Before the daeben could even register the room, Jade's extremely loud, excited exclamation struck him in the face, "Fuck Yeah! Get in there, Bitches!"

Kashi stared, stunned as he looked into the room. Jade's workshop was a large hall with several crafting tables and junk materials, seemingly haphazardly thrown around. Several female daebens stood at these tables working on inscribing runes onto mana stones and other items.

However, upon hearing Jade's shouts, the daebens rushed over to the young woman, eyes glowing in anticipation. It seemed they too were anticipating the results of Jade's experiments.

The daeben women surrounded Jade, and moments later, also broke out in cheers and celebratory hoots as they hugged each other and congratulated the young scientist. Jade meanwhile, took her celebrations to another level, dancing, imitating guitar riffs, and raining curses at some object on the table with a smug expression.

Kashi had seen this kind of behavior before. But that was in the age of console and PC gaming when Streamers finally defeated a tough boss. For the life of him, the daeben could not figure out what could get Jade so excited that she went all out like this.

"Yo Jade!" Kashi called out; right hand raised as he flashed an awkward smile. Right on cue, Jade paused in the middle of an air guitar reef, eyes flashing when she spotted Kashi. 'Is she embarrassed? I would be.' Kashi wondered and then tried to defuse the tension, "Been a while, hasn't it?"

Contrary to Kashi's expectations, Jade only faltered for a second before her eyes went wide with crazed joy and excitement. The halben screamed, "Kashi! You're Here!" as she ran up to him. Grabbing his hand, Jade grinned as she beckoned with a heavy pull, "Come on! You've got to see this!"

'It's my fault for thinking you would know embarrassment,' Kashi mused as he let himself get pulled by Jade.

"Yo, you're not forgetting us are you?" Syèl mockingly scolded as he walked into the room with a snarky grin. He looked around at the messy workshop and then turned to Jade, "You've been busy."

"You have no idea," Jade replied with a wide grin. The little halben's eyes lit up when Shokō and Leila walked, and she excitedly exclaimed, "You guys are all here? Perfect! Come on. The more, the merrier."

Kashi's brow rose as he let himself get pulled over to the crafting table Jade had been using. The daebens who surrounded the daeben retreated, allowing the Maggots to take their place. Kashi examined the two objects on the table. The first was an opaque glass screen in front of a thin wooden box, like a TV, while the second was a spherical mana crystal resembling a rink. The only difference was that while rinks were sky-blue, this one was bright yellow.

Kashi's brow rose as he looked at both devices. "What am I looking at?"

Jade put on her best presenter's grin as she lifted the yellow rink. "I call it the video crystal."

"Video—"

"Crystal?"

Kashi and Lunette questioned in order, disbelief in their eyes.

"Yeah, video crystal," Jade confirmed, and then winked at Kashi as she added, "I took inspiration from the sound crystals Kashi crafted to store and play music. Just like Kashi's sound crystal capture sound, this captures light and sound, or in layman's terms, records videos. Not only that, but it can playback and transfer videos between rinks."

Kashi's eyes flashed in shock as he stared at Jade without breaking eye contact. "Transfer? You definitely said transfer just now, didn't you?"

Jade nodded with a bright grin. "I recently figured it out. How rinks can transfer sound to each other."

By this point, Kashi had long since forgotten anyone else in the room. The problem of transferring sound from one rink to another was a problem that annoyed him to no end while designing the sound crystals. The inability to transfer sounds was the reason why current headphones needed two mana crystals in both ears to function correctly. Of course, having the ability to transfer sound also meant they could start crafting new rinks, allowing any regular villager to own one.

Kashi's impatience showed in agitated eyes as he all but begged, "Well, spill it already!"

Jade laughed as she took a pair of rinks out of her inventory. "I figured out by accident actually," she confessed as she bent under the table and lifted a small metal box. "I was messing around with this Dimertium box, trying to figure out why it can stop mana flow." Jade placed one of the rinks in the box as she continued, "Initially I used an empty mana crystal and tried blasting my mana through the box, but when I checked, the mana crystal did not have an ounce of mana in it. Out of curiosity, I tried with a pair of rinks next."

Jade closed the lid on the box and handed the other rink to Kashi. "That rink's only linked to the one in the box. Try calling it."

"Okay..." Kashi doubtfully replied as he injected his mana into the rink. Just like Jade said, he could only 'feel' one contact. The daeben attempted to connect to the other rink, but to his surprise, his efforts kept failing. Kashi frowned and looked to Jade for answers.

Jade took the rink from Kashi with a knowing smile. "I was just as confused as you, but after numerous experiments, I finally figured it out. Rinks have a complex array in them that converts sound into mana. That mana is transferred through the air to the linked rink, and another array converts the mana back to sound and plays it."

"Through the air?" Leila questioned in disbelief.

"Mana to be exact," Jade confirmed. "Mana in the environment acts as a medium for it to travel. This is why it can't pass through Dimertium."

