[Chapter 20: Getting an upgrade]
Well it would appear that I’m out of a saw. Just snapped right in half as I was using it. Though I can’t say I’m really surprised, I knew stone tools wouldn’t be able to last me much longer. But did it really have to happen now of all times.
Well mopping about it won’t help me at all, so all there is to do is fix the problem. Now just because I didn’t want to deal with this problem for as long as possible doesn’t mean I don’t know the solution, quite the opposite in fact. It is just that the solution feels so daunting that I wanted to avoid it. If stone tools won’t cut it anymore, all I need to do is get tools made of something stronger, tools made of iron.
Now thanks to certain things I’ve read, I know that I can make iron using dust from a river, one of which happens to be right outside my cave. Then I just heat that up with a special clay furnace, and pour the results into a proper mold. But before that I need some sort of magnet to pick up the iron dust out of the river in the first place. Now where would I find a magnet, the thing I’m basing my plan off of found lodestones on a mountain with a flat top, but I can’t see any of those nearby, will I have to go on another journey in order to find one?
Wait, am I daft, I can just substitute an actual magnet with magic, I’ve already done so much with magic that I see no reason why it shouldn’t work. In fact, I was looking for more magic types to learn just a few days ago and magnetism would be a fine addition to my collection.
Now how exactly do I learn magnet magic? It’s a lot more complicated any of my current magics. How do magnets work anyways? Something about electricity causing an imbalance creating two poles which attract metal objects towards it, but what does that feel like magically? Okay, think Yellow think, remember everything you can from your old science classes.
Electricity causes magnets to happen by messing with the amount of electrons in an atom giving it a charge. This must work for ferromagnets (the most well known time of magnet which only works with things that contain iron) by attracting the innate charge of the metal? That’s probably not how it all works but that’s the best I’ve got. It doesn’t need to be a perfect mental picture, just enough to mimic the real deal and it should work.
And with that partial confidence I began the attempt to attract metal so I could actually have some decent tools. Magnets were far more complicated than the other magic types I have and the time it took mirrored that. A few days actually passed as I tried to obtain the elusive magic type. I began wondering if it would even show up on my status screen, every other type of magic had immediate proof that it worked, but with the subtlety of magnets I worried that it would only show up once I saw that I successfully attracted metal. But that worry ended up being baseless as it finally showed up while I was nowhere near any metal.
[Obtained skill]
[Magnet magic| lv: 1]
[Control magnet magic with 10% efficiency]
With that down I took no time to begin collecting iron dust off the riverbed, after realizing I don’t have anything to properly store it and spent half a day making a bucket out of a stone I had to hollow out of course. And I can say that it was kind of fun seeing the dust collect on my hands, made it all so much easier. After collecting a bit more than what I assumed was enough for a hand axe I prepared for the next part, building the furnace.
I know what it needs to look like, a large hollow cylinder that funnels into a smaller smoke stack with the entire thing built around a bucket made of stone. It took a good few days to figure out how clay shaping works and then make the furnace itself, but it went smoothly at least. But as I have nothing that burns hot enough to melt iron I also had to attach a bellow that pushing air when you plunged the two sticks in it. This should let me smelt iron so I can finally create what is needed to let me survive by myself.
But I didn’t just create the furnace while doing nothing else. I also managed to create a better sword. It’s far sharper while nearing the size of my axe. Almost makes me wonder why I brought the old one back with me. Not that I plan on throwing it away. The craft was good enough that by the time it was finished it gave me a skill level.
[Skill level increased]
[Knapping| lv.2]
[Knapping speed increased by 40%]
Now it’s the moment of truth, will I be able to successfully make iron? I placed charcoal, branches, and anything that looked flammable around the bucket of iron dust through the little hole I placed at the bottom of the furnace. I have already made the mold from the tree I cut down using what was left of my stone hand axe. So with great nervousness I began using the bellows with all my might.
Now within me was some hope that my increased stats would be able to carry me through this, I was quickly proven wrong. Within fifteen minutes I feel my arms practically ignite while the furnace wasn’t nearly hot enough to melt metal. I am now acutely aware that I am physically incapable of doing this by myself, but I’m not going to give up. And in a moment of what I hope is brilliance, I realize that I don’t have just physical means of stoking a fire, I have magic. Using mana manipulation I begin send alternating bursts of fire and wind into the kindling hole whenever I have the mana to do so, increasing the heat by a decent bit. But even then it’s not enough, I need my fire to burn hotter, my wind to blow harder. So I force those very thoughts into my magic, heating up the furnace even more. And after I have gone for as long as I can go I check the iron, it has melted.
