Chapter 555: The Automatic Magic Stone Crusher

Tonight, we decided to have dinner together in the room, taking things slow. Nero and Lionel were joining us as well. It wasn’t often that we all got to eat together like this, so moments like these were rare. It seemed that Lionel had finally finished his rounds of networking and information gathering—he was wearing a satisfied, relaxed expression.

“Thanks for today, everyone. Because of all of you, it was another fun day,” I said, smiling.

“I enjoyed it too,” Fabienne replied softly, her tone warm.

“I made quite a few discoveries today,” another voice chimed in.

“I’m glad the information I collected could be of some help,” Lionel added.

After a brief toast, we began our meal. There was meat, salad, and soup—all looking absolutely delicious. We had walked so much today that every dish seemed irresistible. Yes, without a doubt, it would taste amazing.

“It seems we can leave the production of the Purification Powder and the basic healing potions to Giovanni-sama and the royal alchemists,” I remarked.

“I believe that will be fine. In return, we must focus on improving the plant nutrients,” Fabienne added, her voice firm with resolve.

“Exactly. If we can manage both the purification and regeneration of the tainted lands, the Kingdom of Raven should return to its former glory in no time.”

A smile spread across Fabienne’s face. She could see the light of hope shining just ahead, I thought.

The next challenge would be improving the efficiency of magic stone crushing. That seemed likely to be the biggest bottleneck. I hoped we wouldn’t end up needing the entire population of the kingdom to crush magic stones.

We could probably obtain large quantities of stone powder, but the noise would be unbearable. Imagine the streets filled with a constant pounding sound—it would be a disaster. Protests would be inevitable.

“Lionel, have you found the Orichalcum grindstone yet?”

“As of now, there’s been no information,” he replied.

“I guessed it wouldn’t be that easy. And even if we were to search for one, where would we start?”

In the game, one could acquire such items by defeating dungeons or rare monsters, but in this world… who knew? Were there even dungeons? I hadn’t heard of any.

“I’ve heard that old ruins sometimes yield them, though whether that’s true is uncertain,” Lionel offered.

“Old ruins… that sounds plausible. But first, we’d have to locate such ruins,” I said.

“If we do, it’ll probably be in uncharted territory,” Fabienne added, a faint smile of disbelief on her lips.

That seemed impossible. Surely any prominent locations had already been scouted. That left only places inhabited by powerful monsters, places humans normally couldn’t enter. Bringing everyone along would be impossible. Alone, I could handle it—but of course, they wouldn’t let me go.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to crush them manually. If only we had… an automatic magic stone crusher,” I murmured.

“If only?” Fabienne echoed curiously.

“Julius-sama?” Nero asked, his eyes wide with interest.

“Yes! Why didn’t we think of this sooner? If it doesn’t exist, we can just make one! An automatic magic stone crusher!”

“Um… Julius-sama, are you really capable of creating something like that?”

Nero’s curiosity was palpable. Perhaps he had witnessed firsthand how exhausting manual stone crushing was and realized the difficulty.

The principle was simple: strike a large magic stone against a smaller one. Automate that process.

The design should be simple. A hammer made from a large magic stone strikes a smaller one. The concept is similar to a windmill grinding wheat—the only difference is that the energy comes from magic stones instead of the wind.

To avoid excessive noise, the device should be kept small. After all, the stones we were crushing were relatively small.

“Yes… I think this might actually work. Let’s start by using the materials we have for the phonograph,” I decided.

“Those materials were ordered as gifts for Rosalia and Mira, weren’t they?” Fabienne reminded me.

“Right… so we’ll need to place an additional order later,” I said.

“I’ll make sure to do that as soon as we finish dinner,” Nero promised.

“Thanks, Nero,” I said with a grin.

This would at least improve working conditions. Once the automatic magic stone crusher was complete, mass production would be possible. But really, its usefulness would mostly be limited to this task. If we could find another use… yes, it could even grind wheat. In that case, the magic stone hammer could be replaced with a wooden one.

“If this magical device is completed, it should speed up mass production of the purification powder,” Fabienne said thoughtfully.

“And then we should probably focus on making fertilizer-type plant nutrients as soon as possible,” I added.

It looked like tomorrow would be just as busy. First, we had to build the automatic crusher. Working in the room was fine, but we had to remember to use soundproofing magic so as not to disturb anyone nearby.

After finishing dinner, we immediately began work on the magical device. Since we had eaten slowly, both our bodies and minds felt refreshed. From now until bath time, we could focus completely.

We started by constructing a box from metal plates, creating a rotating axis, and designing a system where a hammer would move in a piston-like motion… something like this, I thought.

The force applied in each strike might be small, but repeated action would make up for it. Small force also prevented the iron plate catch from deforming. This way, the base wouldn’t get battered.

Next was controlling how fast the hammer moved up and down. I had to trust the magic device.

“This should do for now,” I said, stepping back.

“…Is it already finished?” Fabienne asked, her eyebrows lowered in surprise as she examined the completed prototype. She seemed exasperated—but it was done, and there was only one thing left to do.

“The magic stone for the hammer tip isn’t ready yet, but I’ll source it locally. For now, let’s see if it works,” I said.

I flipped the switch. GAGAGAGAGAGA! The hammer sprang to life with incredible speed. Wow, it was moving much faster than I had imagined. Even a salamander would be astonished.

Fabienne and Nero instinctively took a step back, staring at the rampaging device.

This was dangerous. The machine needed to be fixed to a base. It was too risky to leave it free-standing.

Having confirmed its operation, I shut off the switch. My first impression? It would probably be fine.

“This is an amazing magical device,” Fabienne said, her voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.

“Haha… I didn’t expect it to be so wild… but it’s not a failure, okay?” I reassured her.

“Oh? I see…”

It seemed she had thought it had failed. Well, after seeing it in action, that was an understandable reaction.