I wake up, I had a surprisingly good night of sleep, all things considered.
Aurora is still sleeping and snuggling me.
Nice.
But I have stuff to do, so I get up from bed.
“Yawwwwn…” It seems she’s also waking up.
“Good morning.” I’m still naked, so I’m putting my clothes on… It was a good idea to do this in my room, my other uniforms are here after all, if we had done it in her room I would’ve have to put on the bloody uniform.
“Morning” she immediately falls on the bed again, I think she fell asleep again?
It’s no good to be this lazy, you know?
I won’t wake you up.
I finish dressing, it was way more difficult because of my damn arm, next time I do this I’ll only take off my pants.
I go downstairs, but this time I’m the only one here…
Did I wake up too early?
I notice the firebricks and a few large bags near the entrance, I really have to thank Timotei, I’ll start working after I eat.
But Felix isn’t here to cook breakfast, what am I supposed to do?
I have also neglected to put milk in the <Milk engine>, I don’t have any cheese left…
I’ll just have to do it myself!
I look around for something to cook and see a big white box, so I open it.
It’s cold? There’s food inside though.
How does this work? I use <Body of steel> to analyze it.
!
What an incredibly interesting trinket!
It has three main formations, one to suck mana from the user, one to store said mana, and one that cools the inside, and they’re all linked by a pattern, just like the one Master was engraving on the pole.
“Hey!”
Of course, the pattern Master made was in a whole different level, it’s the difference between heaven and earth, the pattern in this thing is very uneven, whoever engraved it clearly didn’t care.
I try pumping some mana into it.
…
Hmm, how interesting, some of the mana is lost between all the formations, if I had to put it into numbers, if I gave it 10 mana, only 6 reaches the final cooling formation, the pattern lose some of the mana, barely acceptable.
“Octavius!”
I start analyzing the engraved formations and the way the pattern connect to them.
How impressive, I already knew formations could be engraved into something, and that they would have an effect, but I hadn’t seen it done in such a practical way before, only demonstrations, but I have no idea what the hell the patterns are.
I understand they are some sort of link, but I don’t know the theory behind it…
Suddenly someone grabs my shoulder, and I jump! “Gah!”
I look behind me and see Antonia with a dumb smirk on her face. “Were you feeling hot?”
“Hmph, I was just analyzing this thing, it’s very interesting.” I fell for this again, I have failed…
“The <Refrigerator>? You’re right that it’s a very interesting thing! I was completely surprised when I saw Timotei had one of those!”
“You know what this thing is?”
“I know the basics, it’s a machine that can keep food cool, making it last longer!” Antonia explains to me with enthusiasm “It was something that Monica Lupei invented a few years ago!”
Who? “Who?”
“You don’t know about her?!” Antonia looks very surprised “She’s that genius in the capital that has made invention after invention!”
“Can’t be much of a genius with this craftmanship.” I just give my honest thoughts “But the core idea is very interesting.”
“No no no!” Antonia makes an X with her arms “You don’t get it! this is a mass-produced model!”
Mass produced!
I didn’t know you could do that, but just hearing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Everything a craftsman makes should have their effort put into it!
Even if it’s a single nail, it must have passion put into it!
Mass producing sounds so sterile, so impersonal!
“You look like you ate a bug.” Antonia brings me into the real world. I can hear her chuckling under her breath though
I shake my head “Sigh, sorry. It’s just that the word ‘mass produced’ sounds too dirty, I don’t like it at all”
“Haha! So predictable!” She’s laughing… “Basically every craftsman I’ve seen thinks the same, the name of Monica Lupei has become a dirty word in those circles.”
It has? I never gave a lot of attention to that kind of thing.
I’m not too surprised though.
“I don’t know if I would go that far, but mass producing something goes against what I believe a blacksmith, or any craftsman, should do.”
“But it’s such a great way to make money!” Antonia isn’t convinced by my words “And it’s so convenient too! We have one back in my home, and we couldn’t have afforded one if it wasn’t mass produced!”
Hmph! Of course it sounds good if you put it like that! But that’s not the point here!
Reducing the art to this level, there’s no heart in it!
It’s completely soulless!
Sigh, it doesn’t matter, it’s not like getting mad about it will do anything.