Upon seeing my success I feel a second wind, enough to get me through this endeavor. Using layers of hides to help with the heat, I grab the stone bucket, flinching as my hands feel the heat coming through the layers. This is no time to recoil however, and I manage to bring the bucket and pour it into the mold before immediately shoving them in the nearby river. While waiting for both to cool I can do nothing but be filled with anticipation. Knowing not whether I succeeded or failed is a terrifying experience but at least the notifications calm me down.
[Skill level increased]
[Fire magic| lv: 2]
[Control fire magic with 20% efficiency]
[Skill level increased]
[Wind magic| lv: 2]
[Control wind magic with 20% efficiency]
[Skill level increased]
[Tough body| lv: 2]
[+2 end]
All are skills that greatly benefit me by increasing, not that there are skills that don’t. I am especially pleased to see the magic skills increase as I was unsuccessful in leveling them so far. And tough body is also appreciated because you can never have enough endurance. Though the skill increases kept me mentally occupied for a while, it wasn’t nearly enough to cover the entire time I kept my hands under the water, if my hands are injured I’m practically useless, making that a situation I very much want to avoid.
After my hands stop hurting the stars have already begun to show themselves, now I can finally take them out of the water, though I doubt I would have been able to avoid them becoming useless if it wasn’t for mana reinforcement, when I finish this project I really should take a better look at magic. Creeping over to where the mold lies I take a peak at what is inside. Looking like a smaller, thinner, and shinier version of the stone hand axe lies the metal upgrade, so far so good. Taking it out of the mold I decide to test it on the very case it was formed in. And to my utterly joy it worked, without even a smidge of the feeling of fragility the stone version had.
I can’t help but notice the strange irony of what I’m holding. In a world where violence brings power, the first thing I made with metal is not a weapon to slay enemies, but a tool to build homes. A small smile appears on my face as I think this, even though I fully accept killing bringing power, it’s still reassuring to know that violence is not all that I am.
The tool has no real handle yet but that is a problem I can deal with later. Instead I think I should probably get to sleep. Though as always there is one thing I need to do before then, sword training.
Nothing has really happened to the skill in the past few days, but then again I never really put that much effort in the training, I’ve just been going through the motions while making the hand axe. Now however, I can really put myself into the training. The new sword is heavy in my hands but I have had a few days to get used to it. Even though my arms are hurting I keep swinging, focusing on the intent, the purpose behind each swing as I go through the forms each swing a bit better than any before. And at the end one final improvement brought something amazing.
[A Skill has evolved]
[Intermediate sword proficiency| lv: 1]
[When using a sword damage is increased by 33% crit damage by 2% and crit chance by 11%]
Puddling iron, which is what you're looking for, or even just bog iron, is much of what you'd be seeing here. Set up a fire (preferably charcoal), use the bellows, have a channel below the fire that runs into the sand (or dirt, or even oiled wood) mold. Quite literally throw the iron in the fire, and heat it up until it flows down the channel. it's wasteful, but it's the easiest way to cast without advanced methodology. It'll be absolute crap metal, but better than bashing wood with a rock.
Base knapping, if you have the right rocks, doesn't really need tools. Just two rocks. For advanced knapping, meaning making really nice thin objects (like arrowheads), then you really need the bone tools.
Thanks for the advice, this is pretty good stuff.
While there are most likely dozens of better ways for Yellow to have done things, he is canonically going off of a bunch of survival series he has seen, mainly Dr. Stone really, so he will just flail along until he figures out better ways to do stuff.
Thanks for the comments, they were all intersting to read.
maybe watch some "primitive technology" videos on youtube to make this a bit more realistic? a clay pot or a bucket made through selectively burning a woodstump would have been way more realistic than a stone bucket. even people who are expreienced with knapping or stonework in general would attestbto that being extremely hard without proper tools
I did watch some videos like that but I couldn't figure out if those would survive the furnace so I went with stone without knowing the feasabiltiy of such. I tried to make this as realistic as possible for the setting with comparatively insignificant shortcuts compared to other novels. But still story is meant to move on to bigger and better things that I am excited to write.
TFTC :)