The moment Shane finished speaking, everyone's eyes locked onto him in unison.
Seeing the flash of hope in his eyes, Alicia didn't rush him. Instead, she nodded gently. “Please, do tell.”
However, Shane didn't speak. He walked over to the two failed Ashstones and knelt on one knee.
Reaching out, his fingers lightly touched one of the inert Ashstones. Immediately, he felt a faint, almost imperceptible fluctuation of mana at his fingertips.
As a necromancer, he had once systematically studied alchemy.
Therefore, he was no stranger to Ashstones.
The principles of alchemy in this world, to put it simply, boiled down to the precise manipulation of elements and matter. In this regard, death magic and alchemy shared common ground on certain levels.
Thus, Shane closed his eyes and sent a thread of subtle mana into the interior of the Ashstone.
Soon, he sensed that deep inside, the delicate fire elemental circuit had ruptured in multiple places, as if it had been sliced by tiny blades.
However, as Shane's perception delved deeper, he captured a slight difference.
Generally speaking, normal magic interference would cause the circuits to rupture randomly. Yet, the damage to these Ashstones possessed a subtle pattern.
This kind of damage was typically the result of an alchemical product being subjected to resonance at a specific frequency, causing its weak points to collapse simultaneously.
This discovery stirred something in Shane's mind.
He slowly opened his eyes, his gaze sweeping across every face around him.
Most of the guards watched him with pursed lips or furrowed brows.
Meanwhile, the attendants held their arms to ward off the chill, looking at him with expectant eyes.
On the surface, there didn't seem to be any major issues with most of them.
“Mr. Leynas.”
Seeing Shane stare at the people around them for so long, Alicia broke the silence. She walked over to his side, knelt down, and cast her gaze upon the Ashstone in his hand. “Can these stones be repaired?”
Shane didn't look at her immediately. Instead, he kept his eyes on the Ashstone, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing its surface.
After a few seconds, he finally spoke. “Yes.”
A soft collective sigh of relief echoed through the camp, and the faces of the guards and attendants relaxed.
But Shane's next words instantly froze the hope that had just arisen:
“But it will take time.”
He looked up at Alicia, his eyes devoid of any emotional fluctuation. “Completely repairing the internal alchemical circuits will take at least three hours, and it requires a quiet environment.”
“In our current situation, I cannot do it.”
As his voice fell, the surrounding air seemed to grow even colder.
Several guards' expressions instantly soured, and their hands tightened around their weapons.
One of the younger guards couldn't help but mutter under his breath, “So you can't fix them... What's the point of saying all that then...”
Though his voice was low, it was exceptionally clear in the quiet camp.
Alicia didn't immediately reprimand the guard, because her gaze remained locked on Shane's face. There wasn't a shred of doubt in her violet eyes. “I believe you have a solution.”
She knew that if Shane only wanted to say "it can't be fixed," he wouldn't have spoken up at all. Since he had stepped forward, he must have a plan.
Sure enough, the corner of Shane's mouth twitched slightly, and he said, “I do.”
He nodded, exuding a strange sense of confidence. “While I cannot repair the Ashstones right now, I can solve the heating problem.”
With that, he set down the Ashstone, stood up, and brushed the sand off his hands.
Then, under everyone's bewildered gazes, he raised his hand and lightly swept his five fingers through the air.
“Buzz...”
Mana trembled softly as three patches of flat sand at the edge of the camp suddenly bulged upward.
Immediately after, three grayish-white skeletons crawled out from beneath the sand, quickly assembling themselves into the skeletal frames of three canines.
“Undead creations!”
A guard cried out in alarm, instinctively drawing the longsword at his waist.
The other guards instantly went into a combat stance, the sound of unsheathed weapons ringing out one after another.
Elon's face shifted, a deep furrow forming between his brows. However, he made no move, merely adopting a posture of pure disgust.
“Stop!”
Alicia barked authoritatively. The guards' movements froze instantly, but they did not loosen their grip on their weapons, their eyes locked dead onto the three skeletal hounds.
Shane ignored all of this.
He didn't even spare a glance at the guards who had drawn their swords. He simply snapped his fingers.
“Snap.”
The three skeletal hounds moved in unison.
But they didn't pounce on anyone. Instead, they turned and ran toward a windward sand slope just outside the camp.
Then, under the bewildered gazes of everyone, they began to frantically dig and claw at the sand with their front paws.
Sand flew everywhere as the three skeletal hounds dug swiftly and aggressively. It didn't take long for them to excavate three large pits, each half a meter deep.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Finally, Elon couldn't help but speak up, his voice dry and carrying clear discomfort. “Summoning undead creatures... to dig pits?”
