Back at the inn, Synexus sat on his bed with his eyes shut recalling every memory from his time looking at the technology in his trial. He had encountered several devices meant to record sound and some that recorded light as well. His mind ran over the memories of him inspecting how they operated and how he could alter that with mana.

  Now, his people had much more sophisticated devices for such things, but without an understanding of the advanced systems and code they used, Synexus didn’t think those would be viable to recreate. His best bet was to find a way to recreate the analog or digital sound recording devices that he encountered as he felt mana could be used as the power source instead of electricity since it was more readily available to class chosen.

  Remembering the devices and their components is one thing but understanding exactly how they worked was another. He had worked out that the one part analyzed the vibrations that sound made in the air and another part captured those either in grooves in the case of analog or in bits of simplistic code in the case of digital. That part he believed he could replicate. His problem was recreating the reverse to take that recording and play it back for the holder.

  With the old devices they would simply reverse the process and then those grooves or code would be read by whatever the means the devices used to create the sound back. They somehow were even able to amplify it to get the identical noise back that was recorded. People were extraordinary to be able to create such things before System and mana.

  Something Shell had said had been rattling around in his mind. She asked him if he could create a crystal that could record sound. He wondered why her mind immediately went to crystals. It was a nagging question in the back of his mind the entire time he was delving into his memories. Finally, after hours of sorting out how his device would work, he got up to ask her.

  He ended up finding her on Kumo’s balcony chatting about how pretty the city lights were at night.

  “Hey Shell, I wanted to ask you a question about your idea.”

  “What idea?” Kumo asked before Shell had a chance to answer.

  “I had asked Synexus to help me make something that could record my music, so I could reach more people with it.” She then turned to Synexus. “What did you want to know?”

  “When you asked, you had said a “recording crystal” and I wanted to ask why you specified crystal as the base material.”

  “Because crystals look awesome.” Kumo quipped.

  Shell chuckled. “They do have an appeasing look, but I said crystal because one of my favorite things about living in the Wave Settlement was the enchanting sound of whale songs coming through our crystal domes. I like to think about my memories of when I was a little girl and would press my hands against the cold surface to feel the vibrations run through me like I was a part of the whale’s song.” Her eyes glossed over a bit as her mind wandered before snapping back and adding, “but it can be any material.”

  “I don’t know, Synexus. I think it has to be a crystal now. I want to know how that feels.” Kumo laughed a little at her own comment.

  “That is a great reason, and I believe that means that I need to look into the properties of crystals more. From what you said, it sounds like they react naturally well to sound waves. I’ll get back to work.”

  Synexus practically ran out of the room and back to his to start looking through his Elemental Database to find any materials that were related to crystals.

  Unfortunately, after an hour of looking, none of his crystals that he had logged had any properties regarding sound or sound waves. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t react the way he wanted, but he didn’t have any of them on hand anyways other than gold, which he knew to be used in the more advanced devices.

  That led him to scouring the Progress Nexus for any crystal-based materials that people may be selling.

  Of course, this search led to thousands upon thousands of listings. Some materials he had heard of before such fluorite and sugar crystals, but others he had never heard of and assumed they weren’t found on Motholo.

  After reading through various listings for a little over an hour, he ended up purchasing nearly 150 different materials. System’s description didn’t quite go in depth relating to what he wanted to use the materials for and so he needed to actually log them. This, of course, only helped him level up anyways.

  Inexorable Diamond: 100%

  Sharand Crystal: 100%

  Crystalline Copper: 100%

  Quartz: 100%

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  …

  Pludicarbonate: 100%

  Element Database has levelled up!

  There were some exotic sounding materials that didn’t seem to have any sort of use, and there were some basic materials that appeared to possess extraordinary potential. However, there was only one that would fit his needs and that was quartz. Synexus had heard the name before but had never been able to log the material itself. According to his skill it possessed a piezoelectric property that makes it susceptible to mechanical movements such as sound vibrations. His theory was that with Element Modification and a couple of other entries, he could make that property work with mana.

  Once in his Progress Garden, he got to work. His mind danced over to one of his favorite materials, the mana battery stone. This was a core material for the project because of its ability to store mana. Synexus was going to use this property in the quartz to have it take mana in to initially burn the sound waves into the crystal and to allow mana to pass through for the playback of the sound.

