Just as Joey prepared to head off to leave, his lantern happened to illuminate another stone fragment, which he felt a bit obligated to collect. So far he’d found 7 units of them underground, and it made no sense how they’d been scattered so far and so wide over the years.

“If you told me these things were actually natural I’d probably believe it by now. And… There.” He scooped up the handful of fragments and took one last look around before walking back to the ropes.

Or he would have… If not for something in the distance sparkling during that quick spin, and he felt obligated to take a look. It was just a few extra minutes, that much wouldn’t kill him!

He lifted and dropped the lantern a bit more, and confirmed that something lodged in the wall glittered like a gemstone, but he maintained some vigilance for now. Once closer though, he found that the gemstone was a sort of cloudy crystal, perhaps some sort of quarts.

Either way, internally he argued that it held some use, and quickly dug it from the wall. The little bit he uncovered was actually the corner of a fist sized chunk which his inventory denoted as 2 units. Hopefully it was enough for something in the future.

But from there he noted that only tin ore stood around him, and he headed off. He gained more than enough from this trip, and he hoped to never come into such a precarious mine again. Just like on the way down, he stuffed the cube into his cuirass to hold it in place and gently pulled up whilst alternating the hand which climbed and held the lantern.

No mistakes occurred, and the rope appeared no different when he reached the top, clearly he could support the weight of a person with ease.

“Never fucking again. I really hope that power stone mine isn’t like this,” he said whilst taking deep breaths of the cooler surface air. There was no fear, simply frustration at the danger of it all.

Although, he didn’t for a moment believe this is how tin was mined on Earth, but with that knowledge being rather niche, he couldn’t argue for it either way. Clearly though, these mines were superior for the world of superpowered individuals as digging such a deep pit couldn’t have taken more than a year! Or, if the Forger created it, then there was no need to argue since those workshop’s naturally have the need and ability to gather ore from so deep.

Anyway, he had a bunch of nature tin and simply needed to melt it down with copper for bronze. A deathly experience just to form his first useful metal.

Part way through the prairie, he suddenly looked up and saw a large mountain in the distance, similar to the one behind him, and said, “That’s not right. Why’s there… Fuck, I’m gonna be sick.” The world around him began to spin, and he almost toppled over.

It took several deep breaths whilst lying on the floor for the world to stop moving and the nausea to pass. He dryly licked his lips and didn’t know what was going on–

“Dry? Can I actually be dehydrated? Need. Water.” His mind greatly focused on the lake he knew to be nearby and tightly clutched the cube whilst trying to crawl over.

With every second, his limbs felt increasingly heavy, and even his mind began to fog up. But he saw it ahead, the body of water wasn’t too far.

However, to a thirsty man, even the smallest distance can feel like a mile. And every step agonised him more by the moment. Why it’d taken so long to feel the affects he did not know, perhaps the stress of the moment had something to do with it. But once at the side of the lake, he dunked his head in and gulped down mouthfuls of the stale water without much hesitation.

If he got sick, so be it. Not dying is way more important than having to spend a few days in bed.

He suddenly pulled his head from the water and gasped, coming to an instant realisation that he almost drowned himself. He laid on the lakeside and simply rested. The cube remained in his hand whilst he’d inadvertently placed the lantern within.

Not that it mattered, sunset was still a couple hours away, and he quickly felt the dizziness pass by.

That didn’t last though.

His body flipped and up came a stomach full of water, only now did he realise it was full of green gunk, likely some sort of algae which grew in the mostly flowing water.

As always, just because it moves doesn’t make it safe. If he drank the river water in such quantities it’d have to be boiled as well… But even after throwing his lungs up, he still felt better. The sudden dehydration passed and he realised that he needed water now, more than ever.

Perhaps carrying a bit in the cube was a good idea too.

For now, he picked himself up, and crawled back to the far cleaner river in the plains, in the process ignoring the clay oven which beckoned him endlessly. A splitting migraine made every step a shuddering pain, but that wasn’t enough to stop him.

Once at the river, he gulped down water with his hands, only having enough that the aches and tiredness ended.

“Never. Fucking. Again. Why was it so fucking hot as well? Was I right next to a pool of lava?” He swore a few more times for good measure, but finally found his body returning to its originally great state. Nothing ached in his legs, and the bursts of pain in his head eased greatly. He learnt of another limit this body actually had, which was temperature.

Whilst a bit of heat did nothing, sustained exposure absolutely crippled him like any normal human. No doubt the same applied to the cold.

“Am I good now? I think so… But maybe I should relax a bit longer.”

It took five minutes until the gnawing desire to do something productive bit him in the ass and sent him back to the oak tree for another round of smelting.

Today, he’d finally do some alloying!

Of course, set up came first, which took a short while.

“That’s the casts set up, and I have more than enough metal. Fire’s good, just got to start now. I’m think 2:1 Sal, or should we just start at 3:1… tough question. I do have the coal, so I think all the increments will be fine,” he nodded his head whilst speaking and dropped two units of copper with one tin, then placed the crucible into the hot oven with extreme care.

His arms carefully pushed on the bellows at a constant rate, ensuring the fire never dimmed nor the heat lowered. Like this he came to realise the copper and tin already melted and formed a mix which required testing. Now he just had to place it in the cast and–

“If I placed this in the cube… would it tell me if the mix is molten bronze then? Or would it cool it instantly?” He knew that fire instantly snuffed out in the cube, but there was a stark difference between fire and a molten metal, leaving him to quickly make a decision.

