Chapter 184 – Making Progress

“No, no. I didn’t mean I don’t like it but I was wondering if there was really a need for a… sea water holding tank for sharks with laser beams. Why would you need that?” – Kristi questioning some of the requests made by the werewolf packs.

The Monday after the much-needed weekend retreat to the Hammersmith estate had Kurt and the girls back to work. They had split up for the most part, working on different things that they needed to get ready before going off world.

Due to her restrictions, Rindi was the only one still on the property with Kurt. Given the range of her restrictions, she was taking the opportunity to learn about her new body and how her abilities had changed after her encounter with some gods. She had decided to find an isolated section for the forest to do some experimenting where it wouldn’t disturb anyone and she could practice without being distracted.

Kristi had gone to the Order with Val, but they immediately diverted from each other for separate errands. The dragoness was on a supply run for Kurt, getting some precious metals, gems and other supplies for his enchanting that he wanted to stock for the trip.

Val had split away for a quick trip to the Order’s legal department for several things. Firstly, was to make sure her mother’s clan and father’s house had no legal recourse against her or Kurt for how she separated from them. The second thing she was doing there was finalizing the legal portion of establishing a trust.

With everything going on in the Rosk household, they had decided to give everyone the ability to make legal and financial decisions. Thus, they had decided to form a trust to better manage their financial resources and any future legal issues while adding a layer of protection. To that end, Jay was also helping in the establishment of certain things revolving around the massive amount of land they had.

Speaking of the daemon, Kurt had been surprised when Jay had wandered in for breakfast along with Penny. He was more than happy to accommodate them and added a little more to the protein heavy spread that he had already begun preparing.

Jay had taken it upon himself to help Kurt develop what he was thinking of as his territory. That is to say, the bastard had just up and did things without consulting Kurt. Though he had managed to mollify him before being mauled by the extremely agitated werewolf.

Once Jay had laid out his plans and explained the situation with the new residents, Kurt wasn’t all that upset with the development. He knew that there would be some issues with integration that he would need to handle, but was assured that it wouldn’t be too much of a burden. The inclusion of a certain managerial and community leaders would smooth out most problems.

Thus, with breakfast completed and updates provided, Kurt resumed his enchanting work. Though he did have to make some very strict promises to Kristi and Val about his work-life balance before getting started with anything. He was happy to make those promises and even added a few stipulations of his own about the free time that had everyone looking forward to the upcoming weeks.

Now Kurt was able to focus on where he had left off with his magnum opus, the implant that would put his previous developments to shame. He planned to finish it by the end of the week, come hell or high water. He had already done the proofing on a hand engraved version and now was ready to do a production test.

From a plastic tube, Kurt pulled out what he was calling the Interface, which was essentially a titanium pipe. It was nearly an inch and a half in diameter, 8 inches long, and the material was rather thick, nearly a quarter of an inch. He left the other 24 tubes in the box and returned to his bench.

He opened his notebook and reviewed the drawings he had made over the past months and compared them to the digital file on the computer he used for the CNC. After that he moved to the machine and chucked up the Interface on a special mandrel that he had made which would evenly support it through the milling process.

Once it was all set, he started the program and the mill went to work, the coolant spray obscuring most of it. He watched as the part rotated around and the mill head went back and forth. The cut path was traced with a bit he had enchanted to be extremely sharp and extra durable so it wouldn’t break during the process.

After nearly an hour, the program finished and the cutting fluid quit spraying. He moved the part, mandrel and all, to a cleaning tank that he had set up which would strip away all the excess lubricants and leave a perfectly dry surface. While it was having a bath, a new mandrel was put in the mill, but it had dozens of the rings that he was turning into mana batteries which would be milled out in batches.

With the Interface clean, Kurt was able to properly inspect the tool marks and found them to be exceptional. The surfaces were perfectly prepared, and he didn’t doubt that the inlay would have no trouble sticking to the grooved engravings. It was superior to the original version that he had hand carved and didn’t have the little dips and nicks that his prototype had.

