Technical Upgrade

"Clack."

After absorbing the black mist, the Dragon Crystal had turned blackish-purple and fallen to the ground. Carl backed away several steps, not daring to approach it again.

The murky black mist churned inside the Dragon Crystal, looking as though it might burst out at any moment.

"What a sinister thing!"

After a brief inner struggle, Carl gritted her teeth and took out her Wrench. Using it to clamp the Dragon Crystal, she threw it into a corner of the Ritual Site.

"After we leave, let's collapse this place with explosives. I seem to remember that some of the materials in the warehouse just now were ingredients for gunpowder."

After burying the Dragon Crystal beneath some stones, Carl returned to the center of the Ritual Site and began gathering the various materials scattered around.

The first thing she collected was 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 can that stuff really be made into a greatsword?"

Controlling the Power Armor to pick up a fragment of the Blackstone Greatsword, Carl was about to identify its exact material when the fragment failed to withstand the Power Armor's strength and shattered outright.

"No wonder one Magic Missile shattered it. So this thing was fragile to begin with? If I'd known, I would have just used a crossbow. I wasted a Spell Slot for nothing."

After repeatedly confirming that there was no black mist or strange magic left in the greatsword fragments, Carl took several small boxes from the Bag of Holding and stored the pieces inside.

Then she turned her gaze toward the corpses of the Hobgoblins nearby, which had long since turned into white bones.

They wore metal armor. Although it was severely damaged, Carl's sharp eyes immediately recognized that the armor was an alloy containing Mithril Alloy.

Carl had been worrying about lacking materials to continue upgrading her Power Armor. Wasn't this a case of stumbling upon exactly what she needed?

"Good stuff! All good stuff! This goblin tribe is loaded!"

There were only four sets of relatively intact metal armor, but Carl did not even spare the rotten armor, putting every last piece into the Bag of Holding.

Before long, the entire Bag of Holding was filled.

After looking around and confirming that she had missed nothing, Carl turned and left the Ritual Site, meeting Hopp, who was waiting at the tunnel entrance.

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

Seeing Carl return safely, Hopp secretly sighed in relief.

But when she heard that Carl wanted those things, she asked curiously,

"What happened?"

Carl opened the helmet of her Power Armor and pointed apprehensively toward the depths of the tunnel.

"There's something sinister in there, but it's trapped inside the Dragon Crystal now. I'm going to prepare some explosives and destroy the Ritual Site inside. That way, it shouldn't be able to come out and harm anyone."

Hesitantly, Hopp nodded before turning around and climbing out of the tunnel. She began transporting the things Carl needed down from above.

Halfway through the transport, Carl discovered that several barrels already contained prepared Black Powder.

However, because of their age and the crude storage conditions, the powder had absorbed moisture.

That still gave Carl a cold sweat, and she hurriedly instructed Hopp to handle the barrels gently during transport.

The repeated hauling took the two of them nearly five hours.

After mixing all the miscellaneous materials together and piling them into a small hill, Carl opened one barrel of relatively dry, prepared Black Powder and scattered it from the Ritual Site all the way to the tunnel exit.

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

After waiting quietly for more than ten minutes, the sound of "rumble, rumble" rang out, and part of the cliff on the right side of the goblin tribe collapsed.

Fortunately, the warehouse was not affected.

Carl therefore descended into the tunnel again to inspect the situation inside.

When she saw that the end of the tunnel had been blocked by fallen rocks, Carl finally relaxed and let out a long breath.

"Good! Next, we'll build a handcart and transport everything useful here back home!"

Some Dragon Crystal remained in the parts of the tunnel that had not collapsed, while the armory also contained some metal equipment and ore.

For Carl and Hopp, who lacked all kinds of supplies, none of these things could be abandoned.

However, each round trip would take the two of them at least a day. Relying solely on the Bag of Holding would be too inefficient.

The two of them had no idea when the Hobgoblins and Dire Goblins from this goblin tribe would return, but to be safe, they still decided to act quickly.

After using timber from the goblin tribe to build a four-wheeled handcart, Carl strapped ropes to her Power Armor and returned to the mushroom forest with Hopp and a cartload of supplies.

"Ding! Ding! Ding!"

The day after returning from the goblin camp, Carl began building a furnace and kiln atop the mushroom caps.

After cutting open the armor mixed with Mithril Alloy using a lathe, Carl operated a drilling machine and engraved runes representing flames onto the metal plates.

Although she had not infused them with spirituality, the metal plates' temperature had visibly begun to rise because the runes had been engraved on Mithril Alloy, the best material for conducting magic.

"Aren't you going to deal with our living quarters first? The living room is already getting a little small."

Standing beside Carl, Hopp tried to persuade her to process the timber first.

While Carl had been resting, she had gone out and felled more wood, all so they could move into a spacious room as soon as possible.

But Carl had run off to tinker with new things again.

Recently, perhaps because of the side effects of using the giant's strength, Hopp could clearly feel her body developing rapidly. This made her somewhat embarrassed to share a room with Carl.

"Trust me. I'll be done here soon. When I am, I'll deal with the timber."

After cutting three more metal plates from the Mithril Alloy armor, Carl engraved Flame Runes on each of them while reassuring Hopp.

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

After all, that particular area became perkier every other day. Carl would have had to be blind not to notice.

The leather clothes Carl had made for Hopp had originally been somewhat loose, but after these past few days, Hopp could already fill them out perfectly.

But building the smelting furnace and kiln can't wait either. Now that I know goblins exist here—and have even encountered something so sinister—arming myself has to be the top priority!

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

After smiling and brushing Hopp off, Carl sighed softly and threw herself back into the seemingly endless mechanical processing.

Soon, all four Mithril Alloy metal plates engraved with Flame Runes were complete. Carl fetched clumps of earth collected near the goblin tribe, mixed them with water into mud, and prepared to make mud bricks.

With those four metal plates, as long as Carl infused them with spirituality, they would emit a temperature far higher than that of ordinary Rune Stones.

That way, Carl could build a blast furnace and smelt metal.