The white flame of the charcoal roared, a hissing, hungry sound that seemed to consume the air itself. The heat was so intense that the Earth People kept a respectful distance, their faces glistening with sweat and awe.
Seiko moved with certainty, his engineer's mind shifting into production mode. This wasn't an experiment; it was a demonstration of his skills. And he couldn't afford the luxury of failure. For if he failed, the only thing known of him would be a couple of bones.
"The fuel is ready," he announced, his voice cutting through the roar of the forge. "The furnace is built." He pointed to the clay and stone structure he had been preheating. "But iron does not give itself up willingly. It has to be torn from the earth."
He looked at Iris. "I need your warriors. All of them. The price of iron is sweat. A lot of sweat."
Iris nodded, her expression serious. "They will do what you say."
"Good." Seiko faced the group. Tyla, Rorin, Tama, and even Kael watched him, their previous skepticism replaced by tense expectation.
"We will divide the labor (labour)," Seiko ordered, adopting the tone of a factory foreman. "Tyla. You have good eyes. You are in charge of the ore." He pointed at her. "Rorin, Tama. You are the feeders. Your job is to keep the God of Fire satisfied."
Then, he looked at Kael. The strongest and proudest warrior.
"Kael. You have the most important task. The heart of the forge. You are the lungs."
Kael frowned. "Lungs?"
Seiko pointed to the large double bellows he had built from Krookodile hide and wood. "The Fire needs air. Lots of air. Constant. If you stop, the fire cools, the process dies, and the iron turns into useless slag. Do you understand? You cannot falter."
Putting Kael in charge of the most physically exhausting task was a risk, but also a stroke of genius. It was a direct challenge to his strength and pride. Kael couldn't refuse without admitting weakness.
A slow, defiant smile spread across Kael's face. "The mountain wind does not falter. Neither will I." He grabbed the wooden handles of the bellows.
"Good. Positions!" shouted Seiko.
The ritual began.
First, Seiko himself filled the base of the furnace with a deep bed of the new, shiny charcoal. He used embers from the forge to light it.
"Now, Kael!" he shouted.
Kael began to pump the bellows.
'Fuuu-WHOOSH. Fuuu-WHOOSH'. The rhythm was steady. The charcoal at the bottom of the furnace began to glow with a blinding white light.
"Feeders!" ordered Seiko. "Charcoal!"
Rorin and Tama began to shovel charcoal into the furnace chimney.
"Tyla! Ore!"
Tyla grabbed her own shovel and added the first layer of crushed iron ore.
"Feeders! More charcoal!"
"Tyla! Ore!"
They started the cycle. A layer of fuel, a layer of material. Charcoal, ore. Charcoal, ore. Again and again, slowly filling the furnace. And all the while, Kael's relentless rhythm:
'Fuuu-WHOOSH. Fuuu-WHOOSH'.
An hour passed. The sun rose higher. The heat around the furnace became suffocating.
Seiko watched everything. His eyes were fixed on the base of the furnace, where he had left a small observation hole, barely larger than his thumb.
"What are we doing?" shouted Tyla over the roar, her face covered in red soot from the ore.
"We are giving!" Seiko yelled back. "Iron ore is mountain blood! It is iron and earth bound together. The Fire, the charcoal, is hungrier for the earth than the iron is! It steals the earth from the ore and leaves the pure iron behind!"
It was a simplification of iron oxide reduction, but it was one that Tyla, and the others, could understand.
Two hours passed. Kael was drenched in sweat, his muscles tensing with every pump, but he didn't slow down. Rorin and Tama ran back and forth, replenishing their shovels from the large charcoal pile.
Three hours passed. The furnace was now a roaring column of white heat.
"Keep pumping, Kael!" shouted Seiko. "We are almost there!"
"I... will... not... stop!" Kael grunted through gritted teeth.
Seiko looked through the observation hole. Inside, he didn't see flames, just a liquid white light. And at the bottom, something was starting to drip. It wasn't metal. It was a thick, shiny sludge like molten glass.