“Consistency is king.” Kurt muttered after inspecting the part and clamping it in his vice to begin the inlay.

The gold wire went into the grooves absolutely perfectly. There weren’t any sections that showed any sign of the two materials not adhering. The final sand and polish went relatively smoothly, and he was able to finish it in half the time he did with the prototype.

By the time he finished with the first tube, Kurt’s mana battery rings were ready, and he pulled them out to also give them a bath. Their spot in the CNC was taken by four separate ring designs that he had picked.

One ring was the magical focus’ and amplifier that he and all the girls had. The second was a shield design he had come up with. Then there was a condensed version of the physical enhancement bracelets that only lost a little potency by going to a smaller size. The last design was only for Kristi since it was an updated version of her shapeshifting enchantments that he made since she couldn’t cast their own glamor or shift like Val. He also made a glamor version for Rindi since she couldn’t stand the shapeshifting version.

While those ran, Kurt took the battery rings to his bench after their bath. He had already converted a large amount of their ever-growing supply of the magical crystal he and Val found to a metal wire. In this state it had massively increased energy storage properties that surpassed most gems he could aquire.

He went down the line, inlaying each ring with the magical metal before having to polish them smooth. With that done, he took the remaining rings off the mill and put them in the bath to soak while he loaded up the last rings.

The final rings were the third iteration of his storage ring. This version had all the benefits of the previous one, including the clothing storage enchant, along with some extra enhancements that allowed some flexibility in what could be stored. The main upgrade wasn’t the capacity, though that was increased, but the latency issue with storing and summoning items. He had managed to get it down to nearly instantaneous translocation while keeping the intuitive control that made it easy to use.

While those last rings ran, Kurt went up for lunch. He had set a firm ‘break time’ when negotiating with the girls and that was from 11:30 to 1:00. It was during that time they had all promised to try and have lunch and take breaks together so nobody would feel neglected or lonely.

Everyone converged on the kitchen to eat then spend a little time catching everyone up on their day and the plans that they had after lunch. There weren’t many changes from the morning’s plans, with the exception of Val deciding to just get the banking taken care of that day.

After sitting on the porch for a while, everyone returned to their tasks. Rindi wandered off to the woods, Kristi went to the farm to touch base with Jade and Kurt went back to the basement. Val hung around for a little while before leaving for her bank appointment and provided some welcome company while he worked.

Kurt had gone back down to put the storage rings in the cleaning bath during lunch but otherwise didn’t do anything more. After taking them out to let them dry, he chucked up another of the titanium tubes and ran the program while he went back to work on inlaying.

The rings with the magic focus, physical amplifiers, shields and shapeshifting rings were all inlaid with gold but had a little extra added. The gems that he had turned into metal worked great at amplifiers in their natural state and he incorporated several small sections into the rings that would allow them to function even better than his earlier versions.

Once he was done inlaying all the rings and two of the Interface tubes, Kurt began activating the enchantments. It was going to be a grueling task, but he hoped that his mana batteries would take some of the edge off. He really didn’t want to use one of the mana recovery potions that Sam had given him if he could help it.

“One set at a time or batched by type?” He mused aloud while looking at the parts next to his enchanting plate. He turned around at the sound of a tap on the door.

“Knock knock.” Kristi said as she entered the vault. “What are you up to?” She walked over and draped herself over his back, chin resting on his shoulder.

Kurt glanced at the clock on the wall and saw he had about an hour of the day left to work. “Oh, just deciding what order I want to enchant these in. By set or by type.”

Kristi looked at the collection of parts on the bench. “Do you know how much each item will take? How much mana I mean.”

“Nope. I can guess at some but not with complete accuracy. The battery rings should only activate and then slow charge using ambient mana. The rest will take the full amount.”

“Then why don’t you do one set first but do the items one at a time.” Kristi suggested. “Then you get a baseline for how much energy it takes. After that, we are done for the day.”

Smiling, Kurt reached back and patted her hip. “Looking forward to it.”

“We all are.” Kristi said and gave him a kiss on the cheek before detaching herself and walking back toward the stairs.

