I spotted a new research in Thaumcraft: the Bone Bow. I researched it, only to find that I needed a perdito shard, which I don't have, to make it.  But that uncovered another research, Primal Arrows, that seemed promising. I researched that, and it turned out to be the most complicated research I'd done to date. But, I managed it, and discovered it allows one kind of magic arrow for each primal aspect. Earth (extra damage) seemed most useful.



I have extra Terra shards, so I made 3 sets. I test fired one, to make sure it worked and didn't need a Bone Bow or some such,  but didn't get a pic of it.

Next I wanted to automate my sugar cane farm.



I made a set of pistons for a test run using a button. There's a Hungry Chest, kind of a magical Thaumcraft hopper, in the center to collect the drops. Turned out I needed a row of blocks opposite the piston to keep them from knocking the sugarcane across the water. So, not so compatible with my original layout.

Next I wanted to make a clock to control it. I didn't want to hear the pistons constantly, so I wanted a long period clock. I hadn't made one, and decided to try multiple out-of-phase clocks with the circuit set up to only fire when all of them were on. I set up two clocks, one with 4 maxed repeaters and the other with 3 maxed repeaters and one at 3. This worked better than I expected, firing 6 times in a row every 15 second or so. That was still too often, so I started another clock to add in. But digging the space for the next clock:



A new Metallurgy ore. This one turns out to be Mithril, one of the fantasy metals. Now in the last episode I talked about how the fantasy metals often aren't worth the trouble, but this is a major exception. Mithril allows with Silver to form Quicksilver, which *is* substantially better than the common alloys, and I already have Silver.

I tossed the Mithril in the crusher and tried to alloy it, but it didn't work. After some research I guess I needed an Alloyer, another Metallurgy item. It was a little difficult to find the recipe:



That's Angmallen alloy on the top and Damascus Steel on the sides, and a Machine Frame in the middle.

My guess was correct, and I can now alloy Mithril and Silver. The alloyer also doubles the output. The net effect of multiple doubling is kind of excessive IMO. I found only two Mithril, which the Crusher doubled to four, which become eight after alloying, which got doubled by the Alloyer to 16 - which is rather a lot.

Coincidentally, I was close to level 30, so I could use my nifty new Quicksilver. I decided to make a pick, and got:



Useful with all the ice about although hardly earthshaking.

When I finished the third clock, I got a mildly unusual effect. The piston stroke twice, then pause 30 seconds, then stroke twice more, then pause about two minutes. That's an acceptable frequency, so I'll just let it be. I was motivated to try to estimate how often it should activate, and it seems it should activate much more often than that. So there's something I don't understand about redstone cycles.

It's hard to take pictures of the clock room because of all the blocks that get in the way, but here's a best effort:



One of the clocks is below my feet. In front of me is the line controlling the piston set. To the right a feeder from my clock wraps around to control a redstone torch feeding the main line. When all three clocks are off all the control torches are off and the pistons are allowed to fire.

Even with the extra row of blocks, a lot of drops don't fall into the channel. So, not too efficient. It should improve once I have slime to make sticky pistons. But, it's useful to have a short- and long-period clock for the workroom, so hardly wasted.

Next episode: Big Exploration time!