Story 8 - Tribulation Troubles (Part 9) (Patreon)
Content
I pulled out several more homemade jars and placed two drops of Red Titanium Lime Juice in each one. Next I slid pieces of paper under each labeled, Control, Water, and Fire. I also specified the glass Iâd recently experimented on as Spiritual Spring Water.
Obviously, the control would be left alone. Since it was just two drops in a hot forge, it shouldnât take too long to evaporate.
In the jar labeled water, I placed a bit of mundane water.
Next, I took out my alchemy pedestal and waved the fire glass over the earthen flame until the liquid evaporated. A sticky substance remained at the bottom.
The kid stared at the fake beaker as I returned it. Then he looked at each one.
âThe regular water did nothing.â
I tapped the glass, causing the liquid to ripple. âIt diluted it more, so these two drops will take far longer to sublimate than just leaving it alone would have, and make the particles harder to find.â
âThat one kind of makes sense. But why did the fire turn it into that? With the extra heat, shouldnât it take less time to separate instead of turn into a paste?â
I shrugged. âSince I had to move onto a more important project, I didnât look into it for long, but I did discoverâŠâ
Once again, I grabbed another pseudo-beaker, added two drops, and roasted them over the fire to make the paste. Then I poured in a couple drops of regular water and let it sit there for a minute.
After the water reconstituted the lime juice, metal powder was left at the bottom of the jar. I labeled this one Fire + Water.
âSo this was what you did before having my lakeâs water?â
I grinned. âNo! I did not use this method. Examine the color of the dust!â I pointed to the Fire + Water jar.
âItâs black?â He frowned.
âAnd the color of this dust?â I tapped on the Spiritual Spring Water glass.
The Kid stared at the dark crimson particles.
âRed.â
âAnd why do you think theyâre different?â
âWhen you heat the liquid with fire, it pulls the energy out of the titanium and into the lime juice? Itâs kinda similar to when we use flames in alchemy to pull the energy out of a plant and into the solution, then burn away the rest of the plant.â
Fuck. How did he come up with the right answer so fast? It took me a quarter hour to figure that one out after testing it multiple times in frustration. Goddamn protagonist halo.
âYes,â I said, a bit strained.
In the jar labeled Control, the juice finished evaporating, leaving a few flakes of red titanium.
I held up both the Control and the Spiritual Spring Water.
After a quick scan of the experiments, I smiled. âWhich liquid has more titanium?â
The kid scowled. âI donât have divine sense yet.â
âThink about that question and make a hypothesis.â
He pointed to the Spring Water label. âIt has to be this one. It will purify the solution more than waiting.â
I glanced down at him and smirked evilly. âActually, itâs the control.â
His dumbfounded look was priceless.
âIt has ten percent more titanium.â
He gripped my sleeve. âDoes that mean that the spiritual spring water ate some of the titanium?!â
I shrugged. âWeâd have to do this experiment a few more times to check. It could just be that the drops of liquid I snagged the first time around had less metal.â
The kid stared into the depths of the solution. His jaw clenched. âThen letâs do it!â
***
âAnd the final result is?â
âAnywhere from 12 to 8 percent more in the control,â Little Spring said while staring at a jar like he couldnât accept reality.
âItâs a very disturbing conclusion, isnât it?â
âI thought for sure thatâŠâ As he trailed off, he looked into the distance.
âThis is why we test things.â
He nodded seriously.
âSo, we know that there is less Red Titanium when we use spiritual spring water. Does that mean itâs the worse of the two options and that we should wait a couple days for it to settle?â
He scowled. âObviously.â
âThen, what if I asked you which jar had the highest quality?â
His eyes slowly grew wide. âYou mean, the spring water decreases the amount, but increases the quality?!â
âAnd itâs faster.â It also sounded like magic, but Iâd seen weirder, more over-powered things in this Xianxia universe. âLetâs use it to purify a larger portion. Not the whole thing, though.â
âWait! Why not?â
âHave you considered that the reactions might be different with a greater volume?â
âI⊠didnât.â
âAnd since weâre here, we could do a few more tests. Muahahaha!â My mind burned with all the various possibilities.
