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But even though he claimed he could make the lathe cutters with just two meteorite silver ingots, it didn't mean he could do it instantly without knowing how to forge them.
Just because he had the adaptability of a Sequence 8 body and the Elder Blood [Knowledge] ability, which allowed him to learn quickly, it didn't mean he instantly became omniscient or knew how to forge meteorite silver ingots.
On Earth, from which he had derived the majority of his blacksmith knowledge, this metal—or more accurately, meteorite iron-nickel—was known as a material that was easy to crack and very brittle at high temperatures, with strength only slightly greater than iron or bronze.
Because of that, many blacksmiths on Earth had to melt it first in a crucible and remove floating impurities like phosphorus from the surface of the molten metal, just so they could forge it without the meteorite becoming brittle during work.
But in this Witcher world, meteorite ingots behaved very differently. Their strength was only slightly lower than that of glowing ore ingots and infused dimeritium ingots, and instead of making them brittle, the impurities caused the metal to behave magically, making it even more durable and strong.
This meant he didn't know how to forge them in the first place, unlike iron, whose basic principles remained the same. So, just as he had done when categorizing timelines, he applied the same method to learning these forging techniques, organizing each timeline into hue-saturation and other graphs.
Each version of himself across infinite timelines—spanning 0-point googolseconds into the past and future—reported the hues and various parameters of his vision across infinity, allowing him to pick the one that differed from the rest.
It granted him what was essentially a wish-wash form of "omniscience"—the kind so often spoken of in sagas and across universes, a word easily thrown about like describing the weather on a hot, sunny day—achieved through nothing more than the Elder Blood [Recall] ability.
This allowed him to survey the endless timelines, incorporating infinity into his tiny brain like a mathematician on Earth—one who had toyed with infinity for centuries using nothing but numbers.
Only, he was the lucky one to possess the Elder Blood ability, which made it easier for him to observe evidence directly and adjust his equations on the fly—unlike mathematicians back on Earth, who often went blind to direct observation, unable to see with their own eyes, yet still deduced the results using the limited processing power of their minds.
Having finished setting up the graphs—mostly following the Information Theory equations of mutual information, matrixed by parameters like hue, saturation, time, temperature, and every other factor he could think of—Gustave, along with his own versions from the past and future, nodded, then asked Zoltan to demonstrate how to forge the meteorite metals first.
"Dwarf, show me first how to work with these metals. Don't worry— even with just one meteorite silver ingot, I can manage. What we need are the cutter parts, not the entire shaft."
Staring at the lad in disbelief, Zoltan remarked, "Are ye serious, Prince? Truly, truly serious? I'd reckoned, with the way ye strut about, ye'd oughta ken how to beat these stubborn bastards into shape. But… but—"
"Just show me how to work with it, Zoltan. Just trust me."
Looking the lad in the eyes—knowing these were the last two meteorite silver ingots he had—Zoltan rubbed his neck and let out a breath of defeat.
"Duvvelsheyss… What madness crept into me bones, that I'd put faith in a six-year-old pup. Aye, his great wisdom, eh? Wisdom my arse—me beard'll reach me waist afore I believe some mug can learn just by lookin'."
Chuckling at Zoltan's distrust and grumbling, yet seeing that he had still agreed to demonstrate, Gustave focused intently on how the dwarf worked the metal.
After a few minutes of watching the dwarf in action—like a portable power-hammer machine given flesh, evident in the sheer force a dwarf could put out—Gustave finally grasped something fundamental about how this world could forge Sihil.
Not only that, he now understood how Sihil swords—made from mere graphite and borax, constructed through precise forging patterns, and reinforced with runic magic—could possess the durability of tungsten and the sharpness of an adamantium claw, or, more accurately, function as an extremely durable, indestructible razor forged into the shape of a sword.
With this realization, he also understood why dimeritium—a metal with the softness of copper, something even a Thanedd Turncoat, a sorcerer weakened by the metal, could break with ease—had nevertheless become, in the hands of the right blacksmith, the most durable and sought-after material for Witcher Grandmaster and Mastercrafted armor and swords.
With the technique Zoltan demonstrated, this was no longer mere blacksmithing; it had fully crossed into the realm of magic. Through precise patterns of heating and cooling, the magic of the world transformed the metal into something entirely different, following specific pathways within Time-Temperature-Transformation (TTT) diagrams.
First, the meteorite ingot was placed into a furnace fire powdered with Superior Dragon's Dream and Superior Dancing Star—without the explosive catalyst ingredients—bringing it to a temperature corresponding to stable austenite in the TTT diagrams.
After stabilizing at that temperature, the meteorite was cooled from the top without dipping it into the water solution of Northern Winds—again without explosive catalysts—slowly transitioning into metastable austenite. Once the temperature was fixed at the second position, it was moved onto an empty anvil to cool smoothly into austenite-plus-ferrite isothermal transformations.
