Magi Craft Meister

Magi Craft Meister 546

16　The Demons’ Mastermind Arc

16-25　Beginning At Last

Bardius nodded, acknowledging Jin’s request for rye pips and vietra seeds as payment for his help.

“Understood. Though of course, I don’t think that’s enough to thank you for your assistance. But we’ll start with that, if that’s okay with you.”

“Well, okay.”

In response to this, Lorona left the room. Apparently, she quickly went to get the seeds and pips ready.

A few seconds later, Radeus went back into the room.

“Mr. Jin, we have set the materials ready in our workshop. Could you please take a look whenever you can? If there’s something missing, we will get it ready as soon as possible.”

“Understood. Let’s go.”

Thus Jin (‘s Substitute Doll) went to the workshop with Reiko.

The place where the Shinra clan lived spreaded out over a hill that commanded a great look over the sea. The reason why they had chosen to live on a hill was to avoid the sea’s big waves.

“The sea is usually calm during the summer, but it gets very rough in winter, with waves over 10 meters tall.”

“You can’t even send a ship to the sea under those conditions, can you?”

Jin made such an observation as he bumped into Istalis and Shion as they were in the middle of explaining the situation with the sea to Ann.

“Father? Jin? where are you going?”

“Well, Lord Jin is going to make some Golems for us, so I’m taking him to the workshop.”

“Oh! Can I go with you, Father?”

“I-I’ll go too!”

Radeus looked at Jin with a troubled expression on his face. He seemed to be rather easy-going with his daughters. Or perhaps he was still feeling guilty about kicking them out of the hill the other day, although he was being controlled to do so.

“…Well, I was about to ask Ann if she could help me, so I don’t have a problem if the two of you want to come with us as well.”

“Yay! Thanks, Jin!”

Shion was in a good mood because she would get a chance to see Jin’s skill from up close. Istalis also seemed to be excited, though she was more reserved about it, and didn’t say a word even though her cheeks were slightly blushed.***

The abode of the Shinra clan was basically made of stone. All structures were essentially made by piling up oya tuff stone slabs strategically.

It was the same type of stone used in Potlock, a port town in the southern part of the Elias Kingdom, where Jin once participated in the Golem boat competition. However, the one used here was more greenish in color.

This stone seemed a good choice as a building material near here because it was resilient to salt damage while having excellent heat retention due to its low thermal conductivity.

All houses were single-story and had only small windows facing the sea. Istalis said this was to preserve heat as well as a measure against the winds of winter.

Most of the roads between the houses were about 4 meters wide. They were quite wide considering the total size of their place of residence.

After walking for some time on these roads, they finally reached the workshop, which was located on the outskirts of the abode. It was about 10 meters square, and very spacious. It consisted of a semi-underground structure with a high ceiling compared to that of their houses.

“The materials have been piled up in the corner of the workshop.”

The first thing that Jin noticed was the metals. Large ingots of copper and iron, smaller ingots of light silver and tin, and a small chunk of adamantite had all been placed there.

There was also a considerable amount of magical beast leather on a shelf in the corner of the workshop to make synthetic muscle tissue with.

And finally, a substantial amount of Magi Crystals of each attribute had also been placed on those shelves.

“Yeah, this is plenty enough to make some good stuff.”

Jin nodded profusely. Since they were not meant for combat but for farmwork, he was planning to build them with the physical strength of 3 grown men at most.

“Is there anyone here who’s familiar with Magi Craft?”

Finally, Jin asked for an extra pair of hands. This was not to have them assist him with building the Golems, but to entrust the Golems’ future maintenance to them.

“I can think of a few, but when it comes to actually skilled ones…”

“What about Malikka? I’ll go get her.”

Having said that, Shion ran off somewhere.

“Who’s this …Malikka?”

“She’s one of Shion’s friends. Her grandfather was a proficient user of Engineering Magic.”

Jin thought that anyone would be able to perform regular maintenance on the Golems, so he simply waited for Shion to return, which happened about 5 minutes later.

“Thanks for waiting, Jin. Malikka, this is Jin, the Magi Craft Meister.”

Malikka was rather similar to Shion. Her hair was silver, but her eyes were unusually yellow.

