<One!>


    For the veryst second, even the countdown''s AI voice managed to invoke some sort of urgency and emotion.


    The second passed… and a few diodes lit up in green on the console.


    But that was pretty much it.


    There was no fanfare, fireworks, or any major event indicating the test had actually started.


    ''I guess a single percent of the factory''s full potential is not enough, huh?''


    Taking another breath, I braced myself before turning the knob again.


    Only for, once again, nothing to happen.


    At most, when I really strained my ears, I could vaguely hear some of the machinery booting up.


    ''Let''s keep going,'' I thought before turning the knob once again, this time slightly faster than before.


    Distant fans slowly stirred into action, pushing a small amount of air through the entire enriching corridor.


    After another turn of the knob, the air started to vibrate on an extremely minute level, indicating thepressors were now firing up.


    A turn of the knobter, the whole factory started toe online, even if at its very lowest, if not outright passive, level.


    In the end, it wasn''t until I maxed out the first knob that everything started to work properly, as opposed to merely starting up.


    "So a full knob only goes that far…" I muttered, slightly weirded out by how an entire tenth of the factory''s power was still far from sufficient for anything to happen.


    ''Excluding whatever improvements Chihiro made, we would only need five maxed-out knobs to match the energy output that nearly sparked the disaster before. Howe pretty much a fifth of that kind of power only does…?''


    I raised my eyes from the console and looked over my shoulder at the sofa ire was sitting on.


    "It slowly builds up," ire quickly caught my stare and replied. "Most of the readings are below the expected level, but that''s likely due to the starting curve."


    "That might be because of how we rewired the entire thing," Chihiro quickly came up with an exnation. "Until everything is up and running, there should be no energy flowing to the converters. Meaning, a disproportionately huge amount of energy goes just to pushing the air through the whole system, exining the decreased measurements of the spiritual energy."


    "That makes sense," I nodded my head before moving my hand over to the second knob.


    There, bit by bit, I twisted it further and further, all the way to the point where I could twist it no more, before turning my head again to check how things were on the technical side.


    "All readings fell within the norm, the wind-up no longer affects the oue. Most of the machines operate on the low setting, so we are good to go," the girl quickly reported, not even raising her face from herptop to catch my nce, perfectly capable of sensing my request just with her intuition alone.


    "Then, let''s go for the third one."


    As anticlimactic as it could feel, I couldn''t be any happier with how things were going. Yet, with that said, when I moved to twist the third knob, the max of which limited the power the factory could draw without anyone noticing anything out of the ordinary.


    ''I guess that''s the level of what you would be drawing from the grid while doing some intense renovations,'' I thought as I gradually increased the twist while also focusing on the factory''s insides, disyed perfectly well out of the overlooking window of the control room.


    "I''m almost maxed out on the third," I announced as I twisted the knob seven steps out of the total of ten that I could.


    "Still within the norm, but…" this time, ire hesitated a bit. "It''s testing the lower edge of the norm. That means we either have a leak or…"


    ire raised her eyes from herptop''s screen, locking them on my face for a while as we looked into each other''s eyes.


    "Or there''s something drawing part of this power away…" I muttered, quickly catching on to what I believed ire wanted to imply. "Can you mark, follow, and then graph the pattern of this leak?"


    If this was a leak, its behavior would change along with the intensity of the power. But if it was something actively drawing the power away, the pattern in which it would affect the records would change.


    "Sure thing," ire called back, only to look down at her screen while furiously typing on her keys for a few moments. "Okay, I''m ready, you can continue."


    Feeling as if I was finally nearing some long-deserved answers, I turned the knob to its eighth position. Then, after waiting a moment, the ninth, and the same short momentter, to its max.


    "Operating just below the small detection threshold," a voice rang out from the console, connecting us directly to the chief analysis desk located just two rooms down the corridor.


    "I think I''ve got this, but I need three or four more steps to clear it," ire reported.


    "Four more steps it is, then," I muttered before giving the machinery some time to warm up to its current speed, then moving over to the fourth knob and giving it a slight twist.


    First step. Second step. Then the third and ultimately fourth.


    By now, the entire factory was filled with the buzz of all the machines now reaching their eco-friendly mode, at which their efficiency of energy per air moved or filtered reached its optimal ratio. A shing of a golden diode only further confirmed this observation-borne guess, indicating the whole of the factory was now at its most efficient state possible.


    But this test wasn''t about running the factory at a rate that no one would give two craps about. It was all about testing its limits… and trying to invoke whatever it was that took hold of the disaster-level amount of energy in the previous incident!


    "Okay, I''ve got it," ire called out while already typing something on her device. A momentter, a small touch screen to the side of my control pad lit up before disying aplicated graph oveying the energy usage, expected output limits, and then, on a separate and much simpler graph, the direct rtion between the expected output and the actual one.


    "It''s increasing, not only in terms of units but the total ratio?" I asked, not sure if I had read the graph correctly.


    ording to what I saw, if this leak only amounted to a minute, hardly noticeable amount of the total energy flowing through the system, right now… it still wasn''t much, but from a minuscule leak, it had now turned into a problem big enough to warrant concern.


    ''From a statistical error to several percent worth,'' I thought, gritting my teeth as a sense of foreboding filled my soul. ''Something is definitely happening…''


    I exchanged looks with ire… before twisting the knob one, and then two steps ahead.


    By now, if someone was looking hard into this factory, they would''ve noticed we were going above our predicted power usage. Still, this kind of deviation was only to be expected, and could easily be exined by booting up some exceptionally power-hungry tool as we continued our renovations or whatever it was that we were doing behind the closed doors of this factory.


    Still, rather than slowing down, I turned the knob again… and then again, with decreasing breaks between each of the steps.


    It felt as if… something was pushing me to twist it more and more… all the way to the point where, before I could ever notice it, the knob would turn no more.


    "Maxing out the next one will…"


    "I know," I nodded my head to cut Chihiro''s reminder short. After all, out of everyone in this room, I was more aware of it than anyone else, Chihiro included!


    But with how the rate of energy dissipation continued to grow… it felt as if we were finally getting somewhere.


    And so, without any further doubt, yet at a much slower pace than before, I moved my hand over to the fifth knob before starting to turn it.


    One step, two steps, three steps.


    I quickly checked the situation with ire, only for her to nod her head as she greenlit further progress.


    Fourth step, fifth step, sixth step…


    "Half of the energy is leaking," ire reported… but didn''t change her report.


    Seventh step, eighth, ninth, and finally, the tenth.


    "Should we keep going?" I asked, looking from Chihiro to ire and then back to Chihiro.


    "Dear?" Chihiro turned his eyes toward his daughter, prompting me to do the same.


    "Two-thirds of the energy are out," ire reported before shrugging her shoulders, "all the machinery is still good to go and with quite a lot of potential to spare."


    I looked away from ire and back to Chihiro.


    Going any further, pushing the sixth knob even just one step… It would bring us over the threshold beyond which even those who didn''t pay that much attention would grow aware of our actions. The power we were drawing from the grid would grow so high, it would be impossible to keep hiding it, no matter what sort of connections Chihiro had at the nt.


    But, on the other hand, we were so close already…!


    "It''s your call," Chihiro said, pushing the weight of the problem in its entirety onto my shoulders. Yet, rather than making me hesitate and rethink… it felt as if he had given me an early Christmas present!


    "I say we keep going."


    Chihiro stared at me for a while.


    "Then stop wasting time and just turn the sixth knob!"