Chapter 95: Orb Pondered
Dominic looked at the blueprint in front of him. Ninety percent of what they were doing with a magitech orb was magical circuitry, specifically layered to amplify and shape an effect, while the remaining part was a crystal, carefully shaped to create a resonant frequency that would begin the actual spell effect.
Some of that was runic writing shaping the energy flow across the surface, some of it was the shape of the gemstone. But for simple devices like the ones that Dominic was learning with, it was only the material of the stone that mattered, as well as the circuitry that fed it mana from specific points.
How and why that would trigger the magical effects desired was the topic of the Chapter they were working on, but as far as Dominic could tell, the answer was simply ’because it does’.
There were hundreds of pages on what and how, but the ’why’ portion was mostly glossed over, except during the explanation of what effects the various materials were likely to have.
For example, a ruby would generate physical effects. That was what they were working with today, a small ball of rough ruby, that should create a magitech core that enhanced physical strength.
In more complex applications, it would also generate physical type spells, such as armour enhancements, sharpness buffs for blades, magical bullets and so on.
The magical bullets would be a useful addition for the Ogre Hunting Rifles, as it could create a physical projectile. But creating that orb was beyond Dominic’s skills, and integrating it into an existing design would be even more difficult, if the operators weren’t willing to sacrifice the socket that was in the design.
Normally, that would be reserved for an attack magic type gem so that it was always ready when they were using the rifle. But for many of the soldiers and lower nobles, they didn’t have many extra gems, and so they would have already made the ones they used a permanent part of their combat gear.
Dominic carefully copied the design onto paper, proving to the tutor that he did know what he was doing, before they started working with the more delicate metal plates for the orb.