Episode 125
Golin stared in disbelief at the set of armor made from meteoric iron that Zeke had just presented.
“My goodness, you actually crafted armor from this rare meteoric iron…”
Despite his incredulous tone, Golin examined the armor closely, turning it over in his hands.
“Is this enough for what you need?” Zeke asked.
Golin nodded. “It’s not solid meteoric iron, but if we melt it down, we can extract enough for our purposes.”
Zeke nodded in agreement, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that things were going a bit too smoothly.
‘This is almost too convenient,’ he thought. The meteoric iron armor set had come from a random box provided by the system, and it was exactly what they needed. It felt as if someone was deliberately guiding his path, and he wasn’t entirely comfortable with that notion.
‘Is it just me being overly sensitive, or is someone really pulling the strings here?’ he wondered. He still hadn’t fully grasped the nature of the system, so he couldn’t just be happy about it.
Just then, Golin, who had been inspecting the armor, spoke up. “There’s another issue we need to address.”
He pointed to the furnace. “To refine meteoric iron and orichalcum, we need the ‘purest flame.’ But this furnace can’t produce that.”
“The purest flame? Is that like a magical furnace or something?” Zeke asked.
Golin clicked his tongue. “You sound like that fool, Gelion.”
“You know him? Gelion actually made such a furnace to forge my sword.”
Golin’s eyes widened in shock. “What? Someone actually pulled off that crazy idea? Who in their right mind would do such a thing?”
Zeke, who had been the one to create the furnace, felt a bit awkward. He quickly changed the subject. “If not that, is there another way to create the purest flame?”
Golin nodded. “Fire is the last of the four elements to form, a complex blend of various components. The purest flame, however, is the most primal form of fire, free from any additional mixtures.”
Zeke tilted his head, thinking. ‘This sounds a lot like what Master Kaishir once told me.’
When learning the Elemental Sword, Zeke had found the water element the hardest to master, while the fire element came to him more easily.
Golin continued to explain the intricacies of creating the purest flame, detailing the arduous process of refining fire.
Zeke watched Golin, who was lost in his own world, then approached the furnace. He summoned his elemental power and unleashed the fire element.
Whoosh!
The flames, initially a deep red, gradually turned white as Zeke infused them with his power.
“Is this the purest flame you were talking about?” Zeke asked.
Golin, who had been rambling on, finally turned to look at Zeke. “You think you can just light a fire and call it the purest flame? It takes a complex process to—” He stopped mid-sentence, eyes wide. “That’s… that’s the purest flame!”
Golin leaned closer to the furnace, astonished, and looked back and forth between the fire and Zeke. “Did you… did you do this?”
“I thought I’d give it a try,” Zeke replied.
“This is insane! How can a human create the purest flame?”
Zeke pondered how to explain, then decided to be honest. ‘Master Kaishir always wanted his achievements to be known.’
He extended his hand over the furnace, and the pure flame rose to rest on his palm. Golin watched in awe.
“Is this… magic?” Golin asked, incredulous.
“No, it’s elemental power,” Zeke explained.
“Elemental power? What’s that?”
“It might sound crazy, but would you believe me if I said it’s the power of Hero King Kaishir?”
“Ka-Kaishir?” Golin’s face twisted in disbelief.
Zeke continued, unfazed by Golin’s reaction. “I’ve inherited the legacy of Hero King Kaishir. Elemental power is his unique strength.”
“You expect me to believe that? The guy’s a legend!”
“You saw it yourself, didn’t you? The eyes, the face that looks like an annoying elf.”
“What? That face is supposed to be the Hero King’s? It looked like some annoying elf!”
“Half-elves and elves do look quite similar,” Zeke admitted.
Golin, still skeptical, glanced back at the pure flame blazing in the furnace and had no choice but to accept it.
“Elemental power, huh? Can you teach me?”
“Teaching it isn’t hard, but… can dwarves even handle mana?”
“Mana? You mean magic power?”
“No, just mana itself. It’s the source of magic power.”
“How can you just handle that? Isn’t magic power what you get when you process mana?”
“Then you can’t learn this.”
“Damn it… Just show me. Mana, schmana! I’ll figure it out! Right now!”
Zeke, amused by Golin’s impatience, explained mana and how to sense it.
Golin tried to follow Zeke’s instructions to sense mana.
“Hmm!”
Golin, with his deep understanding of fire and metal, seemed like he could grasp the fire element well, but he couldn’t sense mana at all.
Zeke recalled something Kaishir had once said. ‘Why didn’t I teach the Elemental Sword to elves? I tried, but they could sense mana but couldn’t convert it to elemental power.’
It seemed dwarves could understand elemental power but couldn’t sense mana.
‘Now I see why no one could master the Elemental Sword for 2,000 years.’
After a while, Golin gave up trying to sense mana.
“Damn it, magic power comes from mana, so why can’t I do it?”
Golin looked at Zeke and said, “Looks like you’ll have to help me out.”
“How do you mean?”
“Be my furnace.”
In other words, he wanted Zeke to maintain the pure flame.
“Alright,” Zeke agreed.
Golin, despite his gruff demeanor, had agreed to help with the repairs, so Zeke nodded. It was already late, so they decided to start the work at dawn after a night’s rest.
Zeke ended up preparing dinner, serving Golin a warm soup and soft bread from his inventory. Golin, tired of the barbarian’s monster meat, eagerly devoured the meal.
As they ate, Zeke asked, “By the way, have you worked with orichalcum before, Golin?”
