「August 8th.」

Li Wei withdrew from the dream.

[Crystal Meditation Method (Tier Two)]: 312/10,000

[Fireball Skill (Tier One Great Success)]: 9,456/10,000

[Basic Level Alchemy (Tier One)]: 0/10,000

...

For the past few days, Li Wei had been practicing his Fireball Skill and Basic Level Alchemy, hoping to bring his Fireball Skill to the Perfection Level soon.

He was also preparing to refine Mithril.

By now, Li Wei felt he was just about ready.

The Elemental Furnace was already able to operate stably and successfully refine metal.

Over the last few days, Li Wei had been practicing with ordinary iron ore.

His attempts had been successful.

Today, Li Wei planned to begin refining the Secret Silver Ore.

To be safe, he applied for an Alchemy Laboratory at the Mage Tower.

He didn’t want to blow up his own room in an accident.

Magic Butler: "Please proceed to Alchemy Laboratory No. 6. The fee is 3 Contribution per day."

Li Wei paid the 3 Contribution and went to Alchemy Laboratory No. 6.

He checked the room for any Surveillance Demon Eyes.

He began using the Fire Refining Method to process the Secret Silver Ore.

He cast his Fireball Skill, creating an Elemental Furnace half a meter in diameter.

The temperature inside the Elemental Furnace could reach several thousand degrees.

Li Wei took out the smallest piece of Secret Silver Ore and placed it inside the Elemental Furnace.

SIZZLE!

The Secret Silver Ore instantly burst into a ball of flame.

A moment later, the flame died out.

The ore shattered and crumbled, bit by bit.

Li Wei used the high temperature to smelt the Secret Silver Ore, following the Fire Refining Method to remove the impurities generated by the combustion.

Three hours later, a layer of black powder covered the floor of the room.

This was all impurities produced during the refining process.

Some of it was soil, rock, and sand; the rest was other metallic minerals and miscellaneous materials.

After three hours of smelting, the fist-sized piece of Secret Silver Ore had been reduced to a marble-sized droplet of liquid silver metal.

This was the Mithril, initially extracted from the Secret Silver Ore.

Its purity was very low.

It required further processing to obtain usable 99.9% pure Mithril.

If it could reach a purity of 99.99%, the Mithril’s value would double.

Seeing that most of the common impurities had been removed, Li Wei moved on to the second step.

The second stage of the Fire Refining Method varied depending on the characteristics of the substance being refined.

Li Wei had consulted the alchemical texts recommended in his Basic Level Alchemy studies.

He understood the method and principles for refining Mithril.

The process involved taking advantage of Mithril’s extremely high affinity for Magic Element by infusing it with a large amount of Fire Element.

Mithril could withstand a massive infusion of Fire Element.

The massive amount of Fire Element would then destroy the deeper impurities.

Before refining the Mithril, Li Wei paused to rest and meditate to recover his Mana.

Three hours of continuous smelting had consumed most of his Mana.

And that was just for a fist-sized piece of Secret Silver Ore.

The three remaining pieces of Secret Silver Ore were all larger than this one, and smelting them would take even longer.

’A long way to go.’

Half an hour later, Li Wei’s Mana was fully restored.

He then began refining the Mithril.

As he infused Fire Element into the Mithril, it began to emit a peculiar silvery glow.

As he infused more Fire Element, the Mithril grew hotter and began to melt.

Black impurities gradually began to separate and rise to the surface.

Li Wei used his Spiritual Power to separate the impurities.

After repeating the refining process more than twenty times, the Secret Silver Metal finally revealed its natural grain.

Faint lines resembling Magic Patterns appeared on the Mithril.

This meant the Mithril had reached 99.9% purity.

Mithril was a peculiar metal.

It could be alloyed with most metals, and doing so would enhance their properties.

In its pure state, the unique arrangement of Mithril’s microscopic particles created faint Magic Patterns on its surface.

The higher the purity, the clearer the Magic Patterns became.

The appearance of these Magic Patterns signified that its purity had reached 99.9%.

It was now ready to be used for forging Magic Equipment.

Of course, to forge higher-level Magic Equipment, one would need Mithril of even greater purity.

Li Wei continued trying to purify the Mithril, hoping to obtain a purity of 99.99%.

Unfortunately, even after refining it more than twenty additional times, the Magic Patterns didn’t become any more distinct.

Fewer and fewer impurities could be extracted.

With his current methods, he was unable to purify the Mithril to 99.99%.

He would need a better purification method.

This was just the most basic method for purifying Secret Silver Ore taught in Basic Level Alchemy.

More advanced purification methods were in the hands of Alchemists, treated as proprietary secrets.

Li Wei wasn’t going to find them for free in the library.

After eight hours of work, Li Wei had obtained a piece of Secret Silver Metal only about the size of a fingernail.

Using the scale in the Alchemy Laboratory, he measured the piece of Secret Silver Metal. It weighed 45.56 grams.

This small piece of Mithril was worth 341.7 Gold Coins.

This was the allure of Mithril!

Most importantly, unlike other goods, he never had to worry about being unable to sell Mithril.

The market could always absorb any amount of Mithril; it was the ultimate hard currency.

No Mage would ever refuse Mithril; they would only lament not having enough money to buy it.

Li Wei smiled and let out a long breath.

"That wasn’t easy!"

He had wasted some time trying to refine the Mithril to 99.99% purity.

Otherwise, he could have finished the process in about six hours.

For the next few days, Li Wei stayed in the Alchemy Laboratory, purifying the Secret Silver Ore day and night.

He worked without sleep or rest for four days and four nights.

Finally, he finished refining all four pieces of Secret Silver Ore.

Once he was done, he lay down right there in the Alchemy Laboratory and fell asleep.

It was the first time since obtaining the Great Dream Traveling Skill that he hadn’t entered the dream.

He slept soundly.

He slept until the Magic Butler repeatedly reminded him that his time in the Alchemy Laboratory had expired.

After Li Wei woke up, he weighed all the Secret Silver Metal before leaving the Alchemy Laboratory.

The total weight was 442.76 grams.

It was worth over three thousand Gold Coins.

Li Wei left, completely satisfied.

"Hahaha!"

He was grinning from ear to ear as he walked.

He ran into Gu Ze, who, seeing Li Wei in such a good mood, asked curiously, "What happened? You look so happy."

Li Wei replied with a smile, "Something good."

"I made a fortune!"

Gu Ze looked puzzled. "But you’ve been inside the Mage Tower this whole time. Whose money did you make?"

"I made my own money," Li Wei said.

Gu Ze shook his head, not quite understanding what he meant.

Li Wei had calculated before that if the weight of the purified Mithril exceeded four hundred grams, spending the money to learn Basic Level Alchemy wouldn’t be a loss, but a gain.

Now, there was no doubt he had come out ahead.

A penny saved is a penny earned, after all.

If he had asked someone else to purify these Secret Silver Ores for him, he would have had to pay them ten percent of the Mithril as a fee.

That fee alone would have been worth over three hundred gold coins.

Li Wei had only spent three hundred gold coins to learn Basic Level Alchemy.

So he had actually made a profit of several dozen Gold Coins.

Naturally, Li Wei was thrilled.

Now that he had the refined Mithril, he began to think about crafting the Source Heart Necklace.

Crafting the Source Heart Necklace required three hundred grams of Mithril.

He had more than enough Mithril on hand.

’Now, the question is, who can I get to craft it for me?’