Cthulhu Gonfalon

What Sui Xiong wanted to do was obviously not invent a machine that could work in water like the dwarfs.

Due to his severely limited engineering knowledge, to allow the machine to work well in water, it would have to be water-resistant. Water resistance was accomplished by using a layer of water-resistant paint, but because the machine would be performing a grinding function; the paint would wear off quickly in a short period of time.

Furthermore, bedrock was extremely strong and could be comparable to steel. Sui Xiong could not think of anything that could be used to grind it without itself being worn down.

Actually, what he could use was Orichalcos.

If one were to use Orichalcos to create the machine… It was not that Sui Xiong could not access Orichalcos, but he felt that if he really created such a machine, he would anger the dwarfs greatly. They would deem as it as a violent machine… No, perhaps they would have a direct cerebral hemorrhage, or a myocardial infarction given the circumstances.

Orichalcos was arguably the strongest object in this world, and in most cases, only strong gods like Sui Xiong could acquire it to build mighty weapons. For the weaker gods, they could only acquire it through trade, and even so, they would not be able to gain too much of it. Thus, weapons of the mid or low level usually possessed little to no Orichalcos, and if it were the former, only in extremely key areas.

For the common people, when they were lucky enough to come across Orichalcos, they were also not aware of its full potential and usually simply treated it as a gem. A long time ago, there was someone lucky enough to gain an Orichalcos, but he was unable to break it down even until his death. He was, however, made famous for his possession of this sword that could not be broken.

The Kingdom of Dwarves had also acquired some Orichalcos, and they treated it as their most prized possession. They usually offered it to their gods, hoping for blessings of prosperity.

If Sui Xiong were to offer them a machine made out of Orichalcos, they would not use it as an actual tool but rather as an offering…

Since he could not use Orichalcos to create the machine, Sui Xiong was stumped. Thus, he did not spend much time pondering this further as he knew he lacked the knowledge to do so. What he considered was whether it was possible to change the method of converting the bedrock entirely. He tried using several other materials to grind the bedrock and realized that they all lacked strength and could not last long despite their monetary worth. There was once where he even ground the bedrock beyond its limits and caused an actual explosion. If not for his internal strength, he could have killed himself in the explosion.

After a few failures, Sui Xiong realized that there were problems in his thinking.

He had assumed that as long as he had found a new material, he would have a solution. However, the dwarves had been experimenting over the last tens of years; which material would they have not tried? If they could not find a new material after so long, even if they had a good grinder, what would be the use?

That would be akin to using Orichalcos—it was strong enough, but the machine would be useless.

What could he do, then?

Sui Xiong thought deeply before deciding to find an expert to assist him. Who was an expert in this area? Of course, it would be Palin and his peers.

Just before he set out to find Palin, he suddenly remembered Chef Fira.

Recently, he had been shockingly lucky that wherever he walked, he found gold. Yet, he acted indifferently and did not make any changes to his daily life such as keeping to his usual rates when gambling. This was not typical of someone who had been extremely lucky. What if… Fira did not use his luck in his daily life as he was saving it up for something big?

If that was true, maybe Sui Xiong could find him of help.

Sui Xiong was not an engineering student, but he had heard of a story wherein creating an invention, the most important factor was luck or inspiration. There was once a journalist who was interviewing the king of inventions, Edison. He had asked him why he had been able to come up with so many marvelous inventions and whether it was because he was a genius or not. To that, Edison had replied that being a genius was 99% effort and 1% genius. Yet, the second factor was the deciding factor.

Sui Xiong had also heard two other versions of this story. The first one was told to him by his parents and teachers when he was young, and there was no mention of the deciding factor but rather an emphasis on hard work. The second version was told to him by an online friend in his games. It said that Edison was tooting his own horn and that most of his inventions were leached off of other people. The key lesson there was that being a genius lay in being able to make good trades with wealth.

Of course, Sui Xiong was unsure as to which version was authentic, but he agreed that luck was extremely important. For example, before he had entered this world, the country had just created a hydrogen bomb that could hide an identity. The country then created different hydrogen bombs from other countries, and although this was accomplished through hard work, luck was also important for the scientists as there were definitely more talented scientists who just happened to not have come across the right material. After all, reality was not a fairytale! Thus, when he thought of Fira, he changed his mind about finding Palin.

That night, Fira had a strange dream when he slept. He dreamt that he had walked to a hill, and there was a glowing man on the hill who had passed him a few hard stones and asked him to grind them into powder.

When he awoke, he witnessed the stones in real life at his bedside.

“Is this some sort of revelation?” Fira stared at the stones, dumbfounded, and tried to use his bedframe’s leg to grind it.

There was an obvious white line across the bed frame, but the bedrock was as good as new.

“Why is it so hard?” Fira was shocked. He found a piece of steel and ground the bedrock again. Yet again, there were signs of wear and tear on the steel, but the bedrock remained untainted.

“My goodness! This stone is as strong as steel! How can I grind it? It’s impossible…”

Thus, he gave up on the task.

That night, he had another dream on the same mountain with the same glowing man giving the task of grinding the rock.

“It’s too hard! It can’t be done,” Fira explained.

The glowing man only smiled, but Fira eventually understood his meaning.

If it were to be so simple, it wouldn’t have been a task easily given to him.

After he woke up, Fira thought for a long time before taking up the two stones at the same time and grinding them against each other.

Even if it was extremely hard, it wouldn’t be able to withstand grinding on a similar material…

Watching Fira get to work, Sui Xiong nodded and smiled. Only time would tell, but perhaps this lucky fellow could find a solution to the issue that had been plaguing the dwarves for the last tens of years….