He has finally done it. Franklin has finally processed the manifested iron ore into a usable material. This completes a task he had set out to do days ago, ever since venturing on this journey of his to manufacture a pickaxe, with the question now becoming, “What next?”

To answer this, Franklin examines the iron bloom in his hand, the product of the bloomery process, then calls up his Decompose screen. A message appears, showing the following:

Decompose 523.4 grams of Iron Bloom. This action will consume 524 AP.

Option 1) This will yield

207.8 grams of Iron

6.6 grams of Carbon

22.1 grams of Silicon

25.2 grams of Oxygen

Option 2) This will yield

15274.8 O-Points

Please select an option to proceed.

Working through the information aloud, he begins with,

“Hm, interesting… so the system recognizes iron bloom as a categorically discrete item, different from both hematite and, say, pure iron. I wonder what governs this categorization process and where the boundaries lie, and does this imply that if an item cannot be properly categorized, it cannot be decomposed? Then again, finding out an item cannot be categorized might be useful information in and of itself… I’ll have to remember to try Decompose on everything I encounter, from now on… and actually, hold on… on the other hand, if the item can be decomposed, well… isn’t this essentially a way to identify unknown or unfamiliar items then? Have the System tell me what it is I’m holding or touching? That sounds like it’ll come in very ‘handy’…

Okay anyways, so jumping into the actual numbers on display, let’s see... since I started with 5kg of iron ore, the yield of my bloomery can be calculated as 523.4g divided by 5kg, which gives... 10.5% of iron ore converted to iron bloom. The true number is probably a little less, since there’s still slag that has to be removed, but all in all, the final yield is... not exactly great, but not too bad either, I guess. I mean, according to the molar composition of hematite (Fe2O3), the theoretical maximum yield of iron should be 69.94%, based on molar ratios. And I know for a fact that modern blast furnaces can consistently reach yields of around 60%, so… at 10.5%, there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement. Well, something to look forward to, I suppose, as the next step of my technological advancement.

With regards to the actual bloom I have right now, I do find it kind of interesting that it is worth the same amount of O-Points roughly as the iron ore I started out with, despite there being a nearly ten-fold difference in mass between the two. I guess that just goes to show that elemental composition really makes a difference, particularly when there’s high value ones like carbon mixed in.

And speaking of elemental composition… Now that it’s in front of me, I’m realizing that this aspect of the Decompose command is actually ridiculously powerful as well. I mean, not only does it identify a substance for me, but it also straight up tells me the elemental composition of that substance... It's like having a mass spectrometer, a fifty grand analytical instrument, that I didn’t have to pay for nor wait in line to use, that I can also fit into my pocket…. In fact, it’s so convenient, that it almost feels… cheaty…. Then again, I’m all for taking any advantage I can get, so…

Let’s see, given that there’s silicon in the iron bloom, plus the carbon content is roughly... 6.6g divided 523.4g, which equals… 1.26%, though the actual percentage is likely a little higher, again because of the presence of slag currently, I think it’s safe to say this is cast, and not wrought, iron. Yeah, I think it needs to be under… 0.8% carbon content? To be wrought iron? So, I guess the question right now is… what to do with this bloom? Try to cast it? Work it? Hm…

Well, to work it, I’ll need a smithing setup… anvil, forge, hammer, and so forth… none of which I currently have. And to make them, I’ll need to work iron… in a smithing setup…”

Franklin feels a deadpan expression overtake his face. “Well,” he mumbles, “Talk about a chicken and egg problem. I need tools to make tools… I wonder if there is a workaround I can create, by exploiting the System somehow…wait… create… create… Yeah, wasn’t there a Create command? Maybe I can just Create the tools I need. Okay, let’s check that out. I think it was in Craft-” He navigates through the appropriate menus- first Craft, then Create- after which a list of items and associated AP costs appear. He scrolls to the section containing items made of iron, searching for anything that might help him in smithing, the section he sees appearing as follows:

Item

AP Cost

Iron Axe

10,000

Iron Hoe

12,800

Iron Knife

3,600

Iron Lance

29,000

Iron Shield

41,000

Iron Shovel

12,800

Iron Sickle

14,600

Iron Sword

10,000

“Uh, wait… so not only is there not a forge or anvil, there’s not even a hammer?? It can’t be that it hasn’t been invented in this world yet, right? I mean, wasn’t the hammer invented on Earth, like, millions of years ago or something? So… why is it missing from the list…” Franklin scrolls through again, just to double check, but indeed, the item is not there. “No nails or screws either… weird. And well, no pickaxe, obviously.” He studies the display a bit longer before a realization dawns on him as to what the pattern might be, “Hm, wait, so… I can see that there are farming tools, like the hoe and sickle… and also weapons, like the sword and spear, but…. there’s nothing in terms of tradecrafts, it looks like. So, no smithing tools or woodworking or tailoring. How… bizarre. Is this an oversight by the System? Or something more intentional? But why would crafting tools be intentionally left out…?”

