11-17-2018, 08:51 PM
Ivan couldn't help the wide grin that split his face. Nor did he care that he felt his lip split open again. Nox's words called to something in him. It was so....elegant.
He watched in awe as nox created a terrareum out of the air, watched the raidrops fall to the bottom. He could see the weaves and their...simplicity. And yet, what he saw was not simple at all.
He was reminded of one of his projects in metal shop way back when. He and pops had been working on the car and had gotten to talking about their history. And pops had told him about the steam engine. The father of all engines, though it used steam for its fuel source and was an external combustion engine, rather than internal. And it didn't use explosions. Well.....not quite. Sometimes the pressure built up too fast or the welding hadnt been true. Those had been bad.
Anyway, it lit something in him. So for his final project he decided to build one from scratch. A small one, of course. What he wanted to see was the crankshaft begin turning as the pressure built.
Of course, it wasn't that simple. He still had the burn scar on his forearm from one accident, scalding steam doing what it was supposed to flesh. And yeah, he was cheating a bit since he used a modern design. The Rankin principle, of course, was the heart of it. But in the old days a lot of energy was wasted due to ineffecient vacuums or the seizing of the piston over time as heat was lost in each stroke. Modern designs took care of most of those ineffeciencies.
But still, it was Ivan that rolled the brass plate and welded it into a boiler housing, fitted the temperature guage, release valves, and heating element and flanges. He and the lathe had become best friends as he machined the parts he would need for the linkage and piston and drive wheel.
It took the better part of two months, but when the moment of truth came, he marvelled. The intricate machine before him was a wonder, all its parts working together, as the the stationary wheel began to turn, faster and faster.
Principles. Nox was saying you could apply the same method to the power. That you could create incredibly complex machines from the five elements.
When Nox created the pawn Ivan laughed out loud. He saw the weave that pulled strands of rock particles from the air or the ground. To anyone else, it appeared as if the pawn formed out of thin air.
But what he really liked was how tiny the threads were. These weren't the bulging massive threads of power that he used to rip the lights of the Almaz to the ground. No, these were thinner than spider webs.
It reminded him of when he had to tool some of the more intricate parts on the lathe, calipers carefully measuring and scoring the metal, him delicately controlling the mechanism so that only milimeters or tenths of millimeters of copper were shaved away with each pass.
He watched as Nox repeated the process, more slowly this time, for his sake. Ivan reached for the power, trying to ignore the pain he was more aware of. He focused, trying to recreate what he saw. The threads to pull the rock was easy enough. But it was like his vision wasn't fine enough, his fingers too fat. He couldn't get the threads thin enough to form the piece properly.
A lump of rock sat on the table. He shrugged with a smile. "Ha. Looks like I need a lot of practice." Just as with lifting, proper form and movement was key. And that came from practice. This was the equivalent of Danya's finger exercises that had let her play the piano with such dexterity.
He tried again and again, trying to create ever thinner threads of the power. Well at least my lumps have character, now.
He watched in awe as nox created a terrareum out of the air, watched the raidrops fall to the bottom. He could see the weaves and their...simplicity. And yet, what he saw was not simple at all.
He was reminded of one of his projects in metal shop way back when. He and pops had been working on the car and had gotten to talking about their history. And pops had told him about the steam engine. The father of all engines, though it used steam for its fuel source and was an external combustion engine, rather than internal. And it didn't use explosions. Well.....not quite. Sometimes the pressure built up too fast or the welding hadnt been true. Those had been bad.
Anyway, it lit something in him. So for his final project he decided to build one from scratch. A small one, of course. What he wanted to see was the crankshaft begin turning as the pressure built.
Of course, it wasn't that simple. He still had the burn scar on his forearm from one accident, scalding steam doing what it was supposed to flesh. And yeah, he was cheating a bit since he used a modern design. The Rankin principle, of course, was the heart of it. But in the old days a lot of energy was wasted due to ineffecient vacuums or the seizing of the piston over time as heat was lost in each stroke. Modern designs took care of most of those ineffeciencies.
But still, it was Ivan that rolled the brass plate and welded it into a boiler housing, fitted the temperature guage, release valves, and heating element and flanges. He and the lathe had become best friends as he machined the parts he would need for the linkage and piston and drive wheel.
It took the better part of two months, but when the moment of truth came, he marvelled. The intricate machine before him was a wonder, all its parts working together, as the the stationary wheel began to turn, faster and faster.
Principles. Nox was saying you could apply the same method to the power. That you could create incredibly complex machines from the five elements.
When Nox created the pawn Ivan laughed out loud. He saw the weave that pulled strands of rock particles from the air or the ground. To anyone else, it appeared as if the pawn formed out of thin air.
But what he really liked was how tiny the threads were. These weren't the bulging massive threads of power that he used to rip the lights of the Almaz to the ground. No, these were thinner than spider webs.
It reminded him of when he had to tool some of the more intricate parts on the lathe, calipers carefully measuring and scoring the metal, him delicately controlling the mechanism so that only milimeters or tenths of millimeters of copper were shaved away with each pass.
He watched as Nox repeated the process, more slowly this time, for his sake. Ivan reached for the power, trying to ignore the pain he was more aware of. He focused, trying to recreate what he saw. The threads to pull the rock was easy enough. But it was like his vision wasn't fine enough, his fingers too fat. He couldn't get the threads thin enough to form the piece properly.
A lump of rock sat on the table. He shrugged with a smile. "Ha. Looks like I need a lot of practice." Just as with lifting, proper form and movement was key. And that came from practice. This was the equivalent of Danya's finger exercises that had let her play the piano with such dexterity.
He tried again and again, trying to create ever thinner threads of the power. Well at least my lumps have character, now.