Previous experimental results indicated that smaller crystals produced less heat per unit mass than rge crystals, and the new crystal samples also exhibited the same trend. Gss exhibits almost none of the mana insutive properties that full quartz crystals exhibit, despite both being sili dioxide. So the first new experiment I wao run was determining if this also occurs with fluorite.

  It did form into a gss, which was roughly the same color as the initial crystals, however, it was quite brittle. The k as a whole barely produced a, even when rge amounts of mana were pushed into it via teise. As disappointing as that was, it lent more credeo the idea that the maed properties that some crystals exhibit is an emergent property of the size of the crystal. Gsses are basically amorphous solids, with only the ti of crystals present in their structure.

  For my experiment, I sanded down one surfa one of the rger crystals, leaving it with a ft edge. I theed the properties of the crystal, to see if it produced a proportional amount of heat to it's new mass, or if it made less than that. Basically, I was ed if the maed properties of the crystal were affected by the smallest phin the crystal, or just the general size. If it's the smallest phen having one side sanded down would siderably reduce the performance of the crystal, more than expected from the small loss in mass. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case.

  This means I could, in theory, sand down crystals to tessete, letting me fill a space with them. Rather than tinuing that test with fluorite, I have excess quartz that could prove useful. It's much harder to test the quartz properties in this way, since absenana is harder to detect thaenbsp; Though if it works, I siderably reduce the volume of our freezers while simultaneously increasing their effectiveness. Quartz, however, is much harder than fluorite, and processing it will be much harder as well.

  Basically, the only way we'll be able to cut quartz is to use a sand made from quartz, which we repeatedly drag along with a bde in order to cut quartz crystals down. The big issue with the current crystals is that they're tapered to different degrees, and they're different sizes. If we cut them into regur prisms, then we use them much more effectively for mana insution, even if we weaken the property slightly for eadividual crystal.

  I'll do a test run to see if I cut one. If I , I'll design some tools so that I set some goblins to mass produg quartz blocks that we use.

  It actually ended up being somewhat hard to devise a way to cut quartz without breaking them. The first few days were full of attempts using crude hand tools. Ultimately, I settled on an abrasive disc covered in quartz sand that was hooked in to a foot pedal to spin up to a high speed. Using that, I could get the disc rotating fast enough to make cuts into the quartz crystals, eventually cutting bits off and shaping them into regur prisms.

  Since we then had a w method for cutting the quartz, the step was to sort er quartz crystals into particur size categories, ale on some standard sizes for regur prisms. If my hypothesis holds true, then rger quartz crystals will have a better mana insutive effect than smaller ones, even if stacked to the same shapes. So, for an initial trial, I devised two sizes of regur prisms to be made. One was twice the size of the other in each dimension, meaning each crystal would have eight times the volume.

  After deg on two trial sizes, I went to the north side of the city, and started setting up a waterwheel that could be used to power multiple of the grinders. Quartz dust is actually somewhat harmful if repeatedly exposed to, so I've also set up basic fume hoods over the grinders, with a gss shield and fan to help direct the quartz dust away from workers. I also pn on doing a rotating work schedule for these workers, simir to those rocessing the sulfuric ores. They'll take turns being on s or cutting shifts, to help reduce the amount of time they spend being potentially exposed to danger.

  Twenty days ter, and I had a quartz cutting facility set up. Even if it turns out that it's not as effective as I thought, having quartz shaped like this will almost certainly be more effective than the current pag system around our freezers, so I don't feel like it's a waste to be doing this. Even outside the freezers, it could be useful to surround a few prison cells with quartz to reduce the threat the prisoner poses.

  The step was hiring and training goblins to do this work. I settled on a workforce of twenty goblins. There are only frinders, so it's a bit oversized, but there is other work besides the grihat the goblins have to do. S takes up quite a few goblins, and es in multiple steps. The first step happens at the mine, where a handful of goblins sort through crates of quartz to find crystals that are potentially rge enough to be used for the process. Then, a single goblin looks through those crystals to determine if they have any cracks. If they do, they're likely to break during the cutting process, so they're rejected.

  , another handful of gobliermine which size prism the surviving crystals be cut into, and sort them accly. The final non-cutting job involves pag the finished crystals carefully into crates, using dried pnt material to act as cushioniween the each crystal to help prevent damage. The goblins take turns rotating from their primary job to the grinders, so eadividual goblin only spends 1/5th of their work time being potentially exposed to quartz dust.

  After taki days to train this new goblin workforce, I went to go make two more stirling engine freezers. Thanks to the rger workforce, they had cut enough quartz for the two freezers in the six days it took me to make the rest of the two freezers, so I was able to get them assembled and added into Tiberius's ongoing study on the decay rates of his various extracted essences.

  He's already gotten some preliminary results which are someromising. Most of the materials seem to decay slower while frozen, with one exception. The mana poison that we brought back for him to extract actually gets ruined when frozen, and stops w within an hour or so. However, it does st longer when isoted from mana, and it decays slower while cool rather than hot. Likewise, most of the materials seem to decay slower while mana isoted, though the mileage varies based oerial. I still want to wait until there is more data before building er infrastructure though.

  With the aside to hating quartz taken care of, I have some more testing with the fluorite I want to do. When molten crystallierial is cooled too quickly, it either forms a gss or multiple small crystals which precipitate out. I know firsthand how difficult growing rger crystals be, and I was lucky enough that I figured out a method frowing mana crystals. First, I'll go up the mountain and try the same method with fluorite, and see if I grow the fluorite crystals that way. If not, I want to try a few differehods to artificially grer crystals.

  I spent five days on the mountain trying various methods to grow fluorite in the existing crystal apparatuses, and the only thing I achieved was damaging my smallest apparatus beyond repair. The molten fluorite cracked aroyed the smaller fluorite seed crystal, ae trying to heat the whole apparatus, I couldn't fix this issue. Small fluorite crystals formed on a bunch of surfaces, and basically rehe whole devioperable.

  Unfortunately, that means I'll have to devise a different way to grer fluorite crystals, or just give up on the whole thing. The potential payout for being able to grow fluorite crystals is quite high. Ign the fact we could experiment with different inclusion materials, rger fluorite crystals of the heating variety could be shaped and used for all sorts of applications to reduce our dependen wood as a fuel sourbsp; If you add iential to produce hydrogen at will, then the payout bees even rger.

  With that in mind, I think I'll start experimenting with growing fluorite in the b. I have a few ideas of things I could try to attempt to grow the crystals.