I don’t have enough time to worry about it.
I’ll just show the world what I make is superior to this garbage.
And if I ever bump into that Monica Lupei… hmph!
“Hmph. Anyway, do you want breakfast? I was going to cook mine before I got distracted.”
Antonia looks confused.
Did I jump from one topic to the other too fast?
* * *
I finished eating the scrambled eggs I made with Antonia, neither of us can cook, but I like how it came out.
I don’t think it’s supposed to look black though.
It doesn’t matter.
“So what are you going to do now?” Antonia is still eating the charred breakfast.
“I’ll move my materials to the area we were training before, and I’ll start the smelting process with the black sand there.”
“Are you going to need the wagon? Antonia is eating another portion of charred eggs; did you like it that much?
I smile and nod “That would be great, thanks.”
“Haha, don’t worry about it!” Antonia makes a cool pose, but she still has some of the black eggs on her mouth.
* * *
We are in the training place.
‘We’ is Me, Antonia, and Luca.
While I was moving my materials into the wagon, everyone else woke up.
Timotei and Luca were interested in the smelting process, but since Timotei is busy with his guard job Luca came here to help.
He also gave me the chisel and tongs I asked him, he also gave us a few shovels.
How thoughtful.
Timotei has helped us a lot, I’ll return the favor when I can.
Bianca was completely uninterested in this, but I did have to give her more semen.
That was a little awkward.
Aurora said she had some business in the church again, she’s a really big believer of Amili.
Felix is still meditating in the basement.
It seems he’s taking a long time to form his pattern.
I made mine while having sex and it didn’t even distract me!
What’s taking you so long!
You just want to keep doing weird stuff with my gore, don’t you?!
Hmph, rude asshole.
We’re building the bloomery with the fire bricks, I don’t have a lot of experience with these, most of my knowledge is only theoretical, so I’m just winging it and hoping for the best.
We finish the construction of the bloomery fairly quickly thanks to everyone helping me, it’s also not very big but it should give me enough iron for these two weeks.
“It kinda looks like a chimney, doesn’t it?!” Antonia is loud as always, but I nod.
It does look like a chimney, it’s a very good shape.
“What do we do now?” Luca cleans some sweat from his forehead.
You’re not tired just from this, are you?
We’re only beginning!
I grab a shovel “We put the coal and this black sand, and we start a fire… there.”
“Can we really obtain iron like that?” Luca is still doubtful
Hmph, I already told you to not underestimate us, and you still doubt me?
Completely foolish.
Antonia was the one who said it out loud, but that’s just a small detail.
The core message is still the same.
He’s a fool either way, I just nod at him and start shoveling coal and the sand into the bloomery.
* * *
I’m controlling the heat of the bloomery with the heat formation of the <Steam cannon>, but since it wasn’t made for such intensive heat it heavily drains my mana, so I try to use it sparingly.
I also regularly check on it with <Body of steel>, so I know where to apply more or less heat, the smelting process goes by much quicker thanks to this.
“Sigh, it looks like we won’t be able to produce the iron by ourselves…” Luca looks a little depressed.
??? “What do you mean?”
“You see, this little terrain is owned by Timotei’s family” Luca crosses his arm “But we’ve never been able to use it for anything, it’s basically just a burden for us.”
“Why not just sell it?” Since we aren’t doing much now, Antonia’s is just training.
Luca shakes his head “It’s not that simple, Timotei doesn’t have any siblings, and he’s not going to have any children, so once he dies the <Basil clan> will just auction off all our properties at a much cheaper price than we could ever sell it, so nobody wants to buy it.”
“That’s rough buddy” Antonia looks a little uncomfortable.
“So you wanted to learn how to use this place?” If that’s the case paying back Timotei for his help would be really easy!
“Yeah basically.” Luca shrugs “But it looks like you need some special spell to use it.”
Foolish, I shake my head and say, “I’ll tell you how to make a bloomery then, you also don’t need a spell to use it, it just makes it work faster, normally it would take 2 or 3 days.”
Luca nods, it seems he’s in a good mood.
* * *
After some time, I can feel the iron is ready, I stop the fire.
The quality of the metal isn’t great, but it should be good enough to make blades.
I definitely can’t use it for nails though, what a shame.
I can finally start working!
