead of using the anime script because I'm tired after my vacation.)
(Akeno) - "Apparently, a Stray Devil was found in this town."
*Knock* *Knock*
(Angus) - "Rias, can I speak to you about something real quick?"
(Rias) - "Yes, please come in."
Opening the door Angus saw Rias and Akeno near the door, and Issei sitting on the couch in front.
(Issei) - "AH! It's the guy from the afternoon!"
(Angus) - "Huh? Oh, hi there Issei-kun, Akeno, and Rias. I have a favor to ask of you Rias. It's fine if you can't do it. I can ask Sona-chan *cough* I mean Sona as well if you can't."
(Rias) - "What favor did you want to ask of me?"
(Angus) - "Can you get me some money or materials for experimenting? I wish to create a few trinkets that I believe would be useful in the future. However, although I can reuse some of my experiment items it would be better to just have them in storage so I can remember what to do to keep from failing my experiments with the same mistakes again."
(Rias) - "That shouldn't be a problem at all. I shall ask Koneko to bring it to you later after you give me the list of what you would like. Is that fine with you Angus-san?"
(Angus) - "Yeah, that would be great. Thank you, Rias. Also, I overheard that you found a Stray Devil. Do you mind if I come along to watch you guys defeat it?"
(Rias) - "That shouldn't be a problem. We will tell you when we find it and where to meet up. I will send Koneko to tell you."
(Angus) - "Thank you once again, Rias. Now that I finished my request I shall take my leave."
(Rias) - "Yes, see you later then, Angus-san."
(Angus) - "Yeah, see you later than Rias, Akeno, and Issei-kun."
(Akeno) - "See you later, Angus-san."
(Issei) - "Oh... Bye."
Angus headed out of the room and back down the hallway towards the room he was borrowing in the old school building.
(Angus) - "Experiment 23 - Partially Working. Reason - Revolving chamber failure. Results - Worked only for a two-chamber barrel. Proposed Plan - Either enlarge the size of the bracelet trinket to fit more barrels design a new design that lets the chamber open."
(Angus) - "Hmm... I feel like I can vaguely remember a show I watched before about a magical girl whose weapon was able to power up her by using a magic-infused bullet or something like that... I could try that approach but I feel like if I use that the trinket would be rather large or the chamber would be so small that it would be hard to have a proper amount of exchange."
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(Author's note - ... The last part was supposed to have a few more experiments and such but I was too lazy to put it back in when I accidentally deleted it and saved it like that. )
