Volume 6 Chapter 15-2 The Ring Artisan’s Tale
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”Making a hundred years’ worth of materials is too much, so let’s start with a hundred prototypes first.”
I can make that many with the materials I have. The best spell for mass production is the recovery ring.
It uses the wearer’s MP to boost natural healing, like basic healing magic. Making many isn’t a problem.
It’s just a placebo, but it sells well because of high demand. The poison-removing ring is also popular.
Well, giving out too many might upset religious groups, so changing drop rates in treasure chests is risky.
Anyway, the first-place Extra Power Ring is gone, so I wanna balance it by increasing the lower ranks, but it’s not that simple, huh. Can’t we just reduce the dud rings instead? I don’t really wanna make cursed rings or anything like that.
Curses are kinda like magic but totally different in terms of strength. The biggest difference is they don’t use MP to activate, which seems handy but is actually super tricky. With magic, you can stop it by cutting off the mana supply, but curses don’t work like that. Once they’re activated, they’re uncontrollable.
There’s magic to dispel curses, but if you check it with the Editor skill, it’s not actually canceling the curse with magic.
The MP used is just to connect with the gods. The gods are the ones who actually make the curse disappear. Basically, it’s magic to ask the gods for help. So sometimes nothing happens, or it takes time for them to respond. It’s kinda like a GM call in an online game, I guess. So curses are like bugs, I suppose.
Wait’ hold on. If curse-dispelling magic is like a GM call, maybe it can even erase a Summoned Hero’s cheat abilities.
Cheat abilities break the rules of the world, so if we report them as unfair, the gods can’t just ignore it, right?
By tweaking the curse-dispelling magic a bit, we could probably make magic to erase cheat abilities’ I think it’s doable.
For example, if we report the Extra Power spell to the right god in the right way, it’d probably get banned immediately.
Of course, I’m not gonna do that ’cause it’s no benefit to me.
…Let’s just pretend I didn’t notice anything.
For now, let’s make the dud rings into joke items that people can laugh off instead of curses or anything serious.
* * *
The Skill-Sealing Ring isn’t unremovable, but it’s designed to break if you take it off. Honestly, no one’s gonna fall for a cursed ring anyway, so this is good enough. And seriously, these dud rings are more trouble to make than the first-place ones. Do we even need to make them? I can skip the auto-adjusting spell and just prepare different sizes, cutting the work in half. No one’s actually gonna wear them anyway, so this works.
I also made a Firefly Ring, an original idea of mine. It just uses MP to glow faintly’a kinda meh item. I didn’t bother limiting how many times it can be used. Well, it’s pretty when it lights up, so maybe it’ll be the best of the worst, I guess.
I accidentally made a ring that stops people from feeling pain, too. It could be useful, but it feels dangerous, so I’m scrapping it.
Items that are neither helpful nor harmful are surprisingly tricky to make.
I also tried making rings that feel slightly warm or cool when worn. They’re not as useful as a hand warmer, just enough to notice the temperature difference. That’s the key’seems useful but isn’t really. I also made ones that get warm enough to avoid burns and cold enough to avoid frostbite. These are like mini-prizes, just enough to satisfy curiosity. I’m curious to see how adventurers react to them.
Once I had enough prototypes, I got Uno’s approval before starting mass production. I’ve got about two kilos of bronze left, aiming to make around four hundred rings.
Since I need to make so many, the work turned into a routine. I only put my heart into it at the beginning. Ironically, the ones I made mindlessly turned out better.
I switched to batch processing for each step’like the Manufacturing method, I think. History lessons said it boosted efficiency, but I’m not really feeling it. Am I doing it wrong?
It feels like working in a factory, but it’s kinda fun in its own way. Speaking of which, in my elementary graduation book, I wrote I wanted to put flowers on sashimi for a living. In middle school, I wrote in a book report that envelope-stuffing side jobs looked fun, but the teacher got mad and said I was goofing off.
