Homesteading in a fantasy world

It had been four very long days, but fortunately, this part of the process was about to end. I had plenty of coals left, which was excellent news.

The temperature started to drop once again, so I started to use the bellows to make it start climbing again. Keeping the temperature stable and being up for four days straight while constantly using energy was exhausting.

Then I felt the click; it was time. "Get ready," I yelled to my apprentices. A large sledgehammer, one of the tools that I had recently made and was ranked two, appeared in my hands.

It took my energy greedily, but I needed to reinforce it; otherwise, it would have already started to smoke from the heat. The strike I made with it destroyed the upper part of the bloom. The temperature immediately started to lower, but I continued to destroy the sides, making sure I didn’t actually hit the crucible.

I needed to get the temperature down quickly, but I also needed to hit the burning coals far enough away so that my apprentices could approach. It took seven more hits before the crucible was exposed well enough and the temperature had gotten low enough that the apprentices could bring me square bars of metal that we were going to use to bring the crucible into the smithy forge.

We moved fast, as the temperature couldn't fall below 1000 degrees. We made it with plenty of time to spare. With the crucible in the forge, it would need to stay there for many days.

Fortunately, I wasn’t needed to keep the temperature right during this stage of the process, so I could finally get some sleep and let my apprentices handle it for a little while. Walking out of the smithy, I immediately jumped into the ice hole in the river and quickly washed myself off as best as possible.

It became obvious almost immediately that I couldn’t work with any of my armor on. So, for the last four days, I had been just wearing regular clothes that I had kept in semi-decent condition thanks to the energy I was using to protect them and myself from the heat. That didn’t mean that I wasn’t suffering the entire time, and I needed to drink health potions quite regularly.

I walked back inside the smithy, checked on the crucible and that the temperature was correct, and then went to one of the corners, drank one more health potion, and promptly fell asleep.

When I woke up, different apprentices were keeping an eye on the forge. "Good afternoon, Rich," one of the apprentices said. "How long was I out?" I asked. The apprentice raised nine fingers. That was a decent amount of sleep.

When I checked on the crucible, everything was still stable. During the following days, my apprentices and I fell into a routine. There were always two people constantly monitoring the forge, but when we weren't, I was teaching them whatever they were currently pursuing, if I knew how to teach what they were trying to learn.

With there being three dungeons nearby, none of them would have a problem reaching the level 20 milestone, which would allow them to upgrade their class to the full homestead class.

It was always interesting to listen to what they wanted to do in the future and how they planned to make their dreams into reality. The most excited were the druids. Teaching two of them was a bit different as they were already closely connected to the land.

They did try to teach me more druidic magic, but I really wasn’t good at it. One of the other apprentices, however, was quite talented, and for her, it kinda turned into a double apprenticeship.

She wasn’t going to be a proper druid, but she did hope that she could get the class for one of her other current classes. Getting a gardening class to upgrade to druid was going to be tough, but knowing what she wants and having the strong willpower to try to get it was already half the battle won.

When the seven days were finally over, we took the crucible outside, and I once again used the sledgehammer to break apart the crucible. It wasn’t hard; only a few strikes and basically, the entire crucible crumbled, leaving behind a red-hot metal bar that was cooling at a decent speed.

It will take a while before it properly cools down, but I could already tell that I achieved what I was after. It was a rank three metal and had what looked like decent properties. I could only confirm to what extent when I started to work with the metal.

It took another four days for everything to properly cool down. Quite a lot of time had passed, and I knew it was going to take a while longer to finish the armor.

Hopefully, I could get everything done before we would run over the deadline to complete next month's missions. The metal bar weighed a bit above 43 kilos and would be plenty to make my armor.

The design of the armor I was going to keep the same: a gambeson would be the starting layer, then I would make a chainmail layer from the rank three metal. Above that would be brigandine armor and plate guards for my legs and arms, and of course, a helmet.

The brigandine armor would consist of rank three metal plates and armadillo-beaver leather. That same leather would also be used for the straps and any other leather part of the armor.

Fortunately, the forge's temperature didn’t need to be stupidly high to get the metal red-hot. When it reached the desired temperature, I used a rank two chisel and hammer to break apart the large bar into more manageable pieces.

When that was done, I needed to start making wire. This time, I couldn’t use a wire puller, as the current one I had would have just been destroyed by this metal. So, what I needed to do was continue to hammer it so it would be the right diameter for the chainmail rings.

It was an awfully time-consuming job, but it needed to be done. Fortunately, the rest of the technique stayed the same. I was actually quite glad that basically everything I was doing, I already knew how to do; the only difference was the materials I was using.

It took me 16 days to finish the armor. After which, I gave the gambeson and the brigandine to Emma so she could color it in my clan's colors and symbols.

She had a hard time coloring the leather as it still had many small scales on it. She still managed and even said that she got a full class level for the job. That was great to hear, and I wasn’t the only one to get my new equipment colored.

Every member of my company had done the same. Four of them were still part of the Vikings but currently, they were on an external training mission. That was the order I used to get them the time needed to join, but they still had their unique unit colors that they could also add along with the symbols.

There was a moment when I thought that perhaps I should create a unique color scheme for the company, but I felt it would be better if every person could also display their clan or allegiances outside the company.

It was important to stand apart and show that you're a part of the company, but to me, it was also important to show where you came from. It was one of the reasons why every soldier back on Earth had their country's flag and unit patch on their uniform.

Now that the preparations are done, I announced to everyone that two days from now, we would be leaving for Connection. I would need to set them up there and then go to the Breach and finish this month's contracts before the deadline. When that was done, we would have more breathing room to operate and truly start to build out our corporation's seat of power.