That Time a Bookworm Got Ascended in Tensura

Ch.12 Books

Rimuru's pov:

I was standing across a pool of water, with Myne on the other side. We were inside the cave Veldora had been sealed in previously, or simply Veldora's cave as everyone called it. Vesta and the dragon newts were outside the cave at the moment, for multiple reasons. Though the main one is I decided to help Myne train her aura control today. 

Currently I was mirroring what she was doing, allowing my full aura to simply eject itself from me freely as the magicules enveloped the area. Though I made sure to tame it a bit to make sure it didn't hurt Myne. When I released my aura my irises always got shrouded with the purple and pink hues of the magicules flowing around me, causing their normal golden color to get infused with the others. The pattern constantly changed. For Myne this only happened when she got emotional though, causing her aura to flare up more than normal. 

She was staring at me and shivering a bit. It wasn't exactly surprising, when I became a demon lord my aura took on an angle of intimidation, as well as getting way way larger and denser. Though I think she got the message, "So.. this is basically what I am always doing?." She seemed to come to the realization and looked very embarrassed, trying to cover her face with her arms. 

To this I smiled and then nodded. "You are always letting your aura flow freely. It is honestly starting to get a little dangerous to let you around the city, which is one the reasons I decided to bring you here." I trust she already knew the effects magicules had on humans as she lived through it for most of her life. At least in this world. 

She tensed her face and tried to focus, which was actually the wrong approach if anything. You shouldn't need to focus while restraining your aura, it should just be what you do subconsciously. Though it is fine to do it that way at first. Her eyes got shrouded a bit as her aura got denser, the deep blue shrouded the golden of her irises and her hair swirled around her a bit. She clenched her teeth as the feeling was very unpleasant. She was finally surrounded by a very dense aura packed tightly around her, only drifting a few feet around her. She was close, though not there yet. 

I sighed lightly. I then demonstrated something to her while speaking, "Instead of simply making it smaller physically, you need to stop the magicules from flowing out of you in the first place. Only after that do you make it denser." I demonstrated as I held back magicules trying to leave my body, then shrunk the aura that was already outside, until it slowly dissipated. Though I let just a little bit out, and made it looked untrained, as I had learned from watching Guy and Luminas during Walpurgis. 

She seemed a bit confused at first, though then her eyes lit brightly like she had an idea. it took a few minutes for her to really get a grip of it, but I slowly saw as her magicules stopped leaking. She tried to replicate what I was doing, letting out just a little bit of aura. She wasn't quite to that level of control though. So she stopped at simply not letting any magicules out and just shrinking the few that got out anyway. She smiled smugly and puffed her chest out after doing this, had she learned that from Veldora? 

With that I was satisfied, though I wanted a bit of insurance. If she got any stronger, or got emotional her aura could be a massive danger, so I thought to Raphael 'Raphael-sensei, could you replicate the anti-magic mask in the form of a bracelet? Make it so it can fit on Myne.' I thought as I envisioned what I wanted. Essentially a small white stone bracelet with an intricate black emboldened design on it that looked similar to the mask. 

<This would be an easy task. Replicating effect, neutralizing time attribute, successful. Item created, currently stored inside [Stomach].> 

Time attribute? I'd question that later. For now I took the bracelet out of the storage space by opening a portal with [Beelzebub]. Then I hopped across the pool of water to be in front of Myne and handed the bracelet to her. "That has an anti-magic effect. It will keep your aura in check if you lose control, I used to use a mask with the same effect. When you are restraining your aura you should look no different than a human, assuming the person looking can't notice your lack of heartbeat and breathing." After a while she had just stopped breathing all together, she tried to at first. Though eventually she just gave up on it since she didn't need to.  It was sorta funny to see actually, since I never went through a breathing phase myself. 

