Alloy

"What the hell are you two up to?" Lucia looked at Donald, then at Wesley. The latter's words from earlier that day had made her uneasy. "Not going to invite me in?"

"You're too late. There's nothing to see now. Next time, come earlier." Wesley deliberately spoke ambiguously, his face wearing its usual lecherous expression.

"Don't listen to his nonsense. We were discussing cultivation." Donald was afraid Lucia might actually misunderstand. If word got out that he and Wesley were doing something shady, it would be a real headache.

"Hmph! I don't believe a word he says. Donald, did you sign up for the Martial Magic Tournament?"

"Me? The Martial Magic Tournament? No, I didn't." Donald had no idea the tournament even required registration.

"But I saw your name on the grade-level submission list."

"No need to ask. It's definitely that idiot Carl's doing again!" Wesley rolled his eyes. "He doesn't dare come at you openly, so he's stooping to these petty tricks."

"Then I'll go see if I can get the academy to remove your name."

"Forget it. Too much trouble. If I'm registered, I'm registered. I just won't go up when the time comes. There's nothing they can do about it."

"You should just beat that Carl kid to a pulp. Look at me—I thrashed him once, and he's been docile ever since." Unlike Donald, Wesley wasn't afraid of trouble at all.

"Wesley, don't stir things up!" Lucia didn't know Donald was already a Magic Apprentice. In her eyes, he'd just enrolled and probably hadn't even condensed his Divine Element yet. Before leaving, she repeatedly warned Donald to be careful.

"I told you she likes you. For the sake of your Meditation Method, I won't compete with you!" Wesley put on an air of great magnanimity.

"Wesley, I'm not planning to make this Meditation Method public..." Donald didn't want to dwell on this topic with him. He knew once Wesley started talking about girls, he'd never shut up.

"Of course you can't make it public. If too many people know, it'll eventually reach that idiot Carl." Wesley spoke seriously. "Don't worry. Unless you agree, I won't tell anyone. By the way, you're not even telling Lucia?"

Donald wasn't without selfish motives. Compared to the crucial secret of the runes, the new Meditation Method was nothing, but even so, too many people knowing was never good.

"Let's leave it at that for now. Maybe one day I'll change my mind. For now, let's talk about Magic Models."

Compared to Wesley, Donald had been a Low-rank Mage Apprentice for far too short a time. Their abilities to construct Magic Models were on completely different levels. This could only be made up for with time—there was no shortcut.

"Remember! The Six-element Attack Model and the Twelve-element Defense Model are the foundation of many high-level Magic Models. No amount of time spent on them is too much." Wesley, after all, had a dean for a father and a professor for an uncle. His knowledge far surpassed that of an average student.

From then on, Donald followed his advice, focusing his energy on the Six-element Attack Model and beginning to attempt constructing the Twelve-element Defense Model—a regular hexagon nested inside another.

Ever since he learned that the basic six-element attack and defense models were identical, Donald tried Ice Spear, Flying Leaf, Stone Spike, and Wind Blade. Sure enough, these spells had the same structure as Fireball. This meant his total number of six-element attack spells suddenly jumped from over thirty to over one hundred and fifty—a pleasant surprise.

Unfortunately, the new Meditation Method could only cultivate two elemental systems simultaneously. After weighing his options, Donald decided to abandon the other three and focus on the water and fire systems.

Soon, the mid-March holiday arrived. The twin sisters Ailimanda and Ailimiya finally got to see Donald.

As soon as Donald knocked on the lab door, the elder sister Ailimanda (Donald didn't know which was which) pulled him over to a shelf. The shelf was long but very short, like a giant shoe rack. Ailimanda pointed at the densely packed metal ingots and said, "Look, look! Every metal we could find is right here!"

"That's right, that's right! Every single one we could find, all gathered—seven hundred and sixty-two kinds in total!" That was the younger sister, Ailimiya.

"Seven hundred and sixty-two kinds? That many?" Donald guessed many of them were just derivatives of the same metal, but the efficiency of the Gnomes and Dwarves still impressed him. Only ten days had passed.

"Pick out the lightest few and the hardest few for me."

"Haha, we already thought of that." Two cute little faces were full of pride.

"The light ones are on top, the heavy ones below. The hard ones are to the left, the soft ones to the right."

Donald picked up the lightest materials one by one to identify them. Most of them he'd never encountered in his experiments with Victor. A few light metals resembled aluminum, and one looked a lot like pure titanium, but they all seemed slightly different. He couldn't be sure. The heaviest and hardest ones were metals he'd never seen on Earth at all—he'd expected as much.

"What we're about to do next—I don't know what the result will be myself. But if the experiment succeeds, it should be very useful. The workload is heavy, so be mentally prepared." Donald paused, looked down solemnly at the twin sisters, and only continued after seeing them both nod seriously. "Alright. Of these light metals, which one is the most common and cheapest?"

The two identical beautiful little girls both pointed at the ingot labeled "Light Iron."

"Are the others much more expensive?"

The twins nodded in unison, their movements perfectly synchronized.

"Good. Use Light Iron as the base. Heat it until it melts, then add another metal. Don't bother with the really expensive ones—just test the cheaper ones. Add only one type at a time, in ten different ratios, from one percent to ten percent. Let them fully fuse, then cool. Record the strength after each test. Spend these ten days on this. Can you do it?" After speaking, Donald looked at the two delicate girls, who only came up to his thigh, and suddenly felt like a villain exploiting child labor.

"Understood!"

"And after that?"

Two pairs of big, watery eyes stared straight at him, as if the work he'd assigned was too little.

"Whichever fusion gives the highest hardness, continue testing around that percentage to find the optimal value."

"And then?"

"Yeah, and then?"

The dedication of these child laborers exceeded Donald's imagination.

"Then, test different cooling rates. Use water or oil at different temperatures to aid cooling. Don't ask anymore. Just finish all this in ten days!"

The two sisters cheerfully began their preparations, humming something like, "We are happy engineers..."

After giving these instructions, Donald bid farewell to the Dwarf Adarua and headed to the Knight Academy.

(The pacing of these few chapters may be slow, but it's setting the stage for the climax ahead.)