I Only Tried to Blow Up the Smelting Furnace
The attempt to blow up the smelting furnace had somehow turned into a First-Class National Project. Beneath that grandiose title, the Armaments Bureau’s finest artisans and engineers had been summoned to Serian’s personal laboratory. The usually quiet workspace was now bustling with activity. Vulcan, head of the Smelting Team; Elias, chief of the Magic Engraving Team; Reinhardt from the Precision Machining Team—every renowned technician in the Bureau had gathered. They all stared at Serian, seated at the head of the conference table, with eyes full of reverence and anticipation. The greatest genius in history. The savior who would reshape the Empire’s future. That was what their gazes were saying.
Serian received those looks and groaned inwardly. Damn it… this has gotten way too big.
Just a few days ago, her plan had been to quietly produce some failures and slip away unnoticed. Now she stood at the center of some massive national undertaking. And what was with those burdensome stares? They were looking at her like she was some kind of messiah.
No, it’s fine. There’s still a chance.
Serian forced the corners of her mouth upward. That’s right—this could actually be an opportunity. She would make absurd demands during the development process and deliberately sink the project. Spend the budget freely while ensuring no results came out. Hehe… yes, this might be a golden chance. If she could make a project this extravagantly prepared fail, the responsibility would be far heavier. The repercussions and the severity of any reprimand would be on a completely different scale.
Turning crisis into opportunity. Hehe… am I not a genius after all?
Having finished rationalizing everything to herself, Serian regained her confidence. She smiled leisurely and looked around at the group.
“Alright, everyone. I assume you’ve all reviewed my proposal carefully. Does anyone have questions, or any issues that might arise during production?”
The moment the words left her mouth, hands shot up everywhere. Everyone seemed eager to fire off their questions at once.
“Whoa, whoa. One at a time, please. You there… Dwarf instructor, go ahead.”
When Serian pointed, a burly dwarf jumped to his feet.
“Vulcan, head of the Smelting Team!”
“Very good. Let’s start with the Smelting Team, then.”
Before the full meeting began, Serian turned to Martin standing beside her and spoke in a languid voice.
“Hey, Martin. Do me a favor. I’d like some tea made from cacao beans. Make it really strong and sweet. Load it up with milk.”
“Pardon? Ah… yes. Shall I add plenty of sugar as well?”
“Yes. I’m in urgent need of a sugar recharge.”
Watching this, Ella could only click her tongue internally. As expected of someone from one of the Five Great Families. Ordering a tea I’ve never even heard of.
“Senior… Senior?”
At Serian’s voice, Ella startled and snapped back to attention.
“Ah, yes? Lady Serian.”
The honorific had slipped out instinctively. Serian’s brow furrowed slightly.
“Tsk, Senior. Didn’t I tell you to drop the formal speech?”
“Ahem! Right, right, kiddo.”
Ella cleared her throat awkwardly and finally switched to casual speech. Pretending to be the senior in front of a monstrous junior like this was incredibly embarrassing.
“What do you want to drink, Senior?”
“Ah, I’ll have the same.”
Now that drinks were ordered, it was time to properly sabotage the project. Serian deliberately put on an arrogant expression and tossed the blueprints onto the table with a slap.
“Then let’s begin by producing this mana-infused alloy. It’s simple enough, so it should be done quickly, right?”
At those words, Vulcan, the chief smelting artisan, made a troubled face and spoke up.
“Chief Developer. You specified mithril as the core material for the anchor here…”
“Yes, and?”
Serian replied nonchalantly. Vulcan continued with a difficult expression.
“As you know… while mithril certainly possesses exceptional strength and hardness, it is far too rigid and has such strong mana resistance that it is impossible to engrave mana circuits inside it.”
That was correct. Weapons generally contained paths for mana to flow—mana circuits. The degree to which these circuits harmonized with the material determined the weapon’s quality. Especially for the anchor of an aerial maneuvering device. The mechanism relied on momentarily generating grip force by reversing specific mana waves emitted by the barrier of Silver Horn Fortress. For that to work, it was absolutely necessary to engrave highly precise, artificial mana circuits at the tip of the anchor.
Vulcan offered a cautious suggestion.
“Wouldn’t it be better to change the anchor’s material to something with higher mana conductivity like centium, or soft gold which is easier to process?”
Ella, seated beside him, chimed in as well.
“She’s right, kiddo. Mithril being good for sticking into walls and staying sturdy is fine. But even after dozens of attempts at the Armaments Bureau, we’ve never succeeded in engraving artificial mana circuits into mithril. It’s impossible.”
Impossible, you say? Excellent!
Serian cheered inwardly. Of course she had known that. But it absolutely had to be made with mithril. Because! It needed to fail!
After all, Serian was a former top student in weapon development. She was thoroughly familiar with material properties. That was precisely why she had deliberately chosen mithril. The method of ruining the project by assigning an impossible task! Moreover, mithril had an extremely, extremely, extremely high unit price! It was the perfect key to a budget-wasting project.
Serian cut in with her signature cold, resolute expression.
“No. The anchor’s material must be mithril.”
The conference room’s atmosphere froze instantly. All eyes turned to her. Ella was flustered. What? Does she have some kind of method? It was common sense that engraving mana circuits into mithril was impossible. Yet there wasn’t the slightest hesitation on Serian’s face.
“Here is the cacao iced tea you ordered, Chief Developer.”
At that moment, Martin approached and set down two glasses with ice floating in them.
“Ah, good. From now on, call it iced chocolate.”
