Chapter 168 – Metals, metals everywhere.

The sound of drilling along with metal colliding with rock-filled the mostly empty cavern. To the side, a rather bored Mystical Ruby Wolf was munching on some volcanic salamander meat while looking at its master swinging a shiny pickaxe.

This was something that had been going on for quite some time. Roland did not sleep nor did he stop swinging his mining tool while collecting various of the costly minerals. There was no time to lose, he had no idea if he would be discovered or if someone would be waiting for him at the exit.

While he didn’t think that he was spotted, he could not be sure. People with heightened senses and abilities that even his new mapping system couldn’t detect were always a possibility. It wouldn’t be hard for people to camp out near the lake and wait for his return.

This was still not a very probable outcome. Unless someone was certain that there was money to be gained they wouldn’t go through with such a scheme. At most, they would post a lookout to trail him back home. Then they would decide if it was worth the trouble to attack the city runesmith.

Even though the dwarves had continued to mess around with him, he could not be easily countered. They too had limited means of combating his runic wares that he could produce at a fast pace.

Compared to regular Runesmith his runes were always masterfully crafted, even if another smith of the runes appeared in the city they would find it hard to compete with Roland when it came to crafting these magical symbols.

“Phew… I’ve gotten some nice loot this time around.”

Finally, after working for multiple hours Roland decided to put his pickaxe down. After going through this cavern a couple of times he had a good idea of what he was working with. The most prevalent ore that he found here was Durium.

Durium from the outside looked similar to iron ore but it had a characteristic dark blue sheen to it. It was much stronger than iron but this durability came at the cost of being somewhat brittle. Thus after some research, the people found a few ways to combine this extremely hard metal with other alloys and finally produced Durasteel.

Durasteel was mostly a combination of deep steel and durium with a sprinkle of other minerals. It could also be further refined into aether durasteel which would produce items that even platinum grade adventurers would not be ashamed to use.

This would probably be the next step in his life as a Runesmith. He would finally be able to shift his focus away from deep-steel weapons and armor. The amount of ore he was getting here would be enough to get him started.

The first move would be to improve all of his tools, smelter, and forge into the better durasteel variant. With it, in place, he would actually be able to handle the other rare metals that he was also finding here, one of them was Mithril.

He didn’t find regular mithril in these caverns, instead, it was a fire-resistant variant that instead of a silvery coloring was quite crimson. Most miners referred to this ore as Volcanic Mithril due to how it was only found in places where there was lava.

This metal was even more resistant than durasteel and didn’t need to be mixed with other minerals. Most tier 3 class holders came in contact with this fantasy metal and weapons made from them were a show of status among those circles.

It was one of the more prevalent high quality metals in this world. There were only two others Orichalcum and then Adamantium which was considered the strongest of them all. Both of them were even rarer and would rarely see the light of day.

Adamantium in particular was considered practically indestructible. There were some books on it that described quite the complex process of even working with this metal. A craftsman would at least have to have a set of orichalcum tools to put a dent in adamantium. Even with them, the heat that was required to make this metal workable reportedly caused the deaths of some of the craftsmen that attempted to mold it.

The craftsman would need to be of an extremely high level. They would also need to have all of their fire resistance skills leveled up to the highest degree. From what the records say, Roland imagined the craftsman being almost forced to be inside of a smoldering inferno themselves.

Then even if such an Adamantium weapon or armor was made, the process of enchanting it or putting runes would be even harder. He wasn’t sure that even a tier 3 runesmith would be up to this task, a tier 4 class holder was more realistic.

The third metal that he was able to find again was Etherium. There were some sizable chunks that were ready to be unearthed and this would probably increase the value of his wares by quite a bit.

Etherium was a metal that was used by grand magicians for magic tower cores. They would store massive amounts of magical energy within them without suffering from any deterioration factors.

With the help of this mineral, he could produce runic weapons that would stand the test of time. By adding a bit of etherium into the durasteel mixture he would be able to boost its enchanting capabilities many times over.

In itself, durasteel wasn’t much better than regular deepsteel when it came to runic deterioration. But when combined with some etherium it would reach its true potential and be something quite close to actual mythril.

Roland smirked a bit as he continued to think about the possibilities of using all these metals. Thanks to the dwarves he was unable to procure such metals, he was also short on funds as the black market merchants were unwilling to go below market value.

He knew what they were doing. The ores that they were selling were clearly stolen through various means. Either by open robbery or just by some greedy miners that sold some on the side.

Such materials would always be sold for much less than they would normally be worth on the market. Thus they should have gone for at least a bit less on the black market. But for him, the black market was the only option now and the greedy merchants knew it.

Now on the other hand, with all this he was mining here he might be able to pull in some merchants. Though the dwarven union was powerful there were still merchants that didn’t see them as much of a threat. If he managed to produce high quality runic durasteel wares he would finally have something to bargain with.

Golems, runic weapons, and even magical scrolls. His portfolio was finally coming together and he reckoned that some of the more risk-taking merchants would finally be willing to do business with him.

While the Auction house in Albrook had been ignoring him it wasn’t the same for other cities. He just needed to strike a deal with someone that would be willing to transport the durasteel wares out of the city. Other larger auction houses were unfazed by the dwarves, in which he would be able to sell even if he was blacklisted in other places.

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‘If the profits are high enough I could even go there myself, it would probably save me some money…’

Then there was option two, to just organize a little trip outside the city. There were larger gatherings of adventurers closer to the large super dungeon. There gold ranked adventures and ones above them weren’t that rare.

Roland had been cooped up in this city for a few years now. This was mostly due to his paranoia of being robbed or attacked by cult members that he once faced. Now on the other hand his store was well protected.

Thanks to Lobelia and her friends he had access to the thieves guild. With them around, he would not have to worry about getting robbed when he was gone. The dwarven union had also not sent any assassins after him as he had previously feared. They really did most of their dealings through business.

There was a limit to what they would do and killing was clearly off the table. If they couldn’t buy him out or price his store out of existence they would let it be. Roland could even imagine the little buggers coming over to strike a deal if he ever got wealthy enough. That is if they could ever look past him being a human Runesmith.

“These elokin’s crystals will also fetch a nice price…”

The second mineral that was quite prevalent here was the crystallized form of elokin’s fluid. It was quite similar to oil from the modern world that he came from. It would fetch a nice price on the market and thanks to his batteries he didn’t really need it to power his golemic creations.

While his mind was filled with the new products he would be able to create with his new stash he looked to one of his spider droids. The little guys were drilling around some parts of the ground to loosen up the ores there.