Chapter 197: The Experiment Succeeds |
There was a saying: once someone stepped into a field you were good at, all of their flashy operations would look incredibly foolish to you.
That was exactly how Leo saw Fulan’s actions. Although he knew that Fulan’s skill as a Magical Craftsman was extraordinary—so great that she could practically be said to stand at the peak of the craft—
the way she was using Spirit-Repelling Copper seemed utterly laughable to him.
Spirit-Repelling Copper was a metal specifically used against spirit forms, but in most cases, it could only inflict superficial damage on them and could not seriously wound them.
As a result, this metal was widely used on the weapons of lower-tier mercenaries, so that when they encountered evil spirits, they would at least not be completely helpless.
As for mages of the Necromancy School, its best use was to make a dagger for dealing with cases where they needed to threaten an evil spirit without actually killing it.
But overall, this metal was only of some limited use when dealing with spirit forms.
And right now, they were working on a project from the Alchemy School involving the extraction of a refined product.
He truly could not imagine what use coating a magical device with this metal could possibly have.
I understand Spirit-Repelling Copper very well. Because of that, Fulan’s actions seemed incredibly idiotic to him.
A foolish mage who thinks any random material can work.
That was the conclusion he reached about Fulan in his mind, and he stopped looking at her.
He also wanted to try using the magical device himself. Otherwise, would not the letter of recommendation his father had written have been for nothing?
He turned and resumed discussing things with the other mages, no longer paying any attention to Fulan.
To Nora, standing nearby, Fulan’s actions also seemed rather subtle in a different way.
Although Nora thought highly of Fulan and wished that Fulan would join the Elemental School the very next moment, this operation of hers still went beyond Nora’s understanding.
She did admit that Fulan’s Magical Craftsman work was highly practiced and astonishingly fast. In fact, she was the fastest Magical Craftsman Nora had ever seen.
But with Nora’s shallow knowledge of alchemy and materials, no matter how she thought about it, she simply could not believe that wrapping the device in a layer of some other metal would have any effect on the final extraction yield.
Still, she had already told herself earlier that she should first see what Fulan was actually doing, not interrupt her train of thought, and wait until she was finished before saying anything.
So she kept her mouth shut and watched Fulan’s movements with a casual gaze.
After putting the Gray Nether Iron inside, Fulan immediately began injecting Mental Power and set the magical device into operation.
Feeling the fluctuations coming from the magical device, she relaxed. She had originally been worried that the high temperature might have damaged it, but it seemed that had not happened.
Not long after she activated the device, she saw the lid, which had been resting lightly in place, jump upward once before dropping back down.
That made Fulan immediately use Telekinetic Hand to press down hard on the lid. Through the perception granted by Telekinetic Hand, she could feel a force pushing the lid upward.
Is that the gas?
That was Fulan’s guess, and she increased the amount of Mental Power she poured into Telekinetic Hand.
As she held the lid firmly in place, she sensed a different kind of spell fluctuation coming from within. It was not the same reaction as when White Star Sand had been extracted before.
Fulan said nothing and simply waited for the magical device to continue running.
As she kept the lid pinned down, she could feel through Telekinetic Hand that the force inside was still steadily increasing.
Then, at around the three-minute mark, she felt that force reach its peak and begin to weaken slowly.
By around seven minutes, Telekinetic Hand could no longer feel any force striking against the lid at all.
She controlled Telekinetic Hand and loosely released the lid. Sure enough, it no longer lifted. Only then did she stop the magical device.
Next, Fulan used Telekinetic Hand again to lift the lid away. Nothing happened.
She lowered her gaze into the magical device and found something quite remarkable.
The good news was that the device really had precipitated powder, and not a small amount either. By Fulan’s rough estimate, there were about fifteen grams of it.
But the bad news was that it had not only precipitated powder. It had also precipitated some large pale gray particles, and even the extracted “star sand” itself was streaked with black and white.
Fulan took everything out, separated the mixed black-and-white powder, and then cast weight-measuring spells on each item one by one.
The final result was roughly this: the large pale gray granules weighed nineteen grams in total, the black “star sand” weighed about three grams, and after confirmation, the washed-out White Star Sand came to approximately five grams.
Fulan was extremely satisfied with this result. It had already exceeded her expectations. She had not imagined that this device’s effect could be this good.
The White Star Sand she had extracted had directly surpassed even the yield of the Alchemy School’s Traditional Refining Method. That alone was enough to bring this entire project to an immediate end.
As for the missing three grams from the total weight, Fulan estimated that they had simply dissipated directly in the gases released at the beginning.
This made Fulan clearly realize that the Law of Conservation of Energy probably still existed in this magical world, and that it was absolute.
And with this achievement in hand, she began planning her next step. As long as she carried out one more experiment and confirmed the existence of the Law of Conservation of Energy, it would likely amount to a very significant academic discovery.
Yet the alchemy directly connected to this academic result was something she still had not learned.
She first needed to study alchemy and get it to appear on her panel. Only then would she begin conducting the experiment. By that point, she would surely be able to gain a large amount of Proficiency.
While Fulan was planning her next course of action, Nora stood off to the side staring in shock.
She had never imagined that simply wrapping the magical device in a layer of another metal could raise its yield to this extent.
She definitely noticed something. And that metal must definitely have some critical function as well.
That was what Nora thought to herself.
But she still had no idea how Fulan had managed to notice that key point, much less how, immediately after that, she had found the required metal and then, with just a few quick motions, solved a difficult problem that countless alchemists had failed to overcome.
Fulan, however, understood that the reason she had been able to discover this was largely because of the barriers between schools.
Since the extraction of White Star Sand involved spirit forms, the alchemists had never noticed it.
Although some alchemical creations did involve matters related to spirit forms, not every alchemist was skilled in manipulating them, nor did anyone stand by at all times using spells that detected spirit forms to inspect every alchemical production process.
Then Fulan looked at the remaining Gray Nether Iron and at Philip, who was still busy in the distance. Now all she had to do was wait a little longer.