NOVEL NEXT 210. Letters From Mainland
The pale, translucent naphtha glimmered faintly in the beaker, its clarity mocking the filth it had once been drawn from. Ravenna swirled it slowly, her reflection rippling in the liquid.
"Smokeless gunpowder…" she whispered, the words heavy, dangerous, forbidden. The concept was simple enough when laid out in the articles and half-legible diagrams she had scraped from the Reputation System's internet access. But the execution: volatile, unstable, prone to catastrophe.
She was no scientist. Not even close. She was just an office worker once, and now working her way through the sciences of two worlds. But unlike those fumbling hands of past alchemists and scientists who had burned themselves to ash, she had one advantage: The Office. The Origin Domain itself. A place where time could be rewound, environments could be sterilized, mistakes erased before they consumed her.
She placed the naphtha aside and cracked her knuckles, her eyes scanning the half-dozen floating panes of instructions she had summoned from the internet. Some were scholarly articles, others survivalist manuals. None of them agreed on the exact procedure, and all of them carried warnings written in large, panicked text:
EXTREMELY VOLATILE. DO NOT ATTEMPT WITHOUT PROPER EQUIPMENT.
Ravenna smirked, muttering, "Proper equipment is what I make of it."
She dragged over another barrel, this one filled with a different refined fraction, her hands steady despite the pounding in her chest. "Nitric acid first. Without it, there's no nitrocellulose. Without nitrocellulose, there's no base for smokeless powder."
She exhaled slowly. "Alright. Step one."
The process was grueling. Time stretched as she distilled, cooled, then recombined fractions with cautious precision, using the time set setting, experimentation that should have taken days was just done in a few minutes and hours. The Origin Domain hummed obediently, obeying every command:
[ Select Area: Retort ]
Set Temperature: 200°C
[ Select Area: Receiver ]
Liquid hissed, vapors curled like serpents in glass tubes. Drops gathered, acid forming, clear yet caustic. Ravenna's gloves, stitched from Miverick fish hides, still trembled with each transfer. She whispered to herself like a mantra: "Nitric acid. Nitric acid. Careful. Don't breathe it in. Don't spill it. Don't die."
By the end of it, she had a small vial. Barely a few milliliters of sharp, biting liquid that fumed like an angry beast. She lifted it gingerly, eyes burning slightly from just being near it.
"Now… sulfuric acid. Stabilizer."
That part nearly ended her experiment. When she combined her crude sulfuric with the nitric, a hiss like a serpent filled the air. The beaker trembled. A violent foam surged up the glass walls. Ravenna's eyes went wide.
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"Oh, fucki—"
The mixture exploded.
Not a fireball: just a violent burst of pressure and corrosive spray that should have blinded her, melted skin from bone. But thanks to the Origin Domain, Ravenna had set time to a few minutes earlier instantly in the settings, stopping it.
Ravenna, chest heaving, slammed her hand against the hovering over the panel.
In an instant, the foam vanished. The beaker was whole again. Her hands were clean. The Domain's hum returned, steady and indifferent. Ravenna collapsed into her chair, laughing breathlessly.
"Hah… I nearly died."
Her laughter faded into a shiver. She stared at her hands. She was recreating miracles of modern chemistry through brute force and divine cheat codes.
"Focus," she told herself harshly, slapping her own cheek. "No fear. No panic. Again. This time, slower."
The second attempt worked better. She adjusted the Domain settings, controlling the precise heat and humidity in separate areas, isolating fumes before they could build. Drop by drop, she mixed sulfuric and nitric acid, her grip steady this time. The mixture swirled, dangerous but contained.
Then came the cellulose. She dunked a strip of linen cloth into the acids. The fibers hissed, transforming. Ravenna's lips curled into a grin. "There it is. The first step toward fire without flame."
But nitrocellulose was only the base. She needed to refine it further, blend it with stabilizers, and ultimately craft the legendary smokeless powder.
She worked for hours in the domain, dissolving nitrocellulose in solvents, re-precipitating, drying, grinding. Once, she mishandled a batch, and it ignited with a terrifying flash. The explosion rattled the infinite walls of the Domain, scorching the table black. Again, she rolled time back, undoing the failure in seconds.
By the third attempt, she had something stable: a fine, pale powder that shimmered faintly in the light. She placed a small amount into a sealed test chamber she had rigged with steel plating.
"Set Temperature: 200."
The powder vanished in a flash. A thunderclap cracked through the chamber, leaving behind nothing but a wisp of white smoke. No sooty residue. No lingering trail. Just clean, raw power.
Ravenna's eyes gleamed. Her heart hammered. She had done it.
"Smokeless gunpowder…" she whispered again, her grin feral now. "Not black powder. Not crude fireworks. This is the future of war."
When she finally executed the [Exit Origin Domain] prompt, the sterile white hum vanished, and Ravenna opened her eyes back in the study of the Lord's Castle. Familiarity returned all at once: the smell of parchment, wax, and ink; the rays of a bit muted winter sunlight spilling across her desk; the weight of responsibility pressing down heavier than the atmosphere of the Domain ever did again.
She exhaled, rolling her shoulders, and glanced at the gilded clock ticking quietly against the far wall.
"Three hours…" she muttered, narrowing her eyes at the hands. The domain had consumed her entire focus, but in the real world, hardly any time had passed. "But the last time… I was inside for nearly half an hour, and the outside world matched it minute for minute." She rubbed her temple, brows furrowed in thought. "So there isn't a fixed ratio. Time dilation isn't constant, it changes based on… what? My intent? The task? Or maybe… the will of the system itself?"
The thought unsettled her more than she liked to admit. She had already accepted the Domain as a new feature, a loophole in reality granted by the Reputation System but an unpredictable loophole was dangerous. Still, she could not deny its value. A place to experiment with death itself and walk away unscathed.
Her musings were cut short by a brisk knock at the door.
"Your Highness," came Alice's familiar voice, muffled but sharp with efficiency. "A number of letters have arrived from the mainland"
Ravenna's lips curved into a knowing smile. "Hmm" She leaned back in her chair, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear before calling out with calm authority, "Come in."