Chapter 230 Charcoal
With the two halves of the eggshell in his arms, Eisen made his way toward the room especially created for him to work in, as the walls were enchanted both in a way to allow maximum usage of Eisen's 'Crafting Space' skill, while also making sure the heat didn't damage the walls in any way.
Here, as the space was quite small and he couldn't place all of his workstations inside, Eisen used his staff to create the foundry where he would extract the metal from the petrified eggshell. He didn't exactly know which metals were inside it, but he was sure that they were mostly metals with a relatively low reaction, albeit not noble metals, which was quite perfect for extraction.
How extraction worked was quite simple. You heat an ore or rock with a high mineral density up together with carbon, which would practically pull the metal out of the stone. But that only worked with metal that was less-reactive than carbon itself, with the except of noble metals like gold or silver. Minerals with a higher reaction than carbon would need to be extracted with different methods.
But the reason that Eisen thought that he could extract all the metal from the petrified eggshell just with carbon extraction if there were any primary metal compound inside of it at all, was that the venom would have most likely caused some form of strong reaction in any other case. And since the rock seemed completely unchanged by the toxin, Eisen concluded.
Although before Eisen was going to start with the actual extraction, he needed to prepare the carbon to use in the process. And there was something that Eisen specifically wanted to use for that purpose, and he already brought that here into the room.
Eisen wanted to turn the wood from the figurine that the Homunculus used before into charcoal, which was made entirely of carbon if Eisen was going to do it properly. The first thing that he did was create a metal barrel just for the purpose.
Eisen turned into his demon form and swiftly carved the rune for his blacksmithing skill into his chest before he threw a bunch of metal ingots into his magic forge and waited for them to heat up properly. After a few minutes, when they began to glow in a bright yellow, Eisen took them out of the forge and started to hammer them into a large, flat rectangle. Luckily, as he was using an anvil that he created with his magic element, Eisen could increase or decrease the size to be the exact shape required, so he could use the magic anvil as a guide to shaping the metal into a thin sheet.
When he managed to finish that sheet, Eisen created two more, as he would need a total of three barrels to properly turn all of the wood from the figurehead into charcoal, and then swiftly created six-round sheets of metal as well that would act as the top and bottom lids.
Once he had all the pieces ready, Eisen connected the two shorter ends of each sheet with each other by heating those ends up with his element, while at the same time pressing them together so that only those two sides would be the heat they needed to be.
After doing that, Eisen moved on to thoroughly heating the rims of the round metal sheets, that had a slightly larger diameter than the actual barrel's diameter would be, before he basically 'folded' the metal rims of the round sheets over the edges of the metal base. Eisen was quite happy that he had his Racial trait now, even more so than usual, as it was easier to hold the sheets in place with his hands than with tongs, at least in this situation.
Soon enough, Eisen had three beautiful metal barrels. He removed one of the lids off of each one using transmutation and then filled them to the brim with the dried shards of wood, cramming as much into each barrel as possible.
"What is it that you're doing there?" Kirisho asked after a while, slightly confused after watching the old man work on these metal containers just to put wood into them before Eisen swiftly explained what he was going to do now.
"I'll use these to make charcoal. After I fill these up, I'll close the barrels down again and add a small pipe to the side of each of these so that the gases and such can properly escape while reducing the risk of air getting into the barrels. And then, all I need to do is place them over a fire. I have to do that outside, though, and maybe even at night, because there's going to be a good bit of smoke, especially at the start." Eisen explained to her, while Kirisho listened curiously.
"Ah, I see. I never knew how Charcoal was made to tell you the truth." She admitted before Eisen shrugged and continued filling the barrels. "It's not exactly common knowledge. A lot of people know somewhat how it's done, but not everyone exactly knows how and why it works, so it's nothing to be embarrassed about, and this isn't necessarily the method that was used back in the day while you were alive either, it's just what I do. I don't directly know about the methods people usually use around these parts, or anywhere here." He explained before remembering a specific method that he thought might be fun to try out at some point.
"So, sometimes charcoal is made by simply piling wood together tightly and then setting the center of the pile on fire, before burying all of it tightly in dirt. That's probably one of the older techniques for making charcoal. And then there's something where you place both wood and unbaked clay pottery into an airtight space and then make charcoal. I mean, I can make and bake clay quite quickly with my element, but it's still a pretty fun way to do it." The old man chuckled, and Kirisho couldn't help but laugh with him, albeit for a different reason.
