A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale

“Hesti-chan!”

When Mom said “come,” she really just meant that I should switch which subspace room my [Room] portal would connect to, while she followed along through the doorways inside. I didn’t really “come” in the literal sense due to Eltharion’s rules banning me from my own subspace.

As such, I could feel the wafting heat from when it exited the subspace, caressing my face and hair, making me conscious of how much longer it had become. The sound of metal being forged into shape was accompanied by the sizzling noise of artificers performing their craft, all while the background was being filled with the clanking music of an active blacksmith workshop’s towering machinery and blazing flames, feasting on the life-giving charcoal.

However, this was a dwarven workshop, and that meant that, along with the smoke and iron-tasting air, the overwhelming scent of alcohol was present, a constant struggle for me to endure. Especially since, with runesmithing, dwarven liquor was also part of the creation process, so evaporated ale and mead stunk up the place to the point I jerked my head back, away from the stench escaping the portal.

It’s worse than usual! I noticed. Our party’s blacksmith, Grimnir, had always been pretty mindful of the amount of alcohol he used within the subspace, so this was a serious sensory overload for me.

So, the question was laid bare. Why? What was different from usual?

Well, similar to the smell, the chattering argument between multiple dwarves might be a hint to our workshop’s current state. Might …

Regardless of that very peculiar fact, considering how Grimnir usually worked, what also surprised me was the fact two new, but familiar, faces were here as well. A boy and a girl—well, a man and a woman, at this point—along with Ellaine instantly noticed me as Mom entered the smithy, waving at me as they rushed over.

It had been over a year since I met the students, and similar to how my appearance had changed during my hibernation, so did theirs. Well, it seemed I would start out easy, as the first two of Saori’s students I would meet again after our battle in Aureolis were Haruka and Daichi. Two of Aurora’s artisans, and also the two people I wanted to meet the most amongst them … Due to the whole recorder thing, of course.

“I heard what happened. You are all right, right?” Haruka’s face shone with worry as she stared up at me. Her petite frame from over a year ago hadn’t changed too much, to the point I wasn’t sure if she had grown or not now that she was 18, although I could see from the state of her hands—slightly scratched up and hardened with calluses—that she had been putting in the effort with her artificer work.

I guess another important fact was that Haruka’s hair was back to being dark brown, her original hair color, as was the case with Daichi. It seemed neither wanted to hide the fact their hair colors were practically the same, something rather unusual to Peolyncians and their myriad of hair colors, even amongst close relatives.

Honestly, it looked good on Haruka! Considering how shy she was, when she used to color her hair to assimilate into Peolynca, it did make her standout a bit more since her hair helped express her emotions and face better. Now, though, I appreciate her “true” self and how much calmer and relaxed her body language and eyes were. She didn’t look unsure of herself, constantly worrying about her role and what purpose she had around everybody.

Meanwhile, the guy next to her looked almost unrecognizable. Though both were drenched in sweat from the heat of the workshop and dirtied with soot and oil respectively, Daichi had a surprising transformation from that lanky, barely toned fire mage I had mostly known him for, to a blacksmith with toned arms.

They were nowhere as large and muscular as Grimnir’s, but you could see the hours of hammering irons he put in with how defined his muscles were. Although, even with his bulkier shoulders, it still didn’t change his face. Those eyes of his still looked like they were constantly smiling.

Ah, I guess I missed out on their development as well …

“Considering how much we’ve been worried for her since she fell into hibernation, I don’t think you should fuss over a little cold too much.” Snappy as always, Daichi smiled after causing Haruka to pout. “Hey! Sensei and Master already got us all updated on what happened with you, Hestia-san. Glad to see you back up and moving, especially with how you’re now putting in the effort to rule your mom’s land! A whole damn island, ha, you mind sending some of that wealth our ways?”

Everybody stared at him as if he had gone crazy, but I could only giggle a bit as I had missed this about him. In fact, this little bootlicking request made me almost nostalgic for the rest of Aurora, wishing we could reunite under one roof, or rather, under the subspace roof.