He grabbed the crucible with a clay covered hand and tapped it against the cube, making sure to not do it over himself in case the liquid remained after.

Fortunately, both were taken, and he checked his inventory.

It referred to his new item as ‘Crucible (Molten Copper-Tin mixture)’ a very clear way to tell that the cube didn’t deem the ratio for this as correct. But now came the problem of taking it out, and he truly had to think about this.

In fact, he even tested something by thinking of a coal piece being placed directly in the oven, rather than dropping in the air as usual.

So, when he left the cube, he was impressed to see that it worked! There was no coal piece around him, and instead found a piece of coal in the exact spot he knew was empty.

As long as he visualised what he wanted well enough, the cube provided it to him.

And just like that, he placed the crucible back into the oven, precisely where he picked it up from. Then plopped in another piece of copper once it entered a stable position.

He repeated the melting process, and checked on the crucible again for confirmation. However, as it still said ‘Copper-Tin mixture’, he thrusted it back in and left another piece of copper within.

For those in the know… This process repeated 5 more times, until he’d hit a ratio of 8:1 for copper to tin. He’d grown rather tired from the hour of attempts, and part of him realised just how low the tin percentage of good quality bronze had to be.

At this ration, he could make almost 400 ingots with his tin supply!

“Finally! Now to just pour it into the casts.” He shut up immediately after as the process required precision and care. The crucible came with a small lip to make pouring easier, but the process isn’t much easier due to that.

The two tool casts were merely flat plates like the ingot cast. Instead, both were effectively boxes made of compressed fire clay and sand, and he guessed that the small hole in the side opened up to a mould for the metal to cool in. As long as he stood the cast up, and poured in the bronze, it should just form a pickaxe head as he needed.

However, he’d done forging before, not smelting. This process was entirely new to him.

And so, rather than stupidly grab the crucible straight away, he placed it into his inventory, and long since prepared a small tray of sand and fireclay for it to cool down somewhat it.

Then, with easier to hold stone and clay, he could gently fill the two casts and turn the rest into ingots.

The process went… alright.

Due to the crucible being too full , he slipped up and spilt some all over the cast and ground, fortunately he sat a short distance and moved the crucible back to the tray before continuing in a safer place. He didn’t know how much exactly was wasted, but the second attempt successfully filled up the cast.

Meanwhile, he completed the axe head without a hitch, and cycled the nearly empty crucible in and out of his inventory whilst more ingot cooled in the cast.

To make sure the two tool casts completely filled up, he tapped and shook them lightly such that every gap vanished.

“Could’ve gone a hell of a lot worse… But these two do look beautiful. But what to do with the last bit? Its no where near enough to form an ingot. I do need a rivet, but how do I even make one of those? Not like I can hammer this stuff…” His eyes shifted between the tool casts and the tray he’d made to hold the crucible.

If he packed the fire clay and sand right, couldn’t he make a small hole for the last bit of bronze?

That’d definitely be the cylindrical billet required for a rivet, and now it just depended on the cube accepting it.

First, he left the molten bronze inside the blazing oven and ran over to the river. There was no time to waste as he simply held his cube to the water but saw that nothing went in… Of course, liquids couldn’t be stored directly.

A few seconds later, he ran back with stuffed cheeks which splashed with every step. If one wasn’t enough then he’d get another!

He spat the water into he sand and clay to mix the two, but saw it still cracked apart too easily. But with a second mouthful, the clay and sand retained its shape as required, and he quickly poured the last of the bronze into this small pocket. Who’d have guessed that a lack of preparation had him so stressed? But now he got to see the spoils of his efforts.

First came the pick head. The disposable cast was torn apart to reveal a reflective brown material. A colour anyone he knew would instantly be capable of identifying, and he touched it pleasantly. A small cylinder unfortunately jutted out where he poured it in from, but besides that he saw the familiar shape of a pickaxe in it. A sharp head on one end with a tapered version on the other. In the middle it thickened, but this was required as a hole for the wood to slot through was required. On top of this, the hole ‘descended’ such that one could see a pair of holes on opposing sides. This not only kept the pick’s head on through friction, but a secure joint meant little to no chances of the thing flying off from a bad impact.

Next came the little cylindrical bar that the cube wanted to use as a rivet. While by hand it wouldn’t be strange to ‘peen’ something, in this case he imagined the cube would just completely morph the bar’s shape into a rivet.

“Saying just like it’s not practically black magic,” he said with a snort. Of course, he couldn’t help but laugh due to it, and finally, he peeled away the axe cast to take a look at the head.

It looked no different to the hatchets he was used to seeing in hardware stores most his life, perhaps the only difference was the lack of a proper edge for woodcutting. It’s important to note that the edge of an axe isn’t anywhere close to as ‘razor’ thin as some people liked to sharpen blades. The thing had to split a log in half when given a lot of force, not gently shave off your beard.

But that finished it…

He could make bronze. He would have a bronze pickaxe in a minute too. But he felt so much anticipation within him, like a bulging dam struggling to hold back an onset flood, but he knew that letting it out wouldn’t achieve anything.

What was he waiting for?

It was time to move onto the bronze age!