Chapter 72: Discussion
"Uncle Edmund, I’ll leave these things for you." James said.
Edmund replied with a bitter smile. "Don’t worry about it. Making such things are much easier compared to these blueprints."
"Alright then, I hope to hear the good news very soon from you." James smiled and left the room.
...
James cut him off with a chuckle. "Naturally, I wouldn’t say such a thing unless I could make it happen. Or..." He paused for a second and smiled viciously as he continued, "Do you take me for someone who spouts nonsense?"
Aldric instantly responded with a smile. "Of course not. But won’t you also find it unbelievable when someone comes to your doorstep and says they would help you to reach the Legendary Rank just as a bonus for the cooperation?"
James naturally understood what they meant. In their perspective, even though the Steelheart now has someone strong at the Legendary Rank, it was only the family head who had reached it in recent times.
With their situation, does it make sense to promise to increase the others’ strength instead of their own? Obviously not.
That’s why James wanted them to know roughly their situations for some reason, mainly for them to work honestly
and not even have the slightest thoughts of doing something funny.
James nodded. "I know where you’re coming from. That’s why, to prove to you that we, the Steelhearts, have the capability of doing so..." James tilted his head and looked at Nyxrael. "He will become one in three months. What do you think?"
Caelum knitted his eyebrows and looked at Aldric for a moment, then turned back at James. "If you say so, but since you have already said that the reward is something that big just for the bonus, surely the job isn’t that simple, right?"
James responded with a chuckle. "It’s actually a simple one, like I told you. I want you to look for materials, It’s just that you need to do that secretly because..." Pausing for a moment, he added with a chilly tone. "If the news is leaked, you’ll have to bear the consequences for it."
"Well, if the risk is really just preventing the news from being leaked, I can assure you that it won’t be a problem with it." Aldric said with confidence.
"That’s good." James nodded and started to explain what materials he wanted them to gather.
He told them that the most important material he wanted was Ambergris.
— — —
Ambergris was a rare, waxy substance that came from the digestive system of sperm whales, specifically from the section that processed hard, indigestible food like squid beaks.
It formed when the whale produced a protective coating around irritating materials in its stomach or intestines. Over time, this material was either vomited or passed out naturally into the ocean.
Once in the sea, the ambergris floats and undergoes a long natural aging process from the exposure to sunlight, saltwater, and oxidation. This aging process can take years.
However, because finding such a thing was an extremely hard thing to do in the first place, and he wasn’t sure if there was even one like sperm whales or other whales in this world who could produce that—he came up with an idea.
That was to actively hunting whale beasts in general in case there were such things inside them.
Nevertheless, even if they could get the raw ambergris from killing the whale beasts, it wasn’t over because Ambergris became valuable only after aging in seawater and sunlight.
The raw Ambergris inside the whale was still soft, smelly, waxy, and not fully matured yet—resulting in the scent being unpleasant and unrefined.
Naturally, James had an idea of doing the aging process artificially, and he had asked the system if it was possible to artificially accelerate the aging of fresh ambergris so it behaved like the naturally weathered, high-quality version.
The system explained that historically, perfumers had experimented with this, making James think that with this fantasy world, there should be more options to do it and even resulting in a higher quality.
The system then explained to James about the steps to transform the raw ambergris into the aged, precious ambergris.
The first one was obviously to clean the raw material since they often contained salt, organic waste, bits of squid beaks, etc. These things needed to be removed by rinsing it gently in fresh water, scraping off impurities, and just letting it air-dry for 1-3 days.
After that, raw ambergris matured when exposed to heat and UV light. That’s why after talking with the system, James came up with putting it in a shallow ceramic bowl and placing it somewhere sunny and warm. The system told him that it shouldn’t be too hot because if it was more than 70°C, it might melt the ambergris instead.
Even this process was taking a long time, like weeks to months, and needed to be taken care of by flipping it occasionally.
This process would make the waxy ambergris harden and lose the strong animal smell, slowly turning into the creamy, sweet, musky aroma prized in perfumery.
The system also told him that since the natural ambergris ages in the ocean, soaking it or misting it with saltwater brine helped mimic the environment.
In this case scenario, James had an idea of using treasures rather than saltwater brine, as he thought that by doing so, it would increase the quality of the product. Of course, this was just James’ assumption, and he still needed to experiment on these things to verify it.
This method also took quite a bit of hassle, because the system recommended him to do this a few times, and each time, it needed to be soaked for several weeks.
The system told him that if this was successful, he could make a high-quality perfume just by using this and the alcohol made from the Azuredew Berries.
James was also told that it needed to be stored for months or up to a year and shook it occasionally.
Even after all that processing, the scent would become smoother with every passing month.