Kalny lead them back into the warehouse once Cato had finished being exasperated. He walked around the furnace, Cato and Landar watching him examine the setup, including the set of three fans near the roof that was the source of the latest delay. They returned to the room on the side used as an office.

Holding up the disc of metal from their first test, Kalny regarded Cato. "To be honest, I did not expect this to work," Kalny said, "despite your pen and strange clothing, I did not believe that you would be able to make iron. Now I do. And so I tell you to go straight to casting that bell. Skip the trials you told me about. "

"But I'm still not sure the furnace can do that," Cato protested, "the furnace might be all right but we still don't know if the ventilation system works adequately or if there will be other problems during the cast. There may be other problems we haven't seen. We have to find them before attempting a full scale melt. "

Kalny shook his head, "I'm afraid we can't do that. "

"Why not?"

"You see the pile of charcoal over there?" Kalny indicated the black pile sitting next to the iron ore. It was only a bit bigger. "That's all we're going to have. "

"What?!" Cato grimaced, "that's not nearly enough. Why can't you get more?"

"The Ironworkers are blocking us, I've tried my best but no one will sell me any charcoal. From some of their reactions, I think the Ironworkers are applying pressure on the suppliers. " Kalny looked at Cato steadily, "besides, isn't that enough to cast the bell already? I remember you telling me that before. "

"I also told you that some more tests are required," Cato pointed out.

"But it is enough to cast the bell, yes?"

Cato held his gaze for a few moments then sighed, "all right, we'll skip the trials. "

The group of men who frequented the bar were generally known as drunken layabouts. Even though they weren't drunk most of the time, they still had the reputation of being difficult, and loud, people. They occupied a good quarter of the bar and were given a wide berth by the other patrons.

And so when a tall lanky stranger walked into the bar without giving them the customary terrified glance, it was without much surprise when the three nearest the door decided to challenge the man. He even carried a long cane and a stiff cloth cap in faux-noble style.

They swaggered forwards and were about to voice some sort of demand when the man burst into a blur of action.

Before anyone could even blink, the three of them were lying on the ground, groaning and wondering why they hurt all over.

"Don't fight in here, or you don't get anything to drink," the owner said, taking out a baton from behind the counter. He nodded at the stranger, "that includes you. "

"Sorry about that," the man apologized, "if you don't mind, I'll just have a word with them. "

The owner watched him suspiciously as he walked back to the table. The baton stayed out where it was visible.

"My apologies for the mess but perhaps I can compensate you. "

The man's formal speech made them pause, the only people who could pull off formal speech without sounding like idiots were all too powerful to mess with.

"I am in need of some help and you young men seem to be likely lads," he smiled, "how about a chance to earn some extra drinking money as my way of making amends?"

"It better be substantial if you want me to forget what happened here," one of the bruised men said, picking himself off the floor. He was promptly shoved down by the others still at the table.

"What sort of work and how much are you talking about?" one surly voice said.

"It's the sort of work I wouldn't want to sully my hands with, but I have no doubts that you all will be up to it. Half a rime per person before we start, half a rime after. "

He threw down a small bag of coins onto the table. The round and solid half-rime coins were serious money around these parts.

"If you need us this badly, you can spare some more," the big burly leader stood up from his corner.

The man shrugged and dropped another bag, "I'll double that but I want things as 'unbroken' as possible. "

The leader looked around at the greed painted on the faces around him and snorted, "then you've got yourself twenty pairs of hands. Lead on. "

"Do we really need those people?" Cato said as he dropped the block of charcoal into the blast furnace.

He prayed to whichever gods might exist that the test would go smoothly. The duct for pouring the metal was untried, although Cato couldn't see how it might fail. The fans had only been testing in isolation, without the furnace spitting air at hundreds of degrees at them.

But what was more worrying was the group of people gathered outside the front gate. Thugs for hire really.

"If anything's going to happen, I don't want it to be today," Mr Kalny said, "they're there to make sure we don't get interrupted. "

He was sitting safely far away from the furnace, in case anything went wrong. Not that Cato expected their sponsor to help.

Danine ran up to Cato with the last tray of iron ore. He took it with thanks and poured the lot over the top of the last charcoal layer. Then he nodded to Landar and hurried back down the ladder as the mouth of the furnace acquired a heat haze.