"Wait, can mana pass through solid objects like earth?" Shokō asked with doubt. "We're underground now, but I can still contact Rosendun."

Jade laughed as she looked at Syèl. "Have you ever punched someone with pure mana?"

"Yeah, multiple times," Syèl confirmed with a sick grin. "It's pretty fun to see them blow up from the inside."

The room paused as everyone stared at the bloodmage for a second.

"Leaving your madness aside," Jade muttered, shaking her head to regain her focus. "Have you ever noticed that sometimes, your mana explodes out of their backs?"

"Oh!" Syèl clapped, eyes wide. "You're right. It happens to some of the tougher guys. I never really thought about it. Just thought it looked cool."

"Most people don't," Jade confirmed. "That happens because the human body is a great conductor of mana."

"Mana conductor?" Shokō repeated. "You mean like the way we conduct electricity?"

"Exactly!" Jade confirmed with a clap. "Most items in this world conduct mana to varying degrees. The earth is no different." However, a moment later, she frowned as she said, "But there's a problem. The earth is not a good mana conductor. The air is only slightly better in comparison."

"Huh? What are you talking about now?" Syèl asked, confused.

"There is something engineers call attenuation," Jade explained as she pointed at the rink in her hand. "It's the gradual loss of data as it travels along a medium. The material used for the medium greatly affects how much data is lost as it travels."

"And earth is not a good medium, I take it," Kashi proposed.

Jade nodded. "It definitely is not." She sighed as she continued, "I copied the transfer array from the rinks into a couple of sound crystals. I was indeed able to create new rinks, but their range is only about as large as Aygorzi, and it's even worse when trying to contact the surface."

"So how are the rinks able to contact each other on either end of the continent?" Kashi asked.

"Signal boosters," Jade answered with a frustrated expression. "If I had to explain it... Imagine those regular crystals throw the mana to each other, while rinks use cannons to send their mana. The mana sent from Rinks are compressed and much stronger; therefore, they can last longer over long distances before breaking off."

"How do they do that?"

Jade laughed as she said with a shrug, "God Power."

"Huh?"

"There's nothing in their embedded arrays that causes them to be so strong, so what else can it be except a god's power?" Jade affirmed with a weak smile. "Way I see it, the rinks are either blessed by the messenger god, thereby boosting their power, or the messages go through the messenger god, and he boosts the power, so they reach their destination."

Kashi frowned but did not find any faults in Jade's logic. "That might explain why the rinks did not work until we freed Fermes. He must play a major role in how the messages are sent." The daeben looked at Jade, "So, do you have any potential solutions?"

"For now, I'm planning on using mithril or silver wires as mediums," Jade answered. "The attenuation is much smaller along these compared to the air and earth."

"What happens if the intended destination is further than the attenuation can allow?"

Jade nervously laughed. "I'm still working on that."

Kashi paused, brows furrowing.

Jade's eyes lit up as she saw the gears turning through the daeben's eyes. "You've got an idea, don't you? Lay it on me!"

"Just a vague idea," Kashi replied with a shake of his head. "I need a few more minutes to make it clear." The daeben then turned to the screen and said, "So, what's the deal with the video crystal?"

"Ah! Yeah," Jade exclaimed as she dropped the rink and picked up the video crystal. "As I said, the sound crystals absorb sound, so all I had to do was change the runes, so the crystal absorbed light, and modify your array, so it released the absorbed light rather than sound."

Jade raised the video crystal and pointed it at Kashi. "Say cheese."

"What?"

Kashi barely had a chance to do anything before Jade set it down and said, "Done." She then tapped the crystal and pointed it at the ceiling.

Kashi and the Maggots looked above, eyes wide as they watched a three-second playback of Kashi blinking and saying, "What?". The image repeated several times, reminding them of a gif.

Jade looked at Kashi and said, "I gotta thank you for the Runes book, manual, whatever. There were so many runes in there I needed for the scripting. Would not have been possible without it."

Kashi waved his hand. "No problem. You need it more than me. More importantly," he said, pointing at the screen, "Does that work?"

"Does it work?" Jade grinned as she tapped on the video crystal.

"What?" "What?" "What?"

The black screen suddenly blossomed to life, repeating Kashi's little gif over and over.

Kashi's eyes widened as he pointed at the screen. "How does that work?" This was different from projecting an image on a surface.

"There are thousands of tiny little modified magelights lined up in a neat matrix inside that box," Jade answered with a proud grin.

"Magelights?" Lunette asked, not seeing the connection. They had been talking about crystals this whole time. Where did magelights come from?

"Yeah, magelights," Jade confirmed. "Magelights are just crystals which have been charmed to emit light. People don't realize because they are rarely crystal-shaped." The proud halben puffed out her chest as she continued her explanation, "The magelights in here have been modified to produce all ranges of colors on demand."

"And how did you manage that?" Kashi asked, stunned. Magelights usually emitted white light. Their color only changed depending on the color of the glass surrounding them.

