After some difficult terrain navigation, I was able to reach the glinting steel deposit in the center of the crater. In total, there must have been enough ore in that crater to build a dozen Sarcophagus Starships.
Most of the ore was contained within blackened rock that had been melted from its original state and subsequently solidified into obsidian. I could tell by looking at it that the surrounding rock was an SDC material, while the ore contained within was an MDC material.
“Stand back,” I said, gesturing to my two party members and drawing my gun from its holster.
With about a dozen shots from my laser pistol, I was able to vaporize the obsidian surrounding the ore, causing several hundred pounds of Starsteel ore to fall to the ground in a glowing pile of magma.
“Could you separate the ore from the magma, Carlos?” I asked.
“Huh?” Carlos uttered, shocked at my request. An instant later, he remembered that the System had granted him god-like durability. “Oh, right. Yeah, I’ll get it.”
Carlos rolled back the sleeves of his shirt before reaching down and tossing the magma-covered ore away from the puddle of glowing liquid rock. He dunked his bare hands into the magma, and it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. [Draconic Integration] sure was something.
To my surprise, however, Carlos had some difficulty lifting the heavier chunks of ore. I would have expected his strength to have increased with his hardiness, but he didn’t seem much stronger than he was before. Considering the amount of damage he was able to deal to the Diluvians, I had expected his [Power] to have been raised to superhuman levels. It must have been the Mithril sword he carried that allowed him to harm the Diluvians.
We went through the crater like that for the next few minutes. I would melt the rock surrounding the ore, and Carlos would pull the steel out. Eventually, we had formed a pile of Starsteel that went up to my waist off to one side of the crater.
As Carlos put the last of the steel ore on the top of the pile and I slapped another battery pack into my pistol, the System gave me a notification.
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD THESE ITEMS TO YOUR INVENTORY?]
“Sure,” I said. “Add as much Starsteel to my [Inventory] as possible.”
[ITEMS ADDED TO INVENTORY: 993 STARSTEEL ORE]
More than half of the pile of Starsteel ore disappeared instantaneously. I mentally made a note that my [Inventory] could hold a thousand of whatever units it used to measure weight. Looking at the amount of solid metal that had just disappeared, my [Inventory] could hold much more material than I could possibly carry unaided. It had taken Carlos more than a dozen trips to bring all that material from the crater to the pile, and he was probably much stronger than me.
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“System. Add the remaining ore to my [Inventory],” Carlos commanded the System, and the rest of the pile disappeared without a sound.
“Good, that’s more than enough,” I said with a smile. “All I have to do now is set up my [Workshop], and I can build a bunch of Sarcophagus Starships.”
“How many do you think you can build with all this?” Liz asked.
“Eight or nine, I think.”
“That’s not nearly enough,” Liz said, concern growing in her voice. “There are more than fifty people back at the Carolina Union.”
What was she talking about? Those random students back at the union weren’t our problem. I could build enough ships for Carlos, Liz, John, Professor Carlyle, and maybe one or two other family members. How could she possibly ask for more? It wasn’t our job to save the whole damn world!
“We don’t have time to get any more ore.” As I spoke, I checked the time on my phone: 12:32. We probably had less than an hour to escape the planet.
“I understand,” Liz said, sighing dejectedly. “We’ll have to make some system to decide who gets to escape.”
That was something I would be more than happy to let Liz and Professor Carlyle handle. Dealing with a lottery giving away the last spots on the lifeboats was something I wanted no part of. I would just build the lifeboats. As long as Carlos, Liz, and John were on them, I didn’t care one way or another.
“System. How do I set up a [Workshop]?”
“You don’t know?” Liz asked.
“There wasn’t any time earlier,” I answered absent-mindendly. I was too busy looking at the new System notification to put any thought into my response.
Workshop: An Alchemist empowers an area in order to use his Creation skill within. The Workshop is created by taking a pre-existing structure with four walls, a roof, and a total floor area no less than 250 square feet and marking the edges with material from his body.
Workshop An Alchemist empowers an area in order to use his Creation skill within. The Workshop is created by taking a pre-existing structure with four walls, a roof, and a total floor area no less than 250 square feet and marking the edges with material from his body.
“Okay,” I said, dispelling the pop-up. “First up, I need a room with an area no less than 250 square feet. How big is that?”
“Give me a second,” Carlos said as he started counting up on his hands. “100, 121, 144, 169, 196, 225, 256. Between fifteen and sixteen feet on each side, assuming a perfectly square shape.”
I was going to do the math with the calculator on my phone, but Carlos reached an answer faster than I could type. There was some advantage to mental math, though the ubiquitous presence of calculators minimized it somewhat.
“Nice job. I can visualize it a bit better now. So, any conference room or lecture hall would work. What about Phillips Hall? I’m sure there are plenty of lecture halls there.”
We all looked over to the large brick and stone building next to the crater. Many of the windows facing Peabody Hall had been shattered, but the building looked surprisingly undamaged considering everything that was happening. We came to a quick agreement and began to walk toward the ostentatious entrance to Phillips Hall.