Hand of Spell… Angor believed he saw a cantrip went by this name in a list of level-0 cantrips.
Angor returned to his house and found his tablet to check. When he typed the keyword in, he was surprised to find three results instead of one. There were two improved versions of the original spell.
[Hand of Spell: level-0 cantrip. Simulate human hands with mana and control the hands remotely.]
[Hand of Spell (intermediate): Level-1 cantrip. Simulate human hands with mana. Improve control distance and flexibility.]
[Hand of Spell (advanced): Level-2 cantrip. Simulate human hands with mana. Improve accuracy and flexibility.]
The spell looked like spirit feelers. Since spirit feelers could also be used to manipulate objects, Angor never planned to study Hand of Spell.
He did not expect that Hand of Spell was actually a must-have cantrip for alchemists… This was one of the drawbacks for not having a proper mentor.
Without further ado, Angor quickly began learning Hand of Spell. Just like how he learned the other ones, he did not follow the data on the book. Instead, he re-calculated the data for the spell himself, which took him about two hours.
After another half an hour of which he used it to apply the data to magic formulas, he could finally turn it into a cantrip model.
As for casting Hand of Spell itself… he only needed two minutes.
Generally speaking, he already knew how to use Hand of Spell. But to make sure he could cast this spell anytime, at his free will, Angor had to shorten the cast time to at least one second. Currently, his best record was casting it in 90 seconds, so Angor needed a lot of practice.
Mastering the spell would gradually reduce his cast time, and he could achieve it by using the spell a lot, so this was not an urgent task.
When the spell was successfully cast, a pair of obscure, phantom-like hands appeared in front of Angor.
“So this is Hand of Spell?” Angor muttered.
The spell gave him a strange feeling. It was as if he just grew another pair of new hands, and the hands created by the spell were just like his own. He could control them freely, and do anything he wanted.
Angor controlled the hands to pick up a glass nearby. He could clearly sense the smooth and solid glass, but not the coldness on it. The Hand of Spell must have blocked heat transfer.
Touch, remote control, and temperature protection… This explained why every alchemist should learn this spell. It was such a great tool when handling heated materials.
To try out the flexibility of the spell, Angor moved to the river and picked up a small lump of dirt. Next, he controlled the hands to shape the dirt around as if playing with plasticine. Under his careful control, the dirt took on the shapes of animals, people, blades, plants…
When he was satisfied with his test, Angor dropped the dirt and returned to his soundproofed room.
He took out his notes and wrote down: [High flexibility, almost no retardance, the spell hands work like a pair of new hands. Drawback: the new pair of hands are at a different distance compared to the real hands, which hinders accuracy.]
With the spell done, Angor went to the basement again.
He lit up the stove and waited for the fire element to fill up the air. Then he took out a block of Earth Fiend Bronze and used Thaw to melt it down.
He was familiar with this step, so he did a quick job. He still needed a long time to cast the spell, but other than that, nothing bad happened. When he placed the Earth Fiend Bronze into the preheated Thaw model, the metal block soon became a viscous puddle under his gaze.
A little worried, Angor slowly reached his spell hands into the great heat.
“I don’t feel any heat!” Angor was joyful at his successful attempt. He freely manipulated the hands and kneaded the metal liquid into the shape of a crescent moon, while leaving several plug holes on it.
The crescent shape was one of the parts for making his alchemy weapon.
As he determined the last plug hole, the next step would be to finally fix the shape. Skilled alchemists could use their innovations and imaginations to affix runes, add special materials or catalysts in this step. Someone could even draw a miniature magic array into the weapon.
However, as a newbie, Angor could do none of that. After making sure the crescent part was correctly-shaped, he quickly canceled Thaw and used Condense to finalize its shape.
Once this was done, Angor held the crescent part in his hand and inspected it. It was poorly made, but it was still easy to recognize that this thing belonged to some kind of weapon.
It felt like metal. With no particular tool to smoothen it, its edge was all jagged.
To test its hardness, Angor gave the metal part a mighty squeeze.
It gave out a “click!” noise. Angor opened his hand and saw no change in its overall shape. However, some small cracks showed up on its edges.
“Weird. Earth Fiend Bronze is used to improve hardness. How did I break it with my hand?” Angor wondered.
He decided to snap it in half and see what happened.
