December 12 arrived.
Jin found himself in Rubina’s workshop within the Onogoro Island Research Institute. He had been dragged there almost by force immediately after breakfast.
"Look at my golems, Jin-sama!"
"Hmm?"
Two golems lay deactivated on the workbench.
"After you let me ride on your boat the day before yesterday, I finally realized how much I still have to learn. I want you to look at these two and tell me what’s wrong with them."
"I see."
Jin was a little impressed that Rubina referred to them as "these two" as if they were people rather than units. He reached out and patted her head.
"All right, all right. I’ll take a look."
Since she had already partially disassembled them, Jin was able to inspect the internals without much effort.
"The frame is stainless steel, and the joints have a solid adamantite coating."
She seemed to be following the basics strictly in those areas.
"The magical muscle is... an interesting material."
It was a biological material from a magical beast that Jin was seeing for the first time.
"That’s Bowall," Rubina explained.
"Bowall! I’ve never used that before, so I didn't recognize it."
The Bowall was a whale-like magical beast inhabiting the northern seas, though it occasionally migrated south. Large specimens reached twenty meters in length, though ten meters was more common.
While generally docile for magical beasts, they had a habit of ramming into large floating objects they perceived as enemies, which occasionally led to ships being destroyed. Their normal swimming speed was around thirty kilometers per hour.
"Ah, I suppose that's because the free ether concentration distribution has been corrected."
Jin recalled hearing from either Sion or Lordtoss that there were more cases of northern magical beasts moving into southern waters lately.
"So, is this Bowall skin? No, it’s the muscle fibers themselves."
"Yeah. It’s the standard material here on Onogoro Island."
"I see."
When Jin checked the material with Analyze, he found it to be even more efficient than materials harvested from dragonic eels or sandworms.
"I suppose that’s the advantage of using the muscle directly."
However, Jin pointed out that muscle should have poorer preservative qualities compared to leather.
Rubina nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, that’s the catch. They start to fall apart after about a year, so we have to replace them periodically."
Since a single Bowall provided enough magical muscle for a hundred golems, this kind of maintenance cycle was feasible.
"That makes sense. It explains why they’re attached in a way that’s so easy to swap out."
Jin continued his evaluation.
"The precision and synchronization of the ether converter and the mana driver are a bit lacking."
"They are?"
"Yeah. You’re getting a bit too much conversion loss. Still... for a ten-year-old to build something like this, it’s quite an achievement."
Jin looked back on his own life, realizing that when he was ten, he was still in Japan and had no access to magic at all.
He pointed out a few other minor technical details, but overall, Jin judged the work to be excellent.
"I’d give it an eighty-five out of a hundred."
"Thank you, Jin-sama! Now I understand a bit better where I was falling short."
From Jin’s perspective, her work was still "unrefined," but it was only natural that she lacked his level of maturity and experience. She was only ten, after all.
"Just keep building things. You’ll get there."
"Yeah, I’ll do my best!"
With Jin watching over her, Rubina began reassembling the two golems. Since she incorporated the adjustments he suggested, their performance was likely to improve by twenty to thirty percent.
＊ ＊ ＊
"I just had a thought."
After finishing his check of Rubina’s golems, Jin consulted with Trihart again.
"I’m thinking of inviting the top three finishers from yesterday’s race to Hourai Island for a two-day, one-night trip."
"To Hourai Island?"
"Yes. I can’t take everyone, so I thought I’d limit it to the top three. What do you think?"
"I think that’s a wonderful idea!"
Trihart didn’t just agree; he was ecstatic. "I’m almost jealous myself!"
"I-I see."
Jin would have liked to take everyone who was interested, but given the numbers, he decided to start with a small group.
＊ ＊ ＊
"Is it true?! To the legendary Hourai Island?"
"I want to go! Please!!"
"I’m going, I’m going! Take me with you!!"
As expected, all three were incredibly enthusiastic.
"All right, then. We’ll be leaving tomorrow."
"Understood!"
The three of them dashed off to prepare, barely hearing Jin’s parting words that they only needed to bring their personal essentials for the night.
"You’re welcome to bring your golems and automata too!" Jin shouted after them.
"Oka—y!" came the distant reply.
Jin gave a wry smile and turned to Trihart.
"Will you come along as their chaperone?"
It went without saying that Trihart accepted immediately.
＊ ＊ ＊
And so, at 8:00 PM on the night of December 13.
The Warp Gate to Hourai Island via the Shinkai relay station had already been set up, and the group used it to begin their journey.
"Whoa, what is this place?!"
Rubina was wide-eyed with curiosity at the interior of Shinkai, but Jin couldn't let them linger and hurried them toward the next Warp Gate leading to Hourai Island.
They emerged in the basement of the laboratory.
"This way."
Jin took the lead, guiding the party. First, they stepped outside.
"Huh... oh, right."
While it had been 8:00 PM on Onogoro Island, it was 8:00 AM here.
Rubina and the others were momentarily disoriented, but they quickly made sense of it once they remembered the time difference.
"I see. Now I understand why Jin-sama insisted we take a nap even if we weren't sleepy. It really helps with the jet lag," Natalia said, nodding to herself.
Then, Jin spoke his usual greeting.
"Welcome to Hourai Island."