Chương 195: Forging Mithril

After Kanda left, Li Qinwu sat quietly on the sofa, lost in a whirlwind of thoughts. Now that a goblin stronger than himself had emerged within the Alliance, a sense of crisis washed over him. This anxiety stemmed partly from goblin instinct and partly from his deep, clear understanding of power structures. Even though Kanda was bound by the system and incapable of harming him, Li Qinwu still felt a pressing urge—he needed to get stronger! Li Qinwu opened his system panel to inspect his stats.

His six core attributes read: Vigor 30, Control 21, Endurance 20, Cunning 7, Social 7, Intelligence 15. Having leveled up twice after defeating the two enemies earlier, he had dumped all his stat points into Vigor, raising it to 32. That was still 3 points short of Kanda's, making his sense of urgency even sharper. What was even more pressing was his level: he had already reached Level 44, making further level-ups excruciatingly difficult.

The grueling Troll battle, combined with taking down two extraordinary foes, had only yielded two level-ups. Moving forward, obtaining attribute points solely through system level-ups would only grow harder. He had to employ special means—perhaps other class-change items, or praying to the gods? He glanced at his Prayer skill: its proficiency sat at a meager 15. Speaking of which, where had those 15 proficiency points even come from? He had never prayed to anyone, had he?

He recalled the Goddess of the Earth and the God of War; both deities had bestowed blessings upon him. Even though he hadn't begged for their favor, could a specific type of action have naturally satisfied the criteria for prayer? Li Qinwu felt like he had brushed against a tiny thread of understanding, but the exact mechanism remained beyond his grasp. He decided to put off researching it until the campaign against the Church of the Goddess of Life concluded.

The next day, Li Qinwu began organizing post-war recovery efforts. In truth, the overall losses were not disastrous; at the very least, the core manufacturing capacity remained intact. In the Industrial Zone, the damage was mostly confined to burned warehouses and a few destroyed blast furnaces; the production workshops and the Magical Blast Furnace had suffered virtually no damage.

Otherwise, the Statue of the Penal Corps had been demolished, leaving piles of rubble stacked across the Citizen Square, and a number of residential houses were blown up. Casualties totaled 576 civilians and 123 military personnel. For an organization of the Alliance's scale, such numerical losses were practically negligible, but for the stability of public morale, the psychological impact was near-catastrophic.

If the enemy could charge in, slash, hack, and detonate explosives at will this time, could they do it again next time? Fear spread among the citizens, and many no longer dared to venture into the core areas of Iron City that were susceptible to attack. Rumors even circulated among the populace that the enemies had come from the west, making those farming in the western sector far more likely to be slaughtered. Honestly, that wasn't entirely a rumor.

The enemy had indeed crossed over from the west this time, killing dozens of farmers in the western fields. As a result, many landowners with fields on the west side no longer dared to step foot on their farmlands. To stabilize the public mood, Li Qinwu deployed troops to patrol the streets twenty-four hours a day and publicly announced the deaths of the extraordinary enemies to all citizens. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

A total of four enemies were killed and one captured in this battle: Li Qinwu had eliminated three, Kanda had killed one, and the last one—who had tried to blow up the Mage Tower—met a desperate counterattack from three guard companies. After costing the guards 50 casualties, the intruder was blasted to death by a sniper using anti-aircraft artillery. Yes, an anti-aircraft cannon—single-shot, high-caliber, maximum devastation. You can't say it's not a sniper, right?

That Apostle's mithril plate armor was even thinner than Leon the Hero's—it was practically as thin as a sheet of A4 paper. A single shell from the anti-aircraft cannon blew right through it, turning his chest cavity into pulverized mush. Li Qinwu had these corpses locked inside heavy iron cages and paraded them through the entire city. Why lock them in iron cages? Because Li Qinwu intended to feed these corpses to Gobu-Si to cultivate powerful undead units.

