Chapter 59

[1 year AR December 15]

At the chief's house, Ivo was now basking in the arms of his wife by the flames of the fire. After the capture of the fox tribe, all of their people were sent to the outpost, where they began to build temporary homes for themselves so as not to freeze. Ivo decided to return to the Raven tribe to spend time with his beloved.

Ceres, who hugged Ivo, asked "After winter, will you continue your conquests?"

Ivo nodded and said "Yes, I want to unite the valley and create a single state. This is the only way we can be protected from external threats. "

He said, "Do you remember the weapons that the horse tribe tried to sell us? By capturing that tribe we were able to get a lot of bronze weapons, but I don't like them. "

Ceres looked at Ivo's sword standing against the wall and asked, "Do you want the same weapon as your sword?"

Ivo smiled and replied, "Yes, maybe not of the same shape, but the material is the same, though I already have some ideas on how to improve this metal, so in a couple of days, I will go to the mountains with warriors to find iron."

Ceres sighed sadly, and then the couple continued to bask in each other's arms.

[1 year AR December 17]

Standing in front of a detachment of 100 soldiers, Ivo said to himself "System, I want to acquire knowledge about the nearest deposits of iron and coal, as well as about their reserves"

[Transaction successful -100FP]

Testing his knowledge, Ivo discovered that in the east, in the Amshar mountains, there are quite a lot of iron deposits, and with them the coal, their reserves are estimated at billions of tons.

Therefore, after giving orders, Ivo led his people into the mountains.

[1 year AR December 19]

During the entire journey, the detachment did not encounter any danger, since basically, in winter, all large predators hide in their dens, and weaker creatures tried to avoid such a large group of people.

The journey took only two days, it was slower than when Ivo got here on his own, but this is due to the fact that the detachment was not in a hurry at all.

When he finally got there, Ivo began to look around for a place to start digging. After a couple of hours of searching, Ivo found a suitable place and ordered the detachment to take stone picks and axes and start digging.

After a couple of hours of work, a square pit had already been dug at this place, and a pile of mud, limestone and stones had formed nearby. Finally, Ivo struck with a pickaxe and a piece of stone covered with yellow growths fell off the wall. After picking up this piece, Ivo checked it using the system and made sure that it was really iron.

Then he said loudly "Everyone here!"

All the people stopped their work and approached Ivo to find out what he wanted.

When everyone approached, Ivo picked up a piece of ore and said "This thing is called iron ore, this is what we need, remember well how it looks, now it will be one of the most valuable materials in the tribe."

The warriors nodded and began to carefully examine this piece of ore, they began to take turns touching it, rubbing it, some even biting it.

After enjoying this spectacle, Ivo said "20 people should return to the tribe and report to Ceres about our successes, let her organize a detachment of 100 soldiers and 200 ordinary people who will now conduct excavations here"

After choosing the people, Ivo sent them to the tribe, and then turned to the rest, "As long as they go to the tribe, we will make a place for them."

The warriors nodded and began to prepare places for shacks with Ivo.

[1 year AR December 28]

The Raven Tribe.

Ivo was now standing in a separate house, where in front of him was a large basket filled with iron ore and coal. And to the side was a special stove made of clay, the peculiarity of this stove is that the stove itself has a very high chimney that went out. Large bellows are built into the base of the furnace, which Ivo made from improvised means; two holes emerge from the furnace itself, which should separate the slag and the iron itself.

Naturally, Ivo never smelted any metal, so he found out about all this from the system

[Transaction successful -50FP]

He did not learn how to smelt all metals, only knowledge of the required equipment and smelting method.

Therefore, stripping to the waist, Ivo loaded coal and iron into the furnace, set fire to the coal and ordered the warriors to use the bellows so that they constantly blow air inside.

Ceres and Vesta were also close, Ceres just became interested in something new, and Vesta decided to follow her, since this is her friend.

Finally, after 20 minutes, two incandescent streams began to flow out of the furnace, which illuminated the entire "workshop" with a bright yellow light. Due to the constant work with the furs, the workers sweated a lot, but now the temperature from the molten iron was added to this.

Ivo, on the other hand, was not distracted by such trifles and closely followed the whole process so as not to make any mistake. The hot iron began to pour into the stone form. And another stream simply poured into a stone container, it was slag, which was not needed now, but later it could be used in cement and bricks.

After some time, the molten iron began to cool down and take the shape of an ingot, but instead of the expected metallic luster, Ivo saw that these ingots were a little darker than necessary, these were impurities in the metal that could be disposed of later during forging.

When the ingots had completely cooled down, Ivo pulled out the mold and turned it over, dumping a few ingots onto the floor. When the ingots fell, Vesta came up first and grabbed one of the ingots.

Although this iron is darker in color than usual, it still has a slight sheen. Although she had already seen Ivo's iron sword, she was not interested in iron, but now, something inside her has changed, so she asked "Brother, it turns out that you can now make a spear for me from the same material as yours sword?"

Ivo smiled and ruffled her hair. "Not only your spear, rabbit, but now every legion will be equipped with iron weapons."

Vesta smiled happily, continuing to twist the iron ingot in her hand.