Chapter 194: Your gears lack energy, but the ether makes up for it
Looking at the motionless gear, Horn climbed onto the stage, reached out and touched it, trying to turn it.

But no matter how hard Horn tried, the gear didn't move at all, as if the gear that didn't move when the handle turned just now was not it.

"It's amazing."

No matter how incredible Horn found it, the phenomenon was already before him, and no matter how unreasonable it was, it was part of the way the world worked.

But he still believed that matter was conserved, and there must be something about this star-cast gear that he didn't understand.

At this time, Shilov looked at Horn standing in front of the gear in deep thought, and gradually understood.

She gradually calmed down from showing off her toys and began to introduce them to Horn in a serious manner.

"Don't think of it as rotating out of thin air. It can rotate because I am also turning the handle." Shilov turned her wheelchair and sat over. "When I turn the handle, you can think of the Starcast Gear as a small gear that weighs only one tenth of the original weight, or even almost nothing.

To the other gears that come into contact with the Starforge, the Starforge is still the same fast, heavy gear."

This made Horn even more confused. The problem was that the energy at the input end was smaller than that at the output end. Who could make up for the missing energy?

"You have such a high-speed gear-driven machine, but your input end only has enough energy to turn the small gear. It's like putting a drop of water in a pond, and a basin of water flows out..." Horn suddenly stopped talking.

If you put a drop of water in a pool and a basin of water comes out, in this case, either there is another water inlet or there is already water in the pool.

When using the orichalcum rod, he encountered a similar problem, and Horn's diagnosis was that "the potential energy of the orichalcum is relatively large, but the user's mana makes up for it."

Do Starforged Gears have the same properties?
But when he turned the handle just now, he didn't feel any magic power being lost.

"Let me ask you, does this gear consume mana to run?"

"Yes and no." Covering her thighs with the long wolf tail, Shilov continued to explain.

This star-cast gear is a great alchemical invention of Shilov's adoptive mother. It was originally intended to be used as a water pump to help drain the swamp, but for some unknown reason, it was not implemented.

According to Shilov, as an alchemical product, the alchemical reaction of the Star-Forged Gears takes place during rotation.

Although the mana required is only slightly higher than that of glowstone, it is indeed required. In other words, an ordinary person would not be able to turn the handle at all.

"But our magic power is far from enough to turn it, right?"

"Let me give you an analogy. The mana you give is just a flame, but what really makes the flame burn is the firewood underneath."

"You mean, the gears themselves store energy?"

"Correct." Shiloh's tail wagged. "The firewood you mentioned, the water in the pool, is called ether."

"Ether?!" Pasrick's suppressed scream came from behind him.

Horn glanced back quickly and said, "Master Chrispa, do you know what ether is?"

Until now, Horn still calls Pasrick "Crispa", because if you call him by his real name, he will ignore you, as if his identity has not been exposed.

"Ether is a hypothesis proposed by the Priory of the Scales, but..."

Seeing that Pasrick seemed to be hesitant to speak, Horn did not continue asking and planned to go back and ask privately. After all, the most important thing at the moment was the issue of the Starcast Gear.

"Then where did the Aether come from? And how did it get into the Starforge Gear?"

"Ether comes from the astral world. Our material world is in the astral world. We are constantly traversed by the flow of ether. It's just that the time, location, and conditions for extracting it are very demanding.

If you want to know the details, we can have a tea party and we can talk about it in detail then."

Turning the hand wheel, Shiloh slowly drove towards the door: "As for how it is stored in the Star Forge Gear, what do you think the spire outside is used for?"

………………

After confirming that Afu was not seriously injured, Shilov brought Horn and others to the gate of the spire.

At this moment, there were many more marks of knives and axes on the gate, but no matter how they attacked, even using clockwork guns, they could not break the iron gate.

But the strange thing is that except for the gargoyle relief in the middle of the door, there is no keyhole or mechanism.

How do we open the door? Horn looked down at Shilov's erected wolf ears.

"Horn, push me to the door."