Then, out of nowhere, like a devil possessed, Zoltan instantly plunged the meteorite back into the Northern Winds solution and returned it to the furnace—this time blasting it with the full force of the fire.
Now, not only was the furnace interior powdered, but the entire solution of Superior Dragon's Dream and Superior Dancing Star was involved as well. The furnace became superheated, forcing him to step back from the heat and blinding light.
Then, once again and without warning, he saw Zoltan instantly pull the meteorite from the furnace and plunge it into a different Northern Winds solution—this one mixed with Superior Moon Dust—almost freezing the metal in an instant before thrusting it back into the blinding, superheated furnace.
In the final stage, the hearth itself was sprinkled with Northern Winds ingredients to cool the furnace down to the level of a normal forge, allowing the meteorite's temperature to rise slowly—step by step, rather than all at once.
At last, the dwarf pulled it out to cool, then repeated the process over and over, cycling through it seven times in total, with a slight adjustment at every transformation—changing the temperature slightly by one-seventh of a circle's degrees.
And just like that, at the end of the seventh cycle, he finally saw Zoltan bend the metal into the shape they wanted. Since he didn't want to waste the material on a mere demonstration, he told Zoltan to make a round-nose lathe cutter—a universal, general-purpose cutter that could be used on all kinds of components, although it did not yet have the required precision.
Although he still didn't know exactly where precisely the temperature transformations in the TTT diagrams occurred after Zoltan moved like a devil possessed, thankfully, in one of the parallel timelines, he managed to gather the necessary data.
That is, after the austenite-plus-ferrite transformations came lower bainite, coarse pearlite, martensite plus retained austenite, back to metastable austenite, and finally stable austenite.
In other words, if charted as a line drawing, it would exactly resemble the Capricornus constellation—repeated seven times in a circle, forming a geometric pattern based on that constellation.
But because this world didn't have the Capricornus constellation, Gustave recognized it as the Seven Goats constellation in the sky. This was the same framework he had used just hours ago when creating the chanting of his divine kingdom, which allowed someone to enter his domains.
Although it might seem that the ingredients—Superior Dragon's Dream, Superior Dancing Star, Northern Winds, and Moon Dust—were what made this meteorite metal behave differently and gave it magical properties unlike meteorite on Earth, Gustave knew that was not the case.
These alchemical ingredients were essentially used only to control the temperature and nothing more, since Zoltan himself brushed off any burned residues of these ingredients from the metal while forging.
The magic of metallurgy in this world still followed the same principles as back on Earth—that is, the science of heat treatment and forging. But because, in the TTT diagram, the temperature line drawings followed the constellations in the sky, metallurgy here became not only a science but also a form of ritualistic magic, a combination of both.
This caused the meteorite metal—which would normally be brittle at high temperatures due to impurities—to become as dense as 20% tungsten yet retain the malleability of iron, very different from the meteorite he had known.
"Aight, she's done. Just a wee bit o' filing, and thereafter this stubborn beauty'll be ready fer the lathe cutters."
Knowing that filing meteorite silver required a more durable tool, Zoltan finally turned to the big gun he rarely used—a tool passed down through generations of the Chivay family, except for Sihil, because these tools were also made from graphite and borax, using the same metallurgy method known only to the elders.
"Now, where'd I stash the graphite file… ah, here she is!"
Watching Zoltan work to file the round-nose lathe cutter, whistling a tune that even roused his pet cockatiel in front of the workshop to join in, Gustave finally saw the last known blacksmithing method of this world.
"Aye, she's ready—just needs a wee bit o' finishing touch."
After performing a normal quench in oil, tempering the small bumps left on the pieces, and finally carburizing them over low heat, Zoltan brushed off the excess charcoal and dipped the cutter into water.
Once wiped clean, he picked up a stamp bearing a rune he had made himself, copied from the runes of Sihil. Raising his hammer, he brought it down to imprint the rune into the lathe cutter, murmuring something in the dwarvish tongue.
"Hraval vist bloëmen."
Ting.
Seeing the power gather on the stamped part of the shaft, Gustave deduced with his [Knowledge] ability that the meteorite lathe cutter had become sharper and more durable seemingly out of nowhere.
Expanding all of his spirituality in an effort to understand why, he nearly passed out from the process. But in that moment, he realized that, just as sorceresses draw upon Chaos to fill their Power, the runes and glyphs of this world draw upon the Order to function as they do.
"Lad? What happened to you?"
With a headache from deducing that information, Gustave wanted to excuse himself and find some blood to stabilize his spirit. But thankfully, it seemed he didn't need to. Hearing many footsteps outside, he recognized one of the regal footfalls from the moment he was born.
Seeing that his mother could no longer wait for him in Lyria and Rivia, having traveled here via a teleportation hub, Gustave heard the door swing open forcefully.
