Chapter 78: Prep work

Nick left after that with a wide smile while the twins got dressed and ready to go out. Ten minutes later the twins came down to the common room in their normal robes and Nick frowned. "First thing you need to know about working around fire ." he waved his wand and transfigured their clothes into larger but matching versions of his own "Never wear loose clothing that might get in the way or catch fire." he said seriously and the two of them nodded in understanding. It didn't take much imagination to figure out why that might be a bad idea.-

"So I take it you both had a pleasant nights sleep?" he asked with a grin and the twins chuckled. "You got us good we admit but know that we shall have our vengeance!" one of them said righteously and Nick laughed. "So long as you keep it out of my workshop I have no problem with that." he said before turning to leave the common room. The workshop was just a bit down the hall from the painting of the fat lady so it took no time at all to arrive.-

Nick unlocked the door and quickly looked over the room but found nothing out of place 'can't risk it' he thought as he used his magical sensitivity to double check the room this time finding an anomaly. It was a small thing attached to his furnace but the sinister tinge the magic held told him exactly what it's source was. 'Feeling threatened are we Voldemort?' Nick thought slightly amused at the pathetic attempt at sabotage that he pulled apart with a quick "finite incantatem" tuned to the hex itself. The things intended purpose was to cause his furnace to explode once a certain temperature was reached likely killing or crippling him in the process.-

'So he wants to avoid direct actions against me for some reason , fine two can play this game.' Nick thought coldly as he ignited the furnace and switched the flame to dragon fire. He didn't turn up the heat however as he was aware that it was best to let the furnace "warm up" before really bringing the heat. He explained this to the twins as well as that it helped prolong the life of the furnace. The things were made stupidly durable but they like all items eventually reached a point where they fall apart.-

Nick then went over to his stack of rough metal ingots that would actually not be all that useful as they are but could be stored as is fairly easily. If he were to try and make anything with them as they currently were the metal would be full of flaws and very brittle. Grabbing one of the numerous bars of dragon steel he walked over to the furnace and cranked up the heat bit more. It took no time at all for the violent dragon fire to raise the temperature of the room by a large amount.-

The twins were glad for the transfiguration applied on their clothes as they were starting to heavily sweat. Nick barely glistened in comparison showing off his heat resistance perfectly as he placed the metal bar into the furnace and shut the door. He quickly turned the centralization dial all all that heat seemed to vanish as it was instead concentrated in the furnace chamber. While he waited for the metal to actually liquify he explained why this was needed to the twins and why he hadn't done it yesterday.-

By liquifying the metal he could separate the exact amount of metal he wanted before shaping the rest of the molten metal with a mold into a useable ingot killing two birds with one stone. Doing this for all of his metal will take way more time than what he had done yesterday. Still dragon fire was no weak fire that took a long time to do it's work as the metal was little more than a puddle in the furnace by the time Nick was done with his explanation. Opening the door of the furnace Nick quickly caught the liquid metal that fell out with his wand as well as all the stuff still in the furnace creating a bright glowing orb of pure dragon steel.-

Most of the metal was dropped carefully into one of the molds Nick had at the ready while a small amount around the size of his thumb was removed. "Once this gets cold enough that it mostly solidifies I will begin shaping it , any questions?" he said since he had time to kill. "Why did you choose this stuff instead of the really good stuff I can see over there?" one of the twins asked curiously. "Kinda seems like a waste to make a ring out of gold if it's only purpose is to ward off slugs." Nick said honestly.

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