Technical Upgrade

"Clink."

The Dragonshard, now black and purple after absorbing the black mist, fell to the ground. Karl took a few steps back, not daring to approach it further.

The murky black mist churned within the Dragonshard, looking as if it would burst out at any moment.

"What a wicked thing!"

After a mental struggle, Karl gritted his teeth, took out his wrench, and used it to pick up the Dragonshard. He then tossed it into a corner of the Ritual Site.

"After we leave, I'll blow this place up. I remember seeing some materials in the warehouse that are ingredients for gunpowder."

He covered the Dragonshard with stones before returning to the center of the Ritual Site to begin collecting the scattered materials.

Foremost among them were the fragments of the Blackstone Greatsword that had once been inhabited by the black mist.

"Why does this look so much like silver oxide? But could something like that be used to make a greatsword?"

As Karl controlled his Power Armor to pick up a fragment of the Blackstone Greatsword and was about to appraise its specific material, the fragment couldn't withstand the Power Armor's strength and shattered directly.

"No wonder a single Magic Missile shattered it. So, it was inherently fragile? I should have just attacked with a crossbow bolt, wasting a spell slot for nothing."

After repeatedly confirming that there was no residual black mist or strange magical energy in the greatsword fragments, Karl took out several small boxes from his Bag of Holding and stored the fragments.

Then, he turned his gaze to the bodies of the Hobgoblins, which had long since turned to white bones.

They wore metal armor. Although severely damaged, Karl's sharp eyes recognized the armor as an alloy mixed with Mithril.

Karl had been worrying about not having enough materials to upgrade his Power Armor. Wasn't this a stroke of luck?

"Good stuff! All good stuff! This Hobgoblin tribe is truly rich!"

There were only four sets of relatively intact metal armor, but Karl didn't even spare the decayed ones, collecting them all into his Bag of Holding.

Before long, the entire Bag of Holding was filled.

Looking around, Karl made sure he hadn't missed anything. He turned and left the Ritual Site, meeting up with Hopp, who was waiting at the tunnel entrance.

"Hopp! Go upstairs and bring down some charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur."

Seeing Karl return safely, Hopp secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

But upon hearing Karl's request for these items, she asked curiously, "What's wrong?"

Karl opened his Power Armor helmet and pointed towards the depths of the tunnel, still feeling shaken.

"There's something wicked in there, but it's trapped inside a Dragonshard now. I plan to prepare some explosives to blow up the Ritual Site inside. That way, it shouldn't be able to come out and harm people."

Nodding hesitantly, Hopp turned and climbed out of the tunnel, beginning to transport the items Karl needed from above.

Halfway through the transportation, Karl discovered that some of the barrels contained pre-mixed Black Powder.

However, due to age and poor storage conditions, the gunpowder had become damp.

But this still sent a cold sweat down Karl's back, and he quickly instructed Hopp to handle the barrels with care during transport.

The repetitive hauling work took them nearly five hours.

After mixing the various items together and piling them into a small mountain, Karl opened a relatively dry barrel of pre-mixed gunpowder and sprinkled it from the Ritual Site all the way to the tunnel exit.

Using Prestidigitation to light the fuse, Karl and Hopp left the warehouse.

After waiting quietly for more than ten minutes, accompanied by a rumbling sound, a section of the cliff to the right of the Goblin tribe collapsed.

Fortunately, the warehouse section was not affected.

So Karl descended back into the tunnel to check the situation inside.

When he saw that the end of the tunnel was blocked by fallen rocks, Karl finally let out a long sigh of relief.

"Excellent! Next, I'll build a cart to transport all the useful things back!"

The non-collapsed tunnel still contained some Khyber Dragonshards, and the armory had some metal equipment and ores.

For Karl and Hopp, who were lacking in various things, these items were not to be abandoned.

However, a round trip would take at least one day for the two of them, and relying solely on the Bag of Holding would be too slow.

They didn't know when the Hobgoblins and Dire Goblins of this Goblin tribe would return, but to be safe, they decided to act quickly.

After using the timber from the Goblin tribe to build a four-wheeled cart, Karl put a rope on his Power Armor and, with Hopp and the cart full of items, returned to the mushroom forest.

"Ding! Ding! Ding!"

The day after returning from the Goblin camp, Karl began constructing a furnace and kilns on the mushroom caps.

He cut apart the armor mixed with Mithril using a lathe and then, controlling a drill, engraved runes representing fire onto the metal plates.

Even without infusing them with Spirituality, because they were engraved on Mithril, which had the best conductivity for magic, the temperature of the metal plates visibly increased.

"Aren't you going to sort out our living situation first? The living room is getting a bit small."

Standing next to Karl, Hopp tried to persuade him to process the wood first.

She had gone out to chop more wood during Karl's rest period, hoping to move into a spacious room as soon as possible.

But Karl ended up tinkering with new things again.

During this recent period, whether it was a side effect of using the giants' power or not, Hopp could clearly feel her body developing rapidly, which made her feel a bit embarrassed to share a room with Karl.

"Trust me, my work here will be finished soon, and then I'll handle the lumber."

After cutting three more metal plates from the mithril armor, Karl engraved flame runes onto each one, while reassuring Hopp.

In fact, he had also vaguely noticed what Hopp was concerned about.

After all, that area was becoming perkier every other day; Karl couldn't help but notice.

The leather clothes he had made for Hopp previously were a bit loose, but after these few days, Hopp could fill them out perfectly.

But the construction of the smelting furnace and kiln is also urgent. Since I know there are goblins here, and I encountered something so strange, arming ourselves is definitely the top priority!

Once these two facilities are built, I can process the lumber while smelting metal and firing pottery.

Smiling as he brushed Hopp off, Karl sighed slightly and continued to immerse himself in the seemingly endless mechanical processing.

Soon, all four mithril alloy metal plates engraved with flame runes were completed. Karl then found some soil collected from near the goblin tribe, mixed it with water to form mud, and prepared to make mud bricks.

With those four metal plates, as long as Karl infused them with spirituality, they would emit a high temperature far exceeding that of ordinary runestones.

This would allow Karl to build a blast furnace and smelt metal.