Night. The castle study room.
Knock, knock, knock...
"Come in," Lucas said, putting down his book. He had been looking at the formula for gunpowder.
Creak!! The study door was pushed open, and Amelia and Rhea walked in. Seeing only Lucas and Mina in the room, the two of them paused. The atmosphere tonight was a bit different; even Nicole, Annie, and Helen, who were usually here, were absent.
"You're here," Lucas said softly. He looked at Amelia's growing wings; they were already half-grown.
"Father," Amelia called out coolly, her eyes flickering. She hadn't been back to the castle in a while, having spent the past few days studying at the air force base.
She was waiting for her wings to fully grow so she could fly back to the castle every day, instead of having to take a carriage back and forth.
"How much longer until your wings are fully grown?" Lucas glanced at Amelia's serious face and sighed inwardly; the girl had matured a lot.
"A month at most," Amelia replied coolly. The later stages of growth required more time.
"A month? That's not too long," Lucas comforted her softly. "There's no rush. You've waited this long already, so it's better if you don't gorge yourself."
He had received reports that, in order to grow her wings faster, Amelia had been eating five meals a day, stuffing herself full every single time.
"..." Amelia's face flushed red, and she suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. Who snitched on me?
"Rhea, how is everyone doing? Are you short on anything?" Lucas turned to look at the aloof Rhea, who hadn't said a word since walking through the door.
"We aren't short on anything. We're doing very well," Rhea replied concisely, though the look in her eyes as she stared at Lucas was a bit strange.
Lucas was Amelia's adopted father.
"What's wrong? If you have any requests, just ask." Seeing Rhea's gaze, Lucas assumed she had a request but was too embarrassed to bring it up.
"No." Rhea replied.
"I called you two here today because I have something important to discuss with you," Lucas said, immediately cutting to the chase.
"Please give your orders, father," Amelia said with a serious face.
"Speak," Rhea nodded. She was practically tied to Lucas's side now. So many of her fellow beastkin had received his grace; this was a debt of gratitude she'd probably be repaying for the rest of her life.
"There is a top-secret matter that I need you to handle," Lucas said with a stern face.
"Top-secret?" Rhea and Amelia were both stunned. Having stayed in Sedona City for a while now, they naturally knew the weight of those words.
Mina looked at the two stunned girls and couldn't help but frown. Is it really a good idea for the Master to entrust a top-secret mission to these two?
She knew parts of this top-secret matter, but only enough to realize how terrifying the consequences would be if it were leaked. Tonight, even Annie, Nicole, and Helen weren't present, meaning they didn't know about this secret either.
"Yes. If this secret is leaked, the casualties in this world will multiply many times over, and many ambitious warlords will emerge to fight for dominance over the realm," Lucas sighed.
He didn't know what would happen if gunpowder eventually leaked to the outside world. For now, he could only guard the secret strictly and build up his own foundation. As for the future, that was something for his descendants to worry about.
"Please leave it to me..." Amelia said earnestly.
Rhea simply nodded. What else could she say? She couldn't say no; she could only help him see it through to the end.
"Do you know where I can find a volcano?" Lucas asked. Gunpowder required three ingredients: saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur.
He already had a saltpeter mine, which made things relatively simple. Even without saltpeter rocks, he could extract it from outhouses—the substance that crystallized around latrine pits was essentially urine-derived saltpeter. He knew that back on Earth, during the War of Resistance, soldiers had used this exact method to scavenge for gunpowder materials in civilian toilets.
Charcoal was easily made by burning high-quality wood. The remaining, most crucial ingredient was sulfur. Even primitive methods of refining sulfur required the right ores, and Lucas hadn't found any sulfur-bearing ores yet. His only option was to find a volcano.
Lucas had no idea where any volcanoes were in this era, so he could only ask Rhea, who spent all day flying in the sky.
"A volcano?" Rhea frowned in confusion.
"It's a mountain that smokes and spews out molten rock," Lucas explained in detail.
"A smoking mountain... I know a place," Rhea nodded. She did indeed know of a mountain that smoked.
"Where is it?" Lucas's eyes lit up. Where there was a volcano, there was sulfur.
"Deep within the Forbidden Mountains. I saw it when I went to hunt dragons," Rhea said in a deep voice.
Dragons. They were her eternal pain. Several of her comrades had died, yet they hadn't managed to kill a single dragon.
"Dragons?" Lucas was stunned. What is she talking about?
"It was a bounty mission to hunt dragons that we took on previously," Rhea added by way of explanation.
"No, I mean—dragons? You've actually seen a dragon?" Lucas hurriedly asked.
Are there dragons in this world? That was what he really wanted to know.
"Yes. It was massive, incredibly ferocious, and had thick, tough skin," Rhea said with bitter resentment.
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200 power stones.
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