“Oh, sure, considering your charisma, how about you ask my uncle, Alextraxus? He’s not exactly blood-related, but super loyal to my mother, and he has been serving as her Dragon Ruler of Ice since she abdicated the title … That would be a great discussion, right?”

Daichi’s face paled as he gave off a pained laugh. “Yeaaaah, still no luck persuading any dragons. Let’s leave that aside … Yo, Red! Your arm looks busted up, hand it over to Ellaine!”

Yup, that terrible personality is still around. Glad to see you two again, Haruka. Daichi.

Ellaine quickly approached after my reunion with these two friends, also noticing that Vifi’s prosthesis arm was moving slower than usual; the damage was probably caused by the ice crystals that formed inside after our harrowing escape from the glaciers. The damage wasn’t obvious to me before Daichi and Ellaine noted it, as the surface was polished by Vifi, but I guess the inner workings were harder to ascertain with the untrained eye.

Ellaine gave me a quick thank you for the fire stones, noting Grimnir was already done with the tests and was now preparing to create the armor. Seeing as Klea was still not with her, Ellaine most likely hadn’t continued with her objective to retrieve her mana rings yet.

Regardless, with a cheerful demeanor, she accepted Vifi’s arm to fix it, while I took the chance and asked Daichi to fix up my armor and glaive. With a wide smirk he readily accepted them as well, admitting he had wanted to properly analyze my gear for himself to see how Grimnir created the rhytilic armor. Since they would soon begin full production of that alloy, he needed more examples beyond Grimnir’s lectures.

That left Haruka behind, but I guess she was also the best person to ask everything. Mom told me to get my summary from her, anyways, as she had to keep watch of Forminaxtrass, as the latter was creepily laughing behind the backs of a dwarven smith.

Grimnir, I’m here, but you’re that focused on working, huh? I giggled a bit as I saw our master smith slam his hammer down at an inhuman speed, causing sparks to fly as he molded numerous sheets of metal, combining monster parts and ore to fortify them. This melody of his work invokes my imagination as I could only guess what the full panoply would look like in the end.

In any case, Haruka explained that the fire stone shipment was called [Uldraxx Ore], a variant of voldunna ore—a black ore that could only be found within a volcanic area. Unlike its more common cousin, uldraxx ore could only be found inside Inferno Nest’s magma chambers, molded by the minerals, natural fire mana, and draconic energy swirling inside.

While voldunna ore was sturdy and highly mana-resistant, to the point it could barely let mana flow through it, which made enchanting it pretty much impossible, uldraxx ore was far more brittle and could store and let mana flow at a higher capacity. Both were heat and fire resistant, able to endure high temperatures with ease, but the latter was especially attuned to fire, to the point that, with just a tiny bit of mana flow, the stone would just burst into fire!

“It still requires using mana, though,” Haruka said. “So, it is less useful for dwarven smiths since it would be easier to feed the flames with coal than to create one with these fire stones. They are great for saunas, hotsprings, and massages, though! As long as you have a few levels into [Fire Resistance].”

So, Kahalameet actually chose the correct fire stones I wanted! As long as the rest of the armor and clothes had some [Fire Resistance] to prevent being burned by the stone, Grimnir could create a set of armor that not only warded off blizzards but also kept the wearer warm as if they were inside a sauna. While we weren’t sure if it could endure Frozen Nest’s blizzards, the ones in northern Carmaniate were weaker, so these armor sets should suffice.

“However, you aren’t here for that, right? You held up your part of the promise, so let’s talk about something more interesting,” Haruka said, wagging her finger with a confident smile.

“Haha, true, I wouldn’t want to waste too much time. Although, where is Saori?” I asked, looking through the room, trying to find her somewhere.

“Sensei went out with her entire shadow pack, minus Kyouya and Tatsuya,” she replied. “Nothing much to do for her inside the subspace, so they are training … I guess you miss Rajah too, right?”

