The Second Life of Adam Cosmos

"12 hours?" Adam said out loud in amazement. "I slept for 12 hours?"

He felt fully recharged. Despite the technology that is the gaming capsule, there's still something about sleeping the good old-fashioned way that cannot be replicated: it feels good.

Sleep was one of the first things that was taken away from the common people when humanity lost control of most of their territories.

After all, how can one sleep peacefully, when a monster could find your vulnerable body and snack on it? Being able to sleep for this long without having to make a lot of deals with another party to protect him is a luxury that people will only realize a couple of years down the line.

But for now, at least he can sleep as much as he wants.

Adam prepared a quick breakfast. After eating, he had some coffee and smoked.

And then it is time to get back to crafting.

***

As soon as Adam arrived in the smithy, he immediately got to work.

The ingredients he prepared had been waiting for him; there was no further need to delay.

With all the alchemical tools he managed to purchase, he can now create a maximum of 5 different potions at the same time. And so he did.

He decided to focus on stamina and mana potions as they tend to sell more than the health potions.

This is understandable as their process is notably more complex and time-consuming, therefore it would net a price higher than a health potion of the same grade.

Fortunately, Adam can reliably craft notable-grade potions using common ingredients while he can create superb-grade potions with uncommon ingredients.

Within half a day, Adam had successfully created several hundred bottles of notable grade potions and a few dozen superb grade potions.

He should have a steady income for the next few weeks.

Adam chugged a stamina potion to relieve his fatigue and restore his energy. He was about to craft another batch of potions when Vetius approached him.

"How... are... the... woods... and... ores... going...?"

It's been over 2 weeks since Adam had completed the ten thousand bricks.

After that, he had been doing nothing but go out and return with nothing to show for it. That, or he would craft potions for several days straight. Understandably, Vetius would ask him for an update.

"I have good news on that, teacher," said Adam positively. "I have managed to secure the help of other Otherworlders like myself to hasten the gathering process."

There was no reason for him to lie. The quest is not exclusive to blacksmithing so he felt he had some leeway as to how he can complete it. Using others to help him complete the task seems a fair way to accomplish it.

As for the bricks, he decided to personally complete them as he can create potions in between baking and cooling down the mud to turn them into bricks.

"Hmmmm... I... see..."

"Good... thinking..."

Vetius walked towards Adam's smithy and started inspecting everything he built. He gestured for Adam to follow.

Then, he wordlessly set the smelter on fire and left it alone. It is to let the smelter reach the ideal temperature for smelting.

This process would typically take a couple of hours.

Afterwards, he walked back to his smithy where he placed all the iron ores Adam collected in a giant mortar and pestle set.

"Let's... continue... your... lessons..."

"I... will... teach..."

"How... to... smelt... ores..."

Ding!

[Blacksmithing Chain Quest: Learn the process of smelting from Vetius]

Details: Your next lesson begins. Observe how your teacher works the smelter.

Smelting is the process of extracting the metal from an ore.

This is achieved by heating the ore beyond its melting point and introducing a reducing agent such as charcoal to strengthen the quality of the metal. Doing so would expel the undesired elements in the ore, leaving only the material- metal, that a blacksmith requires for smithing.

This is the most basic description of what smelting is.

However, the actual steps, the necessary materials required, how to prepare said materials, the melting point of various metals, and their corresponding reduction agent as well as any other elements that need to be combined with the metal would depend entirely on what is being smelted.

The process of smelting in Pangea, or blacksmithing in general for that matter, is the same as it is in the real world. And years later, it would turn out that arcane forging is the same in Pangea as it would be in the real world.

In other words, this is a set of skills and knowledge that directly translates in-game. And vice-versa, for arcane forging.

Therefore, players with knowledge of real-world smelting and blacksmithing would have an advantage over those who don't.

This goes even more so for those with hands-on experience in blacksmithing. Fortunately, he has some background in smelting and blacksmithing.

As it is, Adam is learning that Vetius is proving to be the type of teacher to lead by example with little to no explanation.

It is a very fortunate thing for Adam that he has a working knowledge of the technical aspect of blacksmithing and its related skill sets.

'I suppose it's a good thing that I am his apprentice,' thought Adam. 'Anyone else and they would have been clueless on what's going on.'

'He has already begun the process without bothering to explain anything.'

Indeed, just like when Vetius crafted his dagger, he is focused on his work without bothering to check if Adam understood what was happening. The revenant blacksmith did not even bother to ask him if there was anything he would like to be explained.

