As soon as the assembly ended, I rushed back to the market with Magnar in tow. I needed to finish all the needed purchases. First stop, was a spices shop. Various sacks were spread around, most tied tightly. Next to the stand were a few open.

  The air in the shop was a thick, invisible soup of particles. As soon as I crossed the threshold, my nose was hit by a barrage of sensations—a dry, woody sweetness that coated the back of my throat, followed by an acrid, needle-like sting that made my eyes water.

  The aromas collided, creating a density that made every breath feel like I was inhaling fine, flavorful dust. On the inclined stall, boxes with dusts of different colors were sitting.

  A broad man was standing behind the booth, arms crossed. He was wearing a turban, and his skin had a darker tone, sign he was from the Seridia Empire. He eyed both of us with slight indifference.

  “What may I help you with?” He spoke up, his gaze sharpening when I got close to the exposed merchandise.

  “I’d like to purchase some spices.” I replied, although I did no like his attitude.

  “Some? Do you even know what you’re talking about?”

  “Obviously not. I got no idea about how any of these are called, but I don’t need to know their name to want them, nor do I need to know about them to buy them. So, state names, tastes and prices. Or why am I bothering, you look like your wife cooks all your meals, you wouldn’t know a thing about your spices either…”

  “You insolent…”

  “Drop it. I want a jar of each of the spices you have. I don’t care about mixes. And before you think of some retort, you are the one that started with a snarky line.”

  “How will you take it?”

  “In jars. I’ll pay for those too.”

  He nodded. “Just prepare to pay, that is if you can afford these.” He went to the back.

  “Cato, I’m not sure if it was a wise idea to get him like that.”

  “Don’t worry.” I told him in a normal tone, then whispered. “He isn’t going to overinflate prices if he thinks I can’t afford them in the first place.”

  “That…” The shop owner returned with a box filled with jars. “Somehow makes sense…”

  “The total will be three gold coins.” The shop owner put on a sly grin.

  “Two gold coins.”

  “Did no one teach you how to negotiate? Where would my profits be?”

  “Drop that. I know of the rates for which they go, I don’t know their names.”

  “Yeah? How much is this then?”

  He pointed at a yellow powder. My bluff was caught. Now I could only hope to guess right.

  “Six silver.”

  “Close, but wrong! Now take out three golds before I throw you out of the shop. I don’t want to waste my merchandise on the likes of you.”

  I rolled my eyes and took out three gold coins out of my pouch. “Here!” I showed the coins to him. “I got the money, now fill those jars already…”

  “With pleasure!” His eyes widened, locking onto the faint glow of the coins and his lips curled in a please smile. His earlier indifference vanished, replaced with a hint of servitude in his mannerism.

  He filled the jars with practiced motions and set them in the box. I handed over the coins and took the box.

  “Thanks. We’ll be back.” I handed the box to Magnar who could carry it more easily and we left. A quick stop by another shop and we got salt. Apparently, salt was valuable, but not valuable enough for imports. So, it was relatively cheap. I got a sack with ten kilograms for a half silver.

  We made our way back to the tower, where we set the spices and salt in the basement. Then we fired up the furnace. Out of the fourteen ingots we made during the demonstration, I took two. We placed them in the fire and prepared the box of rust dust, after all I needed pure iron, and this was the best way to get some.

  After the iron was heated to glowing white, with an orange halo surrounding it and small purplish flickers escaping, I took the ingots out and shook them in the rust dust. Using aether to slow down the cooling and shake out as much carbon, I stood over the crate.

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  Slowly the iron cooled, turning back into a dull grey. I shaved off the faces of the ingots, obtaining 8 thin sheets. Then I repeated the process.

  Sweat trickled down my forehead as I pushed my aether. The pile of sheets doubled in size, but the slow scraping, the sharp, piercing screeching of metal and the huge force I needed even with a lever to shave off the last sheet, told me I needed to sharpen my steel blade.

  I moved over to the grindstones while Magnar maintained the fire with the ingots in it. As I pressed the blade against the spinning stone, it screeched in a high pitch metallic tone that filled the courtyard as the vibrations traveled up my arms, fine small in amplitude, going through my wrists, shaking my elbows, rattling my shoulders, going up my neck and making my teeth clatter painfully.

  One thing I could say about polishing and grinding is that after you quenched something, you had to do your best so that no sparks would jump out. Sparks meant heat, and heat breaks and weakens quenching. In fact, heat on a quenched object, especially a blade, could lead to deformations and cracks if not applied evenly.

