I head for the smelter. There I find Stuart. The kiln is already lit and they are putting another crucible with iron ore in it. Approaching Stuart sees me and speaks:

“Nash, how are you?”

“I’m fine, and you?

“The same. Charlie sends the ore samples from you. I managed to identify them all. You found are iron, copper, and tin.”

“Good, though given the map, I doubt we will be using them anytime soon. There are closer options.”

“Regardless, I put the ores in the forge last night, and they melted with no problem. Much easier to smelt compared to iron. All you need is the right temperature.”

“That’s good to know. I only learned a little about how iron was made. Once in a while, I forged something, back on Earth. But who forges stuff with copper?”

“Yeah. By the way, we had already found a closer mine of copper. It is not the best quality, and it’s small. But it is less than 30 miles away. Better than 100 miles from the mines you found.”

“Definitely. How much ore we have already?”

“Copper ore? We brought enough to smelt 100 ingots if my calculations are correct.”

“Great, when are you doing it?”

“It’s in the kiln. We put it there this morning. It should be done already.”

With care, we open the larger door and take one of the smelting cups with Copper in it. The cup must weigh 200 pounds, but four people, expertly take it out. In only a few minutes I see over a dozen copper ingots poured and cooling.

As two stay to take care of the ingots, I head to help load the next batch. With the smelting cup, a few feet from the door, it is very easy. Stuart stands with his hands on the door to open and close it very quickly, not to lose too much heat.

Seem as the result was quite satisfactory, the cycle is repeated another two times. Coming back to the ingots, now only warm after been quenched, I pick one up. Stuart arrives at my side as all but one of the workers, head for other places.

“Beautiful, no?”

“Yes, it is. It also will be of great use in enchanting.”

“Tell me about it, Merlin has been pestering me for days, for a few ingots of copper.”

I chuckle and say:

“And I thought, I was the one to discover it this morning.”

“A student of his inscribed a coin and the results were better than any other material.”

“He must have forgotten to tell me about it.”

With an unconvinced tone, he agrees.

“He must have. Anyway, go ahead, take a couple of ingots and leave me to my work.” He finishes in a jovial tone, and I eagerly comply.

As I leave, I see him pulling out a notepad. After a quick note, he puts it away. That is probably a tab of who bought metal and who owes what the guild. Haha, my credit score is gonna tank if I don’t pay it back soon.

I arrive at the blacksmith. Barely a step in, everyone sees me and I hear Mr. Blackwood.

“So, are you coming back from your adventures?

He probably heard something from the others.

“Yeah, but today I think I will stick to something new.” I show the copper in my hand and grin.

“Are you going to make bronze or will you be inscribing?”

“I will be inscribing. I hope you don’t mind sharing the forge.”

“You are welcome.” He says, and I'm welcome. The work goes smoothly. It only takes me an hour to have every single one of the ingots as flat sheets of metal. I ask for a chisel and a hammer to take out and Mr. Blackwood acquiesce.

On my way out, everyone continues their work expertly. My departure, really made each every single one of them more focused. I don’t see them stop for a single second and the pace is slightly faster compared to a few days ago. Mr. Blackwood has been given more and more responsibility to everyone.

Now, three people were always forging full time. The smithy only stopped his work to give the final hammer strikes. And if I thought before they were a coordinated team, now they were even better.

How the hell they changed so much in only a couple days. Was I hoggin all the attention from the smithy and he couldn't teach properly? Or does having an Apprentice, determined that everyone else learned slower?

I ignore the thoughts and just head for the town hall. I want to take a quick pick on the map. Finding nothing, I just tell a messenger on the way for them to inform the guild I passed by the map room, and there was no change.

In the forest, I walk only a little and find a good spot. Dragging a rock to the side of a tree with a flat stump, I start working.

I use the chalk tor a rough outline. The Mithril tipped chisel helps me a lot and I can cut precisely, I don’t even use a heavy hammer, and sometimes I use the palm of my hand of parts I don’t need speed. The precision of each of my cuts and how clean everything looks, surprises me a little, though it shouldn’t have. Copper is much softer than steel, and this is an absolutely amazing tool wielded by someone with quite high dexterity.