The first thing that Vetius did was grind the ores that he had placed in a giant metallic mortar and pestle that is activated by some pulley system.

Vetius would pull the chain connected to the heavy-looking pestle to its maximum height. Then he would release the chain and let gravity do its work by having the heavy pestle slam on the ore stored in the mortar.

Due to the revenant's strength and near-infinite stamina, he ceaselessly pulled the chain and released it until the once rocky ore had been reduced into a sand-like state.

Next, he removed the heavy pestle out of the mortar and then took a black-round rock: a magnet.

Vetius used the magnet and dipped it into the pestle with the crushed ore. Doing this ensures that the metallic element is separated from the non-metallic elements.

It's a good thing Adam can understand the procedure from a technical perspective. Anyone else would have been frustrated at the complete lack of explanation of what was happening.

Typically, most smelters would just put the ore in the smelter and let heat take care of filtering out the unnecessary elements.

But Vetius' method ensures that the smelted ore is as pure as possible. This would mean that the smelted iron would be near pure iron with only a minimum of unnecessary components being included when the smelting process is done.

Vetius placed the metallic materials captured by the magnet into a separate container.

He repeated the process of grinding ores to ensure that he could collect every bit of metallic material from it. He meticulously did this more than a dozen times until the only thing left in the mortar were pulverized rocks that had no value in smelting or blacksmithing.

And with that, the preliminary step for smelting has been completed.

Despite the lack of explanation, Adam couldn't help but feel admiration towards his teacher.

It is clear that Vetius is self-taught; coming up with this extra step to ensure that the material has been filtered is a stroke of genius.

However, the only reason Adam can admire what is happening is because he understands it. Anyone else would have been clueless at the sheer ingenuity of what Vetius is doing.

He has never seen another blacksmith do this step during his time as a player- and even during his short time as a blacksmith in real life.

'I guess you're just as lucky that I became your student, just as much as I am lucky that you became my teacher,' thought Adam with amusement.

'You are a master of smithing, smelting, forging, and other crafting arts. But teaching is not your strongest suit.'

The ones captured by the magnet are the iron ore that will be smelted. Crushing the rocks to the point of becoming sand-like early on ensures that the undesirable parts that can be removed before exposing the ore to intense heat are removed.

This would ultimately make the smelting process easier and would yield a significantly purer iron ingot.

It is quite similar to what Adam did when he was crafting potions. While others would just simply boil the raw ingredients, Adam would chop the ingredients and burn them as doing so would remove the undesirable components of the ingredient, leaving only the essential components for potion making.

From this perspective, Alchemy and Blacksmithing share some similarities. The better the purification process is, the better the raw material becomes.

Adam is impressed by the technique of Vetius. It is clear to him that his teacher became a grandmaster through good old-fashioned trial and error.

There is no way anyone taught him this so he has to have discovered it by attaining a deeper understanding of the smelting process.

After all, what Vetius just did is very similar to what modern refinery does to process iron on an industrial scale- not a medieval-level blacksmith.

The Revenant checked the filtered ore and the unnecessary remains on the mortar. He seemed satisfied with the yield.

Next, he turned to his apprentice.

"You... do... the... same..."

Vetius stepped away to give him space to work.

This time, instead of ignoring Adam like he normally does, he stood still with the intent of observing Adam's work.

There's no reason to delay, Adam immediately took his place in front of the huge mortar and pestle. He placed a handful of iron ores that he collected from the Crystal Beasts.

Adam began to pull the chains connected to the pestle. But then, the chain wouldn't budge.

Uuuuuurrgggh! Uuuuuurrgggh! Uuuuuurrgggh!

Pant! Pant! Pant!

Uuuuuurrgggh! Uuuuuurrgggh! Uuuuuurrgggh!

Pant! Pant! Pant!

"You... are... not... strong...enough..."

Vetius directed Adam to another part of his workshop. There, he saw a smaller version of the pulley-operated-mortar-and-pestle mechanism.

"Here... use... this... instead..."

It is obvious that Vetius first built a smaller one before creating the gigantic ore processor.

Adam once again set up the equipment based on what he observed from Vetius' work.

Then, he took the ores he placed in the gigantic mechanism and moved it to the more reasonable-sized version.

He pulled the chain pulley.

KRRRRRRRNG!

This time, he was able to pull it. He continued pulling it and when it reached its maximum height, he promptly let it go.

CRASH!

Even with the smaller-sized mechanism, Adam still needed to put a bit of effort into operating it.

