FerriticMatrix

Waking up inside the ruins of an orphanage, Alexander finds himself chained and sold to slavery.
A modern metallurgist, trapped in ancient times, watch as he tries to play with the cards fate dealt him.
He will make plate armor, invent paper, build roads, teach governance and many more, as he tries to carve a place for himself.
But how can such things not attract jealous eyes?
The naval superpower- Cantagena,
The unstoppable army of- Exolas, 
The superpower of the east- Adhania,
The mercantile confederation- Sybarsis, 
The religious fanatics- Iyizarid, 
And the ever-present- Barbarians of the Barren Forrest,
All want something from each other.
In this ocean of sharks, follow a small carp as it struggles to leap through the dragon gate and establish a dynasty to outlast them all.

The cover is not mine. If you are the owner of this cover, comment and I will remove it.

Herald of Steel

A touchstone was a small, smooth, dark-colored stone, typically made of materials like jasper or slate, that was used to judge the purity of gold and silver by taking advantage of the fact that different purities of metal left distinct streaks on it.

The way it worked was the testing metal was scraped against the stone and the resulting streak was then compared with one made from a reference 'needle'.

This needle would be of the same metal, with known purity- so for gold it would be like 14, 16, 18, and even 24 karat.

If the testing streak was equally as bright as the reference one, then it would prove it was similarly pure.

This was a relatively easy and nondestructive testing process, needing very few tools and giving accurate enough answers for jewelers and traders.

Thus it was something many, especially those trading overseas heavily relied upon.

Counting Houses (Part-2)