“Good evening, Lord Kachar.”
At City Hall, Valen, upon returning to Dawn City, came to Li De’s office at the first opportunity.
Li De nodded slightly as he looked at the dwarf before him. The two braids woven into the man’s beard always drew his attention.
“Valen, how’s the development of Dwarven Valley going?”
Valen's eyes held a trace of emotion.
“Everything is going smoothly with the mithril vein. Using beastmen as miners has proven to be a fantastic choice. As long as they’re fed well, their efficiency is no less than that of dwarves.
Right now, we’ve built five large mine shafts, all operating at full capacity.”
“As for urban construction, that’s progressing much slower. Although there are plenty of beastmen, they’re only good for mining, when it comes to building houses, they’re terribly clumsy.”
After listening to Valen’s ten-minute work report, Li De nodded with satisfaction.
“Good. With you and Stanley there, I’m at ease.”
He wasn’t concerned about the development of Dwarven Valley. Stanley’s intelligence was always reliable, and managing a Dwarven Valley was well within his capabilities. As for the mithril mining, with a grandmaster like Valen overseeing it, organizing such a task was practically effortless.
The only issue was the extreme hardness of the mithril vein. Even though the miners were all large, powerful professionals, beastmen at that, the excavation was still exceedingly difficult, and efficiency remained low.
“I called you back this time because we’ve already accumulated 80 pounds of mithril. You mentioned previously that mithril can be used to etch alchemical arrays for secondary forging on armor. I need you to inscribe such arrays on Castro’s armor.”
Li De got straight to the point. He intended to further upgrade Castro’s armor.
Kosso’s armor, which hadn’t even used mithril, was already at Perfect★★★ quality. If mithril were used to engrave alchemical arrays, could that potentially result in transcendent-grade armor?
The magic contained in those two characters, Transcendent, was beyond the description of ordinary words.
Valen’s eyes lit up with excitement and surprise. “Eighty pounds? I can use it all?”
Li De found it a little funny. All dwarves shared one trait, the moment they heard ‘mithril,’ they couldn’t walk straight.
“I’ve already promised to leave 30 pounds for Anakin to forge armor.”
Seeing Valen’s disappointed expression, he changed his tone. “However, Castro takes priority. So, use it freely.”
If Anakin, still gleefully designing armor, had heard that, he might have cried. That was his mithril!
“Your generosity is enough to earn praise from the God of Forging. Thank you, Lord Kachar!”
Valen burst into hearty laughter.
Eighty pounds of mithril, this was an astronomical figure even for a dwarven grandmaster like him. In his entire life, he had never had so much mithril under his control.
Mithril was a regulated material that couldn’t be purchased on the open market. It almost never circulated publicly. Whenever it did appear, it would immediately be snatched up by powerful nobles at lightning speed.
This extremely rare and incredibly potent magical metal was the kind of treasure even kings hoarded at the bottom of their vaults.
Li De understood the dwarves’ emotions well. For people who loved forging, suddenly gaining access to such a valuable resource to use freely, how could they not be thrilled? It was like a gourmet being served the world’s most delicious dish, or a hopeless romantic finally winning the heart of their goddess.
Of course, he was happy too. After all, the dwarves were working for him for free. All he had to do was reward them generously with a couple of barrels of fine wine after a successful forging.
Free labor that praised his kindness and generosity while being exploited? It was like being sold and still complimenting the seller’s character.
The dwarves had perfectly fulfilled their role as the tools he needed.
The next morning.
In the back garden of City Hall, on a wide lawn large enough for ten Whispering Bats to take off and land at once, Valen sat beside a triangular furnace radiating intense heat. The charcoal within burned with a bluish flame, and in the thick iron container above it, silver-white molten metal was flowing.
This was the precious metal that even kings coveted, mithril.
Once melted, mithril took on a silvery appearance, resembling mercury.
Not far from Valen stood an enormous suit of winged armor, its scale outright astonishing.
It was Castro’s gear, the centerpiece of today’s modification project.
The vast lawn was packed with dwarf and human blacksmiths alike. Each stared at Valen with fiery eyes and expectant expressions.
This was a live demonstration by a grandmaster blacksmith on how to perform secondary forging and etch alchemical arrays.
Such advanced techniques were normally reserved for master-level blacksmiths and above. For a craftsman like Valen, even just witnessing his process was an immense stroke of luck.
Just learning even a little from it would be of lifelong benefit.
Valen didn’t mind at all, in fact, he began openly teaching, explaining each step in detail.
Li De found this quite interesting and ordered the vampires to use magic to record the entire process so that others could watch and study it repeatedly in the future.
At that moment, Castro had transformed into a palm-sized bat, lazily resting on Li De’s shoulder.
This primal king had been stationed at Dwarven Valley for some time, guarding against unknown threats under Li De’s orders, and hadn’t dared take off his armor.
Moreover, wearing armor prevented him from transforming. Having grown accustomed to flying freely, carrying a full suit of armor all day was uncomfortable for Castro. While the armor’s weight didn’t bother him physically, it was still stiff and jarring to wear.
Now, this guy was enjoying a rare moment of laziness. The aura around Li De gave him immense comfort, after all, the blood of the Vampire Progenitor also flowed through his veins.
“After mithril is fully melted, it gives off a faintly bright white hue. Unmelted mithril, however, appears a dull silver. Only when mithril is completely melted can we begin etching the alchemical array.
Many failures in alchemical array crafting begin at this step, if the mithril isn’t fully melted, the array will have uneven density and is prone to collapse.”
Sitting beside the furnace, Valen spoke confidently as he gestured toward the mithril, a live demonstration turned into a classroom lesson.
“Now, we begin etching the alchemical array. This one is an ancient array I obtained in my early years. It possesses extraordinary properties.
Through the metallic properties of mithril, this array can grant armor powerful magical resistance. When magic strikes the armor, the array disperses the magical energy through the mithril, effectively nullifying enemy spells.
That is this array’s greatest strength.
In addition, it grants immunity to high temperatures, corrosion, and impact. It can also continuously absorb ambient mana to nourish the armor, allowing damaged armor to slowly regenerate.”
Not just the dwarven and human blacksmiths, even Li De was drawn in by Valen’s explanation.
These functions were ridiculously powerful!
But the more overpowered it was, the more he liked it.
Li De found himself increasingly looking forward to the results. If today’s forge could truly produce transcendent-grade armor, then all the resources he had spent would be more than worth it.
Eighty pounds of mithril, that was the result of thousands of miners laboring for two full months. Its value was almost incalculable.