I passed on a manascope to the goblins who were making astronomic readings as another piece of data for them to collect over time. While they made readings I decided that I should work on finishing strug all the mana crystal groaratuses in the new b area. I still had the 16-foot crystal groaratus to make, in addition to all the smaller apparatuses to replicate from the cave. I also took a few days t what remained of the crystal sg down the mountain, and seal off the portion of the cave where all the old apparatuses are in a way that makes it look semi-natural, to hopefully keep out any would-be spies.

  It felt a little sad to do, sihis was the first time it really felt like I was leaving the cave food. I couldn't quite bring myself to actually destroy the apparatuses, even though it would have probably been the smarter thing to do. I'd gone back to the cave over the years for ohing or another, but I've slowly been moving more and more things away from the cave, and this was the st of my inal reasons to e here. The only remaining reasons to e that far up the mountain are for the mana poison pnts, the scouting towers, and to go to the peak. Ultimately, it felt like I was moving food.

  I ended up w for a few months on the nearatuses, and while I haven't fihe 16-foot apparatus quite yet, I thought of a few other projects that I'd like to work on temporarily based on information that others have gathered. I still have a few years before I he 16-foot apparatus, so I'm not in too much of a rush. First, Tiberius has figured out there are a few problems with using lead doped fluorite for ons.

  The biggest one being that the lead doped fluorite is very light pared to lead and to make the shells worth it to actually make, the fluorite crystal ends up needing to be five inches across at least. Due to the variable nature of maween day and night, the effectiveness of the shell also ges. Realistically, you need a in diameter shell in order to house the necessary amounts of quartz and fluorite, and it o be posed of a lot of different parts. The quartz and fluorite frequently crack during the actual firing of the shell, redug their effectiveness. So, I'll lend him a hand for a few days to help troubleshoot and solve some of his problems.

  The sed bit of information that is drawing my attention is that the goblins who I trusted one of the manascopes to have been using it to make their own readings beyond just passive daytime values, and their results have intrigued me. I had told them about the values I had gotten and where I'd gotten them, and my thoughts oter. They'd decided to retest some of my points, and while their manascope readings were the same, they hat their mana regeion rate actually was zero while deep underground, rather than just slow like mine was. So I've got a few ideas to follow up on with that matter.

  Tiberius had done multiple tests with different sized crystals to determine all his values and, smartly, he had used smooth bore scale pieces for testing, rather than potentially damaging our actual artillery pieces. Our current artillery shells are only about 2 inches in diameter, so the existing artillery would be incapable of using any hypothetic shells to begin with.

  Much like the heat fluorite, lead fluorite seems to get more effit the rger the crystal is, and as such, once we reach a crystal 6 inches across, during the daytime, the crystal bees more dehan lead. Ultimately, that's about a three and a half fold increase in mass, whi it's face would appear to be a three and a half fold increase in kiiergy of a projectile, it's actually almost a thirteen fold increase under perfect ditions, sihe initial velocity of the projectile would also be faster, due to the lower initial mass. The issue is that the explosive power of the shell results in the crystal materials breaking.

  So, after some discussion as, I proposed two ges to the initial shell design, to hopefully help mitigate some of the problems. First, two halves of copper should be pced around the outside of the shell to allow pstic deformation to hopefully mitigate any crag of the quartz. Sed, a solid jacket of lead should be put around the fluorite crystal in the ter for a simir reason.

  After some testing, we got the sizes and locations of the amount of metals figured out, and we ran into some new problems as a result. While the jackets did cause the crystals to stop breaking, they also added more mass. sidering the quartz and the copper jackets fall away in the air to allow the inner shell to gain access to mana, we're losing quite a bit of mass as pared to the initial shot, meaning the fluorite crystal o be rger to pensate.

  With a two inch quartz shield, the fluorite is about 50% dehan normal, which we also o sider. Ultimately, to allow for det pstic deformation, we'd need a 3/4 inch copper jacket, then the 2 inches of quartz insution, then another half inch of lead, and then finally the tral fluorite shot. So, after a bit of math, for a 12-inch shell, minus the bck powder, the weight es out to 1667 pounds. When exposed to mana, however, the tral lead and fluorite part es out to 2626 pounds, or about a 1.6 times increase in mass, even after shedding the outer shell.

  For a parison we also tried increasing to a 14 inch shell, with a rger fluorite crystal which resulted in a rger initial and final version rate, results in an initial shell weight of 2681 pounds, and a final projectile weight of 5014 pounds, or a 1.87 times increase in mass before and after firing. Sihe resultant kiiergy is squared beyond the shell just being heavier, it also results ier returns on the initial explosive power.

  However, the ratios of pos was hardly optimized. After eleven days of experiments, those were the main two numbers we came up with, and while I'd like to say that's great, both sets of shells are too heavy for us to do anything with in our current situation. However, I'm fident I could develop assisting on systems to allow their use, if we make them worth our while to use. From scale testing, I could tell that the shells have some unique properties on impabsp; Sihe crystal causing the increased mass breaks on impact, it results in the projectile rapidly losing mass, however, it's not quite instantaneous, resulting in the kiic damages seen in the b.

  Essentially, ohe initial impact is fihe remaining material bsts through whatever surface it hit. If the surface is too thick, the shrapnel bounces backwards, along with a det k of whatever it hit. Ultimately, it funs as a quasi explosive round. It's probably a bit less effective than an actual high-explosive round, but it's quite a bit more stable and the shell itself is retively simple.

  So, after taking an additional seven days expining the math to Tiberius, I left him to do optimization for three different sizes of shells, so that we could have the data to approximate optimal ratios of pos for any size shell. He'll o gather data on various ratios of quartz and fluorite crystal thiesses alongside the relevant amounts of metals. I also told him to experiment with using brass instead of copper for the outer portion of the shell.

  The two inches of quartz we used is a good approximate starting value, but it's not optimal and as those numbers ge, we'll probably find that at various different sizes of shell the thiess of the quartz portion should ge. If we extrapote those values, he should be able to figure out the optimal portions of each shell to maximize the mass increase of the final projectile pared to the initial shell.

  After I set Tiberius on his new research path, I turo iigate with the manascope again, since my internal mana regen values weren't matg up with the goblins who attempted it. I brought in a few oblins, and all their values also didn't agree with mine, but did agree with each other. I was starting to get frustrated after eight days to figure out why this would happen, so I sulted Zeb. He came along with me, and he found that his values agreed with mine.

  With toints in agreement with me, I started to think through all the relevant information before I had an idea. I brought a lesser earth demon that had gained mana affinity from w with mana crystals frequently to test his values, and they matched mine as well. A few more tests firmed it. For whatever other affects mana affinity has, it also seems to be pying a role here. Whether we're better at accessing the mana, or we're just utilizing the mana we are getting differently, I 't think of a safe way to test that. These results, however, do make me want to use the manascope for any future mana measurements rather than my own internal values, si seems like the biological systems for it are more plicated than I had initially thought.