Golin nodded. “Once, about fifty years ago.”
He took a swig of beer. “It was from the Lubern dynasty, before the Holy Empire. Quite a rare piece. A paladin’s hammer, made entirely of orichalcum.”
“An orichalcum hammer? Fascinating.”
“Since you’ve treated me to a good meal, let me tell you an interesting story. In the past, Lubern had a way to artificially create orichalcum.”
“What? They could make orichalcum, the metal of the gods?”
“Yes. It’s speculated to have been a form of lost holy magic… or some say it was an alchemist’s ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ that altered the metal’s properties.”
“The Philosopher’s Stone? I thought it was just a legend about turning base metals into gold, not orichalcum.”
“That’s just a theory. And if you have orichalcum, gold is easy to come by.”
“True enough.”
Golin continued, “Anyway, when the Lubern dynasty fell, that secret was lost forever. If it had survived, orichalcum might be as common as mithril today.”
“But if they had a way to make orichalcum back then, shouldn’t there be some left? I’ve never seen any Lubern-era items made of orichalcum at auctions.”
Golin slammed his beer mug down. “Exactly! It’s all because of those greedy Holy Kingdom bastards!”
“What do you mean?”
“The pope declared orichalcum as divine metal, belonging to the church. So anything made of orichalcum is church property.”
“My goodness. So all orichalcum items are…?”
“Locked away in the Holy Kingdom’s treasure vaults.”
Zeke realized why the Holy Kingdom was so wealthy. ‘When the Holy Empire fell, they must have taken all the treasures. But how did Cain get his hands on the orichalcum Herseion of the goddess Theia?’
As Zeke pondered, Golin took another swig of beer. “That orichalcum hammer I mentioned probably came from the Holy Kingdom. The guy who brought it to me was a paladin. He seemed like an Arch Paladin, but I didn’t ask since he seemed to have his reasons.”
Zeke had a hunch. ‘Hmm, that paladin might have been Felix’s grandfather.’
An Arch Paladin fleeing the Holy Kingdom wasn’t common, and the timeline matched what Felix had mentioned.
“The Orichalcum Hammer from the Lubern Dynasty… Could Felix’s grandfather have some connection to the descendants of that dynasty?”
There might be something Felix’s grandfather left behind.
Golin, who had been gulping down his beer, continued to ramble on with amusing but ultimately pointless stories until he eventually fell asleep, snoring loudly.
After making sure Golin was comfortably settled, Zeke returned to organizing the points he hadn’t finished earlier.
“Let’s expand the inventory since we have some points. How much can we increase it by?”
Each point allowed for four additional slots, so with 100 points, he could add 400 slots. He wanted to expand it further, but as a mid-level manager, he was capped at 500 slots.
With the increased inventory space, Zeke could store more items. Taking advantage of the rare free time, he browsed the system shop and stocked up on various necessary items.
“Whew, I ended up spending 2,000 points on all this stuff.”
To unlock the fourth level of the Dragon Skill, he needed to save more points, so he decided to hold off on further spending for now.
Once he finished organizing his points, Zeke went to bed with a sense of relief.
The next morning, Golin was bustling about from early on. He placed Hershion on the workbench and set the Mithril Armor set on the forge.
Golin turned to Zeke. “We’re going to melt the Mithril Armor with pure fire. Get ready.”
Zeke immediately conjured a field of fire, summoning pure flames.
Whoosh!
White flames erupted from the forge.
“Good! Set the fire’s intensity to 1. Adjust it as I instruct,” Golin shouted.
“Understood.”
As Golin placed the Mithril Armor set into the fire, he called out, “10!”
Zeke adjusted the fire’s intensity according to Golin’s commands.
Whoosh!
With his exceptional sense, Zeke could precisely match the intensity Golin desired. The Mithril Armor began to melt slowly in the pure flames.
“15!”
The fierce, pure fire burned away everything but the Mithril components of the armor.
Zeke tended the forge for half a day, maintaining the fire until they finally extracted pure Mithril.
Golin carefully transported the extracted Mithril and poured it over the surface of Hershion on the workbench.
Sizzle—
The liquefied Mithril quickly seeped into Hershion.
“Keep the fire at an intensity of 3 until I say stop!” Golin instructed.
Zeke maintained the pure fire without interruption. He had always focused on creating large flames, but sustaining them like this was a new challenge.
“This is quite the training in itself,” he thought.
While Zeke maintained the pure fire, Golin, sweating profusely, used a magnifying glass to meticulously craft the Mithril onto Hershion’s surface. He sent magical energy through his tools, reconnecting broken circuits and filling in gaps.
Golin worked tirelessly for three days without sleep, and Zeke had to stay by his side, maintaining the fire.
On the third day, Golin finally completed his work.
“It’s done!”
With a weary face, Golin turned to Zeke. “Try activating it.”
Zeke reached out towards Hershion.
[Activating ??? Armor.]
[Restoring dormant functions.]
[Rebooting system.]
[Title ‘Blessed by the Ancient Dragon’ confirmed.]
[Unique Class ‘Immortal’ confirmed.]
[Converting temporary user registration to permanent.]
Vrrrrr!
Suddenly, Hershion’s joints opened, and it floated into the air, attaching itself to Zeke’s body.
Clink, clink, clink!
Hershion wrapped around Zeke, enveloping him completely.
Another message appeared.
[User ‘Zeke Draker’ confirmed.]
[Converting unit to user-exclusive mode.]
Hershion began to transform around Zeke.