They had found that heating the smaller test furnace with magic before starting the bellows made things easier to ignite uniformly. Without much fanfare, the flames and sparks shot out the top of the furnace as ignition was achieved. Unlike before, the roof ventilation whirred to life to suck out the choking black smoke, leaving Cato with only the sweltering heat.

"Temperature is fine," Cato said as he withdrew the iron rod from the tiny hole in the side. There was no concept of a thermometer here, he had to improvise with a simple rod of iron and seeing the colour that it glowed with. He replaced the rod and looked at the flames near the mouth, "flame looks fine too. "

As the bellows pumped fresh air into the furnace with a rhythmic sighing, the high quality charcoal in the furnace began to burn. Confined in the furnace, they couldn't completely combust and the carbon monoxide produced began to reduce the iron ore to get at the oxygen. That combined with the high temperatures created raw liquid iron, full of carbon and silicon that made cast iron hard and brittle.

It was nearly midday before Cato concluded that enough iron had been pooled at the bottom of the furnace to tap it and after draining the slag, the first pouring of the iron began. The glowing liquid metal running down the conduit made even Kalny sit up and take notice. The stuff radiated heat onto Cato's face but he didn't care.

The olivine sand mold was quite expensive but Cato had insisted on it. Ordinary silicon sand would have exploded on contact with the extreme heat, and olivine sand needed less water to hold its shape, improving the quality of the cast.

This was what they had worked so long for. The fruition of a month's effort.

And there were people out to stop it.

The first sign of trouble was the shouting. The thugs outside the warehouse were facing off with another group. While the insults hurled weren't something Cato knew from Earth, the hostility was obvious.

"The pouring is almost complete," Cato asked, "can your hirelings hold them off?"

Kalny darted back from the window where he had peeked out curiously. A whirling knife followed him in and clattered to the floor. "Don't think so, I only hired ten and there's perhaps two dozen enemies. "

Enemies huh. Cato supposed they might be called that. But whatever surprise magical robot Landar had thought up was useless if Landar was stuck in here with the furnace.

"How much more iron do you need, Cato?" Landar asked him, having made the same observation.

"We have enough actually, the ore must be a higher purity than I thought," he said, watching the mold filling up with liquid iron, "the problem is that if we don't pour the extra iron, it will solidify inside the furnace. Cleaning that out would mean dismantling the entire refractory lining and scraping the iron and slag off it. Unless you're strong enough to break bricks cast in iron with magic. "

"You could dissolve the iron," Landar suggested, still watching the furnace and the sound of fighting outside.

"With what? I don't think we can get industrial quantities of sulphuric acid or similar. And I don't want to handle something as dangerous as that. "

Landar shook her head, "no no, you can use magic. Elemental Water dissolves nearly anything, metals especially. It's dangerous, true, but if you know what you're doing, you can use it. "

"Are you sure it can be done?" Cato glanced at Kalny. He didn't want to have to explain a broken furnace to the merchant, even if he almost certainly would pay to repair it.

"Yes," Landar nodded.

"Then we'll take the risk, go to your robot," Cato said, trying to avoid laughing at the absurd statement.

The thugs hiding behind the warehouse gate had their own sort of pride. Money had been paid for their, temporary, loyalty and they would defend the gate as long as it was worthwhile. The opposing Redwater gang were not the gentle sort of people and the GreenNine who Kalny had contracted did have a bone to pick with them. And a defensive position to do it from.

As the Redwaters came charging up the street again from the short break, the GreenNine members hefted their clubs and chains. Twice the Redwaters attacked and twice they had been repelled. Even if the injuries accumulated on the seven remaining members were already substantial, their bloodlust wouldn't let them run away just yet. Not until they had a final hurrah.

They didn't get it. The flare of magic behind them was not something inside the warehouse but from the mysterious large crate. That attracted the attention of the youngest and most distractible boy.

"Where are you looking?" the leader growled, eyes glued outside the fence.

There was no reply. He glanced away to find everyone turning backwards. Even the Redwater gang outside were slowing down and gaping at something behind him.

He turned around. The crate itself was unfolding, the four walls separating into panels along hidden cracks and revealing the inside.