“N-Nice to meet you. M-My n-name is M-Malikka. Umm, w–what do you need me f-for?”

She was visibly nervous, and couldn’t stop stuttering.

“I’m Jin. I’ll be making some farmer Golems for you all, but I’d like you to take care of their future maintenance.”

“D-D-Do y-you think I-I-I c-can d-do t-that?”

“Oh, there’s no need for you to be so nervous about it.”

After smiling at Malikka, Jin started by giving instructions to Reiko.”.

“Let’s start by making one Golem, Reiko. Please get the materials for me.”

“Yes.”

Jin decided to go with a basic Bronze Golem.

He started by making bronze by alloying tin and copper.

Since Jin had plenty of tin at his disposal this time around, he would be making bronze with 90% copper and 10% tin. That would result in the so-called “gun metal”.

Gun metal is a copper alloy that used to be used to make cannons before they started being made out of iron. It’s a type of bronze that is easy to cast, and is very strong and tough.

“‘Alloying’.”

After determining the compounding ratio by weight, Jin quickly used “Alloying”, producing a huge ingot of gun metal weighing about 1 ton.

“Eehhh!? W-What’s that?”

Malikka was surprised to see such a huge ingot being done in an instant after a single chant. Istalis and Shion were both standing in awe, with their eyes open wide and unable to say a word.

“Ho-Ho-How can you make such a huge ingot like that so easily!?”

No one there had thought that what Jin had just demonstrated was even possible, despite all of them being demons, who boasted having a high amount of magical power.

“Hmm, how should I split this…”

The level of ability with Engineering Magic of the Substitute Doll was about a third that of the real Jin.

“This is it, this is the proof that this man is the Magi Craft Meister!”

A convinced Radeus loudly voiced his excitement. The rest of them managed to keep themselves composed enough to appear calm on the surface.

“We’ll use 50 kg of bronze per Golem.”

Jin then used “Separation” to cut 10 lumps of 50 kg of gun metal for the time being.

“Eeeh!?”

Malikka was once again surprised. The real Jin, however, would’ve been able to split the entire ingot into 20 pieces with ease.

“Time to make the skeletons. Please help me out here, Reiko.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll apply a thin coat of adamantite on the joints to increase their durability… Are you watching this, Malikka?”

“Yesh.”

“Now, for muscles… What kind of leather should I use?”

Jin picked up some of the magical beast leather to be used for magical muscle and tilted his head. The real Jin would be able to tell just by touching it, but the Substitute Doll wasn’t so able.

“This is Grand Worm leather, isn’t it?”

Those were the magical beasts that had attacked Capricorn 1 the other day.

“I see. This’ll do just fine.”

After tearing it into thin strands, the leather was twisted into muscle fiber and installed on the skeletons. With Reiko’s help, the entire operation was completed in about 20 minutes.

“Eehhh…”

Malikka was stunned. It was no wonder, considering that she had never seen a Magi Craft Meister in action, and there weren’t many capable Magi Craftsmen among the members of the Shinra clan.

“Ok, let’s prepare the Ether Tank and Ether Driver.”

On the assumption that they would be used in areas with a high concentration of Ether, Jin intended to unify the system used by Reiko and other Automata and Golems with the demons’ current system.

“We’ll use Mithril silver for the magical nerves. …See here, Malikka, if these get cut, they won’t be able to move so well.”

“Yesh.”

“Now, their Control Cores… Let’s have them focused on agricultural knowledge.”

“Yes.”

Laojun built a Control Core based on the agricultural know-how collected by the Golem Maids on Hourai Island, then sent it to Reiko via Warp Gate.

“We’ll use this as a master, and produce copies for the Golems.”

Then they moved on to working on the Golems’ exterior one by one, and the first one was completed in about an hour.

“I-Is it done already?”

“So quickly…”

“A-A-A-Amazing!”

Shion, Istalis, and Malikka all voiced their reactions. Malikka was still stuttering as usual.

“I’m really impressed, Mr. Jin.”

Last but not least, Radeus bowed his head.

“Huh?”

“I’ve seen your true ability as the Magi Craft Meister. There is no doubt you are our savior.”

“…”

Jin, who didn’t like being put on a pedestal like that, couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed after being called that.