Yeah turning on this stuff sounds like the worst possible idea ever.

Well, thankfully there’s no mechanic in the mines right now which could easily suss out what the machine needs : ^ )

Very strange things going on. The Paladin and any knowledge of how to operate any of this was a last-minute surprise addition.
Most of the contestants aren't Spirit users and not all Pandemonium even.

I just can't quite work out Smile's gain or desired result in all of this.

Calling it now - All of this was a setup to get Tobi and the Paladin to work together to make Smile rich growing a new batch of Black Crystal. And, if they're watching via camera, they also figure out how to do it again as a bonus.

If the machinery is very straightforward, then I'm probably wrong, so who knows.

See, this is where I'm a little bit confused.

There are Black Crystal mines, which implies (but not confirms) that Black Crystal is something that can be found in the earth of the planet itself. Whether it occurs naturally or not, digging a material out of the ground is a process fraught with risk and danger and just generally not an easy thing to do.

But we also know there's a process to make it. In fact this whole series of strips seems to be confirming that it requires this "Red Elixer" as well as specialized tools.

Why would you keep those tools in a mine where you could obtain Black Crystal presumably by mining? Why have both means of obtaining the substance in the same place? If you can create Black Crystal without a mine, why bother doing the mining at all?

Ok, ok, the chemical process of making it seems increasingly ghastly, sure. That'd be a reason to mine it, if mining it apparently didn't have a horrible cost in and of itself.

But seeing the Blood Vessel here in a Black Crystal mine is confusing to me. Is the Blood Vessel and the chemical process to make Black Crystal somehow connected to the mine? Like the mine gathers base components and the Blood Vessel refines them into Black Crystal? I could see that, but I don't know if it's been explicitly stated...

Perhaps the need for it to be underground is two fold. The first, to hide evidence of its creation as it probably will cause a lot of trouble if it was done in the open air with a lot of people around.

Another clue is the presence of black water on the ground, the one Houston stepped in. What was it even doing there in the first place, if not specifically sought for within the mines themselves?

I'm personally of the opinion that its a necessary component to black crystal manufacturing

Perhaps the pipes are used to pump black water into the human-filled blood vessels, and thus create red elixir?

.

And I immeditately forgot that the very prior page has the Paladin say "its no black water" meaning my guess is inherently bust

@Zobot257
My guess is the mines are just covers to prevent people from realising how Black Crystal is really made, and you can't actually mine it anywhere as it does not occur naturally.

@zobot

Perhaps the crystals are created on the surrounding stone rather than the machine itself. Or it is just to hide the machine. Both explain the design of the mine, which seem to be too open and have too many large, open rooms with flat floors and walls to be a regular mine.

@Zobot
In my mind my thought is that it still might be literally mined, that the process involves injecting the earth with red elixir and gathering what comes up, like fracking but even more evil. That doesn't necessarily explain why the whole apparatus is underground, though.

@Stinger

During the train section Shalhia stated that black water is not related to black crystal in any way. While she might not know the exact process of creating the crystal, I'd imagine she would know the main components.

Which means somebody brought the black water here, for the purposes of the experiment, or perhaps completely accidentally.

@Cellphone
I thought that they like infused the ground with the red elixir and then the black crystal grows out of the earth, like a plant sort off.