The wooden panels shifted amid the creaking of metal struts, forming into a rough humanoid shape. The exposed bronze struts and hinges gave off an alien impersonal feeling. Twice as tall as a man, the figure loomed above them, wood from the crate forming heavy panels around the outsides of arms and legs like armour.

The crazed triumphant laughter coming from inside did not help. The thing raised an arm as thick as a log at the gate.

That was enough, the GreenNine hadn't expected to deal with something like this. They ran for their lives.

"Whoops, wrong people," Landar was still cackling every time the machine took a step.

A real machine! Each of the spells on the limbs and hinges moved in time, the spells that moved them had been preset with the needed movements. The result of painful trial and error, all she needed to do was coordinate the spells. What did Cato call it, a robot suit? The robot suit took another small and slow step forward.

It was too bad that she hadn't figured out how to make it run or jump. Landar had hopes of replicating the robots in Cato's story but that was still beyond her. Someday though...

Landar looked out of the view slit and recovered her grin. The attacking gang had rallied around the gate and were finally getting over their shock. Time to find out whether her other specials were any good.

She moved her arm up, triggering another preset series to avoid having to lift the entire weight. The robot arm whirred up and suddenly stopped moving.

Landar frowned and tried to sense if there was anything wrong with the magic. Nope, the spells were fine. She delved a little deeper and gulped.

The magic she had painstakingly stored for over multiple days was almost empty! How could that be? If Landar had a mind to, she had enough power to shake this robot to pieces like a toddler with a toy. And for it to have used this much magic already...

Landar glared at the enemies, she simply had to use it. Even one time was enough! Landar gathered her power and connected to the spell in front of her chest, the one that stored the power.

"Gah!" Landar ran winced at the fearsome drain on her magic. True, Landar was half empty from heating the furnace but the machine used magic by the bucketload. Drank it like water. Even if it wasn't moving, the robot still used magic. No wonder her stored magic ran out so fast, she didn't want to know how much those two steps cost.

She would have to find out why, but first, Landar had to at least make one attack.

She poured out her remaining power into the arm down to the box of arrows.

Cato glanced out at the window. Honestly, it was only supposed to be a glance, but the sight of the robot facing down the attacking gang was just too distracting. Even Kalny was watching.

Using the crate itself as armour plating was quite unexpected, when Cato thought of robot suits, he thought of a single piece of armour. But Landar had probably taken some inspiration from the story's transforming robot that could switch between a walker and a plane.

The robot seemed frozen with its arm still pointing at the gate and just when the gang was about to recover their nerve, the wood panel at the end of the arm popped off. Cato couldn't see what was on the end but the panic that built on the faces of the targets were only there for a moment.

There was a rather familiar buzzing noise. A noise that Cato wasn't about to forget any time soon.

A flurry of arrows left the rack on the end of the arm, pouring outwards and picking up speed as their magic accelerated them to deadly speed. And these arrows were made of iron, and they were driven by magic channeled directly down the arm instead of only inbuilt enchantments.

The arrows tore through the unarmoured gang with contemptuous ease. Points that hit soft tissue lanced straight through the body to hit those further behind the crowd. Even worse, the iron was weak reforged scrap and those that hit bone shattered on impact, smashing apart limbs and sending iron fragments sleeting through the hapless target. Then the few arrows that somehow made it through the bodies hit the cobblestones and also shattered, stone and iron adding to the carnage.

Blood and flesh were dashed across the ground as the gang outside the gate dissolved into a gory puddle of screaming bodies. Bits of flesh were sprayed out behind the group and blood was flowing down the cobblestones, looking like the floor of a slaughterhouse. Cato backed away from the window, feeling bile rising in his throat. There were blood specks all the way to the sill.

Kalny was also looking sick but Danine was surprisingly undisturbed by the sight. Even though her tail was coiled again, her shadowed expression was merely dark.

Cato wondered if he should pull her away but a tapping of wood on stone from behind made him turn around.

There was an unknown man standing next to the furnace, he had been trying to creep up silently but his long wooden cane had hit one of the many sand buckets scattered around for emergencies.