He scowled at me and pulled on my sleeve.
I blinked.
âSister Lin, you canât! We need to go to sleep soon. And it seems like this isnât a good way to use the precious metal that you require for your armor.â
Damn it. The kid was right. I rubbed the back of my neck.
There would be time to experiment later.
I took out a jade slip and quickly recorded my conclusions along with the experiments I planned to do in the future and the hypothesis that I had.
Once finished, I needed to test our findings on larger amounts.
I wasnât entirely positive that adding a metric fuck ton of spiritual spring water wouldnât clean away the titanium altogether so, after moving a quarter of the juice into the last of my fresh jars, I sent spoonfuls of the spiritual spring water into it, until the liquid cleared, leaving the bottom of the glass filled with red dust.
Little Spring looked at me like I was crazy. Whatever. I was used to it by now.
Knowing about what percentage of Spiritual Spring water to Lime solution was safe, I added that much to the large jar.
The kid poked at the glass. âHow do we get the titanium out of there and into metal form?â
I rolled my eyes. âWe want the powder.â
After sending a majority of the now purified juice to my Stone Hole for Dangerous Forge Trash, I washed the powder a few times with regular water and used my alchemy flame to dry it out. Since the spring water purified the lime extract, I no longer had to worry about it removing its precious spiritual properties.
Now, it was time to make some metal⊠alloy! Which was a sentence that called for a guitar solo. Too bad those didnât exist in this era.
Wait... didnât I invent those in my last life?! Oops. I needed to remember to not do that. The Four Arts Cultivator seniors never forgave me.
***
âAre you sure this is going to work?â Little Spring looked at me like I was crazy.
âDid you practice those hand seals I gave you?â
The kid scowled. âOf course I did!â
âAnd did you perfect them?â
âHave I ever not perfected anything youâve given me?â
I ignored that snark and pointed to the pile of dark, silvery-gray metal balls that Iâd measured out earlier. âThis is Spiritual Iron.â
âYou made my kitchen tools out of it.â
âThatâs right.â I rested my hand against the large pile. âIt was a good idea to pick up so much for cheap back when we were in Verdant Hidden Cavern City.â
The kid didnât look like he appreciated it as much as I did. âItâs one of the lower ranked spiritual metals.â
I nodded. âTrue, but it is the easiest to manipulate at our current realm. And we can add things to it to improve its rank.â
âLike the Red Titanium?â
âThatâs one.â
I pulled out a bowl of black sand and another of golden flakes.
The kid pointed to the sand. âAh!â
I almost jumped. âWhat?!â
âDuring the Crab Mission you were bent over at the beach cackling and going on and on about this sand being âfree for the taking.ââ
I cleared my throat. âWell, it was just laying there, you know? And donât talk about the Crab Mission!â
He gave me a look that told me heâd already judged me, then gestured to the gold-like powder. âWhatâs that?â
I winced. âThis is something I used most of my contribution points on.â And why I was so desperate to find Red Titanium in another way. It wasnât like I knew off the top of my head where all the mines were so I could go collect it myself. âItâs a strengthening metal that works to increase the effectiveness of enchantments.â
My mind was filled with techniques, research, and cultivation, not places.
âNormally, youâd want to use as few metals as possible when creating armor. There are a few options. I could create two alloys and braid them together to make a unique armor â which is annoying and takes too much time. Or I could produce one very strong alloy using a special technique andââ
âI thought you couldnât melt the Red Titanium?â
I coughed. âNormally, I wouldnât be able to. Fortunately, we have it in powder form, so itâs easier.â
âOh. So, even if you were given a brick of Red Titanium, you still would have had to turn it into powder.â
Yeah, no shit.
