God Of Crafting

Chihiro's book was even deeper than I anticipated.

It was filled with profound knowledge… of a nature similar to math equations I simply didn't understand. In other words, while I could tell just how grand the principles this treatise discussed were, the jargon alone made it an extremely tall task to comprehend.

'While I can grasp some of the general ideas, I'm nowhere near properly figuring it out…'

After weighing the book in my hand for a short while, I put it down on the desk before raising my eyes to the perfectly illuminated interior of the villa's workshop.

'We still have that big project set for tomorrow, and there are only six days left until Chihiro's big day…'

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to gather the energy to cope with the reality and the strict time constraints that came with it.

For now, however, I had to find a way to incorporate everything I'd learned so far, every idea I'd had, and every flash of genius I'd experienced and put it all into my next project.

A project that stubbornly refused to materialize in my head.

'Should I use the spiritual energy?' I thought, considering the enticing option of supercharging my brain. And while it was a logical course of action, especially in these rather dire times, I just couldn't give up on finding the answers on my own that easily.

'And I still have to think about my next breakthrough, managing our company, and something to put on the shelves…'

I shook my head, taking another deep breath, but this time actually holding it in.

Smack!

I brought my hands up to my cheeks, using the stinging pain of a self-inflicted slap to clarify my thoughts a bit.

"First, let's try to plan the shit out of this."

Just sitting down and hoping for a lucky stroke of inspiration… It didn't sit well with me. This kind of approach would only turn me into a slave to that inspiration, incapable of creating anything by the merit of my own hands, always left at the mercy of the whims of said inspiration.

That's why, instead, I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, half-randomly doodling while letting my thoughts about the goals ahead float freely in my mind.

A short moment later, I ended up holding a mind map of what I could use, what generally could be done, the limits and restraints on my abilities…

But most importantly, what the goal of the project was and the steps Chihiro suggested as the crux of his problem.

In other words, while the range of tools I could craft was an important bit, rather than considering the issue from the "what I can do" perspective, I preferred to follow the "what needs to happen" mindset. And what Chihiro wanted and needed for his big day took precedence over whatever I might randomly guess to be the logical next step of the process.

'It's still not much, but now we have something to work with,' I thought as I stared at the paper, only for Claire to push the doors to the workshop open and enter, carrying a clipboard with some papers in one hand and two cups of steaming hot milky coffee.

"Any breakthroughs?" Claire asked, carefully placing the cups down on one of the machines, then instantly turning her attention back to her file as she scanned through the ledger.

"Just a small one so far, but I'm getting there," I replied, raising my head and then standing fully to get closer and take a sip of the freshly brewed, aromatic coffee.

With just a single gulp of the hot drink, the psychological response kicked in, energizing my brain a tiny bit. And as I continued to sip, bit by bit, I somehow managed to chase most of my exhaustion away, even if only by the temporary means of caffeine.

"As for you," I raised my eyes to the folder of files in Claire's hand. "A new delivery?"

Claire nodded while keeping her eyes glued to what appeared to be just a cargo manifest.

"Yeah," she muttered, not looking away from the list. "Most of it is for the materials for tomorrow, but even with those…" She squinted her eyes before finally raising them to meet mine. "Do you have any idea how long it would take to assemble them all?"

Up until this point, all I'd ever crafted were singular examples, prototypes of whatever tool I wanted to make. And while they served great as a proof of concept or showcase of an idea when it came to actually replicating the same design over and over again…

'Wait, maybe that's the crux of the matter?' I suddenly thought as I squinted and glanced around the workshop, searching until I found a weird, sci-fi-looking machine.

"You made a good point," I stated, rising from my seat and approaching the huge mess of cables surrounding a big, glass-protected square chamber within the machine. "So, how about we make some molds to speed up tomorrow's job?"

It was an issue I'd never thought about until Claire pointed it out.

'If I were to assemble those devices by hand, even if it only takes half an hour to make each one…' I gritted my teeth at the thought.

Experience the best from m-vl _emp _yr.

This wasn't how one achieved the effect of scale, which I'd just decided would be the easiest factor to exploit for great results!

Sure, having one device already was beneficial. But what about having ten? Or a hundred? Or a thousand?

"Molds?" Claire asked, putting the cargo manifest aside as she quickened her pace and followed me to the machine, where I finally found its access point hidden beneath a mess of electrical and hydraulic cables.

"Yeah. The Qi converter basically takes three elements to make. It starts with an energy source, goes through energy accumulation and release, and ends with the energy converter. The first step will be solved by Clayton, who will hook up the project directly to the industrial grid, allowing us to access it through a simple charging cable.

The condensation of the energy is done over a small, simple chip…"

I squinted again, scanning the workshop until I noticed the machine I'd just thought of, hidden far off in a distant corner.

Yet, just like the 3D printer I was fiddling with now, having the machine to print predesigned circuit boards didn't mean I knew how to set it up, what resources to feed it, or how to automate the process to make it self-replicating!

"The middle step is the circuit board, and then the last step is the Spricur stones," Claire finished my explanation when she realized I'd grown so distracted I had no plans to do it myself. "If you're talking molds… then, do you plan for them to be like a universal box to stuff all the other parts into?"

"Yeah," I nodded as Claire's voice brought me back to reality.

But I didn't give up on my idea of making tomorrow's task a whole lot easier.

"Now that I think about it, do we have anyone in the house who actually knows how to use all the machines in this room? Because…" I muttered, looking down at the control panel of the 3D printer, where all I'd managed to achieve was…

Somehow switching it over to a foreign language I couldn't even recognize the alphabet of!