She smiled brightly and put on the bracelet. Right now she was wearing a small dress set Shuna had made for her with Tuuli's help. It seemed she was excited to finally where magic clothes now that they were no longer dangerous to her. The white bracelet mixed very well with the white ribbon on the front of the blue dress. The skirt of the dress went down to her knees, and she was wearing white sandals. "This bracelet looks so nice, did you make this just now?! Also I am surprised this doesn't make me feel tired. It feels like this effect was designed for monsters. The antimagic area from before make me pass out, and I wasn't even a monster back then." She blabbered on a bit before doing a small twirl. 

"Yes, I just made it." I said before walking back to the entrance of the cavern we were in. We then simply spent several minutes walking through the cave. I was pretty impressed how much the cave had changed, the hipokute farming operations was going very well now, with many flowers now visible. It also seemed our little training session had caused some of the resistant buds to bloom, which was refreshing. 

Though we had to inform the cave's inhabitants they could come back in now, it should no longer be dangerous for them to come inside now that we were done. I did so with a thought communication to Gabiru, and a nod to Vesta when we got outside. 

Myne really enjoyed flying, whenever she got the opportunity really. So she was quick to float into the air the moment we were out of the cave, though with her aura restrained like it was now with the bracelet, now she had to put a conscious effort into doing so. It seemed to annoy her to not have her go-to just activate subconsciously, as it did normally up to now. Though eventually I saw her aura release just a bit around the bracelet while she was flying and that seemed to refresh her. I assumed she had found  a way around the predicament already. 

As we landed into the plaza I could see Myrd waiting for me. I turned to Myne and said, "Hey, you can go off on your own. I think I have business." I then landed in front of Myrd and my wings de-materialized back into my body. 

Myne took the opportunity to run off down the street as she got out her coin pouch to buy snacks. Really if she was still a human she'd probably be chubby already. 

After watching her run down the street I looked back to Myrd. Waiting whatever it is he wanted to show me, though instead of him it was his assistant that talked to me, as Myrd didn't speak. "Hello, Rimuru-sama. We have gotten a building plan from Benno-dono. It appears he wants us to build a production plant for the paper he has a patent on in the western nations." the hobgoblin explained it promptly and concisely, while bowing his head. 

To this I nodded, I had nothing against the idea. If anything it would help me avoid angering a certain dragon and spirit when I run out of the paper I made from the trees I cleared with Gluttony on the path to Blumund. My supplies were running dangerously low. "Myne was the one who designed the technique, I will have her talk to Kaijin so he can design a system for the factory to help them turn a profit faster. For now, you may put the factory in the the un-constructed residential district." What I had learned from my time running the city was that splitting the places people worked and lived just made traffic and meant you needed larger roads and more infrastructure to accommodate, so I wanted to avoid that. 

Myrd wrote this down in his note pad, then gave a node while doing his characteristic, "Mmm! Hmm!" Before walked off. He probably already had a plan and knew exactly what he wanted to build before even brining it up to me. The guy may not be much for words but he really was a master when it came to building basically anything. 

After that I resigned to my office, to do paperwork. 

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Myne's pov: 

I was very excited. I was currently talking to a dwarf named Kaijin, he was very friendly. Rimuru had told me to go to his workshop to give him my basic design of a fourdrinier machine. I had replicated it from memory during my time in Ehrenfest. I was already aware of the agreement to keep this owned under Benno, the design was simply shared to Kaijin could help us make more for the factory. As well as possibly improving it, I certainly wasn't an engineer so I did believe Kaijin could. 

"Hm, I understand. The seethe captures the particles of pulp stirred in the water from the wood. Then the rolling wrings it and allows it to rolled off as a sheet." He was thinking while pulling at his beard. He then pulled out a piece of paper from his desk. "Up to now we have simply been pulling shredding the pulp and pressing it into sheets before drying it, so our paper is very thick. I do believe your design is better." He nodded while making the conclusion. 

