It took several more minutes for the silvery chunks within the last crucible to fully melt and during that time the molten stone ingots started to cool into glassy red rock streaked through with lines of black. They were still extremely hot when Andrew passed a hand over them, so he left them alone for a while longer. He removed the crucible of silver and red liquid from the forge and poured it out, filling one and a quarter ingot molds with the resulting material. It was the highest yield he had seen so far, though the material itself looked a little different. It was made up of the same swirling mix of silver and red, but it was streaked through with little lines of black as well. Andrew checked it with Mana Sense and found that it had a very similar one to one ratio of fire to metal mana, but it was streaked through with small amounts of earth mana as well. He placed the two ingot molds into the fire dispersal circle and repaired it's edges again. He packed the last four crucibles full with the silvery soil and loaded them into the forge. Steamy grey smoke streamed in a thin line out from the forges as they worked and Andrew once again sat back to practice more mana projection as he waited.

When smoke stopped streaming out from the forges, Andrew checked on the crucibles once again. They were filled with swirling molten liquid, mostly orange with swirls of silver and red mixed through. Andrew created a mana ladle and stirred it through the molten material, trying to dredge up anything solid within. There was nothing, it was entirely molten and mixed through. He would have to dredge this material much earlier if he wanted to try and separate the silver bits from the earthen ones. He left them to cook for a little while longer while he recovered and emptied out the other two ingot molds, depositing the black streaked silver-pink ingots onto the anvil with the others. Then he repaired the fire dispersal circle for later use. He also created a new circle, an earth mana dispersal circle created by inverting the position of the earth runes in the same way he did fire or water. Once he was finished he pulled the crucibles out from the forge and poured them into the ingot molds. He filled three and a half ingot molds with the molten material. He put two inside of the fire dispersal circle, one in the earth dispersal circle, and left the half filled mold out to see if it cooled naturally.

Andrew activated mana sense and looked over the half ingot left out of the dispersal circles. It was mostly earth mana mixed in with equal parts fire and metal mana. About a two to one to one ratio. As Andrew observed he saw something sort of strange happening. The mana inside of the molten ingot was acting similarly to the inscribed branches. The metal and fire mana freely mixed inside of little bubbles while the earth mana filled all the spaces in between. He could see little swirls of fire mana breaking off and mixing into the surrounding earth mana, shifting slowly into silvery metal mana which then swirled back to join into the swirling metal portion of the bubbles. Andrew deactivated mana sense and carefully watched as the ingot cooled. He could see the silver-red streaks of material slowly growing as the orange material slowly cooled to black. As the orange molten rock fully cooled, it started to solidify into little chunks and separate off while the silver and red streaks remained liquid. The ingot itself also seemed to be shrinking slightly as it cooled, dipping lower by a fraction into the ingot mold. Andrew took a break after a few minutes to check on the other ingot molds.

The two inside of the fire dispersal circle solidified the quickest, the molten orange material cooling into large swarths of glassy black rock streaked through with silver and pink. Andrew popped those ingots out into the dirt and looked over them with Mana Sense. They had a majority earth mana mix, about eight parts earth mana to four parts metal and one part fire. Andrew popped them out onto the anvil with the rest before looking over the one ingot within the earth dispersal circle. It was filled with silver and red material streaked through with lines of orange which were cooling unevenly into chunks of glassy black rock which swirled around in the molten liquid. Andrew sat back again and waited a few more minutes for everything else to cool off. The three ingot molds filled with molten byproduct from the crushed silver speckled stone material finished cooling first, taking on the appearance of red and black swirling stone that looked a bit like volcanic rock. He had more difficulty popping them out of the ingot molds but managed it with repeated noisy clangs against the anvil. He passed a hand over the solid ingots of material, they were still producing a significant amount of heat even in their solid state and when he used tongs to turn them they sparkled with tiny little dots of silvery material. He left them alone on the anvil for now, returning his attention to the final active circle.

The ingot within the earth dispersal circle was entirely devoid of black streaks now. Instead it was about two-thirds full of familiar silver-red molten material. Andrew scuffed out the circle, transferred the ingot to the fire dispersal circle, repaired that circle, then powered it back up. Then he turned his attention to the final half ingot he left to cool naturally. It was almost entirely black glassy stone with thin spiderwebs of solid sliver streaking through. When Andrew passed a hand overhead it was only slightly warm, when he used a pair of tongs to shift the ingot around the lines of silver shined with red tinted reflections. He popped the half ingot out onto the forge with the rest. Then he organized them into neat piles as he waited for the final ingot to cool.

When all the ingots were fully formed he was left with a respectable pile of material. One full, one two-thirds, and one one-third sized ingots of pure silver-pink metal. One and one-quarter silver-pink ingots streaked with black lines. Two black ingots with silver-pink streaks. Two and half, still-hot, black and red ingots with streaks of silver. One glassy black ingot with spiderwebs of red glinting silver running through.

[Mana Smelting lvl 7 -> 8]

Okay, turns out plain ol dirt is the best material for making metal so far. It's more difficult to get the pure silver-pink metal ingots with this method, but it's definitely doable. The earth mixed ingots should be a bit more brittle if their properties are consistent, but the increased hardness might be beneficial if I can find a way to concentrate it on the edges of a blade. The black and red ingots have the highest concentration of solid fire mana I've seen in a material without siphoning additional fire affinity into it. I still have a lot of testing to do on the silvery metal itself. It doesn't have the same iron base as the other ingots I've created, so it could very easily perform differently despite looking so similar. Regardless, this is exactly what I was hoping for. It's too late to start hammering anything out tonight, but I'll have a lot to work on tomorrow.