Once the receptionist finished his delivery of coal and quenching oil, he quickly made his exit from the room to resume his post out in the hallway. Thomas didn't read the entire dungeon guide but he got the general idea of what to expect from it. Once the book was stored away he decided on his first step. He needed new high-quality tools to use. The tools the guild provided were nice but he wanted to make a custom set with his newly acquired Mithril. After making his new tools he would start with armor. He'd been neglecting that a lot by only wearing something to protect his chest. After that would be making himself an array of new weapons.

With his mind made up, he started pulling various ingots out of his inventory along with a few pieces of pitch-black ore and an array of herbs. He needed to create ingots out of the Ancient Lead. Mithril was a wonderful material but it had a single flaw that needed to be addressed if he was going to use it to make hammers, it was too light. In equal volumes, it weighed half as much as iron. For blacksmithing, the weight of the hammer was rather important. Even though he had enhanced strength it was still a good idea to have properly weighted hammers. That's where the Ancient Lead would come in. He could use it as a core to add weight while wrapping it in the mana conductive Mithril.

Thomas started with the iron. With just a finger he purified it completely then swiftly turned it into Origin Steel. He made a dozen ingots of Origin Steel. Even with access to Mithril, there was no reason to abandon a material as good as Origin Steel just yet. Hell, since it was so cheap and easy to produce he could just use it for ammo if he wanted. Wouldn't that just piss off anyone who realized its true value? He couldn't help smirking at that thought. Once the Origin Steel was prepared he set it to the side and turned to the Mithril ingots he'd set out.

Within AoG Mithril had the properties one would expect and even using his eyes didn't reveal anything unexpected. The most important piece of information he could gather was the purity of the ingots. He had to admit, whoever smelted the Mithril did a great job. The purity ratings for the ingots ranged from 87% to 94%. Not that it mattered to him as he placed a finger on the ingot and began to purify it. Thin streams of black smoke began to waft off of the ingot while the matte silver surface slowly became brighter and more polished. When the last of the impurities were purged from the ingot it had a mirror-like surface that seemed to glow in the light of the room. It looked a lot like Origin Steel only it emitted an aura that he couldn't quite define.

He stroked the surface of the freshly purified ingot for a bit, even injecting his mana into it to check for changes. He was shocked to notice that the mana conduction speed of the Mithril had at least doubled. Such a small percentage of impurities had such a detrimental effect on the Mithril? He couldn't imagine what would happen to other materials once he purified them. It wasn't lost on him that he'd created yet another monstrous material that would probably cause war to break out if anyone was to learn about it. On the other hand... he could probably manipulate several countries into fighting each other to the death over some of his scraps if he ever felt like ruling one of them.

He dismissed that thought for the time being and focused back on the job at hand. His next step was getting the Ancient Lead ready for use. He left the Mithril alone and went over to the forge to prep it. Since the room had been cleaned after the last person to use it, he had to load the forge with coal and ignite it. This was much easier to do with magic and took very little effort on his part. Metal Magic scooped coal into the forge while Fire Magic ignited it easily. While the coal began burning he walked around to the side and pulled the bellows out of it and replaced it with his mana powered blower.

He channeled mana into the blower to push air through the coals and get them to burn further while increasing their temperature. Fortunately, the guild had designed the room rather well. Just above the forge was a wide metal funnel that channeled the smoke into a chimney and out of the room. It kept the room relatively smoke free and much less likely to kill him. Once he felt the coals were good to go, he set up the crucible that was provided and tossed in several large chunks of the Ancient Lead ore. The first step was to melt or burn off the impurities sticking to the ore. After that was the chemical processing in an alchemical bath. It was his first time needing to do something like this so he was looking forward to seeing what it was like.

It was at this point that he felt a bit of loss. Where was his mana minion Clad when he needed him? Thomas was forced to channel mana into the blower himself. He sat on the floor, closed his eyes, and relaxed. He simultaneously used Serenity and channeled mana into the blower. He was capable of simple actions that required little to no thought while using Serenity. Why hadn't he thought of this before? Sometimes he had to wonder about his own IQ.

He knew he wasn't really an idiot, he just got distracted and easily went off on tangents. It was an issue he always had and something he'd learned to live with. After a while, he stood up and checked the crucible to see how it was doing. He could see molten liquid surrounding a thick chunk of black metal. He wasn't entirely sure if it was ready yet but he had an easy way to check. He grabbed a pair of tongs and plucked one of the chunks of Ancient Lead out of the crucible and checked it with his eyes. It didn't seem to be ready just yet so he set it back into the crucible and got back to heating it up.

The next time he checked it he found it was ready. He removed all the chunks of Ancient Lead from the crucible and disposed of what remained. He had no use for the garbage that had been surrounding the ore. The ore was still roaring hot so he set it on the anvil to cool down. Despite how much heat had been pumped into the crucible, the Ancient Lead was still solid and showed no signs of deformation. It really was some incredibly tough stuff. While the ore cooled on the anvil, he retrieved his Alchemy book from his inventory and flipped to the recipe necessary for treating it. He'd already purchased the materials necessary so now he just needed to create it.

He slowly read through the recipe while arranging the materials in the order he would need them. The great thing about the recipe is he only needed a single mixing vessel. The Transmutation steps could easily be handled by him without the need of Transmutation plates. Once the ingredients were set he quickly Transmutated an ingot of Origin Steel into a large container that could hold liquid and the pieces of ore. With everything set, he began.

