The first step I o plete to make the new fluorite facility was cutting those 12-inch fluorite crystals into a pte that could be used to power a stirling engine. So, I cut a 2 inch thick pte from the ter. I decided to leave the triangur edges oe, sihey aren't really in the way. Then, I cut a grid into the crystal only a half of an inch deep. I didn't want to harm the heat produ capabilities too much, but I still wao have the better thermal du out of the crystal.

  Ultimately, that meant that I had a pte that still prised about 40% of the initial crystal's volume. That also means that this singur pte has about 25% more volume than the 8-inch crystal I grew before. Meaning I o prepare accly for the stirling engine, si would produce a det amount of heat.

  A quick test showed me that, indeed, it did produce a rge amount of heat, and I hadn't even traveled that close to the surface before I had to turn around because I started needing to use mana on thermal hands to keep myself from being burned while carrying the pte. That made me realize that I o assemble some of the stirling engine down in the low mana area, and haul it up to the surface for final produ. At the very least, the future crystal ptes will o be attached to their metal housing underground before being brought to the surface.

  Betweeential for the pure iron fluorite to produce even more heat per unit volume, and the much rger fluorite crystal grower, I'm actually somewhat ed about the final temperatures involved. Oher hand, I cut those ptes thinner while maintaining a high heat produ, distributed over a rger surface area, so it'll probably be quite ideal for a stirling engine. There are also questions about mass produ that e to mind. Namely, each octahedron only have e tral pte cut out, or two slightly smaller ohen all further ptes will be ever decreasing in size.

  I'll have to wait until we have our first extra rge crystal to really evaluate the proper method moving forward, but I suspect that I'll want the rgest possible tral pte for powerful maes, but then the remaining ptes we'll actually choose an intermediate size, and cut them all to that size, so that we have a standard pte for stru.

  In any case, I ended up making a replica of the crystal pte out of stone so that I could design the whole stirling engine on the surfaext, I brought the attag point down to the crystal, got it attached, and carried that whole k of metal and crystal to the surface by using wood as an insutor to carry the increasingly hot pieetal.

  After I got everything hooked in, the stirling engine funed well for a little while before steadily losing torque. At this point, I'd already spent six days on this project, so I was a little frustrated. After taking the whole thing apart, it was clear that the fine lead mesh had partially melted and formed something of a clog in the regeor se. I hadn't really thought much of it, sihe e and effit stirling engines were being used at cryogenic temperatures, but here that wasn't the case.

  So, after another day, I had ed out the regeor and repced it with steel wire. After that, the stirling engine raer than before. The actual power output was quite impressive, and I was fident that this one engine could easily run both furnaces and one of the grinders. One dowo stirling engines is that it's very difficult to properly harhe energy being produced, and in fact, I tell that It's losing some effi the hot side piston from sight alone.

  To really harhe energy well and not have a long travel distahe piston is actually quite a bit rger thae, meaning that the ter of the piston g pte is quite a bit hotter thaside. While I've done my best to ihe piston, it's still experieng losses as a result. It's as if I'm using a blowtor the ter of a metal dining table, and trying to cook oher side of it. The good news is that I'm able to learn from this experien designing the engine.

  Rather than making such a thick pte, for the engine, I'm going to use two crystals to make 4 ptes an inch thick, and put all four on the piston, equidistant from the ter and the edge. The engine is inteo power the rest of the meical grinders, so it might be slightly overkill, as I expect it to be more powerful tha one. However, given how close I want this facility to be to the b, I'm sure there are other things we could hook in to the spare meical power, like a freezer.

  I was initially quite fused when the sed engine wasn't w as well as the first one was. I had already spent another five days building this sed engine, and I was remembering the fact I'd had to ge to steel wool, and was worried I had a problem simir to that. When I had ope up, however, I didn't notiything really out of the ordinary. However, after using thermal hands to protect myself, a a rough gauge of the temperatures involved by looking at how much mana I lost to keep myself safe over a short period of time, I figured out the problem.

