Chapter 27: Testing the Prototypes

5 days later, Adrian, Marylyn and Ralph come by Rupert's workshop. In the last 5 days, Adrian didn't forget to do his daily routine and he is still working on the magic circle and patterns studies also trying to make new magic. Marylyn had some motivation to study after touring Light Edge town.

Light Edge town had a population of about 120000 people. It is surrounded by a forest. There are some weak monsters as mercenaries often take jobs to clear the dangerous ones. Everyone can defend themselves pretty well because of magic but not everyone had a spirit weapon.

The town had mercenary guilds, public library, markets, enough houses for each family, a town plaza and the most important of all in Adrian's plan is an empty field. Adrian asked his dad about this. He asked permission to borrow the place to play for a while.

"Rupert, are you in? It's me, the kid." Adrian gives a vague hello.

"Yeah, I'm inside kid. Come in." Rupert asks them to come inside his work shop.

The three went inside and saw it was covered by saw dust and wood chips. Rupert must clean his workshop after working hours or else the workshop should be snowing with sawdust when remembering they first enter the workshop.

"You're here kid. It is quite a tough challenge to meet your requirements. Light enough to float, durable enough to withstand a strong impact. Using normal wood should not be possible but you are asking me to make it, so I must have found a way." Rupert sound so proud of his work.

"That is true. On Earth, the disc is made out of plastic. Making with wood should be a very tough challenge." Adrian thought.

"Good work Rupert. Now show me the stuff." Adrian praises Rupert for his hard work to sooth his ego.

"Hahaha… kid take a look at these." Rupert shows 3 models of disc based on the prototype that Adrian gave. Each had a perfect shape, size and thickness to the model but all of them had a different color.

"The first one is made out of regular wood called the ulmus wood. It had as light brown colour. It is light and quite durable. Test it out." Rupert explains.

"Let's go to somewhere open first." Adrian asks Rupert for a suitable location to test the disc.

"Sure. There an empty backyard. My wife used to use it for gardening but it didn't work out. Now she's the town librarian. So, knock yourselves out." Rupert gives his permission then Adrian brings along the 3 disc and his company.

"Alright Mary, I toss to you this, what I call it a 'disc'. Go stand over there and catch the disc." Adrian asks Marylyn to stand 30 meters apart from him then toss the ulmus wood disc to Marylyn.

"Catch it." Adrian notices the disc is flying in the air perfectly.

"I got it big brother!" Marylyn is excited to catch the disc.

"Now toss it back to me. Swing your arm in a fluid motion from your sides and make sure your arm is straight when you flick the disc from your wrist to release." Adrian instructs Marylyn on how to throw the disc.

"Straight? Like this?" Marylyn throws the disc following the instructions. The dice is a bit wobbly because it lacks power and drops in front of Adrian.

"Big brother, another one, please." Marylyn seems to like it.

"After this, okay? We need to test these other discs first." Adrian holding the ulma wood disc and tossing it a round while changing the grip from front hand to back hand.

"Now durability test." Adrian looked at Rupert who is amused seeing the disc he made fly though the air but the vein on his head popped seeing Adrian durability test.

"BAP, BAP, BAP" the sound of the blunt corners of the disc hit the ground 100 times.

"Hmm… Not strong enough. There are cracks and chips of wood fly off. Not this one then. Next." Adrian justifies his actions because that is his condition he asked from Rupert.

"Okay kid, you can test all you want but make sure you pay for my craftsmanship efforts." Rupert glares at Adrian menacingly after seeing his actions.

"Of course, when did I say I wouldn't pay? I appreciate your efforts but in a real product some tests are necessary to ensure your vision is a reality." Adrian smothering Rupert's anger.

"Humph… Next one is made from the tectona wood. It had a beautiful dark brown color." Rupert hands over the disc made from tectona wood.

Adrian did the same test. It flies perfectly but when he did the durability test the disc slips out of his hands on the 23rd test and heads towards Ralph. Ralph tries to catch it but it slips through his fingers and hit his head. Leaving a light cut.

"Light and durable. Satisfies the condition but the wood is slippery. Sorry Ralph." Adrian made his judgement while apologizing to Ralph.

"Humph, I don't know you want to bang it around like that. Try the next one." Rupert states his innocence.

Adrian takes the last disc from Rupert. It feels lighter than the others.

"The last disc is made out of Fraxinus wood. As you see the wood is white with blackish hue." Rupert explains about the last disc.

Adrian did the test. The flight looks a lot smoother while for the durability test, Adrian sees the disc bends and gets back into its original shape just like the plastic version.

"Say Rupert, how can you procure these types of wood?" Adrian curiously asked.

"What are you going on about boy? Of course with the use of magic. Like you have an affinity with earth element, I have an affinity with plant element. The primordial teachings of the elves hate people keep cutting the forest for wood while we can control wood itself. So, they made magic circle to conjure the specific type of trees for the tree's mana pattern." Rupert explains in detail.

"There it is… Mana pattern like what grandpa says. Mana pattern exist in the structure of Etterra." Adrian begins to recap his findings and trying to figure out how to move forward with this.

"So, you can make more of this right? Please make more of the white disc. Make it around 20 first. Don't forget to make your mark on the disc, only then you can be famous. Here's 1 gold for an investment. You don't need to sell it yet, people need to know about it first." Adrian said and left.

"Oi kid, what are you planning?" Rupert asked curiously while holing a gold coin in his palm.

"Just for some fun. Let's go, Mary. We go to the empty field. Ralph, can you call some kids that are free. Tell them "The young master wants to introduce a game and play together.". Ask them to come to the empty field near the town plaza." Adrian orders Ralph.

"Alright young master." Ralph agreeing to Adrian. The wound on his forehead seems to had healed.

"Let's go play some more big brother." Marylyn begins jumping excitedly.

"Okay, Mary. Let's go play." Adrian smiles while looking at the sun. It seems like it's in the late afternoon.

"There seems to be lots of time left. Enough to teach them the rules and play with them. It's time to introduce Ultimate Frisbee to Etterra. It's a simple game just need a field and a disc." He reminisces the sport he played during childhood with his dad.

"Maybe I introduce this game to the royal twins before grandpa and grandma came by." Adrian staring to think about his promise to visit the twins every month but last month he awakens his mana so he cancels their play date.

Adrian and Marylyn reach the empty field and start throwing the disc at each other. Until 12 kids around Adrian's age arrive at the field.