With neither sign nor word, the man rushed forwards so fast that he was almost a blur. Cato fell backwards in his haste to retreat, still noticing how the man used magic differently from the knights. It even felt different, wrapping tightly around the man's feet and legs instead of arranged in defined blocks and shapes. The man's cane dropped on Cato's shoulders, from the magic he could feel, the cane could probably take his head off if the man felt like it.

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The whole encounter took so little time that Danine and Kalny were still turning around to face them.

"Quite the fearsome guard you have," the man said with a oily smile. He doffed the cloth cap to reveal a head of yellow hair framing an elegantly featured face. That and the black formal coat over his thin wiry body was quite the mismatch with the weaponized cane and the two iron knuckled gloves on his hands. "It's a shame how it can only be in one place at the same time. "

"What do you want?" Cato asked, hoping Landar had noticed the intrusion. He could see that no one outside was in the mood to continue any sort of fighting but the three meter tall magical robot was still holding an arm out. Not moving.

"It's the blast furnace, isn't it?" Kalny said.

"Why yes, I do like a smart person," the man nodded to Kalny, "you may call me Klaas. You already know who is interested but I shan't mention it. "

"So what exactly do you want with the furnace? It's not like you can move it," Cato said, "and I don't think those people outside are going to move it for you. "

It would be very surprising if many of them would still be willing to follow through, no matter how much he had paid them.

"Tell me where you learnt how to make this," Klaas said.

Cato blinked once and sighed, "Danine, go to the desk in the side room and get all the paper there. "

Danine looked a little confused but Kalny nodded to her. They waited for a moment before she returned with the stack in her arms.

The man looked at the top drawings with a raised eyebrow. "Show him the big one," Cato said, "the one we found in the ruin. "

Danine's eyes widened in shock once she understood what he was saying. She lifted up the top two to reveal the biggest drawing. It was the overall drawing Cato had made when he first presented the completed plan to Kalny, with little notes explaining all the parts and what they did. With such a drawing, anyone who worked at it should be able replicate the blast furnace here.

Klaas examined it and was apparently satisfied. He indicated the ground with his head, "put it there. "

Danine bent down to put it at the man's feet when she suddenly shot up at him, a spell already building in her hand. Klaas barely managed to turn in surprise when she shot the coin concealed in her fist right at his face.

There was a flare of magic and the coin pinged off his nose without leaving a scratch. In fact, it had sounded like the coin had hit metal. Klaas jumped back from Cato to stand in front of the furnace and raised his cane at Danine. She was now standing in front of a rapidly retreating Cato, snarling.

Klaas narrowed his eyes, "you're just a scrub. Don't get in my way unless you want to die as well. "

Cato gulped. So the man was going to kill him? How did Danine know that? Danine merely snarled again, trying to conjure a magical bolt but the magic failed to coalesce into anything other than a brightly glowing ball suspended in front of her.

They faced off, the tension escalating unbearably- there was an enormous crack from the mold right behind the man.

The sand mold containing the cast iron was well constructed. A simple rectangular design that had little possibility for error. Error was not impossible however and if Cato had checked his work, he might have noticed the drawing of one of the walls was missing a number, making it marginally smaller. A small writing error, but the master clay worker who had been told to follow the drawing as best as he could, simply did so.

This would not ordinarily be a problem. Cato had given the pieces a sufficient safety margin to hold the weight of the olivine sand and the cast iron that would run through the mold. Even if one wall was thinner, the mold container was quite over engineered.

But when the mold began to overfill with excess iron, and no one was there to scoop it away, the molten iron above a thousand and a half degrees flowed over the top of the mold and onto the walls.

The clay had held out for a long minute, but no clay container could hold iron for long. The expansion from heat and cracks from minute explosions as the iron contacted bits of silicon sand assaulted the clay, and finally, the weaker wall gave way.

Molten iron oozed out of the cracking mold, threatening to engulf Klaas's feet. He had to jump out of the way awkwardly and Danine took the chance to charge him. The young Fuka girl swung her ball of magic at him in melee, holing the protection on his clothes. Not to mention giving him a nasty magical shock.

As Klaas staggered away, Danine darted back and by the time he had recovered, there was no one left in the building.