“It’s nice to know I am wanted.” Kurt mused.

Kristi paused, one foot hovering on the step. “Well, it’s more that it’s taco night and you are the one who promised to make them.”

Kurt grasped at his chest. “Ahh! You wound me with your harsh and dismissive words. How cruel of you to deny my love and affection.” He said dramatically.

Rolling her eyes, Kristi smirked. “How about after the movie we all snuggle up in bed, and I kiss it to make it better.”

“Kissing my heart might not be enough.” Kurt retorted, playing the part a little longer.

Kristi began walking up the stairs but looked back over her shoulder. “I wasn’t planning on kissing your heart…” her eyes flicked down to his waist

“That’ll do it!” Kurt called as he watched her swaying rear climb the steps out of the vault. “Yup, that will do it…” He muttered with a smile as he returned to his work. One by one, he began placing items on his enchanting plate to activate.

He activated the Interface first. His thought was that it was the strangest item and the interconnective enchantments might cause issues or have unexpected power requirements. He was wrong.

The titanium and gold pipe used very little mana, less than one of the storage rings or even the batteries he had made for his enchanting bench. It was just a little spike of power draw before it leveled out and quickly filled on a trickle of mana. He would compare it to turning on a light and the little surge of power before it dimmed to operating brightness.

After it had finished its process, Kurt noted that the previously chamfered edges of the Interface were now a different shape. They had smoothed out, rounding off slightly into a gentle slope with no hard edges. Kurt was nearly certain that it was the ‘blend’ enchantment he had engraved but would have to see how it interacted with the rings to be sure it worked.

Next, he did the generation 3 storage ring. As expected, it was a massive mana drain, just like the previous versions. He thought that it had something to do with creating the pocket dimension that it caried around but couldn’t be sure. It sounded right as the mana draw had increased relative to the internal storage size.

After that he did the enhancement rings. Each of them went as expected, using a similar amount of mana to their larger counterparts he had made in the past. The magical focus version was based on his design for the focus’ he gave Kristi and Val, early in their stays with him.

The shielding enchantment was a little different since he ran the mana through a conversion device, typing it to Kristi’s force aspect. In his research and testing he had figured out that it would make the enchantment more effective and efficient for an additional upfront cost. Still, it came out well under his predicted mana budget.

Lastly was the ring-shaped batteries. These were what he was nervous about since there was a chance that they would drain his fixed, large batteries that resided in his work bench. He let out a sigh of relief when they activated the way they were designed and he could disconnect them from the enchanting plate to trickle charge via the ambient mana. He ran the remaining battery rings all at once, only wasting a little of his mana reserves while he took them off the plate.

Kurt stared at the neat row of enchanted partes that made up the implant system. They were all perfect and they were all ready for the next step. A step that he wasn’t sure he was ready for yet.

Still having a few minutes before his established ‘quitting time’, Kurt pulled out the device he made to actually use the implant. The control tool was exactly what it said on the label, a tool to control the implant process.

The control tool was essentially a wand with a numbered dial built in with a couple buttons. The dial was a ring with the numbers 0-10 that could be rotated to line up with the two buttons. One was labeled ‘Place’ and the other ‘Remove’. On the back of the short wand was a tapered section with a small hook that would hold a new ring or catch the removed one.

Reviewing his notes, Kurt took the storage ring and put it on the hook at the back of the tool. He then selected the number 1 on the dial and pointed it at the Interface before hitting the ‘Place’ button.

There was a brief draw on his mana and the ring teleported from its hook. At the same time, a bubble of space expanded out from the Interface, shimmering slightly under the lights in the vault. Then, the ring appeared where the bubble was previously, replacing it completely while sizing itself to the Interface.

“HELL YEAH!” Kurt cheered and pumped a fist.

He then selected the number 2 and repeated the process with the physical amplifying ring. Ring vanished, bubble appeared and the ring suddenly appeared next to the first. He picked up the Interface and brought it under his magnifying lens.

