Someday Will I Be The Greatest Alchemist?

Chapter 50: Magic Metal Refinement

On the second day after returning to Volton, since Doganbo-san was being really annoying and telling me to come first thing in the morning, I reluctantly went to Doganbo-san’s workshop in the morning.

「Too slow!」

「Eeh~~! I arrived first thing in the morning, didn’t I?!」

The first thing he says is “Too slow!”.. even though I ate breakfast earlier than usual and came here.

Doganbo-san dragged me by the hand into his workshop.

「Both mithril and adamantite are impossible to refine in my furnace. It can still bear the tempering portion of it, but without a specialized furnace for refinement, it’s impossible. So Takumi, splitting the ore equally will do so I’ll leave the refinement to you.」

「Well, okay…………」

The amount that Doganbo-san had mined was much larger, so I’m grateful for that and all but I’m not in highest of spirits so early in the morning.

I took out the mithril ore and placed it in the area that Doganbo-san had designated for it, and once all of the mithril ore was out, it turned into quite a hill.

「Now then, I should refine these one after the other, yes?」

「Yeah. Adamantite is my favorite but mithril can be used for armor and accessories.

Alright, let’s refine it down to the last one!」

Yeaa, talking that way……… I’m the one refining it though.

I made extra mana potions for today, so I’ll do my best!

I will use 『Decomposition』 and 『Extraction』 on the mithril ore and 『Synthesis』 on the extracted mithril. Since mithril ore also contains a small amount of other elements such as aluminium and titanium, it’s necessary to use 『Extraction』 on the essential metals and 『Synthesis』 to secure it. The leftover elements and sand were hardened with Earth magic and turned to blocks.

After that, while drinking mana potions, I continued to refine the small hill of mithril ore.

「Takumi-sama, how about you take a break and have lunch?」

「…… yeah, I’m hungry already.」

「Then I will make preparations.」

Because Sophia, who had been watching over me, proposed I have a break, I decided to have lunch. Doganbo-san turned towards me with a dissatisfied look but I can’t work without eating.

I let Kaede out of the Subspace and the four of us ate the meal that Maria had prepared. We invited Doganbo-san to join us, but he said he can’t eat leisurely when there was mithril ore in front of him then he began doing work that was piling up. …………No, if work piles up, you should do finish them before they do.

In the end, Maria sewed side-by-side with Kaede, and I continued the refining, all the while drinking who knows how many potions. I finished refining over half the small mountain of mithril ore that very same day.

「Alright! Same thing first thing tomorrow morning!」

「……yes.」

This.. refining until the adamantite ores, I wonder how many days this would take.

「Now then, work hard!」

「That manner of speech, well, anything’s fine though.」

Early morning the next day as well, I began refining mithril ore.

Mustering my magic power, I refined the mithril ores, and by the time I finished, the sun had completely gone down.

「So then we’ll be doing adamantite starting tomorrow.」

「Gya!」

I involuntarily let out a weird voice.

「(This is artisan work, this is the artisan work that I wanted but………… not like this!)」

I was supposed to make things enjoyably, it’s like I was thrown into a “black” environment[1]. Huh? Am I being deceived?

I complained about how I didn’t want to do it and that it was hard. Adamantite ore in particular. the magic power necessary to refine it with alchemy is higher. Chantless, I abandoned the magic formationless refinement and prepared three metal plates with the alchemy formations for 『Decomposition』, 『Extraction』, and 『Synthesis』, and just poured my magic power into what could be called a refinement assembly-line system.

To that extent, I was finally able to finish refining all the adamantite ores in two days.

「Takumi, take half of the mithril and adamantite ingots. We’ll start making mithril and adamantite armors and weapons 5 days from now.」

Mithril is already usable as it is and has high affinity with magic power, but its hardness and toughness are not that high. That is why it is alloyed[2,3]. It is mixed with metals and those amounts are a blacksmith’s secret. That is the same for adamantite. Adamantite is much harder and tougher than steel as it is, furthermore, its affinity with magic power is also high, so a completed weapon can easily slice through steel armor. Then by keeping the blacksmith’s unique alloy mix a secret, and raising the abilities of the adamantite weapons, those weapons and armor become national treasure-grade.

In exchange for me refining the ores, Doganbo-san gave me an alloy recipe. Considering that, this much hardship might have been reasonable.

Thanks to that, my job levels had increased.

StatusName: Takumi Iruma

Race: Human

Age: 15 years old

Job: Alchemist Lv64, Blacksmith Lv60

( Magic Swordsman Lv12, Magus Lv11, Magic Bestower LV32, Carpenter Lv16, Tailor Lv40 )

Level: 68

Condition: Healthy

Vitality: 730

Magic Power: 920

Strength: 372

Agility: 332

Stamina: 430

Dexterity: 350

Intelligence: 432

Unique Skills

Appraisal EX

Item Box EX ( Concealed )

Passive Skills

Superhuman Strength Lv3

Insight Lv3

Poison Resistance Lv2

Paralysis Resistance Lv2

Evasion Lv2

Body Control Lv2

Increased Magic Power Recovery Speed Lv1

Active Skills

Spear Handling Lv7

Axe Technique Lv5

Swordplay Lv7

Throwing Lv4

Taijutsu Lv5

Matoujutsu Lv5

Enemy Search Lv3

Presence Detection Lv5

Stealth Lv4

Tame Lv1

Enhance Physical Abilities Lv5

Magic Perception Lv7

Magic Power Manipulation Lv9

Light Attribute Magic Lv7

Fire Attribute Magic Lv5

Water Attribute Magic Lv5

Wind Attribute Magic Lv6

Earth Attribute Magic Lv8

ice Attribute Magic Lv3

Lightning Attribute Magic Lv1

Time-Space Attribute Magic Lv3

Bestowal Magic Lv5

Alchemy Lv8

Smithing Lv7

Woodworking Lv6

Carpentry Lv4

Foraging Lv5

Logging Lv5

Dismantling Lv4

Mining Lv4

Metalworking Lv5

Sewing Lv3

Cooking Lv2

Divine Protection of Goddess Norn (Concealed)

Familiars

Arachne Unique Species ( Kaede )

Titles

Giant Killing

***

Footnotes:

1. Black companies are a thing in Japan. When this is mentioned, it usually means they overwork their employees absurdly. To the point that there is a term for when people die from overworking, 過労死 (Karoshi).
2. Alloy is a metallic substance composed of two or more elements, as either a compound or a solution. more info here.
3. Alloying is done for many reasons, typically to increase strength, increase corrosion resistance, or reduce costs. more info here.

Sphy’s Note:

Hello~ We’ve finally reached 50 chapters (52, including the idle talks). Thank you very much for reading until now! I’ll continue to try my best with the future chapters~ I hope you continue to read! ^^/

As an aside, I edited chapter 49 a bit more because I wasn’t really satisfied with what I released. It shouldn’t be as rough, or so I hope.