  While the energy going into the stirling engine was higher for the sed engine, and the heat was better distributed, the highest temperature it was achieving was lower by a det amount. I'm only hypothesizing here, but due to the source of the heat being more trated before, the overall temperature was higher. That extra distance from the ter of the pistoed as a quasi-insutor allowing the piston as a whole to hold on to that energy better, sihe bottom there was insuted somewhat by a yer of robsp; This design has far more of the total crystal volume exposed to air, however.

  So, it was leading to a two-fold efficy loss. First, the efficy of a ot cycle, and by extension a stirling cycle, is determined by the hot and cold end steady state temperatures. So while I gained a small amount of effi getting the whole piston head up to temperature, I was reag a lower operating temperature, redug the efficy drastically. Sed, I was rejeg more of the heat I wao turn into work to the atmosphere, causing even more losses.

  So, I came up with two fixes for this. While I'd love if I could make some rock wool, it'd be incredibly tedious to make it with stone shaping, so I did the best thing, and made a few yers of fine honeyb pattern made of rock around the piston to help i more. Sed, rather than having the crystal pte exposed to air directly, I made a series of air vents in lih the surrounding insution leading to the ptes. While that might limit the maing in by a small amount, it should allow the air to heat up and move less, redug vective losses, and allowing the crystals to reach a higher temperature.

  That brought the sed engine quite a bit passed the first in terms of total power output. However, it did take me two additional days to implement those ges. After taking awo days to implement those ges bato the first engine, and the improvement was at least measurable, though the sed eill outperformed the first by a det margin. I'd expected that, however. While the sed engine is made of smaller ptes, their total volume is twice the first, and while there are a det amount of losses thanks to the crystal volume sg factor, it only makes up about half the differen total power output in this case.

  With the power sources for the fluorite processing facility dohe only thio do was actually build it. I pced an order for four meical grinders along side the various meical pos that I o get power from point a to point b. Rather than try to vince Zeb that I needed a stru team with words, I brought him to see the two stirling engines I'd already made, and discussed how these basically run all the time, and aren't depe on wind or water meaning they be built just about anywhere. They do slow down quite a bit during the eclipse, but that's far less limiting thaher two sources.

  Plus, thanks to stoneshaping, they're actually lower maintehan e windmills and the hydroelectric facility. Though the waterwheels are still easier to maintain overall. Basically, getting this facility online, and potentially training some stoneshapers and bcksmiths on how to make the stirling engines opens up aire field of magically powered bor. Though I didn't tell him that most of my pns for the initial meical bor are cryogenically densing air trow our lost mana crystals. After that though, there are tons of applications. If we could make a meical the, for instance, we'd speed our produ of parts up drastically.

  After all that, I think I may have oversold him on it, because three stru teams showed up. This upset Tiberius somewhat, because there was a near stant stream of woing down to our intermediate crystal to charge for four days until the facility was pleted.

  The building is a fairly unremarkable regle measuring sixty feet by thirty feet, with a twenty foot ceiling. It's structed simir to the b door, where the floor is recessed slightly, and part of the building is built into the hillside, meaning it has no basement. The facility seems quite rge on its face, but in actuality, most of the work occurs in a retively small amount of the floor spabsp; The rest of the facility is ste for fluorite and fluorite gss. Multiple belled areas for handling raw, purified, and specially doped gsses were scattered around the facility. Fans bring air in to help fuel the furnaces, and also take air out of the same area.

  I also realized that I should probably use the spare energy from the stirling eo install se intake and outlet fans in the facility. Between the furnaces, stirling engines, and natural heat fluorite that will be stored, the building could get very hot. I specifically have the air flowing perpendicur in the building as pared to the wall where the cold side pistons oirling engines are fag the outside world, just to help maintain effid temperature trol.

  I took two days doing checks to make sure everything worked as intended. Now that I'm fairly fident everything is good, I think I bring in some goblins and train them on how to run the pbsp; I want to start making some iron doped fluorite and hydrogen fluorite as soon as possible.