I was thinking of something, I had something come to mind suddenly. "I remember the idea to have the dryer heated to allow for the drying process to be done more quickly and to allow for even further compression. Though I was not able to find a way to do that in Ehrenfest." I was never able to find a way to do it without electricity. Though I told him about it in a hope he may know a way to do it. 

To this he smiled, and then pulled out a small facet tap with a handle, he lifted the handle off of the facet and she me there was a little crystal with a rune engraved in it inside the handle. "With this you can heat water using the flame rune. I believe there should be a way to do that on your rollers while the operator turns the crank." He smiled proudly at the idea, honestly that already seemed like an improvement over what my old world had with how easy magicules are to produce and use for monsters especially. 

I nodded and smiled while thinking about it. "Thank you, Kaijin-san!" I had a lit up bubbly look in my eyes. "Now, we just need to make a big version. I think it would be best to make big sheets with a few big machines, then cut them down to size with a press." I was essentially just copying the format I assumed factories used in my old world. 

To this he nodded, and then thought about how the machine could be scaled up. After that he got to work immediately, writing down sketches and making smaller models with the bobbles in his workshop. I watched sorta amazed, really. 

Soon he had come up with a design and was already preparing tools and getting assistants to help him. Though he would only be making components for now. I would be helping in any way I could with magic while he did so. 

Currently I was helping shape the roller rods, acting as a sentient source of fire for his forge while he made a ring to shape the rods and have them come out with a consistent diameter. Once he was done he made a magisteel rod out of a set of ingots with my help, and then used the ring to shape it as it cooled, while having me reheat parts that came out improperly. Together we repeated this process many times until we had a total of 16 rollers. 

On each machine there was a set of 4 rollers. The first roller would press the oncoming sheet against a flat plate which would allow the water to flow off into a collection pool for reuse. The next roller would then use a dehydration glyph to clear any leftover water from the first roller. The third would then heat the sheet while compressing it even further, allowing the sheet to be stronger and come out with better quality. Finally the 4th roller had an ice glyph to cool off the sheet before it was separated from the seethe and let off the machine. 

After this, Soei had come to make a seethe for us from his [Steel Thread], it was very impressively strong and light. I wish I had that skill myself. We rigged it into the rolling system we had built together. I was already very excited at this point. I was now very confident in this machine's ability to perform, even if it wasn't done yet. Kaijin was a genius. 

After this, we decided each machine would share the pulp pool, though since we were only building one for reference right now, we just make a small one. After this we decided to design the shredder now. It was a fairly simple affair, kaijin already had a design for a shredder and had just requested my help with the heating to make the parts to size. Once we were done we have a shredder than ran by simply touching the rune on the side, you could then feed wood into it and it would make pulp, which would then be mixed in by a stirring arm in the pool. 

After this we were ready to set the machine in place, I did this myself by levitating it into place. Kaijin had already made each of the rune for the rollers, so all I needed to do was turn the crank and it would use my magicules to run the machine. "Do I do it now?" I asked a bit hesitant. 

Kaijin nodded and put his hand on my shoulder. "You should have the honors, you are clearly very dedicated with this. You helped me through the entire process. It is ready now." I didn't feel that responsible. It was the least I could do, all those spells were really simple after all. 

Though I was still excited to see it work on a large scale. So I put my hand on the crank, and watched as each of the runes started to glow, then began to slowly turn the crack at a consistent pace. I walked as the sheet of pulp made it's way through each roller along the seethe and slowly turned into actual paper. The sheet that had come out the end was already usable, it simply needed to be cut down to side. To this I smiled brightly and was left very satisfied. 

Ultimately this had taken us all day. 

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--2636 words--

--The aura of a monster can have various effects on individuals exposed, all of which is influenced by the will of the monster.--

<I have acquired a link to an article on information on the fourdrinier machine referenced in this very article from your world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_machine > 

(AN: Hope you all enjoyed, this episode was a mix between povs that I plan to try to maintain for the rest of the chapters. I also wanted to have Myne work towards her goal.)