Chapter 194: Exchange |
The eight mages looked at one another. Each looked at the others, and in the end, Fulan was the first to step forward and choose a device with fewer cracks. Only then did the others follow her lead.
Fulan walked over to a nearby table. Dylan, who had also been introduced by Elise, followed her to the same table.
A little embarrassed, Dylan asked,
“Well... Fulan, are you familiar with the Alchemy School’s techniques?”
As he spoke, he looked at Fulan expectantly, hoping she would give him an affirmative answer.
His mentor was from the Alchemy School, so by all rights, he ought to count as part of the Alchemy School as well.
The problem, however, was that the techniques he specialized in lay in a different direction and not in refining White Star Sand.
What he was really asking was whether Fulan knew how to refine White Star Sand.
Personally, he very much wanted to compete for the reward Teacher Philip had mentioned, but unfortunately, he genuinely did not know how to refine White Star Sand.
At the academy where he had received his apprentice education, the teachers had encouraged the apprentices to cooperate with one another and seek advice from others in the areas they themselves were not good at.
Seeing how Fulan had strode forward so decisively and taken a device without the slightest hesitation, he had guessed that she must have confidence because she knew something related to alchemy.
“Sorry! I don’t,” Fulan said with complete confidence, so forthrightly that one might have suspected they had misheard her.
In truth, Fulan had wanted to learn things related to alchemy ever since her days as an apprentice, but unfortunately, this world happened to have a School called the Alchemy School.
The little bit she could learn on her own was not even enough to form a separate Alchemy skill on her panel.
Whenever she thought of that, she felt grateful that this world did not have something like a Potion School or a Runology School.
Otherwise, she would not have been able to learn either of those two skills at all.
“Ah?! You don’t...” Dylan began, then stopped, somewhat taken aback by Fulan’s answer.
Then why did you grab it so fast? Dylan quietly grumbled in his heart before saying,
“Then I’ll study it on my own first. Once I figure it out, I’ll teach you.”
He was a little disappointed, but he still pulled himself together. After all, among everyone present, he was the only mage from the Alchemy School. Logically speaking, he ought to be the one to win that reward.
He should not have placed any hopes on Fulan in the first place, since she was not from the Alchemy School.
It was only because she had acted so decisively that he had assumed she really knew what she was doing.
After Dylan left, Fulan glanced at the other mages around her.
In truth, none of the mages present cared much about whatever reward Philip had mentioned.
In their eyes, something this simple could hardly come with any especially valuable prize.
Besides, which of the mages present did not have a high-tier mage as a mentor and backer? The resources they could obtain from their own mentors would definitely be far better than whatever Philip could begrudgingly hand over.
So they had directly cast aside the competition Philip had mentioned. Only Dylan, out of sheer competitiveness, had become doubly focused on the matter.
The remaining mages gathered in twos and threes, discussing how this thing should be used.
Only then did Fulan begin carefully examining the device she was going to use for the experiment, as well as the specific steps of the procedure.
This White Star Sand had to be refined from a low-tier material called Gray Nether Iron. Gray Nether Iron was a natural mineral with an ordinary level of output, but its veins were often found in places far removed from human habitation, making transport extremely inconvenient.
Fulan could also sense Philip’s headache. He had no way to organize so many mages into coordinated work, which was why he had been forced into such a makeshift solution.
He had simply treated all the mages as though they were students in an academy and instructed them on the spot.
For that, he had even been willing to part with some precious raw materials so they could practice with them.
Watching the three apprentices bustle around Philip, running back and forth in busy confusion, Fulan shook her head.
She also wanted to join them and carefully learn the research process, but she knew that was not really possible right now.
So she focused instead on studying the exact experimental procedure of the device.
“This isn’t difficult.”
After reading through it, Fulan reached that conclusion. It truly was not difficult.
According to the method described in the instructions, the entire experimental process consisted of throwing the Gray Nether Iron inside, sealing the lid, and then using mental power to activate the device so that it would transform the Gray Nether Iron into White Star Sand.
Even apprentices could perform that operation, but the problem Philip had just mentioned still remained: the yield was too low.
After using the device and waiting for the process to finish, the only thing left inside was White Star Sand, with no impurities at all.
This was also a magical device. If roughly one hundred grams of Gray Nether Iron were put inside, only about one gram of White Star Sand would come out. By contrast, the traditional refining method would still leave around ten grams.
Where exactly that missing portion of White Star Sand had gone was the key point this project sought to investigate.
With the experience from her previous life, the first thing Fulan thought of was the Law of Conservation of Energy, though she did not know whether that law was absolute in this world.
This alchemical process, which directly made mass disappear without releasing heat, rather challenged her intuition.
She could not help but feel that the missing mass had perhaps been converted into something else.
But for now, she could only begin with the assumption that the law was correct. If so, where exactly had that excess mass gone?
In an instant, she thought of two possibilities: gas and spirit-form matter.
If the gas produced were colorless and odorless, then its having “vanished” would be entirely normal. And the other possibility was the spirit entities studied by the Necromancy School.
Fulan herself did not know much about that field. She had not learned any especially useful spells from the Necromancy School herself, so her understanding of spirit entities was limited.
But she did know that the spirit entities of the Necromancy School could freely pass through various substances, and that only certain spirit-type materials were impenetrable to them.
If, during the transformation process, the portion of Gray Nether Iron that did not become White Star Sand had been converted into such things, while the traditional method happened to contain a step that acted on those things, then would that not explain the missing yield?
Fulan still did not know. She needed to carry out an experiment first.
She picked up one-tenth of the Gray Nether Iron and placed it directly into the device.
Then she began circulating her Breathing Method, spreading the wind element over the cracks of the device and around its top, using that wind element to block the possible escape of gas from inside.
As Fulan manipulated the wind element, a pair of blue eyes turned toward her, and on that person’s robe was a faintly embroidered emblem of the Joberna Society.
But Fulan was immersed in her research and did not notice that someone’s gaze had already fallen on her. She still had one more spell to cast on the device.
A fluctuation of necromancy magic flashed above the device. Fulan had specially dismantled the spell structure of 【Create Soul】, and its purpose now was that the moment any spirit-form matter drifted by, it would send feedback to her.