“Haaaa, seriously, I missed him again?” My body deflated, slumping forward as I couldn’t muster up the strength to stand properly. My arms desperately needed to hug my overgrown kitten. “Well, can’t be helped, I guess … I guess it’s the same for your side, right? I did hear you guys went into those newly formed demonic dungeons.”

Aurora was currently split into three parts—four if you counted Neill’s stay in Yeos. The first was my party on Kargryx, then it was Saori’s party and their search for the ingredients to forge rhytilic alloy inside Carmaniate, and then there were the students, wandering around central Altrust on a training adventure towards the dungeons created by the recent Edjurian attack, the one caused by the Prince of Envy’s ritual during the Aureolis attack.

Daichi and Haruka just recently stopped attending dungeons dives with the rest of the party for the sake of crafting, with Daichi needing to turn the materials they gained during these trips into gear, while Haruka was needed for the recorder project. Since the both of them had fully embraced their roles as craftsmen, gaining levels wasn’t as important to them as it was to the rest of Aurora, but they still had to maintain a minimum for their own safety. As in, they needed to be able to fight against rank Bs.

Meanwhile, the rest of the students, with the help of Yorshka and Farron, were still trying their best to raise their levels considering the threat level of our future opponents. All of them were aiming to rise over level 150, although the difficulty of these dungeons was making it hard to do.

“To be honest, dungeon diving isn’t really the only issue here. There’s some political stuff with who was to own them, conflict with our side and Folschreck’s recently broken off church branch, and a bunch of other stuff, really,” Haruka murmured, frowning slightly, making me feel bad for asking. “Nevertheless, it is our side’s issue, Hestia-chan. Don’t worry too much about it — Dame Yorshka and Sir Farron are doing their best to lead us. Not to mention, Asa-chan, Tatsuya-kun, and Kyouya-kun are really growing into their roles as our strongest fighters.”

“Glad to hear.” I shrugged, feeling slightly relieved, but also not really. The mere mention of the Folschreck Empire and all the issues around it was making me antsy to act. “Okay, let’s leave that aside for now. Too much side-railing—Okay! Great catching up, now, let’s talk about the video—”

“Finally!”

Piercing through the sound of the workshop, that dwarven man’s voice caught me off guard as I snapped my eyes behind Haruka’s head, fully focused on two dwarves approaching us. Both had beards that went down to their legs, greyed through time and with half of it petrified as it was custom for their old age. They wiped beer foam from their mouths as they grunted, both looking annoyed about something.

… Do I know them?

“Took you long enough, lasses! This is the time for another technological revolution, and we are wasting every precious second on trivial takings!” one of them said with a voice that tethered on the line of being soft-spoken and the rambling of a drunk. An artificer, I believed, from the assortment of tools on his belt.

The other could be either a blacksmith or runesmith, as the two professions shared tools, although I wagered it was the latter. The scent of blood was strong on him, stronger than the smell of charcoal and evaporated alcohol. “Talk over some beer, or something! We’ve waited long enough, so let us—”

However, the room suddenly turned silent as a chill smothered the rising heat, flowing even through the subspace portal for me to experience. Only the whimsical musing of Forminaxtrass could break this stiffing pressure emanating from this singular woman.

Her footsteps were silent, but it felt like a giant was slowly walking through the workshop before she stopped behind the two old dwarves. Her presence caused them to shiver before they could turn around as she glared at them with a soul-freezing gaze.

“Do not forget you are my daughter’s guests, dwarves,” Mom stated and turned away, leaving them this one message before the cold finally disappeared, allowing the heat from the forge to roar once again.

“They say younglings are impatient, but it seems our honored shabba’locku couldn’t help themselves from facing Goddess Death! Ha!” From the center of the smithy, Grimnir shouted snarkily before he stopped his hammering with a final loud swing. He then pointed the hammer at the two dwarves. “Oi! Metosei, Borom! This is my project here, so you better treat my mistress with the damn respect she deserves while you are in here!”

He then turned his hammer in my direction, smiling widely, revealing his brown teeth under his long, orange beard, now regrown to the point it reached his chest. “Lass, you ready for us to herald in the second manatech revolution? Then you better bring those bladdarg dragonewts into the subspace already, so we can start working!”

