Chapter XLV: Warship I

Shizukana Gake, Heian Kingdom

Month of the Tortoise 3, 172 ,328 DE

While eating my breakfast, mostly rare cat meat, I hear the bell at the residence courtyard gate.

As I frown, Mika-chan walks into the kitchen. "I will see who is here Raymon-san."

After a few minutes, Mika-chan returns with Vorn on her heels. The smug cat stays just far enough behind Mika-chan to appreciatively eye her figure without her seeing him do it. I doubt be had the blood of the Great Bear in his veins, or even that old bitch the Great Puma. With the corruption of the world, so many strange varieties of Ferocious Beast wander the world. More likely he has the blood of some Randy Cat or maybe a Horny Dog poisoning him.

"What are you doing here, smug cat?"

"I thought a stupid wolf like you would need help rebuilding a yacht into a warship." Smug barely begins to describe the look on Vorn's face.

Narrowing my eyes, I stare at the smug cat. "Have you ever looked at that airship's superstructure and frame?"

"No. Why?"

"It's built stronger than any warship I've seen or seen plans for. The gondola already has decent armor. After I install some cannons, I just need to do is replace the mesh protecting the superstructure. The sigils reinforcing the mesh and gondola armor may be better than most warships, but they're still pathetic. I'll need to inscribe something resembling real reinforcement sigils, so just one cannon hit won't blow a hole in the thing."

With his eyes wide-open, Vorn stares at me like he is trying to figure out what I am. "Military reinforcement sigils are pathetic? What kind of half-assed, experimental Alchemist concoctions have you been swilling?"

Not bothering to suppress my irritated sigh, I dump my meat into a metal bowl. "I'm done Mika-chan. This feral cat needs an education."

Heading for the door, I glance over my shoulder at Vorn. "Come with me!"

After leading Vorn into the factory, I close the door behind. "I'm almost happy you're here. What do you know about the Providence Federation? And do you know who that Toomey is?"

"You didn't ask anything about him yesterday."

"I don't want Aoi getting any strange ideas in her head."

Vorn smirks. "Has the dog found a bitch he's interest in?"

With a scowl, I stare at Vorn but do not say anything.

After a few moments, Vorn sighs. "Alright. I won't pry."

With a deep frown, Vorn stares at the ground. "Whether it's Toomey or the whole Providence Federation, they're nothing but a pain in the ass. The Providence Federation lies along part of the southern borers of Amber and Topaz. The level of their magic technology exceeds the Sengoku Empire, and they have dreams of ruling the world. That nothing unusual for any nation. But they have strange ideas about how people should live, and what they should be allowed to do. Their borders are sealed, so we don't know much about what goes on inside, but they don't hesitate to meddle in the politics of any nation where they can find tools to manipulate.

"If it weren't for the fortified mountains surrounding their entire nation, the Dunkle Sonne Empire would have wiped them out centuries ago. But they have weapons that resemble the Watch Towers, which can wipe out any air or ground force trying to enter the mountains. They have even killed Martial Kings with those towers. No one knows how strong a Cultivator their towers can stop, but Amber's Intelligence Ministry suspects that it would take at least a Martial Emperor to get past them."

As I listen to Vorn, my scowl turn into a deep frown of my own. "What about Toomey?"

Vorn snorts. "He's from a political class family. Toomey is his family name. The Providence Confederation talks about everyone being equal, but they maintain a rigid, unwritten class structure. Their industrialist and political classes sit at the top and remain there through the manipulation of knowledge, information, and education.

"People like Toomey leave their county in a number of guises to manipulate other countries and stir up political unrest. People like him have started revolutions in dozens of smaller nations over the past century, but I didn't know that any of his ilk were operating east of the Kami Kaze Mountains."

After pausing for a few moments, Vorn raise his eyes to stare steadily into mine. "Even if you're a Great Beast, you need to watch out for Toomey. He seemed to be interested in you in a bad way. He'll probably try to kill you if he has the chance."

"He can try." As I speak, a predator's grin pulls my lips apart, revealing my teeth.

Vorn nods. "I'll get Ragnar to have a copy of the kingdom's intelligence on the Providence Confederation sent to you. But it will take a few weeks for a courier to get here.

"Now, what bullshit were you spewing about sigils?"

With a snort, I turn around and head for the rack with our metal supplies. Pulling out a plate of Black Iron, I load it onto a table cutter and slice the plate into four smaller plates. Each plate is about a square meter in size. Taking the pieces to a frame we use for a variety of testing purpose, I secure the four smaller plates to it.

"Do you know how to inscribe military reinforcement sigils?"

Vorn nods. "Yes."

"Put one on the first plate! The strongest one you know."

"I need a charcoal stick and a burin or, at least a punch."

Taking a burin out of a toolbox, I grab a graphite stick from a workbench and toss both to Vorn.

After staring at the Black Iron plate for a few minutes, Vorn shaves the end of the graphite stick into a fine point and begins drawing the pattern for a sigil on the plate. Spending more than half-an-hour, he completes the template of a variant on the common military reinforcement sigils that I have never seen.

"That pattern is flawed. The balance is off. Power won't flow as smoothly as it should."

With his head snapping around, Vorn stares at me with narrowed eyes."You can't know that just from looking at it."

"Sure, I can. If you understand, the purpose and structure of the finials, you can extrapolate the purpose and flow of a sigil just by looking at it."

I point at two sections the template. "Here and here. Those finials are for the amplification of Power. They're redundant. You should use finial that speed up the flow of Power. Even just a transmission link would work better. Draw another one on the next plate but leave those sections blank. I'll draw them."

