Chapter 43


Chapter 43 Strongest Sage, Refining the Dungeon


"Alright, are you two ready?"


A day after the audience .


Ruli, Alma and I went to the dungeon .


We need most of the students for the barrier creation, and those students need to be able to use chantless magic .


Even though the teachers have gotten used with chantless magic lesson, teaching all of them in one week will still be difficult .


Therefore, we agreed that we needed around three weeks before we could begin the barrier creation in earnest .


"Yes! I"m good anytime!"


"Me too, all perfect!"


"Then, let"s go!"


Thus, I started the search for one of the materials needed to create the barrier; a 60cm magic stone .


Well clearing the dungeon would take some time, so today"s main objective is teaching Ruli and Alma magic .


"Alma, you can shoot 【Simple Mana Enchant】 without a problem right?"


"I can do it with my eyes closed now! I mean I"ve shot like hundreds of it!"


"Then, the next one is 【Wire-guided Enchant】 . Alma, try using 【Simple Mana Enchant】 but stop before you shoot it . "


"Un!"


Alma put her mana on the arrow she readied .


It"s still a bit crude, but she got the pa.s.sing mark . At this degree of completion, she should be able to learn the next enchant .


"You"ll shoot that arrow . . . . but this time, try to concentrate your consciousness on the arrow before you do . Connect the arrow with a mana thread and feel as if you hold the endpoint . "


"Hm . . . Like this?"


I could sense mana coiling on the slight s.p.a.ce between the shot arrow and Alma .


The range is only about 3 meters . . . . It"s good enough to get the feel .


"Then, try to make the arrow curve to the right using that thread as an intermediately . . . . "


"Oooh, it curved!"


Alma"s arrow slightly turned right .


She really has a good sense .


"This is called guided enchant . Once you can make the arrow turn at your will, you don"t need to worry about line of fire anymore . Also, that arrow can penetrate right?"


"It can easily penetrate a mere hermit crab . . . "


"Then, first you should practice shooting through two crabs at once . "


Doing it on one crab is easy, but you need to have an unexpectedly good control to penetrate two crabs with differences in highs and lows .


It should be optimum for her practice .


And since I"ve hanged the pendant from yesterday on my neck, I should also get a bit of experience points from it .


"Okay, I"ll give it a try!"


"Don"t go to other floors for now okay . "


"Got it!"


After she said that, Alma left us to hunt hermit crabs .


This means she"ll be a bit away from us, but I can sense if she"s in any danger with 【Pa.s.sive Detection】 as long as she"s in the same floor, so there"s no need to fret .


After confirming that Alma turned at a corner, I turned my line of sight to Ruli .


"Is it time for Augment magic at last!?"


Ruli raised her voice before I could say anything .


However, unfortunately, augment magic isn"t the thing I"m going to teach her now .


"Augment magic . . . . Or rather, first we need to make the materials for it . You should make your own weapon if you want to do augmentation . "


First of all, if a First Crest bearer needs to bring a sword whenever they want to practice, they will never have enough money on them . If they can create their own sword, they can practice anytime they want .


Moreover, if you want to master augment magic, you"ll have to be able to concurrently use augment magic while you"re creating a sword . Thus, blacksmithing is indispensable for it .


"Creating weapons . . . . ? But don"t you need to train for years or even dozens of years to become a blacksmith . . . . "


"If you"re going pro, yep that"s about right . "


Even if she took the shortest route using the knowledge of my past life, it would still likely take her several hundreds years to completely master blacksmithing .


However, it isn"t that difficult if it"s only to surpa.s.s the swords you can find in the present royal capital .


"Well, I"ll teach you weapon creation later, first our problem is . . . . procuring the materials . In short, metal refinery . "


"But first, we"d need ores to refine--"


"We have raw ores here . This . "


While saying that, I take out a sword from storage magic, put 【Mana Strike】, and 【Brittle Fracture】 on it and hit the dungeon wall with the sword .


Then a part of the dungeon"s wall crumbled and fell to our direction .


By the way, 【Brittle Fracture】 is a magic to raise offensive power against hard brittle things like rocks .


"Dungeon"s wall have a moderate amount of metal in them . There"s many reasons for that . . . . Well, just keep that in mind for now . "


"Eh, you"re breaking that!? Or rather, you can break that!?"


"Hm? Isn"t dungeon"s wall a resource?"


"Let alone resources, it should have been the forefront of things that absolutely can"t be broken . . . . "


But it can be broken though .


The princ.i.p.al also already gave me his permission, 『You can do anything you want with it if you can break it』 anyway .


Well, no point thinking about it . It"s probably another weird knowledge the demons spread . Those bunch really never do anything decent .


"I"ll teach how to break the dungeon"s wall later, for now let"s focus on refinement . I"ll show you how to do it right now, so watch closely and keep using 【Pa.s.sive Detection】 . "


"Yes!"


I pick up a huge lump from the crumbled wall while Ruli is watching .


There isn"t much metal in it since we"re in upper floor, but it"s quite enough for training .


I diffuse my mana into the lump, and after my mana melted the metal, I pulled the mana out and recrystallized the metal portion .


And then I crushed it into pieces using the sword with 【Brittle Fracture】 .


"What do you think? Did you get it?"


"It felt like the mana melted the dungeon wall somehow . . . . Was that how to do refinement?"


"No, this is the second stage . "


I activated magnetic magic and gathered black lumps from among the broken pieces .


"These are the dungeon"s crude ores . Well, put simply, they"re mix of metals contained within the dungeon wall . "


Dungeon"s crude ores contain iron within it so you can collect them using magnetism .


You can use your hands as well, but using magnetic magic is far quicker .


"Dungeon crude ores . . . . So we make a sword using these?"


"Nope . We collect these and then refine them . "


I gathered the dungeon crude ores in one place, and melted them into one lump using flame magic .


The secret here is to put in a largish amount of mana right before they melt . The melting point will become lower if you do, making it easier to melt the lump .


I cooled it with water magic lastly, and recrystallized it using mana again by the same method like earlier .


Afterward, the black lumps this time are mixed with gray and blue crystals, creating spotty patterns . I think it"s 90% gray and 10% blue .


The blue is mithril, the gray is iron . It seems the metals mixed within the wall in this floor are mostly of these two variants .


"How about it?"


"Don"t tell me that"s . . . . Mithril!?"


After identifying the blue parts on the lump, Ruli asked me .


"Correct . The gray one is iron . . . . But the purity is lacking, thus we need to raise it by repeating the process before . "


Afterward, I broke the spotty lump, melted the blue pieces and the gray pieces separately and recrystallized them again with the method earlier .


Silicones, oxygens and other elements besides metal are mixed in dungeon crude ores .


Recrystallization is needed to remove those impurities .


Well, my Fourth Crest can"t make it that pure even after repeated processes though .


"I, I see . . . . So you get mithril from dungeon walls . . . . "


"This isn"t really that complicated, you"ll learn in no time . "


"No time!? . . . . I"m not sure which part of it isn"t complicated, but thank you in advance!"


--And then, about 30 minutes later .


"I did it!"


Ruli is holding mithril she refined herself, with a smile on her whole face .


To be honest, I thought it would have taken around two hours .


Should I say as expected of the school"s runner-up, or maybe it was thanks to her intense determination . . . .

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