Tiberius''s many tests with the lead doped crystals didn''t show any signs of health risks from operating the crystals, other than the risk of it as a projectile, so I felt confident we could try to grow a larger crystal that I could cut smaller pieces out of.  So, I set up to have a 12-inch fluorite crystal grown, while I worked on getting the smaller quartz chamber made to measure the mass of the crystal more accurately.


    The quartz chamber ended up taking a couple of days to make, since I wanted to use the most transparent quartz I could for one of the sides, so that I could see inside for balancing purposes.  By the time the chamber was done, the lead doped crystal had grown.  From the ambient mana alone it was very heavy.  It''s density was easily twice that of lead, or at least, that''s what it seemed to be.  That perceived density dropped in the pieces that I cut out from the larger crystal.  In all, I cut out eight 2-inch cubes to use for the first set of manascopes.


    Since each of the eight cubes was cut from the same original crystal, they should all have roughly the same properties.  I even took the time to line them up and file their sides down at the same time to ensure they were as identical as possible for our current technology.  I also then stoneshaped a stone cube to use as a reference size for any future lead doped crystals I might want to grow.  Then, I took the time to start getting a mass for one of the cubes.


    That process took a day, since it took a lot of re-opening the quartz chamber to add or subtract a small weight from the balance inside, then waiting for any mana that got in to be consumed before checking a new reading.  Eventually, however, I did get a mass value for one of those cubes.  Knowing their mana-free mass was important for calibrating any manascope I tried to make.


    The scope itself was actually fairly straightforward.  I went with a triple beam balance scale as the basis for the design.  After taking a cut crystal cube to the surface, it seemed like it about doubled in mass, so I set the scale''s three bar weights up such that the largest weight was half the weight of the cut crystal cube, and the two sizes under it were one-twentieth, and one-two-hundredth respectively.  For the purposes of accuracy, only the smallest of the weights can move freely, where as the other two weights have notches they sit in which mark precise multiples.  To make things simple, I then labeled the scale in "crystal units" or "CU", based on the mana-less mass of the crystal.


    Operation is then relatively easy, one just moves the weights on the bars until the balance''s needle marker reads as balanced.  That then lets us get a reading for the ambient mana values in an area with fairly high accuracy, in crystal units.  I built four of them, since I feel like having them available in certain areas for making readings would be useful.


    <hr>


    I took a few days just making readings of mana values in different areas, and at different times of day.  While the mana values don''t change quickly at any given point in time, they aren''t stagnant, and I quickly found that if I just left a balance that was level alone on the surface for about fifteen minutes, it was visibly unbalanced again.  I suppose I shouldn''t be surprised though, since I know that at night time our mana regen rate is lower than during the day.


    The highest ambient mana values during the day are at noon, when the twin suns are overhead.  Then, the mana value from the manascope reads 2.315 CU.  The lowest ambient values, excluding eclipses which I haven''t yet had an opportunity to measure, occur at midnight, at 1.12 CU.  I''ve known about those differences ever since I''ve been out in the world regenerating mana, however.  I''ve even seen it in action plenty of times with the stirling engines working slower at night than during the day.  Unsurprisingly, there is a sharp drop off after sunset, where the mana value drops 0.31 CU in just a few minutes as well.  Though interestingly, it seems like a little more than half of the ambient mana value comes from the smaller of our stars.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Underground however, the mana values move much less based on the day night cycle, though they do move a little.  The mean value in the fluorite growth room is actually higher than I expected, despite only being 1/1000th the mana regen rate.  If it was 1/1000th the daytime rate, I''d have expected 0.002 CU, which would have been unreadable.  Instead, I measured 0.095 CU, or about 1/20th the level.  It was quite a bit higher than I expected, so I was worried that maybe the room wasn''t as mana proof anymore.  So I tested my own mana regen again in the room, and got the same value as before, about 1/1000th the surface regen.


    That would explain why the fluorite we grew down there would still exhibit properties as if exposed to significantly more mana than I had thought.  On one hand, I''m glad that I actually did try to measure this accurately with a mechanical device, on the other hand, it''s opened up a whole bunch of new questions.  I''m regretting that the testing lab down here is partially dismantled and destroyed, because I''d liked to have seen what the ambient mana in there was, by comparison.


    My working hypothesis is that our bodies actively use a certain amount of mana, and so the value of mana I see as a stat is only actually free mana that I can use, minus some flat value that my body uses.  Though it might not even be flat.  It could be survival based, where the body uses more mana if it can, but only keeps vital systems going in low mana situations.


    It''s a shame I didn''t have the manascope developed before I took the surface crystal away, because I''d liked to have seen how it affected ambient mana levels on the surface.  I could, at least, verify that the mana levels near our 2 foot crystals were higher than the areas further away from them, but underground crystals generally don''t leak that much mana into the air, and we usually use them in conjuction with water as a conductor for the mana.


    I did, in our laboratory setting, submerge one of the scales to very slowly try to determine the crystal reading there.  As it would turn out, the balances I had made can''t read the value.  I maxed them out.  I''m not that surprised though, as the mana regen rate when touching a mana crystal is incredibly high normally.  I''m going to make a balance with larger weights to try to measure the mana crystal values next.


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    For the high capacity manascope, I took two days to make it and the precision ends up a bit worse in order to keep it compact enough for transport.  I ended up getting a reading of 15.6 CU for the the 2-foot mana crystal and water setup.  Which comes out to about 6.8 times the noon mana regen rate.  Of course, that all assumes that this ends up being accurate for larger mana rates.  I''ve seen some evidence that fluorite crystals, especially smaller ones, can seemingly level off in their effects at higher mana amounts, when they are seemingly saturated with mana.


    For similar reasons, I''m now second guessing the readings in the fluorite crystal growth area.  It could be that the crystals also have an outsized effect at low mana levels, and that their efficiency simply drops the higher the ambient mana is.  I have devised an experiment to gain insight into that.  I''m going to use a heat fluorite crystal, a bunch of quartz blocks, a thermometer, and a large piece of metal.


    My plan is to use the heat fluorite to heat the metal for a fixed period of time in a chamber of quartz blocks.  That chamber will be set up like the old freezer design, where I can pull a full side off quickly.  I''ll check the temperature after a period of time, and then let the metal cool after recording the temperature.  I''ll then remove some of the quartz blocks, and repeat the experiment.  I''ll perform it on the surface at the same time each day, deep underground, and partially underground, to get multiple locations of data.


    Then, I''ll plot the various data points to see if there is any difference in the linearity of the data.  It''s not foolproof, but it should at least provide me with some amount of insight into what''s happening.


    <hr>


    The whole experimental process at all the locations ended up taking just over two months time.  Ultimately, the lower mana environments seem to be fairly linearly linked, showing no signs of any change as the mana level rose.  On the surface, however, I did notice a very slight downward curve in my data readings, but given the ambient temperature changes day to day, it''s hard to determine if that data was just noise or not.  I''d need to have the experiment run for months on end to try to get the noise out.


    It did, however, make me fairly confident that in low mana environments, the lead doped crystal is probably reading accurate values.  Meaning our fluorite growth area is most likely getting more mana than I had previously thought.