Luckily, his estimate of leaving his strength stat at 20 as being enough to perform Blacksmithing-related tasks has been proven correct. However, he made a mental note to add a few points to strength to make it a little easier to do this kind of task in the future.

As for the version Vetius used, he estimates that a strength stat of at least 60 is the minimum required to pull the chain to its maximum.

Of course, a significantly higher strength stat would have made this task undoubtedly easier. But it is more important to Adam to have high endurance so he can work for prolonged periods.

KRRRRRRRNG! CRASH!

Just as his teacher did, Adam did the pull-and-release action. Since the equipment he's using is smaller and lighter, grinding the ore would take longer.

In exchange for the lighter mortar and pestle equipment, he will need to do more than Vetius did to draw out all the necessary materials.

KRRRRRRRNG! CRASH!

Adam continued the process of pulling the chain and releasing it until the ore had been grounded to a sand-like state.

Then, he copied what Vetius did and took a magnet to capture the metallic material. He set aside these metallic components and then continued pounding the ore for more metallic elements.

KRRRRRRRNG! CRASH!

He resumed grinding the ore.

After a few cycles of grinding it with the pulley-operated pestle, he captured the necessary material using a magnet.

He continued this routine for several hours.

The entire time he's working, Vetius just silently stood nearby. He took his teacher's silence as a sign that he was doing well in his task.

KRRRRRRRNG! CRASH!

Adam deemed the current batch of ore fully stripped of all metallic materials, so he disposed of the remaining sand.

Then he added a new batch of unprocessed iron ore for metallic extraction.

"Hmmmm... very... good..."

His teacher nodded in approval.

"Finish... that..."

"Then... we... can... smelt..."

Vetius' approval acted as fuel for him.

Adam doubled his efforts of extracting the iron from the ore.

He would regularly drink potions to recover his stamina and remove his fatigue to ensure that his pace is maintained and he can extract iron with little to no breaks.

Eventually, every iron that can be extracted has been extracted and they are now ready to move on to the next step.

Vetius approached him and collected the iron he had worked so hard to extract.

DING!

[Blacksmithing proficiency has increased.]

PANT! PANT! PANT!

"This may be tiring, but it's oddly satisfying," said Adam as he was panting.

Despite the physically demanding nature of the task, Adam found it fulfilling. He genuinely enjoyed the process of extracting iron from the ore.

Meanwhile, Vetius went back to Adam's furnace that he lit earlier.

He then set everything up, once again, with little to no explanation. Of course, Adam knew what his teacher was doing.

Since the smelter has been pre-heated, Vetius placed around a dozen pounds of iron in the furnace.

Then, he stepped on the bellows to blow air into the furnace to get the temperature to the melting point of iron.

The purpose of smelting is to filter away the unnecessary components for forging.

While Vetius' method removed a huge portion of the undesirable material, there is still a minuscule amount remaining. These need to be melted away to draw out the purest iron ore possible. The smelter would then heat the ore until it reached its near-melting point.

As this happens, anything non-iron in the blob of semi-molten ore would be drawn out. The undesirable components would form what is referred to as a slag.

After this vigorous stage, Vetius used a pair of tongs to take the molten ore out of the smelter. He then placed it in a crucible where he set it aside.

There is nothing else to be done aside from letting it naturally cool.

Vetius then turned to Adam.

"You... do... the... same..."

Adam obediently performed the same process of smelting.

During the entire procedure, Vetuis remained also silent which he took to mean that he was doing well in the exercise.

After he finished one batch of ore for smelting. Vetius told him to keep on doing it until every ore that they prepared earlier had been smelted.

It was a task that took a full night and day. Adam had to periodically use Stamina and Dindle Potions to ensure he could work on the smelter continuously.

After several batches of ore being smelted, everything had been processed into an ingot.

Then, Vetius dismissed Adam.

"We... will... forge... daggers... tomorrow..."

Ding!

[Blacksmithing Chain Quest Completed: Learn the process of smelting from Vetius]

[Blacksmithing proficiency has increased.]

Vetius' announcement is welcome news for Adam. He needed a rest from the intense smelting.

Even with his endurance and fire resistance, continuous labor of this level of intensity for a full day and night was too much. The only reason he lasted was thanks to his potions.

Being completely spent, Adam logged out.

He immediately crashed on the couch, where he slept for a few hours.

And upon waking up, he felt refreshed.

Just like yesterday, he prepared a quick breakfast. After eating, he had some coffee and smoked.

And then it is time to get back to blacksmithing.