The appearance of Fuelstone is like pink quartz. Its surface has many bumps and irregularities, and because light scatters and reflects in all directions, it has a somewhat dull coloration.
Its greatest feature is that it generates heat when pressure is applied.
And its hardness, though not measured precisely, is about the same as quartz.
Then what happens if pressure exceeding its hardness is applied?
“First, let’s try it.”
She set the Fuelstone into a hardness tester and applied force.
“Oh? It deforms.”
Under gradually increasing pressure, she confirmed that the blade edge bit slightly into the Fuelstone.
However, after that, with a dull sound, the Fuelstone shattered.
“W-whoa.”
The shattered Fuelstone, emitting high heat, visibly shrank smaller and smaller.
“That’s incredible heat, but it vanished all at once.”
The crushed Fuelstone rapidly generated heat and disappeared as it lost its mass.
Presumably, every fragment produced was judged as having high pressure applied and generated heat. Because it shattered, each individual mass became smaller, and she thought the mass disappearance became faster.
“Hmm. So it does undergo plastic deformation, at least. Oops, the hardness tester broke. That’s an insane amount of heat.”
From the heat emitted by the Fuelstone, the parts of the hardness tester that were weak to heat were completely destroyed. Resin components and wire insulation had melted away, and even the metal parts seemed to have become loose and rattling due to thermal expansion.
“Let’s do it underwater! We need a device that can operate underwater.”
So she urgently requested that <Ringo> manufacture an underwater pressurizing machine.
Since it would take some time, she decided to continue verification by hand until it was finished.
First, she conducted the same kind of high-pressure crushing experiment underwater.
She clamped it in a vise and applied force.
“Hmm. Underwater, heat generation is minimal. Most of the crushed chunks stayed intact. The tiny fragments disappeared, though. Breaking it is possible if it’s underwater!”
Underwater, the heat generation phenomenon was suppressed.
If she wanted to make fine fragments, it seemed she should crush it underwater.
Also, because she pressurized it underwater, she could clearly confirm plastic deformation.
The contact surfaces with the vise had deformed into slightly flatter shapes.
“Once the pressurizer is done, let’s do precise measurements! If it has plasticity, not just cuttability, we might be able to shape it to some extent!”
With Fuelstone, the amount of heat generation changed depending on the pressure applied.
However, with the jagged shape as it naturally came from mining, it was hard to apply uniform pressure.
Heating began from the contact surface, and the heat output differed depending on location.
“Well, in the end, the heat that’s generated makes the whole Fuelstone start generating heat...”
In that process, some kind of loss seemed to occur, and the worse the Fuelstone’s shape, the more its efficiency tended to be worse. This was still only a guess, since she had not yet gathered statistics.
“If we can flatten the end surfaces, it seems like the heating efficiency will go up!”
For the moment, in order to measure good and bad efficiency, she decided to mass-produce Fuelstone chunks with flattened end surfaces.
Because the work had to be done underwater, she could not use ordinary machine tools.
It would take time, but she had no choice but to use a robot arm and grind them down one by one.
“Hmm... An unexpected waiting time showed up. ...Alright, let’s analyze some of the physical-property records during heat generation!”
She analyzed recorded data from after pressurizing a Fuelstone chunk to generate heat, up until the heat generation settled. It recorded various physical properties—infrared, visible light, radar points, weight, electromagnetic waves, and more.
“Clamp the side and pressurize. Oh. Heat generation starts on the pressurized surface!
In about 0.1 seconds, the heat generation transitions to the entire chunk. Interesting—does this heat propagation depend on mass?
Later, let’s confirm it with a different one as well.
Aha, if the chunk’s shape isn’t uniform, it looks like this heat propagation speed changes!
Let’s add it to the verification items!
After heat generation starts, mass disappearance is... basically a uniform decrease. However, only at the moment heat generation begins, the part that decreases is only the heat-generating region.
Mass disappearance is linked with heat generation. As expected, mass is being directly converted into heat!
Turning mass into heat even though it’s not matter–antimatter annihilation... I have no idea what that even means...”
