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Chapter 9
‘Damn it… I never thought getting high-purity gold would be this difficult…’
Robak, the old mage of the Kalibor Magic Tower, stared down at the broken artifact as he thought.
The artifact he was currently creating was the masterpiece of his life.
To make this artifact, he had done everything possible—from designing it from the ground up.
He studied all the theories necessary for artifact design, and made countless efforts to precisely control the mana of various elements.
On top of that, he used only the finest materials.
The more intricate the design of an artifact, the better the materials it required.
Generally, tools that use mana but perform simple functions with basic designs were called magic tools.
Artifacts, on the other hand, had far more complex designs and performed a wide variety of functions.
If magic tools were things like lighting a fire with mana, boiling water, or activating something with a button—
then artifacts were capable of far more complex tasks, such as purifying mana, deploying protective barriers over areas, or activating security magic that detects people and only allows authorized individuals to pass.
Naturally, the more complex the function, the more complex the flow of mana required.
This meant the mana circuits needed for such designs had to be extremely precise—
and to create such precise circuits, highly pure materials were essential.
And the material most commonly used for these mana circuits was gold.
Gold was easy to process with precision and had high affinity with mana, making it the ideal metal for mana circuits.
Normally, gold was never a problem in crafting magic tools or artifacts.
But…
‘Of all things, this becomes the problem…’
The artifact Robak was creating involved magical operations far more complex than any previous artifact.
Because of that, even when it functioned, the mana flow would often go out of control and cause it to break.
Even when using the purest gold available in the Empire, the problem persisted.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried.
He had gone beyond simply purchasing gold from precious metal workshops—
he even made a direct request to the Magnus family workshop, the greatest alchemy family in the Empire.
Although he couldn’t request Isaac Magnus himself due to his busy schedule, he placed an order through a workshop managed by one of his children to produce especially high-purity gold.
And yet—even after using that gold—
the artifact still malfunctioned due to purity issues and ultimately broke.
‘Arrogant, insolent, incompetent fools… and they call themselves the children of the Empire’s greatest alchemist?’
He grumbled internally—
but soon shook his head.
‘…No. If I think about it, this is my fault.’
There was no helping it.
What Robak wanted was pure gold.
But in this world, almost no substance existed in a perfectly pure state—
and there was no technology capable of perfectly separating complex mixtures.
Separating salt from seawater was simple—you just boiled the water.
But separating metals with similar melting points was far more difficult.
This was the result of challenging the impossible.
He knew that.
And yet—
‘…If I could just obtain pure gold somehow…’
He could see the culmination of his life’s work right in front of him.
It wasn’t something he could easily give up.
And so, he stared resentfully at the gold circuit of the artifact.
‘…Not like staring at it will make pure gold appear out of nowhere.’
With a sigh, Robak glanced at a fallen picture frame lying in the corner of the lab.
“…”
After silently staring at it for a moment—
he left the laboratory for the first time in a long while.
Meanwhile, at that same time—
Inside another laboratory of the Kalibor Magic Tower—
“…It’s flying! It’s finally flying!”
The senior mage of the tower, Ivrin Kalibor, cheered as she watched a metallic object flying through the air.
The silver-white metal object had a shape like a shallow dish—
slightly concave—
and it floated up and down in the air, moving according to Ivrin’s hand gestures.
This was the result proving that her long research—
[On a metal flying saucer capable of flight]—
was correct.
‘As expected… the dish shape is the most suitable form for flight.’
Ivrin thought, overwhelmed with joy.
In the Empire, high-ranking mages could fly using advanced magic—
but ordinary people relied on hot air balloons, which used heated air to float.
Some researchers tried to create flying machines inspired by birds using wings—
but most of those attempts failed.
So Ivrin believed that the shape of the flying object was the key—
which led her to experiment with a dish-shaped design.
The reason was simple.
When she was young, she used to throw plates around for fun—
and noticed how well they flew.
From that, she had an epiphany:
‘Dish shapes fly well!’
Until now, her attempts failed because the metals were too heavy—
but this time, thanks to a metal called aluminum from Magnus Workshop 43—
she succeeded in reducing the weight.
And finally—
she made it fly.
‘I did it… with this, I can save humanity from penguins…!’
