Chapter 292: Huge Sum, Report, Asking Price

Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder is the official name for this special substance circulating in the world.

Among many dwarf clans with ancient heritages, it also has another more ancient and awe-inspiring name—

"Sun Fragments."

As for its source, it is naturally because of its exceptionally dazzling and brilliant appearance.

In its normal state, Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder is a powder with an extremely delicate texture, emitting a faint luster, and overall presenting a profound dark gold color, as if it were solidified dusk.

And when it is stimulated by violent impact, high temperature, or magic, every tiny particle in the powder will instantly burst into a golden-white brilliance as scorching as the midday sun.

Every time the forging hammer falls, it is like hitting a miniature sun, filling the room with blinding sunlight.

Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder is not a naturally formed mineral but is refined from a raw ore called "Sun-Glass Stone" through some ancient and complex ritual.

Sun-Glass Stone usually only forms in extreme zones where the elemental plane and the material plane overlap, such as the lava core of a dangerous volcano, a huge magma pool deep underground, an inextinguishable flame pit formed by the fall of an ancient meteorite...

This kind of ore with natural corona-like flame-gold patterns on the surface is already very rare on the market due to its extreme formation conditions.

And to refine Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder from it requires a complex and harsh magic ritual like an arcane experiment.

A high-level dwarf blacksmith proficient in the forging process of fire elemental products, at the noon hour when the sun is most fierce in a day, on the top of a towering rock peak closest to the firmament without any cover, offers pious faith to the God of Craftsmen and Minerals, chants ancient incantations in a pre-arranged expensive magic array, guides pure solar molten light to impact the Sun-Glass Stone, causing it to "photolyze" and melt, finally removing impurities and leaving the essence called "Sun Fragments."

This is already the lowest-requirement and simplest process optimized after countless years.

In ancient times, it might even have required blood sacrifice and burial.

Fortunately, the quantity that can be manufactured at one time is relatively large; although rare, it has not reached the extent of causing bloody storms just by circulating slightly.

It is very rare on the market, but not completely absent.

It is just very expensive; a bottle the size of a thumb is enough to bankrupt a veteran professional.

As for the specific effect...

If it is said that its price, which is countless times that of gold of the same mass, is exaggerated, it might be a consumption trap jointly created by merchants and nobles.

Then the fact that those ancient dwarf clans, who have always been pragmatic and uphold the excellent traditions of their ancestors, are willing to spend a lot of time and manpower to arrange "flashy" arrays for refining, is enough to prove its value.

When forging, as long as you sprinkle a tiny pinch, it can perfectly integrate into the base metal, largely eliminating tiny flaws inside the material, reducing the number of stress concentration points in the finished product, and making it obtain hardness and wear resistance close to the theoretical limit of the material.

At the same time, the unique properties of Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder, which is like the essence of the sun, can better help the metal absorb excess energy when bearing huge impacts, enhancing toughness.

And it distributes the heat conducted on the surface and inside of the metal evenly, avoiding softening due to local overheating; it is an excellent heat channel, especially suitable for forging equipment and weapons with enchanted fire, ice, or lightning attributes, efficiently conducting energy generated by magic.

It can only be said that Ba'en indeed has ideas.

Gray steel and 【Melted Gray Silver Ingot】, which also belong to fire elemental metal materials, plus petrification condensed liquid that has a certain neutralizing effect.

Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder is indeed the most suitable auxiliary material at the moment.

And in the blacksmith shop, there really is such a small bottle of stock.

It was also caught up by Xia Nan.

Of course, it is impossible to use that much.

After repeated discussions with Ba'en, they finally determined the most suitable amount required for the recasting of the Decapitation Longsword:

9 grams.

It seems quite a lot, about the weight of a quail egg.

But if considering the metal density of Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder, it is pitifully little in visual terms.

It can't even fill a teaspoon.

To put it ugly, by comparison, the pepper put in the cream mushroom soup might be more.

As for the price...

On the market, the average transaction price per gram of Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder is 275 gold.

Of course, there is a premium.

The overly rare quantity and the excellent efficacy in the forging process make every time this material flows out on the market trigger a scramble.

Basically, it is sold by bidding at auctions, and there is rarely a fixed price.

For this, Ba'en wiped a fraction for Xia Nan:

270 gold/gram.

Nine grams added up to a total of 2430 gold.

Plus the auxiliary supplies needed during the forging process, including labor costs, after adding up some scattered expenses.

Ba'en gave him a slight discount again, helping to wipe out the extra numbers at the end of the order.

Making the overall cost of recasting the Decapitation Longsword exactly add up to an integer:

——3000 gold.

Well, it is foreseeable that the green-skinned Goblins in the Mist Forest should suffer a big one.

Even though he was already prepared in his heart when listening to Ba'en introduce the production process and efficacy of Sun-Glass Iron Plating Powder earlier, when Xia Nan heard this number from the other party's mouth with his own ears...

His heart still couldn't stop trembling.

Converted, he had to chop more than eight thousand Goblins to earn so much money.

Even if it was one per second, he would have to chop for a full two hours.

Converted into the White Tit's cream mushroom soup, it is enough for him to drink three meals a day for more than forty years.

Calculating to the end, Xia Nan didn't even dare to continue thinking about it.

Just comforting himself in his heart with words like "money is earned to be spent," "three thousand gold is expensive, but it will be earned back soon after the new weapon is in hand," "just chop a few more Goblins."

... Heartache.

Fortunately, thanks to the gains from several previous missions and the contribution made by the "Shihua Xiyi," Xia Nan's current net worth reached 1435 gold, 9 silver, and 7 copper (savings 852 gold + Shihua Xiyi loot materials 583 gold).

After handing in the Shihua Xiyi hunting mission at the association later, if he doesn't consider the point quota and exchanges everything for gold coins, there should be another 1000 gold in profit.

Adding the two together, it is only five hundred gold coins away from the 3000 gold required for recasting.

He doesn't need to carry a loan; gritting his teeth and doing a few more missions, if he is lucky, he will gather it in two or three months.

It is barely within the bearable range.

After all, he is an old customer, and Ba'en has cooperated with Xia Nan many times, and a fairly deep trust has been established between them.

Even when Xia Nan took the initiative to state that his financial resources were limited and he might need some time to gather money.

Ba'en still very readily only collected 1000 gold coins as a deposit and started forging.

Indicating that he could pay the balance after the finished product came out.

If he was really tight on cash, he even agreed to let Xia Nan owe it for a period of time.

He was not a character who liked to owe others things anyway; seeing Ba'en express it this way, Xia Nan had even less thought of owing money in his heart.

He stayed in the blacksmith shop to communicate some details of the longsword recasting with the other party, then said goodbye and left, heading straight to the Adventurer Association.

Mainly three things.

One, hand in the Shihua Xiyi hunting mission and get those one thousand gold coins;

Two, report his discovery about suspected demons/devils in the forest;

Three, find a few suitable, fast-money bounty missions and work hard to earn money!

... ===== CHAPTER 293 =====