The Shepherd Alone on the Hill is a Genius Wizard-Chapter 72: The Soul of Fire Reborn (2)

Not something encountered often, but a feeling of having seen it a few times...

Turan fell deep in thought.

A name read in Orem’s library? One of Arabion’s vassal houses encountered while staying with House Berk? Or—

"Ah."

Turan carefully took out a notebook from his large capacity pouch to avoid others’ notice.

Obil, the burner encountered far north who had rampaged trying to obtain the pyromaniac bloodline...

His full name had definitely been Obil Kraft.

’He was from here?’

Come to think of it, he seemed to have mentioned being from a southern house.

Though why he went all the way north to massacre ordinary people was completely incomprehensible.

’God...’

The unusually clear eyes and devotion to strange superstitions someone had taught them.

Whereas before he had only considered there was something suspicious, now Turan was half-convinced that the being who had instilled such methods in Obil and Midan was truly one of the Prea god-folk.

Now that he knew some of them might exist in this land inhabiting others’ bodies.

Of course, he still couldn’t understand why they did this.

Perhaps the head here had some connection to those unidentified Prea god-folk?

At this thought that suddenly occurred to him, Turan looked toward the direction of the city’s central mansion far away before turning his gaze away again.

Even if he was quite powerful among humans, he wasn’t at the level to carelessly interfere with divine beings’ affairs.

Someday when he became far more powerful than now, matching the heads of major houses, he might investigate this.

Shortly after clicking his tongue at this newly learned fact, Turan looked around at a sudden thought.

Sulfur—one of the ingredients for the Soul of Fire written in Obil’s notebook.

He thought it might be found nearby.

’Wouldn’t they choose someone in a place where materials are easy to gather for any experiments?’

As expected, after asking around the market for a while, an answer soon came.

"You’re looking for sulfur?"

"Yes. I heard it’s a good antidote."

"I do have some but not much... I have about a handful, want to buy it?"

The merchant asked for a whole gold coin for barely a handful of sulfur, but Turan bought it without even haggling.

Given that they didn’t even measure the size or weight of the gold coin, it was certainly overpriced, but that didn’t matter.

"Do you know how I can get more of this?"

"Hmm? No, look here. That’s my trade secret..."

"It’s not like you’re getting it from some secret place others don’t know about. I could probably find out just by asking other people a bit, so since I already bought some, why not tell me?"

At Turan’s words, the merchant pursed his lips before nodding while looking at the gold coin in his hand.

"Go about four days along the east gate road and there are several hot springs—it should come from around there. There are lots of monkeys, including some magical beasts, so be careful. Though they’re not particularly fierce."

"Hot springs? What are those?"

"Places where hot water from the ground pools up. Don’t know much but folks around there believe soaking in it is good for health. The monkeys like it too, they say."

Monkey magical beasts reminded him of the ones he had exterminated with House Baltas’s nobles.

If even merchants knew of their existence but didn’t bother exterminating them, they probably weren’t particularly hostile to humans.

==

After buying one last scale used for measuring gold and silver coin standards, Turan immediately headed out through Slop’s east gate.

He walked at the level of ordinary people while others were around, then after confirming no one was present, gained distance by flying with Bize’s help.

He stopped after confirming there were no people within a three-kilometer radius.

"Finally getting to experiment with this."

[What? What are you doing?]

Bize, who had been writing on the ground, realized the wetland’s characteristic damp soil was getting between its claws and frantically tried to remove it while grimacing.

Turan laughed while removing the mud stuck to its claws, then chose a nearby tree and had it climb up.

"Just wait here a moment. It should be fine, but just in case."

[Going far?]

"No, not far. Just want to try an experiment."

Turan broke several suitable sized trees nearby and burned them.

The key to making charcoal was burning wood without air.

This condition could be met by creating an appropriate pit with earth manipulation and using ignition magic after putting wood inside.

Being his first attempt, there were several trials and errors, but after properly controlling the heat, Turan succeeded in obtaining several pieces of charcoal.

Then he took out a piece of saltpeter bought from Banipel City in the Enril Desert from his large capacity pouch.

’The ratio was 75, 15, and 10 respectively.’

After checking the notebook again to confirm exactly, Turan crushed about half of the sulfur lump by hand and placed it on the scale.

Then he applied psychokinetic magic to the other side to balance it.

"Good, this is 10..."

After confirming how much force was needed to match the weight of the sulfur, Turan took out a dining bowl and poured in the sulfur powder.

Next, he applied about one and a half times the force of 10 to one side of the scale and poured crushed charcoal powder until the other side balanced, then added this to the bowl.

Finally, he completed it by applying seven and a half times the force used for sulfur and measuring in saltpeter powder.

He had concentrated so much during this process that cold sweat dripped from his forehead.

"Whew..."

In the bowl containing the three types of powder, white, black, and yellow powders were tangled together without properly mixing.

Even after repeatedly pressing and mixing the powder with his finger multiple times, no change occurred.

Even when he tried taking a bit and lighting it, it just burned up.

’As expected, this has no effect as is.’

Turan was convinced that the tremendous explosion Obil had caused back then was due to this ’Soul of Fire.’

Certainly the explosion had started from black powder placed on both sides of the cave, and among other formulas there was nothing with a name that could produce such an effect.

It seemed the ’magical fusion’ written at the end was needed to make it.

’Well then.’

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Turan placed his hand over the powder and imagined.

These unmixing substances entangling from the smallest units he had learned from the Librarian, smaller than what was visible to the eye.

At that moment, light burst forth from within the bowl with a flash.

When he removed his hand again, the powder had changed to the same pitch black color he had seen in that cave.