The Alchemy Chamber

After passing through the corridor beside the hall, the two arrived at the courtyard behind the inn.

The courtyard had only one floor. Most of it consisted of guest rooms, while the rest served as kitchens and storerooms. Rayne did not look around and simply followed Zoltan into one of the courtyards. Judging by the furnishings, this was probably Zoltan's own residence. It was kept very clean, but there were no other dwarves in sight.

Zoltan unlocked a room with a key. It was piled with all sorts of things and looked like a storage room.

Rayne watched as Zoltan pushed aside a cabinet against the wall, revealing a flight of stairs leading downward.

"Come down."

The dwarf offered no further explanation and led the way down the stairs.

Rayne hesitated briefly before following him inside.

The stairway was not long, and they soon reached the bottom, where a spacious underground room came into view.

Several gas lamps lit up. Once Rayne could see clearly, he was rather surprised. The place was far larger than he had expected, nearly a hundred square meters in area and three meters high. It did not feel cramped or stuffy in the slightest. It could hardly be called a basement anymore.

However, Rayne's attention was quickly drawn to the machinery around him.

A machine resembling a lathe stood in the center of the underground room. It was thick, heavy, and somewhat old-fashioned, yet extremely well maintained. Its shafts, gears, and flywheels had all been polished until they gleamed with oil, without the slightest trace of rust. The machine was connected to a tall boiler and was clearly powered by steam.

"Steam Lathe!"

Rayne recognized it at once, but something about it did not seem right.

This machine was highly complex. It was not merely a single lathe; it seemed to combine cutting, forging, planing, milling, grinding, and pressing functions, like a cobbled-together universal machine tool. Besides the Steam Lathe, there were many other tools nearby, such as a forge and grinding wheels. Various metal materials and components were piled in the corners.

Seeing Rayne's expression, Zoltan said proudly, "This is my private workshop."

"Boss, are you a Mechanical Craftsman?" Rayne asked curiously. Earlier, he had guessed that Zoltan was an alchemist, which was why he sold Alchemical Materials.

"More or less."

Zoltan shrugged. "I used to be a blacksmith in my clan, but I was terrible at it. Later, I came to the Empire to study mechanical machining, but I wasn't interested in making swords or weapons. Now I'm a gunsmith."

As he spoke, he drew the pistol at his waist and gave it two hard pats.

Rayne had never heard of a gunsmith, but he could guess that it was a craftsman who specialized in making Soul Guns. No wonder he had seen so many parts like barrels and springs among those piles of metal materials.

"Just when I was getting sleepy, someone brought me a pillow."

Rayne was delighted. His plan had been to first confirm whether he could make gunpowder. If he could, he would then find a way to make a gun.

There were many craft workshops under the Steam and Machinery Guild in Longsand City. They sold all kinds of weapons and could also custom-make metal components, provided one could afford the cost.

His earlier idea had been to commission different gun parts from different workshops, then assemble them himself. But the total cost would certainly be high, so he had first needed to make some money.

Now that he had seen Zoltan's workshop, Rayne immediately had a new idea.

If he could borrow this workshop and make the parts himself, using the mechanical diagrams in his phone as reference, he could save a great deal of money and quickly build a gun.

Zoltan walked up to a wall and pressed his hand against it.

Several silver lines appeared on the wall, forming a door that then opened inward. As it opened, it scraped against the floor with a dull rumble. It was clearly immensely heavy, as though carved from a single solid stone slab. An ordinary person would never have been able to push it open.

"This is a Magic Door!"

Rayne froze. It was his first time seeing a Magic Door, but what surprised him more was that Zoltan seemed to trust him completely, without any fear of the secret getting out.

That made him wary. Could Zoltan have some ulterior motive?

As if he had guessed Rayne's thoughts, Zoltan said indifferently, "I didn't build this Magic Door. It, and this underground room, were already here before I bought the inn. There's nothing especially valuable inside. It's just where I store Alchemical Materials. Plenty of people I trade with have been in there."

"Stop dawdling. Are you buying Alchemical Materials or not?" Seeing Rayne still hesitate, the dwarf grew a little impatient.

Rayne did not dwell on it any longer and stepped inside.

The secret chamber behind the Magic Door was not large, only a little over twenty square meters. Its walls were made of smooth stone, and the entire room looked as though it had been hollowed from a massive boulder. It was completely sealed. The only light source was the gas lamp Zoltan carried in his hand, and because his hand kept moving, the illumination was unstable.

Rayne secretly activated his camera and raised the brightness of his vision.

Several rows of wooden shelves stood in the room, divided into over a hundred small compartments containing all kinds of materials.

Zoltan raised the gas lamp to illuminate the shelves and said, "All my Alchemical Materials are here. I've been using quite a lot recently and sold quite a bit too, so I haven't had time to restock. Take a look and tell me what you want to buy."

