The Factory Must Grow - [Book 1: The System Must Live]

Oliver had metal, and it was absolutely fantastic.

Metal was an element that worked absolutely fantastically with Technology, both in Association and a simple reinforcement-loop sense. And sure, he didn't have a ton, but he had plenty for his immediate needs.

On the one hand, it was only copper. Copper was a perfectly adequate metal for many purposes, and was quite conductive, but he'd rather have iron. But that was definitely being too picky. And now he was just thinking about how this much copper may have been plenty for the sorts of enchantments he wanted to end with, it really wasn't much when it came to building out a full smith's foundry. This wasn't enough for a regular anvil, he'd need to…

Focus. He'd need to focus.

But had metal, and it was absolutely fantastic and he wouldn't hear a word otherwise.

But do you hear intrusive thoughts or do they just kinda exist?

Anyway.

Most of his material came from the skull of the droopnose, and though the rest of the skeleton did have copper, it wasn't enough to warrant trying to smelt unless they started running really low on copper. By contrast, it was great in the context of creating a flammable powder firmly enmeshed with metal, something he'd taken firm advantage of earlier.

Based on some amateur anatomical studies and a gamut of divination he'd subjected the skulls to, the droopnoses were were pseudo-egg layers, wherein the mother would lay a copper 'egg,' which was actually the skull of the baby droopnose, which slowly became more skull-like as the creature matured, and the rest of the body actually grew outwards from the skull. As they aged, the copper shell morphed more into a typical skull-like form, but it still kept accumulating copper the entire time around the face.

Structurally, there was some more bone-like substance underneath the thick layer of copper, but it was mostly there to facilitate the accumulation of copper. He couldn't tell exactly how it worked, but he could read the overall 'purpose' through his divination. He also didn't really care how it worked, exactly, because all that really mattered was that he had copper.

Copper was one of the first metals to be worked back home, and it was only fitting that it was one of the first to be worked here. The only wrinkle was that he didn't know exactly how hot copper needed to get before it would melt, and he also didn't know how hot a campfire got, let alone the interplay between those two. It just wasn't usually something he directly cared about.

So, he'd be figuring this out as he went along.

Attempt one: just stick the copper in a fire.

Oliver was using the same rock he'd used to grind the bones to dust to now melt the copper off of them. It worked quite well - it was on the larger side, was nicely concave, and was quite smooth all things considered, without being too porous. Atop it, he'd created a roaring fire that was easily as big as its parent just a few feet away, the First Flame burning cheerfully in two places.

Even without the full alchemical processes he wanted to subject the fire to, it was pretty apparent that the flames were already rather potent, magically speaking. It had only grown in how much Technology it was creating, and though it wasn't outputting any more Metal mana, it did seem like it had retained some Associations to the element, which... would probably be useful at some point.

It was luckier than he really wanted to admit that it hadn't gone out in the dust explosion. Something he hadn't accounted for with the design of his air-conditioning ward, which had been made to increase the air pressure inside of Shelter to ensure a steady breeze outwards, which would ideally reduce the amount of small bugs buzzing around. More magically speaking, it would steady the air to cut down on the amount of outside noise, inconsistent air motion, and a ton of other minor variables that could still have big impacts on spellcasting.

He just hadn't considered the impacts it would have outside of spellcasting well enough. And what kicking up giant clouds of dust right next to a campfire would do.

But it was fine. It just felt like he had a bit of a sunburn in a few places, albeit one which Clark couldn't just [Unblemish] away. It didn't matter. It just meant he was working more inside Shelter rather than outside of it, both for shade purposes and for less-exposure-to-Nature purposes.

Once he got his new fire burning nice and hot, he carefully leveraged the first droopnose skull such that it was inside the fire, its more coppery bits closer to the embers at the base. From there, he rebuilt the fire around it – using some minor divinations to encourage the fire to burn as hot as it could – and kept it going for several hours.

He stopped once the skull was burned away, and he lost track of the copper portions of the skull in the glow and cinders present.

