Having solved the issue of mass quantification, as well as making the pleasantly unexpected discovery of a new Decompose source, Franklin decides to put his mind back towards working on the bellows required for his bloomery. The goal of this is to create an apparatus that will allow him to fan the charcoal within, thereby creating a hotter smelting environment, with the ultimate goal of getting enough iron to create a pickaxe and finally start properly constructing his dungeon. To do all this, he draws upon two sources of information: a scientific paper he had read back in his graduate school days as well as a video he had seen online. Both had been for fun.

“Okay, so according to the published data, the researchers were working with approximately 30kg of iron ore,” he recalls, eyes closed as he reads through the text in his mind, “I guess that’s about the mass of thirty pineapples, or thirty toasters?” He muses silently for a moment, imagining a kitchen with thirty toasters, or thirty pineapples for that matter, then continues aloud, “And they were working with a bloomery that had an interior volume of 0.6m x 0.6m x 0.8m (WxLxH), roughly in the shape of a cylinder. So then, the key measurement here would have to be the cross-sectional area of the bloomery, since that’s what determines the surface of ore exposed to carbon monoxide for the reduction reaction. And for a cylinder, the cross-section will be a circle, calculated by πr2. Plugging in 0.3m as the radius then, that works out to be roughly…” He scribbles some numbers onto a mental notepad, working out the math, “... 0.28m2 or so, and for the bloomery I made-”

He walks over to his cob chimney, augmenting a mental ruler onto the scene before his eyes, gauging the dimensions while saying, “So, same thing, a cylinder, but with a diameter of… eight tenths of a foot. Since one foot is 0.3048m, then the radius in meters is just the diameter in feet divided by two multiplied by the conversion factor, giving... 0.122m, and the area works out to be about… 0.0467m2. So, comparing my construct to the published results, that means a reduction to about… one-sixth? Or 16.67%. Nice. So, now, I just need to calculate the proportional mass of iron ore and airflow needed. Taking 16.67% of 30kg gives me… basically five kilograms of iron ore on the dot, or five pineapples... unless you prefer toasters, I guess. And as for airflow…”

Again, Franklin references the paper in his mind before continuing, “Using their bellows, the experimenters delivered 185L of air over ten strokes, for a volume of 18.5L per contraction. I guess that works out to be about…. eleven-and-a-half ostrich eggs’ worth per stroke? Or about the volume of ninety baseballs? And they performed twenty squeezes over the course of a minute… so basically once every three seconds. Since my bloomery is one-sixth of the cross-sectional area, I’ll also need to scale down the airflow as well, dropping it to… 3.083L per contraction, or about two ostrich eggs…”

Speaking of ostrich eggs and toasters, I haven’t eaten anything since I reincarnated, and yet, I don’t feel hungry at all… curious. Franklin thinks on this a moment longer, then shrugs, returning to the matter at hand, having thus far determined the following:

Iron Ore Needed (kg)

5

Airflow Volume Needed Per Contraction (L)

3.083

He makes his way over to the first bloomery he had constructed. The chimney has since been toppled over intentionally, to give access to the contents interior, leaving behind what almost appears like a tree trunk, albeit hollow and filled with unburned charcoal still. Mixed in as well are small pellets of iron ore, and he takes some time to dig these out, reclaiming them and creating a pile to the side.

Studying the ore lumps, he finds that there are both unsmelted and partially smelted ones. The former still appear gray, with patches of reddish-brown, akin to when he had first materialized them. On the other hand, the partially fired ones feel denser and present a dark, greenish-black surface riddled with pores. Franklin runs his fingers over the rough exterior of the latter, mumbling, “This greenish stuff… slag, probably. And no metallic glean of iron at all... so definitely incomplete smelting, most likely due to low temperature, which itself probably stems from lack of sufficient airflow,” he reiterates, reconfirming his own observational hypothesis, “So then, adding a bellows should fix the issue. Now… let’s see how much hematite I managed to recover....”

He collects the pile of ore into his hands, then executes the Decompose command. A message appears, reading:

Decompose 4213.7 grams of Hematite. This action will consume 4214 AP.

Option 1) This will yield

1485.2 grams of Iron

656.2 grams of Oxygen

Option 2) This will yield

15335.10 O-Points

Please select an option to proceed.