"Alright." Rayne nodded.

There were more than a hundred kinds of materials here, and the categories were complicated. Most were various ores and powders, along with some processed branches and leaves, as well as bizarre materials that might have come from living creatures.

Rayne immediately found himself in a difficult position. He did not recognize most of these materials.

He remembered the formula for Black Powder, but he did not know what the three ingredients were called in Aurelian Language. For the moment, he could not tell whether they were available here.

Still, some things were easy to identify, such as alcohol and graphite. Both might prove useful, so Rayne took them down and placed them on the table. He continued searching, and his gaze fell upon a glass jar containing black granules. They were dark and familiar.

"Is this Black Powder?"

Rayne stepped forward and opened the lid. The smell of gunpowder hit him, and he was instantly overjoyed. He had been planning to make it himself, never expecting there to already be a finished product.

"Boss, what's in this jar?" Pretending not to recognize Black Powder, he asked casually.

Zoltan came over, took one look, and replied, "That's Fire Sand. Long ago, we dwarves used it to make bullets for firearms, but its power was too low, it was hard to preserve, and it produced a large amount of smoke when fired. So it was replaced by Phlogiston long ago. It has very few uses now."

Rayne was now completely certain. This was indeed Black Powder.

So the dwarves had discovered Black Powder long ago. They simply had not used it on a large scale before it was rendered obsolete by Phlogiston.

Rayne had heard of Phlogiston before. It was the main material used to make Soul Gun bullets. Like gunpowder, it could be ignited and explode, but it required soul power to activate. He immediately understood why the Aerenus World had not continued researching more powerful gunpowder.

In truth, Black Powder was not weak at all. The dwarves simply had not developed the most precise formula and had therefore quickly abandoned it.

Still, this jar of Fire Sand was probably unusable. Its power was insufficient.

After considering it, Rayne decided not to hide it from Zoltan. "Boss, I want to buy some Fire Sand for research. I also need its formula and enough raw materials. Do you have them?"

"Let me look."

Zoltan did not ask what Rayne wanted Fire Sand for. He paced back and forth in front of the shelves a few times, then quickly brought down three or four materials. "Fire Sand is made from Volcanic Loess, charcoal powder, and Bitter Ice. I'll write down the formula for you later."

Rayne immediately recognized Volcanic Loess as sulfur and Bitter Ice as saltpeter. He also memorized the names of those materials.

After that, he did not buy anything else and asked Zoltan to calculate the price.

Since the materials were all fairly common, neither rare nor precious, and the quantities were not large, Rayne paid only 100 Copper Liso for them.

Before leaving the secret chamber, Rayne's eyes inadvertently swept over the floor. He noticed strange carved marks beneath some of the wooden shelves, forming complicated patterns. They were filled with dust and not obvious. If he had not increased the brightness of his vision, he would have had difficulty noticing them at all.

However, he did not pay them much attention and followed Zoltan out of the secret chamber.

After closing the Magic Door, Zoltan glanced at Rayne, who was carrying the Alchemical Materials, and said, "If you're doing alchemy research, you can borrow my Alchemy Table for a few days. Better than using Fire Sand upstairs and burning down my inn."

As he spoke, he pointed at a table in the corner of the underground room, where many glass vessels were arranged.

Rayne was naturally more than willing.

He did not just want to borrow the Alchemy Table. He also wanted to borrow the entire workshop, especially that Steam Lathe.

"Thank you, Boss." Rayne smiled somewhat sheepishly. "I'd also like to borrow this lathe. Is that alright?"

At those words, Zoltan's eyes widened at once, and even his beard bristled upward.

Rayne hurriedly added, "I can pay."

Zoltan's expression eased. After thinking for a while, he said reluctantly, "Paying is fine." He held out five thick fingers and said fiercely, "Fifty Copper Liso per day. Coal and materials used are charged separately. If you damage any tools, you'll compensate me at full value."

Rayne calculated the money he had left. It could support him for more than ten days. With his own ability, that should be enough time to make a gun.

If he failed, he would have to find another way.

For revenge, he gritted his teeth and nodded in agreement.

Zoltan made a circuit around the workshop, took inventory of the materials already there, and left.

Rayne did not want to waste time. He immediately went to the Alchemy Table, familiarized himself with the set of glassware, and began preparing Black Powder.

He had once read a book about weapons and ammunition in the library. It covered not only the history of gunpowder's development, but also methods for making various kinds of ammunition.

Black Powder was the simplest of them all. It had left a deep impression on him, so he clearly remembered the optimal formula ratio.

In fact, Black Powder was not his first choice. Rayne also remembered a solvent method for making smokeless powder. It was more powerful and not difficult to produce, but there were no raw materials here, so he could only settle for the next best option.

After several attempts, Rayne successfully prepared Fire Sand in only half a day!