If they weren't caged, the enraged populace would have torn the corpses into fine dust. Of course, the battle yielded spoils as well: five paper-thin suits of mithril full plate armor and six mithril longswords—one of which was a system drop, a curved mithril longsword. Li Qinwu gathered these weapons, along with the armor left behind by Leon the Hero from the previous battle, intending to forge an ultra-thick suit of mithril full plate armor plus a mithril greatsword for Kanda.

Since he didn't know how to smelt mithril, Li Qinwu went to ask Seahyde. To his surprise, Seahyde actually knew the process.

"Just toss them into the Magical Blast Furnace. Use high-purity magic power to scour and break down the mithril's structure until it softens, then forge it rapidly. It must be done quickly; only a Master Smith can forge a complete mithril piece in such a short window. I suggest you find a Master Dwarf Smith to handle it." In the Mage Tower laboratory, the ghostly Seahyde spoke in his spectral form. Li Qinwu let out a proud laugh.

"Heh heh, don't worry. With my current craftsmanship, even the greatest Dwarf couldn't hold a candle to me!" With system bonuses and his Complex Craftsmanship skill active, processing mithril in record time was a piece of cake. Without delay, Li Qinwu slung Seahyde's "coffin" over his shoulder and ran to the Magical Blast Furnace in the Industrial Zone to have him supervise the operation.

First, they cleared out the Magical Blast Furnace, then tossed in 300 mana crystals, raising the magic density inside the furnace to its absolute peak. The ultra-dense magic power began rubbing violently against itself, producing crackling explosions and visible bursts of flame akin to Fireball spells. A bit terrified, Li Qinwu asked: "This thing isn't going to blow up, is it?!" Seahyde replied nonchalantly: "It's fine, I'm watching it. It's still a few points away from the detonation threshold."

"Holy shit! So it can actually blow up?!" Li Qinwu's heart thumped frantically in his chest as waves of high-density magic power washed over his face. If it exploded at this distance, he'd probably be disintegrated down to the molecular level! Seahyde chuckled: "You can keep dawdling if you like; the longer you take, the higher the chance of an explosion."

"Damn it!" Li Qinwu cursed, dumping a pile of mithril scrap into the Magical Blast Furnace. Seahyde began directing Li Qinwu from the brass control console, instructing him to adjust the magic concentration. Seahyde's vision was unique in his current state: he could observe ambient magic fluctuations, allowing his gaze to penetrate the Magical Blast Furnace and see the conditions inside. Twenty minutes later, seeing that the mithril had completely melted, Seahyde said to Li Qinwu: "Alright, open the furnace!

You have five minutes. If you don't hammer it into shape within five minutes, you'll have to waste another 300 mana crystals to melt it down again... Holy CRAP!" Before Seahyde could even finish his sentence, Li Qinwu sprinted to the Magical Blast Furnace, caught the molten liquid with a mold, poured it onto the anvil, and began hammering at lightning speed. Li Qinwu swung his heavy hammer ten times a second. In under thirty seconds, the front breastplate took shape.

Then he used a smaller hammer to trim the edges; in under fifty seconds, the breastplate looked refined. Spending another minute carefully adjusting the mounting holes and reinforcing ribs, he still had more than half his time remaining! Li Qinwu even had time to grab various fine chisels and hammer elaborate patterns onto the front plate!

By the time the glowing-red plate armor cooled back into pure silver and lost its malleability, a complete breastplate was finished—fitted with pre-punched connecting holes, three reinforcing ribs along the front, and adorned with ornate patterns featuring a Penal Corps warrior holding a longsword at its center. This sequence of movements was mind-bogglingly fast. Seahyde's jaw remained wide open the entire time; just now, he could have sworn he saw Li Qinwu's hammer-wielding arm leave behind motion blurs!

Setting his hammer aside, Li Qinwu wiped the plate armor with a rag, admiring the exquisite patterns upon it with a satisfied nod. Noticing Seahyde's stunned expression, he puffed out his chest with smug pride.

"Wanna be my apprentice?"