He picked up the stack of notes and looked up at the furnace that was still shedding heat. The glow had cooled to a dull red and the iron spill around the mold was already beginning to thicken as its temperature dropped.

Klaas sniffed as he considered his mistakes. Standing next to a contraption of unknown operation was probably the worst. Failing to figure out what the giant crate was for was second worst only because he didn't really care about the Redwater gang.

He swung the cane and the blade of force surrounding it easily smashed aside the wooden support. A few more strokes and the furnace, slowly and majestically, toppled over in a massive crash that sent burning hot coals across the floor. Another swing ripped apart the bellows that was still futilely pumping away.

The magical fan things in the ceiling he couldn't do anything about, and the mold was more or less completely solid now. Destroying the bell would cost too much magic. No matter. Without the plans from the First, the boy would take too long to repair everything. One bell was worth very little in the grand scheme of things. At least once the Ironworkers had had a chance to build their own furnaces.

His work done, Klaas left through the back door to avoid the knights already beginning to gather around the remains of the Redwater gang.

They sat glumly around the table. Well, all three of them, Danine was curled up in a corner, sleeping off her magic exhaustion.

"Well, at least we don't have to worry about the mess," Landar said. The bodies had been cleared away and after much questioning from the knights, it had been ruled as mutual error and Landar was considered faultless. Apparently this sort of thing happened quite often, only the thugs weren't often the side getting killed. "But still, having them cut me out of that robot was an embarrassment! I don't think I'll ever live this down in my family. "

Cato could only sigh at Landar's wails. To describe that as an embarrassment was an understatement. The knights had joked about the Mad Alchemist finally getting caught up in her own special, but Cato knew better. The only reason why the robot had frozen up was because both it and Landar had ran out of magic. Well, it was less a robot and more like powered armour. The motions had to be better and the frame could be miniaturized, and there was the problem of needing a better power source.

If all that was possible, Landar would have made full fledged powered armour.

It was still going to need a lot of work. Perhaps even years of refinement. The way Landar explained her hacks for making the robot take a step and not topple over was not going to be acceptable in a real combat situation.

No, now was not the time to get distracted by random thoughts. "It was an eye opening lesson," Cato admitted, "frankly, I think I was getting carried away. "

"What do you mean?" Kalny asked.

"Magic really does exist," Cato said, "I mean, I knew that. But I didn't think about what that really meant. "

"Elaborate?"

"I tried to bring my own knowledge from Earth here," Cato swung a hand to indicate the ruined furnace, "I took what I knew and simply replaced the parts I couldn't get with magic. Heat the furnace, pump the bellows, spin the fan. But there could be so much more. "

"I don't know," Landar said, "heat and movement is something everyone uses magic for. "

Cato ran a hand through his hair, trying to think of a better way to explain. "Take the fan. I needed to move the air out of the warehouse, so I took something I knew, a fan, and replaced its power source, electricity, with magic. Why didn't I just move the air itself? I've even see the Danine do it when she experimented with the movement magics. "

Landar blinked and shared a look with Kalny.

"I think we both have a blindness," Cato said, "since my world had so many things you didn't have, we just assumed the technology must be superior and that we should just copy it. That's what's wrong. Magic is just as powerful a force. "

Powerful enough to turn a group of people into chunks.

"What we should be doing is taking the successful ideas from my world and using it here," Cato said, walking over to a small cupboard. He took out a series of sealed glass bottles and put them on the table. "And that idea is the scientific method," Cato said, "that and mathematics, logic. Even a bit of technology where it is applicable. But magic should do... can do far more than just power technology from my world. You, Landar, experienced what happened when we simply try to copy. "

"What does that have to do with the bottles?" Kalny asked, poking one of them with a finger.

"I wanted another idea I could use in case the furnace didn't work out," Cato said, "I needed to run a test first. And that's why its relevant. The scientific method is simply the testing of ideas. That was how my world made so many inventions, created so many machines. What we need to do apply the same principle to magic. Study it, and we will learn how to use it to make our own technology. "

Kalny picked up a bottle and examined the fungus growing over the surface of the milk inside. "So what does that have to do with your other idea? Something else I could do?"

