Chapter 13: Eyes of Science
Kohaku and I dueled against Kinro and Ginro, with both sides giving it their all in the fight. However, the guard brothers' strikes were too shallow, while I was putting too much power behind my attacks - which was good when I actually hit something, but also bad, 'cause I used up a lot of energy when I missed. After sparring for a while, Kohaku told me to take a break, while she worked with the guard brothers - she would give me a one-on-one match later, so that she could help me with aiming and timing my strikes. I decided to go over to where Senku, Chrome, and Suika were watching, and see how they were doing with their assignment.
"While Gen's out deceiving Tsukasa, we're going to get started on that cure-all drug." said Senku.
"Yeah!" said Chrome, his tone excited. "So, what are we making with science next?"
"There's a material that's just as important for building a civilization as iron," Senku replied. "It was the first man-made material in history, synthesized using science… glass."
"What's that?" Chrome asked, his tone confused. "Aren't we going to make all sorts of drugs, now that we have electricity and all that?"
"Yeah, we are," Senku replied. "But clay pots are no longer going to cut it for our happy chemistry experiments, if we want to make the cure-all sulfa drug. Glass can stand up to just about any chemical, and it's the foundation of chemistry."
"From what I know about it, it's a pretty easy process to get it," I added. "It's also very delicate, but also tough and durable, and you can even see through it, which means you can observe the chemicals inside."
"Seriously?!" Chrome asked, a wide grin spreading over his face. "That's bad!"
Senku let out a chuckle, looked over at Suika with a mischievous smile, and then said, "To top it off, once glass is acquired, we might finally get the chance to yank off that melon - take a look at Great Detective Suika, and finally see that mysterious mug."
Wait a minute - he was going to unmask Suika?! But what if there was a reason for why she didn't want her face to be seen?! What if she was homely looking, or had wounds and scars, and she wore the melon to hide how she looked, and protect her face from getting mocked, or scaring people from how bad it was?!
All kinds of crazy thoughts and ideas, of what she was going to look like, were running through my head, as Senku approached Suika, who let out a nervous chittering sound.
"Uh, Senku, I don't think that this is a good-" I was about to say, but then it happened.
With one quick move, Senku grabbed the melon and pulled, letting out a 'yoink' as he did so! Chrome let out a yelp of surprise, and I quickly threw my hands over eyes!
"Oh I can't look!" I said, my tone quick and panicked.
"Stop, Senku!" I heard Kohaku yell, and then race over to us. "Suika doesn't want anybody to see her face!"
"I don't understand why not." Senku replied.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, my tone confused, as I removed my hands from eyes. "Why would-"
I almost burst out laughing when I saw her face - Suika, without a doubt, was the cutest kid I had ever seen! She had blonde hair cut into a bowl cut, large doe-like eyes that were a soft brown color, thin eyebrows, and a perfect face, with no scars, blemishes, pimples, nothing!
Chrome looked confused, Senku still had that mischievous smile on his face, I was grinning like an idiot and covering my mouth to keep from laughing out loud, but Kohaku's reaction was absolutely priceless!
"My gosh, Suika!" Kohaku squealed joyfully, her head in her hands, and her expression like that of a child getting a puppy on Christmas. "You are just the most adorable little thing!"
Suika then took one look at us, and- HER FACE TURNED OLD AND WRINKLY LIKE A PRUNE!
"What in the heck?!" Chrome and Kohaku both yelled at the same time.
"What on earth?!" I yelled. "What happened?!"
Suika picked her watermelon mask and replied in an embarrassed and saddened tone, "There's something wrong with my eyes - they've got the fuzzy sickness. Everything looks fuzzy to me, so when I try really hard to see, I end up looking like this, and it's super embarrassing."
Wait a minute - everything looks fuzzy to her, and it's some kind of sickness? If it's what I think it is, then it's not a sickness.
Suika then put her watermelon mask back on her head, her cheerfulness resumed, and she said, "But when I put on my watermelon mask, it gets a little bit easier to see for some reason!"
"Yeah, that's known as the pinhole effect," Senku replied. "If you look at an object through a small hole, the light passing through it narrows, and brings it into focus."
"So, glass and the fuzzy sickness - are they connected somehow?" Chrome asked, as he scratched his head.
"Dude, they're like ten billion percent connected!" Senku replied loudly, which caused Chrome to jump a little bit.
