[Research] Hardening Metal
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Apple enters the library and pours through all the books on alchemy looking for any indication of an alchemical way to harden metal. She especially looks for anything that includes the use of rare components: such as rare mud, rare ice, or creature parts.
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[She finds a multitude of books about smithing, rather mundane stuff in general. Most mention that steel is really a harder form of iron, and it seems that generally it's created by 'alloying' the iron with another substance, sometimes a metal, sometimes some other chemical, some have used charcoal to some measure of success apparently, but the process takes a massive amount of time, and the forge apparently need constant tending to keep the temperature perfect throughout, something that is learned from years at a forge. Various books postulate about using more magical metals to alloy with iron, and one book seemingly written by an adventuring smith, talks of ancient metals from the time of Netheril turning out to be a perfect alloy, the rest of this book is mostly ramblings about how rare it is, and how dangerous it can be to acquire, and goes on to focus more on the process of finding and gathering the substance.]
