A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 174 I'm Here to Negotiate

Next, there was a meeting of mages. Ou Yeni had her own business to attend to, so she excused herself and left Luo Xia to talk with the other mages.

Rorschach personally cast a Blue Light Barrier on them and took out some passivation transmutation dust samples as well.

"Pure magic!" "The outer protective layer resembles the spell you just cast." "Comparable to the highest purity energetic crystal." "Are there more samples?"

This is a product that Rorschach plans to launch for the Bain mages. The transmutation dust, assimilated by the divine power of Delyuats, is indeed a good thing. Not only can it be used as a casting material to provide high-purity, high-concentration ether, but it can also be dissolved in alchemical ink to improve the quality of the preparation.

"Sorry, that's all we have. Maybe when we have a stable supply, everyone will be able to buy them."

Rorschach also saw some interesting things in the Tower of Mystic Arts, such as the magical "Sealing Disc," which can encapsulate a mid-level or lower spell and keep it in a ready-to-cast state. If the disc is broken, the encapsulated spell can be cast immediately.

"To be honest, we haven't figured out what we can use it for yet. It's too easy to break, which makes it inconvenient to transport. Its only advantage over a reel is its instantaneous firing capability, but we can't make it too difficult to break."

This could be made into something like a safety valve or a rupture disc. If the pressure inside the container exceeds the rated value, the rupture disc will break and release the pressure. Based on this idea, a teleportation spell could be encapsulated on a plate to the gas element plane—no, not to a temporary storage tank—that would greatly improve safety.

Similar to a pressure cooker releasing steam when it's over-pressurized, but toxic and flammable gases produced during production cannot be released indiscriminately, as that could be deadly.

"Master Rorschach?" His daydreaming made others see the boy staring blankly at the plate.

"What is the current cost?" Rorschach noticed that the plate was made of an eggshell-like material and was a beautiful rose color.

"The eggshell thickness is the same as the weight of gold. The cost of materials and labor in your possession is about 200 Gold Eagle Coins."

"So expensive!" Rorschach exclaimed in surprise, nearly crushing the precious plate in his hand. "What's inside?"

The creator of the disc replied, "【Fireball】."

"Are you trying to kill all of us in this room?" "Have you lost your mind from drinking beer?!" "Why did you bring it here?!" If Rorschach had been caught off guard and hit in the face with a fiery fireball, he would have been in serious trouble. Before he could say anything, the creator had already been severely beaten up by his colleagues from the Arcane Tower.

Rorschach requested to visit and use the library and alchemy workshop of the Arcane Tower, but the other party hesitated and was unwilling to open the former.

"The situation at the Tower of Arcane Arts is a bit special. What are called forbidden books on the continent are generally not considered forbidden books here. And after reading the forbidden books in the library, you have to erase your memory of them before leaving our tower."

"Never mind then, I'll borrow it again after you establish a proper grading system. I am indeed under eighteen." Fortunately, Rorschach successfully borrowed the alchemy workshop's books.

Although it's called a workshop, since the people of the Tower of Mystic Arts don't value alchemy, it's more like a storage point for spellcasting materials. They only use the bottles, jars, and crucibles when they have to make the materials themselves because they can't buy them.

Since the Arcane Tower was unwilling to intervene in his conflict with the Glass Guild, Rorschach had no choice but to use other methods.

Do you have any local metal ores?

"Yes, I'll show you." Rorschach got straight to the point. He asked the warehouse manager of the Arcane Tower to lead him to a row of display cases containing refined and unrefined metals with strange and unusual names written on them.

"This comes from an iron ore vein near Würzburg, as well as imported copper ore, but it has many impurities. The Mining and Metallurgical Association commissioned us to develop a new refining process, but we ultimately abandoned it due to cost issues."

Impurities are good; that's exactly what I need—associated minerals.

After thanking him and obtaining permission, Rorschach took all the original ore samples and continuously separated them using methods such as [Decomposition Technique] and centrifugation, while directly heating them with [Melting Rays]. He refined the entire box of discarded ore samples, obtaining small amounts of associated minerals classified by color and crystal form.

"This spell is really convenient." He then took out a dusty glass container from the storeroom—originally a flask or swan-neck flask used for alchemy, which Rorschach had broken and then used the [Melting Ray] to restore it to a syrup-like glass liquid.

He then kept adding the separated powder to try, and then used the [freezing ray] to rapidly cool it.