Kurt slowly rotated the device, inspecting the two rings. The first ring had merged perfectly with the end of the tube, matching the taper of the end and continuing the smooth presentation. The second ring sat so close to the first that he had to squint to even see the seam under magnification, let alone feel it.

Still excited, Kurt returned to his work bench and rotated the dial back to the number 1 and pointed the control tool at the Interface. This time he hit ‘Remove’. The process that he had just seen now happened in reverse. The ring vanished, leaving behind a bubble that slowly contracted while the ring appeared on the hook.

He didn’t focus much on the ring as he watched the bubble dissipate and leave behind the ring in the second position. That ring had slightly changed, its previously flat edge smoothing out to be a gentle slope from the Interface. There wasn’t a sharp corner anywhere that he could see, showing the underlying ‘blend’ enchantment on the Interface worked as advertised.

The alarm on his phone went off a moment alter and Kurt began carefully and methodically packing things away. Over the years he had developed the habit of not leaving his projects out on the bench if he could help it. Before leaving, he reloaded the CNC with another Interface then headed back upstairs.

As he entered the basement, he saw Val coming out of the game room. “Hey. Everything go ok with the bank?”

“Yup, got all the paperwork put in and the signatures taken care of.” Val answered and followed him up the steps. “Should be a couple days before we get our new cards and some account information in the mail.”

“Nice. Any other issues with the trust and getting it set up?” Kurt asked.

“Yes, but Order legal is reviewing it.” Val shrugged as they stopped in the living room. “This part of the property is in your name but the rest of it is going to be set up differently. Apparently, you can’t really put an entire country in a trust.”

Kurt frowned. “Entire country?”

Val hiked her thumb over her shoulder. “All that land the government seceded to us is essentially a separate nation in the eyes of the law. That will take some work, but we have a plan to establish it and set it up for the future.”

“You’re amazing.” Kurt said then leaned in to give her a hug and a kiss.

“Hmm, I know.” Val purred in return. “Now you get your amazing butt in that kitchen. I think Rindi might be a bit hangry when she gets back.”

As Kurt walked to the kitchen he saw Kristi pull into the garage. She entered the house a few minutes later and made for the kitchen. After getting a beer from the fridge, she sat heavily on one of the stools.

“Rough day?” Kurt asked, having had to wait for her before getting his turn to pull ingredients from the fridge.

Kristi shook her head. “No, just a lot. A cold beer after spending a lot of time outside sounded perfect.”

Having been in that same situation before, Kurt nodded. “What’s up with the farm?”

“Oh, just a lot of meeting and greeting.” Kristi said, pausing to give Val a hug before continuing. “We had some of the new folks come by and we did the initial layout for the neighborhood and community buildings. Then we had some geomancers walking around to double check the underground part.”

“Sounds like a lot. Everything go ok?” Kurt asked while splitting his attention between the pan of ground beef and the flat griddle with the tortilla.

“Yeah, I think so.” Kristi answered. “Apparently when things start happening it will happen quick. Should have a lot of the underground stuff done before we leave and a good portion of the above ground.”

Val perked up. “Really? That’s awful fast.”

“That’s magic.” Kristi said. “The traditional houses will take longest since they don’t want to build them until utilities are put in or at least planned.”

They chatted about the plans for the town and what Kristi saw when she met the new residents for a while. Kurt managed to keep a balance of cooking and talking up until their 4th arrived.

Rindi all but stumbled her way though the front door as he was finishing cutting veggies. She waived to them before going and flopping down on the couch, face down with her feet hanging over the arm rest.

“Rindi, you ok, sweetie?” Val asked, raising her voice.

“MMGFahhhhhamm mmuugfffm. Mmmm eeeaahm.” Came the response.

“What?” Val asked, tilting her head as her ears swiveled.

There was a rustle as Rindi shifted around on the couch, rolling over it seemed, based on her feet. “I said I’ll live but I don’t know how much longer if I don’t eat.”

“Well, I guess we’re stuck with you cause dinner is ready.” Kurt called and laughed as Rindi sat up straight, nearly tipping the couch up on end as she did.