Yeah, my friend. The age of television is coming for us once this is done, I smiled as the fifth original member of Aurora raised his hammer into the air, bellowing out a fervent battle cry.

“Umslid fie Chihiro! Everybody else, get BACK TO FORGING THOSE COMPONENTS!”

“Umslid fie Chihiro!” All the dwarves shouted in unison as the cogs of production whirled back into action. The only ones who didn’t were the two elders.

“Ahaha, glad to see you two again. Mister Metosei, Mister Borom,” I greeted them as I finally recognized them.

Metosei, the artificer master of Grimnir’s cousin, Broggart, who recently took in Ellaine and Haruka under his tutelage, sighed, scratching his head as his drunken stupor was washed away by Mom’s anger. “Aye, lass. Health to you.”

There was the proper Metosei! Despite being a dwarf, his voice was more quiet than others, to the point you could call him soft-spoken despite his sailor mouth.

“Yes, yes, sorry about that, Princess. Nothing to do since you brought up that wish of yours to mass-produce the video recorder. Been a buncha larrunda over the days, annoyed ya weren’t coming,” the runesmith, Borom, said. This man was Grimnir runesmith master, although due to their history, that relationship was mostly professional now.

“It’s fine! Mom’s attitude around dwarves had always been—” I looked over at her, feeling relieved she hadn’t turned around yet. “Well, you’ve seen it. Better be scolded than frozen, right?”

“Aye!” they both answered before Metosei clapped his hands, calling over a few dwarves to transport a table over here for my sake. Seeing how slow they were moving, the twins went inside to help them move it.

At the same time, another familiar face revealed himself!

“Jadhund!” I called out as I recognized him.

“Hail, Princess Hestia! Been a year and it certainly shows, with how I can spot you growing taller!” Jadhund bellowed, smacking his chest in elation. “So, the workshop looks better?”

“Certainly livelier.”

“That’s the part that’s important, can’t have a dwarf working all alone, drinking by himself, you see? More hands, more heads, more ideas. More efficient, and it certainly will teach that bashthuda over there how to properly teach his damn apprentices!”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Shut up, Jadhund!” Grimnir shouted, causing his friend over here to laugh.

“And, don’t worry, every dwarf in here is sworn to keep any techniques and the process of creating your recorders a secret,” he stated, prompting me to ask why he was so confident about that. With a wide smile, he patted Metosei’s shoulder. “Well, one of the elders of a newly formed guild should be the one to break the news to ya. Master, take it away.”

“‘Course.” The old dwarf nodded, leaving his apprentice to unpack a small wooden box on the table. “Princess Hestia, under the wish of Grimnir, we’ve opened up a guild for the video recorder. The digital media guild, as per Haruka’s request!”

Blushing, Haruka smiled meekly as she continued the explanation, “The video recorder is one thing, but we also have to make the preparations to actually stream everything you produce to the wider world. The video streaming we did back in Inkoran-Tazul was a far cry from what we really want out of streaming, right?”

“International, multiple cities,” I replied to Haruka’s agreement.

“That is digital media, and this isn’t even mentioning musical videos, films, and so on. Which was why I didn’t want our guild to be solely focused on the recorder, I want us to start dominating information technology as well, almost in a similar fashion to the railroad guild having a stranglehold on everything that goes into train transportation,” she stated. “Not to mention, it’ll make it easier for whenever we try to implement an Internet equivalent, or maybe internal communications with phones, or some such.”

“Same idea!” I cheered. “Considering how far away we all are now, being able to speak and keep up with all of you would be nice outside of the subspace. You know, since not everybody can be inside it every day during every second.”

“All that for later, but for now…” Haruka turned back to the dwarves, prompting Borom to grin widely as he took out a memory card from the wooden box.

As in, it was the exact memory card that the video recorder would use, although it was a bit larger and was attached to a keychain for transportation. In fact, there was even a rectangular box about half the size of a human palm next to it, looking like it could store multiple memory cards in a fashion similar to an SD card reader.