  Next, he studied the material makeup of the vibrating dahlia and learned how the elemental structure allowed it to vibrate rapidly to amplify the sound it produced. This would allow him to alter the elemental structure of the quartz to handle vibrations better and produce a richer sound.

  Finally, he used Elemental Modification to combine all these properties into the quartz itself to see what he had so far. He made a corner of the block of quartz more malleable so he could test it on a small corner piece.

  With all the modifications made to the sad looking sliver of quartz, he got his answer.

  Small Recording Quartz (unique): Using an input of mana the user can begin recording. The user’s mana will make the surface of the crystal more malleable for 30 seconds and sound waves will leave precise imprints. Once etched, the quartz cannot record sound again. By using a small amount of mana to run through the crystal, the quartz will vibrate producing an amplified playback of the etched soundwaves.

  He frowned that it could only record 30 seconds worth of sound, however, he did only use a small shard for his test. Using Element Modification again to cut off a bigger shard, he did the changes again and this time it produced something more usable.

  Medium Recording Quartz (unique): Using a moderate input of mana the user can begin recording. The user’s mana will make the surface of the crystal more malleable for 5 minutes and sound waves will leave precise imprints. Once etched, the quartz cannot record sound again. By using a small amount of mana to run through the crystal, the quartz will vibrate producing an amplified playback of the etched soundwaves.

  When he read the description, he realized that the duration of the recording did increase while the mana cost also increased. That made him try with a significantly larger shard of the quartz and he got a similar result.

  Large Recording Quartz (Unique): Using a larger input of mana the user can begin recording. The user’s mana will make the surface of the crystal more malleable for 30 minutes and sound waves will leave precise imprints. Once etched, the quartz cannot record sound again. By using a small amount of mana to run through the crystal, the quartz will vibrate producing an amplified playback of the etched soundwaves.

  That made him smile and he realized that he could probably make the duration go up more with a bigger piece of quartz to give people even more options when it came to recording. His only questions he had were how would the playback sound and how much mana did the input need to be? That’s why he decided to start testing.

  He touched each one and activated the quartz. The small took only two points of mana, the medium took about forty, and the large took nearly 100, but in the grand scheme of things that wasn’t much for what could be a useful tool. His mana was sitting at almost 3400, so something like that wouldn’t even make a dent.

  As he activated each one, he started talking and continued to do so to fill up each crystal. When the large one’s time limit ended, he then sent his mana into the small one and surprisingly it was only one point of mana for the playback. A perfect, crystal-clear playback of his voice rang out, and it was as loud as he was. The medium was the same except it took about twenty points of mana for the playback. Even the large produced the same volume for the playback but took about 50 points of mana.

  When he was holding them in his hand for the playback, he could barely feel the vibrations which is what he was hoping for. It would be kind of annoying to have something violently vibrating in your hands while trying to focus on the playback.

  His last test was to try and pour more mana into the playback and see what happened. He chose the medium one for the test and poured about 100 points of mana into the playback. To his surprise the vibration got a little more intense, but the volume increased significantly to the point where he was sure Kumo would be able to hear it through the wall.

  Overall, he was happy with the final product and was surprised it didn’t take him a few tries to get it right. However, he wasn’t finished.

  The last thing he decided to do before showing Shell was to make it a bit more stylized towards her, so he took the time to mold the quartz into the shape of a water droplet. When he was done, he had three water droplets of various sizes sitting in front of him made of beautiful cerulean-blue quartz. A smile of pride took over his face, and he went to tell his friend the good news.

  “Synexus! These are incredible! Are they done already? Like they actually work?”

  “I tested them myself. The small gives you 30 seconds, the medium gives you five minutes, and the large gives you 30 minutes. I can make bigger ones that record longer if needed, but I believe these will be good enough for now, right?”

  “These will be perfect! Thank you! And I adore the water droplet shape. I need to start recording now!”

  She took out her ocarina and Synexus listened while she recorded her first song onto a medium recording quartz. Her notes were beautiful, and he could hear her happiness coming through the music. When she was done, they sat together and listened to the playback. The entire time her smile was beaming and a couple of tears even rolled down her cheeks.

  Synexus made several hundred recording quartz crystals while he listened to her record songs late into the night. She even continued when he left the room to get some rest after his long day.

  As he lay in bed, he took out one of the recording crystals and listened to the soft playback of one of his favorite Shell originals as his consciousness faded into sleep.