Isis ultimately failed to catch that Vespoid, letting it escape after it flew out of the cave, which left her deeply frustrated.
A strange thought even crossed her mind: If only I were a Gunner right now.
Seeing her return dejectedly, Altaïr was somewhat puzzled. "Isn't your Gunlance also a ranged weapon? Why didn't you shoot it down when it flew out of the cave?"
Isis froze for several seconds upon hearing this. "I... I forgot."
Altaïr didn't know what to say. Clearly, she still subconsciously viewed the Gunlance as nothing more than a large shield combined with a big cleaver.
The Professor also felt regretful. Anyone could notice that the number of Vespoids in Sun Worship Town, or rather, throughout the entire bedrock region, was abnormally high.
If Isis could bring one down as she had in previous days, allowing them to dissect it thoroughly, they might uncover some important clues.
Fortunately, such opportunities weren't hard to come by. They could just have Isis try again later.
Seeing the two young hunters looking so conflicted, the Elder sighed. "Even setting aside the loss of livestock and the danger of townspeople being attacked, can you feel the agony of having to listen to that noise buzzing in your ears every day?"
"I can feel it," Isis nodded, answering with utmost seriousness.
"Apologies for interrupting this moment of empathy," the Professor raised a hand. "Elder, you mentioned earlier that you've developed a 'unique smelting technology.' May I ask what kind of technology this is?"
The Elder looked over in surprise. "Could this be related to the Vespoid infestation?"
"Hard to say," the Professor pushed up his thick glasses, his wrinkled face etched with seriousness. "There are countless cases where the emergence of new technology has impacted the environment, leading to abnormal behavior in local creatures.
As far as I know, although desert regions are rich in metal ores, developing metallurgy there is quite difficult, correct?"
Hearing this, Altaïr recalled something as well.
Loc Lac, located in the same sand sea region as Sun Worship Town, was also rich in ores. However, Loc Lac's industrial development was quite limited. The mined metal ores could only be transported by merchant caravans to the El De Region (Volcano) for refinement or shipped directly south to Port Tanzia for export.
The main reason for this was that desert regions lacked the essential fuel for metal smelting; Coal.
It was normal for craftsmen at processing workshops to purchase some Coal as fuel specifically for forging certain items, like hunter weapons. The higher cost didn't matter much since fuel expenses wouldn't be the main factor.
However, from a town's perspective, large-scale purchases of Coal for industrial smelting were highly inefficient.
Even if metals were successfully refined, the costs would become prohibitively high, making them uncompetitive in price and ultimately unsellable. It made more sense to just sell the raw ores.
"Is it due to a lack of fuel?" Altaïr tentatively asked.
"Exactly," the Professor responded. "That's why the El De Region remains the continent's primary metal supplier."
"Mount Tilio is rich in mineral resources and coal, with Wyverian craftsmen excelling in smelting techniques. Its coastal location also facilitates transportation; it lacks for nothing."
"If there's no coal here, are they burning black oil?" Erik speculated from the side. "Although desert regions lack coal, black oil is quite common there, right? Can't that be burned too?"
The Professor glared irritably at his disciple. "Black oil isn't that easy to burn; too many impurities. Even refined light oil doesn't reach temperatures sufficient for metal smelting. These are basic knowledge for scholars. How come you don't know this? Did you skip classes again?"
The scolded Erik shrunk back. His interests lay in biology and ecology; his understanding of industrial knowledge couldn't even be called superficial.
So the question returned: how did Sun Worship Town become an industrial hub? Moreover, producing heat-resistant metal that even coal might not melt?
Not just Altaïr and Erik, but even the knowledgeable Professor couldn't figure it out. Isis had completely blanked out, playing with her fingernails nearby.
"Nothing to do with fuel." Seeing their endless speculation, the Elder spoke up. "This isn't really a secret; more like the sun's blessing."
"The sun's blessing?" The Professor pondered these words.
It sounded somewhat mystical at first, but judging by the Elder's previous words and actions, he didn't seem like the fanatical believer type.
"Explaining with words might be difficult. Let me show you personally."
Saying this, the Elder led the group away from the water-fetching cave, taking the Lift to the bedrock's top level.
Before even stepping out of the Lift, they were hit by a wave of scorching heat, with blindingly bright light making it hard to keep their eyes open.
"What is this!" Isis covered her eyes with the back of her hand.
The Professor quickly retrieved a pair of multi-functional goggles from his pack, putting them on and pulling down the filtering lenses.
"This... this is?!"
What was hard to see from below or afar; the entire bedrock summit was a massive bowl-shaped crater over a hundred meters in diameter, almost perfectly hemispherical.
It seemed unlikely that Sun Worship Town's manpower alone could have carved such a massive crater from scratch. More probable was that this semicircular giant crater formed naturally, then was repeatedly refined over generations by the town's people into its current form.
Countless polished metal plates were mounted on brackets along the inner wall of the semicircular crater; the blinding light came from sunlight reflected by these metal plates.
"A Solar Furnace?" Altaïr squinted as he surveyed the scene, unable to suppress his astonishment. "Such a huge Solar Furnace?!"
"You know about this?" Erik looked at him in surprise.
The Elder also cast a surprised glance his way.
"Yeah... back when our tribe couldn't find fuel, the elderly Wyverians would set up Solar Furnaces using curved copper mirrors to cook food. But the adults said it was dangerous and usually kept us children away."
"You're from the sand sea nomads?" The Elder examined Altaïr's light brown skin and grayish hair, understanding dawning in his eyes.
"No wonder then. Solar Furnaces aren't anything unusual for sand sea nomads. This giant Solar Furnace was actually established back then following suggestions from several nomads."
"I see," the Professor murmured to himself. "So that's why they said it has nothing to do with fuel. Using the Solar Furnace's heat to smelt metal naturally requires no fuel."
The Elder's face showed undisguised pride. "This is 'the Sun's blessing.' The top tooth among the eight teeth of the Sunwheel Emblem now symbolizes 'light'; the light from the sun that can even melt the most heat-resistant metal!"
At this point, the Elder glanced up at the sky.
It was still morning, the sun not yet at its zenith, but already generously pouring endless light and heat across the cloudless desert sky.
"Perfect timing," the Elder said while retrieving several pairs of goggles from a nearby rack and handing them to the group. "The furnace is about to be activated. If you don't mind, you're welcome to observe. But please be careful; even with these filtered goggles, try not to look directly at the crucible. It could damage your eyes."
As they put on the goggles, they saw numerous craftsmen wearing Heat-Resistant Metal Armor entering the massive pit.
One by one, they carefully adjusted the angles of metal plates, gradually concentrating the reflected sunlight onto the large crucible suspended in the center of the Solar Furnace by mechanical arms.
As the heat continued to focus, the originally black crucible began to emit an increasingly blinding, intense glow.