I couldn't help but wish for a more plentiful experimental chest as I examined the only two types of materials I had in abundance: the shells containing the concept of corrosion and decay, and claws that still radiated the unique warmth aura even when separated from the lizards.
"Not an easy problem," I decided, not sure where to start from. While Radiant Fire wasn't exactly flame-natured despite its name, there was no questioning that the relationship it shared with flames was stronger than the one with decay.
However, I was far more comfortable using and manipulating decay, which meant I could stretch and manipulate the concept with greater ease. Hopefully, that would be enough to cover the gap between the two. And, not only that, but also working with Terry and Rebecca provided me with some new ideas.
This was why, I decided to go with the counter-intuitive choice, and started with decay, hoping that my class, meditation skill, and more extensive experience would bridge the gap. "Even if I fail, I'll end up having a more concrete idea about the limits of decay, at least," I said to myself.
I started with a simple bronze alloy. Not the most superior alloy I could create at this stage of my skill. That honor went to iron-silver alloys, and I could reasonably push the Shaper of Quintessence over a hundred quickly enough to add some gold to that mixture, but I decided against it.
Improving the magical quality of the alloy would raise the upper bound, which was not the problem at the moment. I needed a way to quickly produce cheaper anti-armor munition.
Arming our soldiers in a way that would allow them to fight on equal ground was good, but having the cannon fragments shred their armor and mana shields was much better. It was a combination that would go a long way to dissuade Drakka from just trying to drown us with superior numbers.
Of course, currently, it was just a sweet dream, one that required some finicky tinkering to succeed. I closed my eyes, mulling over the concept of decay, a concept that I had approached from many directions. The most obvious connection was the way decay worked on weakening material subjects effectively, with a particular effectiveness against metal.
However, while it was a useful effect in isolation, the way it operated was wildly different from the concept of Radiant Flame. Decay worked similarly to a strong dose of acid, whereas Radiant Flame was a uranium-cored armor-piercing shell, shattering defenses by overwhelming them at one sharp point.
I forged about a dozen different swords nevertheless, doing my best to stretch the concept of decay until it halfway resembled the Radiant Flame concept, enough that I could use the framework from the legendary skill to forge.
Still, I was aware that it was not something easy to accomplish. Harnessing decay-based material to create something as 'sharp' as Radiant Flame was not trivial, not even with all the advantages I had.
"Technically, a success," I said as I raised the last blade I created and swung gently, cutting through the mana alloy target with ease. It was similar enough in effect, though the light streak it left was a sickly green rather than red — whether it was about the nature of it, or my own conception, I wasn't sure.
However, that success didn't mean my job was finished. No, not even close. Forging that last blade took merely three minutes, a good decrease from the half-hour the pure blade had consumed. Unfortunately, not only was the newer blade significantly inferior compared to the purer variant, but the method also required my dedicated focus.
And, the amount of mana it consumed wasn't too different either.
Not exactly a method of mass production as I did with the other metals, measuring my production by metric tons. A decent shortcut to rapidly arm the elites with some specialist equipment, but nowhere near enough to fulfill my dreams of replicating modern ammunition.
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"Should I try to push my Shaper of Quintessence to level up," I muttered, but after some consideration, I decided against it. While the advanced methods that would unlock as I enhanced the skill might help, pushing a Legendary skill wasn't easy.
Blade of Radiant Flame was easy to progress only because it had no Wisdom included in its nature, making it easier to trick the System with. Shaper didn't have the same luxury. I could still maximize it by a few weeks of dedicated effort by using the other tricks, which was, by all accounts, incredibly impressive for a Legendary skill, but under the circumstances, a few weeks was not a luxury I could afford.
I followed up with another experiment with the Reformation of Quintessence skill as my new subject, hoping to have a different result. Unfortunately, that was not what I received. Improving was possible, but the time-reward ratio was prohibitive under the circumstances.
It might have been different if I had even twenty combatants of Rosie's caliber, but I did not…
Instead of lamenting about that fact, I put one of the large lizard claws on the workbench, its heat mixing with the forge. "Maybe the flame-based material would be better," I said, hoping that the fact it came from a boss monster would compensate for my unfamiliarity.
Luckily, that unfamiliarity was only relative compared to decay. After spending all that time against the endless waves of flame lizards, and absorbing all their leftover tainted energy, I had developed some understanding of the concept, enough to push it in different directions —
"Somewhat," I corrected myself after being interrupted by an explosion, the material I separated not appreciating my attempts to push it.
The next ten attempts ended similarly.
"Alright, transforming concepts forcefully in their raw form isn't that easy," I said. "At least, not for boss monsters," I corrected as I repeated the same process for the claws from the weaker lizards, which I was able to do without an explosion.
Using the weaker claws to create weapons had no practical value, at least, not at my current Wisdom level, which was respectably above two hundred, with all the practical benefits it represented. The benefit they added to the weapons was not worth the effort and care it required.
But, lacking practical benefits was different than lacking theoretical ones.
First, I started from the weakest claws, separating them into several pieces before I started stretching the concept.
The true mechanics of 'stretching' was still a mystery, handled automatically by my Shaper skill, which was frustrating. It meant that I had very little understanding about exactly what I was doing, resulting in there being no easy modification trick I could apply as I did back when I was playing with the crystallization process.
But, that didn't mean I was hopeless.
"Back to the drawing board," I said as I cut several other pieces, shaping them into several different forms before I applied the same, to see if there were any physical methods I could utilize to change the situation.
That might be a good way, no matter how complicated or time-consuming the method. I was the bottleneck of the process, and anything I could outsource to the apprentice smiths would be worth it.
It would be even better if it was a mechanical trick that could be done by a centrifuge, crusher, or any other modern device. I started with the simplest brute-force methods. Crushing, grinding, dicing. Unfortunately, while those methods made the material easier to manipulate, it was almost perfectly correlated with the potential leak.
The next attempt was to cut the material into membranes, thin enough to see the other side, which required me to quickly create a specialized device. To my surprise, it had slightly better results, and increased surface area making the manipulation easier, but at the cost of turning the material fragile.
It wasn't surprising that my skill didn't include that method, as the potency drain was significant enough. Effectively, the result was something like getting fifty percent faster … but wasting almost five times the materials in the process.
Even with our current material abundance, it was a wasteful approach.
Frustrated, I went through several methods, using a centrifuge to spin the various-sized materials, using abrasive sand, and even soaking it in dungeon water.
Those experiments took almost an hour of my precious time, but in the end, I let out a frustrated sigh, deciding that mechanical manipulation was not an easy shortcut for my twin Quintessence skills, unlike the case for Intelligence-based approaches.
"Still, it needed to be done," I said and started taking notes, summarizing the outcomes while considering some more extreme results. Too bad I had to stop exploring the physical manipulation experiments —
"I don't, do I?" I corrected myself while interrupting my thoughts with a slap on my forehead, realizing that I was once again falling into the same mistake. I continued to write the experiment results with a renewed passion, and began writing down another guide on how to follow up experiments and general ideas.
It would be a good experiment for Terry to run together with the blacksmiths while I focused on my own conceptual experiments.