After Vorn finishes the base template, for the sigil, I add simple connections the will simple allow Power to flow one section of the sigil to the next.

"Etch them."

While Vorn etches the standard sigils, I etch sigils into the two remaining plates. Each one uses a completely different approach to reinforcing the plate. The first enhanced the hardness of the metal, and the second disperses force through a larger area of the plate.

With all four plates etched, I use braided cables, made from an alloy of Mana Crystal and Soul Steel, to connect crystal Power storage devices. Mana Crystals normally hold Power, Mana in particular, but when used to create alloys with certain metals, they conduct Mana, Ki, Psi, Trinity, or Yuan Qi with almost no loss of Power. While Soul Steel, which is smelted from Soul Iron, normally has both high hardness and good flexibility, this allow lacks the hardness. While its lack of hardness make it useless for weapons, the common use of Soul Steel, the alloy's flexibility makes it good for Power cables.

The Power crystal I use contains Yuan Qi, which I used to think was nothing but polluted or corrupted Mana. My sigils will respond to Mana, Qi, Psi, Trinity, and Yuan Qi, but Vorn's require Yuan Qi. They should trigger off Mans too, but I would need to test that. As soon as the surge of Yuan Qi activates the sigils, they being drawing the ambient Power from the surrounding air to maintain their function.

The frame holding the plates have a Power field to dissipate rogue Power discharges and arrest the inertia and momentum of fragments of broken equipment or materials. As I activate the Power field, a shimmer surrounds the frames.

As Vorn stares at the Power field, his eyes narrow. "What does that energy do?"

"It prevents energy or matter escaping. You could set off a hundred pound fire-powder bomb inside the Power field and not affect anything outside of it. Shoot the plates with that oversized pistol hanging from your hip."

I left the Yuan Qi crystal connected to the sigils because the Power field has the side effect of blocking the natural flow of Power in its environs. Without the Yuan Qi crystal, the sigils would shut down in less than a minute, or as soon as Vorn shoots one plate, it will suck up all the ambient Yuan Qi inside the field. His other would lose its ability to function. The same applies to my pair of sigils.

Vorn draws a huge revolver, a different gun than he has normally been carrying, from the holster on his right hip. Its barrel has to have a diameter of thirteen or fourteen millimeters. While Yuan Qi guns get bigger than that one, I almost never see fire-powder guns that large. Based on the length of the cylinder, the powder charges could injure the wrist of a common human when fired.

Boom!

Without appearing to aim, holding the gun at hip height, a faint trickle of Yuan Qi flows through Vorn, as he casually snaps off a shot. The report from the powder charge echoes thunderously inside the factory., the large calibre bullet distorts the first metal plate. Even though the bullet does not entirely penetrate the plate, the damage it does still surprises me. The collapsed slug falls to the ground, with a soft clink of metal on stone. The slug is not made of lead, the most common metal used for bullets.

Vorn's revolver is a lot more powerful that I estimated.

"That gun has sigils inscribed in it?"

Vorn nods his head. "Inside the barrel and cylinder. The amplify the barrel pressure, and the amount is adjustable But you have to charge them for every shot. It's a hybrid between a fire-powder gun and Yuan Qi gun."

Both Old Man Jones and I have toyed with building similar guns. I should not be surprised others have, as well, but seeing one in use, I still feel surprised.

Boom!

With no warning, Vorn snaps off another shot. I almost miss the tensing of his finger as he pulls the trigger.

This bullet barely manages to penetrate half as deep into the plate with the pattern for which I changed the template.

"Well, fuck me." Vorn's surprise fills his softly whispered comment.

"Not interested. I'm no okama."

Narrowing his eyes, Vorn glances at me. "What exactly is an okama supposed to be?"

"As ass-fucker. Especially the twisted fucks that dresses like women."

Vorn frowns. "Are they common around here?"

I shrug. "Not really. The smart one marry, have kids, and keep their perversions in private. Family is too important to the people of the Heian Kingdom for them to flaunt their twisted mentality. There are a handful of the stronger Cultivators that are rumored to be okama, but they have enough strength, no one is likely to challenge them about it. With enough strength, you can be a sick as you want and get away with it."

Vorn spits on the floor. "I didn't need a lecture. What about your plates?"

Focusing my awareness on the Yuan Qi crystal, I would estimate Vorn's two shots burned about a fifth of the Power left in it. That leaves plenty of Power for my sigils.

I shrug. "Shoot them."

Boom!

As the bullet hits my first plate, it shatters into dozens of pieces, leaving only a shallow dent in the surface of the plate. The metal used for the bullet is more brittle than I estimated.

Boom!

Leaving only a scratch, the last bullet split into three large pieces. The pieces ricochet off the plate. As the fragments enter the Power field from the inside, their inertia dissipates, and they fall to the floor.

After I disable the Power field, Vorn inspects the four plates. As he finishes, he shakes his head and looks at me. "If I didn't seed you cut the one sheet of metal into four, I would think that each piece was tempered different. Or maybe, each was impregnated with different materials to change its properties."

I raise one corner of my mouth in a half-smile. "It's all about how you manipulate the flow of Power. The material you infuse matters, but its more of a limiting factor on how much Power it can handle. Reinforcement sigils like these draw little Power, so you need a strong material for them to be effective."

"This is a heavy metal. You don't plan to armor the Silver Princess with it, do you?"

I shake my head. "I have a better alloy in mind, but I need to smelt it. You can help. I need to pick up three tons of wind steel ingots from the brokers. We'll load it on your back. Your oversized muscles can serve a purpose, instead of making you look like a freakish, fat cat."

"Asshole dog. Just use a steamer truck to haul it. Or does it too much brain power for you to figure out something so simple?"