1.
I had always been grateful to Ruby.
…Should I say I was proud of her, or that she was kind?
In any case, Ruby had monopolized Dolores’s love.
Then one day, I appeared and began receiving a share of that attention and love… Yet Ruby had accepted me without showing the slightest displeasure.
For a child, I thought she was incredibly kind.
That was why I cherished her like a real younger sister, too.
[But you saved Dolores, didn’t you?]
"Well, if you put it that way, I suppose so."
But she was still a kid, wasn’t she?
Even considering all that, Ruby was more than kind enough in my eyes.
Anyway, since this was my first time making a weapon for someone, I intended to show her what I could really do.
"I’ll show you who I am."
The first step was carving the mold.
I couldn’t just knead some clay roughly into shape like I had when making Dawn Bringer last time.
The materials, for one thing, came with quite a few unusual considerations.
So this time, I planned to make the basic form by melting metal, pouring it into a mold, letting it cool, and taking it out.
"It can’t be finished in one go."
If I tried to end the process by simply pouring it into the mold and calling it done, defects would form inside due to air bubbles—voids, basically. The key was to heat up the piece after taking it from the mold, then hammer it.
Equipment forged by actual hammering was far stronger and more reliable than cast products that were simply poured and left alone.
Pour, hammer, then polish.
The staff itself was basically all of that, but…
I thought the simpler something was… the harder it became to produce a result that cleared a high threshold.
Making a result no one else could create with a simple weapon anyone could make.
Just thinking about it, didn’t that sound difficult?
That was true skill, too.
"Before making the mold…"
First, let’s think a little about spirit stones.
I had already crushed them into thread… but as was typical of elven equipment, there weren’t many methods involving heating or melting them with fire.
There were a few in jewelry-making, but usually, spirit stones were simply carved and set in as the final gemstone.
Which brought me to this little thing: the spirit stone.
"Can I melt it?"
No, before that.
"Does it even melt…?"
I had that question.
Each one was precious and hard to come by, so it was awkward to just waste them recklessly.
Ruby had obtained them with such difficulty… Well, they were valuable, at any rate.
So I spent a long time digging through the Children of the Forest’s records.
"Damn it."
Spirit stones must have been extremely valuable even to the elves, because aside from spirit mages, there was no record of anyone using them.
[NOT FOR SALE]
Nothing. There was nothing.
Well, unless someone had nerves of steel, there was no way they would melt these…
…Fortunately, I did have nerves of steel.
Fwoosh…
The crucible furnace had already been heated to its limit.
Right… There were twenty of them, so let’s just test ten.
I opened the lid of the crucible furnace.
I put five sunlight spirit stones into one small crucible and five wind spirit stones into another.
"Will you melt for me?"
I closed the lid and waited for a while.
Fwoooosh…
After counting for a bit in my head, I opened the lid again.
"…Holy shit, they melted?"
The angular edges of the spirit stones were visibly melting away.
It was almost exactly like the way iron melted.
Then naturally, there was something I had to do.
I slowly stirred the two spirit stones with heat-resistant rods.
Since there were two crucibles, I stirred them with both hands. I felt like a boy rowing a boat.
Glug…
I kept stirring until beads of sweat formed across my forehead and arms, and until the stones inside had completely melted.
Before long, the wind spirit stones and sunlight spirit stones had melted into sky-blue and white liquids, respectively.
Within flames that were roughly 1,600 degrees and hot as hell, the two liquids gave off different lights.
"They melted."
Just as I thought that, something appeared before my eyes.
─────────────────
[Achievement][Pioneers Are Always Criticized][★★★☆☆]
─────────────────
『You have succeeded in melting spirit stones using a method no one has ever attempted.』
[Title Acquired ─ [It’s Courage, Not Recklessness]]
─────────────────
"…See?"
I told you it was courage.
[…….]
…What a relief. Thankfully, neither spirit stone had evaporated.
But wasn’t there some kind of reward?
Putting that thought aside for the moment, I checked the blue one first.
─────────────────
[High-Grade Wind Spirit Stone Melt][★★★☆☆]
─────────────────
『A liquid created by melting high-grade wind spirit stones with the flames of an Heir of Fire.』
『The power of wind contained in the spirit stones has been released in liquid form without any loss.』
『It permeates substances that accept mana and grants them the property of wind.』
─────────────────
Then I checked the white melt on the other side.
─────────────────
[High-Grade Sunlight Spirit Stone Melt][★★★☆☆]
─────────────────
『A liquid created by melting high-grade sunlight spirit stones with the flames of an Heir of Fire.』
『The power of sunlight contained in the spirit stones has been released in liquid form without any loss.』
『It permeates substances that accept mana and grants them the property of sunlight.』
─────────────────
The spirit stones had been a mixture of high-grade and mid-grade ones, but after melting them all, the result was high-grade.
