Chapter 504: Chapter 501: Dust to dust, earth to earth
Metalworking, an extremely ancient craft, originated even before recorded history.
Until thousands of years ago, human knowledge about iron, the most abundant metallic element on Earth, was almost non-existent.
The Ancient Egyptians and Sumerians both believed iron could only come from meteorites, a gift from the gods in heaven.
Even after civilizations discovered methods of iron-smelting, entering the so-called Iron Age, they still didn’t know how to consistently produce iron that was both strong and not prone to brittleness.
Iron tools were too fragile, too soft, and not sharp, far inferior to copper.
Until a great nation discovered steel, they swung their hammers again and again, sweating and bleeding as they forged the sufficiently stable Hundred-refined Steel.
This piece of black metal finally took center stage as the protagonist.
But its production was too expensive, too rare; from mining to transportation, to smelting, to forging, every iron sword took an endless amount of labor and resources.
Eventually, during the Industrial Revolution, people finally discovered how to acquire iron that was tough, durable, and even cheap.
Now, high-quality steel is commonplace: in skyscrapers, cars and ships, railways and trains, bridges and towers, one could get a pound of iron for less than two Yuan at a scrapyard.
The black metal completed its transformation from mystery to mundanity.
The sense of mystery surrounding iron long ceased to exist for humans, and the steel industry became a marvel of the new era.
Majestic blast furnaces, as tall as several stories, operated non-stop 24 hours a day, with temperatures reaching several thousand degrees Celsius; no living organism or moisture could survive in the scorching molten iron, requiring countless engineers to cooperate closely.
The entire steel mill was like a never-satisfied giant monster, devouring ores, coal, and limestone.
The products from modern steel mills, with their high quality and consistent standards, would have been considered miracles by ancient people: only with the help of deities could craftsmen occasionally produce such exquisite work.
Now, everyone has forgotten the history of this black metal, which even half a century ago was still not easy to come by.
Until now, a man, almost entirely naked, has accomplished something phenomenal in the most primitive and savage rainforest using only mud and stone; he made something out of nothing, reminding people once again.
Oh, so this is how the very first iron and steel were made.
He smelted iron, turned the iron into more stable steel, and finally turned the steel into a blade.
He is an adventurer, a nature enthusiast, a man filled with madness in his bones.
In front of an audience of over ten million, he condensed the process of human history.
At this moment, six million viewers watched and shouted hysterically, responding to this moment with the most intense emotions.
[Ao Jing gifts the host a yacht*1—Master Fang is awesome! Humans are awesome!]
[Ashtray gifts the host a spaceship*100—niu~~~bi~~]
[Holy crap, since when could Wolf Fang send images?]
[No, it’s just your own mind sketching them out, hahaha]
[Lord Mu gifts the host a spaceship*10—It could become a store’s treasure]
[It’s you! Yao Jun, you swindler! I spent three hundred Yuan on bamboo and never managed to start a fire once, wuwuwu]
[President Yao is really a genius in some regards. Every time I make a purchase, I feel like I’ve been thoroughly scammed, you heartless worm!]
[Swindler! Wicked merchant! Charlatan! (Ma Chao triple hit)]
What happened to Yao Jun, why such resentment from everyone?
Bi Fang looked puzzled, but he trusted Yao Jun wouldn’t mess around at the club.
The scorching hot sand twisted with heat.
Microscopic changes occurred before the eyes of the audience, the grains becoming finer, denser, and tighter, like twisted muscle fibers.
It would be a good knife.
Bi Fang collapsed on the ground, closing his eyes to savor the moment.
He had finally succeeded.
Next, all he needed to do was attach a handle and polish it a bit, and it would be a finished dagger.
A steel knife.
A blade superior in completion to the Iron Knife required by the System.
Gradually, snoring began to rise.
The audience was startled at first, thinking it was some strange noise until they realized it was coming from the microphone and saw Bi Fang lying on his back, eyes closed.
They then remembered, in his rush to keep pace, Bi Fang hadn’t had proper rest for several days, and last night he didn’t sleep at all, forging through the night in addition to the intense physical exertion; he was so exhausted that he fell asleep as soon as he relaxed a bit.
[Damn, is he asleep?]
[You can’t sleep now, the helicopter will be here in three to four hours]
[My God, get up quick]
…
[Old Fang, get up; it’s past five o’clock]
[It’s six o’clock!]
[The helicopter is here]
As the sun set, the audience kept shouting, but Bi Fang had already entered his dream.
Moments later, the helicopter flew in, and the electronic sound that hadn’t been heard for a month rang out again.
[Ding, main quest three failed, completion rate low.]
“Hmm?”
Bi Fang woke up abruptly, sat up in a daze, and then clutched his swollen head.
It hurt a lot.
