90th of Vhalar, Late Evening
Cuau had been studying chemistry the entire day. Trying to sit on the chairs made for mammals with no tails had been disastrous; he'd gotten his tail stuck, had the eye-watering experience of having the genitals in said tail half-crushed by solid walnut, and had to slowly work to get the damn thing off. That had ached for about half an hour after that, and he really didn't want to repeat the experience. So he sat on the floor. There was a lot more space here anyway. He could sit, let his tail wander back and forth expressing his thoughtful mood, and read quietly without anyone bothering him.
Chemistry fascinated him, particularly unstable compounds. By what this book was telling him, matter could decay rapidly and give off heat. This was most slowly demonstrated by lighting a fire in the fireplace. As the matter decomposed, it gave off heat and light. Using dry wood in the presence of a heat source ignited this. A little faster example was that of a piece of parchment. Hang it over the same fire, and once the heat passed a certain point the paper would burst into flames. Depending on the matter you started with, the chemical reaction would be quicker or slower. With the piece of paper it was very quick, with the fire it was very slow. Using something like coal slowed it down even further, and heating up metal in fire was slower still. When a blacksmith smelted steel he wasn't destroying the material, but he was starting it on the journey to doing so. The burn was so slow, one could bring the heat in the metal up to the place one needed it in order to reshape it without compromising the metal itself.
That was the principle of destruction. He frowned. If a heat reaction was accelerated to a very quick point, the light and heat given off would increase and expel itself faster. This resulted in something called an explosion. If one struck the head of a match, they were essentially causing a very small explosion reaction. Light and heat flared out quickly from a match, only to slow down to a slower burn once it struck the wood and caught. The principles of this were fascinating. If he could find something to trigger off one of those massive explosion reactions...he'd need to learn what compounds were unstable enough to do so. The idea of explosives...really caught his attention. The idea of being able to simply spark off a reaction so quick that no one could run from it. Seeing energy itself unbound from its chains and allowed to run wild on its destructive path for a few precious seconds. He grinned to himself, his eyes lighting up. He devoured the book on chemistry, learning more and more about the decomposition of compounds. Sometimes compounds could be chained together. When one decomposed, it set off enough heat to help another composition decompose. The pair giving off light and heat together would bounce off one another, maximizing the result.
That means a skilled chemist could chain off five or six reactions with the final one carrying over energy from the previous four to make a truly big blast. Cuau closed the book, mulling over it in his head. He had found what he wanted to do with his life. Studying machines, explosives, and marrying the pair together to make the best siege weapons ever created. He grinned at the idea. Gods, what would it be like to rain down destruction from his fingers with only chemistry at his side? He'd stun everyone into silence. Of course he couldn't just blurt out those plans to just anyone. For now he had to learn, get his skills up, and probably enroll in a few courses. Books could only carry him so far, as would sneaking around the Academy pinching reagents. He needed to see this stuff in action, but he also needed to get someone to teach it to him.
His tail flicked along the floor, and he reopened the book. The thirst for knowledge was awakened in him. He had to learn everything. Even if this was just the basics, the basics were the beginning. No one ever started learning everything from the expert level. Even if the book did stop talking about interesting things like explosions and more about the properties of matter, he had to focus. It was just difficult when his mind was running wild with ideas. He wanted to get into the chemistry lab already! He wanted to start mucking around with some of the explosive compounds mentioned. Sulfur looked like a fantastic way to start a fire. What if something exploded under pressure? Could the energy be redirected somewhere that was a little more useful than just explosions? Explosions were all well and good but it did seem like a catastrophic waste of energy.
Cuau set down the book and picked up the one he'd selected on engineering. Had anyone thought of marrying chemistry and engineering together yet? The two could be a powerful force....for good or evil.
"Speech"