Thinking on it for a while longer, but unable to come up with a good answer at present, Franklin decides to move on from the subject. After all, whatever the reason, the fact that the System did not have even a basic hammer meant it is a deadend in terms of finding a solution to his smithing needs. Before shutting down the Create dialogue, however, a different observation distracts his attention.

Curious as to the reason underlying the costs of each of the iron items, he plays with the values a bit in his head. “So, the iron shield is the most expensive. The lance is pretty expensive as well. So are weapons more expensive than tools? Hm.. but the knife is only 3600 AP, making it cheaper than all the tools… wait, does a knife count as a weapon or a tool? Well, in any case… that doesn’t explain the difference amongst the different tools, for example. Wait… does it have to do with their respective sizes? I mean, that would make sense. Larger items cost more AP. A sword weighs on average… one kilogram, or so? Actually, now I’m a bit curious as to how my iron processing stacks up to just spawning a sword using Create. Hm, let’s see, assuming you need to start out with twice as much material due to scale and burn off during smithing …”

Running through the numbers, Franklin generates the following table in his head:

Smelt Efficiency

Starting Ore Required (kg)

Transmute AP Required

AP Savings Compared to Create (%)

0.1

20

28514

-185.14

0.2

10

14257

-42.57

0.3

6.667

9505

4.95

0.4

5

7129

28.71

0.5

4

5703

42.97

0.6

3.333

4752

52.48

0.7

2.857

4074

59.26

“So, depending on my smelting efficiency, I can either save AP or waste AP. Looks like the breakeven is around 30% smelting efficiency… So basically, if I want to mass produce swords- for some reason- I will need to have a smelting efficiency of at least 30% to make it worth going the Transmute route as opposed to just using Create to get the item. Interesting… well, I do plan to get a blast furnace as soon as possible, which should get me to 60% efficiency, in which case I would be saving 52% AP per sword made… And of course, all this is a moot point on items for which the system cannot Create for some reason, like a basic hammer… For those, I’ll have to go the Transmute-smelting route, so it’s good that I’m working to get a system in place... Anyways, I think the idea then, for now at least, is that I can probably spawn an iron tool, and rework it into something I want. But that just circles back to the original question of how do I smith tools without tools… Hm, what about bronze…? That melts at a lower temperature than iron, so I would be able to melt bronze down and cast it directly into tools with the bloomery setup I have currently… But, again for whatever mysterious reason, the System doesn’t seem to have anything made of bronze that I can take advantage of… which means I’d have to Materialize it myself. Well, let’s explore down this path for a moment. So for bronze, I’d need to spawn both copper and tin. Let’s start with copper. Now, what does that request Materialize as?”

Franklin tries this, selecting copper as his element of choice for the Materialize command. An instant later, a small pebble appears in his palm, gray, but flecked with gold, and while he can just check with Decompose what the mineral is, he finds it more fun to test himself, relying on the System only as a last resort. Studying the material, he grins, realizing its name. “Chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), interesting that it didn’t choose bornite. Well, so let’s see, with something like this, I suppose the smelting efficiency is somewhere around 25%, ore to metal? Probably better than iron, at least, just because of the lower melting point. And if I’m trying to make a head for a hammer, I’ll need about 500g of copper for the alloy. Working out the math, that should be an AP cost of-”

Running through the numbers, Franklin comes up with the following results:

500g of castable copper requires 2000g copper ore, assuming 25% (0.8 x 0.35) yield from smelting 2000g copper ore (Chalcopyrite, CuFeS2) has a molar composition of Cu:Fe:S = 34.63:30.43:34.94 2000g copper ore requires 4000g copper ore requested, due to 50% efficiency of Materialize 0.3463 x 4000g = 1385.2g copper required for Materialize 0.3043 x 4000g = 1217.2g iron required for Materialize 0.3494 x 4000g = 1397.6g sulfur required for Materialize 1385.2 / 0.210 = 6596.2g carbon required for copper Exchange (derived from 1989 / 10, see O-Points) 1217.2 / 198.9 = 6.12g carbon required for iron Exchange 1397.6 / 1.308 = 1068.5g carbon required for sulfur Exchange 7670.82g carbon needed total from Decompose 0.4038g carbon / 1g charcoal = 7670.82g carbon / ? charcoal ? = 19000g charcoal needed for Decompose Total AP = 19000 + 7671 + 1386 = 28057

“-28057 AP… yikes. Okay, let’s not go the bronze route… So then, back to the original problem of iron working… Maybe I can just ‘cast’ a tool using Materialize?”