Even after he let it cool down for a while, the stone was too hot for Oliver to touch, but Henrietta was able to use her ink-flail to tip it onto its side to a cleared patch of ground, at which point Oliver spread out the remains of the fire… and found the copper. It was still quite skull-shaped, maybe slightly deformed, and decidedly non-functional for his purposes.

Attempt two: burn the copper with magic.

Well, it's not technically burning it with magic, a part of him protested. It doesn't use any Fire mana, it just will enhance the flames by feeding it more air to burn with. Though that's also basically just how all fire enchantments work, unless I just light it on fire with a spell directly.

Ironically, the Fire enchantments that Oliver wanted to use – the ones he could use, really, the ones that didn't require any rare materials and he could just [Cogniprint] directly – all needed metal. So, once he had metal, he could pretty easily smelt more. But until then, he needed to use decidedly lower-tech methods.

Though... he did have an enchantment active around him which, as he'd recently discovered, was great at getting flames to burn unexpectedly hot and fast. It had been really easy to make because of just how much work the Mana-Smoothing Ward was doing as a framework, so he couldn't easily apply it to this... but he could reference it.

[Scrollcast] was designed for effectively this exact use-case, drawing on an existing enchantment to work similar magic via spellcasting. And this was about as straightforward as it got these days.

[Scrollcast]

Pulling on the Tapestry threads was delightfully straightforward, simply replicating the effects of the wards as though it was a casting library and concentrating Air and air at the base of the flames.

He didn't even need to pull Alyssa over and use her as a mana calibrator to get it set up, and barely even needed an incantation. The Shelter wards were, fittingly, like a breath of fresh air.

The resulting fire was substantially hotter, and Oliver found himself needing to step back several feet from the yellow-white, slightly green-tinged flames just to not feel like his face was burning. When he did feed it, he needed to do so quickly and gently, placing a piece of wood on the fire and getting out.

Because of the much smaller ingots of copper he was dealing with, when compared to burning an entire animal skull, Oliver just built the fire entirely over the metal in question, and hoped that it would be enough.

He let it burn for about an hour at full temperature, after which point Oliver figured that the copper was probably melted if it was going to do so. That his stockpile of wood for this firepit was almost entirely depleted also played a part, of course.

Much to his delight, this time the copper had melted! A puddle of shiny metal was his reward for clearing off the remaining coals and cinders, making him glad that this time he'd just swept the remaining bits of fire off the rock, rather than tipping the entire thing on its side in a move that would have definitely spilled his liquid copper onto the ground.

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Some of the embers he'd knocked to the ground sparked and flared up into some new fires as they came into contact with something flammable, but Oliver ignored them.

A brief thought that he could have potentially planned this better flashed through Oliver's mind at the same time he realized that he had an opportunity to shortcut some of the difficulties of enchanting if he just… acted now. The rock's bellows enchantment still worked, and he could make it work permanently and even better with just a bit of work right now.

Oliver's eyes danced over the concave rock bowl, partially filled as it was with molten copper, his mind alight with ideas. He made a snap decision, snatching up a half-finished Metal wand and turned back to the crucible.

[Cogniprint]

The skill rippled out from his soul, energizing the wand in his hand by filling in for the shard of copper bone by referencing the Foundation Ward around them.

"May the Tapestry hear my voice and know that I am here as I invoke these rites," he invoked, "I am Oliver Smith, the [Erudite Enchanter], and I name you brazier the bearer of flames. Crucible you have been and crucible you shall be, a flame eternal from the dawn of time until the very end. Within your grasp you shall hold and keep the flame of man, the flame which shall light forth industry."

He cast a wary eye over the crucible. The magic he was working seemed to mesh fairly well with the copper – hardly a surprise, given how much fire had been involved with its creation, and especially since he was working with it while it was still hot, it was exceptionally receptive to his magic. He needed to make sure it stayed hot, though... a stasis effect using the Mana-Smoothing Ward as reference should help to keep the elemental blend inside the crucible relatively stable, and he hoped doing so would hold some Lava mana in place, thereby keeping the metal molten.

