Chapter 53: Chapter 53: The Great Workshop

Hot steam hissed from the vents in the polished basalt floor, creating a fine veil of mist that smelled of heavy machine oil and ozone. The gargantuan doors ahead—forged from a massive composite of high-grade steel and pulsing veins of radiant mithril—groaned open with a thunderous resonance that vibrated through the very marrow of Dayat’s bones. Dayat, Dola, and Lunethra stepped into what was officially known as the beating heart of all Terragard civilization: The Grotto of Infinite Gears.

This was not merely a workshop; it was a cathedral of industry, a monument to the marriage of stone and soul.

Standing before them was a Dwarf of gargantuan proportions—at least for his race—clad in matte-black plate armor that bore the scars of a thousand years of smithing. This was Baruk-Ahn, the Warden of the Iron Gate. He held a double-headed greataxe whose height exceeded his own, with steam hissing rhythmically from the exhaust valves on its haft. Baruk-Ahn did not speak; he merely offered a stiff, formal nod, his eyes hidden behind a steel visor, tracking Dola’s every movement with a sharp, undisguised suspicion. To a traditionalist sentinel, Dola’s existence was an anomaly that prickled his combat instincts.

However, Dayat’s attention was immediately seized by the spectacle in the center of the chamber. There, amidst thousands of copper pipes pulsing with geothermal steam and gears as tall as three-story buildings, stood an old man with a long white beard that was not braided neatly like the ministers’. His beard was a mess—stained with black oil, soot, and copper tarnish, tied back haphazardly with scavenged copper wires. He wore a heavy apron of dragon-hide, filled with hundreds of tool pockets, and his gnarled hands were currently wrestling with a massive wrench that looked heavier than his own body.

This was Master Ironbeard, the King of Terragard and the High Artisan, the man whose hands had supposedly forged the very foundation of this city.

“Don’t just stand there like a failed stone carving!” Ironbeard roared without turning his head. His voice was raspy, gravelly, yet possessed an authority that could silence the roar of a thousand engines. “If you are the man who made Borkum and Thalgrun piss themselves over a can of magic lubricant, then get over here! Help me look at this affront to logic that is rotting my brain!”

Dayat approached, his boots echoing on the metallic floor. Dola walked perfectly at his side, her eyes scanning every corner of the room with a high-frequency flicker, while Lunethra remained calm, though her fingers moved subtly to map the incredibly dense Mana flow within the chamber.

In the center of the workshop stood the most complex mechanical structure Dayat had ever seen in the world of Aethera: The Chronos Gear. It was a gargantuan astronomical clock designed to track the movements of the stars, dimensional rifts, and the ebb and flow of Aetheric energy. But currently, the clock looked as if it were dying. It emitted a painful, rhythmic clack-clack sound, as if thousands of its teeth were grinding against each other without synchronization.

“Look at this, Human!” Ironbeard pointed to a cluster of small gears at the clock’s core with a greasy index finger. “I have tried every forging ratio known to the Dwarven scriptures. Seven to twenty-two. Nine to thirty-one. But every time this wheel rotates a thousand times, there is a drift of about a third of a fingernail’s width. The result? Every single dimensional gate prediction is off! Dammit! Did the God Arda purposely create the circle so that it couldn’t be calculated by mortal minds?”

Dayat observed the mechanism with narrowed eyes. As a student of the 21st century, he recognized the classic problem immediately. The Dwarves of Terragard were masters of material science and raw physical strength, but they were still trapped in the world of simple fractions. They were trying to approximate the value of Pi (pi) with rough estimates like 22/7. On the scale of an astronomical clock that required microscopic precision, the slightest decimal error would accumulate into a massive systemic failure.

“The problem isn’t your hands, Master,” Dayat said, touching one of the stalled gears with his gloved hand. “The problem is the numbers in your head. You are trying to calculate the infinite nature of a circle with numbers that have a finite end, whereas a circle is infinity confined within a physical form.”

