God Of Crafting

"When I said you need to get every new item through me first, I really didn't expect you to call so soon," Chihiro said with a small yet weirdly enthusiastic smile as he walked past the long courtyard of the mansion only to grab Claire into a tight, welcoming hug.

Yet, the very moment Claire's dad pulled back and actually paid attention to our faces…

"Okay, I can see something happen. How bad is it?"

I raised my eyes to the man, only to sigh and then shake my head.

"Nothing bad happened yet. But what we made last night…" I shook my head again. "Let's just say it's way too big for us to manage. And that's the limit of what I'm at liberty to say…" I paused for a second to quite openly look around the open space of the courtyard, "out in the open."

"Oh?" Chihiro turned his eyes to me, then took a step back and looked at his daughter's face.

Then and only then did his face calm down, his smile vanishing into oblivion as a look of seriousness replaced it.

"Lead the way, then," he requested, opting to cut all the needless chatter.

It took the man an entire night and then most of the morning to actually make any bit of room in his schedule, forcing the two of us to just sit back on the topic and seek to escape the anxiety in the comfort of holding each other tightly throughout the night.

Even though it was a big… no, one hell of a discovery, a history-changing breakthrough, it made our breakfast quite the awkward occurrence with even the staff sensing that something was amiss and opting to do their jobs as quietly as they could.

This atmosphere continued throughout the day, all the way to the point when Chihiro finally arrived… and then it kept up, only for the air to somewhat diffuse when Claire's dad led us to one of the rooms that I didn't even know existed and then closing…

No, securing the doors behind him with a lock mechanism appeared to be taken straight out of a submarine.

"This room is perfectly screened out from the outside," Chihiro announced before taking a seat at the small table in the middle of the chamber that looked like a replica of the soft-walled confines only ever found in the psychiatric wards, fully designed to prevent the patients from hurting themselves in any way or form.

What served as a precaution for crazies in a psych ward, however, here it was clearly designed to stop any sound from leaking to the outside.

"Guys, I can tell that something is going on, but due to the nature of this room, we only have about a quarter of an hour before we will have to leave due to the air running out, so…"

I took a deep breath to calm myself down before taking a look at Clarie and then following her as we both joined her dad at the table.

"I'm fully aware that your time is precious, but there's one more thing that I need to bring up before revealing the issue at hand," I started before collapsing my hands together and then resting them flat against the table's surface. "Do you have any recollection of how the prototype of my Qi condensation device operates?"

Chihiro squinted his eyes just a tiny little bit.

"Isn't the principle pretty much the same as the finished one you sold?" he asked.

"It is. The finished product uses the same principles as the prototype, it just uses more components and has a neater build. But that isn't the question," I stated, perfectly aware my attitude wasn't as respectful as it should be… or as I wanted it to be.

But with the weight of my discovery burdening down my mental shoulders, I simply couldn't care less.

"To a point, I do," Chihiro got the hint and nodded his head. "You grab the QI from the air with the Spricur stones, turn it into electricity, use a circuit to condense it, and then reverse the first step, turning it back into the spiritual energy," he explained the entire process.

Yet, as great as it was to know he was aware of it… It also served as the first hint of proof that my worries were well-founded in reality.

After all, if he understood the process… then how could he miss such an obvious evolution to it?

"Then, the question as important as the actual reason for why we have called you with such haste and urgency," I stated before putting my hands together and using them to make a triangle with the desk for its base, a triangle on which I then rested my head. "Do you see any potential in changing the design to make the device even…"

I struggled to find the right words for a moment.

"Even more powerful?"

Chirhiro leaned back in his chair, his eyes momentarily locked on my face only to then first move down to the table as he processed my question and then up to the ceiling as he scoured his brain for an answer.

"I assume you don't mean increasing the number of Spricur stones on either end of it, right?"

I only nodded my head for a response.

"Is this really necessary?" Claire asked, distracting the two of us from the topic for a second. "By now it should be obvious that there is…"

I raised my hand, stopping the girl just before she could say a word too much.

"I'm asking if you can see a simple way to alter the design that will turn it from a crafty and useful device into something that would more than warrant the urgency with which we called you to see it yourself."

Chihiro turned his eyes from my face to Claire's, only to then look back to me and end up taking just a little bit more time to think.

"No, I do not…" he muttered after what had to be like a minute or two, yet felt like half of an eternity. "But…" he then added, only to look down as his face twisted in slight confusion, only to then evolve into frustration.

"It seems I was right, then," I mumbled while shaking my head only to then raise it and look the man straight in the eyes. "The idea is, take away the Spricur stones designed to gather the Qi from the air and then turn it into electricity… And replace them with a single charger that provides electricity directly into the circuit only for it to be turned into spiritual energy."

I took a short breath.

"In other words, I've found a way to turn electric energy into a spiritual one."

At this mention, Chihiro turned silent. And for the next few minutes, he just sat down in his seat, thinking about something.

"Does it…'"

I nodded my head before the man could even finish his question.

"It does. We tested it on a simple USB charger and it produces just slightly less Qi than the finished device I sold to you would. Due to the limited materials that we didn't have the opportunity to get our hands on yet, we couldn't really test the limits of how much energy a single Spricur stone can change into Qi, but…"

"It serves as a proof of concept, doesn't it?" Chihiro mentioned, easily catching my drift. He then fell into a silent mode for two more minutes, stretching our presence in the room dangerously close to the limit of how long we could safely spend here.

"Bring me over," Chihiro said once he finally managed to gather all of his thoughts. "Before I pass any judgements, I need to see this device first."