"RGB spectrum," Jade replied with a triumphant grin. "All colors can be simulated through a combination of Red, Green, and Blue. All programmers know this. Figuring out how to code color is something we love and hate when first picking up programming."

Kashi grabbed his head, suddenly suffering a headache. "Wait, let me get this straight. You coded the crystals to combine red green and blue to create a color? How..."

"Simple, convert the colors to numbers," Jade answered with a smug grin and then proceeded to groan as she stretched. "You have no idea how difficult it was to create a whole new language using runes. I had to teach the video crystals how to convert the light they absorbed into numerical data representing color and position, and then convert that information into mana."

Jade clapped as she pointed at the screen. "That mana is sent to a crystal I call brain box in the TV, which is connected to the thousands of light crystals. The brain box converts the mana back into a series of numbers, with each position representing a tiny light crystal. The light crystals at each position receive the information on the amount of red, green, and blue light and then light up with the correct color."

"For pictures, the crystals maintain the same color," Jade said, slowly wrapping up her presentation. "but for videos, the crystals can change color several times per second determined by the information given by the brain box." The halben then had the audacity to pout as she leaned in close. "It's not perfect yet. If you look closely, you can see jagged edges from obvious pixels. The crystals we're using are still currently too big, and the screen quality is not the best, but you know, those can be fixed in time. The important thing is, it's working."

"What do you guys think?" Jade asked as she looked up from her presentation.

The halben's answer was silence. Stark silence. The loudest silence anyone in history had ever witnessed. You could practically hear the shock, disbelief, and quite frankly, a bit of fear in the eyes of all the Maggots present.

Syèl, the first person to snap out of his shock, reached across the table and pinched Jade's cheeks. Much to Jade's mortification, he pulled and stretched her cheeks, a frown on his face as he muttered, "Hmm... She does appear human."

Pa!

"Of course, I'm not human!" Jade cried as she slapped Syèl's hands. Rubbing her cheeks, she looked at the shocked Maggots, and then clarified with a wink, "Clearly, I'm a halben."

Jade's absurd response instantly defused the tension in the room. Kashi, whose heart had risen to his throat at her first sentence, suddenly felt his legs weaken at the second. The daeben's knees buckled, forcing him to hold on to the table for support.

Next to him, Syèl was no better. The bloodmage stared at Jade with a blank expression as he listlessly replied. "Ah... of course. You're a halben. My bad."

Pfft...

No one knows who laughed first, but the sight of these proud men looking like they'd just dodged a bullet as a result of Jade's teasing caused the Maggots to erupt in uncontrollable laughter.

It took a good full minute for the Maggots to regain their posture, much to the detriment of Kashi and Syèl, who were forced to stand through the humiliating experience.

Luckily, Jade rescued the duo from further humiliation by changing the topic, "So, Kashi. That idea of yours. Have you figured it out yet?"

"Hmm? Yeah. Though I'm not sure how I'd get it to work," Kashi hastily replied, glad to have something to push the conversation away from his embarrassing state.

Jade tapped the video crystal with a grin as she soothed, "No one knows how to get stuff to work at first. The important part is the idea. We can figure out how to make it work afterward, so spill it."

Kashi nodded and after taking a moment to articulate his thoughts, looked at Jade and said, "Wireless signals in the other world weaken after some distance, but signal boosters are used to strengthen and then send the signal even further right?" The daeben folded his arms, gaze thoughtful as he proposed, "What if we build a signal booster, but for mana? It would collect mana signals in the atmosphere, strengthen them, and then send them on their way. Not that I have any idea how we would design such a thing though." Sighing Kashi gave up and asked, "What do you think?"

"..."

"Jade?"

This time, it was Jade who stared at Kashi in silence. The halben scientist swallowed hard, and then slowly walked around the table until she stood right in front of the daeben. Jade looked into Kashi's eyes for ten seconds, and then suddenly reached up and pinched his cheeks. Just like Syèl earlier, she stretched and pulled Kashi's cheeks every which way, and then commented while glancing at Lunette, "He does seem human."

"Pu... Hahahahaha!"

That was the last straw that broke the camel's back, as even stoic figures like Leila could not help but double over in pained laughter from the total absurdity.

Meanwhile, Brock, chuckling, glanced at Absalon who stood next to him and said, "The Hopeful Maggots, is it? I don't know about the maggots part, but I understand why this guild has Hope in its name. It is a thing of beauty."

Absalon laughed as he folded his arms and looked at the laughing young adults making fun of each other. Pride and joy simultaneously rose in his heart as he replied, "Ah, Joining this guild was the best decision I have made in all fifty-four years of my life."

A/N: Haven't done one of these in a while... Wanted to personally dedicate this chapter to all software engineers out there right now, slaving away at a particularly difficult piece of code. I know how you feel... Believe me, I do all too well. Lol! 

Normies will never understand the need to celebrate like a crazed chihuahua when we finally get a program to work (especially for us Uni students.)

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