It was marvelous.

I could see right in front of me a flatbed wooden wagon full of pegmatite, with crystals showing up underneath the rock surface. I giggled and ran inside, like a kid in a candy shop. The warehouse was dark compared to the scorching sunlight outside. The only light that reached inside was what filtered through small openings at the top of the wall, underneath the awnings of the roof that extended to the sides of the building.

I had to do something about that first. I looked up and I thought I could walk on those beams without a problem.

"We need light if we are to work here, master Aran," I told him as I summoned my climbing gear. "Could you toss this rope over the roof beam? I'm going up there to remedy this situation."

"Are you going to poke holes on my roof?" He asked, both wary and amused.

Samus was down-to-earth, practical, and simple while Aran was chanceful, innovative, and creative. They were good partners since one covered for the other's weaknesses. Samus would ground Aran, and Aran would push Samus out of the dreaded pit of stagnation.

The smith tossed the rope up and around the beam, securing both ends. I was about to put on my harness when I noticed that climbing gear and a lady's fashionable dress didn't mix well.

"I need to change into practical clothes, would you mind giving me some minutes?" I asked him.

Aran blushed. "No, not at all," And fled through the door. So cute.

I changed into my explorer outfit. Cargo pants, hiking boots, and a white blouse. I put a sports bra underneath because while raising the morale of the smiths would be a good thing, getting them distracted would be catastrophic.

The confidence that came with the knowledge that I was strong and resilient changed my reactions. I wasn't as afraid of male attention as I once was. With all that wave of rumors of campus rape and the protests, even if you distance yourself from the situation, you are still in the "potential victim" demographics. Even though I knew my martial arts to a degree, back on Earth I'd be wary. Any injury probably would leave permanent scars. Here? Heck, I got my heart pierced, tossed into an abyss, burned with gamma radiation.

And I didn't get any permanent marks or turn green. Maybe because I'm not an angry person.

My body was in the "pristine state" my recovery boon promised. I would dare say I was even stronger than before because I now knew my limits and even how to measure my magic power. All that brought previously unknown confidence.

I think I know what it is.

It was the Pygmalion effect.

I mean, I was invested by a god with these powers. My impression regarding his presumed expectations boosted my own self-esteem and confidence which in turn yielded some results that wouldn't be possible if I didn't face the challenges with that confidence, thereby reinforcing the previous impression. Rosenthal did an experiment coaching rats of the same breed and the expectations and positive reinforcement showed the power of this effect.

Feeling powerful and confident can lead a person to behave powerful and confident in a cycle. The same is true of the negative spectrum.

Is that how men feel? They are bigger and stronger so they can be boastful and daring? Their muscles are plentiful and the skin tougher so they can take more risks and fear fewer wounds? Maybe that coupled with the "hold my beer" effects of testosterone is the key to understanding male behavior. And then they feel self-validated and behave even more boastful and daring?

Well, that's what Theresa thought, but she associated that with blood-inflating organs. Maybe she had a point.

Silly thoughts aside, I finished changing and putting on the climbing harness. From that, it was easy to attach the ends of the rope to the ascender clamps. I heard rustling by the door.

"You can come in now, master Aran!"

He entered and looked at my setup. Feeling playful, I pushed myself up a bit so I could take my feet off the ground and swing.

"I'm going up there to install some temporary lights."

I came down to cut off my swinging momentum and then climbed the rope using one ascender on each end. It seemed that my body was also physically stronger. Or this "pristine state" could very well mean something more like at the top condition. Up over the beams I made crude versions of the aluminum eye holder and hung them from the beams. I used three eyes and got back to the ground.

"What are those?" Aran asked, pointing at the glowing orbs.

"Enchanter water goblin eyes. Nanna did them for me."

"Where did..." He paused then snapped his fingers, "The depths. You found water goblins in the depths. Of course, the teeth."

"Yes, I fought them and brought back some corpses. I recall Nanna telling me she gave the teeth to Samus."

"We did some nasty-looking knives and one ax. These teeth can tear through steel if there's enough force behind them."

Interesting. Also irrelevant. I stored my climbing gear and went for the cart with the pegmatite rocks. I could see the big foggy quartz crystals embedded in the feldspar and mica. It looked like rough granite and I knew I had to handle it with care or I'd risk destroying the gemstones inside. Handling a couple of them, I thought the best way was to remove the flaky feldspar since it had the least chance of harming the crystals. Feldspar had aluminum but so did more than half the gemstones.

Decompose was too clumsy and brutish to use on the ore if I wanted to save the gemstones. I took some time and created a couple of chairs and a table from the silicon I had stored. I summoned my portable lab and took the pick and mallet. Let's do this in the old-school style. My pick was not a miner's pick. It was a precise tool to do exactly that, handle mineral samples with care. I broke the first chunk of the granite-like rock and released two quartz crystals the size of my thumbnail. I polished them using Decompose to shear a thin layer and they were clear with a lot of imperfections. Not very valuable, but maybe I could play with them later. I used more silicon to create bins for the gemstones. And a barrel for the minerals I'd just Decompose in bulk later.