I look at the outlines ad think about the chalk. It is probably not the best tool for this, but I don’t mind. Slowly in my hands, designs start to form. I don’t experiment with new runes just yet. First, my goal should be to get a baseline for the performance of copper.

I read that it was a good metal, but I needed to find out for myself what that meant. Why it was a good metal? Does it conduct better, waste less, it’s more easily moldable? What are its shortfalls? Maybe the main change was that it simply lasted longer than Iron/Steel.

Hours go by with absolute concentration in my craft.

Around three in the afternoon, I’m interrupted by a Rabbit. He starts to run to the closet shrub as soon as he sees me. I calmly pull a piece of vegetable from my pocket. Something similar to a carrot, but more tubular and purple colored.

I eat a piece and throw another for the rabbit. Sailing a dozen meters, I try to send my good intentions to him. It may not be the same as planting a new tree, but I did live near a lot of animals in Pando. Any place in nature has its own ecosystem. Except, apparently, this instance the System created.

Calming myself even further, I pay close attention to the rabbit. After a minute of staying perfectly still, I see a tiny cute head. Peaking out from the shrub two big round eyes are staring at me. At first glance, few people would notice his state, but I don’t even need a second glance. This is a terrified animal.

And I perfectly understand it. His home was destroyed and all his friends were becoming food. The new inhabitants of the forest were coming and taking over the place.

I feel sorrow. All that I see is the end of the world from his point of view. That gives me the determination to bring a little joy in his life. To make the world a little better in this small way.

Waiting for his reaction, I come back to my feelings, It was not the same as seeing Pando dying. Nothing could ever top that. But our actions were killing an innocent species. Soon there might be not a single one left.

Even if they were just the equivalent of computer-generated mobs, our actions were not the way to deal with them.

With trembling steps, I see the rabbit step outside a few feet, catch the piece of vegetable and eat it. After chomping his mouth in the carrot, he takes two leaps and I can no longer see him.

I throw a smaller piece a little closer to me and go back to my work. Each of my hits extends the lines a little and I’m very glad we now have copper. My preliminary findings are very promising.

Copper is better in every sense of the word. It can handle more mana, it’s faster and there is less waste. It is also easier to carve and not just a little but reduces the time needed in half, compared to steel.

Experiment after experiment go by. Every once in a while I see the cute rabbit, peeking from the shrub. After a while, he gains his confidence and quickly reaches for the piece of carrot.

This is how the game goes on for over an hour. I work until he comes a little closer. Then, I just throw another piece.

By the time I’m finishing with the last plate I see him peeking again. I held in my hand the last piece. I don’t let go and wait patiently. Over five minutes go by without a reaction. But then I can see him heading for me.

Each leap is bigger but he loses his courage mid-way. His approach is slower and slower. Two feet from me he stops entirely and makes a sad face at me. We both face each other until one of us caves.

With each step closer he gets ready to run should anything happen. He catches the piece from my hand in a quicky movement. I’m surprised by his next action. He stands a foot from my hand. My face lights up with a smile. That is how it should be. Us living peacefully. The rabbit eats everything and after another minute he comes in again. I feel the tickling of his tongue in my hand.

How I missed this sensation. The simple feeling of interacting with another being with no expectations that humans place on each other. This is something else I forgot how much I needed.

Getting up the rabbit slowly leaps away. Now headed for something, instead of away from me. That’s a big improvement.

Glad for the interaction, I come back to the village, thinking over all I acquired.

There are only a few usable plates. Most were tests I attempted to see the limits of working with copper.

What I ended up making that was even minimally functional, were the candles and lights. The candle flames required only 10 mana per minute. With a twist in the runes, I made another that would provide light more efficiently. The same 10 mana lasted 2 minutes for a much brighter light.