Pushing the wheelchair to the door, Shilov casually put her hand into the mouth of the gargoyle. Horn vaguely saw a flash of cold light in the deep stone mouth, and when Shilov withdrew her hand, a red blood spot appeared on the tip of her index finger.

Holding the gargoyle's chin, Shilov gave a light push, and the heavy, tall iron door slowly rose as the chain turned.

It's as easy as opening a rolling door.

She stretched out her slender tongue and licked away the blood. The tiny cut on her fingertips healed quickly. "This door can only be opened by me and my mother. Well, I don't know how those demon hunters opened it. Maybe they used my mother's blood?"

Before Shilov and Horn entered, a group of soldiers went in first and searched the house thoroughly inside and out.

But this time Victor couldn't guarantee anything. If a vampire popped up halfway through his journey, he would have to say goodbye to his position as legion commander.

He still wants to make further progress.

After making sure the first floor was safe, Horn and his team walked into the slender and tall spire.

The entire spire seems to be built of marble. The first floor is about 100 square meters, but because there is no public area, it does not look small.

In the center of the black, red and white granite floor is a pool with a radius of about two meters.

Since there were no windows on the first floor, everything was shrouded in foggy darkness. The only light came from the vertical beam of light coming through the small hole in the ceiling.

Located in the center of the floor, the slender column of light seems to support the entire floor.

The water of the pool reflects the ripples that roll over the arches, tapestries and Gothic columns of the walls.

However, Horn and others did not stay for long, but pushed Shilov up to the second floor from the spiral ramp.

The second floor no longer had elaborately decorated walls. Instead, there were only curved bookcases arranged in a circle along the walls. There were only a few books in the bookcases, and some even had signs of fire.

"It was all done by those demon hunters." Shirof let her tail hang straight down coldly. "I have memorized all those books. If there were paper, the bookcase here could be filled up by at least half."

Pushing Shilov up to the third floor, unlike the dim light pillars on the first and second floors, there were no other floors between the third floor and the top of the tower.

Although it was daytime outside, pale light could still be seen falling in from the top of the tower and the high windows beside it.

Horn estimated the distance, probably about fifty or sixty meters from the third floor to the top floor. There seemed to be an observatory made of brass, iron supports and transparent glass leading to the top floor.

From the third floor to the top floor, there are circles of fluorescent stones. Following the spiral arrangement of fluorescent stones downwards, in the middle of the third floor, there is a black base that is neither iron nor wood.

"There used to be an obsidian obelisk here, but it was moved away by the witcher."

Holding the hand wheel rim and pushing hard, Shilov came to the base of the obelisk.

She raised her head and looked upwards. The sunlight was filtered through the gray clouds, turning into transparent white light that sprinkled on her face.

“When I was a kid, I saw them refining aether to forge star-forged gears.

But since the obelisk was moved and the ritual materials were cleared out and burned, how this gear was cast has become an eternal mystery, and I have not been able to reproduce it to this day."

Horn walked around the room, his fingers brushing against the smooth wall. There were mottled scorch marks on the wall. They looked more like laser burns than fire marks.

"How is this star-forged gear infused with aether?"

“Well…” Shilov lowered her head and pointed to the observatory above, “We need to calculate the time and position of the stars first, and then place the telescope in the appropriate position.

If the starlight can shine normally on the obelisk through the telescope, then the alchemical ritual of [ether pump] will be performed, and the ether of the astral world will use the starlight as a channel to enter the material world.

The ether passes through the obsidian obelisk, or this base, and enters the moon pool at the bottom. The star-cast gears placed in the moon pool will gradually absorb the invisible ether. "

Ether, it's amazing.

Horn, who was touching the base of the obelisk, suddenly felt a little regretful. It would be great if the Star-Forged Gears could be mass-produced.

Putting her head above the base, Jeanna turned her head and looked up: "Can the Starcast Gear be used forever like this?"

"Of course not." Shilov stroked the wolf tail on her thigh, "This ether will run out every once in a while, so the Star Forge Gear must be recharged in the Moon Spring every once in a while.

The next time the stars will be aligned will be in ten days, I will show you then."

(End of this chapter)