Cato smiled, ever one to discuss money, that was Kalny. Well, it was fine, he was saying this more for his own benefit, though Landar seemed to nod along. "Living things come from other living things," Cato said, "and the reason why things rot is because very small living things grow on them. I got reminded of this when we met the Miasma in the Dead Marshes. Something about Miasma victims not rotting for weeks. "

"Turns out, the same applies to this world," Cato held up another set of bottles. All but one was completely clear of any spoilage. Cato explained. "You see, living things can be killed. Small living things in particular, can be killed simply by heating them up. If you boil water or milk, you sterilize it. I put the ones with the white markers in the test furnace one time and boiled them thoroughly. As you can see, no contamination. "

Kalny frowned, "but we cook food. Cooked food still spoils. "

"The key is sealing them before cooking the food," Cato said, "the spoilage is caused by very tiny living things. So tiny you can't even see them. And they're everywhere. The moment air touches the food, it's contaminated. But if you seal the food in an airtight container, and then cook the food, the air that got sealed in with the food gets cooked as well. "

The food merchant sat up straight, thinking furiously. "Do you know how many problems you just solved?" Kalny said finally, "I was thinking about how to make you pay for this disaster but it seems you just did that. "

Cato merely smiled. Food preservation could be argued to have a bigger impact than cheap steel, but he had gotten greedy. Steel was fundamental to almost everything else, or so Cato had thought. With magic, who knew?

"Is that why you never deliver anything other than the cured meats and bread?" Landar asked.

Kalny sighed, "yes, that was one of the reasons. To get food from further away risks spoilage. Don't think I haven't received requests for more variety. In fact, I cheat with the vegetables too. " He grinned, "just like Cato here, I knew the Miasma somehow preserves bodies. So I told my delivery drivers to leave their carts out in the Miasma, in hopes it would preserve my food. It worked well enough for you people to have vegetables as long as I could find any on that morning's markets at Corbin. "

"Cato, I think you've just made some knights very happy," Landar laughed.

"Don't thank me too soon," Cato said with a warning tone, "we sealed food into metal tins back in my world and they never taste quite the same as fresh food. True, some types could be kept for years but the heat treatment changes the taste and texture. "

Kalny shook his head, "you let me worry about that problem. I know a few chef friends who would be interested this. Selna, the possibilities are incredible. I don't know of anyone who wouldn't be interested. " He got up from his seat at the desk, "well, I got to make a start on this. And this time, I'll be the one sending thugs after people. "

The merchant nodded to them and left with an large grin on his face.

"At least one person's happy," Landar said glumly.

Cato nodded. He had another request to make but somehow saying it straight to her made him feel uncomfortable

"I- I know I haven't done anything for you," Cato began, wondering if there was another way to make it sound less embarrassing, "but I still need your help. "

"What are you saying?" Landar smiled weakly at him, "it's no big deal. After all, I'm just doing what I want to do. Your interesting ideas are more than enough. "

"No, I mean, if I am going to study magic, I will need your help more than ever," Cato said. There really was no way to avoid it. "Even if sometimes the work gets hard, or the ideas are not so interesting, I ask you to help me. Wherever I may end up or whatever I do, will you follow me?"

He looked away, feeling his face turn red.

"I mean, I know we will have the opportunity to make a lot of money but I'm not going to," he continued, stammering into empty air, "and I want you to know that we're not going to do this for money. If it goes well, we will end up rich anyway, but not as rich as we could be. We will also have enemies and it will probably get more dangerous. And there is a risk we will fail-"

"I'll do it," Landar said, a fierce grin on her face despite the grime and dirt trapped in her long hair, "I think I like the idea of taking over the world. "

What. Cato turned back to her in confusion. Did she not hear what he said?

"Think about it this way," Landar said, "if you are the one at the center of all this technology, in the end everyone has to answer to you. If that's not taking over the world, I don't know what is. "

Cato rubbed his head and nodded at her. Perhaps something got lost in communication, but he would have the chance to correct her along the way. For now, this was enough.

"Cato," said a tiny voice neither of them had expected to still be awake, "you're not supposed to propose that way. "

Cato looked at Danine who was watching him with wide round eyes. Yeah, asking Landar to follow him wherever he went could be interpreted romantically but he was trying not to think of that or he was seriously going to die of embarrassment right now. Ah crap.