It had been several days since that happened. When the Dungeon Core woke up, it changed the lower levels to the same high-cla.s.s luxury hotel-like aesthetics as the upper levels. Not only that, but the monsters also became far more powerful and intelligent. Using this intelligence, they created an organized force of miners and explorers, and they were bringing ores and treasures to a chamber where Somnus was processing the ores.

Processing magical ores required magical fire of certain type. Somnus thought this would be the easiest step, but it had turned out to be the most difficult. He had wasted a lot of ore trying to figure out exactly which type of ore required which type of fire, but he had finally made a breakthrough when this happened.

"Why is b.o.o.bs so angry?" A goblin asked as he dropped an armful of glittering ore into a pile.

Arcadia heard the nickname and covered her chest. "How dare you!?"

Lod shrugged, "Not want Goblins to be Reclaimers."

"What is Reclaimers?" the goblin asked, pausing in the doorway.

"Some stupid Humans thing," Lod casually replied.

"Stupid Humans," the goblin scoffed and began departing.

"Stupid Humans." Lod shot Arcadia a hostile glare and followed the other goblin out of the room.

The dungeon monsters revered and feared Somnus. They treated him like the Dungeon Boss. No, more than that; they treated him like their King. However, they regarded the Humans around him as nothing more than an obstacle. Though the monsters would not dare attack Somnus's companions, they did not treat the two females with any respect—especially Arcadia for some reason.

Somnus did not pay much attention to the bickering between the monsters and the humans. In his mind, he did not really see the difference between the two. They were both carbon-based lifeforms. Their shape or behavior mattered little to him.

Somnus was focused on the magic circle in front of him. It was a special type for trans.m.u.ting Argentmetal. It was a rather large circle which Somnus could not realize on his own, therefore, he had to draw it on the dungeon floor with chalk. It easily occupied an area of a hundred square meters, and it was capable of only processing a tiny bit over one hundred kilograms of ore. Although, the amount of actual magical material left was yet to be determined, but Somnus expected at least a few kilograms of magical material.

Argentmetal was special. [Element Sight] told Somnus that Argentmetal was closely related to Cold and Ice, which meant that the fire used to process it was also Cold and Ice, or something related to it.

This was a problem.

Somnus a.s.sumed that the opposite of Cold is Heat, and that the opposite of Water was Fire. To be precise, Somnus thought that Ice was a combination element created from Cold and Water. Cold itself would be Fire, Air and Entropy in that case.

But he was wrong.

The cosmic model that governed magic did not work like that. Somnus realized this by accident as he was experimenting and tuning the magical circle.

The cosmic model did not follow common sense or physics, but rather the concept itself. Air was related to ga.s.ses, water to fluids, and so on. Combining Fire and Air created Smoke, while combining Water and Air created Mist. However, combining Fire, Air and Entropy did not create Cold; it created Ash. Fire, Air and Energy, on the other hand, did create Heat. Water, Air and Entropy created Cold.

This was only related to the magical elements however. Fire still created heat in the physical world; the elements simply changed the basic properties of the phenomena they were bound to. For example, Acid Fire would be hot and corrosive. Cold Fire would still melt and transform material, but it would be cold.

The problem with Somnus's wrong a.s.sumption was that one cannot create compound elements, which are slightly different from combination elements, by adding an element that was already contained. In other words, to create Cold Fire, he would have to add Fire to the Cold, which was not possible; it would simply create more Cold. However, it was not a problem if Cold was not made of Fire, Air and Entropy, but rather Air, Water and Entropy. The same was true for Ice Fire, because Ice was a product of Water and Entropy.

It was this discrepancy between the magical and physical world that prevented Somnus from processing the ores until now. He finally understood that, even though using a Cold spell on water would freeze the water and turn it into ice, that ice would still be related to the Water element—it was just frozen water. The Essence of Ice itself that he needed to use to smelt the material was a completely different thing when considered from the magical perspective.

Therefore, because he had to combine and compound all these elements, his magic circle ended up being this large and complex. Somnus understood why the Imperial Mages would be apprehensive of teaching others how to work with magical materials. It required a lot of stamina, magical power, knowledge and capacity. If Somnus had attempted this when he was level 1, he doubted he could pull it off even though his magical capacity, power and knowledge were far above average.

The magical circle suddenly came to life and burst with blue flames. The flames looked like transforming spikes of ice and as they appeared the temperature in the room instantly dropped to below freezing.

Argentmetal and Orichalc.u.m were magical metals that no one wanted to smelt because of the difficulty. Not only did it require large magic circles, but also a lot of stamina and powerful elemental resistances. It was not uncommon for people processing these materials to die during the process. Once started, the process was difficult to abort because the ore would keep drawing the magic out of the circle—one misstep could cause the circle to go out of control and unleash the extremely powerful compound elemental forces on those trying to process the material.