Maybe my sense is weird, but repetitive work feels good. Not thinking, just doing the same thing over and over’you start cutting out unnecessary moves. I guess my real skills are leveling up. Everything gets deeper the more you focus, and just when you think you’ve reached the top, there’s more to see.
I got so into making rings that I couldn’t stop, even forgetting to eat or sleep. If Uno were a shady merchant, I’d probably be stuck making rings for life.
”You’re overworking yourself. Take a break already.”
Uno finally said, sounding like a doctor putting her foot down. I kinda wished she’d said something more old-school, like, “Pushing too hard is bad for your health,” but translation skills aren’t that clever.
With materials running low, I stopped at a good point.
Exceneca gave me Water of Life to drink. It fully restores HP and MP’amazing stuff. I’d love to keep it in my magic bag, but it stops working if Exceneca’s strength fades. Oh well, Uno gave me plenty of Dragon God’s Herb, so it’s fine.
”Uh, can these be used as materials?”
Mone brought broken swords and crushed armor’probably dumped in the dungeon or left by fallen adventurers.
”We keep this junk for trading with dwarves.”
I was curious, so Mone showed me the warehouse. Thousands of equipment piles’if one person dropped one item per day, it’d take years to collect this much. Thinking some of these belonged to lost adventurers is depressing, but they knew the risks, right?
There’s not just equipment but furniture and big machines, too. I even saw an Eye of Cyclops newer than Schulz’s, made of a different material, maybe like the aluminum in the Puppeteer’s dungeon.
Older stuff probably has historical value, so we can’t just melt it down. Who knows? It might have some amazing hidden function.
For melting, cheap bronze swords are best, but sadly, most are iron. I can work with iron, but I don’t have the right tools. Bronze tools would break quickly.
Even though I could make the tools, but doing everything alone is inefficient. Even Mr. Zenom buys some tools from specialists. You need tools to make tools’it’s complicated.
I planned to buy tools as needed. Mr. Gino gave me bronze tools from our training, so I’m set there. Bronze is still my thing.
Oh, this bent mace is bronze! It cracked during casting and broke in battle. It’s five kilos’enough for a thousand rings.
Back to work. Water of Life lets me skip sleep, which is handy. Uno looks annoyed, but I’m doing this for her, so no complaints.
First, I cut it into 5-gram pieces. Normally, I’d use Crafting skill, but even mythril tools would wear out after thousands of cuts. I used my original magic to tear it apart’just tweaked my magic bag’s script. I specify 5 grams of the mace and store it, tearing the metal with magic. It eats up MP, so Pii-Pii’s help is key. Exceneca and Uno keep Pii-Pii’s mana up with Water of Life and Dragon God’s Herb, so it’s unlimited.
Even so, doing it a thousand times is tough. The mace’s shape isn’t consistent, so cutting is tricky. Midway, I melted it into a long rod, making it super easy. Just one tweak made it way more efficient, and mana use dropped. Heck, I could stretch it into a wire and snap it by hand.
After cutting, I used Mr. Gino’s levitation skill to float the pieces and had a Salamander melt them. I shape the molten metal with levitation and engrave the magic array, embedding part of the spell inside the metal, like Mr. Gino. The auto-adjusting spell is on the surface, but the ring’s effect is hidden in the alloy’s ratio.
It was working fine until it suddenly failed. Did I lose my rhythm after a break? I can redo it, but it’s still annoying. When things stop working, it’s frustrating. Time for a bath!
When I’m stuck, a change of pace helps. It’s just a water bath in a spring, but it’s refreshing.
Speaking of baths, Archimedes or Antisthenes, I forget which had a breakthrough in the bath and shouted “Eureka!” Then he ran home naked. Back then, people tolerated geniuses’ weird behavior. What did he discover? I can’t remember, and it’s bugging me. Pythagoras’ theorem? Probably not.
Oh, right! Archimedes’ principle! Thanks to him, we know why heavy iron ships float. And Antisthenes invented the lantern.