He thinks back to an early idea that had arisen while he had been pondering the issue of mass quantification, wherein he had considered manifesting a solid within a container. Perhaps, he had thought then, that like a liquid Materialize, the solid will take the shape of the container selected, hence allowing him to ‘cast’ it without need of high temperatures. “It’d certainly be exploitive,” he notes aloud. To try out the idea, Franklin creates a ceramic container with an irregular interior shape- which he finds to actually be easier than making a normal one- after which he attempts to Materialize some hematite into it. To his disappointment, however, he finds that only one of two things happens. “If the manifested material is smaller than the container,” he recaps to himself, “then it just spawns in the middle of the container, in the space available, without taking the shape of the container… and if it’s larger than the container, the container just shatters from the sudden expansion… Guess you can’t cheat the system this way… dang…”

He closes his eyes, trying to take stock of what he has learned thus far. “So, bronze tools are a non-starter, and I can’t get the iron tools that I need from Create. That means smithing is out of the question. That just leaves casting the iron…”

He feels a frown tug at his lips, for this is the exact thing he didn’t want to have to resort to, the reason being… He sighs, again working through the problem aloud, “So, for smelting iron, a temperature of roughly 900°C is enough to trigger the reduction reaction and, since I don’t have a thermometer, I’m going to assume that my bloomery just managed to reach that required temperature, or a little above it, with the addition of the bellows. This also means that working iron might be possible, with a little bit more airflow, since working iron requires the metal to be soft, and that requires temperature a bit above 900°C. Still, as I said, definitely achievable in theory with my current bloomery setup, and hence why it was my first choice. Since that seems unlikely now, however…

If I go the casting route, to actually melt iron to make it liquid for casting, I’ll need an internal temperature of around 1200°C… That’s an extra three hundred degrees… impossible to achieve with just hand-operated bellows… Ugh. Well, the problem really boils down to this- I have to make much more oxygen available to the charcoal, to get the fire burning hotter, so… Well, in modern ore processing, you’d use a furnace combined some kind of ventilation system, but since I obviously don’t have that… A trompe, maybe? But that’d require an entirely different set of engineering… and where would I get the water from? There’s no river or waterfall… Could I just spawn the water using Materialize?”

Franklin tousles his brown hair with two hands, growing a bit exasperated. “Ahh! Why is this so complicated! If only there was an easy way to add more oxygen directly into the bloomery! But it’s not like I can just magically make oxygen appear where I want it to-!”

He pauses, staring into the distance. “Oh.”

****

Franklin begins by trying to Materialize oxygen in an open palm. This is to confirm what state the element will manifest as, for he can think of two clear candidates. “Will it be H two O? Or will it be O two?” he wonders aloud, for he knows that water and oxygen gas are quite similar in abundance, so it is not immediately apparent which the system will select. To his great relief, perhaps due to its greater simplicity, he feels a slight breeze across his palm, rather than a wetness. “Oxygen gas! Nice! Okay, now let’s test this next part…”

He goes to retrieve one of his clay potatoes, then proceeds to repeat the experiment, but this time selecting the container as the destination of his command, the prompt reading:

Valid Container detected. Materialize 1 gram of oxygen in Container. This action will consume 1 AP. Proceed?

He accepts, and instantly after its execution, Franklin feels a slight draft emerge from the lip of the clay potato, as the oxygen overflows the container, normalizing with the air of the cavern. He grins, nodding his head as he says, “Boyle’s Law, nice. Air flux due to a difference in volume between the oxygen materialized and the container, creating a pressure gradient. If that’s the case… then this should work as well…”

This time, he goes to pick up the tuyere, which had been used to connect the bellows to the bloomery. Selecting oxygen as his element of choice, he holds the end of the tuyere, plugging one side with a finger, while leaving the other end open. Then he executes the Materialize command, opting once again for the usage of a container. Instantly, a whoosh! of air can be heard exiting the tube in his hand, as the manifested oxygen rushes out of the narrow space, seeking the openness of the cavern instead. Observing this, Franklin’s grin grows even wider, his heart now thumping with excitement. “Nice! With this, the plan might just work! Now, all I need to try is connecting it to the bloomery and-”

Nearly tripping over himself in a rush of enthusiasm, he starts up the charcoal fire and connects the tuyere. Then plugging one end of the tube as before, he exclaims, “[Materialize]!”

And as before, oxygen manifests in the tuyere, flies out of the tube and travels down its pressure gradient, this time directly into the bloomery, and so in this respect, Franklin’s plan has proven a resounding success. But in his excitement, he may have also overlooked a rather small aspect of the process, just a tiny problem, namely, that when pure oxygen is suddenly added to an open flame…

Boom!