The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 462: Cart Bright

Once Rill had returned to place the order, everyone got to work on the airship’s full scale mockup.

"If you have a spell gem for creating aluminum to do the airframe, I have a magitech orb that works oddly for dragonkin. It will upgrade the metal into a higher quality material, instead of a more powerful version of the spell." Dominic offered.

The group just shrugged. They all had the spell, but they all had it as a spell orb. It was one of the essentials at their old job, and they were all given a copy.

"Why do you need it as a gem? You can use the two orbs together, and you’d need to level a new orb up anyhow." Gully noted.

"I’ve got a trick to using spell gems at a higher level. But it doesn’t work with magitech orbs." Dominic replied vaguely.

Explaining the Spellbook to everyone took too long, and there were always questions.

One of the Engineers fumbled through his storage item and came up with a small black gem.

"Here, I do have a copy of it as a spell gem, I learned the spell before I got the orb at work. There isn’t much of a market for them, as they’re a tradesman’s spell, so I had rather forgotten that I had it." He explained.

Dominic smiled as he recorded the gem in the Sorcerer’s Spellbook.

"Ah, now that is better. Alright, did you want to see what happens if I make the upgraded aluminum? Clay to Steel made Mana Steel, so this should turn out something decent."

The dwarves nodded. "We’re going to need to fire up the big blast furnace and build a tubing extruder anyhow, so we should likely know what we’re working with."

Dominic laughed. "It is so much easier if you extrude wet clay and transform it as it comes out. Even doing sheeting is better by slicing the clay or transforming a thin layer and then rolling it in the press."

The Dwarves stared at him. "Is that how you do it? That’s entirely backwards. You forge the metal, temper it, make it perfect."

Dominic shrugged. "This way is faster, and you don’t need a blast furnace that can do literal tonnes of metal at a time. You just need a higher level transformation skill, and mine should be good enough for the job."

He walked over to the clay supply and cut a brick sized section, then transformed it with the Quality Increase Orb and Earth To Aluminum.

As he cast the spell, Dominic noticed that this one was not clay-specific. He could use dirt or rocks and still get aluminum.

Why that was, he did not know.

Most likely it was a peculiarity of whoever created the spells. One of them understood transmutation much more broadly, as an Earth Mage, while the other thought like an Alchemist and viewed it more like an element to element transformation.

He handed the brick of pale metal to Gully, who stared at it with great curiosity.

"I don’t know what this is." The dwarf stammered.

"Well, it’s the aluminum transformation spell, increased by a quality level for the metal. So, it should be a magical aluminum, right?"

Dominic’s words made sense, but Gully still didn’t know.

One of the engineers laughed as he took the brick and hefted it in his hand.

"Significantly lighter, That’s a good sign for airship construction, but I’ll need to check quality. I think I know what it is, but the colour isn’t enough to tell me."

The Engineer removed a small forge from his space and lit it, which made Dominic laugh.

"You know, there is a magitech forge in the factory, right? You don’t need to use the portable unit."

The Dwarf just shrugged and continued stoking the fire in his forge.

"I know this one better. Plus, all my calibrated tools are here."

Dominic didn’t see a good reason to stop him, there wasn’t anything else in the middle of the room for him to be in the way.

He just watched silently as the forge heated and the dwarf began measuring the block and then hammering on it with a punch and an impact measuring tool. Then he measured the mark left on the metal, and checked with a magnifying glass for cracking.

Then, he brought out a thermometer and sliced a bit of metal from the brick to melt in a crucible.

He carefully measured the temperature as the metal began to glow and then tapped it a few times with the hammer, as if verifying his theory. That wasn’t enough, apparently, as he waited for it to begin to actually melt before he considered the test complete and took the crucible from the forge.

"It’s ore cart bright." He announced. "I mean, it’s technically depleted Mythril. It doesn’t have a proper name of its own, it’s a byproduct formed when Mythril veins are created by intense mana fluctuations and heat.

The deep mines use it to make carts for the Mythril that they will surely find near it, hence the name.

However, it is extremely strong, much stronger than natural aluminum. The weight is lighter, but the malleability is better, it’s highly resistant to stress fractures.

As far as airship frames are concerned, it is nearly perfect."

"Now, we just need more of those quality improvement orbs. And what level is your Aluminum transformation? Dragonkin are powerful, so it should be at least level four or five innate, right?" Gully asked.

Dominic shook his head. "Level fourteen. I can bring all my transformation spells up to the level of my highest. The orb is actually meant to improve spell level, but my understanding of what a better metal is wasn’t quite aligned with the orb’s design, so I got better types of metals, instead of a more pure form of the metal."

The dwarves expressions said that Dominic was right.

Eliminating impurities was not the same thing as improving the metal itself. So, perhaps they would also manage to get the same result out of the transformation spells if he made them orbs.