"That's exactly what you heard, son."
If this had been earlier—say, a few minutes ago—I would have seriously questioned my dad's sanity.
But after watching him rebuild an engine and a battery using liquid iron and magic stones harvested from monsters that appeared out of nowhere... well, I think my definitions of "sane" and "insane" needed a bit of an adjustment.
Objectively speaking: rigging up a hose to "steal" fuel from an underground tank isn't necessarily the craziest thing I've heard in the last few hours.
Doing it with 35 meters of polyamide rope? Hmmm. Whatever was left of my old sense of reality wasn't quite buying it—mostly because...
"How are you going to do that with just a rope?"
"Obviously, it won't be *just* the rope, son," my dad said. "I'm also going to use the spare tire and the leftover magic stones (I just hope Mari doesn't give me a hard time about it, since they were supposed to be for her dogs)."
Once again, the part of me clinging to my old sense of normalcy screamed that this made no sense. Seeing my distress, my dad decided to explain a bit about what he intended to do—and, more importantly, how—as he gathered the necessary items and placed them on the workbench.
"Nando, you know things are pretty weird these days. The 'Jobs' are one of the weirdest parts, don't you agree?"
"Of course."
Who wouldn't find the Jobs weird?
Convenient, sure. But no less weird for it.
You literally gain skills and stats more easily depending on your job; that might make sense in a game, but in real life?
"My job is a bit complicated," he continued, ignoring/unaware of—my internal monologue (to be a bit pedantic). "But to sum it up, it works something like this: creation and adaptation, using equivalence and magic."
He was taking the spare tire off the EcoSport as he spoke.
"I can create a shovel if I have a piece of iron and a wooden handle—even if the wood is rotten," he said, removing the plastic hubcap from the tire.
"But if I tried that, I'd have to use more wood to compensate for the poor quality and fragility of the rotten wood, so the shovel could be used just like one made from good wood. Do you get it?" I nodded, watching him work, while Mom had returned to her prayer position and was barely moving.
"The biggest difference, I'd say, is that I can also add magic as a direct substitute."
He said this while placing the tire—still attached to its metal mount—onto the workbench.
"In the case of the shovel, if I had a wooden handle but no iron—yet had magic stones—I could transmute the stones directly into metal, or vice versa."
"If I had the materials and the magic stones, I could use them to imbue the shovel with special effects; the higher the grade of the stones, the better the effect and the lower the cost." He said this with his back turned, picking up a sledgehammer.
"Theoretically, if I use a high-purity magic stone with a low-level effect, it could activate without any cost to the user... hmm, you said there was a name for that in the games you like—what was it again?"
"A passive skill?"
"Hmm... yeah, I think that's it." He said, then brought the hammer down, pulverizing the magic stones in a single blow—five of them, actually, each the size of an index fingertip.
"Like I said, I could use magic—mana, or whatever you call it—to make up for missing components. But if I have a surplus, I can use the extra material to boost the tool's resistance, durability and or efficiency—in this case, the hose."
He said this while testing the rope and coiling it around the tire.
"Fuel hoses are thick, made of interlocking layers and synthetic fabrics, or just pure reinforced rubber. Since I don't have enough rubber from the tire or fabric for the hose, I'll combine the two. Then I'll compensate for what's missing using the magic from the stones, plus my own magic. Simple, right?"
I almost blurted out a big "No" by instinct, but managed to hold back.
In what universe would that be a simple thing? How did he know how to do that? How did he know what kind of hoses tanker trucks use and what their structure is like? If that's one of the perks of his job... wouldn't that be extremely overpowered—from a general/practical standpoint?
'Ugh, I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.'
By the time I'd thought all that, the hose was already finished and coiled up on the workbench. Looking at the hose, another question popped into my head.
"How exactly are we going to keep putting liters of fuel into the Eco's tank? It only holds a maximum of 45 liters, right?"
Even if it were possible to put the fuel directly into the [item box]—which I highly doubted—I'd still have to keep stopping every few kilometers to refuel the tank. If that were the case, it would be much easier and more practical to just walk to Ju's house.
"No need to worry about that." My father pointed to the small black box with a reddish center. "It also serves as a fuel converter and 'storage' unit."
"Hhhhaaaaaa... huh?"
If anyone else had heard that, they'd be a bit confused too, right?!. It's not just me, right?!
"Well, I don't really know the 'why' or 'how.' But it seems that large magic blood stone also has a slight property of converting matter into mana." How would he even know that? "When I built the converter, I amplified that capacity to turn fuel directly into mana, injecting it into the engine and battery, and from there to the rest of the car."
After hearing what he said, I tried to organize it into something I could actually understand.
"Okay, I'm going to repeat this in my own words just to make sure I (maybe) understood what you did to the car and what you want me to do." He turned toward me, leaned back slightly against the workbench, and nodded for me to start.
To add emphasis, I raised a finger for each point.
"You 'created' a device using magic stones and iron to switch the car's components—which used to run on electricity—over to mana." One finger up and a nod; I continued. "Because it was built 'in a rush,' it needs a huge amount of fuel just to start up."
Another finger raised, another nod.
"So, to hold that amount of fuel, does this converter store it and distribute it to the car like a sort of super-sponge connected directly inside the fuel tank?"
He started to nod but stopped; resting his hand on his chin and making a slight grimace, he tried to correct what I'd said.
"Instead of storing the fuel inside and releasing it like a sponge," he began, "the converter—as the name implies—turns the physical fuel into magical energy right there in the tank. Then keep the energy inside it, and when the car starts up, the energy flows to the engine and battery. From there, it's transmitted to the rest of the car just like electricity would be, though it keeps 'circulating' until the engine and battery can't function propery or the car it's turned off."
I stared blankly at him for a few moments, lightly pinching the bridge of my nose after hearing that. My mother, having finished praying (or meditating, or whatever it was), walked over to us; seeing the car, she spoke up.
"So, you created an electric perpetual motor—but one powered by magic—that 'feeds' itself by transforming physical fuel into mana?" she asked, perfectly summarizing the conclusion I'd reached as well.
"Yeaaah... I suppose it's probably a bit more complicated than that, but for now, you could put it that way."
.....
.... I don't remember my high school physics or chemistry classes very well, but I have a very strong feeling this would violate quite a few laws regarding the conservation of mass and electricity—and probably a whole bunch of others, too.
….
'On the other hand, if I really wanted to complain, I could start by questioning the nature of my shadow magic; shadows shouldn't have mass, yet the spheres, needles, string, etc, clearly have… something. Or the fact that neither I nor my immediate family aren't humans anymore.' I thought, feeling a slight twinge in my head.
'Not to mention the other spells and monsters that have appeared in the world—it all defies every law known until now. Complaining about something like; a car that runs by converting gasoline into mana is, at this point, just a waste of time... And yet, I can't help but be bothered by it.'
....I had a splitting headache by this point.