Turning the mana stones into actual pieces of equipment was a process that required several steps. First came turning the stones into dust as fine as one could do. By doing so, the surface of the magic construction would increase when compared to before, rapidly increasing the ability of said dust to transmit the mana from the human-inaccessible plane to one where they could actually make use of it.

But that was only the very beginning. And Layn was previously shackled by the constant lack of the stones to process. Thankfully, this trend was finally about to end.

"I need to get at least two hundred more coins, then the requests, then the ring,

" Layn spoke softly to himself, using his voice to organize his work. Without any sort or whiteboard to write on or even a notebook to note both his progress and desired quota, Layn could only use his memory as the recording medium of his plans..

He was sitting in the middle of his former house that Layn renamed as his workshop ever since he returned to the camp from his excursion to the forest. All around him, tools of varying purpose mixed on the floor. To call the insides of his workshop messy would be a gross understatement. Yet, for Layn, everything was right where it belonged.

"Let's start with the coins, then,

" he thought, pouring a huge batch of stones to one of the crucibles. Its inner walls were polished to no end over the last few days, just to make sure that not even a speck of stonedust would be left unused but stuck to the crucible sides instead.

Now that Layn had quite a lot of mana to spare between all the artifacts he already made for himself and the passive mana income from the lands he controlled, the process of turning the stones into dust was quite simple.

Layn placed one of his hands over the crucible, filling the insides with his mana. For a moment, he allowed his energy to permeate through the stones as if he wanted to reverse their traditional use.

'Hammer,' Layn thought, blindly reaching with his right hand to one of the items on the floor. His hammer was as simple as it could get. Made in the same way as all the bricks that allowed the rapid expansion of the camp, it was way stronger than one would expect from just a single look.

'Now, to extract all the mana I can,' Layn thought, using his line of thoughts to direct his actions. With his hand only slightly touching the edge of the crucible, he started to reabsorb the same mana that he poured into the container a moment earlier.

But this time, Layn didn't stop when his net-sum of mana reached zero but continued to suck the energy out of the stones instead. Bit by bit, the aura of this precious material continued to dim in his eyes, proving that there was a lesser and lesser amount of magic that those stones held in their structure.

'NOW!' Layn screamed in his thoughts, moving his left hand away as he smashed his hammer right into the crucible.

With barely any mana left in the stones, one hit from Layn's hammer was more than enough to make them crumble. But the Archmage didn't stop. He continued to smash the insides of the container over and over again, all the way until he was happy with how tiny the dust pellets were.

"Just a third, huh?

" He commented in a whisper before shaking his head and raising the crucible. Then, as if it was just sand rather than the most precious material in the entire world, Layn poured it into yet another crucible.

"Well, let's get back to work, then,

" he said before repeating the entire process from the very beginning.

Just like one could expect, the varying shapes of the stone made it pretty hard to fit them perfectly into the container. Because of all the free space caused by the irregular shapes of the mana stones, Layn had to repeat the process four whole times before he managed to fill the first container.

But instead of instantly sitting down in order to turn the dust into coins... Layn simply put the container away before pulling even more stones and showing them into the same mortar-like crucible as before.

'That should be enough,' Layn thought roughly two hours later when one-quarter of the circle around him was filled with the stonedust containers. A single container worth of stonedust was exactly how much of it Layn would use to create one batch of the coins for his trade partners in the forest. Given how their trade increased by leaps and bounds, instead of a single cup worth of stonedust, he ended up preparing an entire seven containers worth of this precious material, just for the coins and coins alone.

"Now, do I make that thing or keep going with the job?

" Layn asked himself out loud, involuntarily reaching to his pocket. The familiar shape of the crude prototype somehow had a calming effect on his mind.

"No,

" Layn said decisively, even though he had no partner to hear his words.

"She wouldn't be happy if I put my hobby above the duties,

" Layn muttered before standing up from his spot. But instead of leaving the workshop altogether, he approached the only piece of furniture that the house was outfitted with.

A simple, standing desk with its edges roughly two centimeters higher than the rest of its surface. In the gap between the edges, simple sand was placed, making up for a makeshift drawing board.

'Now, how do I begin,' Layn thought, taking a quick look at the stone tablet with all the requests from the camp. 'I guess we should start with the coins,' he thought before shaking his head.

"So the air pump it is,

" he muttered before moving his eyes on the flat, sandy surface. Then, Layn picked a small stone knife before starting to cut it into the sand.

The council decided that it would be best for Layn to prepare only the raw resources necessary to create the coins instead of wasting his precious time on fulfilling the entire process. But for the others to take over the task of combining the stonedust with the stone that would serve as the structure of the coins, they had to be able to reach temperatures way higher than what one could achieve by just burning wood or even coal.

And that meant, Layn had to not only design an air pump that would work on the mana passively generated by the stonedust alone but one that would last for a time long enough to justify wasting this most precious resource on it!

'If I go with the standard piston design, the structure will wear off pretty quickly,' Layn thought as he placed his hand on the sand and moved it sideways, erasing all the progress that he had made so far with his concept. 'How about a turbine-based one, then?' he asked himself before once again putting his knife to the sand. 'Yeah, I guess I will go with that,' he thought before a small smile appeared on his face. 'After all, it could prove useful for my later crafts!'