In continued, âForge work is as much about timing as it is about art and enchantments. And making armor is a complex task that requires a lot of my spiritual energy, so Iâll need you to help me with the furnace.â
He nodded seriously.
Having him support me was also a gamble. Every time the brat and I worked together, the things we created came out better than they should have. I didnât know if this was the power of being the universeâs favorite or our inverted cultivation techniques. Regardless, I was betting on it!
Of course, it was always possible that my gamble could completely fail. Then Iâd have to take another year or so to search for the materials again. But pushing back my tribulation wasnât the worst thing in the world. It wasnât like I didnât have the time. My body was only 11.
âAlright, letâs do this.â
I pulled out the second largest crucible from the shelf.
âWhile our techniques make things easier, we have to conserve our limited energy. This means working smarter and doing what we can physically.â
He nodded.
âSo, weâre going to layer in each ingredient to make it easier. This way, weâll spend less of our power mixing it all together. Weâll also only melt a small amount at a time.â
It wasnât like I had a strange flame that could easily melt things to the perfect temperature while adding its unique spiritual signature into the metal to strengthen it.
Shit. Now I missed Bob. Bob was the very last strange flame that I had collected. It was a good flame for forging.
I starting setting the crucible up into layers by adding twenty percent of the iron balls. Then I filled in the gaps with twenty percent of the spiritual black carbon powder. Lastly, I threw in five percent of the Red Titanium and Gold flakes.
Then I sent the whole thing into the furnace.
The first hand seal I flicked out increased the temperature to its maximum. Then I twisted my fingers into another. This one used a significant amount of spiritual energy and fed a formation inside the furnace that made metals melt at a lower temperature.
After a few minutes, the iron balls liquified around the powder and other ores.
Sweat beaded on my forehead as I waited for it all to liquify. I was practically drained by the time I saidâŠ
âNow!â
Little Spring created the hand seal that would help the metal and energies mix evenly.
While he took over, I drank down several cups of spiritual spring water and used a handful of spirit stones to recover.
âSister!â
When I looked over, sweat also beaded on the kidâs brow. He struggled to hold the hand seal.
I used my spiritual energy to grab another portion of the materials and set them into the furnace to land on top of the others.
âMove!â
He dropped his hands and stepped aside, and I immediately took over.
While he recovered, I utilized the same seal as earlier to melt the new portion. By the time Iâd practically emptied again, he took back over and started mixing them together.
We repeated this process several times until all the metal had finished melting, aside from about forty percent of the gold flakes and red powder. Those would be used in the next part.
Because of the lack of titanium and the further purification of it, I had to use less iron than I had originally planned. This meant that I did not have as much to work with as Iâd wanted. However, making fewer higher quality pieces was better, since this spiritual armor didnât always have to rely on coverage. Especially when I had the Spiritual Polymer.
Now It was time to separate and form the different parts.
Frankly, this was the most challenging part of creating armor. And it was going to take all of my spiritual energy and concentration.
If things were going to go south, it would be somewhere in the next part.
Authorâs Note: Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers a writer could ask for!
I actually ended up adding more from the next chapter to this one bringing us closer to the end of the crafting (it ends next chapter)! I hope you all are enjoying the crating so far and Lin subtly finding ways and excuses to put off her tribulation.
If youâre not a fan of crafting, Iâm glad youâve stuck around.
Thank you all so much for supporting me! đ„°
Recently I started uploading the rough draft of a story on RR for Writathon called Tanking Hits (I'm only grammar editing it so I can get them out faster). I'm hoping the practice will help me learn how to put out satisfactory chapters quickly. With luck, I can take some lessons from this to help me post good WIAFTTTTA chapters faster without decreasing the quality too much (or at least increasing the word count per chapter)... or it will all just increase my anxiety. đ
I recently discovered Novel AI. It pumps out very good character bases I can edit. It still takes many attempts to get what I want, but with this, I should be able to add in more adorable character images that don't take long to create. I hope you like them!