"Wait a minute," I spoke up. "Suika, do I look fuzzy to you far away?"
"Yes." Suika replied.
I then took a few steps, till I was only a few inches from her, knelt down on one knee, so that we were face-to-face, and asked, "How about now, do I still look fuzzy?"
"No, you're not fuzzy anymore." Suika replied, her tone somewhat confused.
"Oh, that explains it," I said with a small smile, as I stood back up. "You're nearsighted - that's not a sickness."
Suika let out a little gasp and asked in a hopeful tone, "It's not?"
"No, it's normal for some people to be nearsighted," I replied. "My older brother, Abraham, he's nearsighted too, but he functions like everyone else, and lives a normal life."
"David's right," Senku added, as I moved out of the way, and he got down on his knees so that he was eye level with Suika. "It's not some kind of sickness - there's nothing wrong with you. In a technological civilization, it doesn't even bother anyone - we have eyes of science, made from glass. They're called glasses, and they solve everything."
"Science users can actually make new eyes?" Suika asked, her tone hopeful. "That's amazing."
Senku smiled, stood up, and replied, "It is."
"If it's really possible, I'd love to see all the beauty in the world," said Suika, as we saw tears roll down her chin. "Even just once."
We all took on solemn expressions as Suika continued by saying, "I want to meet you guys without the fuzziness - I want to meet the real you, just once."
"All right, I'm ready to do this!" Chrome announced, breaking our solemn silence. "Let's make some this glass!"
"Oh yeah," Kohaku added. "What do we need to gather, Senku?"
The five of us were now marching up a hill through the forest, all carrying baskets to collect sand with.
"Glass is mostly made out of quartz sand," Senku replied, before letting out a small chuckle and adding, "However, I didn't see any of that in the Chrome Collection."
"Why the heck would I be collecting sand?" Chrome asked, sounding oddly irritated by that remark.
"Although, I did see a clue that should lead us to some." said Senku.
After a couple more minutes of marching up the hill, and walking through the forest, we came to a clearing, and there was now a large mountain in front of the five of us.
"This is the spot," Chrome announced. "When I was a kid, I found this translucent rock right here."
"That little chunk is worth more than you can imagine right now," Senku replied, taking a makeshift pickaxe from his belt, kneeling down, and mining the ground. "That translucent rock you've got in your hands is a quartz crystal - it tends to be found in areas of decayed granite."
He broke through the surface of the ground, found some sand, picked up a clump of it, showed it to the four of us, and let it run through his fingers.
"And, in my hand I'm holding lots of the raw material for glass," Senku continued. "Quartz sand."
Chrome, Kohaku, and Suika all looked surprised, while I let out a small grin. Soon enough, we all brandished makeshift pickaxes and went straight to work, mining the rocks and collecting the little grains that broke off.
"Yo, the white grains are falling out like crazy!" said Chrome, his tone excited.
"I didn't know this could be so fun!" Suika added, her tone equally as happy as his.
"We're going to get a bunch of this stuff here." said Kohaku, as I mined alongside her.
"Just try to gather as many as the see-through ones as you can," Senku added.
"Now I feel like I'm Minecraft all of a sudden," I said with a small laugh. "For manual labor, this is really enjoyable to partake in."
"What's Minecraft?" Kohaku asked, her tone confused.
I let out a sheepish chuckle and replied, "It's a long story - I'll tell you about it some other time."
When we got back, we went straight to work - Kohaku grinded down the quartz sand into fine grains, Senku and Chrome mixed it with a bunch of other stuff, and melted it in the stove - they used, according to Senku's calculations, ten percent calcium carbonate, or seashells, along with twenty percent cooked seaweed, all the same materials that he used to make soap. After that was done, we threw in a bit of molten lead, and just like that, we had glass, which Senku had shaped into a lens.
Chrome let out a noise of surprise, while Suika said in an amazed tone, "It's all sparkly and see-through, kind of like a piece of ice!"
"Or some sort of a gem." Kohaku added, a small smile on her face.
Senku then brought the lens over to a new device he created - it was made out of bamboo, wood, and some rope and chords. It was for polishing the glass, as trying to polish it by hand would result in all of us dying from exhaustion.
Chrome climbed up back into the Shed of Science and said in an excited tone, "I bet we could use that super tough corundum stuff I've got for polishing, what do ya think?"
