Chapter 504 (2/2)

His rented work area was cramped, but it had everything he needed: furnace, crucible, blast furnace, and workman’s gloves and apron. Randidly didn’t bother with these. He might regret it, but it would just raise his resistances higher, as well as Chosen of Fire.

To start, Randidly followed the instructions he had heard to forge the steel. It was long, hot work. Very quickly, he was sweating profusely, no matter how high his resistances were. He did gain a point in each of Fire Resistance and Chosen of Fire, which was rewarding, although it wasn’t the reward he wanted.

The entire time, of melting, moving the molten iron to the blast furnace, and then blowing away the impurities with pressurized air, Randidly kept a very close watch on what was occurring. However, very quickly he was helpless. Sure, his Perception made seeing through the thin metal walls of the furnace rather easy, but... he had no real experience working with metal. He couldn’t figure out what was going on within.

At the end, he poured his molten metal into the mold and let it cool. All told, 4 hours had passed. There was no doubt in Randidly’s mind that he could definitely shorten this down to 2 hours with practice, and perhaps 1 or 1 and a half with proficiency in Skills, but it was still, far, far too slow. Randidly’s high Stats made working through this level of exertion a sinch, but it didn’t mean that he could easily speed up the time it took for the metal to melt.

But Randidly had another plan entirely. He had never really considered the typical methods of forging it to be worth his time. Still, it was definitely worth the experience of producing steel the hard way, in order to understand the process.

After the steel had cooled, Randidly looked at it.

It was about 1 meter long and was about as thick and wide as a brick. But it was pure metal, if a little… speckled.

Randidly frowned at his first ingot. It seemed… that it had not gone quite perfect. Randidly could tell that the addition of carbon to the molten iron had not been done uniformly, and there were clearly patches of different density. Randidly pressed his thumb into it. It was clearly hard, not hard enough to stop his finger at full power, but likely at the power that it truly was steel.

The problem was that there were likely numerous flaws, and Randidly couldn’t even see them. He simply didn’t know enough about the metal. Curious, he brought the steel ingot he had created to the foreman, a man named Davey.

He eyed it as if it was the suspect in a murder. “...well, to be fair, my first bit of steel wasn’t much better,” He grunted, glaring at the metal.

Randidly’s face twitched; it had been a long time since he had felt so… bad at something. Since the System arrived, he had been worse than other people in some areas sure, but that was still just differences in mastery. Here, it seemed he was… Insufficient.

“Well, I can give you the dollar for it, but only because it’s your first,” Davey finally announced, taking the steel ingot. “I would, however, recommend purchasing the information regarding the Smelting Skills; that’s really the area that you struggled.”

He gave Randidly the dollar and then was gone, following the call of a tall, grey-haired woman. Randidly considered this for a bit.

Over the next two days, Randidly continued to smelt the metal the old fashioned way, without bothering to learn about the Smelting Skill. There was even a point that he was prompted to learn the Skill, but he denied it. He had already used 5 of his 8 free Skills since obtaining a Class. He would also likely need one in order to learn to make drones down the line, he didn’t want to waste one now.

During that time, it was only by his 13th attempt that he produced a steel ingot that Foreman Davey accepted. The rest he just snorted at and turned away.

“$5 in materials, two days at $1 apiece, and $9 in revenue from selling the steel… a $2 profit from 3 days.” Randidly said, looking up at the sky. He had learned a lot about the temperament of iron in the meantime, and his powerful Perception and Control finally settled into use, allowing him to minutely control the temperature in the furnace. Unsurprisingly, he had gained 2 Levels in Fire Resistance from brief burns and 7 Levels in Chosen of Fire.

Randidly smiled at the overcast sky above him. Then he turned and walked back into the factory. He swore to himself he wouldn’t leave until he had enough money for preliminary citizenship.