Chapter 6 - The Broken Spectrometer and Late-Night Lantern Discoveries
To confirm his hypothesis, Ekenna needed access to an analytical laboratory. But a penniless laborer had no money to pay for commercial geochemical assays.
That night, Ekenna took a night bus back to his alma mater, the Department of Geology at the state university.
The campus was pitch-black during the midnight hours. Ekenna slipped through the side window of the mineralogy laboratory—a window whose broken latch he had fixed himself as an undergraduate student.
The laboratory smelled of stale acid, sulfur, and dusty glass beakers. In the corner sat an aging, decommissioned X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer and a specific gravity balance that the department had abandoned due to lack of maintenance.
Ekenna lit a small kerosene lantern, placing it carefully beneath the workbench so the light wouldn't be seen by campus security guards.
For the next four hours, Ekenna worked with feverish precision.
First, he calculated the specific gravity of the three stone samples using a beaker of distilled water and a beam balance. Normal granite had a specific gravity of around 2.65. His samples registered an astonishing 6.8 to 7.2.
"Tantalum..." he breathed, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Extremely high density."
Next, he crushed a small fragment of the greenish-white crystal into a fine powder using an agate mortar and pestle. He prepared a pressed pellet and manually recalibrated the sensor of the old spectrometer, using a 12-volt motorcycle battery he had brought along to bypass the dead main circuit board.
The ancient machine hummed, its green cathode-ray screen flickering with lines of spectral data.
When the final elemental analysis flashed onto the screen, Ekenna had to grab the edge of the wooden bench to keep from collapsing.
Lithium Oxide (
L
i
2
O
Li
2
O
): 7.4%
Tantalum Pentoxide (
T
a
2
O
5
Ta
2
O
5
): 42.1%
Niobium (
N
b
2
O
5
Nb
2
O
5
): 18.6%
In commercial mining, a lithium deposit with 1.5% purity was considered high-grade ore. A tantalum concentration above 30% was practically unheard of outside elite tier-one mines in Western Australia.
This wasn't just a vein. It was a geological miracle—a mega-pegmatite swarm that extended far beyond the construction site, tracing an ancient fault line straight back into the arid, abandoned badlands of the neighboring northern province.
Ekenna fell to his knees in the dark, dusty laboratory. Tears streamed down his dirt-streaked cheeks, falling onto the printed spectral chart.
For five years, he had been mocked, abandoned, and treated like dirt beneath the feet of arrogant men. Chidimma had left him because he had no future. Daniel had thrown ten thousand naira into the mud to humiliate him.
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Ekenna wiped his face with his sleeve. He stood up, folded the laboratory readouts, and tucked them into his chest pocket directly over his heart.
He was no longer just a laborer carrying concrete blocks. He was a man holding the key to an empire.
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