"Glass has a Mohs hardness rating of six, while corundum rates in about a nine." Senku replied.
"Ah, yeah, polishing's going to be a piece of cake!" Chrome cheered.
I looked over at Kohaku, who had a confused look on her face, and she asked, "Do you get anything they're saying?"
"Nope, not a word," I replied, my tone equally as confused.
Kohaku and I went back to combat training, sometimes both of us sparring with the guard brothers, and sometimes just her and me sparring with each other. Meanwhile, Chrome, Senku, and Suika polished the glass lens, and afterwards, Senku set up a makeshift eye exam, to test if the lens helped Suika's vision. When the results proved positive, they made another glass lens, polished it, and then put the two in the watermelon mask.
Afterwards, Chrome, Senku, and Suika, who was holding onto Senku's robe as they walked, went off through the forest, followed by Suika's dog, who's name was Chalk. It was very cute, to be honest, seeing Senku guide her like that, and my respect for him, which was already immense to begin with, grew even more - he not only agreed with me, and told Suika that being nearsighted wasn't a sickness, but he also had made a form of glasses for her. As they went off, and I watched, I whispered a prayer of blessing over Senku. And I smiled a kind smile, as I imagined how Suika was going to react when she saw the world through clear eyes, for probably the first time in her life.
But after they left, it was back to business - Kohaku and I were sparring one-on-one this time, and I was imagining that I was fighting Magma, as she came charging at me! Using my training sword, I blocked the attacks from her training knives, and I fought back with all that I was worth! But as we sparred against each other, I couldn't help but think of when she sparred with Kinro, and how his final strike was very shallow - it was a bad habit that she was trying to break off of him, but apparently, he wasn't good at judging distances. And why that was, we didn't know, but Kinro would get defeated easily because of it.
However, I couldn't help but have a sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with his eyesight. But judging from his character, which had gone from my belief that he was a self-righteous hypocrite, to a self-righteous and proud guardsman who was still willing to do the right thing, he wasn't going to be revealing anything. So we could only hope, that he would eventually come forward, and admit his shortcomings, or that final strike of his was going to be the least of his problems.
And while our battle training was going on, Senku, Chrome, and Suika returned, and started going to work on making more glass. Thanks to the new lenses in her helmet, and now that the world wasn't fuzzy to her anymore, Suika's speed had increased. Then, using foam from some heated obsidian, Senku and Chrome insulated their furnace to heat up glass, crafted a long and large iron straw, heated some of the glass, and started blowing away!
It was hard to describe what exactly Senku and Chrome had created with the glass on their first tries - it looked liked… well, the best is I can say is that it looked very lumpy, and kind of stretched out, and… well, let me put in basic terms - it wasn't going to hold any liquids.
Senku, seeing the refuse, let out a chuckle and said, "Hey, that's fine, this was our first try - when I started making clay pots, it took months before they looked decent."
"IT'S NOT FINE!" Chrome yelled, causing me to jump. "WE DON'T HAVE MONTHS TO GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME!"
"Ruri's health doesn't seem to be getting better." Kohaku added, her tone saddened.
"I'm not some kind of glass craftsman," Senku replied, folding his arms. "So I have to learn by trial and error."
Chrome's anger faded, and he looked thoughtful for a few seconds, before he looked up at us and snapped his fingers.
"I got it!" Chrome said in a somewhat excited tone, before walking off into the forest. "Let's go to the village - I know who can help us!"
Senku, Kohaku, Suika, and I waited by the bridge, not having worry about the guard brothers harassing us, as the two were training with one another. After about half an hour of waiting, Chrome returned, dragging along a… hog-tied old dwarf?
Senku looked confused, and I couldn't blame him - I was just as confused as he was! Chrome begged the old dwarf, who's name was Kaseki, for help, but the old dwarf told him, in no uncertain terms, that he didn't want anything to do with our 'black arts'.
"You see?" asked Chrome. "This is why I had to do things the hard way."
"Grandpa Kaseki," said Suika, as she approached the old dwarf with a bottle. "I forgot to bring your lacquer back to you - I'm sorry."
"Ah, that had slipped my mind." said Kaseki, his tone kind.
"Tell me," said Senku, looking over at Kohaku, who had her shield on her back. "Were you the one who made that fantastic, seasoned shield? With no iron tools or hardly any dyes to speak of?"
