The Golden Experience Point [Part 1]

Chapter 65: "The Philosopher's Stone"

The branch she had gotten from the World Tree was the size of one of those roadside trees in town. To the gigantic treant, a branch of this size was probably akin to a nail clipping, but this much wood would be enough to supply all kinds of projects Rare wanted to do. She could process some into charcoal and ash for use in experiments. Any extra could then be turned into staves to see if they could make weapons that assisted in casting magic.

"Can staves be created via woodcrafting? Oh, that's right, it's used to make bows too. I wonder if there are any deer-type monsters or anything in Liebe whose tendons can be used for bowstrings... And what about glue?"

"I can make glue when gettin' the tendons. The recipe uses the waste materials I get from tanning leather."

"Ah, Remy, long time no see. Now that I've brought World Tree into the fold, can you try crafting whatever you can that we have materials for?"

"Yeah. I came over because I already heard."

After returning to the queen's chamber, Rare had started mumbling to herself again, so Remy had overheard and proactively came over to help. Remy was currently running a kind of odds-'n'-ends shop in Erfahren, but since Rare was planning to make the Philosopher's Stone today, she had been called back to assist.

"I don't think we have a lot of woodcrafted weapons here. Even without World Tree, I believe we still have a lot of suitable wood for woodcrafting, so I wonder why we haven't been making anything."

"We haven't really needed any, I guess? Weapons that need to be made of wood are the ones you mentioned, staves and bows, and also long weapons like spears. None of those are useful for ants."

"Ah, now that you mention it, you're absolutely right..."

An ant's main weapons were its mandibles and poison stinger. They had no need for anything extra. The adamantite soldiers were ostensibly equipped with low-rank weapons, but in close combat they could just smack things with their own bodies for good damage. Wooden weapons just didn't have a place here.

"Well, since we're going to have more and more skeletal troops, it might be good to include bows in our weapon stores. We can make ones for you and Riley to use from World Tree too. The adamanmages can just use staves made from regular wood or treant remains."

If World Tree could handle it, then it should be possible to get any number of branches the same size as this one, but Rare wanted to avoid information on these weapons leaking. She wouldn't know anything for sure until she actually put them into production and tested the performance, but if weapons that were too powerful became known to the general public, then they'd only be tightening a noose around their own necks.

"All right, so first off is charcoal. Making it properly requires about a week, I believe? Go ahead and get started on that first, then."

"Yes, I'll take care of it."

She let Remy handle processing the World Tree wood for charcoal production. The one doing the cutting would be the Kenzaki leaning on the wall. Recently, he had been predicting Rare's needs and acting on his own like this; maybe it was a result of spending almost all their time together.

"Let's try making ashes from a bit of the leftovers."

That said, it was extremely important to be prudent in their current location. The offensive [Fire Magic] that Rare and Remy had learned was too powerful; no matter how well they controlled it, it would still be destructive enough to burn the queen's chamber to the ground. Even with a single-target spell like [Flare Arrow], a direct hit had enough heat to completely sublimate wood.

"Oh, I just had a great idea. [Philosopher's Egg]."

Rare used her skill to create a crystal egg. With it in hand, she approached a piece of wood, causing it to get swallowed into the egg.