I've been transported to the orc continent.

Chapter 347 Alchemy

After preparing the meal, he realized his partner wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home to take care of her for the past few days.

Besides Bai Ling, Zhao is the best cook among the tribespeople who came; he has been cooking for them for the past few days.

During dinner, Xiao said, "Ling, we ground all the gold ore into powder as you said. What's next?"

The Sky Beastmen brought Bai Ling a lot of gold ore. The gold content of these ores was very high, and the surface was covered with "gold fragments". They were so shiny that they were practically "glittering" when held in the hand. By Earth's standards, this was definitely a very, very rich mine.

Bai Ling didn't have much free time, so Yue had to take over the task of crushing the gold ore. Xiao and Chen, who had nothing else to do, also came to help.

Bai Ling: "I'll come back early tomorrow at noon. The mineral powder needs to be ground into a slurry, and the slurry needs to be swept several times on a wooden board before it can be refined."

Zhao's partner asked, "Ling, is this, like iron, also a metal that can be used to make tools?"

Ever since Bai Ling discovered iron, the orcs of the Gaoshu tribe had gained some understanding of metal. After arriving at the Central Tribe and seeing bronze, their understanding of metal became even clearer: metal is something that is refined from stone and can be made into various tools.

Now that Bai Ling is going to extract something from the ore, it must be another kind of metal.

Before Bai Ling could speak, Chen interjected, "Uncle Ding, this metal can't be used to make tools, but it's very beautiful and can be made into shiny jewelry."

“My brother said that gold is golden yellow, and when it is made into jewelry, it shines like the sun and is especially beautiful.”

Ding glanced at his partner and was also somewhat tempted. If this metal called "gold" was really that beautiful, he would like to get one for his partner too.

*

Today we need to grind the ore and wash the powder. Bai Ling came back a little earlier. As soon as he got back, Xiao dragged Chen to load the gold ore powder.

There was a stone mill in their courtyard. Bai Ling and her clansmen usually used this stone mill to grind grain. Today, they were going to use it to grind mineral powder.

Bai Ling said, "This stone mill has been used to grind mineral powder, so I'm afraid it won't be able to grind grain in the future."

Ding immediately said, "That's easy. We can just grind the grain in the tribe from now on."

The tribespeople here all expressed their willingness to use this stone mill to grind the ore powder. Xiao Hechen filled a wooden bucket with gold ore powder, and Bai Ling began to lead the tribespeople in grinding the powder.

This step is very simple, almost like grinding soybeans. The orcs here are used to manual labor; they often grind grain with stone mills. Grinding mineral powder is not much different from grinding grain, and it's even exactly the same as grinding soybeans. Bai Ling only demonstrated it a few times before his people took over the job.

The ground stone paste was placed in a ceramic basin. Bai Ling took out a wooden tool that looked like a large drawer, with narrow wooden planks on the top and sides, but nothing underneath.

"This is called a flow plate, and I made it specially." Bai Ling had Chen bring over a pile of stones, placed them according to his instructions, and then he tilted the flow plate and placed it on the stones.

Yue brought over a basin of water, and Bai Ling scooped a bowl of water and poured it onto the top of the flowboard. The water slowly flowed onto the flowboard through the gap above.

Bai Ling scooped a spoonful of stone slurry with a wooden ladle and placed it on the flow board. Then, using a broom made from sorghum seedlings, he spread the stone slurry evenly on the flow board. As the water flowed, the stone slurry slowly flowed down. During this time, Bai Ling kept sweeping the stone slurry back and forth with the broom to ensure that it was evenly spread on the flow board.

The slurry slowly slid down the flow plate. Bai Ling used a broom to brush the flow plate back and forth. After the slurry had finished flowing, there were some specks of golden mud on the flow plate.

Bai Ling carefully collected the golden sand into a ceramic bowl, then handed the bowl to Yue, who was standing beside her: "Yue, this is the golden sand."

Yue reached out and picked up a speck of gold dust, looked at it for a moment, and said, "Ling, its color is so unique and beautiful."

Yue had never seen gold before, but when he saw the scattered gold dust, he fell in love with it at first sight.

After looking at it for a few moments, Yue handed the ceramic bowl to Xiao, who liked it very much. He held a pinch of gold dust in his hand for a long time before asking, "Ling, how do you make this into jewelry?"

Bai Ling replied, "This can be made into all kinds of jewelry. It can be made into jewelry on its own, or pearls and gemstones can be set into it. It can even be woven into various shapes like silk threads."

*

In the following days, Yue and her people were busy processing the gold ore. With many hands making light work, they finished processing all the gold ore in no time.

Now there's only one last step left, and Bai Ling has to do it.

Bai Ling built a furnace in the storage room. To make the fire burn more vigorously, Bai Ling also made a large bellows. Once the furnace was dry, Bai Ling began to refine gold.

Following Bai Ling's instructions, the tribesmen added charcoal to the furnace, lit it, and pumped the bellows. After the charcoal piled up in the furnace was completely burned, Bai Ling placed a small crucible inside.

The crucibles were fired from kaolin clay. In the autumn, Bai Ling spent several days at the pottery kiln to fire a few crucibles like these.

When Bai Ling took out the small pot, Yue wasn't surprised. Chen, however, asked, "Brother, what's the use of this small pot?"

Bai Ling: "This is for refining gold. These gold dusts contain a lot of impurities, which need to be burned off before the gold can be extracted."

Chen didn't ask any more questions. He started the bellows, and Bai Ling used tongs to hold the small crucible. Yue stood beside Bai Ling, adding charcoal into it every now and then.

These are the best charcoal from the central tribe; they all come from the heartwood of a tree that burns at a higher temperature, barely enough to be used to refine gold.

The crucible slowly turned red as it was heated, and the golden particles inside slowly melted. Bai Ling used tongs to remove the impurities and continued to pour gold sand into it.

Bai Ling repeated this process until the golden droplet at the bottom of the pot became visible to the naked eye. Then, Bai Ling stopped pouring gold dust into it. He used tongs to hold the iron pot and shook it back and forth, and the golden droplet slowly swayed at the bottom of the pot.

After waiting a while, Bai Ling used tongs to hold the crucible and walked to a ceramic basin filled with water. Bai Ling used the crucible to pour out the golden water droplets.

The golden droplet fell into the water, making a "sizzling" sound. It quickly sank to the bottom and lay there motionless.