"Yeah, it was a gift from when Kohaku's father, Kokuyo, won the Grand Bout," Kaseki replied. "I went all-out when I made it - gosh, that really takes me back."
Kohaku smiled a little, before letting out a little chuckle - I was guessing that she was also thinking back, to when her father received that shield.
"The handiwork on that shield is remarkable for this era," said Senku, as we all walked back to the Shed of Science. "So I had a feeling that there must've been an expert craftsman behind it, but I never expected it'd be a dusty old fossil - did you make that awesome suspension bridge as well?"
"Yes I did, and your giant had the nerve to rip one of the planks out!" Kaseki replied, his tone somewhat annoyed.
"Hey, I'm sorry!" I replied, my tone somewhat defensive. "We were in a rush, and I didn't have time to explain why we needed it!"
"Excuses, excuses," Kaseki replied. "You can count me out of whatever bogus sorcery you are-"
He then saw the first tries of glass that Senku and Chrome had made, and was surprised!
"Hey, what's this see-through stone that you've made?" Kaseki asked, his tone shocked.
"Where I come from, we call it glass, good sir." I replied, my tone somewhat playful.
"We won't force you to help if you don't want to," said Senku, holding the iron straw. "So just sit back and watch the show - you should get a kick out of this, Kaseki - in fact, I think you're going to be ten billion percent entertained, so get ready to get excited."
Senku took some heated glass out of the furnace with the iron straw, handed it to Chrome, and Chrome started blowing into it, causing the heated glass to bubble. However, he blew it up too much again, and took to turning it up in the air too cool it down. This made Kaseki get worked up and angry, hopping up and down in place, while Senku was giving off a crazy-looking grin - almost made me burst out laughing just looking at him. Senku then took his turn with the glass, but he was doing it poorly, and I had a feeling that he was trying to get Kaseki worked up, so that he would do the job himself.
Senku let out a chuckle and said, "There's no way a guy who spent his whole life as a craftsman, is gonna stand there and let some newbie do something as drooltastic as glassblowing - how much of this can you take, Old Man Kaseki? This must be getting under your skin."
Kaseki let out a growl and roared out, "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!"
Letting out a growl like a wild animal, Kaseki struggled against the ropes and, just like Samson out of the Bible, broke through them - holy smokes, the old man had muscles! And not 'he was in good shape' muscles, this guy was ripped!
"You got me real good, darn it!" Kaseki spoke, before snatching the iron straw away from Chrome. "Let me take a crack at it!"
Chrome let out a noise of surprise, while Senku said in a low voice, "He's jacked - who'd have guessed?"
The old man then went to work, and it was quite the show - it was almost as if the anger, of watching Senku and Chrome do so poorly with the glass, was the driving force behind his skills. With unmatched skillfulness, unparalleled gracefulness, and outstanding showmanship, Kaseki was able to craft several glass bottles flawlessly, and he had never even seen glass before!
"Oh man, that's nuts," said Chrome, his tone amazed. "You've never even seen it before, and you're like a glass-making master!"
"It's 'cause he's got all those years of crafting experience." said Senku, his tone pleased.
Kaseki let out a chuckled and replied, "I've been a craftsman for fifty years, believe it or not - I'm kind of a big deal."
"There are people like him in every single era," Senku continued, his tone proud. "Dudes with true talent, who've spent their whole lives with their heads down, dedicated to their work."
"So I guess you could say he can really… kick some 'glass'?" I asked, my tone comical.
Senku let out a chuckle and replied, "Good one, David."
I was about to leave to write down my log, but Senku then said, "Hey, before you go off, wait till tomorrow to write down your log."
"Huh?" I paused, my tone confused. "Why?"
"You'll see - I want you to do a special report tomorrow," Senku replied. "So just take a break from now, and then you can write it in the morning."
"Okay, I'll pause for today," I replied. "Besides, I've got to get back to training."
Author's Notes: Been looking forward to writing this particular chapter - plenty of good moments, like Suika's face reveal, and Kaseki breaking through the ropes. The title of this chapter was originally going to be titled 'Kicking some Glass', but I felt that 'Eyes of Science' fit it better. Also, if anybody finds it offensive calling Kaseki a dwarf, I do apologize for that - he looks like one, though, with the long beard, short stature, and muscular physique.
R&R,
Heroboy005