Mage? Magic Engineer!

Chapter 399: Chapter 396: Rorschach’s "Astonishing Wisdom

Caroline also noticed giant Mechanical Bodies moving around the factory grounds. They were pulling flatbed carts, also made entirely of steel, transporting materials in bags or barrels.

"This is like a massively scaled-up Alchemy Workshop. You don’t even use horse-drawn carts; you use Mechanical Bodies instead."

"We don’t have a choice," Rorschach said with a sigh of resignation. "We’re moving materials by the ton now, and the factory runs around the clock. Wooden carts can’t carry enough in one go. And if we used draft horses, we’d need five rotating teams, bringing the cost up to the same level as our current Mechanical Bodies."

The benefits of these Demonic Puppets were numerous. Not only could they work around the clock, but their transport capacity was also astonishing. Beyond just pulling carts, they could also handle loading and unloading. The Earth-element Demonic Puppets had been upgraded with Plate Armor-style skinning over a cast-iron frame. Their power source was hydraulic, with a culture medium mixed with Living Aquatic Microorganisms sealed into the system to generate force.

Furthermore, inspired by an accident involving one of his clones, Rorschach had used his own blood to cultivate a new lineage of familiars. Once their numbers reached a critical threshold, they became more attuned to "humanity," lightening the Tower Spirit’s control burden. This, in turn, allowed Rorschach to manufacture even more of these behemoths.

The industrial park was vast. Rorschach summoned an idle Demonic Puppet, which picked them up for a "ride"—Rorschach in one hand and Caroline in the other. Caroline felt it was quite awkward, but once she was settled in the crook of the Demonic Puppet’s arm, she was startled. "This Mechanical Body’s gait is so smooth?"

"It has to be." Rorschach’s expression turned pained as he explained, "Some of the products here will explode from the slightest bump before they undergo the Dulling process."

The Demonic Puppet carried the two of them on a patrol through the factory grounds. The workers, long used to such sights, simply cleared a path. Another Demonic Puppet, pulling a cart full of workers for a shift change, crossed paths with Rorschach and Caroline.

"Why don’t you build specialized Demonic Puppets just for transport?"

’Hmm... A good question!’ Rorschach hadn’t thought of it either. When he and Andre were designing the new models, they’d subconsciously been focused on other applications...

"We will. The next batch will be a Land Beast model." Rorschach adopted Caroline’s suggestion and proceeded to show her the air separation unit, the ammonia synthesis plant, the dual-process ammonia-soda plant, the three-acids-two-bases production area, the nitration workshop, the power station, and the centralized waste treatment zone...

After an exhaustive tour, they had finally seen it all. Caroline noticed a pattern: the newer the factory complex, the less alchemy technology it employed. ’Judged by a Mage’s standards, this looks like regression, doesn’t it?’

But Rorschach didn’t see it that way. ’In my view, the more "primitive" an area appears, the more advanced it actually is, from its construction materials to its process design.’

When he brought Caroline into the core R&D building, she saw two Transmutation Dust Extractors. One produced physical crystals, while the other directly outputted energy that was fed into the factory.

"So this is the extractor, I take it. When I was at the Tower of Stars, Master Kano’s research never broke through the Transformation Layer Flow. I heard about extractors later, but this is the first time I’ve seen one in person." She also noticed that most of the operators were not Casters.

"Valuva has even larger ones. The Alchemy Department has more technicians."

"So you have ordinary people operating them here?"

Rorschach shrugged. "As long as the integration and usability are high enough, it doesn’t matter who’s turning the valves. All that matters is proper employee training. As for safety, if the regulations are strictly followed, no one will die. If an accident does happen, even a Basic Level Mage might not escape." His voice was a bit loud, causing the nearby operators to shudder.

The final stop at the Basif factory was the workshop that housed the Tower Spirit. The two Demonic Puppets stepped aside, and after passing through a heavy fireproof, waterproof, and theft-proof door, the shared brain of the three factories and the Bart Mage Tower was revealed to Caroline.

In addition to the main core array, which served as the centerpiece, there were now significantly more computing units stacked in cabinets that lined two entire walls. A third wall was taken up by Rorschach’s workbench, and the fourth held an array of storage units.

When Caroline touched a computing unit, she discovered traces of spatial distortion and compression and asked in surprise, "You made a... miniature version of the Istani Analytical Engine?"

The Tower Spirit answered for Rorschach, "My esteemed and beautiful Lady Caroline, I am an upgraded version, far superior in both intelligence and performance!"

Although the Tower Spirit had told Rorschach that the returns from simply adding more hardware would diminish, Rorschach had no way to perform a major upgrade at the moment. He came up with an outrageous idea:

He would have the Gao Po Precision Factory continue to manufacture computing units. Then, he would use the [Ethereal Membrane Space Compression Technique] to shrink each unit from roughly one cubic meter down to the size of a wristwatch. Finally, he would integrate them in parallel into the cabinets, which were enchanted with the [Constant Skill].

This way, the server room’s physical space didn’t change, and the wiring distance between the base units and the core didn’t increase significantly, yet the potential for brute-forcing hardware was massively amplified. It was like if a 13nm chip fell into Rorschach’s hands—he could compress it down to 3nm, instantly solving any production bottleneck.

After its upgrade, the Tower Spirit was in complete awe of Rorschach’s "astounding genius." "You’re unbeatable, Master."

"So is this building your Mage Tower?" Caroline thought for a moment. Besides this room, the R&D building also housed the Transmutation Dust Extractor, which best fit the definition of a Mage Tower, but she hadn’t seen the features a proper Mage Tower ought to have.

"Patience, Teacher. Tomorrow morning, we’ll visit Kempson’s Steel Factory." Caroline realized that both facilities they had visited today depended on the steel factory’s support. Her curiosity piqued, and she agreed to continue the tour the next day.

...

Upon arriving at Kempson, a vast, man-made crater unfolded before Caroline. The enclosed blast furnaces revealed no flames, but when the coking ovens discharged their contents and the furnaces were tapped for slag, immense amounts of light, heat, and gas would still gush out, billowing up to fill the bottom of the pit. The air was thick with a faint haze of coal ash that seemed to grow denser toward the pit’s floor.

Even at the edge of the crater, Caroline could still hear a continuous, muffled thudding—the sound of steam-powered forge hammers striking in the nearby workshops.

And in the center, surrounded by the blast furnaces, was another enormous steel structure. It had a striking geometric and dynamic form, composed of a series of spiraling structures that wound their way up around a vertical, three-story tower.

At the base of the Central Tower, Demonic Puppets of the same model seen at Basif could be spotted moving in and out. From this vantage point, they looked tiny, and the people on the pit floor were no bigger than ants.

From the clean, circular outline of the man-made crater to the tower constructed of steel frames, Caroline sensed a kind of brutal power—an uncompromising reshaping of the very earth. The more perfect the circle, the taller the tower, the more materials it devoured and spat out, the more it revealed an inherent "savage" strength. It was an outpost for the conquest of nature, where workers toiled and sweated inside while the earth itself bled scorching, molten iron.

Just as Caroline was about to share her thoughts, a small black dot appeared near the tower’s spire. It grew larger as it approached the two of them on the edge of the crater. A closer look revealed it to be Andre, clad in a powered suit.

He was now wearing the third version of the suit, which had a greater payload capacity, while its endurance was on par with the second version. Although Andre insisted he was just testing its performance, Rorschach had every reason to suspect the guy was just playing around.

He glanced between Rorschach and Caroline, then a strange impulse made him ask, "Teacher, are you personally conducting the onboarding training?"