Elevation of Mana Chapter 59 Black Sand

The beach awaited, and magic awaited, and oh was this something I was itching to try.  There was a thing about many of the ideas I had, a dreadful thing.  In my old village they were either not very useful, or not something I wanted to have to explain to anyone.  I wasn't in my village anymore though, and I didn't have to explain shit.

I reached my hands over the sand once I'd settled my carrier and began to focus.  Inwardly I'd prepped for years for this, visualizing the lines, the spin, the equations, even the outward look, everything I knew about magnets.  Just over the sand I pumped mana into the spell, making the strongest magnet I could.

There was a slight movement, a small shifting as the construct gained power, and pulled.  Bits of black sand, barely large enough to be grains themselves pulled from the beach, zipping inwards to the construct, and hovering there.  As they began to form a small ball a small smile crept up onto my lips, this would do quite nicely.

Iron may have been one of the more common elements on Earth, and I suspected here as well, but that didn't meant that there was a ton of it in a usable format just sitting around.  There was some, surely, but not a giant deposit here or anything, just a few grains here and there that were sticking to my improvised magnet.

Even if there wasn't much of what I was looking for compared to volume I still had a whole beach and all day to work.  Over time I began to shift the sands around a bit, hauling up parts before dropping them down around it and letting it grab the little specks of black.  After a bit I found it almost meditative to do, repetitive and calming.

Even with the small amounts I was getting it still only took me an hour or two to get all the iron dust I needed.  My small pots now sat in their baskets with a black billing, the tiny grains shifting ever so slightly as I picked them up.  They were also heavier than I'd anticipated, making me need to put a little spell around them to help lighten my load.

I was getting strange looks from some of the gatherers, clearly curious as to what in the world I was doing.  Nobody had yet approached though, and I had to wonder why.  Perhaps they saw that I was quite busy moving a large and potentially dangerous spell around, or maybe...

A man approached me, sporting some of the odd tattoos that many who gathered at the beach did.  “Me and the boys were wondering what in the world you're gathering.”

His approach was straightforward, one I liked far better than sending a slave to come and poke around my stuff.

“Black sand,” I explained.  “I'm a craftsman and am often after new materials.”

The man bent down and looked at the small pots of sand,  tapping the outside of one.  “What you making?”

“Oh, all kinds of things.  I'm not exactly sure what to do with the sand yet, but I've got some ideas.”

“Interesting, did you make these?  They're harder than I'd expect.”  Now he was clearly interested in the pots.

“I did make those, they're called pots, and I'll be making more in the future,” I said with a smile, pottery might be a good way to make money while I kept spreading designs.  Knowing the basics of it already meant that I could spread it easily, and it was something I wanted encouraged.

“Expensive?”

“Not as bad as you'd think.  They're neat, since they can hold things like sand and water.”  That got his mind turning, and I could see him thinking about the possibilities already.

That was one thing always made me smile.  In my own world I seen time and time again of cave men and those who lived in societies like mine being depicted as stupid, but these people weren't.  They lacked a lot of knowledge, sure, but that didn't mean they were dumb.  If shown something they'd never seen they investigated, if they found some use for it, they immediately took it up without problem.  They weren't dumb, or particularly backwards, they just lacked information.

“That's interesting, very interesting,” he said, tapping his chin in thought.

“Mind if I ask a question of my own?”

“Not at all.”

“Those marks all over your body, the tattoos, what are they for?” I said, dying to sate my curiosity.

“Oh, they're ink made from a certain plant.  If you put them in your skin they can refill your lungs if you run out of air.  Most people can only use them once or twice a day, but still enough to save your life if you start to drown.”

A magical tattoo, that really was something.  “How are they made?  By who?”

“I'm not sure exactly, but some of the more powerful gatherers make them, and some village elders up and down the coast.  I don't know that it's secret, but I think it's supposed to be hard to do.”  He didn't know the answers to some of my questions, perhaps many of them, but that information alone was something quite valuable.

“Are there other kinds?” I asked, excited now.

“Oh a few, but like I said they're hard to use, and using more than one is really difficult from what I hear.  I know a guy who does them if you want one.”

At my vigorous agreement he rattled off some directions.  One day I'd have to go and pay the tattoo artist a visit, but not today.  Today I had lots of fresh ore to work with, and a furnace to put to work.

Soon enough the stranger and I split, each of us heading back to where we'd come from.  He'd not gotten everything he wanted, but he did manage some of it, and probably thought that the black sand was for pottery.  I wouldn't be disabusing him of that notion for now, as getting iron or steel out into the environment wasn't quite on the docket yet.

When I got home I had just enough time to start cooking the ore I'd gathered.  While I might not know all of the details of how iron ore was turned into metal I knew a few things, and one of those was that it had to get extraordinarily hot.  Letting even a bit of water into that kind of head seemed foolish, something I'd learned long ago, therefore I wanted all of it dry, very dry before I began.

Chien showed up the next day about halfway into my first attempt at smelting.  He looked between the two burning stacks, one full of pottery I'd thrown together quickly and another which was being charged with equal parts iron ore and charcoal.  For this first run I was only using magic to increase airflow and using a variant of the same furnace I used for copper making, since I knew it worked.

“Morning kid, how goes it?” I asked, sipping from a small ceramic cup.

“Good, lots of people want sleds like the one you made, and more info on them.”

“Glad to hear it, sounds like you've got your work cut out for you,” I observed., still sipping the small herbal blend I'd put together from local plants.

“So about getting more of them?” he asked, hesitantly.

“You know how to make them, and I assume you're selling them?” I asked.

He nodded, and it was clear that he'd managed that much.  “Yeah, but soon everyone will know what to do, what then?”

“Then I teach you something else don't I?”

“Like what you're working on now?”  He looked interested at the two flaming towers.

“Those will come in time, one much earlier than the other.  I still have plenty of ideas kid, and plenty of things that work well.  For now though, I need you spreading that sled design, it forms the base for a lot of skills for working with complex wood joints.”  I didn't mind explaining, particularly since I hoped one day this kid would become my assistant in these endeavors.

“Who are you?  Really?” Chien asked, eyeing me.

“Didn't I already tell you?  I'm Justin,” I answered, nearly losing the hard face I'd been putting on at his confused look.