Chapter 52 - A World with Magic (1/2)

Even though the smithy was already under construction, it was still far from completion. According to Gawain’s plan, this wooden house was not actually the same thing as the “smithy” that people were familiar with in this world. It was just that he wanted to make it easy for everyone to understand that he called this place a smithy for the time being.

According to him, he was going to name the place “Cecil Steel Works”…

As the only blacksmith in the territory, old Hummel was also quite confused about the “smithy” that the Grand Duke ordered to construct. He thought that this building was taking up too much unnecessary space. Besides the unusually large area, it also included an open space with a length of a hundred meters and a wooden shed that was currently made up of a few frames. It seemed inappropriate to call such a large facility a “smithy”, but he did not dare to call out the pioneer Grand Duke as a layman acting as though he was an expert as he ordered people around. Even though that was really how he thought about him, he absolutely did not dare to speak up about it.

After all, he was just a commoner, and Gawain was a noble who could be on equal footing with the King.

As this “smithy” took up such a large area, it could only be located at the eastern edge of the camp, and its “large courtyard” extended all the way to the undeveloped land outside. It was as if a lump had protruded out of the neat wooden fences, looking very comical. In this giant smithy, the guys who had came from Tanzan Town seemed pathetic in numbers when they would only occupy a corner of the wooden house, and the only furnace for smelting iron was placed in the open space outside, covered with a simple wooden shed to be protected against the elements.

The reason that Gawain made the smithy’s reserved land so large and close to the edge of the territory was just because he was taking into account the production capacity requirements and the ease of expansion in the future. Those traditional smithies, with one master leading several apprentices to tinker with iron in a small shed with a furnace was absolutely far from what he needed.

But there was no way he would be able to explain everything to the old blacksmith and his dumb apprentices now.

In addition to the considerations of future capacity and ease of expansion, Gawain did not intend to simply build a bunch of earthen blast furnaces in this courtyard like a transmigrator he had read about in a novel. Although he did think of doing that, after seeing Herti use her magical power to shore up the rafts a few days ago and help the camp strengthen its foundation, he temporarily withheld this idea, and turned to Hummel, the only blacksmith in the territory, to build a traditional furnace in the courtyard.

He came to the smithy, where Rebecca was already waiting for him with Hummel and several of his apprentices. There were also several other people, stood in the courtyard and at their feet was a large basket containing the first batch of ores.

Gawain went straight to the traditional furnace.

It appeared to be quite an awkward furnace. It was about one meter in height, and it was divided into an upper and lower part. The lower part was an enlarged hemispherical structure, while the upper part quickly tapered into a cylindrical shape. On the bottom hemispherical structure, there were two openings. One was located at the bottom, which was obviously the place to add fuel, and the other was near the cylindrical structure, which was where the ores would probably be fed into.

There was nothing unusual with these parts. It was just an ordinary furnace, but the part that was special was at the side.

There were three runes lined up there.

All three runes were carved on a type of black stone slab, and the three slabs were apparently carefully polished and adjusted before being set on the furnace to ensure that they were equally spaced apart and the edges parallel. The lowest stone was engraved with a triangle symbol, and there was a wavy line within the symbol. According to the magic books, It was the starting character that represented the fire element. The stone in the middle was a square with a rhombus inside, which was the starting character of the earth element; the stone at the top had a swirling symbol, which was related to the wind element, but it was not the starting character.

In addition to these three stone slabs, there were also some fine, glittering dust which made up the furnace body. Gawain knew what it was. It was quartz sand. “This world’s” quartz sand.

Quartz sand was a material which could conduct magic. Although its effect was extremely weak, it was widely used because it was cheap enough to be used by ordinary people.

Gawain looked up at the old blacksmith. “You made this furnace?”

“Yes, yes Lord…” Hearing the Lord asking him a question, the old blacksmith immediately grasped the hat in his hand and hurriedly bowed down and answered, “Oh, I made half of it. I instructed my apprentices to make the other half…”

Gawain nodded, but he had no further questions.

Magic was an extraordinary power. It was not something that the lowly peasants could access, but in this world full of magical power, even civilians who could not cast spells lived their lives with magic.

Some basic uses of magical power did not require mastery of the knowledge and skill of casting spells. Everyone had magical power in them. By carving a specific symbol upon a specific material of a specific shape, anybody could draw out a little of that ubiquitous, fantastic power.

This was not spell casting at all. Its effect was ridiculously weak in the eyes of those who could use the real “supernatural” power. This type of power was like picking a stick on the ground to use as a crutch, or grabbing a stone from anywhere to smash walnuts. There was no skill involved. Even illiterate civilians could remember how to draw a few symbols with weak effects, but it was this weak power that made the difference between this world and the world that Gawain was familiar with.

It was just like the one degree Celsius that made the difference between water boiling and not boiling.

With these three runes, this “traditional furnace” only needed to use firewood as fuel. and it would be able to produce molten iron without using a bellow and without optimizing the structure of the combustion chamber.

If the fire elemental runes were engraved on a piece of Mithril, this furnace could even use straw as fuel!