He smiles, not only because the Decompose command is proving extremely convenient as a means of quantifying his system inputs, but also because he has managed to recover the bulk of the hematite he has been materializing over the course of the past several days.

“Okay, so 4213.7g of hematite,” he begins, “And if I need five pineapple’s worth in total, then that’s five kilograms minus 4.2137 or… 786.3 grams. And so the Transmute cost works out to be…”

He runs the numbers through his head, factoring in the fact that he’ll be using the newly discovered source in charcoal, the math working out as follows:

786.3g raw iron ore requires 1572.6g raw iron ore requested, due to 50% efficiency of Materialize

Molar ratio of hematite (Fe2O3) is Fe:O = 69.94:30.06 0.6994 x 1572.6g = 1099.88g iron required for Materialize 0.3006 x 1572.6g = 472.72g oxygen required for Materialize 1099.88 / 198.9 = 5.53g carbon required for iron Exchange (derived from 1989 / 10, see O-Points) 472.72 / 1989 = 0.238g carbon required for oxygen Exchange (derived from 1989 / 1) 5.768g carbon needed total from Decompose 0.4038g carbon / 1g charcoal = 5.768g carbon / ? charcoal

? = 14.28g charcoal needed for Decompose

“So, I’ll need to Decompose 14.28g of charcoal to have the materials sufficient for 786.3g of iron ore. Moreover, the associated AP cost is... 15 AP for the Decompose, 6 AP for the Exchange and 1100 AP for the Materialize, for a total of 1121 (15 + 6 + 1100) AP.

Hm, I wonder what it would have been had I still been using limestone. Let’s run the numbers, just for fun-”

And so he does, with the additional values working out as such:

5.768g carbon needed total from Decompose 0.24g carbon / 4g limestone = 5.768g carbon / ? limestone

? = 96.1g limestone needed for Decompose

“-so, 96.1g of limestone needed instead of just 14.28g of charcoal. Yep, charcoal is definitely the significantly better Decompose source. Although… looking at the AP costs, for limestone, it works out to be… 97 AP for the Decompose, 6 AP for the Exchange and 1100 AP for the Materialize, for a total of 1203 (97 + 6 + 1100) AP. So, while I do save on the Decompose step, it’s really the Materialize step that requires the bulk of the AP, since it’s tied directly to the mass I’m trying to manifest. Hm… I wonder if there’s any way to make that part more efficient as well… I’ll need to remember to look into it when I have a chance…”

Making a mental note to do so in the future, Franklin then goes through the process of spawning in the additional iron ore using the numbers he has calculated. And given that he is restricting each Materialize to a single gram, this means he will need to make 787 separate Transmute requests, a process that will require a not insignificant amount of time. As to the reason he is doing it this way…

...he lets out a sigh of relief, stretching out his arms, exclaiming, “Finally! 787 Materialize complete! Geez, that was so tedious. I mean, it was fun initially because of how clever the idea was, to take advantage of Decompose combined with Materialize to create iron ore ‘grounds’, to request exactly one gram each time so as to not only prevent AP loss due to rounding, but to also effectively bypass any need for ball mills or other such grinding apparatuses required in modern iron ore processing, but… after 5000 requests, man… The things I do for efficiency and optimization…” He lets out another sigh before continuing, “Anyways, time to calculate the size of the bellows required.”

Taking the design from a video he has previously watched, he begins to sketch out the idea in his head, “So, unlike a traditional fireplace bellow, which is triangular in shape and kind of works like an accordion, what I want is a cylinder with a hemisphere-shaped membrane attached to the top. Then I can basically push and pull on this membrane to force air in and out of the bellow, kind of like a syringe, almost. In this case then, the air flux, or amount of air that is being displaced, can be calculated based on the volume of the hemisphere, and from there, I can then determine the radius of the cylinder needed as the base. Okay, so to displace 3.083L of air per contraction, the radius needs to be...”

Again, he runs through the math in his head, the values appearing as such:

3.083L = 3083cm3 6166cm3 for volume of sphere needed, doubled because original is hemisphere Volume of a sphere is 4/3πr3 Plugging in 6166cm3 for volume and solving for r, r = 11.38 cm

“Okay, so I need to engineer a tube with an 11.38cm radius, or about eight-tenths of a foot in diameter. Got it.”

