Chapter Twenty-Two: The Bronze Age

A crimson magic crystal shimmered with enchanting brilliance. Sun Licheng struggled internally for quite some time before finally putting it away. This was a fire-attribute crystal, usable as fuel and capable of emitting extremely high temperatures—sufficient for smelting steel. Yet, according to the knowledge bestowed by the God of Magma, a magic crystal of this quality could serve as the core of an advanced magical device and was extremely valuable. To simply burn it like coal, even though Sun Licheng desperately wanted metal tools, felt far too wasteful.

“It seems I’ll have to start with bronze,” Sun Licheng said, not without regret.

Bronze, the earliest metal used by humans, was prized for its low melting point, and high-quality bronze was even harder than ordinary iron. The main disadvantage of copper was its lower abundance compared to iron, making it relatively expensive. With the advent of harder carbon steel, bronze was gradually phased out from the main stage of toolmaking.

Metal smelting was undoubtedly a complex undertaking—one that would occupy much of Sun Licheng’s time and require him to stockpile large quantities of food in advance. Fortunately, he had the treasure trove of the pit at his disposal.

He found plenty of vines in the forest, cut them with the Fragment of Jade, split them into thin strands, and twisted them into ropes. Next, by the exit near the waterfall, he buried a sturdy tree stump, secured a rope to it, and let it dangle into the pit, making it easier for him to come and go.

Within the pit, battles raged incessantly, and countless animals met their gruesome ends. While most were devoured by their opponents, many carcasses were simply tossed aside—ready-made provisions for Sun Licheng.

In the tunnel, the underground river teemed with fish. These fish were large, exceedingly plump, and though fierce, were almost defenseless against bait. After a brief study, Sun Licheng set a simple trap on the riverbank, baited it with a chunk of predator meat, and soon had a good catch. These fish were snow-white all over, and eating just one restored a great deal of strength—a rare delicacy. Because of their color, Sun Licheng dubbed them “snowfish”—the same pronunciation as “cod” on Earth, though different in writing.

After several days of effort, Sun Licheng managed to haul out a large number of animal carcasses from the pit and caught plenty of snowfish.

To store his spoils, he found a soft patch on a hillside and dug out a cave to serve as his larder, stowing all his game inside.

With logistical issues settled, Sun Licheng began in earnest to forge bronze. He drafted a list, clearly outlining his plan of action: first, produce charcoal; second, find copper ore; third, construct a blast furnace; fourth, smelt bronze.

He recalled from television how to make charcoal. Following his memory, he used his mountain knife to fell sturdy branches in the woods, shaped them into sticks with the Fragment of Jade, and stacked them in a conical pile. Afterward, he plastered the pile with clay from the creek, leaving a large vent at the top and a series of small vents around the base. Once the clay had dried sufficiently, he lit the pile from above. When the branches inside glowed red-hot, he sealed all the vents with mud and capped the top with a clay cover. Once the fire was completely extinguished, he broke open the clay shell and found that the charcoal was ready.

This charcoal-making technique was very simple, and the resulting charcoal was of decent quality—the only drawback being its lack of environmental friendliness. But deep in the mountains, burning a little charcoal made almost no impact on nature.

While making charcoal, Sun Licheng used clay to fashion molds for casting copper—knives, hammers, awls, and even a handsaw.

The mineral resources here were truly abundant.

Since his needs were small, Sun Licheng didn’t require a large vein. It wasn’t long before he discovered, halfway up a mountain, some colored stones exposed in the soil. Breaking open one revealed blue-green crystals—malachite. Malachite, primarily basic copper carbonate, is one of humanity’s oldest gemstone materials.

Sun Licheng knew that where there was malachite, copper ore was sure to be nearby. After searching the area, he found azurite and other colorful copper ores. This was an open-pit deposit, and he happily gathered many variegated stones. He was fortunate—it was an open-pit mine; had it been a deep vein, just sinking a shaft would have taken ages.

Pure copper is soft; only by adding tin to form an alloy could it be forged into bronze. Tin ore is commonly found in granite regions, and quartz veins often contain tin as well. This mountain range had vast expanses of granite and plenty of quartz; one section of the tunnel was dense with quartz crystals. Sun Licheng knew that some tin ores occurred alongside copper, so he searched this area carefully, hoping for luck.

“Truly, the God of Magma favors me,” Sun Licheng exclaimed, holding up a small brownish crystal to inspect under the sun. It was tin ore, brown tinged with a hint of dark gray, gleaming with a metallic luster.

