Chapter 116 — The Metal Master
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 3
As she spoke, she pulled the lever to cut off the magic engine's power and let it gradually quiet down—the blasted thing was uncommonly noisy; with it running here, everyone around had to shout to be heard.
"Laying the magic net doesn't cost much—it's all basic runes, and the blueprints are ready-made. The trouble is that the machines are hard to build... mainly because hand-crafting these parts takes too much time," Gao Yang said, rubbing his chin. "But there's no help for it. For now we still have to make them by hand..."
Just then, a voice with a metallic tremor suddenly cut in: "Ahem—I have something to say."
The gleaming silver Niguxi Egg drifted slowly over.
Rebecca brightened at the sight of the shiny metal sphere: "Eggie, you have an idea?!"
"My name is not Eggie!" The Niguxi Egg shot up two or three meters at once (had the roof not been in the way, it would likely have flown higher still), and the voice from within the sphere came out in a fury. "At the very least, call me Boss Egg!"
Rebecca was not in the least intimidated by the sphere: "Ah, all right, Eggie—so you have a way?"
The Niguxi Egg: "..."
"Don't get into it with her—just tell us your idea," Gao Yang cut short the squabble about to unfold, and looked seriously at the metal sphere as it slowly drifted back down to its normal height. "I know you're good with metal. Are you saying..."
"That's right—I've finally figured out what I can do here!" The Niguxi Egg's voice sounded especially cheerful, and as it spoke, clanking and clattering rang out all over the workshop. The scrap metal piled in the corners, waiting to be melted down, floated up one piece after another and was drawn toward the silver-white sphere. "I can help you forge iron!"
As its words fell, the scraps floating in the air began, one after another, to creak and groan, as though immense pressure were bearing down on their surfaces. They began to slowly deform—and Gao Yang soon realized that this deformation was not merely the work of external force: some of the metal showed clear signs of melting. They were not merely being squeezed—they were being forged!
In mere minutes, the metal had become parts of every size, intricately and finely structured, along with all sorts of oddly shaped little trinkets—and even lifelike metal sculptures of every person present.
The workshop fell utterly silent.
The Niguxi Egg seemed thoroughly pleased with the effect of its performance. It smugly set the parts down on the ground, then delivered a metal sculpture into each person's hands: "Well? Isn't this far more efficient than you lot?"
Hammer took the sculpture that belonged to him, yet his hands could not help trembling faintly. Such formidable power... would the domain still need blacksmiths after this?!
Was it really as the lord had said last time—that blacksmiths swinging hammers at their anvils were soon to be useless? To become useless so soon?
The rune artisans present shared the same frightened thought, and even Hetty and Rebecca, amid their shock, could not help feeling that with this sphere around, every artisan in the domain who worked with metal would likely be thrown out of work...
Only Gao Yang—though he too was stunned by the speed with which the Niguxi Egg shaped metal—found his attention fixed entirely on something else the very next moment.
He looked at the lifelike metal sculpture in his hand, at its brows and hair scaled down precisely to strict proportion, and suddenly raised his head to stare at the Niguxi Egg: "What level of precision can you achieve?!"