After all the metal work yesterday, I want to take it a little easier, and not do as much physical bor, and I'm sure Zeb feels simirly. Today, instead, I'm going to collect small crystals with Zeb. Sure, it's still work, but it's pretty rexed. I already have quite a few of the smallest size in the warehouse, but I've decided to gather more of the smallest ones. The reason being, I want to do more experiments with them. I discovered some basic principles before, like how they seemingly bust when exposed to too much passive mana. Or, more usefully, they seemingly don't bust as easily when they're rge. So what I want to try to figure out is how to grow the crystals themselves. The that I have with growing them is obviously whether or not I actually replicate the ditions they grow under or not.

  So for at least today and tomorrow I want to gather as many of the small crystals as I . I'll also have Zeb get the old buckets of the smallest sized crystals from the old ste room, and we'll move them to my old house deep in the cave to work.

  It's weird being ba the old house after all this time. The first thing I want to try is seeing if the crystals are water soluble. I try dissolving them in both cool and hot water, to no avail. Given where I found them and how they deteriorated before, I suspected that they may not be able to be dissolved by water, which is a bit of a disappoi, but it is what it is. The est is actually fairly simple. I want to see what happens if I break a crystal.

  The first attempt with a rge hammer does the trick, and the crystal breaks. There is a small fsh and a hiss when it breaks, and the pieces that that are left are oddly shaped, and have bck soot along the edges where they broke. Actually, as I watch it for a little bit, the edges of the pieces slowly deteriorate until what is left are even smaller octahedrons instead of the oddly shaped initial pieces. This is a slightly odd behavior for a crystal, but I suppose I know that mana allows for behaviors I'm not familiar with, like my stone shaping. Since I know the crystals store mana, I'm going to assume for now that some unknown meism deteriorates the crystal until it's shaped in their familiar octahedron.

  The est I'd like to see is if I melt them. However, I 't exactly just take them back up to the surface, sihey'll deteriorate if I do that. I'll try to do it initially over the small firep the room for now.

  I sit with them in a small crucible over the firepce for at least ten minutes with no ges. I mean, sidering I'm finding them in volic rock, I shouldn't be surprised that they aren't breaking down at this temperature. That said, most crystals precipitate out of liquids because their solid phase is a higher point than the liquid. Which would mean that these only melt at temperatures higher than magma, and since my crucibles are made of the very rock I found the crystals in, I 't exactly just melt them.

  I sit for a while, trying to think about what I do to solve this issue. To Zeb, it probably looks like I'm just staring at the crystals retly pulled out of the fire. I decide to voice my s to Zeb.

  "Not only I not melt these crystals down, but I'm not even sure if I reform a crystal afterwards. I mean, you saw the fact that the crystal bubbles were under a vacuum. I just, I ck the teology and maes to do a lot of that stuff." I say.

  Zeb responds, "I'm not sure about melting them, but you break them dht? you melt the broken stuff down, kind of like the other rock you were breaking down for the dull gray metal? As for the vacuum, is there another way to do it without maes? I mean, you were talking before about making a mae to crush the rock, but if you crush the rock with magic, you do make the vacuum with magic?"

  I pause for a minute and think. He's right. I'm approag all of this with ideas from Earth. I've got aire third axis of freedom to work with. Namely, magibsp; Sure, I 't make an airtight operating part to pull a vacuum, I'm g preaing, rubber, and all sorts of materials to aplish that. What I do though, is literally move solid stone like it's a liquid. Surely I just expand a sealed tainer and reduce the pressure in it. That solves the vacuum issue.

  I do wonder actually now that he says that as well. The crystals break dowhere is too much mana in them. If I put the crystals in a near vacuum taihen take that to the surfad heat it up hot enough, will the insides liquify? I use that to make an artificial crystal? I think it's probably worth a shot.

  I thank Zeb for his insight, and begin work on the idea. The basic idea is to make a sealed lightstone tainer with a bunch of the small crystals in it. Then, I basically am going to have to work with teise plus stone shaping to expand the tainer's volume. Ohe tainer gets to a certain internal volume, I'll move internal stoo make two partments, oh the crystals, and ohout. I'll open the ohout crystals, releasing what gas was in it, then recycle the stone back around the outside of the tainer. By doing so, I should be able to tinually reduce the pressure ihe tainer. The biggest will be actually preventing the tainer from breaking, especially if I make it hot, which will probably reduce its structural iy. I'll also need plenty of lightstone, which means I'm ba processing duty for a little while.

  Three days and I think I'm ready for the first tests. Before I load the tainer with crystals, I want to try just redug the pressure without the crystals inside.

  Initial results are promising, but I'm gd that I tried without the crystals first. While I was able to reduce the pressure to very low values, as I worked, I learhat I do need quite a lot of stone in the walls to keep the vessel in one piebsp; It had a habit, when I got the pressure very low, to crack while I was in the process of redug the pressure.

  sidering the wall thiess of the vessel, it's going to take a long time to heat the whole vessel thhly enough. I also realized I'll o have the vessel attached to a thick stone rod so that I prevent thermal shock while still being able to transport it back down the cave while hot. After all, I be almost certain that no crystal would form on the surface, sihey already break down when up here.

  So, today, I'm just going to make two test vessels, and then store them down in the cave ht, and then tomorrow start heating a vessel early in the m for testing, si will take a while to get up to temperature. Thankfully lenty of charcoal stored up.

  Well, it's bright and early, and Zeb and I are ready to get to work. Zeb is getting the furarted, and I'm going to go down into the cave and grab the test vessel. The vessel itself is a little rger than a crucible, but its insides are slightly smaller. As I carry it up, I don't immediately notiy difference from the vessel, but one I make it high enough up, teise reveals that there aren't any crystals inside anymore, so I only assume it's deteriorated.

  For the initial test here, our pn is to get it as hot as we , and then carry the whole thing back down into the cave to cool down. The vessel is on the end of a rod that is more than a yard long, so the hope will be that I just stone shape the rod onto a wall, so that the vessel cool naturally ht.

  The heating process went fierday, and so did the process of setting it to cool in the cave. Unfortunately, upon crag it open, there were no crystals inside. It wasn't a plete loss though, the bckish powder that forms when the crystals fall apart had coalesced into a single solid pieaterial. Which tells me it did melt inside. That actually is a good sign for the process as a whole. I've got a few ideas of things to try before we give up.