"The slag!" shouted Seiko, triumphant. "The earth is surrendering!"
He grabbed a long iron bar, the same one he had used against the Krookodile, and plunged it into a tap hole near the base of the furnace, one he had plugged with clay.
With a grunt, he broke the clay plug.
A thick, glowing stream of molten slag, bright orange in color (colour), gushed out and flowed into a sand channel he had prepared.
The Earth People shouted in amazement. They had never seen liquid rock.
"That is not the iron!" Seiko yelled at them. "It is the trash! It is the earth we have stolen! Keep going!"
Kael pumped with renewed energy. Rorin and Tama added the last layers of charcoal. They continued for another hour, bleeding the slag two more times, until the furnace was almost empty of fuel.
"Halt!" shouted Seiko. "Kael, stop!"
Kael let go of the bellows, his arms shaking uncontrollably, and almost collapsed. But he remained standing, leaning on the wooden frame, breathing hard.
The roar of the furnace quieted, replaced by an expectant silence.
"Where is the iron?" asked Iris, approaching. "Is it in the hole?"
Seiko shook his head. "It doesn't flow. The charcoal fire isn't hot enough to melt the iron. Only to release it."
He looked at Rorin and Tama. "The furnace must die for the iron to be born. Tear down the wall!"
Armed with stone hammers and the Krookodile shovels, the two warriors began to bash the front wall of the clay furnace, which was already cracked from the intense heat.
They broke the baked clay wall, revealing the glowing interior.
And there, at the bottom, sitting on a bed of incandescent charcoal, was... a thing.
It wasn't shiny. It wasn't liquid. It was an ugly, spongy lump, dull orange and gray, the size of a large shield. It was covered in bits of charcoal and shiny slag.
The disappointment was instant.
"That?" said Kael, his voice hoarse from exhaustion and disbelief. "All that work... For a spongy rock?"
"It's a scam," muttered Rorin.
Even Iris seemed confused. "Seiko... this doesn't look like a knife."
Seiko smiled. They were exhausted, disappointed, and confused. They were ready for the final lesson.
"You are right. It is not a knife. It is not a spear... yet."
Using two green wood levers, Seiko and Rorin pried the glowing mass, the iron "sponge," out of the furnace. It fell to the ground with a dull thud, scattering sparks.
"They call it a sponge," said Seiko, "Because it is full of holes. Full of the slag we couldn't bleed out."
He pointed to his stone anvil and his iron hammer. "The furnace gave us the iron. Now, the hammer will give it shape."
Seiko put on his Krookodile hide gloves. Using green wood tongs, he lifted the incandescent sponge and placed it on the anvil.
He raised his hammer.
"This," he said, "Is the birth of steel."
He struck the sponge.
'CLANG!'
With every blow, a geyser of liquid slag and sparks flew out. The metal, bright orange, protested.
'CLANG!'
The sponge began to compact.
'CLANG!'
The irregular shape began to flatten.
'CLANG!'
With every blow, the dull metal became brighter, denser, more metallic. The Earth People watched, mesmerized, as the ugly rock was beaten into a solid, shining bar of wrought iron.
Seiko worked until the metal cooled to a cherry red, then he threw it onto the sand pile. He straightened up, drenched in sweat, but triumphant.
He looked at Kael, Tyla, Iris, and the others. They were covered in soot, mud, and sweat. They were exhausted. And they were amazed.
They had seen the earth turned into fuel. They had seen the fuel steal from the rock. And they had seen the ugly rock beaten into pure metal.
"Today," said Seiko, his voice echoing in the silent clearing, "I have taught you the way you must make iron."
He pointed to the cooling iron bar.
"That is iron. It is the price of patience, sweat, and precision. And now... now it is yours."
[N/A: On Patreon we're currently ten chapters ahead. This is the schedule I'll be using: since my time zone is GMT-3, I'll be posting two chapters a day and updating two chapters on both Patreon and Webnovel. Patreon will still have the advantage of getting two 'early' chapters per day. Let me know what you think]