I ended up needing to repe of the borers that I hired in the gambling hall after five days. They basically stopped showing up to work, so I went and found new workers, only for the inal oo show back up after a few days, beggio let them wain. They're definitely gambling addicts.

  I let Zaka know the situation, a it to him to decide how he wants to hahem. I'm ined to let them live their life as long as they don't start itting crime to fuel their addi. It's not my problem to hahem anymore, though, and some of the inal workers from the gambling hall have tio work well, so I don't think that they're actually addicts.

  In any case, excavation of the fluorite growth b has been going well after that initial hiccup. About halfway down, I excavated a nding and ste room, where fluorite be stored itently. Oher side of the nding I've installed another sliding door with quartz blocks added in. The idea being that, hopefully, whatever mana is still in the air by this depth gets ed by the fluorite ie area, leaving almost none for the growth b even deeper underground.

  Iy days, we've mao get down to the level where I want to build the new fluorite growth b. There is still quite a bit of excavating to do to actually make the facility. There are a lot of factors that actually have to be sidered for the pce itself. The path down here is so long that I'm quite ed about running out of oxygen. We don't have any source of light outside of fire, because I want to keep the mana levels at near zero, meaning we're really burning through the O2. It's somewhat cool underground, so I do have an idea for how I could at least attempt to make this more funal, though I'm going to have to wreck a bunch of natural fluorite to do so.

  In essence, I want to make an air i and outlet pipe going down to the lowest level. Throughout the i pipe, I want to put fluorite crystals cut into mesh shapes and fit onto heat sinks installed periodically down to depth. Hopefully, as the air passes through those meshes, mana that is being carried in the air will get ed and turned into heat. The heat then be dissipated into the tunnel and rock.

  I'll also o create a stable power source to power fans on the air i and outlet. Sihis is actually a fairly low polication, I'm thinking about using the singur fluorite pte that I've already made from the 8-inch artificial crystal to power a small stirling eo drive both fans. If I also have the stirling engine close to the air i, it'll hopefully drain even more mana out of the air prior to it entering the system.

  While I started designing the stirling eo power the fans for the b, the sed batch of fluorite mined with the help enic cooling in the mine was delivered, and taken down to the ste area. I gave a few goblins the task of s the rgest natural fluorite crystals out, while the smaller ones were set to be melted down.

  The general design of stirling engines es naturally to me by now, there were still design choices that I made that meant I couldn't just re-use old designs. For starters, I have that fluorite pte that is funing as the heat sourbsp; It's only 5.5 io each side, and an inch thick, so it's not that rge, but it's still quite hot. If I rest a thermometer on it's surface while it sits imosphere, it's a good 40 degrees above ambient temperature. If I submerge it in a pot of water that isn't much bigger than itself though, it'll bring the water to a boil.

  What I decided to do was embed a metal grid through half the pte's thiess, to act as a heat duit into the hot-side piston head. That piston is only 8.5 inches in diameter. The metal grid ssh heat sink was then isoted using lightstone, and thehing was hooked together into an appropriately sized stirling engine. Thanks to the previous improvements I made with cryogenics, like quality heat exgers, and fine lead wool as the regeor, the engine was able to easily spin the 12 inch fans that I'm using for the air intake and outlet for the b, though the actual tubes aren't pleted yet.

  The fans are 12 inches, but I'm pnning on making the air tubes themselves only four inches in diameter. The reason being that I want to make sure that I have plenty of natural fluorite that I use to remove the mana from the air iubes. The tubes are going to just be made of stone and embedded in the ceiling of the stairwell down to the fluorite growth b when it's pleted. I pn on having the air outlet be on the far end of the b, and the i be close to the stairwell, to ence cross flow.

  All in all, I spent ten days getting this irling engine and air intake system built.

  I decided to build the first fluorite radiators just beyond the first underground b yer, after the first sliding door. To make it, I started with the rgest of the natural fluorite, and cut two thin ptes from the ter of the crystals, then I used progressively smaller parts of the crystals until I had enough ptes that I could otches io make a grid with half inch spag. Each pte is about a fifth of an in size, and indepely, they don't produce much heat. Oher side of the grid, crips the grid, and ects to the pipe. From there, small heat fiend down into the hallway on the roof, providing some amount of ambie.

  The whole heat sink apparatus is only about 8 inches long, and uses two 4-inch fluorite crystals to make. Sihey aren't very effit, given how little volume each crystal pte has, I needed a lot of them before I'd feel fortable that I was actually removing enough of the mana in the air, so I took a day to teach a goblin how to make them, while I started excavating the main room.

  With the help of goblins hauling the stone I cut out, I was able to get the main fluorite b area and the air system up and running in thirty days. Of course, the b is empty right now, but at least I've gotten it made. The space is forty feet long, twenty feet wide, and has eight feet tall ceilings. For starters, this should be plenty.

  Though the air system is up and running, I'm having the goblin tinue making the heat sinks for the air line. He produces one a day, and I've got thirty in the line already, but there is still a det amount of mana flowing into the room. I tell because my own mana is recharging at about a fifth the rate that it does on the surfabsp; While that's quite a bit slower, by parison, my mana recharges at about a twehe rate if I'm in the fluorite ste room part of the the stairs.

  It'll take me some time to build the new fluorite crystal groaratuses down here anyway, so I'm hoping we have that problem fixed by the time I've got the maes ready. sidering the improved efficy of scale for fluorite crystals, I wao increase the size that I could grow siderably if possible, though I suspect it'll take much loo grer crystals, so I decided to think through use cases first to determine what size apparatuses I should build.

  This b has two main goals. First, to produce heat produg fluorite crystals, which the into appropriate shapes for various practical applications. Sed, to be used for researg different inclusion materials for varied output effects, which will probably be a Tiberius research subjebsp; For the sed goal, I think it'd be wise to actually build another offshoot room from this one, and isote that room with quartz blocks all around it, just in case. It's probably also worth sidering building a ma chamber beyond that room as well, where mana crystals remotely be exposed to the fluorite.

  In the case of practical applications, I think it's worth sidering just plications I want. Obviously, a very rge stirling engine is the goal. If rge enough, these stirling engines could power numerous processes that we're currently relying on wind or hydro to drive. There are also numerous smaller processes which would be from having smaller crystals simir to the eight ines I've grown already. Smaller stirling engines, or hot ptes for cooking would be a great improvement.

  The rger crystals would still have slices which are smaller that are left over in the end, but I suspect that growing rger crystals is going to be signifitly harder than growing the small ones. That being the case, I think I'll first make a slightly rger apparatus than the one I made before, and aim for 12-inch crystals . Ohat is w, and I've trained some goblins how to operate it, I'll try to make something like a 30 or 40 inch growth chamber.