"You have a unique idea of fun, don't you?" Kirisho asked in a calm, but happy voice and Eisen turned around and grinned at her. "Seems like I do. Anyway, I'm finished with this for now." Eisen explained as he put the lids back onto the barrels and re-attached them with transmutation, before laying the barrel down on its side. And once more, Eisen used transmutation to open a hole up in the side of one of the barrels into which he stuck a metal pipe, before then closing that hole back up around the pipe. He repeated this for the other two barrels as well and then picked up two of the barrels to bring them outside.
And while they were pretty cumbersome, in his Titan form, Eisen was just about large enough to carry them under his arms. When he was outside, he could see that the majority of the workers made their way back to the church already to prepare everything for the departure in a few days, before Eisen made his way over to Brody and Komer who were talking to each other a bit, which they usually didn't do all that much.
"Hey there, you two," Eisen said with a smile before the two of them looked up at the old Titan. "So, what're you up to now? I thought you're workin' on the stuff for that Homunculus with Xenia and Jyuuk." Brody asked as he looked at the barrels that Eisen was carrying under his arm before Eisen slowly nodded.
"Technically I am doing just that. Xenia and Jyuuk are working on some other stuff, but I'm working on turning the metal inside of the rock into scales for it. It's probably not going to be enough to make all of the scales, so I'll mix it in with other materials as an alloy or something, but it should give a pretty nice bonus. And for that, I need Carbon, meaning Charcoal. And that's what I'm making right now. I need a good spot for it where people won't freak out over smoke." He explained, before Komer quickly spoke up, looking into an area in the distance as he did so.
"Oh, there's a pretty big fireplace here in the area that anyone can just use as long as they treat it properly, apparently," Komer explained, and Eisen took a look at where the young merchant was pointing. "Oh, that's pretty convenient. Thanks for letting me know." Eisen thanked him before he slowly made his way off the boat, remembering something as he did so.
"Ah, that's right! Komer, you did get the Limestone already, right?" Eisen asked, feeling embarrassed that he forgot about that, but luckily Komer immediately nodded his head. "Yeah, don't worry about that. It's all in the material storage." He explained, and Eisen smiled at him before letting out a relieved sigh.
"Alright, perfect. Thanks." And just when Eisen was about to leave, both Brody and Komer swiftly ran up behind him, choosing to come with him and Kirisho to the fireplace.
"Oh? You're coming with?" Eisen asked, surprised, and Brody swiftly nodded his head.
"Yup, we ain't got anythin' else to do, so why shouldn't we?" Brody chuckled, before remembering something. "Although… I do wanna try and level up my mediation up a bit…" Brody muttered quietly, and Komer silently followed.
A few minutes later, the four of them reached the fireplace area, which luckily wasn't being used at the moment, and then Eisen quickly got to work, filling the inside of the actual fireplace with his elemental fire before placing the two barrels he had with him on top of it.
"I'll be right back, I just need to get the last Barrel," Eisen told them before turning around and quickly rushing back to the ship, where he returned to his workshop area and grabbed the last barrel, which he swiftly picked up to bring to the fireplace. And when he got there, he saw something that was quite surprising.
Brody was sitting cross-legged on top of the fire that Eisen created with his eyes closed, before standing back up when he noticed that Eisen arrived again. Confused, the old man looked at the Demon-Orc Halfling before stepping behind him and placing the barrel into the fire as well. "Erm, what were you doing there, Brody?" Eisen asked before Brody chuckled and began to explain.
"I was tryin' to get proficiency with my Meditation skill. It levels up pretty nice when I use it in unusual situations. It has a pretty nice synergy with my yin and yang energy, and I think because the fire here is magical, it works even better." Brody told him before Eisen shook his head and quickly rephrased his question.
"That's not what I mean. How are you sitting in my fire?" Eisen asked, actually more curious than anything, and Brody swiftly explained. "Ah, that's what you mean. Well, first, because I'm a half-demon, I can stand both high and low temperatures pretty well, and because I'm half-orc, I have high endurance, meaning high HP regen. Meditation further accelerates HP regen, so I don't take that much damage, only maybe 200 HP per minute. When I don't use my energy, that is. Otherwise, I use my yin energy to control how much heat affects my body, and all that isn't let through is absorbed as pure raw energy by my yang energy." Brody explained, before grinning broadly.
"And I can then store that absorbed energy and use it for a single strong finisher-attack." He said as he began to laugh loudly, before turning around and sitting back down in the fire, in a spot where Eisen didn't place the barrels, once more activating his meditation skill. And honestly, Eisen could notice that the flames somewhat shifted around Brody's body in a way that wasn't normal, but Eisen still only looked at that with a wry smile.
"Damn, if witches had those skills…" Eisen muttered out quietly as he sat down next to Komer and Kirisho on one of the benches.