Chapter 620: Detke Rune, the Question of Friend or Foe

Watching Bulutuo swing his magic hammer, "ding-ding-dang-dang," against the anvil, Xia Duo felt for the first time that blacksmithing could be filled with beauty; he had seen Bulutuo smithing more than once or twice before, but never had it shocked him like today.

Perhaps this is the filter of magic!

However, holding the magic hammer, Bulutuo's forging technique was indeed different from the past, possessing some changes on the magical level, and even Xia Duo could discern a trace of the clues within it.

A large lump of iron was hammered into refined iron by Bulutuo in no time; of course, it could also be called "steel," but in the Netherese language, there is no specific term for "steel," and generally, "refined iron" is sufficient to indicate the quality.

Of course, refined iron can only be considered one of the raw materials for the 【Dragon Hunting Rune】; afterwards, Bulutuo divided the refined iron into small pieces and processed them again, and this could be considered the formal manufacture of the 【Dragon Hunting Rune】.

If it could be said that Xia Duo could barely understand the previous techniques, from now on, Bulutuo's techniques were beyond his range of understanding.

With a "pop," a valuable blue gemstone was crushed on the anvil by Bulutuo, and then the magic hammer, carrying the gemstone powder, struck the refined iron blank repeatedly once more.

One after another, gemstones were fused into the refined iron blank in this way, and the Mithril was handled similarly afterwards, though before Xia Duo arrived, the Mithril blocks he provided had already been processed into Mithril wire.

This caused Xia Duo to miss a portion of Bulutuo's skill demonstration, but the integration of Mithril wire into the refined iron blank while maintaining relative independence was clearly more worth watching than the processing of the Mithril wire itself.

Such a technique almost surpassed Xia Duo's imagination; in his understanding, once Mithril and other metals are compatible, it is very easy to affect its own purity, especially under the condition of repeated hammering.

With his own methods, he might be able to process the Mithril components first and then use metal encapsulation, but this method of directly fusing Mithril wire into the metal was still a bit too exaggerated.

Perhaps this is the skill of a Dwarf!

……

Forging the 【Dragon Hunting Rune】 was clearly not an easy job; for several hours in a row, it was nothing for Xia Duo to just watch, but Bulutuo remained focused the entire time, striking the refined iron blank hammer by hammer.

Sweat constantly flew off Bulutuo's arms and beard, but before it could touch the anvil or the magic hammer, it immediately turned into a wisp of steam, diffusing along with a thick smell of alcohol.

It was in this process that the refined iron blank gradually became regular, like a palm-sized piece of iron; although the surface was red-hot, both the relatively independent Mithril wire and the gradually connecting magic strings hinted at the appearance it was about to formally present.

"Dong—"

The final dull strike instantly dissipated the red heat on the surface of the iron piece; Bulutuo reached out and picked up the final product from the anvil, checked it slightly, and tossed it to Xia Duo.

Xia Duo caught the iron piece; it felt somewhat cold to the touch, but the densely connected magic strings on it could not be fake, and this should be the 【Dragon Hunting Rune】 that Bulutuo spoke of.

After playing with it for a few moments, Xia Duo discovered that the front and back of this 【Dragon Hunting Rune】 were almost identical, with no other decorations besides the wedge-shaped characters that were clearly the natural color of Mithril.

These wedge-shaped characters should be the Dwarven Language, but Xia Duo did not have any research on the Dwarven Language, limited only to knowing that this was the Dwarven Language.

Bulutuo had fused the Mithril wire into this iron piece, penetrating inside and out to form these characters; for the time being, Xia Duo did not have much understanding of Dwarven forging technology, and he dared not be certain if this was the most reasonable approach.

However, if following the methods of a Netherese Mage, it could be simplified somewhat; as long as one knew the specific spell contained in this 【Dragon Hunting Rune】, one could directly construct the most simplified energy pathway with Mithril, similar to the method for a general Magic Item.

And there would be no need to strike it hammer by hammer for several hours like Bulutuo.

Of course, this approach is established under the Arcane Magic System of Netheril; what the situation of the Dwarven magic system is, Xia Duo had no way of knowing yet, but through this observation of Bulutuo's forging, he guessed that the Dwarven magic system might be very closely linked to forging.

Although the essence of magic is the same, the forms of expression are different.

Not to mention whether Bulutuo would be willing to reveal the secrets of the 【Dragon Hunting Rune】, the conversion between different magic systems alone is not an easy matter.

Dwarven magic was truly too unfamiliar to Xia Duo; even before today, he was limited to knowing that Dwarves indeed possessed magic, but he had never seen any actual examples.

Unlike Elven Magic, humans initially followed the route of Elven Magic, and basically every Mage Tower has materials regarding Elven Magic; if one really wanted to study it, it would not be difficult.

Just from the fact that Elvish is standard for all mages, while Xia Duo still does not know a few words of the Dwarven Language, the potential influence of Dwarves, or rather their development potential, is far inferior to Elves!

Xia Duo even guessed that perhaps it was because of the coercion of the Elves that the Dwarves and Elves came up with some Mithril Rationing System, which in reality did not have many benefits for the Dwarves; if one were to say the Mithril Rationing System had no influence from the Elves at all, Xia Duo would not believe it even if he died.

On the other hand, in the choice of places to survive, there was not much conflict between humans and Dwarves; Dwarves prefer to stay in the mountains, stay underground, and stay in the rocks.

And these are not things that humans like.

Humans and Elves are the ones in true conflict; both are surface creatures, both need to occupy land, one side wanting to maintain forests, the other side wanting to open up farmland.

Who is a friend, who is an enemy; who can become a friend, who will become an enemy—this question is very important.

Staring at the 【Dragon Hunting Rune】 in his hand, Xia Duo fell into a long, deep contemplation.

……

"That above is our Dwarven Detke Script; you Netherese Mages like to call them 'Detke Rune', which means 'hunting giant dragons'."

Bulutuo's words interrupted Xia Duo's thoughts; he looked up and saw that Bulutuo had finished resting and was preparing to continue forging. It would take at least several hours to craft one 【Dragon Hunting Rune】; Xia Duo had already watched it once and did not intend to continue watching, as he could not understand it anyway.

So he said, "Uncle Bulutuo, sorry for the trouble to continue crafting; I will go prepare some strong liquor for you."

Bulutuo, who was just about to swing his hammer, heard Xia Duo's words, and his eyes immediately lit up; he hurriedly said, "Go quickly, go quickly, and don't let it be just one bottle again!"

"Rest assured, there will be enough for you to drink!"

……

After leaving the blacksmith shop, Xia Duo bought several barrels of so-called "strong liquor" in town and then returned to the Tower of Time; the raw materials he had previously used to distill strong liquor were only some light ale.

A full two large barrels only distilled less than a bottle's worth; now that he had changed to good liquor, he should be able to distill more strong liquor.

However, this kind of repetitive work did not need Xia Duo to do it himself; he casually issued a private task through the Tower Spirit that only a Level 3 Apprentice or higher could accept, and then came to the previous workshop.

While waiting for the person accepting the task to arrive, Xia Duo began to make a larger distillation apparatus; in fact, if it were not for the sake of rushing time, making a thermometer first and then letting an ordinary person look after it would be the most cost-effective.

Like now, although it is very convenient to control the temperature through the Alchemy Array, the cost is also quite high, and the added value of the liquor is far from as high as that of a Magic Item.

Producing strong liquor in this way should only happen this one time!