  Then back to shaking the carbon out of the ingots. More iron sheets gathered next to me as the process took less and less time with each shaving. As the ingots got smaller it took less time to heat them and less time to shake carbon out.

  I stopped after getting thirty-two sheets. As they were, these sheets were too wide to use. So, I cut them all down the middle. Then I melted some resin. This would act as an insulator between the iron sheets and would ensure that no eddy currents would form in the metal.

  Eddy currents were a pain. They turned magnetic fields into heat and would lose from the power of the motor. The lack of contact between the plates improves heat dissipation, removes magnetic retention and lowers thermal losses of power.

  These layered electromagnets were the peak of the twenty-first century DC motor technology. Although I lacked the means to do more or better, I could at least make use of the basic concepts behind the technology.

  I sunk the metal sheets in the resin and separated them in two groups, stacking them on top of each other. This way I had the two stator magnetic cores. It was getting late so I couldn’t make the rotor windings needed, but this was already progress.

  “We’ll be doing the same tomorrow? But it takes ages to get these sheets! Wouldn’t it be faster to, you know, hammer them and fold?” Asked Magnar his eyes twitching when he heard we had to go through the process again.

  “That method does not give me the kind of purity I need.” I answered dismissively, then remembered he asked me to explain more a few days back and continued.

  “The more impurities there are in iron, the easier it is for the small pieces that are bound together to make the ingot to move. You see, electricity, lightning, is one of the forces that holds those pieces together. By using electricity to transport power, we realign the poles of these small pieces.”

  I continued matter of factlly. “But as you know from aether class, alignment means…”

  “Flow…”

  “In the case of a simple conductor flow is good, but in a motor… Flow means opposition to required operating states. So, it’s bad. The only way to make a material more resistant to such alignments is to have it pure, or to combine it with other materials that would hold it in place with more force. In our case we get the purest metal possible this way. Makes sense?”

  “I guess?”

  “Well, this is what we do, we get the purest iron we can make in our conditions. It’s the only way to get progress going on.” I looked up at him. “Small steps. Today you pumped the bellows, in two days, this motor will do that. In a month an automated system might be purifying the iron for us. All is done one small step at a time.” I concluded my explanation.

  “For now, you did enough, thanks for the help, go eat and rest well, next week first exams are starting.” I patted his forearm as I said this.

  “You don’t need to remind me… I spent so much time here; I don’t know how I’ll do on the tests…”

  “I have no idea. I spent all my mind on designing things and thinking about the next upgrade or build. I haven’t touched a single study material… But I got less exams to worry than you.”

  “Haaa… We might be done for…” He said, his gaze downcast and his shoulders slumped.

  “Nah, I’ll deal with it and help you out too.” I wave my hand dismissively.

  “I’ll prepare myself, thanks for the offer, but cheating is not something I agree with.” He shook his head at my suggestion.

  Magnar left soon after, his steps, heavy, rhythmic thuds, spreading outwards, shaking the ground. I watched him go for a minute, looking from my gate, then got back to work, those cores wouldn’t assemble themselves after all.

  I worked with a steady hand, applying a translucent film of resin to each of the sixty-four plates. Too thick, and the magnetic core would be bulky and inefficient; too thin, and the electricity would jump the gap, turning my motor into a very expensive heater. I stacked them one by one, the sticky resin bonding the pure iron into two solid, heavy blocks.

  I started working on a wooden frame. I placed them in their positions, across from each other and called it a day. Another bath, another meditation session.

  The flow of aether was once again in my view. Since I completed for the first time the array, more signs of crystal shard appeared, a result of better jing and better shen. This time, I did not focus on improving anything, but just observed, charting my meridians.

  It was a soothing experience that sometimes made me feel like I got butterflies. That same restless sensation was making itself present from time to time, result of qi moving, flowing, following my intent and removing small blockages.

  I may have kept an eye out and meditated since I was a baby, but I was only human. A human thrusted in a very weird situation that often required lying or half-truths. These all were causes of blockages, as they took out shen and made the flow of lifeforce stagnate or deviate.

  Luckily, I had no major concerns or issues, meaning I could solve all of them through nothing but focus and meditation. I dreaded the day I would face a blockage I couldn’t solve as easily.

  I went to sleep after meditating, knowing the next day would be hard. Another session of whiteheart method was waiting for me, especially since I planned to make a wound rotor motor with contact brushes.

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