Chapter 248 Progress In Plans

[Ace POV],

After several hours of attempting to create two different runes from the fire system, explode and ignite, I was only able to successfully engrave both after numerous trials. Engraving two at a time was difficult, as I had expected. I failed more times than I succeeded, but I did manage to improve my ability to engrave runes.

I turned to look at the two metallic balls on the table in front of me, each with a gem embedded in the center and a rune engraved on the gem. I used magic gems that I had mined from the slime dungeon, making the experiment even more expensive due to the failures I had in engraving the runes on the gems, causing them to be destroyed. The ignite rune was the first one I succeeded in creating before the explode rune a few hours later.

Even the ignite rune, which I thought would be easy, proved difficult to make. It made me realize that my success in creating the Runic Bone Dagger was a fluke since I didn't encounter many issues with engraving the rune compared to my recent experience.

The basement was evidence of how stressful and hard it was to create some certain runes and I just attempted making two at the same time.

Since I had to create explosives, the materials I bought from the store were all magic items that were flammable upon contact. To make the flames more powerful and capable of heavy damage, they had to be mixed and contained in something.

For the container I decided to use metal because apart from its strong attributes, it would at least be more reliable than some other items and hold the content inside the container well and not spill it easily due to external forces.

Since I was strong enough to easily bend metals and use my flame to burn their edges and glue them together, I thought I just needed to make a good enough container even if it's a little rough till I learned that the state of any material used in rune-making was important since they were going to merge in the end. I failed twice before realizing this and had to touch an aspect of alchemy that I didn't expect: blacksmithing.

It wasn't the real deal about blacksmithing I was touching though since I was not crafting a magic item or anything and just wanted to make a metal container.

I had to create the metallic balls with blacksmithing and purchase costly equipment like the Avril and a blacksmithing hammer.

Due to the varying sizes of the items I purchased from the store, I had to reorganise the basement once again. I set aside a specific area for blacksmithing, where I could work on both present and future projects. As a result, my laboratory took on a fresh appearance. I have been exploring the world of alchemy, and I am confident that with time, my basement will become my own personal cave.

While in the midst of blacksmithing, I couldn't help but think of a particular bat that laughs. I had already acquired knowledge on the subject of blacksmithing from my previous research and Gustav's teachings. My attempt to recreate the metal ball through blacksmithing was successful, but I continued to refine it several times until I was satisfied with the final result.

This action cost no loss to the metals in my hand since I could heat it up and melt them to use again.

This was basically everything that happened in the past few hours.

In my attempt to make runic items, I decided to experiment with magic gems instead of simply engraving runes onto metallic balls. I wanted to understand why they were considered excellent materials for magic crafting.

This was the main reason apart from my curiosity and now that I've succeeded at making the runic items that were unfortunately one time used, I made my way out of the basement with both explosives in my hand.

Since these items were potentially going to be the item that will lead to me evolving quickly, I took the explosives seriously and planned to test their capabilities.

As I made my way out from the underground basement, I could feel the cool air passing through the stairs on my face. It might still be dark outside, but the bright light that emanated from the mansion made it easy to see my way around. The light seemed to radiate from every corner, casting a warm and inviting glow that made me feel at home.

It didn't take long for me to reach the living room, which was spacious and elegantly decorated with antique furniture. The air was still, and I could hear nothing but the sound of my footsteps on the plush carpet. I looked around and saw no one in the room. It was just me, the silence, and the warmth of the mansion.

It was obvious the others were not back yet and I confirmed this after a little search around.

Something to note was that the mansion was brightly lit that despite the darkness of the early morning, I could still make out the silhouette of the mansion from dozens of meters away. It was as if the light around it was powerful enough to cut through the darkness and make the mansion visible from miles away.

I wonder what the magic used to light the mansion really is and with all these things that are running in the mansion currently, will the energy from the level 34 crystal core even last long.

But that's that since I had other things to focus on. For instance, testing out the damage of the two explosives in my hand.

I needed to find a place that was quite open in the alternate dimension to effectively gauge the damage level of both explosives.

For one, I could not try to experiment with the bombs in the woods to avoid causing a massive fire and apart from that I needed an open space to avoid accidentally damaging myself.

With this thought in mind, I decided to use the primordial chronicle to check out the information of both explosives again before trying anything out.