Only then did Shane turn his head to look at the crowd.
His gaze swept over every face filled with vigilance, confusion, and bewilderment, finally resting on Alicia.
A peculiar smile played on his face.
“I prepared them for you.”
These words were like a drop of water splashed into boiling oil.
“You!”
The young guard who had muttered earlier finally lost his temper. He drew his longsword and pointed it straight at Shane, his voice trembling with rage. “Are you insulting us?! What do you mean you dug pits for us... Are you planning to bury us?”
Although the other guards didn't speak, the veins on their hands holding their weapons bulged, and the hostility in their eyes was on the verge of erupting.
Even Alicia's brows furrowed. Clearly, his phrasing was far too easy to misunderstand.
Yet Shane remained unhurried. He didn't even look at the sword pointed at him. He simply bent down and scooped up a handful of sand from beside his feet.
“The temperature difference between day and night in the Golden Sea is extreme,”
Shane began, sounding like a teacher lecturing his students. “During the day, the surface sand absorbs heat, reaching temperatures of over fifty degrees Celsius at its peak. At night, it radiates that heat, and the surface temperature drops rapidly.”
“But...”
He held the sand in his hand up to his eyes. “Sand is an excellent insulator. Just twenty centimeters below the surface, the rate of temperature drop slows down significantly.”
“Below thirty centimeters, a substantial amount of the daytime heat is still retained.”
With that, he walked over to one of the pits dug by the skeletal hounds, knelt down, and reached his hand into the bottom of the pit.
After a few seconds, he withdrew his hand and held his palm up. “Feel it.”
Alicia was the first to walk over.
Without the slightest hesitation, she reached out and touched Shane's palm.
What met her fingertips was not the expected chill, but a gentle, comforting warmth.
Her eyes widened instantly.
“This is...”
“The heat the sand absorbed during the day is still trapped down there.”
Shane withdrew his hand and stood up, looking at the three intact Ashstones. “If you simply place them on the ground, the heat from the Ashstones will quickly dissipate into the air.”
“But if we bury them in the sand at the bottom of a deep pit and cover them with something...”
He walked to the edge of the pit and stomped on the sandy wall. “The sand layer will form an insulating barrier, locking the heat at the bottom of the pit.”
“This way, the heat from the Ashstones will accumulate in this enclosed space, which is enough to keep five or six people warm.”
“And three pits are enough for everyone.”
At this point, he glanced at the crowd, seeing the confusion on their faces, and continued, “Furthermore, the sand itself retains residual warmth. With a dual heat source, this method will be far more effective than simply using Ashstones.”
Once his explanation was finished, the camp fell into dead silence.
Only the howling wind and the rustling sound of the skeletal hounds digging the pits remained.
The guards looked at each other, the anger on their faces gradually replaced by confusion.
Elon stared at the sandpit, the deep furrow between his brows relaxing slightly as if he were carefully considering the possibility.
Finally, an older guard spoke in a low voice, “Is this... really feasible?”
There was no longer any hostility in his tone, only skepticism.
Shane didn't argue. He simply walked over to the Ashstones, picked up an intact one, and walked to the edge of the first excavated pit.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, he placed the Ashstone at the bottom of the pit and lightly covered it with sand.
Then, he took a few steps back and waited quietly.
At first, there was no change.
But gradually, someone noticed that the originally freezing air around the mouth of the pit seemed... not as biting anymore?
A bold attendant cautiously approached the pit and hovered his hand over the opening.
A few seconds later, he snapped his head up, his face filled with disbelief. “It's warm! There's actually heat rising up!”
These words seemed to flip a switch.
The guards put away their weapons and gathered around in curiosity.
One hand, two hands... more and more hands reached toward the opening of the pit, feeling the warmth rising from deep within the sand.
“It really works...”
“It's so warm down there...”
“This method is brilliant!”
Low exclamations of awe spread through the crowd.
The originally tense atmosphere relaxed at a visible rate.
Alicia didn't join the crowd.
She stood where she was, looking at Shane, her lips slowly curving upward.
“Shane Leynas.”
The princess's voice rang out softly, low enough that only the two of them could hear. “You have given me yet another surprise.”
Shane turned his head and looked at her.
Their eyes met, and both saw a hint of sincere admiration and appreciation in each other's gaze.
Then, Shane walked over to the damaged Ashstones, picked them up, and silently went to sit in an empty corner to study the broken magic circuits.
In the distance, the druid, Elon, looked at Shane's figure and couldn't help but let out a bitter smile.
He had been schooled by this guy yet again.
Rate on N.U.
