The Mechanical Era

Sitting on a wooden chair, looking at a smaller version of the periodic table drawn with a pen on a piece of beige paper, was a man with short messy black hair, in a long white victorian cloak, gloves on his hands, black pants tied with brown leather boots, and a punch of safety glass goggles resting on his forehead.

He was in a rather well-lit room, surrounded by books, and bookshelves, along with desks and chairs, stacked with quills and ink bottles. A study room, if you will. One in which he spends some time in his free time.

As his green eyes focused on the periodic table, his ear picked up the sound of the door being knocked upon. Without taking his eyes off the periodic table, he muttered a single word with his smooth voice.

"Enter."

The doorknob turns, and a man enters the room. He delivers a letter to the alchemist, and swiftly leaves as soon as he appeared. The alchemist, after putting the periodic table down, carefully opened the letter with grace, and start to read it.

"Mr. Heinz Duesenberg,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen by the palace to help process a few chemicals in need. His highness, Prince Kant Maybale the I, is requiring a new chemical explosive called 'Black powder'.

The instructions to make the given chemicals and the amount needed to be produced are included in the envelope. We hope to see your report soon. Please send the finished chemicals in a sealed, and safe package.

You will receive a compensation of 2 gold coins, which we are sure will cover the cost of production and distribution while handing over a large profit.

Sincerely,

Arjun Boyle, assistant minister of his highness."

After reading the rather short letter, he searched the envelope again, to find a small list, containing instructions on how to make the chemicals in need. Duesenberg felt a little salty, and a bit insulted. Yet, he kept faith in the letter and assumed that if the assistant minister had a high degree of trust in whoever the prince was, he should follow.

After getting up from his chair, he left his room, en route to his laboratory, where he kept all his cool glassware, which was connected to his rather large home. He walks across the plank wooden floor, through the painted halls of his house, to get to an oak door.

He made his way to his pocket to grab his key. He place it in the lock and turned it. However, there was no sound of the lock moving away. Rather, they hear the bolt retract. Duesenberg slowly opens the door and looks inside.

There, he sees someone with strawberry blond hair, reaching up to their shoulder, using some glassware. The person had a similar attire, with the same cloak, same gloves, and same boots, although their pants were blue instead.

Duesenberg sighed and fully opened the door. After coughing twice, he yelled at the person, who was a little shorter than he is.

"Mira! What are you doing?"

The woman turned around, revealing her shocked face. Duesenberg's green eyes focused on her green eyes with gold flecks in them. His lips formed a thin line, and she bowed down while standing with her hands together with a tablecloth.

"I am so sorry sir! I was just cleaning up the place!" she said, defending herself. Duesenberg looks around the room to see whether anything was out of place. Not finding anything, he turned to the teenage girl.

pαndα,noνɐ1,сoМ "Did you break anything?" he asked.

"No, No, sir! I was extra careful today. I did not break anything," she replied.

"Hmm..." he looks around again, turning to her.

"I see. Well, this is perfect timing Mira. You can help me with some work. Put on your glasses," he said as he put on his safety glasses.

"What are we making, sir?" she asked as she places the safety glasses on her eyes.

"We are making something called black powder. We need 75% potassium nitrate, 15% charcoal, and 10% sulfur. All we have to do is to grind it and mix it. Relatively simple."

"Is that it, sir?"

"Like I said, yes. It was. Now go get the ingredients needed. I will prepare the pestle and the scale."

"Alright sir, I will!" she said. As she went into the storage room, through a wooden door situated on the left side of the room, Duesenberg walks over to the cupboards and grabs three pestles and three mortars, both made of expensive white ceramic. He then grabbed a scale and placed it to the right of the pestles.

Mira soon came back from the storage room carrying glass jars of the materials Duesenberg had ordered her to bring. She arranged the materials on the table while Duesenberg set 75g of weight on one side of the scale by adding a 50g metal ball, along with a 10g and 5g metal ball. On the other side, set down or take away charcoal on the other till it is balanced.

On the scale reached an equilibrium, he then threw it inside the first pestle and instructed Mira to turn the charcoal into powder. Mira nodded and started grounding the charcoal. Duesenberg took away the 50g ball and threw it inside a drawer.

His eyes turned to a glass jar closed with a rubber seal, filled with tiny white crystals. He popped the seal open and poured the saltpeter out till it balanced. Duesenberg picks up the ceramic pestle, and carefully pours the saltpeter in.

After he keeps the pestle with saltpeter down, he comes to the jar containing a yellow rock. As usual, he measures them and pours them on a pestle. Once the measuring was completed, he joined Mira in crushing the ingredients to a fine powder.

It took them a while, but eventually, they managed to get their fine powder, although with a few small chunks. To funnel out these large chunks, Duesenberg took a metal strainer, and put it the ingredients through it, capturing the small chunks, while leaving the fine powder in the bowl underneath.

He soon poured all of the fine powder materials into a separate bowl. With the help of Mira's magic, he then dried out the saltpeter before mixing them together. He stirred it for a good while with a glass rod. After a few minutes, he stopped, thinking that the black powder was finally ready.

"Alright. All we need to do now is to test it." Duesenberg takes out a handful of black powder from a spoon and places it on a metal plate. His head then turns to Mira, instructing her to light the black powder up.

He raised her finger and cast a spell, shooting a small ember at the black powder. As soon as the fire made contact, the powder instantly reacted, causing a sort of fire, while releasing tons of gas into the air.

"Was that a success?" Mira asked.

"Yes, I think so," he replied, after seeing the reaction. The roof of the room was filled a little with black smog, that fortunately escaped through the window. Duesenberg smiled, gaining a little more respect for Kant.