To Ghost’s surprise a reply came back immediately
He already left He’s heading towards Zone 1
Ghost instantly activated his observation craft scanning the borderlands near Zone 1 and then when he found nothing he sent them farther afield
But then a ping came from a completely unexpected place Aldersburg which was the Northeast most border town There as bold as brass the younger Ghosthound was walking into town with a long stride There was a wide almost creepy grin on his face Shocked by how quickly the Ghosthound was able to move Ghost sent his observation drones closer
Definitely this one needed to be watched
The younger Ghosthound was speaking to himself
Is fun Is so fun Teehee Let’s make friend
Chapter 504
Randidly wasn’t able to learn the Illusion Skill that Simon provided for the Zone as he originally pledged to a different Champion to receive the Soul Bond Skill But he was determined and he had a lot of Mana to work with Although he had a lot of negative emotions towards Lyra he did learn from her how one could learn Skills the hard way
Unfortunately Randidly was not Lyra Fortunately Bruya’s skill with illusions had progressed to the point that her illusions would persist some time after she cast them As long as he didn’t move too quickly or use too many Mana based Skills that would interfere with the projection it would likely last for a month or two
Honestly they weren’t sure how long it would last The test they had conducted had only been a month and a half ago However it was more than enough for Randidly’s purposes Besides if there was an emergency heading back for it to be recharged would not be difficult
What was annoying was that Neveah had taken to Illusions like a fish to water In her broken but improving English she mocked him relentlessly
So two days after he had left the rest of his group Randidly was at a mid sized Village on the Western side of Zone 1 He had watched for the past two days and believed that this was a place that they wouldn’t look too closely at citizenship Or rather they needed labor so badly that the Tier of the citizen who did it didn’t matter
Besides who would want to work smelting steel for the new drone initiative If they didn’t pull from the populous without citizenship they probably wouldn’t be able to fill the factories
His face was nondescript and his hair was brown and to his ears His eyes were also brown He kept his body largely the same but added a bit of a belly to give him a more approachable vibe
It was a dingy smoky area about a mile out of the town proper and there was a steady flow of grubby looking people walking towards the door to the factory There was a gate there and a man standing on a small platform It had only opened a few days ago the day before Randidly came to observe and only now was it gaining momentum it seemed
There was a whole complex of freshly constructed factories next to the smoky factory they were entering but they required at least preliminary citizenship in order to enter into those areas The men and women around Randidly whispered that those factories are where they started to produce drones Within those buildings the designers and builders were quickly learning their art
But as it had only been open for a few days they couldn’t have earned many Skill Levels If a person received enough money to buy a preliminary citizenship then they began producing drones
It might seem like a lot now but 10 000 00 will come more quickly than you think The man on the platform was saying We will buy the steel ingot from you for 1 more if you smelt a rarer metal There are a few related Skills I can let you in on for a fee
There was grumbling from the crowd but several people went over to the attendant standing next to the platform willing to pay for information about the Skills The more quickly they raised those Skills the more money they could make
Randidly walked past this area into the factory proper He had done a lot of listening to figure out how he wanted to do this and the faster it could be done the better The factory operated 24/7 but a lot of the workers went home at night basically near the limit of even their System enhanced strength More than that they wanted to take the time to take some deep breaths
Steelmaking was simple if labor intensive Iron ore was taken first to be melted heat applied until only the raw metal remained Afterward the molten metal was taken to a blast furnace where a great deal of the impurities in the metal were removed in a highly pressurized environment Then to make steel a small amount of carbon was added to the iron giving it its increased strength
As the process was done in a pressurized environment and controlling the amount of oxygen was very important this made the labor exhausting even when an individual had a high Endurance Pre System people wouldn’t be forced to do this all manually but now there was no reason not to make these people do it especially when they were very cheap labor
10 000 ingots of steel huh Randidly said softly walking up to the trading station There he traded 5 of Zone 1’s dollars in order to purchase enough iron ore and compressed carbon to make 20 ingots worth of steel In addition he rented one of the smelting stations for 1 a day The man outside made it seem like it was a simple thing to make the steel but the owners of the factory made you pay for it every step of the way
Randidly also wondered where all this iron ore was coming from It was true that the System injected a lot of minerals into the environment but was there truly this much And who was mining it
Questions for another time For now it was best to focus on working up enough money to get the preliminary citizenship There it was said that it was possible to obtain Tier 1 citizenship if one became a successful drone maker Randidly’s eyes flashed as well as they could with his fake brown eyes
His rented work area was cramped but it had everything he needed furnace crucible blast furnace and workman’s gloves and apron Randidly didn’t bother with these He might regret it but it would just raise his resistances higher as well as Chosen of Fire
To start Randidly followed the instructions he had heard to forge the steel It was long hot work Very quickly he was sweating profusely no matter how high his resistances were He did gain a point in each of Fire Resistance and Chosen of Fire which was rewarding although it wasn’t the reward he wanted
The entire time of melting moving the molten iron to the blast furnace and then blowing away the impurities with pressurized air Randidly kept a very close watch on what was occurring However very quickly he was helpless Sure his Perception made seeing through the thin metal walls of the furnace rather easy but he had no real experience working with metal He couldn’t figure out what was going on within
At the end he poured his molten metal into the mold and let it cool All told 4 hours had passed There was no doubt in Randidly’s mind that he could definitely shorten this down to 2 hours with practice and perhaps 1 or 1 and a half with proficiency in Skills but it was still far far too slow Randidly’s high Stats made working through this level of exertion a sinch but it didn’t mean that he could easily speed up the time it took for the metal to melt
But Randidly had another plan entirely He had never really considered the typical methods of forging it to be worth his time Still it was definitely worth the experience of producing steel the hard way in order to understand the process
After the steel had cooled Randidly looked at it
It was about 1 meter long and was about as thick and wide as a brick But it was pure metal if a little speckled
Randidly frowned at his first ingot It seemed that it had not gone quite perfect Randidly could tell that the addition of carbon to the molten iron had not been done uniformly and there were clearly patches of different density Randidly pressed his thumb into it It was clearly hard not hard enough to stop his finger at full power but likely at the power that it truly was steel