Apinsig
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Chapter 245 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-06-26 13:39:04 +0000 UTCThere was a lot that needed to be done, but first, I spent a few hours going through the design of the road and explaining why every part was important and what it accomplished. The dwarves in the room were especially interested in it, but even before I finished my explanation, everyone else was also on board as the benefits outweighed the concerns by a lot.
The original road project needed to be scaled up a lot. We didn’t just need properly cut stone, we also needed broken down stone in different sizes. The road would also start near the mountain as the volume of the stone needed couldn't be transported on the current roads.
Then came the talk about how wide the road needed to be. We expected traffic from the town to the mountain to be large enough that there was a need for the road to be wide enough that carriages could pass while moving. After that all that was left to do was think about solutions on how we were going to make this work and how to make the work go faster.
That took another day but eventually, all the assignments were given out and we headed out to complete what we needed to do. For me, I needed to help make a cutting blade that would slice through a certain depth of earth at the width of a standard road. A standard road width being a bit larger than a large carriage.
It was going to need the best metals we had access to and even then a few people with certain abilities needed to enhance it so it wouldn't break and make its job easier. Of course, Francis was going to be the one that needed to be pulling this beast as he was the only one with enough strength.
As for the cutting blade and the overall structure of the device, I wasn’t going to do that alone. I wasn’t even going to be the head of that project. It was going to be built in town with many of the town's smiths to help. I would be providing mainly my muscle but also my ability to affect materials so I could make sure there weren’t any mistakes or impurities left in the metal.
We were going to use the nation's smithy as it was the biggest where currently a lot of tools and weapons were being made but now we started to prepare it for the job ahead. Another shipment of iron was going to make it here by the next afternoon but there was still a lot to do before that.
I was surprised when I found out that they were planning at first to make a lot of closed crucible steel. Making steel this way was extremely consistent and quite required for people who couldn't evaluate the exact percentages of carbon needed for steel.
You can put predetermined measurements inside and then seal the lead and then fire the crucible, almost always getting the result that you wanted. This was mainly going to be my job and the reason why I was given this assignment. I was going to need to use unique metals to enhance that crucible steel but I still needed to learn a lot before that.
While I was decent at smithing now, I was nowhere near the level these people were. The only reason I could make stronger weapons was because of my energy manipulation and the ridiculous reserves I had to throw into crafting.
The final device needed different metal properties at different places but the most important parts were the cutting edge and what was behind it. For that, we needed a bit more flexible steel so the whole thing didn't shatter. It was fascinating to see them work and learn from them.
One of the smiths could handle almost melted steel with his bare hands but he couldn't do it for long as it used a lot of energy. But like every other crafter and citizen of the United Freeholds, they were furiously learning as much energy manipulation as possible so they could get the energy storage stat.
One thing I’ve learned about smithing is that it helps control your super strength. Hitting too hard will mess up your work faster than hitting it with not enough strength. One of the guys here could hit the piece of metal so hard that it creates a shower of sparks, which was quite fun to watch.
I needed to hold back, but we all had a great time during our breaks when there was little to entertain us. This was something I got to experience during the war - the crushing boredom that made you do stupid things, now especially here knowing that everyone around you is also superhuman.
Honestly, I’m constantly surprised that this world isn't full of buildings. An average farmer is able to do labor an average human would break his body doing, and that farmer can do it from sun up to sundown. Every Kingdom had so much manpower available yet they did nothing with it, at least the kingdoms in this area. Of course, there was the system that made it harder for people to do things they didn't have skills for, but that wasn't the limit. It would just make the work slower and eventually, they would gain the skill.
Most likely the reason for that was tradition. If you were a farmer, you were a farmer - that’s it. That's all you were going to be unless you could upgrade your class. I looked as the smiths worked hard, doing their job and grinding experience for their levels, and I kind of understood. If I was born in this world and knew nothing else, wouldn’t I also try to focus on something that could give me power? Why would I do and struggle with something else?
It will be interesting to see what my influence will do in a few hundred years. Thinking about me being that old made me wince. Not wanting to think about living so long, I distracted myself by going back to work. The next day came fast and it was time to start. Just making enough enhanced crucible steel took me four days of constant work and after a proper sleep, it was time to start forging.
The first thing the main group of smiths started to do was forge out the back of the cutting blade. We needed to forge weld all those pieces of steel together so we could get the desired size. To get it into generally the right shape took a lot of hammering. Then we needed to split one of the sides apart where the cutting edge will go into, made from the strongest metal we had.
Forging out this piece of metal took longer as we needed to be more careful and make it as best as we can. So many different abilities overlapping made working the metal difficult, but we needed it to be as strong as possible.
Using a traditional forge to heat up this large piece of metal was impossible, so instead, we used one of the smith's abilities and a special fuel that we could place on top of the area we wanted to heat up. We needed to do one end of the cutting blade again as the forge weld didn't take the first time.
After that, it was time to properly start forging out the cutting blade. While we were doing that, other smiths were making the rest of the device's structure. Unfortunately, we couldn't finish everything in one day as people simply didn't have enough energy to continue working, even I was running quite low.
The next day the work continued but by the afternoon we were done forging and all that was left to do was assembly. But that was not going to be doing here as transporting the pieces to the mountain individually will be easier. Quite a few smiths will come with us to the mountain and most importantly, Francis was the one that was pulling the carriage that will take all the pieces of the device and many of us slower walkers to our destination.
I spent the day walking beside Francis, explaining to him what he was going to be doing and how hard it actually was. The more I spoke, it seemed that the more excited he got, which I was glad about.
I was so thankful that Francis seemed to be so hardworking and actually enjoyed the things he does because I’m quite certain that if he didn’t want to, I wasn’t going to force him to do anything and would even help him against others who would. While we haven't spent a lot of time together recently, it was still thanks to him that I was able to survive the first year so easily.
When we reached the mountain and the spot of the quarry, we started to prepare to assemble the device when suddenly the most important emergency stick broke. That was the signal that I needed to head back to town as fast as possible.
This was the most urgent signal that could be sent out and would usually mean that our entire nation was in grave danger. What could have happened in the half day that it took to make it here? Not spending another moment thinking about it, I quickly told everyone that there was an emergency and ran as fast as possible back to town.
Comments
Matt
I’m guessing it’s the inquisition. Nobody expects em
ShadeByTheSea
specially since his nation sensing didn't detect a danger.