It was like magma flowing through the narrow cerebral vessels, scorching fragile veins and into the brain, before finally cracking along the cranial bone’s sutures bit by bit, chafing, and turning into char under the high temperature.
Remembering the nightmare he had just had, Bi Fang forced his eyes wide open against the urge to close them and asked the audience how long he had slept.
[About half an hour, it’s just past three now, not even four yet.]
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“Phew, I’m sorry, I was just too exhausted and dozed off the moment I relaxed.”
Bi Fang pushed himself to stand, took a few deep breaths, and after bending over to touch his toes for about ten seconds, he stood back up; he was clearly more alert upon rising.
However, the tiredness still lingered, it just wasn’t as overwhelming.
“If you feel sleepy and want to wake up quickly, you can try the movement I just did. When your head goes down, blood will rush to your brain for a short period, providing a lot of oxygen and nutrients, making your brain active and alert again.”
“Before doing it, you can also take a deep breath to briefly increase the oxygen content in your blood, it’s really effective. When I used to get sleepy during class, I would ‘accidentally’ drop my pen under the table, then bend to pick it up for ten seconds.”
[When I got sleepy in class, I just slept, Old Fang got sleepy and he picked up pens, no wonder I understand nothing while watching a stream and Old Fang is getting more and more awesome]
[Hahaha, this is so true]
[What about in the office?]
“There’s a way for the office, too. Sit up straight, lift your legs off the floor, and tense your muscles.”
Bi Fang sat on a rock, his body in the middle of a sit-up pause, his abdominal muscles tense, his serratus anterior rib muscles undulating like shark gills.
“Many people will feel sore after holding the position for just over a dozen seconds, it’s quite tiring. The principle behind this exercise is that muscle activity excites your sympathetic nervous system and activates the ‘hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenalin’ system to secrete adrenaline, essentially giving your body a shot of energy.”
Half a minute later, after performing the two sets of exercises, Bi Fang had refreshed his mind and spirit and approached the blast furnace, removing the stones and stirring the hot sand with a branch.
After half an hour of cooling, the hot sand was no longer scalding to the touch.
[By the way, where did Old Fang get this sand…]
[Whoa, I also noticed that. Where does sand come from in a rainforest?]
“Where there’s soil, getting sand is not that hard. If you understand the principle of soil desertification, you’ll know.”
Breaking apart the vegetation, dead branches, leaves, and crust that protect the soil’s surface, the exposed soil under the sun and monsoon quickly dries out. The original granular structure is destroyed, losing its adhesive effect.
Fine particles and nutrients are carried away by the wind or rain, leaving behind coarse particles without nutrients, resulting in desertification.
“What can be done naturally by air drying, can be done faster artificially. Just remove the dead branches, leaves, and stones from the soil, keep heating it, rinsing it, and heating it again, and you’ll get soil that is like crushed sand.”
Bi Fang poked the mixture with a stick, and after hitting the dagger, he fished it out.
After shaking off the sand, the steel dagger finally revealed its true form.
But…
It wasn’t attractive.
It wasn’t the cold, sharp and reflective look the audience imagined, but pitch black, reflecting blue light under the sun…
Bi Fang didn’t care; all newly made items looked like this. They would shine after being polished.
He took out a polished log, cut it evenly into two halves, and then pressed it against the thin handle of the dagger. After marking it, he picked up the dagger and cut a groove into the wood where the handle could fit, each cut precise enough to include the handle without being too loose.
The two pieces of wood were joined together, perfectly sized so they could be inserted without being too loose. He smeared the collected rubber tree resin, or latex, on top.
“Natural latex has good stickiness after air drying. If possible, it can also be vulcanized, which would make the stickiness even higher, but I don’t have enough time, I need to install the wooden handle as quickly as possible.”
He stuck the two semi-circular logs together and waited for them to dry and adhere firmly. Bi Fang then took out the Stone Dagger, quickly carving the handle into an elliptical curve. He got the rough shape, then took out a smooth stone and rubbed it to smooth and even out the wood’s rough spots.
For the final step, he wrapped the elongated vine evenly around the wooden handle for secondary reinforcement, dipped it into the latex for the final adhesion.
The vines wrapped the wooden handle, towering like a black blade reflecting flecks of cold light at its tip.
With that, all the work was finished, and the dagger was fully formed.
Bi Fang looked at the shelter and blast furnace behind him, his mind flashing through the tidbits of these twenty-one days. Finally, he held the Stone Hammer carefully and stared at the furnace for a long time.
He finally smashed it against the chimney, cracks spreading out like a spider web.
The cracks grew and turned into fissures, and with a thunderous crash, the three-meter-high chimney collapsed to the ground, shaking the earth.
The Water Monitors shivered slightly, scurried down from the tree, and slipped into the cave, hiding in its deepest part.
Ash to ash, dust to dust.