Ironbeard stopped tinkering. He turned slowly, staring at Dayat with eyes that glinted sharply—a mix of the arrogance of a king and the hunger for knowledge of a frustrated inventor. “Infinity confined? Speak plainly, Human! Don’t use the poetic riddles of the Elves in my workshop! Here, everything must be measurable by a ruler!”

“Dola,” Dayat whispered softly, his voice nearly drowned by the hiss of steam. “Perform a volumetric scan on the entire gear ratio assembly. I need a data synchronization to find the intersection between their traditional mechanics and our modern calculus.”

Dola stepped forward, her posture immediately shifting into one of cold efficiency. Her electric-blue eyes flared, emitting a laser-scanning beam that swept across the surface of The Chronos Gear at a rate of thousands of points per second.

“Initiating volumetric scan. Detecting 4,567 moving components. Calculating friction coefficients, material inertia, and theoretical rotation ratios…” Dola paused for a split second, her pupils dilating. “Dayat, the level of variable complexity exceeds the capacity for rapid verbal processing. I need to perform a direct data transfer to your cerebral cortex for real-time solution visualization.”

Dayat swallowed hard. He knew what this meant. Every time Dola dumped raw data into his brain, it felt like trying to shove an ocean into a glass. “Do it, Dol. But please, take it slow. I don’t want my brain smoking in front of the King. My Jakarta pride can’t afford me fainting now.”

Dola touched Dayat’s temple with an index finger that felt as cold as ice. “Synchronization initiated. Please maintain a regular breathing pattern and do not resist the data flow.”

Thump!

Instantly, the world in Dayat’s eyes transformed. He was no longer looking at dull copper gears; he was seeing cascades of differential equations and mathematical matrices floating in the air, tethered to every mechanical component. Thousands of decimal points flowed into his head like an electric current. It felt as if a white-hot needle was being forced through his ear, piercing directly into the center of his consciousness.

“Argh…” Dayat groaned, his body trembling. He gripped the edge of the iron workbench until his knuckles turned white. Cold sweat poured down his forehead as his brain was forced to process thousands of rotational simulations per second sent by Dola.

Seeing Dayat looking pained and nearly collapsing, Lunethra stepped forward with graceful movement. She didn’t stop Dola—for she knew the necessity of the data—but she placed her warm palm on Dayat’s back.

“Peace, Dayat. Let my magic cool your boiling blood,” Lunethra whispered softly.

Lunethra chanted a silent mantra. A soft, soothing silver light flowed from her hand into Dayat’s body, suppressing his rising core temperature caused by the extreme cognitive load. Lunethra then glanced at Dola with a thin, provocative smile, as if challenging the assistant’s authority.

“Your power may be fast and accurate, Dola, but it lacks empathy for the physical limitations of its user. A little Elven touch is far more effective than mere cold binary, isn’t it?” Lunethra said with a slightly mocking tone.

Dola did not answer verbally, but the intensity of the light in her eyes increased—a sign that her emotional system recognized Lunethra’s interference. “Subject temperature stabilized via external measured assistance. Thank you, Lunethra. I will continue the data transfer until we reach a precision of ten decimal places to ensure absolute success.”

Amidst the storm of information in his head, Dayat finally saw the solution. He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, but his gaze radiated an extraordinary conviction. “Master Ironbeard… I need something to show your eyes the truth. The numbers in this world… they are too ’fat’ to describe this reality.”

Dayat focused his mind on the technological memory Dola had just transmitted. He envisioned the most advanced tool for this specific job. A black plastic device with a matrix LCD screen, responsive buttons, and the ability to process complex graphing functions.

[MANIFESTATION: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS TI-NSPIRE CX II CAS GRAPHING CALCULATOR.]

A sophisticated calculator appeared in Dayat’s hand in a flash of golden particles. In Ironbeard’s eyes, it looked like a slab of smooth obsidian with strange, glowing symbols. Dayat also manifested a Laser Level Precision Tool in bright red.

“Watch this, Master,” Dayat said, his voice still trembling slightly from the residual headache. He turned on the calculator, its color screen glowing brightly, outshining the dim torchlight in the workshop. Dayat began entering the data provided by Dola, calculating the gear ratios using the actual value of pi to fifty decimal places.