The stone, however, was a bit less receptive to his working. The fact it already had the bellows enchantment on it made it slightly more complicated, but Oliver could pretty clearly see that if he left it as-is, the two forms of magic would tear one another apart if the bellows didn't spontaneously fail as the incoming Eternal Flame enchantment twisted both its structure and the mana it was influencing beyond the scope that he'd initially prepared it for.

Three options in ten seconds, okay, Oliver mused. How can I fix this?

Option one: Craft the metal and stone into a singular item, reinforcing the end product with a strengthening enchantment. It would require that he cohesively integrate the two enchantments into a single enchantment, but in practice he'd just need to create a bridging enchant to let the two halves mutually support one another. Considering that would be an Arcane enchantment, it should be pretty easy.

Option two: Make the copper and stone into separate items, accept that the weaker bellows enchantment would fail eventually, and deal with that as it came. That would be the easiest route, and would make the flame portion more versatile as he could retool it later on into something other than a direct crucible and more into a torch, or a furnace, or even just a power source for something big.

Option three: Cannibalize the wind ward into the flame enchantment. Integrating two elements into a single item was more complicated than what he'd managed since the Jump, but he could kind of treat them as two sub-enchantments, just formalizing it... or recreating it, using the existing magic as its own template?

Or maybe he could make the metal treat the stone as kindling, consuming the rock and wind. He… didn't know what that might result in. But it would probably be very interesting, if it worked. And hey, it wasn't like he was risking that much. None of the materials he was using were expensive or rare or anything.

Option three, then? But that's definitely going to be the hardest and most likely to fail…

The mana he was holding onto was growing unsteady, the mana-smoothing not really intended to keep mana in stasis. Hmm. If he tried for option three, maybe he could on failure get something more in the vein of option two as a backup, but he didn't really like option two. Not only was making something meant to break something he disliked, it sacrificed the usability of what he had now for some potential future, but it wasn't like he wouldn't have far, far better tools in the future to make something so good that it would put what he was working on now to shame.

Now that he thought about it, he wasn't just trying to 'do whatever' anyway, so why would he ever go for option three? The only reason he was even considering it was because he usually tried to think of at least three – whoops.

Option one, option one!

The mana held within his [Cogniprint] grip began to flare out wildly.

"A foundation of stone, a construction of copper, and a monument of fire. You are the first, the beacon of the future and of civilization."

The stasis spell, channeled by Oliver's left hand began to rebel, tossing off green sparks in every direction. Before he could lose full control over the magic, he deliberately ended the spell. He really didn't want to deal with the backlash from losing control over a spell.

The loss of the stasis certainly complicated things, though. If he wasn't under time pressure before, he really was now.

"This copper bowl of creation, this crucible of flame, is to be the cornerstone of Technology. The wind and the flame are to be in harmony, made one through the purpose of order. Thereby, I invoke the Tapestry…" Oliver let his mouth run on autopilot, adjusting the incantation as needed to make sure his mana was settling in the way it should. He shifted to using his left hand, mostly keeping the primary [Cogniprint] active but not really progressing, as he used his wand for something trickier.

[Scrollcast]

The Metal Foundation Wards were the key here. He'd already cast a fairly involved ritual meant to coat the interior of Shelter with Metal mana, and between the Mana-Smoothing Ward and the wand he was using that was literally designed for that purpose, he had plenty of reference material for a nonverbal spell.

It wasn't objectively hard, he just needed to coat the entire outside of his bowl with a current Metal mana, which would give the molten copper in the basin a bit of a nudge, and cause it to cling to the outside of the crucible while coating the entire thing in a thin, even layer of copper.

He cast the spell, saw that the Metal was acting roughly as he hoped, and turned his attention back to his main enchantment while his spell took effect.

"In so doing, you shall be two as one, working together in a common purpose, lighting the fire needed to usher in a new age."