Before anyone realized, she was already sipping her ordered drink with a completely relaxed expression. Where did that composure come from? Did she already have a solution?
But in truth, Serian wasn’t thinking about any of that. Khh, this is it. She was simply feeling a rush of dopamine from a drink she used to have in her previous life. Back then, her brain only started working properly after drinking iced chocolate. The taste was a little different here, but that rich sweetness was exactly the same. The feeling of sugar flooding her brain instantly melted away her tension.
“Um… Chief Developer? Also, according to the blueprints, the amount of flame stones listed here will make the smelting furnace’s temperature far too high. At that level, the furnace won’t be able to withstand it.”
Vulcan pointed out another problem.
Hmm… was this too obvious?
That had also been intentional. On second thought, trying to make the furnace explode seemed too direct. She needed to revise her approach—make the process as complicated and expensive as possible, drain the budget thoroughly, and ensure certain failure.
Serian rested her chin on her hand with a look of exasperation.
“To be stumped by a problem of this level. Do I need to teach you the basics again?”
She took a sip of her iced chocolate and continued.
“Listen carefully. First, don’t use only flame stones. Add cooling stones—the exact opposite property—as well.”
“That would…”
“The key is to deliberately cause mana collisions inside the furnace to maximize instability.”
Putting magic stones with opposing properties together would naturally cause an explosion. This was common knowledge even an Armaments Bureau apprentice would know. Vulcan’s face turned deathly pale.
“C-Chief Developer! Putting flame stones and cooling stones together is suicidal! The furnace won’t hold!”
Serian inwardly screamed That’s exactly it! and spoke coldly.
“Are you doubting my calculations? Just do as I say. I will take full responsibility.”
That afternoon, the smelting room was in a state of absolute emergency. Having heard the news, Valentine had rushed over and was watching the situation. It was an unprecedented event. Ten layers of defensive magic circles had been deployed around the furnace, and everyone had retreated to a safe distance, trembling as they observed. With tears in their eyes, the team members reluctantly followed Serian’s instructions.
“Sir Vulcan… are you sure this will be alright? Something terrible might happen.”
When a young dwarf asked worriedly, Vulcan answered with grim resolve.
“Just follow orders for now… That person is looking at a realm beyond our imagination. She must have a plan…”
Finally, Vulcan used a long pole to push both magic stones into the furnace at the same time.
Rumble…!
The furnace began vibrating wildly. Everyone squeezed their eyes shut. But the expected explosion did not occur. Instead, a strange and complex flow of mana began to be felt from within the furnace.
“Huh? Director! It’s not exploding!”
Valentine hurriedly approached the furnace to inspect the situation.
“Good heavens…”
His voice trembled with astonishment.
“The mana of flame and cold are violently repelling each other, and the resulting collision waves… are suspending the molten mithril in midair! It’s in a state that’s neither liquid nor solid!”
Solid mithril could not receive mana engraving due to its high mana resistance and hardness. Liquid metal, on the other hand, was too unstable to carve circuits into. But this—neither liquid nor solid. Mithril floating with jelly-like viscosity, perfectly stabilized in a semi-liquid state within the mana collision waves.
The eyes of Elias, head of the Magic Engraving Team, flashed with madness at the sight.
“We can… engrave…”
She muttered, then suddenly shouted like a madwoman.
“We can engrave it now! Hurry! Bring my tools immediately!”
Elias rushed toward the furnace as if possessed, clutching her mana engraving tools. The other engravers finally came to their senses and followed after her.
Serian’s plan had failed spectacularly—perfectly, even. The grand scheme she had devised, “Blow Up the Furnace and Derail the Project,” had instead resulted in the creation of the Serian-style Ultra-Precision Mithril Smelting Method, a technique beyond anything this world’s technology could have imagined.
Serian was genuinely shocked, her expression frozen solid. Ella, her senior who had been watching the scene beside her, could not contain her excitement and cried out.
“Serian! Weakening the bonds through opposing mana collisions while simultaneously maintaining a semi-liquid state with high temperature—where on earth did you come up with something like this…!”
This was a method unseen not only in the Academy but in any academic paper or scholarly conference. Ella turned to Serian with an excited face and asked again.
“Serian! Just where did you learn—
But when she saw Serian’s expression, Ella could not continue. Serian was simply staring at the mithril with her usual blank face as the engravings were carved into it. Her expression looked utterly indifferent, as if she were watching something completely obvious. No—having carefully observed Serian’s expressions for some time now, Ella could tell. She looked just a tiny bit—irritated.
Huh? Why…
Ella could not understand it. To make such a face at a moment of historic success like this.
“……”
Could it be—we were making too much fuss over something trivial?
Ahem… to her, this must be completely ordinary.
Ella suddenly felt her face burning. Embarrassed that she had gotten overly excited and made a scene, she quickly shut her mouth. The mood spread in an instant. The exclamations, admiration, and chatter that had filled the smelting room gradually died down one by one.
…Ahem, we got too worked up.
Acting so disgracefully in front of the kiddo.
Including Ella, everyone began sneaking glances at one another, and the atmosphere naturally grew quiet. In the now-silent smelting room, only Elias’s hands danced through the air. Pure threads of light bursting from the tip of her mana engraving needle delicately and intricately carved circuits onto the jelly-like floating mithril surface.
The people held their breath, stealing glances at Serian with eyes full of awe. At that moment, every member of the development team present realized something. They were witnessing a page of history being written. And they were looking at the unparalleled genius who was writing that history right before their eyes.