Chapter 453: Sunlight and World Qi
Fortunately, the boy was more than willing to explain himself, "During the daytime, I have a small team monitor this place and shift the mirrors every half-hour or so to concentrate as much sunlight onto the pool as possible."
It was a succinct answer, one that perfectly described what Lucas was doing, but it did nothing at all to explain ’why’ he was doing this.
Instead of explaining further, however, Lucas simply pointed at the pool and said, "Please use your Soul Sense to inspect the water and tell me if you notice anything different about it."
Raising her brow slightly, Pauline did as her young tour guide requested and released her Soul Sense to scan the pool.
At first, she didn’t notice anything special about it.
The water was slightly warmer than the surroundings, but that wasn’t a surprise to Pauline as anyone who had ever been outside during the day could tell you that being exposed to sunlight warmed things up.
It thus made that concentrating sunlight would enhance this effect.
Pauline also noted that there were 10 Low-Grade Spirit Crystals sitting at the very centre of the pool, ones that had obviously been drained of World Qi, but other than that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary here.
As the Great Elder concentrated harder, however, she managed to detect a certain anomaly, the concentration of World Qi appeared to be higher in the water than the surrounding air.
She hadn’t noticed this difference at first because the difference in World Qi density was very small, and even when she did notice it, Pauline didn’t immediately mention it because she felt it might have been a result of the Spirit Crystals.
Still, after another few seconds of not finding anything else of note, the Great Elder voiced her observation to Lucas, to which the young boy grinned widely, "Precisely."
Pauline didn’t understand why this difference in World Qi density made Lucas so excited, and if it had been before she had learned the details of Project Revolution and realized the potential of the steam engine, she may have expressed that confusion out loud, but she knew better now.
Turning to Lucas, the Great Elder of the Balfour Family left her expression neutral and waited for him to enlighten her.
Getting the message loud and clear, Lucas laughed and ran off to a nearby gazebo-like structure, reached into a large basin of water that was sitting there, and pulled out a handful of Spirit Crystals.
Lucas them moved to the buried pool and, after taking off his shoes, waded to the centre and grabbed the Spirit Crystals that was sitting there.
Drying everything off on his shirt, Lucas ran back over to Pauline and handed all 20 crystals to her with a grin on his face, "Check them carefully, and I think you’ll understand."
Holding the 20 Standard Low-Grade Spirit Crystals, Pauline raised her brow slightly and again released her Soul Sense.
The 10 in her right hand were from the buried pool, the 10 in her left were from the bucket under the gazebo.
Both of them had apparently been soaking outside in water, which was not the standard way spent Spirit Crystals were generally stored, but Pauline figured that Lucas was trying to keep the environment for the two sets of crystals as similar as possible.
The Balfour Family Great Elder scanned the Spirit Crystals in her right hand in detail, then did the same for her left hand.
Then her right hand.
Then her left hand again.
After repeating this process several times, Pauline frowned slightly, holding up both set of crystals in front of her as her eyes shifted back and forth between them.
It wasn’t until a couple minutes later that she gripped her right hand and concluded definitively, "On average, these crystals all have slightly more World Qi than the other set."
Again, the difference was very small, so small that it had taken Pauline several tries to accurately determine what that difference was, "The Spirit Crystals from the sun-soaked basin are about 4.5% full on average, while the ones from the bucket are just 4.3% full."
"En," Lucas nodded, his smile growing even bigger than before, "All of these Spirit Crystals were simultaneously and completely drained just over a month."
Doing some quick calculations, Pauline muttered, "What you’re trying to say is, the crystals which were bathed in sunlight are recovering their World Qi faster."
"Exactly!" Lucas cheered, "This proves my theory that sunlight carries World Qi, and that by focusing sunlight, we can capture some of that World Qi in an appropriate vessel!"
Frowning, Pauline digested Lucas’ words, mulling them over as she stared at the Spirit Crystals in her hands.
This was an important discovery, no doubt, but Pauline didn’t see much use in it given how expensive this elaborate setup was and how small the gains were.
That being said, Pauline figured she should ask a few questions first before jumping to conclusions.
"Why soak the crystals in water?"
"The crystals were too small to focus the sunlight onto with these flat mirrors, and when we tried, they quickly got too hot to handle, so we submerged them in water instead as water is a fairly good medium for temporarily holding onto World Qi."
"Understandable. How many Spirit Crystals can this setup enhance the restoration rate of?"
"We haven’t run any tests in that regard as this is a very long-term process, but Master and the Spirit Initiates who are helping out with this project estimated we can re-charge about 40 depleted Spirit Crystals before this setup starts losing efficiency."
"Only 40, huh... And, how much did this setup cost?"
"3,000 Gold per mirror, another 1,000 or so for the metal basin as we used a small amount of Spirit Iron to enhance its ability to contain World Qi, a couple hundred for other miscellaneous items, then of course, the salary for those watching the mirrors and turning them appropriately to catch the sun."
"So, about 48,000 Gold for the setup cost, plus maybe another 100 or so per year for labour and maintenance, assuming nothing breaks or needs replacement, yes?"
"Sounds about right."