“Stock-standard, minimum-viable product that is cheap enough that commoners with a journeyman’s wage can afford it. As the actual video recorder requires a dungeon core shard to work, we had to dumb the design down as far as possible for it to be commercially viable, which made me think, most people won’t need to record, right?” Borom stated. “That’s when Daichi and Haruka figured out that most people already had a way to project a screen for a video! A party bracelet!”

During my last meeting with Grimnir, he told me that Daichi found a way for me to sell my music to people, and that was through the ID cards. ID cards and party bracelets were a standard day-to-day necessity for most people, even commoners, who wished to live inside a town or city.

The majority had them, so why sell these people some manatech to just play music or a video, when we could incorporate the technology into already available ones. Music could be stored onto an ID card in a similar fashion to how it could store its owner’s Profile, while a memory card could be configured to also work on party bracelets, as if it was accessing an ID card.

As such, people could play music on their party bracelets and watch videos with the tools they already had at hand, eliminating the entry barrier of having to buy an entirely new item. Naturally, to be able to gain access to all of this, you still needed to update your party bracelet and ID card with these two new functions, and that would cost money. But it shouldn’t be anywhere near as expensive as getting entirely new equipment.

Yeah, that’s convenient. Hmm, but it won’t be able to spread to everybody, I thought, before asking how this was possible.

Haruka smiled, looking happy that she could finally explain. “Remember how we first figured out that we can connect the recorder to a crystal through mana, by configuring the crystal to add a program for it to work?”

You figured that out, I still have no idea how it works. I didn’t say that outloud, though, and kept listening to Haruka with a nodding head.

“The fact is, the Divine System adapts to our needs and a System artificer is someone who works with the system crystals to create ‘programs’ and functions, which we then install into certain manatech with mana, and then the System handles the installation. That’s how party bracelets, ID cards, and those dueling armlets receive their software to work and project our Profiles and System-based UI,” Haruka explained. Although she kept it simple, her enthusiasm was befuddling me with the information. “You know, all the RPG-like parts that can be ‘materialized’ through those blue mana screens.”

“Soooo, you’re doing the same thing with the videos and music?”

“Exactly!” Haruka snapped her fingers, although she did pick up my confusion, prompting her to dumb her explanation down even further. “Think of the [Crystal of the Divine System] as the computer where you can open up a programming software to code. The manatech—party bracelets and the recorder, for example—are the hardware and we use the crystal to install these programs into them. That’s how a party bracelet can do all the things it can do, including the various functions like sharing experience, forming parties, distance-based party locator.”

I had heard this explanation before, but it was good to get a refresher. With all the fighting and politics that I focused on, I did neglect the details of smithing and artificerwork.

Seeing me nod in understanding, Haruka continued, “Adding another function on the party bracelet is easy, as most models do not come with every new function. Not everybody has the tamer function, after all, but you can buy access to it at a hunter’s guild. Minimizing the cost of a production also means we do not have to ask for a higher price to stay in the green, which means a lower entry barrier, which also means more people can access it!”

“And I want that. I want as many people to watch my concert as possible,” I said, remembering that I always made the entry cost for my concert free, but only billed people if they wanted to sit on the fancy seats, away from the “mob.” This was the same idea.

Haruka snapped her fingers. “So! And you know that most cities and large towns have a mana barrier around them, right?”

“They protect against magic and also report when somebody enters the area,” I answered, remembering the many times I felt something whenever I entered a city, or the times spells or artillery were shot at a city only for the mana barrier to ward them off.

“Exactly! These barriers are controlled by a one or more catalyst, which a settlement’s governer or the mage’s guild carefully manages. These catalysts can be maintained and updated through a crystal, allowing the manager to see who entered the city, adjust the barrier’s power, and so on. Not to mention, they are also used to enforce mana contracts within it, which gave Mister Metosei and I the idea of connecting all crystals to the mana barrier of the city!”

Borom then told me to give Tasianna my personal [Crystal of the Divine System] for her to hold, before being led into the smithy. Borom then pulled out a memory card and told her to download the video into the crystal while Metosei continued the explanation.

