When Nik opened his eyes the next time he realized that he hadn’t just taken a nap. While he had gone to bed in the afternoon it was now completely dark - well around him. The odd star shining through treetop but most concealed by dark clouds or the countless trees.

Simultaneously in a state of being dead tired and incredibly refreshed Nik tried to roll around on his pullover that was spread over the vine hammock. Through a series of stretches approaching cat likeness, he speed up his blood flow working up the nerve to get up.

Remembering the last time he had woken up he shivered. The thought of the giant flying predator still frequently laid on his mind, though he tried to distract himself whenever he found himself straying that direction.

Now he had no other choice than to embrace the memory. The muffled beating of wings, the rustling of animated leaves. Suddenly the memory got way too real and Nik could see the creature descending towards himself.

From one moment to the next he snapped out of it, trying to calm down. The monster wasn’t here, he was as safe as he could be, and he would be even more save in a couple of days once he had finished his forge. Quickly his mind drifted away from his current situation. He sat in a treehouse surrounded by all the commodities of modern life, only that he hadn’t bought them, rather made them himself. “Sure,” he told himself, “I will have to actually learn a whole bunch of stuff before I can get that far. “. And so he had calmed down again.

He wouldn’t go back to bed which might seem like a careless tactic, but since getting [Unobstructed Optics] he hadn’t progressed the skill much and it was quite helpful, supplying Nik with vague outlines of structures all around. The issue was, that the skill was too vague. I would warn him before he would run into a tree and when he focused, he could discern finer outlines and texture even - though that required inspecting for longer periods of time.

Right now was an ideal time to further the skill’s effectiveness and maybe even get ahead on the forge and bloomery projects. Grabbing a quarter full basket Nik moved to the cave, forgoing the use of any skills besides [Unobstructed Optics]. Using [Running] in addition might be more effective in training the skill but he could forgo the uncomfortable wetness he would experience when he eventually slipped. Cold didn’t matter as much now, one or more of his attributes - he figured - changed that, but it did still make him feel uncomfortable.

After a longer than expected walk - Nik had forgotten how much faster the combination of [Haste] and [Running] really made him - he reached the cave area.

The first thing he had to do was finish the piping that would regulate the flow from the piston to the bloomery or forge, depending on what he was using. Using a chipped sharp stone he began cutting off the bottom edge of the “v”-shaped piping, using his recently acquired woodworking skill. The skill was still level one, not surprising him, he was surprised that it didn’t offer a percentage though. He would have expected one. He had assumed that the progression on woodworking should have been just like for the intrinsic skills. Straight forward, after all, what was there to woodworking. It seemed to be doing everything already - besides telling him what to do to work better.

The bottom tip of the “v” was quickly cut off, without damaging the seal between the two joint together stems. By repeating the process of the day before Nik joined another stem to the now open part of the pipe. The resin seemed to be doing at least a bit, but the mana used by woodworking was more helpful, though it seemed to be working less well than the day before. It did however work well enough.

You have created |Flawed Poor Ventilation Piping| - 2 experience points gained

Disappointed by the lack of experience - especially since he was only 17 exp away from leveling up - he moved on.

For the next part, he decided on gathering clay to build a structure that would allow him to heat the metals he was working with. He already kind of had the anvil situation figured out, so that was the last real step besides getting a better wooden hammer. The quote anvil unquote was the remainder of the tree trunk he had used for the piston. At about half a meter height and two-thirds of that as width, it would be sufficient until he got his hands on a proper metal anvil.

With one of the larger baskets in tow, he began his journey to the stream. The last part of his soon-to-be workspace would be the forge, a place to heat metal to then be processed further into other items. While not being able to replicate the foundries of earth, not only because his knowledge of those vast industrial complexes was severely lacking, he had a design for a less involved structure in mind. The structure would primarily be built from clay - this time considering forgoing the mixing with plant matter.

Withing several slow journeys he managed to deliver, what he estimated to exceed one hundred kilos by a factor of at least five, of clay to the cave and began molding the clay into the form of a rectangle. During his arduous hikes up and down and through the forest he had decided that there would be no harm in adding fiber into the mix, though that decision mostly came from ignorance. Purely the fact that he believed it to strengthen the structure was enough to decide that factor.

Once the rectangular base reached up around forty centimeters he began with the main part of the design. For him to be able to efficiently work on the metal he would need heat. Heating iron workpieces would be a chore independently of the tools he had access to right now. Charcoal alone wouldn’t be able to reach required temperatures alone, just like in the bloomery, sufficient airflow would be required. To facilitate the charcoal’s need for high amounts of oxygen he decided on building the shape of opened human lips on top of the base. The shape would provide good access to the heat, hopefully, allow ash to be cleaned off easily without clogging the air supply - which would pierce one of the lips -, and would reduce the heat-loss.

For the most part, Nik had an easy going with the design he had come up with. He realized a bit too late that the placement of the forge was subpar and it would require him to change the position of the piston each time he changed between bloomery and forge. The molding of the forge’s air intake also didn’t go as well as he had hoped, which ended in him just plugging it with a slightly thicker piece of wood, slightly slanted downwards as it went inside to further decrease chances of it being plugged up by ash or possibly melting metal.

