Since we had some time before next class, we went together to the class. After checking and realizing there is a lecture going on, fact confirmed by the drone of the professor’s voice through the door, we both went out, remaining close to the classroom. There wasn’t enough time to go to the market, nor to return to the tower to do anything.

  It was just enough time to draw out a solid blueprint and start designing the chimney. I picked up a stick and started drawing on the ground.

  “This big rectangle is a section of the chimney we are going to build.” I told Magnar. “You see if it is just an empty smooth rectangle then it loses power as it cools and won’t be able to go up to the top.”

  “Like blowing air on a kindling fire?”

  “Yeah, like blowing air.”

  “The section still needs to be wide due to the volume of air that moves, but if we squeeze it together at places it will be blown upwards faster. It gives it power to move up.”

  I drew two lines in the rectangle, one perpendicular to one side, while the other, lower and slanted going out from the opposite wall.

  “If we do it like this, then the air won’t be able to weight down on the one bellow. It will be held here.” I point with the stick at the space between the wall and slanted line.

  “But won’t that slow the flow? You are placing a direct cap over the vertical rising direction.” He frowns and points at the horizontal line.

  “It will, but not by much. You see the space here.” I point at the opening left by the horizontal line and the opposite wall. “Is smaller than the one here.” I move the stick to the space between the slanted line and the horizontal line.

  “This compensates by increasing speed and lowering pressure. Furthermore, the air in this pocket Is warmed up again by the lower air. It expands again and forces an increase in speed as it does which lowers the pressure again.” I continue.

  “It’s getting confusing. If you think this will work well then, I’ll just follow your instructions, I doubt it will all go as you plan.”

  This was a logically sound idea, yet it’s applicability and worth could only be decided after we implemented it and gave it a try. I’d need to make sure each floor had detachable panels on the chimneys to ensure the ability to clean them and maintain basic airflow.

  The classes, artifact theory and General studies dragged on, time stretching like chewing gum to my bored mind. In artifact theory they weren’t detailing how to make an artifact… They were simply spewing facts about already made ones. Stuff that could be summarized in three phrases was being inflated to fit an hour.

  Unfortunately, I had no good way to be passed in advance. The weapons I made were artifacts, sure, but they were simple and basic. Weapons sort of had to be, after all the effect had to be easily controlled. With my dagger I could cast fireballs or create a thin firewall, this was because there was no complex structure taking control of the aether to produce an effect, like arrays did.

  Aether was simply tuned into an attribute as it passed through the leather. The attunement in this case wasn’t even perfect since there was still purple in the flames. Whether that was the fault of my craftsmanship, or a problem caused by the material grade.

  With the classes over we made our way to the market. The usual hammering sounds greeted us as we approached Master Heston’s smithy. I looked over and saw a sword that was almost done.

  “We’re lucky it seems. We got here as they are finishing” I talked with Magnar.

  “How much do you think the dagger should sell for?” He asked in return.

  “Three four gold coins. More would be strange… But I’m no expert. I think the big shops charged more per weapon. But I’m considering Master Heston’s share too.”

  “What do you plan to buy now? I noticed how you don’t really hold onto money.”

  “You’ll see the experiment from a few days back went great, better than expected so I will get more of those. As for money… I can always make more. Why hoard them? Cold coins in a pouch can’t make me happy, but having what I want, and building does.”

  “That’s what I think too, I can’t understand the others competing in money…”

  “It is its own kind of fun and addiction. They are trapped in it, and I have no intention of pulling them out. There is no point, and that sort of people are necessary to maintain a good economy.”

  “If you say so…” Magnar scratched the back of his head. “I mean we beastman are doing just fine without any such people, so are they really needed?”

  “Different mentalities, different cultures. I can’t say they are truly necessary either.” I stopped, I wasn’t an economist. Having this much of an insight was enough. My money brought me back more money, that was all I had to care about.

  The hammering continued for a bit longer. The beats were stopped abruptly as Master Heston raised the blade with tongs and sunk it into a barrel with slow waving movements. Finally, he pulled it out and laid it back on the anvil.

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  As he put down the tongs and turned around, he pulled out his cotton ear plugs. Now we could talk with him.

  “Master Heston! I brought in something nice for you to see!” I say expectantly and approach him.

  “Here again already? Thought you’d spend time figuring out how to make the bonding with monster materials… I told you I can’t really sell any more basic weapons…”

  “Check out this dagger and we’ll discuss after!” I handed it to him, holding it by the blade.

  He skipped over the usual check up since he already trusted my craftsmanship but spent a long time looking at the handle and rubbing it. He tried scratching the glassy surface. His nail slipped off. He pinched the handle between his fingers, his fingers barely squishing it and pulled on the blade to test its grippiness, feeling his skin pulled by the handle.

  “What did you do to this? I never seen anything like this…”

  “I simmered it in resin.”

  “How’d you think of using resin? I use water for leathers…”

  “Well… It needed to bind to the handle… And simply riveting or sticking it on would make it grow lose over time. And it would risk breaking. This way it tightened on the handle, hardened, and got glued all at once… It was an experiment. I got lucky it worked.”

  “This is still amazing…” He poured aether into the handle. Seeing he flames erupting from the handle he frowned. “I think it was a trade for effectiveness… Perhaps if you do it for a shorter period it will be better?”