Remembering that cleared my head. Ah! It’s the impurities! The ingots I used earlier were high-quality, made by dwarf craftsmen. That’s why it worked. Cheap bronze has too many impurities, causing failures. So Mr. Gino’s skill relied on the dwarves’ craftsmanship.
Dwarves appreciate natural metal chunks as they are, but they also have advanced refining techniques. The workshop had a big setup using acid, similar to Earth’s electrolysis, to produce high-purity ingots.
In Duke Mineley’s territory, they use mercury and lead for refining, ignoring environmental issues, so it’s a mess. Mercury is cheap at the Alchemy Guild, so it’s easy to get. It’s handy if you don’t mind the toxicity.
Since I don’t need to worry about MP right now, can I refine metals with magic instead of acid or mercury? I thought of selectively storing specific metals in my magic bag. Theoretically, it’s possible with enough mana, but how do you choose only one metal? Locking onto individual atoms is impossible, so it’s not practical.
Maybe I can separate them by density. If I crush them into powder and gently drop them in water, heavier metals should sink. Crushing them would be insanely hard, though. Is there a good magic for that?
If I’m using density, maybe melting the metal and spinning it would separate it by centrifugal force? I tried levitating a bronze piece, melting it with a Salamander, and spinning it around. I was careful not to let it splatter everywhere.
”What kind of game is this?”
Uno asked, watching with interest. Before I knew it, the spirits were crowded around, too. For some reason, watching molten metal spin is fun.
”I’m using differences in weight, I mean, density. I wanted to separate just the copper’”
”Hmm. If you knew copper’s True Name, you could move it with magic.”
Turns out, there’s actually magic like that. Uno knew an ancient spell that moves only what you specify using a True Name, a divine language from the age of gods. It’s super useful, but most True Names have been forgotten.
The only one Uno remembers is the True Name for water, which is still pretty handy.
I copied it with my Editor skill and could use it. It can warp-move only water, so it’s great for drying fish or laundry. But the MP cost is high, so I need Pii-Pii’s help. Can’t use it casually.
If I knew more True Names, I could move other things, too. I thought trying random ancient words might work, but just matching the pronunciation isn’t enough. You need to know the meaning the “kotodama” to activate it.
If only I knew copper’s True Name. With my Mind Communication skill, I could ask an ancient person and understand it. Wait, even then, it’d sound like Japanese to me, so it wouldn’t work. Or would it?
”Move, copper.”
The magic activated, and the metal piece split into two. Holding it, it felt spongy inside. The colors were different because it separated into pure copper and the rest.
It worked. I didn’t need to overthink it. With the Mind Communication skill, it seems I can use it normally.
I gathered the metal pieces I’d already cut into over a thousand pieces, melted them, and reshaped them into square ingots. Ugh, all that earlier work was wasted. But it can’t be helped.
First, I separated the copper. Over half of it was copper.
Next, I separated the tin, but a lot of impurities remained. So many impurities were mixed in.
From the impurities, I further separated zinc, lead, and tiny amounts of gold and silver, but there’s still a lot left. I’ll analyze that later. For now, I’ll make it into an ingot as “mystery metal.”
Summoned Heroes could probably use this magic, right? I can only think of metal refining, but someone with more knowledge could do way more dangerous things. According to online info, just gathering special uranium in a bucket could cause a nuclear explosion. Please, no nukes in a fantasy world.
The magic wouldn’t activate without the True Name for special uranium, but I’m sure it exists. After all, this is an ancient super-civilization, way more advanced than modern Earth.
I’ll keep this magic a secret for now. First, I need to make sure Uno keeps quiet about it.
Both Uno and Schulz are dragons, and they hoard incredibly valuable stuff without realizing it, it’s scary. I wanna say, “How many Pandora’s boxes are you holding?” Oh, and there’s Otto the dragon, too. No one’s noticed, but this world might be in serious trouble.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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