To break something made from Earth Fiend Bronze apart proved to be quite difficult. Angor used up all his strength to break his creation from a small, existing crack.
He finally realized what was going on when looking at the interior of the material. When kneading the metal with Hand of Spell, he did not pay attention to its density distribution. There was too much metal in some locations and too little in other parts. It was easy to crack up when external force was applied to the metal unevenly.
However, being able to create a finished part, even a flawed one, was still an amazing feat for a new alchemist.
…
Since the problem was found, Angor had to solve it. He already had something on his mind.
Alchemy was not all about thawing stuff and shaping it with Hand of Spell. He needed to use various tools.
For example, he could use a flat scraper to remove jagged edges and barbs on the metal. There was an engraving pen, designed for drawing runes. To achieve perfect density distribution, he could use specialized pressurize equipment. There were also paint brushes to make the product look better… Universal measuring glasses, suction pipes, air tanks, balance plugs… There were a huge number of different alchemy tools ready to be used.
With enough effort, skilled alchemists could do everything without using these tools. However, that would take too long. Proper tools could save them a lot of time.
Basically, every alchemist had his or her own laboratory.
Angor wanted to build his own alchemy lab as well. Combined with all the alchemy tools, he could quickly gain experience.
When thinking about this, Angor could barely hold it back. He took his bone card and rushed to the underground market immediately.
Of course, Angor went to Dave again. After resting for a day, Dave looked a lot better. He was unsurprised when he heard Angor’s request to buy more alchemy tools. He simply took Angor into the shop storage.
The storage was full of various products. Most things were contained inside sealed boxes. A corner of the storage was occupied by some strange or really dangerous-looking plants.
“Master Prome studied Apothecary before. He said that real alchemists do not find metals, stones or vegetations different. The only thing that matters is how you convert them. But still, Master Prome is really good at Tooling. As for his potions…”
He muttered a “so-so” in the end. It seemed Dave did not really want to comment on Prome’s Apothecary skills.
He brought Angor to one of the outermost shelves where several long desks were placed together. It had various alchemy tools displayed on them, and most tools were covered in thick dust. They looked really aged.
“You already know how there are many people who want to study alchemy, but most of them gave up in the middle of it. There are very few alchemists in Brute Cavern, so these alchemy tools are really hard to sell. I’m positive this shop has the richest collection in the entire underground market,” said Dave. He shrugged and continued, “Well, I think you can see how this stuff doesn’t sell well. They’re left here for decades. Even the dust-removal spell arrays already lost their effect.
“If you want them, I can give you 50% off. Master will agree.”
Dave lowered his voice as he said, “If Master Prome knows that someone actually came to buy them, he might even give you better prices.”
“Of course I want them. But are you sure they work fine? They won’t rust or cause explosions or something?” asked Angor as he looked at all the dust-covered tools and felt a little worried.
“Won’t happen. They’re all made of special materials. They don’t catch rust like iron. I borrowed these when making my propeller flyer, so I can guarantee their reliability for ya,” said Dave as he thumped his chest.
Angor did not say anything. He walked to the desks and carefully picked up a bottle for keeping waste gas. Next, he cleaned the outside of the bottle with a handkerchief and saw the crystal-clear inner tank of the bottle. The mechanism on the bottle cap was also in perfect condition.
“Without the dust, they look pretty good,” Angor thought to himself.
He looked through several tools he might use. They were all fine. Almost no traces of damage were seen on them.
“You sure I can have 50% off?”
“Master Prome said that when clearing the storage two years ago. He said if someone wants them, 50% is the lowest we should offer.”
Half price compared to average market price… that sounded pretty good. Angor considered a little and decided not to check out the other shops. He quickly picked a dozen tools in various sizes, plus a giant blower box which looked like a fireplace.
Dave glanced at Angor’s selection and using the sharp mind of a wizard, he immediately worked out the final price.
“19,744 merit points in total. After discount… I’ll take 9,850 points.”
Angor checked the balance on his card. A little more than 9,200.
“That’s so expensive!”
Dave spoke in an as-a-matter-of-fact manner, “They won’t be waiting for a buyer down here for several decades if they’re cheap. These tools are only mid-tier ones considering their quality. Real superior tools will cost at least ten thousand magic crystals, each. Master Prome has a magic carving pen that cost him thousands of crystals. You already found a bargain here, so just consider yourself lucky.”