As the construction drew to an end he became increasingly giddy. After the construction of the system named piston, he had only a few experience missing towards the new level. While he wasn’t nearly as excited about what he could gain from leveling his class he could anticipate it. He was unhappy with how his race-level-ups were just all over the place. He hadn’t really made a conscious effort to increase his race-level but it had increased anyway, making it feel almost unearned.

The last shaping done he sat happily back on his legs, waiting for a system notification, but nothing happened.

Ohh I probably have to have it dry first, he belatedly realized. Getting up he carried charcoal from the cave depositing it inside of the forge. With some fickling, he tried to get a fire going, though explosion might have been a better term in retrospect. Sparking on coal dust while blowing on it was a poor decision in hindsight.

Luckily he didn’t have any hair right now he could singe and so he only managed to accumulate some burns that were quickly healed by his dropping health points.

As he waited for the forge to finish drying - which he belatedly realized might take hours or days due to its solid clay structure he began heating the bloomery.

He removed the door in the bottom filling it with dried plant fibers and placed charcoal on top. With a previously lit stick, he ignited the bloomery. He moved the piston and adjusted the piping to allow for airflow. While already working on it he fetched a y shaped branch to support the piping.

After a few minutes, he impatiently began to drop the previously crushed coal and iron-rich stone dust through the bloomeries top. The ratios he was working with were somewhat wonky right now and based purely on guesstimation. Worried that he might end up with a large brick of stone in the end he used more than enough coal, exceeding the volume of iron-rich rock by a factor of three.

As time moved on Nik repeated the process countless times, lining the inside of the bloomery with more than 40 kilograms of rock. He didn’t know what “very high iron content” exactly stood for. Whether it would be 1%, 10%, or 75% - though the latter seemed unlikely since the common reddish tint he associated with iron-rich rocks was missing - he couldn’t tell.

The constant exercised of the piston grew tiring after the first quarter of an hour, after what felt like an hour to Nik he had to supplement his energy with stamina berries, not that he really minded as he enjoyed their taste. After two hours he had used up a large part of the berries he had laying around, not dreading to leave his workplace should something avoidable happen he continued the tiring task.

The heat of the bloomery slowly became too much for Nik as well, as sweat dripped down his forearms, face, and drenched his clothes. The continuous dripping of water into his eyes had stopped being an uncomfortable stinging sensation and had started to help with the dryness of his eyes.

Eventually, he couldn’t keep going, his stamina had bottomed out some time ago, a novel experience and it taught him something. While his stamina was a good indication of how much physical energy he had available it wasn’t a limiter. He had been able to move on after reaching zero stamina, he just hadn’t been remotely as strong. Nik saw a silver lining he would have never seen a couple of weeks ago. He could train that. He could train himself to be more efficient without stamina, maybe skills didn’t even need stamina or mana. Though he accepted that he went off on a tangent there. This was supremely unlikely.

Huffing Nik got up. In a few steps, he had reached where he stored his tonges and reached for the largest. With trepidation and nervousness creeping up he approached the bloomery. The heat coming off of it was immense, experiencing it up close was worse than when he had just been exerting himself at the bellow.

Using his tongs to carefully remove the bottom lid from the bloomery he was interrupted by a notification appearing to his mind’s eye.

You have created |Poor Clay Forge| - 25 experience points gained

A completely unrelated notice to what he was doing right now. But it was a success. For the first time ever he didn’t have a diminutive adjective in front of what he had created. On the first try nonetheless. The only thing annoying him was the low experience gain, of once again 25 experience. He suspected that there was an upper limiter either not directly smithing related things or based on the quality.

Nik Thems: {Smith} Level up! Stat points have been allocated.

Nik Thems: {Smith} Level 9. Current Progress 8/900 XP

“No skill points, that is kinda disappointing, not that I really need them right now though,” his thoughts mulling over the happy occurrence of him leveling up.

Satisfied he proceeded to fiddle with the bloomery lid until he managed to pry it away. The glow radiating away from the hole was almost blinding but Nik could keep his excitement at bay. Glancing inside he used identify on all available individual pieces he could see. Some must have been buried because he couldn’t see 40 kg worth of material on his initial glance.

Slag - molten and fused together rock, low metal contents

Disappointed he tried focusing on another part of the forge, though the results were much the same.

Slag - molten and fused together rock, very low metal contents

Disappointed but not hopeless yet he grabbed the larger pieces and moved them to the side in the hope of finding some iron in there.

During this, the largest of the tongs, which was constantly in use, caught fire multiple times. Nik managed to extinguish it each time but eventually, it went on the fritz. Breaking during one of the extinguishing acts.

Strenuously he had to continue with a smaller tong, reducing the distance between himself and the heat source.

When the heat once again became unbearable he tried using mana to coat his hands as a form of insulation, though due to the rigid structure not much happened. Then much at the same time, two things happened. A prompted notification appeared once again in his mind’s eye.

Bloom - 4.7 kg, 91% purity, low carbon iron alloy.

Durability - Low, Hardness - Low, Toughness - Low, Elasticity - Low, Brittleness - Very High

The unexpected notice swam just beside the result of identify. A very detailed identify.

New Skill Slots unlocked. You qualify for obtaining:

[Lesser Forges Domain], Passive - You are less exhausted in high heat, your body is more resistant to heat. Increases stamina regeneration, reduces the need for sleep when in the proximity of your Forge.

[Lesser Heat Resistance], Passive - All forms of heat influence your biological structure to a lesser degree.