On the second day after returning to Volton, since Doganbo-san was being really annoying and telling me to come first thing in the morning, I reluctantly went to Doganbo-san’s workshop in the morning.
「Too slow!」 「Eeh~~! I arrived first thing in the morning, didn’t I?!」
The first thing he says is “Too slow!”.. even though I ate breakfast earlier than usual and came here.
Doganbo-san dragged me by the hand into his workshop.
「Both mithril and adamantite are impossible to refine in my furnace. It can still bear the tempering portion of it, but without a specialized furnace for refinement, it’s impossible. So Takumi, splitting the ore equally will do so I’ll leave the refinement to you.」 「Well, okay…………」
The amount that Doganbo-san had mined was much larger, so I’m grateful for that and all but I’m not in highest of spirits so early in the morning.
I took out the mithril ore and placed it in the area that Doganbo-san had designated for it, and once all of the mithril ore was out, it turned into quite a hill.
「Now then, I should refine these one after the other, yes?」 「Yeah. Adamantite is my favorite but mithril can be used for armor and accessories. Alright, let’s refine it down to the last one!」
Yeaa, talking that way……… I’m the one refining it though.
I made extra mana potions for today, so I’ll do my best!
I will use 『Decomposition』 and 『Extraction』 on the mithril ore and 『Synthesis』 on the extracted mithril. Since mithril ore also contains a small amount of other elements such as aluminium and titanium, it’s necessary to use 『Extraction』 on the essential metals and 『Synthesis』 to secure it. The leftover elements and sand were hardened with Earth magic and turned to blocks. After that, while drinking mana potions, I continued to refine the small hill of mithril ore.
「Takumi-sama, how about you take a break and have lunch?」 「…… yeah, I’m hungry already.」
「Then I will make preparations.」
Because Sophia, who had been watching over me, proposed I have a break, I decided to have lunch. Doganbo-san turned towards me with a dissatisfied look but I can’t work without eating.
I let Kaede out of the Subspace and the four of us ate the meal that Maria had prepared. We invited Doganbo-san to join us, but he said he can’t eat leisurely when there was mithril ore in front of him then he began doing work that was piling up. …………No, if work piles up, you should do finish them before they do.
In the end, Maria sewed side-by-side with Kaede, and I continued the refining, all the while drinking who knows how many potions. I finished refining over half the small mountain of mithril ore that very same day.
「Alright! Same thing first thing tomorrow morning!」 「……yes.」
This.. refining until the adamantite ores, I wonder how many days this would take.
「Now then, work hard!」 「That manner of speech, well, anything’s fine though.」
Early morning the next day as well, I began refining mithril ore. Mustering my magic power, I refined the mithril ores, and by the time I finished, the sun had completely gone down.
「So then we’ll be doing adamantite starting tomorrow.」 「Gya!」
「(This is artisan work, this is the artisan work that I wanted but………… not like this!)」
I was supposed to make things enjoyably, it’s like I was thrown into a “black” environment[1]. Huh? Am I being deceived?
I complained about how I didn’t want to do it and that it was hard. Adamantite ore in particular. the magic power necessary to refine it with alchemy is higher. Chantless, I abandoned the magic formationless refinement and prepared three metal plates with the alchemy formations for 『Decomposition』, 『Extraction』, and 『Synthesis』, and just poured my magic power into what could be called a refinement assembly-line system. To that extent, I was finally able to finish refining all the adamantite ores in two days.
「Takumi, take half of the mithril and adamantite ingots. We’ll start making mithril and adamantite armors and weapons 5 days from now.」
Mithril is already usable as it is and has high affinity with magic power, but its hardness and toughness are not that high. That is why it is alloyed[2,3]. It is mixed with metals and those amounts are a blacksmith’s secret. That is the same for adamantite. Adamantite is much harder and tougher than steel as it is, furthermore, its affinity with magic power is also high, so a completed weapon can easily slice through steel armor. Then by keeping the blacksmith’s unique alloy mix a secret, and raising the abilities of the adamantite weapons, those weapons and armor become national treasure-grade.
In exchange for me refining the ores, Doganbo-san gave me an alloy recipe. Considering that, this much hardship might have been reasonable.