The God of Magma had warned Sun Licheng to stay away from this tunnel—it was far too dangerous. Yet as the saying goes, “For wealth, people risk their lives; for food, birds do the same.” Faced with so much treasure, Sun Licheng treated the god’s advice as little more than a whisper in the wind. At least for now, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. Without this tunnel, even finding the tools for mining would have been a challenge, but now he wielded a beast’s shoulder blade as a shovel. The bone was extraordinarily hard and, shaped much like a spade, with a few strokes he could unearth a sizable chunk of ore. Soon, a small mountain of assorted ores formed beside him.

With charcoal, copper ore, and tin ore ready, Sun Licheng began preparing smelting tools.

Smelting bronze required at least a small shaft furnace. And to build a metalworking furnace, firebricks and crucibles were indispensable.

However simple, industrialization was still a systematic process. With the mighty golden finger—his powers of flame and earth sense—Sun Licheng dared to hope for a headlong leap into the Bronze Age. Reflecting on those stories where protagonists, armed with nothing, could smelt steel and iron from scratch, he felt as if he’d let down all transmigrators.

By now, Sun Licheng was quite experienced in firing pottery. To make firebricks and crucibles for metalworking, he’d need coal slag.

He spent a long time searching for a coal vein. Fortune favored the diligent, or perhaps his luck simply peaked—after three days, he found a small coal seam far away.

Having obtained coal, firing pottery became much easier. After firing pottery, he mixed the leftover slag with clay to mold into bricks, then fired them again to make firebricks. These were certainly inferior to modern industrial firebricks, but Sun Licheng believed they would suffice for smelting bronze.

Bronze’s melting point was low, so the crucible didn’t need to be exceptional. Using the firebrick method, he made a thick-walled clay pot with a bottom spout, plugged with a thick clay shard for easy draining of molten bronze.

To ensure the furnace reached metalworking temperatures, Sun Licheng fashioned a large bellows from wood and animal hides, ready to blast air into the furnace’s mouth.

During the creation of these things, Sun Licheng also found a salt spring. Although the purity of the surrounding salt wasn’t great, he decided to make do for now—producing bronze was more urgent.

With the firebricks, the metalworking furnace he built reached nearly two meters high, with an internal diameter of almost a meter, capable of generating intense heat. Inside, he arranged a stone platform of firebricks and clay, set the clay pot with the lower outlet on top, and placed a thick clay basin below the outlet to catch the molten metal.

Due to his crude craftsmanship, the bellows was rather large—if not for his extraordinary strength, he’d never have been able to operate it. He secured the bellows to the furnace’s air intake and made a fire door, which, when opened, let in air to accelerate combustion.

For his first batch, Sun Licheng smelted copper ore. The furnace worked well, and with his flame power, the burning intensified. The copper ore soon melted, and black, slag-like copper lumps appeared in the clay basin. Sun Licheng hadn’t anticipated so many impurities in the copper ore; the clay pot was ruined after a single use.

With this lesson, he fired many more such clay pots as spares, then began smelting tin ore. Tin’s melting point was quite low, so he quickly obtained rough tin ingots.

With raw copper and tin at hand, he could now produce bronze. He placed the coarse copper and tin into a new clay pot and set the fire. With the bellows and his own flame power, the two metals soon melted. Using a long, sturdy beast bone prepared in advance, he stirred the molten mixture through a reserved port in the furnace.

The beast bone was incredibly hard and showed no ill effects from the scorching heat. Unafraid of the flames, Sun Licheng stood bare-chested atop the furnace, vigorously stirring.

Gradually, much of the black residue disappeared as the crucible’s impurities burned away. He opened the clay spout at the bottom, and the glowing bronze flowed down into the prepared molds.

To avoid contaminating the ore with coal impurities, Sun Licheng used only the charcoal he’d made, minimizing any impact on the bronze.

After several experiments, Sun Licheng finally obtained his first primitive bronze tool—a very crude bronze knife.

“That idiot—after all this fuss and so much spellcasting—has produced nothing but a useless trinket!” Deep within Sun Licheng’s mind, the fragment of the God of Magma raged, cursing with great theatricality.

The Lord of the Stars, however, understood the God of Magma’s frustration. It was as if, in Sun Licheng’s mind, someone in a suit, knife and fork at the ready for a French banquet, was instead served a plate of shredded pork in Peking sauce. Who wouldn’t be furious?

Fortunately, the Lord of the Stars was far more composed. He quickly soothed, “Wait—perhaps there’s more to come. What do Earthlings call this? Oh, right—a setup for a punchline.”