His throat was starting to get a bit dry. It was really hot in here thanks to the fire, heated stone, and molten copper, and he hadn't exactly planned to jump straight into an enchantment ritual when he'd cleared away the fire to check on whether his copper had melted. That could be hard on his throat and tongue at the best of times, which these… weren't. The air-conditioning ward was at least keeping it bearable, just uncomfortable.

He could persist, though! It wasn't any worse than his time as a student. And he was getting close to the end, which meant this was extra-important to not screw up. He wouldn't have as much time to fix any mistakes he made. If he timed it right, he could make the molten copper coating finish at the same time as the enchantment-making, which would help a lot with making it a unified item.

Actually, the molten copper doing its thing presented an excellent opportunity.

He couldn't release his former [Scrollcast], and without the ⟨Twincast⟩ subskill, he couldn't start another spell until the last one finished. But he could alter the existing copper-coating spell. It might be a bit tricky, but he could handle tricky.

"As form follows function, hear my words and know this is your true self."

He brought forth all the threads of mana he was working with, Air and Fire meeting Metal, and he carefully interwove all three by using the Metal as, of course, a foundation for the other two.

"Carry with you a record of that which I say. May it be graven within your heart and upon your surface."

Oliver's mana suddenly took a huge hit, and a mote of light appeared in the stone's basin right on the surface of the copper.

"Fire. Fire you are and fire you shall be…."

A glyph appeared at the very center, a symbol mirroring that which he was commanding the brazier to be and that which it would become. Most of that was drawn from the enchantments around him, and a few glyphs loosely impressed themselves into the still-soft metal as snags of mana tried to form them, and Oliver pushed them into existence.

When he was done, there would be nothing that could put out this fire, but he could certainly adjust it in a number of ways to make it work for him in all the ways he wanted. All the controls he wanted to express needed to be in the circle, and his voice was that of a rapid-fire staccato as he stayed on beat and contorted his throat in all the ways needed to produce the required sounds.

He messed up a few times. A few words got caught in his throat, and the glyphs they corresponded to were out of sequence and poorly spaced as a result. That would harm the entire enchantment rather than just the controls they were associated with, but the thing would work.

The only thing that was entirely unsalvageable, after Oliver's hands collided with one another during a particularly bad screw-up, was the section of the circle that spoke to being off. It wouldn't be complete until a fire started burning inside of it, and once one did... it would never stop burning. It would be sustained at the expense of the crucible itself, which would break before the fire could go out.

Fortunately, he had just the flame for that. He timed a larger motion to bring himself close to the First Flame, bend down to pick up a piece of wood near the edge, and use that as a torch-wand to tap the center of the crucible, where the entire piece of wood was instantly burned up and was replaced by the First Flame.

"May you burn forever bright and forever strong, contained and controlled yet fearsome and ravenous. You shall consume that which you shall consume, and destroy that which you shall destroy, yet all in service of the new age and its herald Oliver Smith, the [Erudite Enchanter]!"

Oliver dropped his skills, his mana firmly wrung out and his tongue feeling like sandpaper. He almost didn't want to look at the finished product, as he sat down with a bit more force than intended on the ground beneath him, but he forced himself to confront what he'd created.

It was… alright.

The enchantment was sloppy, that much had to be said. It would be really finicky to operate, with lots of quirks and irregular scaling. And that was only further degraded by the inconsistent embedding into the now-solid and variably thick copper coating. In some places, the copper was almost a centimeter thick and a line had burned through it all the way to the stone, while in others the copper was barely a millimeter thick and the glyphs were but a scratch upon its surface.

That sort of inconsistent covering carried through to the rest of the stone as well. Yes, the brazier did have copper coating almost everything visible… but not absolutely everything. A couple of patches were bare, there was a weird lumpy texture in a few other places, parts of it was tarnished and covered in black scale, others were already oxidized, somehow, but it was… alright.

With the visual inspection complete, Oliver closed his eyes and indirectly poked at the Tapestry to learn what he'd made without fully triggering [Appraise]... Oh hey! It might have been a Crude Foundry Brazier, but it didn't have the 'Primitive' designation!

And best of all, his First Flame was definitely safe, now and forever.