Bang!
"Well, well, what have we here… After waking up, instead of running to his own mother—who has cared for him these past three years, built the most comfortable home with his own hands, and endured all kinds of assassination attempts—he is here. Smithing with a dwarf. Not caring a bit for his own well-being."
"Y-yer Majesty, M-me sorry. I-I—"
Chuckling at Zoltan, who instantly buckled under her gaze, Gustave steadied himself against the headache and walked up to his mother, who approached him as well.
He and his mother embraced, and when they pulled back, he asked, "Mother, how's Lyria and Rivia? Are the canals and diversion channels I mentioned working?"
"Not much. It's only thanks to Alvin and his mages that the flood was able to be shaped into a proper river."
Nodding to himself, he then asked in rapid succession, wanting to recap the state of Lyria and Rivia—a situation that had his mother on edge after dealing with so many problems simply because he had existed and slept for three years.
"So, do the fanatics still try to kill you because of the book that was released a year ago? Are the rebels led by Caldwell's son still attempting to create his own kingdom in Glevitzingen and Spalla? Are all kinds of ogroids and giant monsters still coming down from the Blue Mountains to wreak havoc on our lands?"
"Has Demavend III agreed not to allow the Eternal Fire cultists to move their headquarters into Aedirn? Are the Chapters still manipulating the prices of goods to influence our court? Are some of the fake scholars in Kaedwen still denying and smearing our research to prevent it from being recognized by the public?"
"Is Villem still in Temeria, brewing his little schemes to secure his standing as crown prince? Is it true that some villagers in Lyria and Rivia have turned to witches for ailments, just like elsewhere in the world? Are the people of Toussaint still demanding answers about the missing fallen princess Syanna?"
"Are bandits still running rampant now that many vulnerable scholars are entering our realms? Are foreign spies and mages still trying to infiltrate our family and court to manipulate me—still seeing me as a naive little child—in order to bolster their own power and territories? Are our coffers and food running so thin that even the tourism economy I mentioned is unable to keep up with the country's expenditures?"
"Do Demavend, Foltest, and Vizimir still insist that I visit them, wanting to fix their own countries' problems with nobles, using the pretext of me as their niece? Are nobles all over the world blaming us, bolstering Caldwell's son to become a legitimate ruler of our realms, while raising mercenaries and bandits to wreak havoc on the Twin Realms?"
"Have Nilfgaardian spies now decided to find a way into our realm because Cintra is so heavily guarded? Have witches like Mammuna and the Lesser Witches from the Wildlands also decided to come to our realm, outside of Aedirn, Kaedwen, and Dol Blathanna?"
"Is the Wild Hunt still appearing in the skies over the Northern Continent, particularly in our realm and Cintra, searching for something? Are Francesca and Ida sending their Aen Seidhe spies to the Northern Continent, also trying to find the same thing as the Wild Hunt?"
Picking up a blacksmith's hammer to create the lathe cutters, Gustave finally asked the last question: "Has Avalach finally agreed to act as our spy in Tir ná Lia, driven by the fear and trepidation caused by his inability to feel anything when reading records about our ancient grandmother and the Elder Blood in general from his world?"
Seeing his mother glance in the direction of the dwarf, Gustave reassured her, "Don't worry, Mother. He will become my right-hand man. He is trustworthy."
"Duvvelsheyss?! W-what, me?! By Rhundurin's beard—me noggin's spinnin' like a bloody spinwheel! Think I'm sproutin' a new prick if this comes to pass. Shite deep it is… aye, shite deep—"
Amused by the dwarf, suddenly elevated from the simple status of a blacksmith, Gustave let him curse in confusion and panic, not knowing how to act, while continuing his work on the lathe cutter. But because his mother missed him dearly, he had no choice but to entertain her before they returned to matters of state.
"Ho… Is this what I get just after you wake up? My son, instead of warmly asking how his mother has been, whether she is well after her husband died, instead speaks only of state matters?"
"It is because I know you are strong, Mother, that I knew it would be pointless to ask such questions. You will always be able to weather whatever problems come your way. As for Father, he only visited me occasionally, so he felt like a stranger. I am sorry, Mother—it is not that I want to break your heart. It's just that I have no deep impression of him."
At first, seeing the deep trust from her youngest son filled Meve with pride and joy. But she soon felt heartbroken, realizing that before dying, Reginald had no time to grow close to Gustave, even until his last moment on his sickbed.
Shaking her head, having already mourned her late husband for two years, she politely asked for the help of her son's betrothed to stabilize his spirit, or for any of the mumbo-jumbo that Alvin had tried to teach her.
"Cerys, my dear. Can you help my son stabilize his spirit?"
But before returning to state matters, she continued to gently pester her youngest son for a while. Thankfully, the Twin Realms had at least stabilized somewhat, which was why she was in no hurry to answer the state questions.
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