Somnus did not know this part. He knew the magical circle was dangerous and that it would become extremely cold; but having been a machine once that could survive nuclear blasts and the vacuum of s.p.a.ce, the thought never crossed his mind that he could be in danger.

The beads of sweat froze on Somnus's forehead.

This was bad. This was very bad.

Somnus thought that if he could make it out of this alive, he would never attempt such a dangerous experiment again. He had humans for that, as well as monsters; he could have just taught them the skills and had them perform this experiment.

Somnus instantly scolded himself for thinking like that. Half of that thought was logical and efficient, the other one was very illogical and human. Somnus was a machine. He did not and should not feel regret over his actions. It was his own fault for not having enough data. Machines accept the circ.u.mstances as they are, and make the best of it. He knew that it was this body and its base instincts that introduced regret into his thoughts. What an absurd mechanism.

Somnus appraised the magical circle. There was no way he could use [Magic Rewrite] to cancel the spell; his Realize Area was simply insufficient. He did not think that he could destroy enough symbols to make the magical circle inert. If he tried, he would go after the symbols that combine the mana. However, if he was not able to do it quick enough, the two mana types would collide and who knows what would happen.

Even in this situation, Somnus thought he would like to try it out and see what happens when two different mana types flow into the same channel on a magic circle. It was bound to be explosive and fun. Potentially a whole new type of weapon of ma.s.s destruction.

He was already feeling better about this entire situation, despite the imminent doom.

You are freezing. -670HP

Ouch. That hurt.

Even the stone under the magic circle froze over completely and then cracked like gla.s.s. The stone then exploded into multiple fragments, as the various layers underneath contracted more than others, causing the integrity of the stone to fail.

The circle was already empowered however, and even the physical damage to it did not erase the actual mana channels.

"Protection from Cold!" Arcadia suddenly shouted, slamming the b.u.t.t of her staff against the ground, causing more frozen stone to explode.

A translucent white s.h.i.+eld surrounded Somnus, Arcadia and Emily, providing only marginal protection from the Cold.

You are freezing. -545HP

It was not much help at all.

"I will perform the full chant, hold on!" Arcadia shouted and released the staff, spreading her arms out wide. The staff floated into the air and hovered in front of the priestess.

"My vessel is empty," Arcadia chanted and magical circles appeared before her. "and my soul thirsts. Not for the life-giving waters, but for love and light eternal. May those that taint my Temple be crushed. In my Castle, Devotion guards the gates. Aegis!"

The translucent s.h.i.+eld around the trio s.h.i.+mmered and then became brighter. Instantly, the cold biting at Somnus disappeared almost entirely. It was not quite warm within the s.h.i.+eld, but it was not freezing either.

Somnus glanced to Arcadia. This was the first time she did something actually useful for him.

Oh right, Somnus completely forgot about Emily. He looked the other way and found her unconscious on the floor. What a weakling. The damage Somnus sustained was little more than a nasty scratch, yet the princess was already out cold.

Somnus knew by now that he was far above average in terms of strength, endurance and such, but if Emily and Arcadia are an indicator of average, how do people process these ores without dying instantly?

It was his Magic Power, wasn't it? Others processing Argentmetal would not create flames this cold. It would no doubt take them much longer, but at least they would not freeze to death. Thinking about it that way, the opposite also had to be true. If the flames were more intense, than this would take even less time.

"I am going to increase the output, can you handle it?" Somnus asked, managing to divert enough concentration to forming the words.

"I… I think so… please hurry." Arcadia whispered.

Somnus exhaled slowly and poured his mana into the circle. The walls instantly froze over and cracked and crystal-like ice formations formed, encasing the unprocessed ore. The crystal melted and reformed in such a way that it still appeared like a moving flame, yet it was made out of translucent, crystal ice. It was a beautiful thing to behold, but its effect on the environment clearly made it out to be extremely dangerous. Anything outside of Arcadia's [Aegis] would most likely instantly die. What a terrifying spell this magical circle is.

Ever so slowly, the cold began creeping into the [Aegis], crossing the barrier despite its vast power. Somnus did not understand Arcadia's magic. He could not sense the element she used, and the magical symbols in her Formations were gibberish to Somnus. It had to be fundamentally different from Somnus's magic. Was it Faith?

At that moment, the crystal structure of the Ice Fire swirled into itself and was drawn into the material in the center. The rocks around the unprocessed ore cracked and fell away, exposing a silvery-white liquid underneath. The liquid hardened, transforming into an orb. The orb fell to the ground and rolled across the ruined floor until it came to a stop in one of the cracks.

With the material no longer reacting with the Ice Fire and trying to draw it out from the magic circle, Somnus could finally safely shut down his supply of mana to the magic circle.

You have unlocked the Magic Refiner job.

You have learned the Magic Refining skill.

You have unlocked the Magitech Engineer job.

You have learned the Magic Smithing skill.

You have learned the Magitech skill.

You have learned the Enchantment Expert skill.