"Well, that should be it. Now, we wait and see what happens." Said Alex.
"That's it ?" Wondered Amelia.
"Yes, now I'll wait to see if the smoke dissipates over time. If it does, I'll find another method; if not, I'll start making the potion right away."
"I understand."
"Can you go now? I'll let you know later if the smoke clears or not. Just leave," Scarlett said.
"Nope, actually, I'm quite interested in your little experiment. I'll observe how it unfolds while I wait," replied Alex as he walked toward Scarlett and sat in a nearby chair.
"So, how's it going? What have you observed so far?" asked Alex.
"Old man, leave."
"Nope, don't bother asking again. Plus, I'm sure Amelia is okay with me being here, right?"
Amelia nodded her head to Alex.
"See? Now, stop being stubborn and fill me in on how things are going and what you're doing specifically," Alex uttered, leaning on his chair with his feet on the table in front of them.
"Sigh, you can stay, but you're dreaming if you think I'll explain anything to-"
"Although I'm not an engineer or scientist like you, I know this project of yours will surely cost a fortune – a fortune you definitely don't have. I'm willing to fund your research, so start explaining already. If not, good luck finding money," Alex voiced with a smirk.
"..."
"So?"
"Okay, I'll explain. But why do you want to know so bad? And for your information, it's going to cost more than a 'fortune,' so be ready to pay a large amount of money."
"Don't worry about the money. As for why I want to know so bad, isn't it obvious? If you manage to create something similar to the residual blast, then our chances to win the upcoming war will increase. Plus, I'm curious about this ability of Amelia."
"Mm."
"So?"
"Sigh, as you surely know, Aunt Amelia's ability allows her to concentrate residual energy around her and create this destructive orb. What I intend to do here is try to find out if there is a limit to the number of elements from which she can use their residual energy," explained Scarlett.
"How are you going to measure if there is indeed a limit?"
"With this," replied Scarlett, pointing to a device on the table.
"What is 'this'?"
"It's a device I created; it can detect the residual energy of the majority of known elements."
"Hoh," Alex's eyes brightened. "Can you mass-produce this thing?" he asked.
"Why?"
"For selling, of course!"
"Who would want such a thing? It's just something I created by modifying one of my previously made devices that can sense which elements are in an environment."
"You have a device that can sense which elements are in an environment?" asked Alex, his eyes shining even more brightly.
"Yeah, I created it years ago for an experiment, but since then, I never used it. It was collecting dust in my room. I just modified it a bit so that it would sense the residual energies of the elements instead. I don't see who would want to buy something like that," replied Scarlett, feeling perplexed by her father's enthusiasm.
"..."
"..."
"Uhm, why are you both looking at me like that?" asked Scarlett, seeing the kind of gaze she was getting from Alex and Amelia.
Amelia was looking at her with a shocked expression, while Alex was looking at her like she was a golden goose – his golden goose.
"Scarlett dear, you are really intelligent when it comes to creating things, but it seems that you lack the ability to understand the true value of what you create," expressed Amelia while shaking her head.
"I am not sure if I should take it as a compliment or an insult," replied Scarlett with a puzzled expression.
"It's not really a good thing since you could-"
"It's a great thing! Don't listen to her; you being intelligent is the only important thing. Forget about other things; let me handle the rest. I will make the world know how bright you are," said Alex like a sleazy salesman, cutting off Amelia.
"...be taken advantage of," finished Amelia with a sigh.
'Is he really trying to take advantage of his daughter?' wondered Amelia with a dumbfounded expression, looking at Alex praising Scarlett while asking her if she could mass-produce her device.
Alas for him, Scarlett may not really know the value of her creations, as she creates them mostly out of curiosity or to see if she could make them. But, as Alex said, she was intelligent. So, when Alex tried to goad her into mass-producing her device while praising her, she knew that something fishy was going on.
She turned to Amelia and asked, "How valuable do you think this thing is?"
"Uhm," seeing Alex strongly shake his head, Amelia hesitated but decided to answer Scarlett's question.
'Sorry, brother,' she mouthed to Alex.
"In fact, something like your device already exists; it's the thing we use to determine the affinity of someone to an element," explained Amelia.
"I know, that's actually where the idea to create this device came to me," replied Scarlett.
"Ah, I see. Anyway, like I was saying, this kind of device already exists. It's just that this invention of yours is quite groundbreaking compared to the already existing one. With your device, you can achieve many things. For example, let's say that you are in a desert and need water; having this device may help you find a water source. Another example, if this device's detection range can cover a vast territory, you can even obtain the distribution of surrounding elements. These are just a few examples; there are still many things that you can achieve with your device."
"If you manage to make it able to detect areas in which there is a large amount of mana, every major power on this continent would want to have one of these devices, and not just them alone."
Hearing this, Scarlett understood that this device of hers, which she had thought to be useless, had the potential to make her earn a lot of money—money that would serve to fund her other experiments!
Without waiting a second, Scarlett got up from the table, snatched her device from Alex's hand, and exited the laboratory while shouting:
"Aunt Amelia, we will continue later; for now, I need to improve this thing!"
"Okay, let's do tha-"
Amelia's words got caught up in her throat when she noticed Alex glaring at her.
"Uhh, I-I will also take my leave."
"...."
"S-See you later, brother," said Amelia before rushing out of the laboratory.
"Damn it! Now that she knows the true value of this device, she is going to demand a larger amount of money than before!" cursed Alex.
He understood that if before he could have given Scarlett just a little part of the profit, now it was going to be difficult because she is surely going to ask for more.
'Sigh, let's forget about that for now,' thought Alex, shaking his head.
Alex stood up and walked towards the glass tube filled with smoke; while the three of them spoke, enough time had passed for the smoke in the glass tube to dissipate if it was going to do so. It was now time to see if the method suggested by Scarlett was right.
"It seems that she was right after all," said Alex with a smile, seeing that the glass tube was still filled with smoke.
"Okay, let's get to work!"
****
Hello, everyone! The author here.
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