Conveniently, the dimensions work out to be similar to that of his bloomery, and so he begins construction of the bellows in much the same way. Fetching some clay, Franklin starts by molding it into long strips, turning them into circles by joining together the ends, before layering them one atop the other, forming a cylinder about two feet in height. Once this is complete, he digs out two holes on opposite sides, one for the air intake and another for the exhaust. To the latter, he further connects the tuyere- essentially, a clay tube- he has already created, forming a channel between the bellow and the bloomery for the air to travel.

Construction complete, he takes a step back, admiring his work. “It’s not exactly pretty but… function over form and all that jazz. Now, I just need one last component to test it…”

****

Spotting his minion entering the chamber, Franklin exclaims, “Cy! There you are! I was looking all over for you. Where did you go?”

“Slim~e,” the creature replies.

This causes Franklin to raise an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘you were here the whole time’? I searched the entire dungeon and-”

“...slime…”

“Cy…”

“...slime…”

What... He’s keeping secrets now...? Franklin shakes his head, deciding to press the issue at a different point in time, more interested in testing his setup at present. “Okay, whatever, we’ll talk about this later,” he says with a shrug, “In any case, the bloomery is done, Cy. I need your help to test out the bellows. Come here, and I’ll explain what to do.”

Franklin runs a finger across the surfaces of the bloomery and bellows, confirming that both have indeed dried, before directing Cy to the latter. “Okay, so I need you to stretch out across the top of this cylinder here,” he instructs, and he watches as the slime creature slugs its way atop the bellows, covering the opening at the top, before he continues, “Good. Now make sure you’re gripping on tightly so that no air can escape from above...nice. Next, you should feel a small opening inside the cylinder, on this side, the one connected to this long tube. When you find it, cover it with your pseudopod. That should seal the exhaust. Did you find it?”

“Slim~e.”

“Good, now, all I should have to do is this and…” He grabs the middle of Cy’s outstretched form, pulling it upwards. Because the two other openings are sealed by ooze, Franklin hears a rush of air entering through the intake. He grins and, looking to Cy, who’s since expanded like a balloon, he says, “ Okay, now here’s the most critical part. Order matters here, Cy, so pay attention. First, cover the intake with your pseudopod. That’s the hole on this side. Right. Next, remove the pseudopod covering the exhaust, and once you're done, I should just have to press down on you and-” Doing as he has described, Franklin hears a whoosh of air escaping the bellows as he depresses Cy’s body downward into the cylinder. “Perfect!” he exclaims.

“Slim~e!”

“Indeed, Cy! Now, we just light the bloomery, add the iron ore, add charcoal in a roughly five to one ratio, and stroke the bellows for the next…” He pulls up the paper again, reading it in his mind, a slight frown forming when he gets to the part about the bellows. “... We just stroke the bellows for the next… nine hours….”

“...slime…”

****

Turns out the process is not as bad as he initially thought...it was so much worse- performing the same motion for nine hours straight. Somewhere in that time, Cy had somehow managed to fall asleep whilst still performing his duties, like sleepwalking, at least, Franklin assumed the creature was sleeping. Its eye had rolled inward, and given that it wasn’t dead…

For his part, Franklin took to reading one of the many stories catalogued away in his mind. The one he had chosen in particular was a web-based one, about someone from Earth reincarnating into a fantasy planet, wherein he meets a suspicious pirate and his emotionless protege. The story was marked as ongoing, but a lack of updates had him suspecting that it might have been dropped...

In any case, having weathered out the nine hours, and a few more just to let things cool, he stands, making his way to the bloomery, and as he approaches, he can feel his heart suddenly start to beat fast. “Moment of truth,” he mumbles, and with a push, he topples over the clay chimney, to reveal the contents within. With bated breath, he squats down, reaching into the hollowed base to see what he might find. Inspecting the yield, he digs out a chunk of rock, bringing it up to eye level for closer inspection, running a finger across the surface. Part of the rock is dark black, indicating slag. But part of it is also a shiny, metallic gray. Spotting the latter, Franklin feels a wide grin stretch from cheek to cheek, and he leaps up into the air, jumping with joy.

“Cy! Cy! Come look!”

“...slime…?” the creature utters, apparently still dazed.

“It’s iron, Cy! By god, we’ve made iron!” He holds the rock up high in the air, like Rafiki holding Simba in The Lion King, and he continues, in what is now tradition at this point.

“Technology unlocked! You have discovered Iron Working! You have now entered The Iron Age!”