After a while, I took the small chunks of feldspar and sensed. Potassium and calcium feldspar. That gave me an idea. I took another chunk of pegmatite and sensed all around it. I felt some light metals and after a while, I could feel the individual resonances. The chunk was the size of a baseball but it had over fifteen different elements. I carefully removed the calcium, sodium, and potassium from the feldspar and mica, causing the structure of the rock to break and flake. A coarse grit was left behind after I removed the small beads of alkali metals. I sensed another resonance very similar to sodium and potassium but of a lighter element.

I knew which one it was. Lithium. I carefully removed the lithium-containing part and it was a white-ish to pink cloudy crystal. I took my laptop and checked. Kunzite spodumene. On Earth, it comes from Afghanistan mostly.

"Did this ore come from a place far to the northeast?" I asked Aran. I had a hunch based on geography, hydrology and other factors, but the biggest hint was these gods. If I were transplanting people from one world to another, I'd put them where they would be most at home. So why not in a geographic place similar to the one before?

"Yes, it is from a mining village on the mountains above the grassy plateau," He answered.

It could be a coincidence or not. Only time would tell. The spodumene was not gemstone-grade so I Decomposed it for the lithium and dumped the rest on the barrel. More low-quality quartz crystals into their bins.

I caught Aran staring at the crystals and metals and decided to give him an explanation.

"Well, these metals here are what we call alkaline metals. They react violently with water and create a corrosive substance. These are Lithium, Sodium, Potassium. They belong to the same family. This one is Calcium and he is from the second family, the alkaline earth metals. In the barrel, we have what we call aluminosilicates. They are plentiful and are made of silicon, the same material as the furniture we are using right now. And aluminum, the metal I used to hang the enchanted eyes above us."

Aran gawked. "Marvelous. These metals are so soft I can't believe they are indeed metal."

I laughed. "Wait until you see mercury. it is a liquid at room temperature."

To the iron age smith, all of this was surreal. I was enjoying everything so far and I hadn't even made a dent in the warehouse's contents. I bet the mountain where this came from was a dormant volcano. I wish I could visit it. For sightseeing and totally not to raid it for ores. Yeah, right.

I went through the rocks and found more quartz, some nice and uniform crystallization of the kunzite spodumene that went into their own bin. Aran was watching me work and I almost asked him if he didn't have a job to do since the smithy was bursting at the seams with activity. But that would be too rude and I knew his job was also to watch over me and make sure I didn't steal anything. Trust, but verify.

Hidden in one big chunk I had to ask Aran to carry over, I found our first treasure. A yellow-orange topaz, a roughly octagonal crystal three centimeters in diameter and eight centimeters tall. I lightly polished one of the surfaces with Decompose, feeling the sting of the fluorine that was released.

"Now that's a treasure!" I exclaimed, excited.

I looked closely at the crystal, and it seemed flawless to my untrained eye. I had my minute vision boon though. I could see there was no fault, crack or bubble in the topaz even after I took my flashlight and beamed the light on it.

"Can I see it?" I handed the crystal to Aran. He looked at it and smiled as he returned the crystal to me. "This one is worth a couple gold mina at least. More if you get to cut it without breaking."

"Oh, I'll take care of it," I told him as I summoned my handbag and carefully stored the topaz inside. I took a look inside it. The bag was so heavy I couldn't carry it anymore. The straps or the bottom would rip off if I tried to. "But I think I'll keep this one as a memento. I have quite the stash of gold."

I knew Aran stole a glimpse of my wealth. "Quite the stash, indeed. You should get some of that gold bullion minted into coins. The demand for currency is great now. Lu-Ninurta has some minters working for him. Since it is being funded by the Enshi, the rates and taxes for minting coins are very low right now."

"I will definitely visit him. Is Nephew putting his face on the coins?"

"Nephew?" Aran caught on my Freudian slip.

I got slightly embarrassed.

"The Enshi. He's the Nephew of the previous Enshi, so..."

"Right. Don't let anyone hear you call him that. You being a Minister or not."

I nodded, showing that I would comply with his warning. "Thanks. Now, let's get this show going. These ores won't turn into useful metals on their own."

Over the next hour, we demolished the pegmatite wagon. Not the vehicle, you barbarian. The topaz I'd found earlier was the crown jewel of the load but I got some small tourmalines and other less impressive pieces of topaz. The barrel of leftovers filled two times and I Decomposed the contents into aluminum and silicon. It was good to replenish my reserves of aluminum. I had a sizeable quantity of the alkaline metals. Lithium, especially, since I hadn't got it before. I marked the mountain where the spodumene came from, to know where I could find more lithium if I needed it.

Onto the next stash of ores. It was a pile of black rocks, and upon touch, I recognized the magnetite.

"This is just iron ore," Aran remarked.

"Magnetite," I replied. "Yes, it is mostly iron oxide, but I'd like to save some of the best crystals for later. I can buy them if you want since they are part of the deal. But I promise I can show you something amazing if you let me have them."

