Setting up my new — and hopefully more permanent — forge took half of my available time. However, it was certainly worth it. Three layers of trees surrounded it to give me a perfect vision of my surroundings.

There was even a small farm where the root plants I discovered had been growing en masse. I hoped to use them to replenish my Health. However, I was yet to eat despite feeling the intense vitality it contained, because I still needed an expert to confirm that it was edible and not poisonous.

System allowed Health to solve most problems, but it didn't solve every single ailment.

And, setting the encampment came with its own reward.

[Nurture (Rare) 92 - 97]

However, as much as the plants that surrounded my farm were an incredible achievement, it was nothing compared to what laid at the center.

For once, the main forge was sitting on a raised platform made of iron-covered stone, giving it an elegant feeling. The only reason it wasn't a full wall was that it would have blocked my view. Even when working, I didn't have the luxury of staying hidden.

Instead, I forged a few metal sheets that I might raise in case I'm doing something particularly sensitive.

Too bad I didn't know how to make corrosion-resistant glass. Ultimately, Forge and Repair were both focused on metal, limiting the available information I could access. While I was confident that I could figure out a way, glass wasn't exactly on top of my list of required materials.

No, that honor went to discovering a lesser variant of the corrosion-resistant material. Well, more accurately, finding a version that was simple enough that I could argue that I discovered it through sheer repetition.

Too bad I never had a common variant of the Forge high enough to know whether a recipe was included there. If it was, revealing it wouldn't have any risk.

Technically, that also meant that my experiment might be unnecessary, but I decided to conduct it nevertheless. Even if it turned out to be useless, it would be a good test run for the experimental procedure so that I could perfect it before I could start with my real experiment.

My desire to test how various metals and alloys interacted with mana in my desire to understand mana better.

Currently, I had merely one small shelf, made of pure iron — as the wood didn't resist corrosion once it was cut out of the tree. Each shelf had a chart — once again an iron sheet — for me to take note of the experimental details and results.

Even a small shelf used up a lot of material, but I was happy with it. Ideally, I planned to make a hundred of such shelves. After all, a proper experiment required thousands of samples.

To be able to produce all of it, I needed a lot of material, hence the existence of the thirty-feet blast furnace sitting on the low ground, to refine the iron ore into pig iron. It wasn't a design from the System. Instead, it belonged to me.

I didn't know why the System didn't have it. Maybe it was a part of a different class, or maybe the System disdained even the simplest type of mass production — I wasn't exactly exaggerating when I called System the wet dream of Objectivists.

Either way, I had to design blast furnace myself completely. Luckily, the working principles of a blast furnace were simple. Create layers of iron and coke — purified coal — and burn starting from the bottom. Iron melted and gathered at the bottom, while the waste products floated up.

However, in medieval times, raising iron to melting temperature couldn't be achieved by open flames. Hence the blast furnace. It not only used bellows to pump air, but also had a huge chimney, creating a suction effect.

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Combined, they were barely able to raise the temperature to the necessary level. Luckily, for me, neither bellows nor coke was necessary. Thanks to their intense vitality, the wood from the trees would burn intensely enough.

Which was good, because making a bellow was very difficult when one was restricted to metal only, without any elastic materials to make things easier.

"Beautiful," I muttered even as I moved toward the open pit with a raised hammer, ready to gather more ores. Then, I paused, my mood slipping a bit. Despite my attempts, there was already a layer gathered on top. Clearly, there were some water leaks from the bottom, and the more I dug, the worse it would get.

A pump was necessary.

"Or, maybe a steam engine," I muttered with an amused smile, mostly because the first steam engines had been used to pump water out of mines. The world had changed, but the problems stayed the same.

Admittedly, a simple pump would be enough for a surface deposit. Combined with my Strength, it would be far more efficient than a steam engine. Not to mention, it would consume a couple of tons of iron to build.

Wasteful and pointless, but I couldn't help but admit that the allure was there, especially if I could link to a conveyor belt to free me from the task of going back and forth.

"Actually, that might not be a bad idea," I said. The world had abandoned the existence of steam engines because they were not worth the cost. People with Strength could easily use simple pumps for free, and even the simplest alloy was expensive.

Even the simplest steam engine that could survive in a post-Cataclysm world would cost enough to be measured in gold coins, while the same thing could be achieved in paying someone less than a silver a day — which would probably be cheaper than the fuel it consumed.

It was not for no reason the production had been stuck to a feudal balance. Especially since, if there was a need for automation, magic was there to compensate.

However, it wasn't out of a principled stance that I wanted to build a simple steam engine. I had a simpler problem. I didn't have time.

It didn't matter that a steam engine wouldn't be as efficient as me. My current power was still a secret, and I needed to find a way to free myself from simpler tasks if I ever wanted to scale up the production.

It would be hard work, but when the alternative was to hire people and trust them to keep it a secret…

"First, let's start producing iron," I said. Ultimately, the whole plan depended on an abundance of iron, measured in tons; which sounded a lot, but considering the pre-Calamity world measured the yearly production in billions of metric tons, it wasn't as impressive.

"I wonder if this is the first iron mine in this new world?" I asked myself. Technically, it was possible. After all, the outside world was filled with excess metal, especially when it came to simpler stuff. Why bother going through all that trouble when scavenging was easier?

I sighed, ignoring the problem as I raised my hammer, ready to shatter the deposit under my feet. Of course, traditionally, a pickaxe was a much better tool to deal with semi-solid rock, but I had a different plan.

[-10 Health]

The hammer hit the rock, and about a cubic foot of material had shattered into small pieces. It wasn't the typical way the rock should behave under such an attack, but the life energy that surrounded the hammer worked wonders.

A cubic foot of material didn't sound too much, but considering the material density, it certainly was. Iron was a relatively dense metal, almost eight grams of density, which meant four cubic feet of iron weighed about a metric ton.

Of course, the raw material wasn't as dense, but even with it, and the low purity ratio had been factored in, a cubic feet of raw material should give me almost twenty pounds of iron. It was all I could steal from a cart without things getting suspicious.

There was a reason I spent my precious time creating my current setup.

Ten blows had been enough to fill the blast furnace for the first few layers. I dragged the cart up, but before going to the furnace, I stopped to chop down a tree.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to prepare fuel beforehand, as the moment I cut the tree, it started rotting. I tried to make charcoal, but it didn't prevent the process, meaning I needed another experiment just to have long lasting charcoal.

However, I ignored that necessity as I created the layers, and lit it on fire, once again using my fire bolt. Wasteful, but since it was holding a skill slot, there was no harm experimenting a bit more.

[-100 Mana]

I watched as the flames covered the open mouth of the furnace, and a slow wind started to pick up. Soon, the bright red drops of iron were already gathered at the bottom of the bellows, the heat hitting my face hard.

If I was still below level ten, I would have taken a step back. Instead, I watched proudly as a dark smoke started to rise from the top, along with a sharp, disgusting smell that suggested it was contaminated by a great amount of sulfur.

Meanwhile, the molten iron glowed brightly as it dripped down from the tap at the bottom along with the slag, finally adding some color to the opening, gathering in the large crucible.

"Beautiful," I muttered despite everything, including the disgusting smell. It was the first step of success.

Then, I turned and walked back to the mine.

I still had a lot of material to excavate.