The mana sored in the ‘battery’ also suffered nearly no losses. Just like the mana I stored in ‘pipes’ on the kiln I inscribed, this is just a jury-rigged battery.

I try to think of a good enchantment to make for use in combat or defense of the village, but nothing very useful comes to mind. I would need significantly more knowledge to make a few of my ideas work.

With 7 working enchantments, between the lights and the candle flames, I arrive at the guild and give it to them. Maybe they would be able to use it for something.

“Yes, no doubt these will be useful. The few places we need light at night spend far too much oil. It’s an ongoing expense we have not found a solution to yet.”

Finding it strange, I ask:

“What about animal fat?”

“What animal fat? Rabbits and rabid wolves? The little we could extract is not good for burning. We tried to find fruits and other stuff to extract oil from, but so far no luck.”

I leave thinking about how the system has come up with a pretty fake world. No insects anywhere, no fruits in the trees. There are only two animal types in a thirty miles radius. The forest grows uniformly everywhere.

It doesn’t matter if the soil is good or bad. It doesn’t matter how much water is available, or how much sun it gets. It is like the day we got here, the system copy and pasted uniformly-sized trees across thousands of miles.

There were only very rare exceptions.

Strangest of all, instead of perfectly uniform trees, we have trees almost dying, and even fallen trunks. While others have the characteristics of very young trees, but in every case, their size is very uniform.

Getting to the smithy, I again am greeted and start to work forging along with everybody else. I try to not get in anybody's way. In the two hours, I only make two Items. The result of the second one leaves me very glad so much effort in only these items.

Basic Spear. This is a basic spear produced by an apprentice blacksmithy. Attack +2

I was significantly faster than the estimative I gave my self. Having observed the work from that other blacksmith was very good to help me appreciate what I had learned in the last couple of weeks. I turn around when I hear Mr. Black wood congratulating me.

“So you finally took your time with a piece to make a proper item?”

Confused, I ask:

“What? I thought I was doing just fine.”

“Yes, but you were not putting what you learned in practice. You were just mass producing items, not in improving your craft. Where did you learn a few of those technics? You even infused a little of mana in the blade.”

At those words, I look as closely as I can but do not find any indications of mana in the blade. Seeing this he continues.

“You are not gonna find anything in the blade. It was very small amounts of mana. The way you applied it, just helped to improve the quality a little higher. It has dissipated by now.”

“I did watch another blacksmith forging a higher grade weapon. But, I didn’t even sense the mana leaving me.” Looking at my mana bar, the amount is around what I would have expected. Maybe a couple points lower.

“Interesting, you didn’t even notice the mana. Is your mana gauge lower than you expected?”

“By a couple of points, maybe.”

“Your control is getting better. That’s impressive for someone without a class.”

“How…”

“Never mind how.”

Leaving this alone, I come back to the mana use.

“And about the mana, how did I use it without noticing?”

He thinks and answers:

“Did you ever use body infusion without noticing?”

“Once or twice. These last couple of days I saw my infusion skill skyrocket. Some would have been the wood, but most of it should be infusing my body. The strange thing was that I didn’t even notice too much change in my mana regen.”

“I think I know how you are using it. The instinctual use of mana, at the start you will have more difficulty. But after you learn, there advantages. The process you used for the metal is probably similar to your body infusion.”

“What else can you tell me?”

In a clear change of subjects he asks.

“So what are your plans now?”

“To make a couple more items. Maybe make a die to print coins, we do have the copper now.”

At those words, his whole demeanor changes. Everyone who is organizing and cleaning the smithy stops to stare at him. Shit, what did I say?

With care and measured words, we all pay absolute attention to his words.

“Please; Please, do not attempt to mint coins. It’s a very bad idea to defraud anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

The blacksmith just shakes his head. Without saying a single word more, he pays everyone but me and leaves. The encounter leaves a mark in my psyche. Why the hell would making coins, be so egregious? I was not thinking of making fake coins.

We could make Dollars coins or currency for Pando. I will leave that to later. For now, I should quickly check the Map. Eventually, something we will learn something new from it.