  “So, the purplish color in the fire is really due to my crafting process…”

  “Yes… But it gives me a strange feeling… Usually the flames wouldn’t burn this hot if the material was damaged…” He stopped fueling aether. “In short, I’m not sure what to say… The absorption of aether wasn’t lowered by the leather, which is unusual for this kind of peak of the grade weapon.”

  “I spent some time identifying the best pieces to use and the best way to assemble them.”

  “Well, I’ll give you five golds on this. It’s a good weapon, regardless of the aspect of the flames.”

  “That’s more than I expected.”

  “Kester! Bring out five golds.” He shouted to the thinner assistant that was keeping the fire running, sweat trickling down his forehead.

  Kester went in the smithy then came out with a pouch he handed to me. “By the way, smithing is verry lucrative, how comes you’re still working? Shouldn’t you have made enough to retire by now?”

  “Oh, I did alright. But no good smith will stop just because they can leave easily for the rest of their days… And bad smiths won’t win enough to retire early. Besides, the real expenses are in making high level weapons, of fourth grade and fifth grade. Those are important and can win favors.”

  “Alright! Thanks for the help with selling it.”

  “No problem, I get some easy money just for displaying them! Now go, go! I still got work around here.”

  “See you next week! I’ll try to bring in something new.”

  “Looking forward to it!”

  Magnar waited further away, during all this. I returned and took out a half gold from the new pouch.

  “Here, my debt is repaid again.”

  “You know I don’t really care for this gold.”

  “It’s just an ideal thing. I don’t want to owe others. I’ll make you a weapon by the end of the year… I need to get more used to the materials first. I want to make you something never seen before.”

  We walked through the streets, avoiding eventual passerby’s, carriages or carts. It was still lively. When talking of the Middle Ages, many would think there was very little street traffic… But that was relatively false.

  The city was smaller as well, not just the population. Of course, this couldn’t compare with big metropolises with hundreds of apartments stacked on top of another. But it definitely wasn’t deserted. It felt like an old town corner.

  We reached the market area and got lucky. A hunter was trying to sell stingers from giant wasps. He had the entire corpses of the black and yellow, meter long wasps, all so that the stingers would stay as fresh as possible. I bought all the iridescent, intact wings from him, about seventeen for just one large copper.

  We moved on to buying more rock to replace what Hargrave was breaking every day, then from a jewelry shop, I bought using all my money two small ingots of silver. ‘These should be enough to get started…’

  Magnar had stopped questioning my purchases, he was only following me around carrying the stone blocks stacked. His muscles were popping under the strain. ‘How the hell is this guy only eleven… Nature isn’t fair…’ I thought while lightly flexing my arm.

  “You are staring strangely at me.”

  “Just thinking. I don’t know how it is possible to grow this big in eleven years only…”

  “From what I heard beastmen babies are born twice as big as normal human ones, never seen a human baby before, so I can’t say for sure. Does this help?”

  “Not really… I guess you just ate a lot.”

  “Yeah… Actually, every once in a while, my bones hurt. It’s normal for us, not so much for you.”

  “That’s actually a good detail… I’ll keep that in mind.” We passed the academy gates and headed for the tower. Vex and Hargrave were waiting there already, Hargrave even looking impatient.

  “Hello!”

  “Where have you been? I need to get back to work! Open the gate already…”

  “You could’ve jumped the fence…” I say taking out the key and unlocking the door. Magnar came in right after me, making Hargrave just give up and hop over the fence unable to wait anymore as the two of us moved too slowly anymore.

  Vex followed his example. I couldn’t hep but shake my head. With this sort of impatience… How did Hargrave even become a teacher.

  Magnar left his cinder stone blocks on the forging terrace. I followed along and left the silver next to the forge then together with Magnar we went into the tower. It was time to get rid of the ugly shutters and replace them with wing windows!

  It took some cutting, resin and some wood carving, but we managed to make an openable double window. Not a very hard process but also not very easy. In order to ensure insulation, the window had a double groove carved along it’s edges, same as the window frame. In the grooves we placed rope that we stuck in place with resin.

  By filling one groove loop on the window and the other on the frame, we obtained a complex geometry that would block air circulation well enough. We repeated this process six more times by the end of the day, making widows and taking out bricks from the wall to make space for more. This gave me two extra windows per floor.

  By the time we finished the tower’s interior glowed! The wings added an amber haze to the light, casting a mosaic of rainbow veins and spots on the wooden boards of the floor.

  We sealed the gaps with a mix of clay and dust from the cinder stones. It didn’t need to resist high temperatures here so there were no risks in using it and would not need to be replaced. Only issue was the water content. If it did not dry well enough, it could make the frames rot.

  With all this work finished, Magnar left. I now had enough left-over mixed clay to make another set of earthenware. By the I finished making two trays and two more bowls Hargrave and Vex left. Hargrave kept muttering.

  “Why does it not work?” In a frenzy, but at least he left without needing anyone to frag him off…

  After they left, I placed my new products in the kiln and lit it up. Tomorrow we’d work on the smeltery, the big one. I needed it to further process the silver. In this world with no power plants… I needed any possible cut in losses if I wanted to use electricity on a large scale and not burn my tower down.

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