BXBX NOVEL Chapter 90: An unknown force
"Do you remember how exactly the Qi-condensing device works?" I asked once I finally made up my mind to share this extremely dangerous idea.
"That device…?" Claire looked down at the two items I was now holding up to my chest so that I could directly breathe the air they affected.
The girl then squinted her eyes as she sorted through her memories.
"It uses Spricur stones to convert the Qi in the air into electricity that you then condense into a series of pulses which are then turned back into now much denser spiritual energy, right?"
I only nodded my head but opted not to say a word and just… stared back at the girl's face.
In fact, when thinking about it from the position of knowing, the one thing I didn't dare to build before seemed like the logical first step to building the Qi condensing device rather than its natural evolution.
"What?" Claire asked when she noticed I did nothing but just stare back at her.
"I'm wondering if you can see the thing I have in mind given how damn obvious it is," I admitted before lowering the two devices in my hands and placing them on the floor now that I've regained enough spiritual energy to operate as usual.
Sure, it would be problematic for me to drive my cultivation or use it to get myself into the crafting mode right now… But given what happened just before, there was no way I was going to do it, was there?
And so, seconds passed and turned into minutes with Clarie squinting her eyes down as she thought about the issue. In the end, however, she didn't seem to catch my drift.
"I give up," Clarie finally said as she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "Can't you just tell me? What's the point of making me try to guess that dangerous idea of yours?" she went ahead and asked.
"Actually," I leaned my head over my left shoulder as I graced this beautiful, scholar-like woman with the most lovely smile I could muster on my lips. "I wanted to see if someone like you, with proper hints, could just catch it. But," I shook my head a bit, "it seems that this idea is too foreign to your common sense for you to just see it."
This was the one and most important advantage I had over all the cultivators, the difference that everyone else was likely to consider a disadvantage instead.
Without the proper cultivation training, I couldn't really cultivate on my own…. But at the same time, I wasn't burdened by the same preconceptions that made up the common sense of all those who received proper training and teachings.
"Tell me, what would happen if we removed one half of the process?" I asked, ready to reveal the big-small secret now that I pretty much confirmed it was unlikely people would just randomly stumble upon the same idea.
"The first or the last one?" Claire asked, seeking clarification.
"Actually, either one works. The one difference is whether you want to produce electricity from thin air or produce near endless amount of extremely condensed Qi at the small prize of considerably higher electricity bill."
By now, I pretty much gave Claire the idea on a silver platter. And yet…
"Can't you be any clearer?" she asked, the curiosity in her eyes slowly replaced by outright annoyance.
"Wait, you seriously don't get it yet?" I asked, baffled by how someone who already proved to be quite the smart person still couldn't grasp the idea despite all the hints thus far and me pretty much giving out the answer already.
"Are you calling me stupid?" The curiosity in Claire's eyes now vanished in its entirety, fully replaced by the anger of what she likely perceived as me just amusing myself at her expense.
"Wait, no, full stop!" I raised my hands as if to defend myself, too baffled by the current situation to focus on the actual task of explaining the idea.
'Is something stopping her from making the connection?' I thought to myself… Only for a cold shiver to move up my spine as I realized the potential consequences of that being an accurate point.
"Claire, I'm sorry, I know you are eager to understand it, but there's something I need to test out," I announced, only to take a deep breath to calm myself down and close my eyes as I took a moment to revamp the idea on how I was going to approach the topic.
"Okay, let's start from scratch," I started. "This QI condensing device uses Spricur stones to turn the spiritual energy it gathers directly from the air around us to turn it into electricity, right?"
As agitated as she was, Claire could read my face well enough to realize just how serious I was about this unexpected problem.
"Yeah, it's all clear thus far. That's exactly what those crystals are used for, after all!" she replied, only to confuse me even further.
'Isn't that practically the answer I'm trying to get her to announce?' I thought, only to grit my teeth and take another deep breath.
"Then, the next part is all about pushing the electricity we obtained from the air and using capacitors. By putting those capacitors in parallel and moderating the current so that it will feed more or less equally into each of them, we can multiply the number of pulses of condensed current that's released once the capacitors reach their full charge.
In this way, rather than releasing one pulse of condensed Qi whenever a single capacitor overcharges, we can make the whole process slightly smoother."
Claire nodded her head to signal she followed my explanation without any issue.
"Then, finally, we push this condensed electric current into the second set of Spricur stones, so that it can be turned back into spiritual energy, right?"
"Yeah," Claire replied, proving that she perfectly understood each step of the process.
And at this point, I could only have a long, exhausted sigh.
"Then, it seems that rather than failing to understand my concept, you are under the influence of some sort of power that prevents you from doing so," I stated before spreading my arms out to the sides and then shaking my shoulder. "What power is influencing you, however…" I shook my head. "I do not know."
Claire opened up her mouth… only to keep it open for a second before ultimately closing it right back.
"Then," after a moment, she calmed herself down and raised her eyes once again, "what is the idea that you claim I'm blocked from figuring out myself?"
I sighed yet again before putting a small smile on my face.
"What if, instead of gathering the spiritual energy from the air, we feed electricity into the device directly, by replacing the first set of Spricur stones with an ordinary charger cable?"