It took Barda more than 48 hours to complete working on his inventions. However, by the time he was done, the workshop looked completely different. It was packed with weird-looking machines of all shapes and sizes.
One thing that shocked and fascinated Krib, his constant companion, was that there was no magic involved. He had been with Barda the whole time as he worked on his inventions, and from start to end, he had not seen Barda even perform a single incarnation.
There were times he would feel Barda producing magical power, but on investigating he found Barda was only using his fire element power to manipulate the flames in the forging process. Other than that, no other magical effect was felt.
Yet, despite the apparent lack of magic, the machines and inventions Barda had created were extremely impressive. Moreover, they came in all kinds of shapes and sizes, built from different, but each one serving a unique purpose.
It had to be known that mages generally looked down on non-mages. It came so naturally since they felt they were better than the non-mages. With their power, they had a natural advantage over others, which made them snobbish even without knowing. The more sadistic ones going so far as to toy with non-mages for entertainment.
Therefore, it was a herculean task indeed to impress a mage with non-magical equipment. Looking closely, Krib had noticed that Barda had combined all kinds of knowledge and crafts to come up with the inventions. Many he did not understand what they were, but for those he did understand, he shuddered to see such a thing achievable without magic.
Late into the night, after 2 days of being locked inside, Barda came out holding 2 balloons and some contraption of some kind. He took the time to check if there was no one around before proceeding. All this was in pretense since he had the scanners and he knew there was no one around except for the mysterious energy. Is it just me or has the mysterious energy's output doubled? Barda wondered to himself.
What Barda didn't know was that Krib had notified the superiors of Barda's activities, and they had him use a magic mirror, that way they could watch Barda as he worked. That increased feeling was coming from the magic mirror which also had to be veiled.
Barda was blissfully unaware as started the hydrogen-extractor and filled up the balloons with hydrogen, releasing the contraption into the atmosphere. The satellite had been launched. He had a component that would monitor the flight until the contraption was finally out of range, which was 50 kilometers away. To communicate further, he would need to get the dish working.
Barda then proceeded to load up the satellite dish's components into a carriage. They were extremely heavy but luckily, Barda had already reinforced the carriage to handle the heavy load. He then tied up 4 horses and set off.
[Power output increased by 20%.]
Once he was clear of the city and the environs, he tied the horses and then started dragging the carriage himself. This way, it would be faster. If he relied on the horses moving at an average speed of 10kmh, he would never get there. With him pulling at an average speed of 60kmh, he got there much faster.
60kmh was no small achievement in terms of average speed, especially in a forest. Taking into consideration that a person achieved this while dragging a heavily-loaded carriage. The fastest a human could run was around 45kmh, yet Barda could hit 3 times that (150kmh) in good conditions.
"Had he concealed his strength that much?" Lady Arnea had complex emotions as she watched her Mirror feed. Needless to say, the folks watching what Krib was showing them were having a difficult time believing. At some point, Krib had been outrun completely, almost to the point of losing Barda.
Almost 2 hours passed for Barda to reach his destination which was 113km away from the city. It was also a pick of the highest hill he could find. He was still around the coastal areas after all. Krib caught up with him as he was offloading his packages from the carriage.
Barda spent nearly another hour assembling everything, but once he was done, he felt content looking at his invention. The satellite dish was derived from his scanning modules and networking system. It was to boost his signal to travel across a large area, in this case, traversing the atmosphere.
Barda then crossed his fingers and ran a start-up command from his AI interface. If it didn't work, it was nothing more than a glorified empty water tower. As he watched it start up, Barda had a small smile but was still uneasy. He needed it to connect to the contraption currently on its way to orbit in the murky night.
"It works!" Barda was almost dancing when he was able to successfully link with the device. 'Of course, it would work, after all, I am the one who made it,' Barda thought to himself then immediately spat out that thought hoping he hadn't jinxed anything. Looking at his connection, he was shocked to learn that he had forgotten a very important component, an altimeter. How was he supposed to know how high it was now?
Barda had no option but to sit down and hope that the device would work as this one had. Once the device was in orbit, Barda had set it to automatically power up and sync, and that was what he was waiting for. For those watching, he pretended to be tired and lay beside the device to sleep.
[Satellite link established. Commencing Deep Space transmission.]
3 hours, 23 minutes, 14 seconds, 234 microseconds later, Barda finally got the response he had been hoping for. Due to the distance, the connection was very unreliable, one bar at best. Barda had been prepared for this beforehand, so he had preprogrammed a set of instructions with a target in mind.
Barda had put a lot of thought into what information he would go for. The problem with the information grid was that it was a collection of too much information. Even he couldn't load it all, nor would he need to. After much consideration, Barda had resolved on a specific target.
Naturally, any important information worth having was well protected. Barda needed to do some hacking, but deep-space hacking was easier said than done. Barda had preprogrammed malware to facilitate the invasion.
Bear in mind, Barda was not the one programming. Rather, he was thinking up concepts and the AI would do its best to implement his instructions. At least, in this case, he didn't have to worry about being out skilled. His AI was military-grade, which meant that it came equipped with all the hack tools he would need.
Signals were transmitted through light photons. Given how far he was from the rest of the universe, Barda knew the signals would take time before he got any feedback. He had estimated approximately 5 to 12 hours. The margin of error was quite wide since he was being optimistic. Any more than 12 hours and he would conclude he had lost.
To while away the time, Barda shut down all non-essential systems and went into hibernation, essentially falling asleep. He had discovered this trick a while back but didn't see the need for it.
***
"Is he ... dead?" Lady Arnea had to ask. She had been instructed to follow Krib as his backup. The pair had watched as Barda did one amazing thing after another. All the while neither of them detected any trace of magic, which bewildered both. How can non-magical inventions be this fantastic?
"No, he's sleeping," Krib muttered as he drew nearer to Barda. "Which is odd since he never sleeps."
"First time for everything, it would seem," Lady Arnea drew near to the structure he had set up. "What do you think this does?"
"Whatever it is, we should destroy it," Krib said.
"What, wait! no! Sh-shouldn't we wait and see what it does?" Lady Arnea shouted. Being at a loss of what to say to defend it, she quickly made up an excuse.
"At the risk of the continent?"
"Do you honestly think he wills to destroy the continent? Why is he protecting it then?"
"I don't know and I don't want to know. We should at least grab him and take him in for questioning."
"No, our orders were to observe and report, and that is what we are going to do." Lady Arnea was resolute in her stand, though she had no idea why she was defending the structure or Barda.
"Oh, look. He is coming to. How long has it been, a whole day?" Krib asked as he pointed at Barda who was waking up with a brilliant smile on his face.
Then the pair watched as Barda got up and walked away. Moments later, the structure they were debating whether they should take down exploded. The pair were left bewildered as they watched the flames consumed the structure.