Chapter 171 - Steel

The young man grew red from anger when he saw nick laughing at him. "how dare you laugh at me!" he yelled before trying to punch nick. nick of course noticed this but in his eyes the young man might as well be barely moving. nick simply snorted before releasing a small portion of his killing intent at the young man. the young man immediately passed out mid swing while nick calmly sidestepped the young man who was carried right into the ground from his momentum. "wonder what i should do with him now?" nick pondered out loud before tossing the unconscious young man onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before he walked to the main street and found a guard. "excuse me sir guard but could i ask you to take care of this person." nick said calmly. the guard in question eyed nick and the young man on his shoulder seriously. "did that young man do something wrong?" the guard asked calmly. nick shook his head "no he just got angry before passing out , i think he may have a weak heart." nick said feigning concern.

The guard sighed "i understand if you set the young man here against the wall I'll see to it he gets home safely." the guard said calmly. nick carefully set the young man against the wall before thanking the guard and leaving. this time when nick got to his residence there was no one there so he opened the stone door and entered before closing it again. after walking down the stairs nick entered his crafting room and pulled out some iron ore which he smelted down before purifying it and poring the result into and ingot mold. the iron quickly cooled and hardened before nick removed the ingot and before it cooled he stuffed it in a coal coke forge to enrich it into steel. indeed the knowledge nick decided to give lucian was how to create rough steel since it hadn't been discovered yet on this world. in fact the closest thing nick found was a material called high iron that was extracted from crashed meteors. the blacksmiths of this world knew that high iron was superior to regular iron but couldn't understand why , truthfully the same was true on earth were nick originally came from until a smith noticed an odd phenomenon when working with coal coke.

nick chuckled at how he was going to give lucian information that more likely than not would be discovered anyway. the benefits to steel compared to iron were that steel was slightly stronger but was far less brittle making products made of steel more durable than those made of iron which would certainly allow the hartfell family to exceed the other ducal families but not by so much that it breaks the balance of the kingdom. upon creating the ingot of rough steel nick heated it to close to melting before flattening it into a plate of rough steel before putting it back into the coal coke bed to add more carbon to it more evenly. after officially creating carbon steel nick melted it back into an ingot which he polished to look nice before wrapping it in a rough cotton cloth.