"What do you mean?" Solus asked.
"The "make up" you put on his face was magical paint that your mother had crafted. It was resistant to time, fire, and even darkness magic. Without a proper counterspell, Threin would have remained like that for years."
Solus half laughed and half cried as those words triggered more memories of her spending time with her father while his face was still painted. In none of those fragments he seemed angry or annoyed.
Every time Threin looked at the baby girl, a big smile would always appear on his face.
It took Solus a while to regain her cool, yet no one said anything. They patiently waited until she managed to pull herself together and led them inside the tower.
"We are going to start from the lower floors and walk our way up." Solus said. "The deepest underground level will make Lith very happy."
She opened a thick wooden door that led to one of the oddest places that everyone had ever seen.
The room was completely empty and consisted solely of a stone sidewalk that ran along the walls, forming a ring that had a high railing along its external edge.
The railing allowed people to look down into the magma boiling right under their feet without the risk of falling down.
"Is this what I think it is?" Lith asked while looking at the lava with Life Vision.
"Yup. Welcome to the tower's metal mine!" Solus said with the first big smile ever since she had dreamed about Threin.
"This doesn't look like a mine at all." Friya knocked at the solid stone wall around them finding no trace of precious materials nor of any place where Lith could grow his own metal veins like it happened for the crystal mine.
"That's because you are looking in the wrong direction." Salaark said. "Try looking down with Life Vision."
Friya and Tista did as instructed, discovering that not only did the magma spun as if stirred by a giant invisible ladle, but it was also filled to the brim with the world energy coming from below.
"How do we use it, exactly?" Lith asked.
"The same as the crystal mine. Just throw every piece of metal you have into the magma. The heat will melt and purify them from common impurities while the world energy will seep through their liquified form, refining it." Solus said.
"What about Orichalcum? It's just silver with traces of Adamant and the temperature is high enough to vaporize it." He said.
"That's the best part." Solus replied. "The enchantments in this room make so that the silver vapor from the Orichalcum will condense into liquid and merge with the Adamant again.
"With each cycle, the silver component will be tempered, rearranging its structure thanks to the absorbed world energy until the Orichalcum turns into Adamant."
"What?" Lith, Friya, and even Salaark said in unison.
"You heard me. If we throw silver in the well, it will slowly turn into Orichalcum, then into Adamant, and then into Davross. It works just like a real mine, just better faster, and it works even on already mined materials." Solus said, puffing her chest out with pride.
'Oh, Ripha. If you were still alive, I would be kicking your ass right now for not having ever shared the secrets of your tower with anyone.' Salaark thought in envy. 'Your death has deprived Mogar of all the marvels that you kept for yourself.'
"Are you sure?" Lith asked, fearing to lose his silver.
"Yes." Solus nodded.
The magma formed a huge bubble that popped, releasing small droplets that charred the railing where they hit before the self-repairing properties of the tower mended the damage.
"Are you really sure?" Lith threw a handkerchief down, watching it burn instead of being refined.
"This room is enchanted specifically for silver, not cloth!" Solus snarled as she opened their pocket dimension and poured their entire stock of metal into the magma well. "It's called the Crucible, not the tailor's shop."
"I have complete trust in your judgment, dear, but how do you get the metal back?" Raaz asked and Elina nodded.
"Just like in the crystal mine." Solus sighed.
Judging from everyone's panicked expression, they didn't believe a single word she had said.
"Look!" A simple wave of her hand made the magma cool down until it turned into a black rocky surface.
The metals she had thrown had not only solidified as well, but they were also lumped up based on their nature. The silver, the Orichalcum, the Adamant, and the Davross each formed a vein whose size depended on their abundance.
"As I said, the Crucible works the same way as the crystal mine." Solus pointed at the Davross' vein being connected through thin tendrils to the Adamant which in turn was connected to the Orichalcum and so on.
"If you look at it with Life Vision instead of whining, you'll notice that the Davross can't evolve further. Yet the Crucible greatly benefits from its presence. Each metal acts as a catalyst, hastening the refining process of that of lower quality."
"This is amazing!" Everyone said in unison, and this time not just to be polite.
"Wait. Are you telling me that if I didn't have any Davross, the refining speed of the Adamant would have been no better than a regular metal mine?" Lith asked.
"Correct. The Crucible is no miracle worker. It needs a sample to study the composition of the Davross and then use it as a blueprint. The refining process is faster simply because the tower can use small bursts of world energy to nudge the Adamant in the right direction." Solus nodded.
Lith waved his hand, making the block of solidified rock come in front of him, and studied all the different metals that Solus had dropped in the Crucible just a minute ago before putting them back into place with a deep sigh.
"Did you really expect them to have improved in such a short time?" Salaark was so flabbergasted that she didn't even wait for his answer. "You are worse than a Dragon, Featherling. They are just greedy whereas you are also impatient.
"I know lots of people that would kill you just for the opportunity to study how the Crucible works, let alone to become its masters."
"You are right, Grandma. I should be content for what I own, Grandma. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with me and for your hospitality, Grandma." Lith stressed their relationship more than once to keep at bay the fury and scorn that he could read in the Overlord's eyes.
'I guess that Menadion didn't exactly share everything about her tower with her disciples. I must be careful. Grandma has a big heart, but envy and greed can poison even the heart of a Guardian.' Lith thought.
As a fellow Forgemaster, he knew that if their roles were reversed, he would be absolutely livid. He would either wish Salaark a quick death to get his hands on the tower or make plans that would assure him not to have to wait for too long.
The Overlord, instead, even though she was intrigued by the Crucible, had yet to try and analyze it with her breathing technique.. She was respecting his secrets.