The first ingredient was rather disturbing, even for him. He picked up a large glass container with a wide mouth sealed with a cork. Inside of the container floated large round eyeballs. He shuddered as he looked at them, "Man, they really hate Mermaids around here."

He opened the cork and grimaced at the thick slightly rotten fishy scent that instantly permeated the air. He wrinkled his nose while doing the best to ignore the scent. He plucked one of the eyes out of the container by what remained of its optic nerve. His hand began to glow as he activated his Transmutation. The glow covered the eyeball and appeared to be squeezing it as he used Extraction to remove the liquid from the eyeball and allowed it to drip into the metal container he'd prepared. Even though the eyeball was significantly larger than a human one, it still didn't contain more than a few ounces of liquid.

He repeated this process using exactly twenty eyes. It was a disturbing act but necessary to process the Ancient Lead. He tossed each desiccated eye into the forge to destroy the remains. Oddly, the scent of the burning eyes countered the slightly rotten fishy scent with a scent reminiscent of cooking fish. With the eyes all squeezed out he moved onto the next. He didn't even want to imagine how the next one was collected, Yeti Sweat. He didn't need to do anything special with this ingredient. He just pulled out the cork and poured the entire container of Yeti Sweat into the container with the eyeball juice.

The sweat had a pungent salty scent to it that, unfortunately, amplified the rotten fishy scent of the eyeball juice. He grimaced at the scent. It wasn't over though. He placed a hand on either side of the container and used the mixing option of his Transmutation to perfectly combine the two ingredients. This only made the heavy scent even stronger. Hopefully, the next ingredient would cut down on that.

He picked up another container, inside of it sat berries with skin so black they seemed to draw light into them. Thomas opened the container and smiled at the scent that the Ebon Berries emitted. It reminded him of fresh blueberries, only with a stronger scent. He sighed in relief. What he had to do next was almost a shame. He pulled the first berry out of the container and extracted the juice from it and let it drip into the mixture of sweat and eye juice. The juice from the berry was pitch black and instantly stained the clear liquid. As he added the juice of twelve berries the once clear liquid became pitch black and almost looked sinister. On the bright side, it smelled better.

Once all the berries were juiced, he once again used his Mixing option of this Transmutation to blend the liquid perfectly. As he did there was a reaction in the mixture. The pitch-black liquid slowly shifted colors until it became a dark purple. He double-checked the recipe to make sure it was going as planned and was happy to find it was. Once the mixing phase was done he moved onto the next ingredient, Manticore Venom.

The venom was a sickly green color and contained within a glass container and topped with a wax seal. It was corrosive enough to eat through a normal cork so it had to be specially sealed. Once he broke open the seal he grimaced. He was sure that the venom had a scent but the acidic nature of the venom burned his nostrils so badly that he couldn't smell it. Like the sweat before it, he didn't need to do anything with the venom and simply poured it into the purple mixture. Once he properly mixed the venom in with the rest of the ingredients the mixture began to bubble and gave off a nasty corrosive smell.

It was time for the second to last ingredient. Sitting next to the container was a bundle of herbs that looked like bruised cilantro. It would be a mistake to put the herb on a taco though. Thomas picked up the herb known as Corrupting Bitterweed. Thomas extracted a minuscule amount of sap from the small thin leaves of the herb and let it drip into the bubbling liquid. Instantly the liquid began to bubble more vigorously while emitting thin streams of steam into the air. The acidic scent was so intense it actually caused his nostrils to bleed.

Thomas quickly grabbed the last ingredient, purified water, and poured it into the mixture before it could all boil away. The mixture hissed violently as the water was added in. Without time to even wipe the blood dripping from his nose, Thomas placed his hands on either side of the container and used Mixing to blend all of the ingredients together. Slowly the hissing sound died down but the mixture continued to bubble without actually boiling. It was finally completed and there was enough there to completely submerge one piece of ore at a time.

System Notice: You have successfully created 'Ancient Lead Alchemical Cleanser'. You have gained 444 Magitech Engineering Experience.

After dismissing the notice, he used a pair of tongs to pick up one of the pieces of Ancient Lead ore and carefully lowered it into the bubbling alchemical solution. The solution began to fizz and bubble as its corrosive properties began to eat away at the impurities still contained within the Ancient Lead while simultaneously softening it. He would be able to work with the Ancient Lead until he heated it up once again and burned off the solution.

He waited patiently until the ore no longer fizzed, indicating it was done being processed. He quickly and carefully retrieved the ingot from the solution. The highly corrosive liquid actually damaged the tongs he was using. Seeing that, Thomas grimaced, "Looks like I'll need to make a replacement pair. Good thing I have plenty of iron."

Turning his attention away from the damaged tongs, he looked at the ore and smiled at what he saw. The Ancient Lead had a glossy black surface like obsidian that glittered in the light. He smiled and went about processing the rest of the Ancient Lead. He planned to do it all before moving onto making something. He didn't want to have to deal with this nasty alchemical solution again anytime soon. At least, not until he could create a respirator to protect himself. The next couple of hours passed as Thomas smelted and treated all of the Ancient Lead inside of his inventory.