Ivrin smiled happily, lost in her excitement as she imagined the future.
Of course, the major flaw was that maintaining flight required an enormous amount of mana—
but she chose not to think about that for now.
Just then—
“…What are you doing?”
Robak entered the lab and spoke.
“Ah, Master Robak! You finally came out! This is a flying saucer—”
At that moment—
Ivrin lost focus.
The flying saucer dropped.
Crash!
It hit the ground on its edge—
and crumpled instantly.
“…Huh?”
Ivrin froze, staring blankly at the crushed saucer in shock.
“…What is this?”
Ignoring his disciple’s devastated expression—like a child whose candy had been taken—
Robak picked up the aluminum saucer.
“Th-this is… a flying saucer…”
Ivrin explained in a trembling voice.
She had been researching flight by applying the properties of lightning magic—
lifting metal into the air using electrical force.
Other metals were too heavy—
but aluminum was light enough to float.
However—
it was too thin—
so it crumpled upon impact.
After understanding the situation, Robak thought:
‘…Isn’t this just lifting it with force?’
When lightning elements overlapped, they produced physical force that could affect metal.
Normally, the force was too weak to do more than slightly push metal—
but in this case, the metal was extremely light—
and Ivrin had used an absurd amount of mana—
allowing it to float and move.
‘Such talent… wasted on things like this…’
He sighed internally.
“Maybe aluminum is just too weak… Next time, I should order something just as light but stronger—”
‘Aluminum? I’ve never heard of such a metal…’
Robak ignored most of what she said and examined the metal.
“…Oh.”
He was impressed.
It was incredibly light.
Then—
he checked its elemental affinity.
And—
“…Impossible.”
He was shocked.
‘This is a pure metal.’
No matter where he examined—
the mana flow was consistent.
It was at least 99% pure—
possibly even higher.
‘How can such a metal exist?’
In all his years—
he had never seen a perfectly pure metal.
But this—
was almost perfectly pure.
‘Such processing technology exists?’
If a workshop could create this—
then perhaps—
they could create pure gold as well.
“…My disciple.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Can you tell me where this aluminum was made?”
“It came from Magnus Workshop 43…”
“Thank you, my disciple!”
Robak ran out of the tower at a speed that didn’t match his age.
“Wait—Master! You have to give my flying saucer back!”
Too late.
At the Magnus Alchemy Workshop—
“…So if you roll a ball from a high place, it rolls down, right? Lightning works the same way. Think of ‘voltage’ as a mountain made of lightning. If lightning exists there, it will naturally flow downward.”
Yujin was explaining voltage in front of an electrolytic cell.
Listening to him were—
“Hmm… I feel like I kind of get it…”
Emily, the youngest alchemist—
and—
“I think I need to hear more…”
Henry, the apprentice.
They were new hires—
brought in thanks to the Cartier family’s funding—
and Yujin was teaching them electrolysis.
However—
Emily was just staring at Yujin’s face—
and Henry looked completely lost.
‘…I heard they were talented.’
But clearly—
they didn’t understand even basic concepts.
‘This won’t work… I’ll just make an artifact to automate this.’
So instead of teaching—
he decided to engineer a solution.
“…Just watch this.”
Inside the electrolytic cell—
was aqua regia containing dissolved gold.
When voltage was applied—
gold ions were reduced—
and pure gold formed.
“…This is what happens.”
“Whoa.”
“Wow…”
They were impressed—
but clearly didn’t understand.
‘…I’ll definitely make them do this work later.’
Yujin filtered the result—
and extracted pure gold.
“This method produces gold with 99.99% purity.”
“Wow… amazing…”
“But what do we use it for?”
“…Good question.”
Even Yujin didn’t know.
Then—
“Yujin, a guest from Kalibor Magic Tower has arrived.”
It was Robak.
Moments later—
Robak entered.
He looked like a classic mage—
messy white hair, beard, dusty coat.
“…Are you Yujin Magnus?”
“Yes.”
As Robak spoke—
his gaze fell on Emily’s hand—
holding gold.
His eyes widened.
“P-pure gold—!”
Thud.
He fainted.
“…Sir? Sir?!”
Yujin shook him.
‘Why did he faint? Does he have a gold allergy?’