"Agreed," Aran replied with a big smile. "For the iron and copper, we use these ingot molds. If you could pour the metal in the molds, it would help us a lot."

"Yes, but I need to make my own molds. You pour hot metal in these, they shrink when cool so it is easy to remove. I'll pour pure elements on them at room temperature. They'll stick. Let me use some silicon."

The way to make my own molds was easy. First I poured carbon inside the molds, making graphite negative-molds. Then I made my own molds out of silicon. This way even if the ingot was stuck inside the mold, I could just move the silicon away to get the ingot. The graphite negative-molds could be used to make more molds out of the recovered silicon. Nothing went to waste.

Decompose was too handy.

I started to work frantically to make the molds and during the work made eye contact with Aran. He seemed to be a kid from the slums that entered a toy store. I knew my expression wasn't too far away from his.

I went through the pile of magnetite, removing the iron from the rough magnetite and searching for the biggest crystals. Magnets would open a whole slew of things I could do, generators, motors, and other stuff. The magnetite would do while I couldn't get my hands on a better magnetic material like ferrite. I checked on the computer, my books had the procedure to create ferrite. Even Wikipedia had the procedure in a nutshell. I needed barium or strontium for that. Better keep that in mind.

I separated about twelve large crystals, the size of a soda can from the ferrite and converted everything else into iron and other stuff that was mixed with the ore like sulfates and silicon. Aran called some apprentices and they carted the literal tons of purified iron ingots I made outside. I left a pile of silicon cubes where the ferrite was. Too bad I couldn't put sixty-four of them in the same spot.

Next, I went for the largest pile at the back. It was yellow-black chalcopyrite mixed with malachite and bornite.

"That's not gold," Aran quipped.

I turned around and poked my tongue at him. "This is pyrite, tainted with a lot of copper. In my world, we called this 'fool's gold'. I know my minerals, master smith!" I faked a pout and stomped my feet.

"Fool's gold. A very fitting name for it," He chortled.

Copper ore. Some iron, a lot of sulfides. After processing the huge pile of copper ore over another hour, I looked around for tin ore. I saw no cassiterite.

"Not much tin?" I asked the master smith.

"No," He shook his head, visibly concerned. "We weren't able to secure much tin ore this time. What little we got is already at the forge. It seems another curse Prince Marduk left on us. He bought almost all the tin ore we had. Without it, we can't smelt bronze and the copper is too soft.

"We can't make the weapons and armor entirely out of steel. It would be too expensive and would eat all our profits. And we can't charge more for items made of steel when the commission is for bronze items."

"Well, let's work on it then."

The copper ore was mostly copper, iron, sulfur, and oxygen. It had a little sandstone, limestone, granites and other igneous rocks mixed in but the ore grade was very good. I didn't know how much rock was removed but it seemed to be not much. In fact, the ores in this world were highly suspicious. There were two possible explanations. One, sorcerers that specialized in Earth magic were mining the ores. Or two, the world was designed to be this much mineral-rich.

I mean, gods and magic were real, who knew which one was true or even if there was another explanation?

Pushing these thoughts aside, I worked hard on the copper ore. I extracted the beautiful blue salt copper sulfate because that's exactly what I needed when the wooden boxes arrived. With a couple hundred kilograms of copper sulfate secured, I furiously dismantled all the ores in their elemental components. More ingots of bronze and a few of iron from the pyrite.

I also got a couple hundred kilograms of aluminum, two dozen of zinc, and some unidentified oxides. I shoved everything else in my ever-growing army of silicon drums filled with stuff I had yet to identify.

I looked around. After finishing the iron and copper ores, we had gone through more than two-thirds of the warehouse and it felt like lunchtime.

"I have alternatives. We can make bronze without tin. Do you have zinc? Several bronze alloys can be even better than the standard tin bronze."

Aran tilted his head and asked, confused. "A rainwater drain?"

"No, not a rainwater drain (zinnu). It is a type of metal. I had some from the slag and there might be some in the ores we didn't process yet, Samus took what I had back when he visited me in Abil-Kisu's estate. Where are the metals he brought?"

Aran gave me a wry smile and scratched his head. "He smelted everything, trying some combinations."

"Well, that's no good. And we will need almost a ton of the metal. We can use the aluminum."

Samus entered the warehouse. He looked around and smiled.

"Miss Sandra, you are a godsend! Literally!" The master smith and fire sorcerer bellowed a hearty chortle.

I poked my tongue at him and sneered. "You don't say!" I quipped, annoyed.

"He's right," Aran nodded, barely holding his mirth. "It would take us the best part of a month to process this much ore."

"Many thanks. Hungry?" Samus pointed at the door. "We have food ready at the tent. Let's eat!"

I uncrossed my arms. "Yes, let's eat. We can finish everything after restoring our energies. Now, mister Samus, what atrocities did you inflict upon my metals?"

The big smith flinched. It was funny.