He activated his party bracelet, projecting a blue screen in front of me to show me the new function on it—”Video And Music.” He pressed it, changing the UI to a new one where he could access “ID Card Music Player,” “Memory Card Video Player,” and “Video Streaming.”

What!

Letting out a loud laugh, Metosei explained, “We installed a program that allows crystals to connect to all party bracelets with this function within a mana barrier. You turn on the ‘stream’ function and then—Borom!”

“Got it! Fiflei, press this button here and that, aaaand that! Done, okay, it should be on, in three, two, one—!”

“Huh!” I reflexively covered up my mouth as I saw the screen brighten up, feeling my heart skip a beat when I saw who appeared on it!

“Mreaarw!‘

It was Rajah! It was a video of Rajah!

The white-black stripped virgacuga cub was the only person in the frame, but I could hear the voices of Saori, Ellaine, and the barkings of Saori’s garms in the background, encouraging Rajah to speak as this message was directed to “your master”—me. The giant tiger-like cat growled and roared with fervor and excitement as his large, spiky tail continued slamming on the floor, while his large front-claws gouged out dirt from his stomping feet.

He was still the same Rajah from over a year ago, having barely changed outside of growing a bit. I felt so happy to see him, but a bit of me did ask why he still looked the same, as he was supposed to be three-years-old now. Just like Saori and me, he became a rank B before he actually matured into an adult, so he was hit by the maturation requirements of one, but he was only a month younger than me, biologically speaking. He should be able to evolve since virigresses, his original species, became adults at three.

“He hasn’t managed to reach the maximum level of 45, nor did he finish leveling all the necessary skills for his maturation requirement,” Tasianna answered, giggling awkwardly. “When he became an adult, the system forcibly turned his race into a [Silverlight Shadow Virgarcuga], which also means, he is now rank A.”

[“He sadly lost a chance to choose his next evolution, only gaining the usual state increase from maturing,”] Shay interjected, having experienced this himself with his sister. [“A ‘young’ of a race will always be a rank below their adult variant, and the improvements you gain from simply growing up isn’t as explosive as an evolution.”]

[“Which is why Saori is training as best as she can to avoid this fact,”] Beth added. [“Rajah might be a rank A now, but he lost the skill points he could have gained from going towards level 45, as he was forcibly reset to level 0 when he became a rank A. For comparison, my brother and I are still stronger than him numerically, despite still being rank B.”]

Rajah, Saori, and I were the only ‘youngs,’ from my knowing, who had reached rank B before maturing, allowing us to access the evolution bonus from reaching rank B, but were also restricted by it with reduced experience gain until we became adults. Aside from reaching the maximum level of 45 for a rank B monster, we also had to fulfill another requirement, specifically raising certain skills up to level 10 so we could evolve when we reached our adult age.

Rajah failed to reach that goalpost, but Saori and I still had the time. Sadly, Saori’s time was coming to an end soon this year with her third birthday, making me kinda happy I had two more years for my progress.

Yet … I didn’t really feel too bad about it. Sure, Rajah must have felt frustrated by this fact, but seeing my virgacuga still acting like the cub that I knew him as sent my heart aflutter. I didn’t care that he wasn’t as strong as one would expect, I just wanted to cuddle with him, again.

“Gaha, when we told them to record something for you, they forgot to tell the cat that these recorders can’t pick up telepathic messages. Brat was probably pouring out his heart,” Borom joked, but I didn’t care. I was just happy that I could see him again.

So, we now had a way to allow people to stream videos and play them. How did we record them? For that, Borom pulled out five recorders from the box, with one of them being far larger than the others.

The former four looked like your usual hand-held video recorder you could find in any store in the 21st century on Earth, looking sleek and easy to handle. There were also multiple attachments next to it, like a sound recorder with a wax-like substance surrounding it, a flash for photography, and also multiple lenses to adjust the lighting level and distance.

