God Of Crafting

What started as a potentially tragic, dangerous, and anxiety-inducing situation now turned into a pretty straightforward process.

Or so it would, if only I was smart enough to get my stuff from my old apartment… Or smart enough to actually go around and buy the electric components that I now found myself in need of.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think about buying anything like that," Claire apologized while lowering her head and then looking away. "I thought of everything cultivation-related that you might need but electric components…?"

She shook her head.

"In all honesty, even if I thought about buying that kind of stuff, I don't think I would even know what exactly to buy!"

"That's perfectly fine," I replied after moving away from the one and only box with a variety of tools and parts after scouring through it for quite a while only to realize that no matter how much I looked, I wouldn't be able to find something that simply wasn't there.

"How about we just leave it for tomorrow, then?" Claire suggested as she pulled out her phone and checked the time. "While there are shops still open, by the time we get to the nearest one, it will be long past their closing time," she announced the obvious.

It would be a challenge to find a shop dabbling in electric components past the usual working hours of hobby and craft businesses.

And while it was still possible to just go to one of the bigger shops that prided themselves in having everything one's heart could desire in stock… Those too were too far from the outskirts of the suburbs that Claire's villa was in for us to get there before even those would close down.

"Even though we are missing only one element…"

Most of the stuff we needed for a device that would test my theory was right there, within the prototype. And given its crude form, even a kid would be able to dismantle it for parts.

Thankfully, be it the charger or other basic components necessary to alter the initial design, we could still get them by cannibalizing whatever electronic devices that could be easily found around the villa. And while buying those things again would be much more expensive than just buying the parts we needed…

Right now, money wasn't something I had any need to concern myself with, especially on that level.

But there was one element, just one component that was absolutely necessary for the test to go through unless I wanted to risk not only failing the test but wasting all the other parts used to make it happen.

"Wait, if we can get the cable and the ferrite choke from the laptop charger, can't we just look a little bit harder for the potentiometer?"

The reason why this part was absolutely crucial… was because it allowed us to limit how much electric energy we would feed into the spiritual circuit while also allowing us to measure the limits of theSpricur stones.

Without a potentiometer, we could only try to connect the thing and hope it wouldn't just burn out if the electric charge turned out to be too strong. And even if it worked… we wouldn't learn anything about just how efficient those Spricur stones were at turning raw electricity straight out of the wall socket into spiritual power.

And while the manner in which a potentiometer worked made it extremely easy to replicate… It only rang true for those who had the proper machinery, experience, and tools to make it.

Surely, there was still hope I would be able to craft it if I abused my strange ability again… But doing so would directly go against the reason why we were trying to craft the device I talked about!

"I thought about it, I looked through the house, I even asked around," Claire explained while shaking her head. "But there isn't a single device in this villa that allows you to control it with a simple rotary wheel."

Hearing this, I suddenly realized what was the likely issue.

"Did you ask the staff if any of them have headphones with wheel-controlled volume?"

It was just a random idea I came up with on the spot. An idea that wasn't all that good given the likely specification of the potentiometer hidden underneath such a wheel…

But as the saying goes, if you can't have what you love, love what you have!

"That's…" Claire thought for a bit, only for her eyes to twitch right as she turned on her heel and ran out of the room. "One moment!" she called out right as she ran out of the room, leaving me with a half-disassembled device in my hands and nothing to silence to accompany me.

'I wonder if it will work,' I thought, turning my eyes to the disemboweled prototype.

There was a hint of regret deep at the bottom of my soul as I looked down at what was now left of the very first thing that I actually sat down to craft and complete. In a sense, it felt as if I was depriving myself of the legacy of sorts.

"I've got it!" Claire's shout pulled me back from my thoughts as she rushed back to the room with a pair of old-style headphones outfitted with a small knob directly on their left.

"That's great," I called back as I grabbed a screwdriver and a knife before carefully dismembering the plastic covers that hid the electrics of the listening device away from its user, protecting those delicate insides from harm.

It was a task that proved surprisingly tough to complete, something that I could only understand when I saw the small marking of the gaming brand hidden in one of the crevices.

'I guess they made those with a gamer's mind in mind,' I thought when the plastic finally popped out, revealing a small and relatively simple circuit plate… outfitted with the very thing I was looking for.

Soon, with the help of the soldering gun, I moved the potentiometer from the headphones and onto the circuit of what used to be the Qi-condensing prototype. After soldering a few more components before finally adding a universal serial bus socket, allowing me to switch out from using the Spricut stones to provide electricity to the circuit in favor of using a simple USB cable.

"It is done," I muttered as I put the device away, as if scared that just by holding it in my hands I could somehow damage it.

"So it is…" Claire whispered, staring at the device with a strange look on her face.

"If this works…" I mumbled a bit before clenching my fists and turning my face over to the girl. "If it works, we will need your father to come and see it himself."

Claire looked over at my face, only to quickly turn her eyes back to the device and gulp a mouthful of saliva down.

"I mean, I understand that this thing is so ingenious it makes it extremely dangerous… but do we really have to rush inviting Dad over?"

I took a deep breath before sighing.

"Claire, don't take it the wrong way, but I need him to test my theory out. And he's the only one who can be allowed to witness this device."

Even now, I still couldn't turn my thoughts away from the fact Claire somehow failed to notice the idea that we just gave shape and form. She was too damn smart to miss it, especially with all the hints I've dropped, especially when I pretty much served the answer on a silver platter.

And with that in mind, if Chihiro, someone intelligent enough to reach enlightenment over and over again all the way until he reached ninth rank, still couldn't figure it out on his own…

Then wouldn't it serve as proof that there indeed was some foul force at play actively preventing people from figuring the idea behind this simple device out?

"Well, I can call him, but even if it's urgent, unless it's emergency…"

Claire's escaped with her eyes to the side as if her hesitation made her unable to directly bear my stare.

"If this thing works, then it is going to be an emergency. Just…" I averted my eyes, "just not a bad kind of emergency."

"That is, if it works, right?" Claire clapped right back while crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her right eyebrow. "So, how about we test it first?"

For a moment, I stared back at the girl only to then sigh, grab the cable… and connect the device to a simple USB charging device before ensuring the potentiometer was at its lowest possible setting that pretty much broke the circuit open before plugging the charger into the wall.

Then, as I took another deep breath to brace myself for whatever could come next, I reached out and grabbed the twisting knob of the potentiometer… before slowly turning it up.