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Volume 1 Chapter 11-1: Crossbow

 

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「Earth, tell me your nature.」

I appealed to the earth mana and analyzed the 100 meters of land beneath me.

「Okay good. This is nice soil, it’s got enough clay and quartz.」

I let out a sigh of relief.

They were normal things that you could find anywhere. You could find clay if you dug a little and you could find quartz with sand.

If you’ve seen white stones on the beach then you’ve seen quartz.

「{Material Manipulation: Clay}」

It was a magic spell that that used earth mana to manipulate particular substances.

Clay without impurities was being extracted from the ground.

It undulated around me in a radius of around 30m.

Then as the amount increased it grew towards the sky. When it reached around 5 meters it closed in above me and blocked out the sky.

I stood in the midst of the 5 meter tall dome I had created.

The dome had a few 60cm square openings and one 2 meter tall doorway.

I walked through that and stepped outside.

「{Material Manipulation: Quartz}」

Then I used the quartz to fill up the smaller openings.

I finished doing my work with earth mana after fixing things properly.

「Next is fire. Fire Mana I will borrow your power. {Flame Prison}」

I used fire mana and created a huge conflagration.

My compatibility with fire was 80, it was slightly lower than earth but it was plenty good for my purposes.

The dome’s 30m radius was at the limits of my fire control. Fire mana was very difficult to control properly, so even with my competence I couldn’t go much further.

The flames that summoned surrounded the clay and quartz dome inside and out.

I adjusted the flames slightly as I watched the dome being baked as if in an oven.

Slowly the clay was baked reddish-brown and the quartz turned into a red hot liquid.

At this level using both fire and earth magic together was difficult, but I somehow made it through using Kuiro’s high affinities.

I slowly removed the impurities from the red hot melted quartz. Unlike clay the quartz couldn’t be purified unless it was heated.

After the clay had fully hardened and the impurities were removed from the quartz I changed my spell.

「{Cooling}」

Fire magic wasn’t just simple magic to light fires. It was magic that manipulates temperature. I used the cooling version of it.

It removed the excess heat from the clay and cooled the melted quartz.

Once it cooled quickly the quartz became clear and turned into silica glass. The quartz glass’s transparency was as high or even better than regular glass.

「Good all done. As expected of a dwarf’s skills. Making a simple workshop in the blink of an eye.」

Even I admired this kind of skill.

Baking clay into brick. Melting quartz to produce glass. Both of these were simple manufacturing jobs, but altogether they usually needed high cost equipment.

Once the job had switched to creating a house, it was no longer as simple as all that. You had to be cautious about the bricks changing size due to the heat and cautious about properly removing the smaller impurities from the quartz.

Before burning things you needed to perceive how it would affect the final product through experience. This is where the Dwarf Kuiro’s sixth sense showed its true worth.

「Okay, now it’s time for the swords and armor.」

I used the earth mana to manipulate the armor and swords and placed them inside the earthen dome.

As I thought, earth magic really is convenient. Being unable to use it in my Elven form was truly frustrating.

「I wonder how much I can accomplish today.」

I used fire magic to melt the armor and moved some of the metal to make a door to seal the room properly. I made the necessary adjustments to allow it to open and close.

This completes my rudimentary workshop.

It was finally time to make the weapons.

I focused and activated my magic to melt all the weapons and armor.

「As I thought, the Empire is still inexperienced in utilizing iron. It’s filled with impurities. Practically pig iron at this point.」

If you simply smelt iron ore once it will barely have any durability.

The impurities had to be eliminated to make iron a suitable material for crafting. You would need a high power furnace, knowledge, and technique to do it properly. The weapons and armor I had melted were ill-made.

The various metals and materials within the weapons and armor were melted and separated into different ingots.

Then once the ingots were produced I melted them down once more and mixed them together to produce proper steel.

Pure iron is a great metal on its own, but introducing certain impurities can change the properties of the metal itself.

I was making the rim of the bow right now. It was what I would use to hold the bowstring.

What I was aiming for was a metal that would bend properly and have spring power. Using my Dwarven experience and intuition I combined materials together to create a suitable rim alloy.

I utilized the metal and impurities from the armor and swords to craft the best alloy I could.

Then I took the metal and cast it into the shape of the rim I wanted to create.

It was around 50cm in size. For a bow it would be quite small, but this was just the right size. After all it was just one part of the crossbow I was crafting.

Including spares I would be able to make 50 of these. Using the dwarf skills I had I would be able to create 50 of them with nary a millimeter’s difference between them.

Next I would have to make the reel that would launch the arrows, then the two part trigger mechanism, and finally the pedal that was attached to the front of the crossbow.

Each of these items were easy to craft since they only needed simple molds to pour the metal into. Even with my skills I couldn’t simply pour materials into a cast and produce a complete crossbow all at once.

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