My father headed toward the forge, where the iron had turned into an incandescent, searing-hot liquid (how the iron inside the pot melted while the pot itself—theoretically also made of iron—didn't, I have no idea).
He grabbed the "pot" by its handle and walked toward the magic circle containing the motor and the battery—which I now noticed was glowing faintly.
He poured a bit of the molten iron onto the motor and some onto the battery. Under normal circumstances, doing this would have destroyed both parts—not to mention triggering a violent reaction, especially from the battery.
The molten metal would have caused the battery acid to vaporize and explode, sending shards of lead, plastic, acid, and the molten iron itself flying everywhere. That's not to mention the gas generated by the boiling acid, which could have killed us in a slow, agonizing way.
But, as I said, that would have been the case before.
Things were different now.
When the liquid metal touched the two parts, it seemed to be "drawn" to the stone dust from earlier; it clumped around the dust, forming semi-spheres of liquid metal. My father then poured the remaining metal onto the central stone—which reacted the same way—and placed his hands over the sphere.
For a while, nothing happened; the metal kept glowing, radiating heat and the smell of scorched iron, while my father stood right in the middle of it, unbothered. Eventually, the spheres began to cool and take on the color of ordinary iron once more.
At that moment, my father seemed to send a wave of mana into the sphere that had encased the large blood-magic stone (or rather, the cut and polished fragment of it).
Triggered by this, the circle he had drawn—and upon which my mother had performed some sort of work—flared with a golden-yellow light. It wasn't blinding, but it certainly wasn't something that could go unnoticed.
The glow traveled along the magical circuitry to the battery and the motor, surged up both, and also concentrated on the iron spheres. They shone with a golden-yellow light, matching the hue of the central unit.
"Uurrrgggmmn hhhmmnn"
Seeming to strain, my father began twisting his hands over the sphere—close to it, but not quite touching. From where I stood, I could barely see what he was doing, but his movements suggested he was twisting, squeezing, and wringing it.
After minutes of this, he sent out another pulse of mana, causing the three pieces to glow with pure gold light. It was brighter, yet not enough to hurt the eyes.
When the glow receded, the battery, the engine, and the magic stone reappeared, though altered.
The battery—normally a heavy square containing the acid that generated the electric charge—was now encased in a metallic shell that gleamed like steel. The terminals where the car cables connected now had two additional pairs running parallel to them; these appeared to be made of crystal, or perhaps an opaque stone fused to the metal casing.
The car engine followed the same pattern, but the connection points were arranged around what looked like an iron magic circle inscribed right in the center, near the Ford logo.
And finally, the cut blood magic stone.
....
Yeah, no matter the angle I viewed it from... it was a little black box. Literally, a little black box.
It was the size of an old camera—the kind from the beginning of 2000, the first digital cameras, like Sonny.
It had almost those dimensions, maybe a little bit more… robust?. But it was a black box, with every edge precise to the millimeter—smooth and clean, like a block of obsidian.
'.....All that work.... for *this*?'
I couldn't help but feel a bit bitter about it.
Sure, I didn't know what he intended to do with it, nor did I have any idea what to expect, but... it was, to a certain extent, anticlimactic.
Well, to be fair, it wasn't a complete block of obsidian; I was sure I saw a reddish glow in the middle of it, but it might have just been my imagination.
*Thump*
The sound of something heavy falling to the ground made us look up from the workbench to see my father lying on the ground, almost threatening the car's open cable.
"Dad!"
"Márcio!!"
We both rushed to him as quickly as possible. She knelt down a little in front of him, and I supported him from behind. He was much heavier than before.
"Aaahhhh aaahhhh aaahhhh aahhhh.... That was tiring.... Ahh ahh ahhhh"
Before my mother could do anything, I took an orange and a bottle of water from my [item box] and gave them to him.
"You should have stopped if it was taking such a toll on you."
My mother began, and it looked like it was going to be an even bigger lecture than the one I got for trying to use her sewing machine.
(Which, by the way, she had already stored in her toolbox, explaining how big her box should be or how to increase its level naturally. Because even though I use mine constantly, it hasn't increased even once, I don't know.)
My father raised a trembling hand before she started. Whether it was trembling from the effort or from apprehension about interrupting my mother, only God knows.
"Aaahhhh I know, I know, but we've already wasted too much time here.... *Glup*. Aahhhh. Especially with the time I took... to finish the last adjustments."
"Mom's right and you didn't even—"
I intended to say, you didn't take that long. But then I looked outside.
Because of the incandescent glow of the metal in an already somewhat dark environment, and then because of the glow of the magic circles, I hadn't noticed. But now that the light sources were gone, it was clear that the office was dark. Very dark.
With my [night vision], it didn't make much difference, but it clearly wasn't late-afternoon light anymore. Looking outside, I saw that the sun had completely set.
I checked my watch (which, miraculously, was still intact); it showed a time just past 22:35 hours (or 10:35 pm). The fact is, I'd come in around 17:10; with the conversation and everything else, it must have been around 17:30 when Dad started making his "adjustments" to the engine and battery.
'Did he spend six hours in constant concentration, draining his mana?'
In terms of metallurgy, blacksmithing, and engine engineering, that would be a record time (probably), though for me, it still would have taken ages. That said, it amazes me that he's still conscious.
If it were me, I would've passed out in half an hour—maybe forty minutes, if I got lucky.
'And here I thought my mana pool was huge... just how much mana must he have?'
'Come to think of it, what must their stats look like?'
Mari already showed me hers, and even though she gains experience just by sleeping at my place, she wouldn't have leveled up over those two days—and theoretically, they didn't leave this spot for two days either.
But before that, they likely had to deal with just as many monsters as I did when I went to get the blood magic stone.
'Even without my experience bonus from resistances, they must have fought enough to go up at least one level, right?'
Mari was level 7 after the "quest" for Nawa and Lumi (perhaps partly from fighting a bit while guarding the house, too). If they were, say, level 5 back then, then what would they be now? Level 10, 11?
'And even at level 17—on the verge of hitting 18— I still have less mana than them?'