“This is the real thing that we will sell commercially. Too expensive for the common people, but a well-off merchant could buy the smaller versions, with the big ones reserved for the truly wealthy. Filming, photography, in-built [Identify Lv. 5], a larger mana screen projection, and, of course, everything the program on a party bracelet can do, you can do it on here, as well,” he explained.

Heilige Scheiße! This looks like the real thing.

“Haha, I told you I would reverse-engineer it!” Metosei bragged as he probably noticed my astonishment. “Took us four months to do it properly. Told you High Queen Dravlia rushed it, right? The one Broggart found in her workshop could only record, after all, and it was limited by a small memory card. Made this sturdier, able to endure some hits, which does make it somewhat more expensive, not to mention all the engineering and such. We only had enough funds to get enough dungeon core shards for five of them.”

“Pah, more like, we had to rush these final testing products ‘cause Grimnir forced us to rush for the lass’s sake! You oughta thank Goddess Chihiro that we were already in the final phase for all of this, otherwise, we wouldn’t have made it in time!” Borom snorted, before his body shivered. Looking behind him, he immediately turned back to me to avoid Mom’s gaze.

Ignoring him, Haruka continued, “These recorders also have the ability to connect to any nearby [Crystal of the Divine System] through a mana connection! You record the concert with the recorder, connect it to a crystal, and then that crystal will stream your recording live to everybody with an adjusted party bracelet! Great for your concerts, so people can watch them at home or at work, or, if we’re being realistic a bit, also used for state-governed television and also speeches from the city’s or town’s ruler.”

Ahhh, hearing that fact did blow, but it wasn’t like we could stop something like that if we wanted to sell the recorder. In fact, this has already been used once after the Inkoran-Tazul incident where the dwarven high king declared a war against Bole’Taria for what they did to the dwarf’s royal capital.

“So, what’s the difference between the smaller and larger one?” I asked, inspecting the other variant.

Unlike its hand-held brother, the larger video recorder looked like the ones you would use to film movies or large videos. The ones cameramen would bring around, the ones too bulky to fit into a normal backpack. Similar to them, this recorder even came with a personal mounting station, allowing you to stabilize the recording so the video wouldn’t be shaky.

Fitting this design, the dwarves only had one answer. “The bigger the better.”

Fair enough.

To summarize, it could do everything the smaller one did, but better, as it had a larger dungeon core shard. That meant it could record videos for longer and keep a stream at a higher quality, as it could send this information to the crystal faster, meaning less of the mana would “leak.”

The idea behind this method was actually similar to the one I had suggested, about how Aleistunum was trying to invent long-range communication through mana links. One tablet could write something on it and that information could be sent throughout the world, but due to how mana worked, the message would rarely arrive intact. It was always broken, missing letters, words, or even entire paragraphs.

The recorder’s streaming function was a bit more refined, though, as instead of relying on enchantments, it relied on manatech, the System helping out, and another core piece.

“[Arcane Crystal Battery].” Metosei pulled out the power source of one of the recorders, dangling a white, rectangular piece of metal on his finger, causing the blue liquid inside to glow. “Recording and saving the videos inside memory cards is easy, but streaming? That’s the tough part, as mana can leak when it links with the crystal, not to mention, linking to the thousands of party bracelets within a town or city.”

Which was where Grimnir’s unique skill, [Core of the Mechanoid], and his Saint title, [Grand Arcanatechnician], came into play.

Core of the Mechanoid: A unique skill allowing the owner to imitate the absorption and expulsion of mana of a mana battery. Nullifies arcane corruption accumulation within the body of the user, and turns 50% of all magical damage into Mana. When mana is expended through the use of runes or manatech, increase their mana efficiency, stats, and skill effectiveness while close to the owner by 15%. Allows the owner to crystallize their mana into a temporary mana battery that applies this skill’s effect that lasts a Peolyncian day upon creation, but temporarily decreases the owner’s maximum Mana by 25% for a Peolyncian week. Upon re-usage, resets the timer for full recovery. Skill included: [Body of Earth] [Dwarven Magic Resistance] [Arcane Corruption Immunity] [Mana Control Lv. 10] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Mana Conduit Lv. 10] [Sage’s Wisdom Lv. 10]

