Chapter 140: Demonstration
The moment I pushed the cord into the socket… felt weirdly flat.
On one end, it was a groundbreaking moment of not only proving that a higher-level energy converter could work and transform more electric current into spiritual energy than what a simple USB charger could provide… But also, it was the first time when this device would be made to work in the plain view of people beyond me, Claire, or Chihiro!
Still, from the perfectly practical point of view, all I did was push a cable into a socket.
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From a mortal point of view, nothing much happened either, save for how the device was now connected to a live current.
All it took to change one's opinion over what was going on, however, was a single look at the air around the device… No, the air in the room with a cultivator's sense to realize just how massive of a moment… No, how fucking historical of a moment it was!
"It works…" Chihiro muttered as if he refused to believe everything would go as planned up to the very last moment.
'An approach that leaves him with nothing but happy surprises, not bad,' I thought, stopping myself from grinning out like an idiot, something I was tired enough to actually do if I failed to control myself properly!
"Sir, it appears that the device is indeed what it was told to be, but…"
From the series of murmurs that exploded within the small crowd, I've managed to pick out the most interesting part, the report of the cultivator that Clayton's guests brought over to ensure they weren't just getting scammed by some crafty device of the battery-powered perpetum-mobile kind.
"Excuse me," one of Clayton's guests raised their hand as they spoke up. "Would it be possible for our expert to examine the device?"
I gritted my teeth.
'It was obvious they were going to try something like this, but…'
At this point, I couldn't expect the other party to have equally as hard of a time understanding the way in which the device worked as both Claire and Chihiro had when I first brought it up to them.
But that didn't mean I was left with no other options but to either refuse their request or allow them to pretty much learn everything they needed to know about the principle it works on.
"I'm sorry, but inspecting the prototype…" I shook my head at the obvious notion of refusal. Yet, before the mood of the crowd could be affected by it, I raised my face and smiled at all the guests. "I cannot ignore your worries of this all being just a show to make you believe in something that doesn't actually exist just yet!"
I then grinned from ear to ear as I closed my hands over my chest.
"I'm just a lone craftsman, not a massive company debuting with a device that's not finished yet and thus making a fake demo of its ability to fool future customers and shareholders alike!" I exclaimed, neatly connecting the moment to the story of a certain IT giant that rapidly rose to become one of the economic powerhouses not only in its country of origin but in the entire world…
Only for that same giant to collapse the day most governments put a stop to the manipulative and predatory practices it implemented to retain its position in the market and manipulate its existing consumers to stop them from switching over to objectively better and cheaper alternatives.
"That's why while asking to inspect the device when all its secrets are out in the open…" I shook my head, substituting the direct refusal with just a slight movement.
The meaning was the same… but not spelling the refusal out was still a small trick that allowed me to minimize the cost of refusing an open request like that.
"That's why, I'm more than happy to have you watch how I assemble one with parts you will be able to confirm to be standard issue so that we can all see if it actually works!"
Not waiting for anyone to have their shot at wreaking my pace, I simply turned my head around…
Only for a bunch of Chihiro's men to come over, each carrying a huge, plastic box in their hands. And even before they arrived, just by reading the huge labels slapped on the side of each of those boxes, I could breathe out a sigh of relief.
Both the circuit boards I've spent the entire night soldering but also the plastic cases for the device were there. That point was only to be expected, though, given how we brought them over in the very same car we rode to this place.
It was the third box, however, that I couldn't be sure to be at the location… not until the moment I saw Chihiro's man bring it over.
A box filled with the most crucial element of the device, and arguably the most expensive part of it, save for the branding and the idea costs that would need to be added the day we would try to figure out how to price it.
"Now, if I could ask all of you for a bit of attention," I called out right as Chihiro's men put the boxes down all around me, allowing me to quickly reach out and assemble a small array from all the pieces I needed to construct a prototype.
The process itself… was surprisingly easy.
All I had to do was grab the casing, push the cord into its designated hole by slightly bending away a locking piece of plastic, screw in the circuit board roughly in the middle of the casing, pull the cables out of the charging cord, and wrap them around the power pins on the circuit board, confirm there was no damage to the board itself before adding a total of five big Spricur stones into five designated spots at the other end of the casing before finally connecting the stones to the circuit with a set of specially designed cables with syringe-like penetrator at their outer end allowing me to stab the wire inside of the stone.
"Now, all that's left is to beautify this product, but I will leave this responsibility to the man who so kindly offered to set up a whole new factory just to build plastic toppers for it…" I muttered as I raised the finished device up into the air to showcase it to all while I sarcastically joked around a bit, to the detriment of the fucker that dared to speak up against me before.
And a moment of laughter later, I moved with this device to another socket, before pushing the cable in place and holding the device up, allowing the crowd's expert to check it out.
The man himself stood silent for a moment as he closed his eyes and reached out with his spirituality towards the device… Only to then take a step back and slowly open his eyes.
At first, he simply stared at me with his eyes wide open, as if he simply couldn't believe what he was seeing. Then, however, the man cleared his throat as he composed himself only to turn towards his boss and nod his head.
"It's working, sir," the cultivator reported with a complex mix of emotions fighting for dominance over his face. "This device actually works as the mayor described."