Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

  Sui Xiong valued friendship very much. Since he had decided to be friends with the dwarfs, he would no longer treat them as business partners.

  So he invited the Rune God with a smile, “Would you like to visit my factory? I just built it.”

  The Rune God was certainly interested in that. The Void Mask had always been mysterious, but he had never done something blindly. Since he had introduced the factory so proudly, there must be something special about it.

  Thus, they went to the newly built factory and looked around carefully.

  “It’s wonderful!” The Rune God had been a master of mining, smelting and forging before he became a god, so he found the advantages of the factory at once. “Though these means, the best iron ore can be selected. Then when it comes to iron making, the quality of the steel will be very good!”

  “That’s right,” Sui Xiong laughed and said. “Generally speaking, to make high-quality equipment, we need good steel, and that certainly needs high-quality iron ore. Before the process of iron making, those experienced miners and blacksmiths should carefully select the best ore to make good iron and then forge good equipment. But through my mineral processing factory, the selected iron ore is absolutely the best, and it takes very little time to do it. That is equivalent to having a group of top workers helping me to select the better ore, and with the blast furnace, we will get the best steel!”

  “Of course!” The Rune God nodded, and his eyes turned bright. “The best steel comes from the best iron ore!”

  “With all due respect, the quality of iron ore in your Republic of Northwest is still not good enough. Although this processing method is used, the final product is still slightly brittle, isn’t it? You have to find ways to reprocess it, right?” the Rune God smiled and asked. “But if the iron ore from our Mountain of Broken Clouds is used, you will get the best ore in the world and then be able to make the best iron in the world!”

  Sui Xiong was surprised at that. He had never paid attention to the quality of iron ore.

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  So he simply took the Rune God to Palin to find out more about that.

  Sui Xiong and the Rune God did not hide who they were. Learning that the famous Rune God was coming, Palin and the craftsmen were very excited, especially several dwarf craftsmen. If there was wine next to them, they would surely have a good drink to celebrate.

  When the Rune God spoke of his speculation, Palin and the craftsmen nodded with praise.

  “You’re right! In the past, the iron produced in our four towns has been somewhat brittle and so has the iron produced with the new machine this time. But we did a small experiment to mix various things into the hot iron and finally found a solution to the problem,” Palin said. “Generally speaking, as long as several special minerals are added and melted in the hot iron in certain proportions, the hot iron will be purified and the final steel won’t be brittle anymore.”

  The Rune God nodded slightly and did not ask questions like what minerals were used, what the proportion was and how to add them, etc.

  As a craftsman, he knew the rule of this industry and respected it very much. Since this technology was invented by Palin and his friends through hard work, it was supposed to be their secret. If he wanted to know it, he should pay enough to exchange for it.

  Moreover, he did not need this technology at all. The iron ore that the dwarfs got from the Mountain of Broken Clouds was much better in quality than that from the Ashes Woods, so there was no need to purify it like this.

  Then they went to see the smelting of the blast furnace.

  The finely selected, top-grade iron ore and various carefully calculated ingredients were put into the blast furnace, and then it was ignited and blasted. With the help of magic, the heat of the leftover coke was fully exerted, and soon, the furnace’s temperature rose to a very high level.

  The mortals couldn’t see through the furnace wall, so Palin and others had to use magic to observe what was going on in the furnace, but Sui Xiong and the Rune God could directly see with their eyes. They saw that the iron ore was gradually melting, and the impurities and those added ingredients were combined together and then turned into a foam-like slag, floating on the hot iron.

  Palin had to dump the slag out when it accumulated to a certain amount of slag, so it was inevitable for some hot iron to be wasted in the process. However, every time the slag was removed, the hot iron became purer.

  Finally, when Palin thought it was ok, he stopped heating. He poured the pure-enough hot iron into the prepared trough. Then the red-hot iron soon cooled down, turned into dark red hot steel, and eventually became a slightly rougher steel plate.

  This kind of steel plate needed to be polished smoothly before stamping. In order to demonstrate the whole process to the Rune God in a short time, Palin just used the steel plate that he had made before.

  The solid steel plate was firmly fixed on the base, and then the chain was moved by flowing water to lift the hammer slowly. The hammer would then fall down heavily.

  After a loud bang, the steel plate turned into the shape of the main part of the breastplate.

  “That’s how it works!” The Rune God fully understood. “Technically speaking, it is not so difficult to learn, but the most precious part is the concept and idea behind it!”

  The Rune God then asked curiously, “Who invented this method to use the power of the flowing water to lift a heavy hammer and stamp the steel plate directly into the shape of a breastplate?”

  “His Majesty, the Void Mask, of course,” Palin answered.

  The Rune God smiled. He was not particularly surprised at that. No matter what the Void Mask did, the Rune God would not be surprised at all.

  Having seen the wonderful mineral processing factory just now, the Rune God had known that Sui Xiong was a master of crafting. Then what was so strange about a master who could invent a mineral processing machine to make a hydraulic press?

  The main part of the breastplate consisted of several pieces of armor plates on the chest and back. As for the supporting shoulder protectors, they were also made by this hydraulic press, but that could not be demonstrated today; the hydraulic press needed to be specially adjusted to make different armor plates.

  Palin usually adjusted the hydraulic press once a few days and produced a lot of armor plates at a time. If the quality of the armor plate was good, they would be assembled into armor. If the quality was not good, they would be sent to another smaller blast furnace to heat up into hot iron, and then they would be processed into steel plates again.

  That had already been a complete process, so Sui Xiong did not intend to make any changes to it.

  After looking at how to make armor plate with the hydraulic press, they finally came to the armor assembly workshop. Several experienced craftsmen and some young workers were busy here. Some armor plates and other materials for assembling were piled up here, and there were also some finished products.

  Each of these finished products was as plain as Sui Xiong had seen before. However, these pieces of armor were neatly displayed, sending out a naturally cool atmosphere that made people feel respected.

  “This is the most important thing in the country!” The Rune God looked at the armor in neat rows and looked back at the series of blast furnaces as well as the factory. He couldn’t help but praise with admiration, “This is really the most important thing in the country!”