Grand Arcanatechnician: A title granted to a mortal recognized by the Goddess of Change, Ingenuity, and Ambition, whose control had been usurped by individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Due to usurpation, the effects of this title may only be activated when in the presence of [The Light]’s [Music Resonation]. When creating an item that combines blacksmithing, artificer work, and runesmithing, increases stats and skill potency depending on the effectiveness of the [Arcane Crystal] used as a mana battery or the fuel for the fire. Depending on the enchantments engraved and the elemental charge on the [Arcane Crystal], may vastly alter the end product

This one battery was made when we first tested his blessings after he became a Saint of Chihiro, which was why they only had a couple of [Arcane Crystal Battery]s around since without me, Grimnir couldn’t create more. Yet, this was enough for them to test everything which was where they found out that the battery also made the mana link more efficient through the effects of Grimnir’s title.

The mana link created from Grimnir’s mana was far more stable, and through this, streaming was even possible. Every recorder needed this variant of the battery, and every crystal also had to be fueled by Grimnir’s mana batteries for them to work properly. Meaning, if Grimnir were to suddenly lose his unique skill, or worse, then production of this recorder variant had to cease as they would need a new form of production if we wanted to stream our videos.

“It makes it worse since Grimnir can only make four arcane crystals per week,” Tasianna said, prompting everybody to agree. “We do have to be careful.”

“Also, to not overload a crystal with too much work, it would be best if we connected multiple crystals within a city to handle the streaming service,” Haruka added. “These batteries are far more stable than a common mana battery, due to all the buffs and runes applied to it, but it would be best if we also had some spares. Things break all the time.”

“So, if we want this to work, I have to be around for Grimnir to make them, right? Every week?” I stated as I realized the issue my usurpation had brought to his skill. This wasn’t even mentioning when we needed batteries for other stuff.

So, the full mobilization of streaming requires a few months for it to begin, huh? Not really a problem, honestly. We don’t have to start live-streaming for now, we just need to spread the videos.

“I guess we will need more capital, right?” I asked, prompting Metosei to nod.

“We put our personal investments into this because, by Chihiro, this is the future!” he said. “However, we are still a guild at the end of the day, and unless we show results, we can’t expect any external investment. In fact, this is my pride speaking, but no proper dwarven artisan would want to waste money for a product they aren’t sure of. It would be an insult to those who believe in us and the mead we shared.”

“That is why when Grimnir told us about your little plan on Frozen Nest, we kinda jumped on it, hoping for some money,” Bosom admitted. “The patent for the video recorder belongs to Goddess Chihiro, as she originally brought it to this world, but everything we showed you today is our work. It belongs to the digital media guild, and as a founding member, Aurora has a stake in this.”

“What Master Borom wants to say is that our guild trusts you fully, Hesti-chan,” Haruka stated. “We’re willing to share our knowledge with the dragonewts of Frozen Nest as long as they sign a contract to become members of the digital media guild and to establish a branch of it on Iceskale. Spread the name and reputation.”

Which meant, all we needed to do now was to get Uncle Kary on our side—well, we already did—and make sure Uncle Guyul and Sieg accepted the pitch so they could fully allocate all the funds Mom assigned to my project to the digital media guild. It should be easy, hopefully …

“However, before we continue, there is one more project we have to introduce you to,” Haruka said as she waved at the two dragon empresses. “Your Majesties! We’re done here, could you come in, please?”

“Marvelous timing! It was starting to become dull!” Forminaxtrass turned around in a dramatic fashion, approaching us with her arms spread out as she graced us with a greedy smile so wide it looked like she was stretching her face out. “My, my, it would be a crime for Frozen Nest to be the only ones taking a step towards progress! You may strive forward into the bright future, but the darkness will always be there to claim its place!”

… Why is she suddenly sending out her aura?

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I apologize for the long wait. I had some trouble writing this next chapter and it made it hard to end it. I couldn't really get into the flow to get the words out.

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