Robert was trying to improve the power of the pyramid-like glyph that Darrell had invented to make it more useful. Useful as in deadly. He found that there were many limiting factors that reduced the power of the glyph. One of it was the capacity of the spirit animal blood to carry magical power. The other one was the dissipation of power from the spirit stone to the surroundings.

Robert had thought up many methods to overcome these problems, to increase the magic capacity of the blood, he could use the same method that he used to separate the magic cells from the spirit animal blood. He could centrifuge the blood and increase the concentration of magic cells, thus increasing the magic conductivity.

The other method that he had was to find the element that helped the magic cells to carry magic power. Robert didn’t know if it was an element that was unique to this planet or maybe a compound. But if he could get his hands on it, he can have the most magical conductivity.

It was rather easy to decrease the magic energy dissipation. All he had to do was to cover the opening of the spirit stone with the magic reflecting material. It would effectively seal the energy inside like a thermos flask preserving heat inside.

Taking a vial of magic cells that he had separated from the spirit animal blood, Robert drew the circuit that was necessary for powering the pyramid glyph. He placed a white spirit stone, core bright with energy, into its slot in the circuit. Turning the switch on, Robert was only expecting a flame that was a few times larger than the original one. Instead, what happened was the flame that was only an inch in height earlier had grown into a meter tall flame. The moment the flame appeared, it consumed the paper the circuit was drawn on. Robert was standing at a safe distance as he always expected danger in whatever experiments he did.

Seeing this, Robert’s mouth curved into a smile. He had created a flamethrower! He guessed that the flame will be two times as large after he completes the sealing mechanism to conserve energy.

But instead of instantly implementing this into a weapon, Robert’s thought was on how he can use this to make a gun. He knew that this flame was a pure flame, there were no hot gases that formed from the pyramid glyph. So using this flame directly to propel a bullet was out of the question. But Robert always found a way to do things, even if it was not straightforward.

Taking a gun, he removed the trigger mechanism. Then he took a cartridge and removed the gunpowder from it. He put in a miniature pyramid glyph in the position of the firing pin and connected it to the circuit. Inside the cartridge, he put in some wine that he had. He moved away and switched the circuit on. The bullet flew from the gun with a pop and didn’t go much distance.

His experiment had failed. Robert thought that alcohol was inflammable and volatile, but what he didn’t know was that liquid alcohol didn’t catch fire, it was the fumes that was inflammable. There was also the matter of low alcohol content in the wine and the absence of any oxidizers in the cartridge. Robert still had many hurdles to overcome in order to create a working gun using this fire glyph.

Robert decided to put away the work on the new gun using magic alone, he still had to recreate many things from his past life.

“You sure you can do it alone?” Hristo was not going to underestimate his opponent this time. He knew how Robert had helped Sophy to win a battle when the other side had a hundred experts.

“Although I am only an expert level 3, don’t forget that I have never lost a duel with anyone less than level 7 expert cultivation!”

Torkel was not exaggerating, he had fought with men way above his level to a standstill in the battle arena in the capital city of Lorvale. This was why he was sent to guard Hristo in this dangerous mission of taking back Goldfair city.

Luca cared very much about his only son and didn’t even want a scratch on him. If he didn’t need with Sophy and replace her to take over the city, He wouldn’t even have let Hristo take on this mission.

“Be sure to be back by tomorrow morning” Hristo gave a final warning to Torkel. Hristo was sure that Torkel would be able to complete this mission without much difficulty as he knew Robert was only an apprentice level magic user. And this was not even a head-on match, all Torkel had to do was to sneak into Robert’s house and kill him without making a ruckus. Torkel was no assassin, but he had done his share of stealth missions and although he was not the best at it, from the selection of hundred soldiers that Hristo had, he was the best.

Taking off his heavy metal plate armors, Torkel suited himself in a light, black clothing that made him look like a ninja. He left his broadsword behind for a light but deadly dagger.

Mounting atop a dark brown horse, he moved like a shadow towards the general direction of Greyston.

Robert was now building a lathe. He had only a general idea about metal workings and only knew that lathe rotated the materials in it, thus making shaping them possible. He didn’t have to do much designing as he had already created the centrifuge. All he had to do was to reduce the gear ratio and impart some torque to the rotation motion of things.

Sounds of metalworking could be heard that whole day from the laboratory of Robert as he melted, welded, and shaped the metal into the general shape of a lathe that he had seen in his previous life.

Finally, he assembled the many pieces of equipment together to form a lathe that was fixed on top of a table. Rotating the handle, he was joyous as the metal that he had placed on the lathe rotated.

He was now able to create the intricate things that he needed to make for building the industrial equipment. Be it a steam engine or an internal combustion engine.