//------------------------------// // Chapter 31: Artificial horns and Arcane Blades. // Story: The War Machine // by Urimas Ebonheart //------------------------------// The War Machine Chapter 31: Artificial horns and Arcane Blades. Both Eve and I worked through the night and we're at thirty-five percent done on the concept of the artificial horn design. This will also be able to replace a Unicorn's horn if they were damaged or removed, but an Earth Pony or Pegasus can not have one attached as they don't have the correct nerves in their head or brain to accommodate one. Luna yawns as she trudges past us with a mumbled "Good morning..." before heading outside and lowering the moon. Eve and I continue on the design while Luna makes herself breakfast and once fed, she walks over to us. "So are you ready to begin this machine we need for more of this nano-fibre cloth?" she asks me, looking more awake now. I save my file and get up from the chair. "I am, the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can properly protect our soldiers," I reply and pull up the schematics for the machine. Two weeks later The nano-fibre machine is halfway completed and the Thestrals have been training with their temporary armour. They're putting on more muscle and stamina by constantly wearing it day in and out, only removing it for washing both themselves and their armour. The diamond dog den has had its own obstacle course made and the dogs, both guards and young pups love it to the point it needs repairs every few days due to the constant use from their claws scratching at it. Twilight's new rifle design has been finalised and sent off for mass production, which will take a while due to new factories needing to be built for the specialised crystal ammo manufacturing and enchanting. Eve and I's research into the Artificial horn has been completed, but will require trial and error to perfect. Testing will begin once we have the Nano-fibre machine finished and working. A gathering of Equestria's allies will begin within four or five days to discuss options on dealing with the Gryphons who've been disturbingly silent since our attack on their outpost. I'm wondering what they're up to and if they've upgraded their arsenal again. I will be taking another flight over to Gryphonstone after the meeting to do reconnaissance and locating other outposts near Equestria's borders. The Changelings I brought back are adapting well to their new life in the Jade Hive as those crystals Celestia sent to them are working perfectly, but a few more have been requested as it isn't enough for the whole hive to feed from. So we got word that Celestia is working on a new large crystal capable of absorbing direct sunlight and converting it into magic after getting the idea from how my solar panels work. Turns out that the sun in this system contains powerful magic that is emitted through its light. I got Luna's help in creating the Prototype of the Arcane Blade Mk1 and am currently standing outside with a few practice dummies set up made of various materials. There are seven targets made of solid stone, iron, steel, titanium, a synthetic flesh, a dense mana grown crystal, and finally, one straw dummy with a powerful shield spell powered by Twilight. The Thestrals, the Changeling Sheldon whom Chrysalis is currently looking through his eyes, Twilight, Eve, and even Celestia are watching behind a magical protective barrier as I lift the Prototype up in my right hand and plug a wire coming out of the bottom of my wrist that's connected to my core into the base of the prototype. "Commencing the first test run of the Arcane Blade MK1, please stay back," I say and activate the prototype. Magic flows out of my core slowly and into the grip. It takes three seconds for the magic to fill the battery and the blade to come to life as a four foot long blade of prismatic energy forms and stabilises with a calm and quiet humming. This gets raised brows from both Celestia and Luna while Twilight looks gobsmacked. "I've never seen raw magic used like this before..." Twilight mumbles staring at the blade. "I will now leave the blade on for an hour to see how long the grip can maintain the blade and monitor the mana drain on my core," I announce and just stand there while watching my systems and data. Celestia and Twilight begin discussing future projects, one project I heard is to make a magic based cannon for an Equestrian tank. Luna is just watching while hugging and talking to Eve, though most of the Thestrals go back to training. Time goes by as I monitor the grip, lens, runes, and battery as I change the amount of mana flowing through it. Nothing is deteriorating and the drain on my core's mana will allow me to power the blade for ten hours and thirteen minutes on a low setting and half that time on the maximum mana flow. "I am now ready to begin testing the blade against the dummies," I announce, getting all of their attention again. I step up to the first dummy made of stone and raise my blade. I then raise the mana flowing through the blade to its maximum flow, making the blade shine brightly as I swing in a horizontal arc, aiming for the centre of the torso. The blade slags the stone with ease, sending a small spray of molten stone onto the grass with a hiss. The top half of the torso just drops onto the bottom with a clack, but the dummy remains standing, only a couple inches shorter. Positive results so far. Next up is the iron dummy. I repeat the swing and the results are not as good as the first. The iron proves resistant to the magic of the blade, but it does leave a warped trail four millimetres deep like a scar where the blade touched. I will have to test it on a flesh dummy equipped with a set of iron armour and see how the flesh underneath will react. Saving results. Next is the steel dummy, so I swing and the blade melts right through the metal with another spray of molten matter, where the top half falls onto the lower and moulds to the base. It would seem the process of iron to steel removes its resistance to magic. I will have to experiment with this. Note added to hard-drive. Walking up to the titanium dummy. I repeat the swing and the metal warps like the iron did, but went an inch deep. Titanium may not be as resilient as iron, but it certainly makes good plating for both light magical and heavy physical attacks. Lastly, Twilight sets up her barrier around the straw dummy. I swing my blade and magical discharges similar to small bolts of