A/N: Since Cato's expedition is mainly comprised of little episodes, I'm trying a different release order of faster smaller 'chapters'. After the entire side story is over, I will condense of these partial chapters into the usual chapter format.
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Cato hopped off the cart and took a much needed stretch. Even with the new spring suspensions, carts were still not a comfortable ride.
After coming so far from Minmay city, passing up north near Selabia, the ground was beginning to visibly rise. The mountains were still distant but definitely bigger and closer. The biggest change though was the soil and ground. Where the cultivated fields and roads of civilization were gone, only light forest and untilled land remained. This was closer to the Snow Wall than most of the settlements and only the occasional hermits scratched out a living this far from civilization.
"We'll make camp here, I think," Quinn, the leader of the knight escorts said, "there's still some light after the Little Night but we shouldn't tire ourselves out. "
Cato nodded, better to leave the travelling up to those who were more experienced. Besides, it wasn't like he didn't have things to do.
Like investigate new magical constructions, something he hadn't had time to do among all the endless meetings in Minmay. Well, he was on holiday from all that now.
Landar hadn't even bothered to pitch a tent or unpack. She just levitated a crate off the cart containing the Crystal container and immediately got to work.
"So, what are we going to do first?" Cato asked.
"I'm thinking of elemental Water," Landar said, simply lifting out the container and placing it on a flat area of grass, "I made this Crystal container to work with it. Crystal is ideal for this but well, it's expensive. "
"Hey, is that really Crystal?!" one of the knights asked, approaching them. His name was Tarral, if Cato recalled correctly.
"Yep," Landar held up the large pot proudly. It glinted under the light of Selna, multifaceted light refracting the bright red glow that was the brightest thing in the sky during the Little Night.
"Huh, you must be crazy to make a Crystal pot," Tarral said, "I thought it's only good for making shields?"
"I can make whatever I want with my own magic," Landar stuck out her tongue, "besides Crystal is the only material that can contain elemental Water without dissolving. "
Tarral sighed, "I don't even know what you're trying to do with that much Water. But I was sent here by Quinn to ask you to pitch your tent before it gets truly nighttime. "
Landar looked down at her pot then pouted, "can you pitch it for us?"
Hey. Cato almost stopped her, but Tarral perked up exactly as if he was waiting for that. "I'll do that for you if you can teach us alchemy during the day," Tarral ventured, "I heard some amazing things about your work. Not many alchemists can even manage to duplicate it. "
Like spell cannons. Cato nodded, "it's all right to teach them, Landar. They're a party that can keep secrets or Minmay wouldn't have trusted them with the expeditions for mana crystals. "
Landar shrugged, "you have a deal then. If you pitch our tents and cook so we don't have to do all the annoying things about camping, I'll teach you how to make a device enchanter. "
Cato could only grin as the name seemed to have changed yet again. At least it was simple now.
"So, about elemental Water," Landar said, filling a small amount of the stuff into the container and stirring a rod of nearly pure wrought iron into it, "I want to try the drawing technique you described to the Ironworkers. "
Cato raised an eyebrow, "I thought they were working on making cold iron, as they're calling it? It's soft but holds magic better than steel. It's still too expensive, no?"
"Well, I think we can use the technique to make a bastardized version of composite materials. Like a layered yama jam cake," Landar said, pulling out a long spool of thread from her supplies. She dipped it into the pot and drew it out slowly, a layer of crystallized iron growing unevenly over it as she disrupted the elemental Water in a single practised motion. "The Ironworkers discovered that cold iron has better strength if you draw it unevenly, it doesn't shatter as easily if the grains aren't all lined up like when they do it in your slow-draw fashion. "
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She held up the thread that seemed to be growing little iron whiskers. "By depositing multiple layers, you build up a sheath of iron around the thread. If you place a roll of thread or thin cloth around the outside and draw again," Landar demonstrated, pulling out a piece of cloth and wrapping it over the thin delicate rod. Then she put it aside and pulled out an rough looking rod of metal.
"This is the result when I tried it," Landar said, "observe that the iron flakes off easily at the contact points with the thread. It doesn't bind well, but the core portion is solid because the threads are embedded. And while the cloth layers block cracks from going through the rod, it weakens the rod if you strike it along the direction of the cloth. "
She pointed at the top of the rod where the concentric circles of cloth making up the pseudo-composite was hanging off. A quick strike of a steel knife flaked off a chunk of iron.
"Hmm," Cato blinked, "show me how you draw it again? I think it might be worthwhile to create the cloth shape first then fill in the holes with iron. Maybe we can try fibre balls instead of woven cloth to get around the grain problem. "
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It was well after the Little Night and late evening before they finally gave up. Landar was starting to run low on magic and the pile of failed product was getting quite worrying.
"Thorndown thread is probably not a good choice," Cato sighed finally, "it's too bad we didn't remember to bring other types of cloth. With a more flammable one, I would have liked to try charring it. Carbon would definitely work. "
"Perhaps," Landar joined him in the sigh.
"That said, I have one last experiment to try," Cato said.
Landar suppressed a groan and refilled the pot with elemental Water. He nodded and she lit it up with a small ball of light.
"This isn't a composite materials experiment," Cato explained, fetching a piece of poor quality iron, "we know that certain materials will displace others but what about carbon and iron?"
He stirred the pot with the rod of iron, watching the Water eat it away. "The impurities like sulphur and silicon make cast iron brittle, requiring a good source of iron ore to avoid them," Cato said, "in my world, we added other elements to purify them in the furnace but trying to get say, maganese, in Inaths seems difficult without a the technological base. "
"But we should be able to utilize elemental Water to do this," he said, still stirring the pot. The Water had already taken on the blackish tinge, signifying it was nearing saturation, and iron crystals were dropping out of the solution at the bottom of the pot. "Simply put, since the impurities will likely differ in solubility compared to iron, dissolving more iron into the Water than it can hold should concentrate the impurities into either the solution or the precipitate. "
He looked up when the ball of light flickered and blinked when Landar leaned against his shoulder. Cato looked at her sleeping face, not quite sure what to feel about that. She was even maintaining the ball of light in her sleep, probably courtesy of her Iris training.
Well, she must be tired after all that experimenting. Cato took out the smaller pot and poured the elemental Water inside to leave it to evapourate overnight then shut off her light by shooting it with a disruption wand. Waking her up to ask her to test the iron would be sheer cruelty, it could wait till tomorrow.