"…Isn’t that great?"
It meant I could give the staff the properties of wind and sunlight.
I couldn’t pour them anywhere right away, but if I took them out, they would solidify.
I transferred them to a small warming furnace in one corner of the workshop, which I had heated beforehand.
This way, at least, I didn’t have to worry about them hardening.
"…Whew."
I seemed to have stumbled into a discovery of the century.
But I didn’t think melting them normally would work…
As the description said, it seemed possible only because of an Heir of Fire’s flames.
Let’s sort this out. For now, I had obtained a new material.
My plan to crush them into powder and stuff them inside the staff in the worst-case scenario had changed.
"…I was originally going to use White Iron."
One line in the melt’s description bothered me.
『It permeates substances that accept mana and grants them the property of sunlight.』
My goal was to put in all the energy of the sunlight and wind spirits… and to do that, all three energies had to blend well.
…If there was an ore best suited for that,
"…There’s exactly one."
I went into the storage room in one corner of the workshop and opened the door.
The Imperial Family had given me countless minerals before I made The Cradle of Earth last time.
Among them were many minerals I had not even had the chance to use once.
Of course, I had every mineral in there memorized. I knew exactly what I had…
─────────────────
[Whiteheart Iron][★★★☆☆]
─────────────────
『A white iron ore whose impurities have been washed away over a long period near a mana vein.』
『Because it has no innate attribute, it does not reject external mana.』
『Its color and properties change according to the power it contains.』
─────────────────
This was the one.
All I had to do was take it out and use it when I needed it.
To briefly explain Whiteheart Iron’s defining trait… Since it was mined near a mana vein and had been exposed to mana for such a long time, it had no restrictions when it came to accepting mana and other external powers.
All its impurities had been washed away, leaving it with no innate attribute either.
A sturdy empty vessel. You could say it was the most suitable iron for forging.
"I should check its condition."
Even if it came from the Imperial Family, it couldn’t escape my eyes.
Not trusting things made by humans was a dwarf’s basic principle.
I took out an ingot and appraised it.
─────────────────
[Refinement Condition][Supreme]
[Impurity Content][1e-7%]
─────────────────
『It can be melted without a separate refining process.』
─────────────────
For reference, 1e-7% was roughly one part in a billion. Or was it one-billionth of the total?
It was practically the sort of rate you only saw on a game’s probability table.
In other words, it was basically pure iron.
"…As expected of the Imperial Family."
I knew I could trust them.
The Imperial Family was the best.
Inwardly, I worshipped the Imperial Family.
"Before melting it…"
Let’s make the mold first.
I took out two mold frames.
I brought out casting sand, kneaded it, and packed it tightly into the frames.
For reference, casting sand was the sand-like material that formed the inside of a mold.
Taking into account Ruby’s height… the length of her arms, the size of her hands, and the room she had left to grow, I calculated the staff’s length to be exactly 155 centimeters.
I pressed a staff model I had carved beforehand into the casting sand to form the shape, then carefully removed it.
The upper and lower halves of a mold basically had to have identical shapes.
They were put together before pouring the molten metal vertically, and the important thing was making both a hole for the molten metal to enter… and a hole for air to escape.
What happened if there was no hole for the air to escape?
"Voids."
Like I mentioned before, air bubbles would get trapped inside the iron and form voids.
It would turn out kind of like taffy—not the curse, but actual edible taffy. It would be full of little holes, so you wouldn’t be able to use it as a weapon.
I stacked the two frames together and secured them completely.
"Once it’s preheated, we’re done."
The instant molten metal was poured into a cold mold, its surface would cool too quickly, which would be a disaster.
For something thin like a staff, the moment the molten metal cooled too quickly, it was over.
I placed the finished mold in the furnace, preheated it briefly, then took it out.
Now for the last part…
"How many crucibles am I going to burn through today?"
The many crucibles I had prepared were finally about to shine.
Then I opened the crucible furnace.
As I put Whiteheart Iron into the preheated crucible, blazing flames swiftly swallowed it whole.
Squeak, squeak.
Stepping on the pedal to raise the temperature further seemed to have helped.
"This won’t be quite enough."
Whiteheart Iron was famous for having a rather high melting point.
I put the Whiteheart Iron in, then…
"Fuck…"
Why couldn’t I get used to this?
Squeak, squeak, squeak.
Squeak, squeak, squeak.
I stomped the pedal like mad, driving the crucible furnace’s temperature higher and higher.
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