They stopped in front of the oven like machine; the one without flames but three concentric and greenish glowing lines.
As Theron was still not tall enough to see the top surface of the oven like machine, he could only look up to Frank with his big innocent eyes.
Frank immediately took a stool of about thirty centimeters (~12 inches) from the side and placed it in front of the oven appliance for Theron. After climbing the second and final step, Theron was finally able to stand above the oven and see that glowing marvel of innovation again.
But disappointingly, the glowing circles weren't glowing now. Instead, they were dark and discolored. They were barely visible amidst the rest of the oven's black colored surface.
Then, Frank brought his index finger forward at the top center of the appliance's front face where a small circle was outlined.
*Click!* Like a button, it was pushed half an inch inward and clicked.
At once, the three dark circles glowed again in their vivid green luminescence.
Theron's eyes reflecting that green glow were still amazed by the spectacle.
This machine held numerous similarities with his previous world's counterpart and yet at the same time had so many differences for it to be considered a totally dissimilar one.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Frank said after he saw the sparkle in his son's eyes.
"Mhm, it is!" Theron answered in all honesty without hiding his true emotions.
"But dad. This green color is the same as the one inside your arm. Are these circles mekron crystals too?"
"Oh, you are very observant to notice that son, but no. Although these three circles' original form is indeed that of a common grade mekron crystal, the crystals used for these were processed to take this form you see before you.
Although I admit I don't know all the steps that are involved in that process, I know for sure that the first step is to ground common grade mekron crystals to dust. And that dust is called..."
Frank paused and brought his right hand forward in front of his face. With his palm facing outwards and down, his eyes squinted as he built up suspense.
After what seemed forever, he moved his right hand in a slow rightward movement and opened his mouth...
"Crystal dust!" he finished saying, with an air of mystery and epicness.
"...." Theron was speechless.
'Were that "grandiose" gesture and the suspenseful reveal even necessary?!' he could only think.
Cold sweat began forming in Frank's forehead. He wasn't expecting this awkwardness to follow his grand reveal and now he was trapped with no escape plan coming to mind.
"But dad." Theron started saying. "Why don't the circles glow green all the time like the mekron crystal in your arm? Shouldn't the... crystal dust... have the same characteristics as the crystals it was made of?"
"Glad you asked son!" very happy to be freed from his self-made cage, Frank moved his hand to the front face of the oven, placed the tip of his index finger in a thumbnail-sized groove and pulled.
*Clank!* A palm-sized window opened.
"And the reason is this!" he declared while moving aside for his son to see inside it.
Theron peeked inside and he was flabbergasted at once, excitement and exhilaration slowly filling his whole being by every glance he took.
Inside the small space, there was a common grade mekron crystal placed atop a small tripod with wide legs. But it was a weird one; its color was turquoise instead of green.
Aside from the difference in the crystal's color, the whole compartment was a work of art for Theron, one he had not seen even in his previous life.
Identical to the green circles above, wide green lines could be seen running like streams from the tripod's legs to the bottom of the small compartment. They spread and climbed onto the four walls of it, only to travel to the ceiling next.
All of them were converging at the center of the ceiling, right above the supported turquoise mekron crystal, where they disappeared through a circular opening.
After giving the compartment a few more glances, Theron figured out how it generally functioned.
The supported mekron crystal was the energy, the fuel of the oven-like machine. The green wide lines were the pathways of that energy and the three concentric circles above were that energy's destination, where it was converted into heat. The button on the frontal side of the appliance... must be for the connection of a detached - by design - piece of the pathway, thus making it an on and off switch for the oven when it was pressed!
"So, what do you think?" asked Frank after giving his son a few moments to marvel at the oven's core compartment.
"This is the coolest thing I've ever seen... except your arm dad!" Theron saved it just in the nick of time before Frank caught on it.
"But I have a question."
"What is it, son?" Frank was all smiles after the compliment.
"Why is this crystal's color different from the glowing lines and what you told me about the crystals you use for your arm? This isn't green, right dad?"
"An excellent observation yet again my son. You are indeed correct; this is not a green colored mekron crystal of common grade, but a turquoise one. And although this is still a mekron crystal due to the size, it is one of rare grade." and the useful verbal source of information called Frank kickstarted again.
"As the name of its grade suggests, this kind of crystal is harder to come across than the common grade one. The energy a single mekron crystal of rare grade contains is both purer and more concentrated than its common grade equivalent, allowing it to last longer or power machines that need more potent energy, making it a more suitable choice than the common grade ones if somebody needs to power their everyday use home appliances, like our cuboven for example.
Longterm wise, it's more cost efficient to buy one mekron of rare grade than many common grade ones. But again, as I said earlier, the rare grade ones don't appear in the market as often as the common ones, making them at the same time more expensive too.
Me and your mother were lucky enough to find two of them four years ago, just a few months before you were born, and thanks to whatever god is up there looking out for us we still had some money left from the hidden stash...! C-Cough!" The moment he realized he said something he shouldn't have, he abruptly stopped speaking and instinctively coughed in awkwardness for his blunder.
"Ahem, never mind that. The point is...you see that turquoise rare mekron inside? That's the second of the two we bought and it still has energy left to spare.
"I see!" Theron simply answered, ignoring Frank's blunder like he didn't notice it.
Finally, Theron had learned what he started this "fishing" today for and more! To learn that there were other crystals except common grade ones with more potent energy in them was a welcoming bonus!
To his father, he looked amazed into stupor by what he saw and learned from him, but from Theron's own perspective, his mind gears were turning at full speed as he kept staring inside the cuboven's compartment.
The simplicity of its structural composition, which contained at the same time an intricate energy transmission network, was a widow to a whole world of new ideas and technological innovations for Theron, who was already drawing schematics based on it inside his mind.