“See this number?” Dayat showed the calculator screen to Ironbeard. “This is the difference that is jamming your clock. 0.000000452 units. You cannot forge this with just ’feeling’ or whole numbers. You need a correction on the 402nd gear, or all of this will just be a pile of scrap iron.”

Dayat then turned on his laser level. A perfectly straight red line sliced through the darkness of the workshop, piercing the steam mist, and pointing exactly at a gear axis that looked slightly tilted—only a fraction of a degree, nearly invisible to the naked eye.

“That line of light… it’s impossible!” Ironbeard snatched the laser from Dayat’s hand with trembling fingers. He tried to cut the beam with his hand, but the light remained, piercing through his skin. “Light that does not bend? Light that needs no Mana to stay straight? And this device… this thing calculates in a heartbeat what takes my council of ministers three months to formulate?”

Ironbeard looked at Dayat with an entirely different gaze. His arrogance crumbled, replaced by a profound respect. “You are no mere low-level transmutation mage. You are an… Architect of Reality. What was your name again, Human from the East?”

“Dayat. Hidayat Nur Mustafidl.”

“Dayat…” Ironbeard murmured the name with reverence. “Listen, I am an extremely arrogant King, and I hate to admit that the weak human race has something superior to our inventions. But I hate seeing my work fail even more. If this tool and your head can make this clock turn again and save my city’s prophecies, I will give you whatever you ask. A room, asylum, or even the forging secrets of Terragard.”

“I don’t need gold, Master,” Dayat interrupted, glancing at Dola who stood beside him with a flat yet protective expression. “I only want to ensure our journey to Verdia is safe, and that my wife receives the proper energy supply she deserves.”

Lunethra laughed softly, stepping closer and provocatively resting her elbow on Dayat’s shoulder, intentionally entering his personal space right in front of Dola’s eyes. “You hear that, Master King? My Dayat is full of surprises. Perhaps after this clock is finished, you could provide us with a more… private chamber? Performing such mathematical feats really exhausts a man.”

Dola suddenly stepped between Lunethra and Dayat, separating them with a movement that seemed natural yet very firm. “Dayat requires high-level neural recovery rest for eight hours. I have established an optimal nutrition and hydration schedule for him. Any form of ’interference’ or ’excessive physical contact’ from outside parties will decrease recovery efficiency by 30%.”

Lunethra simply shrugged, her eyes glinting with amusement at the “wife’s” reaction. “Oh, Dola. You are so protective for an assistant unit. Is that part of your safety protocol, or are you starting to feel… threatened by my Elven charm?”

Dola stared at Lunethra with her electric-blue eyes without blinking once. “I am merely executing the optimal function to ensure the safety of subject Dayat. Emotions like ’threatened’ are unproductive variables. However, my behavioral analysis of you shows a manipulative and provocative tendency of 67%. I suggest you maintain a safe distance of 1.5 meters.”

“Enough, enough!” Ironbeard intervened, appearing entirely indifferent to the romantic drama before him. He was far more interested in the Texas Instruments calculator in his hand. “Stop arguing about feelings! Dayat, explain this zero after the decimal point to me again. If this works… Terragard will have a precision in weaponry never imagined by those cowards in Brassvale!”

Dayat took a deep breath, trying to soothe the remaining dizziness. He knew that by helping Ironbeard, he had secured their position in Terragard. However, he also realized that the technology he introduced today—digital precision—would change the power balance of this world forever.

In the distance, behind the shadows of the hissing steam pipes, Baruk-Ahn the warden remained frozen in silence. However, within his grip, his massive axe vibrated slightly, as if sensing a great power that had just awakened in the workshop—something that was not magic, nor ordinary iron, but absolute Logic.

The dawn in Terragard—marked by the ceiling crystals slowly turning white—began to bloom. For Dayat, this was not just the success of fixing a clock; it was the beginning of a long struggle to understand why the world of Aethera had called him.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep