The next morning, the slaves woke up as normal, James included. However, as James headed towards the smelter, he felt a hand grip his shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going.” the older boy with the grey eyes challenged him.

  “I was told to make a new smelter.” James replied.

  The boy glared at him silently. He knew that James had been put on smelter duty permanently, and that James was a smith.

  “If you’re lying, you’ll regret it.” he threatened James.

  “I’m not!” James said back.

  “Fine then.” the older boy turned and headed into the mine with the rest.

  James spent the next couple hours pulling stones that looked workable out of the waste pile that spilled down the side of the mountain next to the camp. One of the overseers eventually came by and James asked for a hammer and chisel to try to get the stones into a more workable shape, and was surprised when he actually got them. He managed to get the stones into a more workable brick-like shape, and by the end of the day had a decent amount of material to work with. The second day passed much like the first, and on the third day he started constructing the actual smelter. The previous smelter had wasted a lot of fuel as heat escaped, leading to a poor final product. The smelter James constructed was better insulated, and he also made a stone mold for creating earthen molds for the iron ingots, making the final products much more regular.

  During this time, the iron ore from the mine had been piling up. The first night James had used the old smelter until an overseer stopped him. “Yer building a new smelter, yeah? Just save it until it’s finished.” he said. At mid-day on the fifth day of his work, James was finished with the construction and started testing it out. It worked as well as he had expected, running much hotter and producing higher quality, more regular iron ingots.

  In fact, the new smelter was almost too good. It ran much hotter, which wasn’t a big problem for James with his Smith’s [Heat Resistance], but only two other slaves had the [Heat Resistance] skill due to their mage class being fire-focused. Even the overseers generally couldn’t get close when the new smelter was operating. James was worried about this at first, but when he ran through half the built up ore before dinner just during his testing, the whip-using slaver was most pleased.

  He cuffed James on the back of the head. “Well done, Smith.” He gestured at the iron ingots James had produced during his testing. “Finish up the rest of that ore and then you’re back in the mines starting tomorrow.”

  Because the smelting process was much faster, James was generally able to finish all the smelting within an hour or two each night. However, because the new smelter ran much hotter than the old one, only those slaves with a heat resistance skill could operate it, and only James with his [Smelting] skill could operate the smelter at full efficiency. For the next few weeks, James would mine with the other slaves, and then smelt all the ore himself after dinner. Thanks to the buffs to his strength and endurance from his Smith class, he was able to keep up with the heavier workload than the rest of the slaves. Then, the overseers pulled him aside again. This time, they wanted him to start repairing the mining tools. There were broken chisels, shovels, and pickaxes in a pile, though James didn’t know where they had come from. In fact, now that he thought about it, he didn’t know where the tools were stored at all. He’d been so beat down and focused on his work that he’d never thought about it. Why think about where the tools are when you’re more worried about avoiding the lash and when you can rest even another moment?

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  In any case, every single one of the tools in the pile was beyond basic repairs. They would all need to be reforged, or they’d just break again right away.

  “Th-these tools all need to be r-r-reforged, sirs…” James said hesitantly, preparing to be hit.

  “Yeah, duh.” one slaver said.

  “That’s why we’re telling you to do it, Smith.” another growled.

  The whip-user nodded. “That’s right, so reforge ‘em.” he directed.

  “Is, is there a forge I can use?” James asked. The whip-user cuffed him over the head.

  “Idjit, d’you see a forge just lying about? Make one. You got five days to fix all these tools. ‘Til then, you’re outta the mines again.” He then turned and yelled over his shoulder. “Kev!”

  The grey-eyed boy scurried out of the lean-to. “Yes boss?” he said.

  “The Smith’s outta the mine for the next five days. Don’t be giving him crap, he’s fixing your tools for you. Ain’t that nice o’ him? Thank him.”

  The grey eyed boy turned to James with a blank expression. “Thank you Smith.” he said without inflection.

  “Good, good!” the whip-user nodded. “Now get back to bed.”

  The boy scurried away as fast as he’d come. The slaver turned back to James.

  “Build your forge, and when you’re ready to start fixing tools, get em from Coin here.” he gestured to the overseer who usually collected the iron ore in the evening and took it to who knows where every week or so.

  “Yes sir.” James said.

  The overseer named Coin then stretched a hand over the pile of broken tools and in a flash they disappeared. Peddlers and traveling merchants often have such skills for the transportation of merchandise, although James had never seen this before.

  “Uh, sirs…” James said, as the slavers turned to leave.

  “What?” one growled.

  “I, uh, I’ll need iron to make an anvil…”

  The slavers glanced at one another, then looked at the slaver named Coin.

  “Hrmmm…” he groaned. “Output’s gonna be low enough with him not mining as it is…”

  “What if he just mines it out himself?” one suggested.

  “As long as he still finishes in five days, I guess. Any longer than that and…”

  “You hear that, Smith?” The whip-using slaver interrupted. “You can mine your own iron for your own use, but you still have to be done in five days. Or else.” he threatened with a dangerous smile on his face.

  James gulped and nodded. “Yeah, okay. I’ll mine it myself. Five days. Got it.”

  “Good, good!” The slaver chortled, and they all left back to their section of camp.

  James was just glad they hadn’t beaten him for asking for iron for himself.