As the temperature drops, the glass reveals its original shape, and the addition of mineral colorants results in different colors.

Because the flux is sodium salt and lead is commonly used for reinforcement, the original glass material would appear yellow if it were thickened. But that's okay; Rorschach now has green, blue, and beautiful rose-colored glass. They also contain impurities, and because of the rapid cooling, their shapes are somewhat ugly, and the stress has not been eliminated.

Thanks to his past life's craft classes, he still had some recollection of various colorants. Inorganic colorants for glass are often metal oxides; green is cadmium oxide, blue is cobalt oxide (which is "cobalt blue"), rose color can be achieved by mixing red, iron oxide can, but for a better look, selenium is needed.

Of course, Rorschach wouldn't actually categorize them; they were all by-products of copper and iron ore. Rorschach's job was to roughly refine them and then add them to the glass to try them one by one.

It doesn't matter that it looks ugly now; what Rorschach cares about is the color. He took out the shards of forest glass and blue glass that he had picked up from Glass Town and compared them with his own reprocessed product.

It's still not good enough; the color saturation and purity are still far from what they produce.

Whether the cosolvent is sodium-based or potassium-based also has an impact. Rorschach recalls that glass with high sodium and lead content tends to be yellowish, which is consistent with the flame test results of sodium.

Adding potassium and magnesium salts can improve the color, essentially shifting it towards a cooler tone. Fortunately, sodium, potassium, and magnesium metal salts are much easier to obtain than the associated mineral oxides; they are readily available in the alchemy workshop.

With the help of magic and knowledge from his past life, Rorschach achieved initial success in just one afternoon and evening.

"Nice color." Rorschach whistled as he held the pitted, opaque, and shapeless "glass egg." Normally, further processing and shaping would require melting glass, but the wizard made it much easier.

As we all know, the main component of stone is silicate, while the main component of glass is silicon oxide. They are essentially the same. The "Stone Shaping Technique" certainly has an effect, but due to unknown reasons that Rorschach has not yet figured out, the "activation" process takes a little longer.

Under Rorschach's spell, a small pony slowly took shape inside the "glass egg," breaking free from the softened rose-colored inorganic non-metallic amorphous material.

"What? Master Rorschach has been in the alchemy workshop the whole time?" Ou Yeni was shocked to hear the gargoyle's report and quickly walked to the door: "Master Rorschach? Rorschach?" The people of the Tower of Mystic Arts have never paid much attention to alchemy. This room has been in disrepair for many years and few people have been in or out. It would be bad if a visitor from the Tower of Stars had an accident inside.

The door was opened by Rorschach's [Mage Hand]: "Mage Elizabeth?"

"Master Luo Xia, why aren't you eating dinner? Oh my god, it's so cute!"

Rorschach handed the lady a colorful glass pony: "Thank you for lending me your workshop, Tower of Arcane Arts. I remember you said yesterday that you like riding horses, so this little trinket is for you, Mage Elizabeth."

"Then I'll accept it." She took the work and admired Rorschach's masterpiece, adding, "Call me Eugénie."

The owner of the glass guild was fiddling with the wine glasses; the quality of this batch was inconsistent, and the flaws made him frown.

"Please come in." He didn't expect that the people who had been driven away earlier, the Valuers and the sorcerer, would enter after he knocked on the door.

The boy first took out a small, transparent glass horse.

"Oh, the goods from Jenpney are very beautiful."

"As expected of the guild leader, you know every single one of them inside and out. Now, please take a look at this."

Rorschach took out a small, emerald-green pony, even more exquisite and lifelike, as if it could come to life at any moment.

"Take a look at this one too."

The cobalt blue knight, a tiny figure the size of a palm, exudes an imposing presence.

"And this, and our drinks."

Finally, there was rose-colored glass, unlike anything I'd ever seen before, shaped exactly like a rose. And then there were the goods Mr. Hassai brought.

The guild master picked up the glass rose in disbelief, his hands trembling as he examined it closely. "Magic! This is magic!"

"What if I said I could mass-produce it? I came to you first. And you wouldn't want to see every workshop producing forest glass and cobalt blue glass, would you?" Rorschach pushed the glass towards him. "I'm here to negotiate... no, to make demands!"

I finished writing too late tonight, so I'll combine the acknowledgments tomorrow. Sorry.

(End of this chapter)