electricity constantly fly off from the impact area. The barrier holds up to my blade but I see the barrier is slowly destabilising, along with my blade as it flickers and distorts. Eventually after three minutes a sudden spike in the impact area from the mana going unstable detonates violently. The barrier shatters and the dummy burns to ash. My prototype's grip overheats and melts the lens within due to the feedback, making it no longer operational. I get sent onto my back two metres and eighteen centimetres away from the crater the dummy was standing at. I check my systems and find I am intact with no permanent damage aside from ruined magazine pouches and scorched fingers. "Adam! Are you okay!?" Twilight yells and runs over to me as I sit up. The others join her and have worried expressions. I turn to look at her and the others. "I am perfectly fine, only some cosmetic damage. Though it seems one source of mana trying to overpower another reacts violently. It would seem this blade is best used against organic matter more than metal. I will have to do some simulations for the next model to improve its performance," I reply and stand up. Perhaps I will have to ask Luna if hard light constructs would be feasible? Luna walks over to me and uses her magic to pull pieces of grass and dirt off of my body. "That is good news, and for the first test it performed well. How was the magical drain?" Luna asks and picks up the remains of the warped grip. "Very little to maintain in low power mode, but it doubles once the trigger is pulled to strengthen the blade. I can maintain the blade for ten hours and thirteen minutes on low power, half if at full strength," I reply and take the grip from her magic. I examine it and the data collected during the surge, and it would seem Twilight's mana sent feedback through my blade and into the grip, which destroyed its internal components. "I have determined the cause and will design ways to compensate and improve. By the way Celestia, how is your solar conversion crystal doing?" I say and then ask the white Alicorn. She smiles and nods. "It is going slowly, but with examination and scanning spells we're using on plants to look closely at how they absorb sunlight, we're just started building the matrix and runes needed to mimic the process and then convert it into magic. I remembered you informed us of the gryphon’s power plant and after the crystals are done, we plan to try building a solar power plant to generate our own power with magic," she replies and then sighs. "This will take about three to five years to achieve, but the first solar crystal should only take a year at most," she finishes. "I see, if this is all, Luna and I must resume the nano-fibre machine," I tell her and bid her goodbye, before Luna and I head back into the workshop to continue. Four days later. Eve and I, with Luna's help, have finished designing the prototype artificial horn coloured grey and I have already hooked a cable from my core into the horn's base. After reading and studying the spell for both simple telekinesis and how to cast it, with a feather as the target, I pour my core's mana into the horn and activate the telekinesis spell. The horn glows with a prismatic coloured aura and the feather faintly glows as well. I try to 'will' the feather to rise but nothing happens, looking at the spell I realise this may work for a biological lifeform, but not for me. I examine the spell and the rune matrix that it's based from, after a deep look and examination, spells are basically just coding with runes instead of ones and zeros. I begin writing runes into the matrix to form a simple three stage command, lift, three inches, stop. The feather shakes as the mana seems to struggle through the horn and slowly lifts off the table, wobbling to the three inch distance. Luna and Twilight both gasp before the artificial horn's aura sputters and the spell fizzles out, letting the feather float back down to the table. After sorting through the data I turn to Luna. "While the spell worked, it would seem the silver used in the horn is absorbing too much mana to allow the spell to be maintained. I will have to find a more suitable material to channel the mana, but for now the horn's first test was successful," I say and unplug the horn from my core. "Also, your method of casting spells is incompatible with either mine and Eve's mindsets or lack of biological components. Although I believe the method of simply creating our own coding language using runes will make a sufficient surrogate," I finish explaining and examine the horn. The silver is still bleeding off magic it absorbed from the spell. I will need to find a conductive material that won't drain mana away from the spell. Twilight squeals quietly before speaking. "That was amazing! If you can manage to improve the design, we can help unicorns who've had irreparable damage done or lost their horn to use their magic again!" she says with excitement. "Also, I believe I might have an answer to your material problem!" she then says and rummages through the variety of materials she has on her workbench. She finally finds a strange dimly glowing light blue crystal and levitates it in front of me. "This is magicite, a crystal that grows in mount canter under Canterlot. Celestia sent me some to see if it could enhance my arcana rifle's performance as it not only stores mana, but redirects it and channels it better than any other crystal. Problem is it takes a few months just to grow a small cluster of it," she explains as I pluck the crystal out of the air. I turn it around in my grip and begin my analysis. From what I can see, this may just work. "This appears to be acceptable. I will begin further testing once I have the nano-fibre machine constructed," I say and turn to Luna. "Shall we continue?" I ask her and walk over to the half completed machine and place the crystal onto my workbench. "Yes, the sooner we finish this, the sooner we can better prepare ourselves for the Gryphons," she replies and before we can get back to work, there's knocking coming from the workshop's door. Twilight walks over and opens the door to reveal Sheldon. "I have news from the Queen, one of our infiltrators has returned from Gryphonstone with information," he tells us. Luna sighs and walks over to us. "Seems we'll have to put the machine on hold until we hear what was discovered," she says. "Yes, let's head to the hive now and see what they've found," I reply and grab my repaired minigun.