[Translator - Peptobismal]
[Proofreader - Max]
Chapter 125
Seeing the Meteorite Iron armor set that Zeke took out, Golin had a dumbfounded expression.
"Oh my god, to think someone made armor with this precious Meteorite Iron..."
Golin said in disbelief, but he still examined the Meteorite Iron armor closely.
"Is this enough?"
Golin nodded.
"It's not pure Meteorite Iron, but if I melt it down and extract it, I can get enough."
Zeke nodded at Golin's words.
'But things are going too well.'
He didn't expect the Meteorite Iron armor set from the random box provided by the system to be so helpful.
Even though he was receiving help from the system, he couldn't help but feel uneasy about the results that seemed to anticipate his actions.
'It feels like someone is intentionally helping me... Am I being too sensitive?'
Since he hadn't yet figured out the true nature of the system, Zeke couldn't just be happy about it.
Just then, Golin, who was examining the Meteorite Iron armor, said to Zeke,
"And there's one more problem."
He pointed to the furnace.
"To refine Meteorite Iron and Orichalcum, you need to create the 'purest fire.' But I can't create it with this furnace."
"What is the purest fire? Is it like a magic furnace?"
Golin clicked his tongue at Zeke's words.
"A magic furnace? You sound like that Gelion kid."
"You know him? Gelion actually made that furnace to craft my sword."
Golin had a surprised expression.
"What? You're saying he actually made that absurd thing? What madman would do that!"
Zeke, the one who made the furnace, had a slightly awkward expression.
He changed the subject.
"If that's not it, is there anything else needed to create the purest fire?"
Golin nodded and said,
"Fire was the last of the four elements to be formed. As such, it's made by combining complex and diverse elements. However, the purest fire, while being a combination of various elements, must also have the most primal form of fire itself, without any additional mixtures."
Zeke tilted his head at Golin's words.
'That sounds similar to what Master Kaisir told me.'
When learning the Elemental Sword, the Water Barrier was the most difficult to learn, but Zeke had learned the Fire Barrier relatively easily.
Golin went on about the definition of pure fire and the difficult process of refining fire to create it.
Zeke, watching Golin lost in his own world, approached the furnace.
Then, he activated his elemental power and used the Fire Barrier.
Whoosh!
As he infused the red-hot fire with more elemental power, the fire gradually turned white.
Zeke said to Golin,
"Is this perhaps the pure fire you were talking about?"
Golin, who had been talking to himself, finally turned his head towards Zeke.
"Do you think pure fire is something you can just create by lighting a fire! It requires an incredibly complex process... Gasp! It's pure fire!"
Golin was astonished to see the fire Zeke had created and brought his head close to the furnace.
He looked back and forth between the fire and Zeke and asked in disbelief,
"D-did you create this?"
"I tried creating it, just in case."
"This is crazy, how can a human create pure fire?"
Zeke thought about how to explain it and decided to tell the truth.
'Master Kaisir wanted his achievements to be widely known anyway.'
When Zeke held out his hand towards the furnace, the pure fire rose onto his palm.
Golin marveled at the sight.
"O-oh my god. Is it magic? Is that it?"
"No. It's a power called elemental power."
"Elemental power? What's that?"
"You might think I'm crazy if I say this, but... would you believe me if I said it's the power of Hero King Kaisir?"
"K-Kaisir?"
Golin's face contorted at Zeke's words.
As if he had expected it, Zeke continued speaking despite the reaction.
"I inherited the legacy of Hero King Kaisir. Elemental power is the Hero King's unique power."
"You want me to believe that? That person is a legendary figure."
"You saw it earlier. That annoying face with sky blue eyes."
"What? How is that the Hero King's face? It was the face of those annoying elves!"
"Well, half-elves and elves have a similar feel."
Golin, who had been struggling to believe Zeke's words, finally couldn't help but believe him after seeing the pure fire blazing fiercely in the furnace once again.
"Elemental power? Could you teach me that too?"
"It's not difficult to teach, but um... can dwarves handle mana?"
