the third round started, and after a few hours it also ended, everyone refined something different, and what they were judged on, was the technique they used and the stage of their creation, the big winner was marguerite, who got first place with a low-fourth stage axe, sam took second place with a peak third stage harpoon, Angus and Reginald tied in the high third stage, but Angus's sword was considered superior to Reginald's shield granting him third place
after the competition finished there was still something else to take care of
phoebe raised from her seat and said "you all are really talented, but I need only one refiner in my unit, and after talking to Patrick and thinking about it carefully, we chose Angus, he was the more careful during the process, and also the fastest, two qualities I appreciate in a refiner"
phoebe and Patrick shook hands with Angus, under the envious eyes of the other participant's, but they still had a chance
akela said "I decided to offer Sam to become my disciple" "I accept this honor, teacher" said Sam without hesitation
and Gruff said "I won't take any disciples, but you finalists are welcome to visit this old man anytime"
almost everyone stayed to talk to the masters and seek advice, except for Reginald who was depressed the kid wasn't built to handle failure and after his performance dropped he had to add failure to that, so he silently left alone, but Elijah noticed and went after him
that evening in a private room, the guests and judges reunited to talk
Phoebe in a very direct way asked "how much anchor sand do you guys have?"
Gruff said "a couple of kilos maybe 3"
Akela said "20 kilos more or less"
Phoebe said "we want it all, talk what's your price?"
Akela raised her eyebrow, and in a suspicious tone asked "before that who made that statue?"
Phoebe said "classified information"
Gruff was curious, looked at Sophia, and asked "how was it made?"
Sophia shook her head and said "I don't know"
Akela, sighed and since she was willing to compromise, asked "can you get who made that, to make something for me?"
Phoebe kept her icy attitude and said "it shouldn't be a problem if you pay with the sand"
Akela said "I'm in, make me this thing and I'll give you all the sand I have" she could exchange a failed experiment, so she was happy to do it, and started shoving Phoebe different diagrams of a rudder and some decorations she was clearly asking them for a boat
Phoebe said "I can ask"
Gruff also wanted something made of diamond and said "I also want something made, a mug with this kind of design and these dimensions" basically asking for a giant size beer mug
Phoebe said "this may be too big, but I will ask"
the next morning Phoebe and Sophia came back home and updated Joseph and Vincent about the anchor sand, although they missed Daniel who was already asleep on the deckchair, as usual
at lunch, he woke up and received the news
daniel said "excellent, it's not a problem but I will need a lot of carbon"
Phoebe thought for a moment and said "carbon it's in trees right? I can give you all the branches I get it's always pruning season"
Daniel said "depends on how much wood it is, but it will only require some extra steps, with tickles it will be fast just a matter of compression"
when daniel went back to the lab, the four adults started talking about the competition
Sophia said "that Elijah kid it's not bad, you already know his bad name is caused by ignorance, so if he was serious you should give him a chance"
phoebe said "I know, but it would be unfair to the others that worked hard for years for a chance to get chosen, he doesn't have a special skill like Angus and would end up in the general roster with thousands of other applicants"
Joseph nodded and said "you are right"
Vincent like he had the ultimate stroke of genius said "we should hire marguerite, with the excuse of her knowledge, she could keep an eye on Daniel for us"
Sophia started laughing and said "I think you are dreaming, all she knows about materials can be learned in a week by Daniel, and a week only because she will be slow to teach, even if Daniel agrees she would become useless to him after that"
Vincent nodded, then said "I'm just worried about what he's doing in there, he took all that surveillance junk and used that mineral to coat the laboratory walls, we can't see inside anymore"
Sophia and Phoebe tried and discovered they couldn't, but another question popped up in their minds, "do you spy on him often?" asked both of them at the same time, then smiled at each other
Vincent tried to defend himself and said "it's not spying I just like keeping tabs on him, make sure he doesn't harm himself with those experiments"
and Joseph said "honestly I do it too, it's hard to trust him since things tend to explode often"
Phoebe took a pensive look and asked "why did he do that? I don't think you guys would be caught, so why did he insulate the lab"
Sophia said "couldn't it be a precaution, after all, he is the one that discovered all that surveillance equipment, maybe he developed countermeasures like when he started to make the maru more powerful to go fishing in the dangerous areas"
the other three nodded but didn't seem to be convinced, then Joseph said "we can wait for a big noise and go ask since we discovered it because of the noise and checked only out of concern"
