Chapter 19

I put some coal inside the smelter, load up all my iron bits on my shovel, and light the coal with a torch. Once that's done, I dump the iron ore inside and get to work on the air-infusing mechanism. It takes a lot of work to put air inside the smelter, but I've got to get the temperature up really high. After a dozen or so minutes of pushing air inside, I pull the iron out with some prongs and place the lump on the anvil. With one hand holding the prongs and one hand holding the hammer, I smash the shit out of that lump. After a while, I've got some spongy mass, which is what I was aiming for, and I put the wrought iron to the side and work on the remaining iron inside the smelter.

Early morning on the 23rd day, I have about a pound of iron. I can't really do anything with it, and I wonder if I should just forget all about this mining thing. Instead of letting that get to me, I decide to spend all day mining. I try to use earth magic to keep the roof smooth, and I can feel my mana running out. As I mine for the whole day, I also feel me stamina running out. When it happens I take a break for a few minutes and then I'm all good. I can alternate between mining and using magic, but I have to take a break after using magic because it is not enough time for the mana to regenerate all the way. I would think of a way to increase the mana and stamina I have left, but that is probably the Vitality and Wisdom stats. I would rather use my stat points on increasing intelligence to make my magic more powerful.

I leave the mine and feel really sapped. Something about doing hard labor all day makes me want to hire people to do the work for me. I could get some miners to help, but then I would also need a place for them to stay, and need to make the mine bigger. With a bigger mine comes the need for more safety precautions, and I don't think I'm ready to do that quite yet. For now, I'll mine during the day and smelt at night, as long as I don't run out of coal.

Although, if I can get more powerful magic, I can forgo the use of coal all together and just use fire magic. That would probably take a while to get, and that still wouldn't solve my problem of having to push air into the smelter. Well, the air is only used to allow the fire to get hotter, so I won't need the air in that case. Even with that, I might not even need the smelter. If my fire magic gets hot enough, it might be able to straight up melt the iron by itself.

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In the meantime, I use the night to smelt the iron ore I took up from the mine. Iron is supposed to stick together inside the smelter when it gets really hot and falls to the bottom, so I can take out all the left over gross stuff and throw that to the side. I plan on making a wall eventually, but not quite yet. In the night, I use a lot of coal and get through a LOT of iron ore. When I'm all done with everything and decide to use water magic to help wash myself off, I've got six pounds.

Morning of the 24th day, and it is as good of a time as any to check my inventory and stats. I'll also check all the skills I have while I'm at it.

>**Status**

>Name: Homogeneous Khalidius

>Level: 5

>Class: Novice

>Credits: 0

>Health: 50/50

>Stamina: 34/50

>Mana: 38/50

>Strength: 25

>Dexterity: 15

>Vitality: 10

>Inteligence: 10

>Wisdom: 10

>Luck: 10

>Stat Points Available: 0

>**Inventory**

>Steel Bow, Used

>Iron Arrow x81

>Demon Arrow x6

>String

>Rope

>Nails

>Coal x43lb

>Axe

>Orchelium Pickaxe

>Knife

>Shovel

>Hammer

>Hand Saw

>Grind-wheel

>Torch x2

>Mountain Hare Meat x26lb

>Black Bear Fat x80lb

>A shit ton of stone

>Wrought Iron x7lb

>**Skills**

>Trapping

>Archery

>Construction

>Tanning

>X-Ray Vision

>Night Vision

>Heat Vision

>Ninja Movement

>Survivalism

>Mining

>Smelting

>Smithing

>Tailoring

>Basic Water Magic

>Basic Earth Magic

Looking at everything I've got, I realize that I won't have any money in a few days when the shop opens again. I've got some iron, but I don't know much that will be worth. I should also be working on leveling up so I can increase the power of my magic.