"Mana? Are you talking about magic power?"
"No, just mana itself. The source of magic power, so to speak."
"Hey, how can you handle that directly! Isn't magic power what you get after processing it to be usable?"
"Then you can't learn this."
"D-damn... Show me once. Mana, that's nothing! I'll do it! Right now!"
Zeke was dumbfounded by Golin's impatient words, but he still explained about mana and taught him how to sense it.
Golin tried to sense mana according to Zeke's instructions.
"Hmm!"
Golin's understanding of fire and metal was unparalleled, and although he didn't know about other things, he seemed to be able to handle the elemental power of fire well. However, he couldn't sense mana.
Zeke recalled what Kaisir had said.
'Why didn't I teach the Elemental Sword to the elves? Why wouldn't I? I tried. But even though the elves could sense mana well, they couldn't convert it into elemental power.'
On the other hand, it seemed that dwarves could understand elemental power but couldn't sense mana.
'I understand why no one could learn the Elemental Sword for 2,000 years.'
Golin, who had been trying to sense mana, finally gave up after a while.
"Damn it, magic power is made from mana, so why can't I do it!"
Golin looked at Zeke and said,
"It can't be helped. You'll have to help me."
"How?"
"Be the furnace by my side."
In other words, he was asking Zeke to create the pure fire.
"Alright."
Zeke nodded, as Golin was surprisingly cooperative for an eccentric craftsman.
It was already late, so they decided to get a night's rest and start working at dawn the next day.
Zeke ended up preparing dinner, and he served Golin warm soup and soft bread made with ingredients taken from his inventory.
Golin, tired of the Barbarians' monster meat, ate the food with gusto.
While eating, Zeke asked Golin,
"By the way, have you ever handled Orichalcum before, Master Golin?"
Golin nodded.
"Once, about fifty years ago."
Golin took a gulp of beer and said,
"It was from the Lubern dynasty, before the Holy Empire era, and it was quite a precious item. A paladin, or in Lubern terms, a holy knight. It was a hammer used by a holy knight, made of pure Orichalcum."
"An Orichalcum hammer. Interesting."
"Since you treated me to such good food, I'll tell you an interesting story. It's said that in the past, Lubern had a way to artificially create Orichalcum."
"What? Create Orichalcum, the metal of the gods?"
"Yes. It's presumed to be a kind of lost holy magic... There's also a theory that alchemists used the 'Philosopher's Stone' to change the properties of metal."
"The Philosopher's Stone. I only knew it from stories as something that turns useless iron scraps into gold. I didn't know it could create Orichalcum."
"That's just a hypothesis anyway. And if you have Orichalcum, you can get as much gold as you want."
"Well, that's true."
Golin took a gulp of beer and continued,
"Anyway, with the fall of the Lubern dynasty, that secret method was lost forever. If that method had been passed down, Orichalcum might have become as common as Mithril, even if it's still rare."
"But if there was a way to create Orichalcum during the Lubern dynasty, shouldn't there be some Orichalcum left from that time? I've never seen anything made of Orichalcum even when Lubern dynasty items appear in auctions."
Golin slammed his beer mug on the table at those words.
"That's what I'm saying! It's all because of those greedy Holy Kingdom bastards!"
"What? Why the Holy Kingdom?"
"The Pope declared that Orichalcum, being a metal bestowed by God, belongs to the church. So, all Orichalcum items still belong to the church."
"Oh my god. Then all the Orichalcum items are...?"
"Hidden away in the Holy Kingdom's treasury."
Zeke realized anew why the Holy Kingdom was a wealthy nation.
'When the Holy Empire collapsed, they took all the treasures. But how did that Cain guy have the Hercyon of Goddess Teia made of Orichalcum?'
While Zeke was pondering the question, Golin took another gulp of beer and said,
"That Orichalcum hammer I mentioned earlier probably came from the Holy Kingdom too. The person who brought it to me must have been a paladin as well. He had an extraordinary aura, like an Arch Paladin, but I didn't ask any questions because he seemed to have some circumstances."