Incidentally, in nuclear fission and nuclear fusion as well, there is a phenomenon where mass is converted into heat. Roughly speaking, due to the law of conservation of energy, the sum of mass and thermal energy before the reaction equals the sum of mass and thermal energy after the reaction.
“But this Fuelstone isn’t undergoing nuclear reactions or nuclear fusion. In the first place, if its constituent molecules were disappearing, the amount of heat produced is far too small.
So we can infer that Fuelstone is not a normal molecular structure!”
The elements of Fuelstone could not be identified, and no matter how many times she tried, no consistent result came out.
That meant it could be considered that it was not an atom made of electrons, protons, and neutrons.
“I did observe it with an electron microscope, but it looks like a normal substance, you know. It does look like a single type of atom is lined up.”
From appearances, the atoms were arranged regularly, and it was certainly made from atoms—or something close to them—gathered together. But its true identity was unknown.
“As for physical properties, at least it doesn’t conduct electricity. I applied a pretty high voltage, but there wasn’t even a hint of dielectric breakdown. Couldn’t it be used as a high-quality insulator?”
Leaving the fine details to <Ringo>, Asahi thought.
“If you interpret it in magic-fantasy terms, for example, something that looks like atoms made of magic power. Since they aren’t atoms, they don’t conduct electricity, and therefore dielectric breakdown doesn’t happen. Hmm, that’s just delusion. Well, whatever.”
Since several Fuelstone pieces with shaped end surfaces were finished, she continued the experiment.
“Now then, this is the perfect size for this vise. Let’s apply pressure!”
After that, Asahi recorded various cases of pressurization and heat generation.
The structure that was lost due to heat generation was from the surface. Because the internal structures were not lost, it did not become porous and hollowed-out.
Also, when high pressure was applied, the pressurized surface collapsed while rapidly generating heat. In this case, only the pressurized surface became ultra-high temperature, while the interior maintained heat generation similar to normal pressure application.
However, heating due to the pressurized surface’s high temperature seemed to promote heat generation, and as a result, the entire chunk rapidly generated heat while disappearing.
While trying several such combinations, Asahi discovered an important phenomenon.
“Hm? Both ends are generating heat... hm?”
In a mere spur-of-the-moment combination, she clamped two Fuelstone chunks in a vise and applied pressure, but it looked like heat generation began only at both ends that were in contact with the vise.
“Hmm... Let’s try it underwater.”
She clamped two Fuelstones and applied pressure. Nothing looked strange about the reaction itself.
But even when she stopped pressurizing and removed the vise, the two Fuelstones showed no sign of coming apart.
“Well, isn’t this a huge discovery? Let’s look into it.”
When two chunks were pressurized from both sides, pressure would occur not only at both sides but also at the central contact surface. From her observations so far, the expected result would be that heat generation began at both sides and at the center.
But that did not happen.
Heat generation occurred from both sides, and the central portion did not generate heat.
“Hmm... They’re beautifully stuck together!”
The Fuelstone chunks, with their end surfaces in contact, had their contact surfaces cleanly fused together. With ordinary materials, such a phenomenon would not occur. If every impurity were removed and the surfaces were matched at the atomic level, bonding might be possible, but fusing so completely that no seam °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° could even be observed, in such a rough environment, was abnormal.
“Well, well! Do they fuse if you simply press them together?”
Continuing verification while changing various conditions, she identified the conditions for crystal fusion.
If pressure was applied while Fuelstones were in contact, the contact surface fused.
Once at least one-twelfth of the surface area fused, it was treated as a single crystal.
If pressurized outside water, heat generation and mass disappearance occurred, so fusion was effectively impossible.
If pressurized underwater, if it was above a certain size, the mass lost was almost zero.
The contact surfaces needed to match, but if the surface irregularities were about 1/100 of a millimeter, plastic deformation would make them fuse completely.
“I see. If it’s sand-like, it’s probably difficult, but if it’s chunks of a few centimeters, if we combine them well, it looks like we can fuse them cleanly!”
Thus, through Asahi’s investigation, a method for manufacturing gigantic Fuelstone was established.