Vincent nodded and said "good idea let's do that"
tickles started working, thankfully Daniel prepared tools for the maru v1, and the maru v2 who was brought back after Phoebe didn't need it anymore, side by side the two robots, were obviously different, the v2 could do double the work of the v1 because it was slightly nimbler, this was obvious to Daniel, who decided that the v3, will need to be even more nimble, maybe even agile if possible
while Daniel was reading, they worked through the night and while he was sleeping they kept working, when he went in after lunch, they were still going at it, the item requested were many and one was very big, and it would take a little more time for tickles and the maru's to finish
before dinner, the four oldies finally got their chance, maru v1 couldn't take the stress of being operational and working at full capacity for more than 24 hours without a pause, a small tube overheated and melted, making the cooling system fail, and as a result, a battery exploded, maru v1 was officially dead
luckily no fuel meant that the explosion didn't start any big fires, so it made a big noise and some scorched marks and a little metal debris into the wall, but negligible damages to the sturdy lab that with Tickles' help it would be as good as new before tomorrow
Daniel was still sad, he could have recycled maru v1 when he made the v2, but he kept it, because he liked the idea of having them all, in progression, like a before and after photo
but tickles was the perfect builder, so he rebuilt it like it was, sending Daniel valuable data about the explosion, but it didn't feel the same to daniel, in his mind the first maru, died and this was just a replacement, he still made the small necessary adjustment to both maru's, since the same tube was in the same position in the v2, then put them back to work
he then started to work on solving the issue permanently in the third generation of maru's, but just as he was drawing the cooling system blueprint with his mind on a holographic screen, someone knocked on the lab doors
1 hour earlier, outside the lab, moments after the explosion, Vincent said "we got it, this is our chance"
Sophia said "don't be too hasty, we should make it look like it's just curiosity, we can't rush there"
Joseph said "shouldn't we go there, worried about his safety?"
phoebe shook her head and said "of course not, he has Tickles with him, if we go worried about his safety, he will get angry again saying that we think of him as an invalid, we have to go ask after a while, calmly, with no rush"
Sophia nodded and said "she is right, that is a touchy subject"
back in front of the lab door, Sophia knocked on the door, maru v2 opened the door and they saw a big scorch mark on the lab floor, but they kept their reactions inside and walked to Daniel who was drawing
Sophia asked "how is it going"
Daniel said "all good, maru v1 exploded but we solved the problem, now I'm working to fix the problem permanently in v3, the crystallized carbon decorations are not ready yet"
Vincent said "it's not that, we came because we noticed that your lab it's shielded from spiritual sense, when we heard the explosion we wanted to check what it was, but we couldn't"
Daniel nodded, and with a proud smile said "yeah, there were so many surveillance equipments around the castle that it made me uncomfortable, I started having this feeling of being watched every second, so I made some improvements to make sure no one could spy on me"
panicking, but mostly feeling guilty, since he didn't know what to say, Vincent blurted the first thing that came to his mind "you are right, maybe we should do it to the castle too"
joseph who was also feeling guilty said "yes we should avoid any possible surveillance"
Phoebe and Sophia just gave a disapproving look to them, but still complimented Daniel for his initiative, they didn't want anything to do with this
Daniel was happy to help and said "I can do it if you want"
Vincent nodded and said "that would be perfect just tell us what you need" at this point he was rolling with it
a couple of days later the castle had a full anti-surveillance coating installed, and Daniel said to Phoebe that he finished the items for Akela and Gruff
two days after that, 22.8 kg of anchor sand was delivered to the lab, by Sophia who returned from the exchange
with it, Daniel finally started working on replicating the antigravity mesh
sadly after a week, Daniel's experiments with the anchor sand were going nowhere, and during dinner, he talked to the family "there's something wrong, I'm missing something important to make it work"
Phoebe said "well, I don't know if it could help, but usually it's different, in its natural state anchor sand supports natural floating islands, but when the island falls, it loses something, or at least, that's what the experts said"
Daniel started talking to himself "that's useful information, I know some things about floating islands, they are always set of 3 or more, so it's probably some kind of magnetic field that activates the sand, I just have to figure out how this one stayed active after being removed, the solution it's probably in the fact that it holds shape like it's welded, but how does one weld sand?" no one would be able to stop Daniel when he becomes like this, and like usual while thinking he started to automatically walk towards the lab