Something came to Zeke's mind as he listened to Golin's words.
'Hmm, that paladin sounds like Felix's grandfather.'
An Arch Paladin who defected from the Holy Kingdom wouldn't be common.
And if it was about fifty years ago, it would roughly match the time Felix mentioned.
'An Orichalcum hammer from the Lubern dynasty era... Could Felix's grandfather be related to a descendant of the Lubern dynasty?'
Perhaps Felix's grandfather left something behind.
Golin, after drinking a lot of beer, continued to tell pointless stories, calling them interesting, and soon fell asleep snoring.
Zeke laid Golin down and organized his points, which he hadn't finished earlier.
'Since I have some points, let's expand the inventory. How much can it be expanded?'
He could expand four slots per point, so 100 points meant 400 slots.
He wanted to expand it more, but the limit for an intermediate administrator was 500 slots.
As his inventory slots increased, he could store more items.
Since he had some free time for the first time in a while, Zeke also looked around the system shop and bought various necessary items to store.
"Whew, I ended up spending 2,000 points buying this and that."
He needed more points to unlock the 4th stage of the dragon skill, so he decided to save the rest for now.
Only after finishing organizing his points did Zeke finally go to bed with a relieved mind.
***
Golin was busy from early in the morning the next day.
He placed the Hercyon on the workbench and the Meteorite Iron armor set on the furnace.
Golin said to Zeke,
"I'm going to melt the Meteorite Iron armor with pure fire. Get ready."
Zeke immediately activated the Fire Barrier and created pure fire.
Whoosh!
White flames rose from the furnace.
Golin shouted to Zeke,
"Alright! I'm setting the fire intensity to 1 now. Adjust the intensity as I say."
"Okay."
Golin, putting the Meteorite Iron armor set into the fire, shouted,
"10!"
Zeke adjusted the fire intensity as Golin instructed.
Whoosh!
With his keen senses honed through fierce battles, Zeke could precisely match the intensity Golin wanted.
The Meteorite Iron armor set began to melt slowly in the pure fire.
"15!"
The fiercely burning pure fire burned away everything from the Meteorite Iron armor except the Meteorite Iron itself.
Zeke had to stay by the furnace and keep the fire going for half a day before finally extracting the pure Meteorite Iron.
Golin carefully transported the extracted Meteorite Iron and poured it over the surface of the Hercyon placed on the workbench.
Sizzle!
The liquefied Meteorite Iron quickly began to permeate the Hercyon.
Golin shouted to Zeke,
"Maintain the fire at intensity 3 until I say it's done!"
Zeke maintained the pure fire without stopping.
When using the Fire Barrier, he had only focused on creating large flames, but this was his first time maintaining it for so long.
'This is also a kind of training.'
While Zeke maintained the pure fire, Golin, sweating profusely, put on his magnifying glass and meticulously crafted the Meteorite Iron applied to the surface of the Hercyon.
Using crafting tools, Golin channeled magic power, connecting the broken circuits of the Hercyon and filling in the missing parts.
Golin spent three whole days engrossed in crafting without sleeping.
Of course, Zeke, who had to maintain the pure fire, also had to stay and work with him for three days.
And on the third day, Golin's work was finished.
"Done!"
Golin, his face haggard after finishing the last crafting, said to Zeke,
"Try activating it."
Zeke reached out his hand towards the Hercyon.
[Activating ???'s Armor.]
[Disabled functions are restored.]
[Restarting the system.]
[Confirming the title 'Blessed by the Ancient Dragon'.]
[Confirming unique class 'Immortal'.]
[Converting the user's temporary registration to a permanent registration.]
Woooong!
Suddenly, the joints of the Hercyon opened, and it floated into the air and attached itself to Zeke's body.
Whoosh!
The Hercyon enveloped Zeke's body.
And then, another message window popped up.
[User 'Zeke Drake' confirmed.]
[Converting the artifact for exclusive use by the user.]
The Hercyon that enveloped Zeke began to change.
[Translator - Peptobismal]
[Proofreader - Max]