novelraw Chapter 118: The Furnace
Chapter 118: The Furnace
When the first rays of morning sunlight spilled into the room, Leon opened his eyes.
He’d slept well last night—deep, dreamless, and without so much as turning over. It was the kind of rest that left him feeling completely refreshed.
After getting out of bed and stretching a bit, Leon noticed something different about his body.
He guessed it was the reward from yesterday’s combat and mining level-ups—an improvement in his physical abilities. After a night of settling in, his body had fully absorbed the enhancements.
He washed up quickly, pulled a piece of bread from his System Backpack to quiet his stomach, and grabbed his watering can to tend to the crops.
Once he’d made his round, Leon didn’t rest as he usually would. Instead, after putting away the watering can, he practiced a set of tai chi. The increase in his strength had greatly boosted his stamina, and his body felt unusually energetic.
“Leon, your farm is much more beautiful than I imagined.”
Just as he finished his tai chi and adjusted his breathing, Leon noticed Clint standing at the edge of the field.
“Beautiful?” Leon blinked at the comment, then glanced around. Other than the section near his cabin that had been cleared for crops, most of the farm was still in its natural state. He had no idea what Clint saw as “beautiful.”
“This is the blueprint for a furnace. Take a look, and if you have any questions, you can ask me.”Clint didn’t answer Leon’s doubt, instead pulling out a pristine sheet of parchment and handing it to him.
As soon as Leon accepted the blueprint, the System Prompt chimed in his mind.
“Furnace blueprint detected. Recording… recording complete. Furnace recipe unlocked.”
“Thanks. I think I’ve already learned it.”
The prompt pleased Leon, but he still pretended to study the drawing for a few minutes before telling Clint.
“You’ve learned it already?” Clint looked at him in surprise.
“Yeah. The details are very clear, and it even has diagrams. Easy to understand.” Leon lied without blinking. Without the system’s help, he probably would’ve had to study the details carefully and follow the steps exactly to figure it out.
“If you’re worried about wasting my time, don’t be. I have a backup of this blueprint, so I can give you this one to study at your own pace,” Clint said, thinking Leon had only skimmed it so as not to delay him.
“Alright, thanks. That helps a lot.” Leon smiled, then offered, “Have you had breakfast yet? I could make you something.”
“No, I need to get back to mind the blacksmith shop. I’ll head out.” Clint declined politely.
“Walk back?” Leon asked.
“No, I have a car. It’s parked just outside the farm.” Clint waved goodbye and left in a hurry.
Leon shrugged at Clint’s retreating back, unsure why he was in such a rush. He’d wanted to ask if Clint could help with the meteorite on his farm—something Leon currently had no way to handle.
Still, he’d remember the favor of Clint bringing him the furnace blueprint. If Clint ever needed help, Leon would lend a hand—as long as it wasn’t something outrageous. He wasn’t about to risk his life for it.
He put the blueprint away in a safe spot inside the cabin, then opened the Crafting Menu to check the newly unlocked furnace recipe.
“Furnace: Smelts ore and coal into metal bars. Each use consumes five pieces of ore and one piece of coal. Materials required: Copper Ore ×20, Stone ×25.”
“These material costs are steep.”
Leon frowned. Stones were fine—he had plenty—but copper ore as a crafting material was expensive.
After an entire day in the mines, he’d only collected 122 pieces, enough for just six furnaces.
If he hadn’t taken fifteen pre-smelted copper ingots from the old miner’s rest area, he would never have considered making multiple furnaces to boost efficiency.
But it was a one-time investment, and the furnace could smelt copper, iron, gold, and iridium ores in the future. Gritting his teeth, Leon decided to craft five furnaces at once.
That used up 100 copper ore and 125 stone. Painful, but five furnaces would be plenty for now.
Crafting with the system was simple—select the item in the Crafting Menu, ensure the System Backpack had enough materials, and the raw resources would instantly transform into the finished product.
He watched the copper ore and stone count in his backpack plummet, while five gray-black furnaces—shaped oddly like washing machine drums—appeared in their place. Taking them out, Leon saw that each furnace looked identical, like a stone monument with a twenty-centimeter-wide hole in the center and a large pull-out drawer above it.
They looked strange and nothing like the furnace design Clint had shown him.
But appearance wasn’t the point—performance was.
Leon didn’t rush to try them. He put them back into his backpack, chose a spot not too far from his cabin, and lined them up in a row. The previous location had been too close to his cabin and fields, and he didn’t want the high heat from smelting to harm his crops or set his house on fire.
The farm was big; walking a bit farther was worth it for safety.
Once he was sure the location was fine, Leon prepared to smelt his first copper ingot.
Only… he wasn’t quite sure where to start. The recipe had no instructions, and the furnace design was nothing like Clint’s—so Clint’s usage notes didn’t apply to the system’s modified version.
Luckily, the system provided guidance just then.
“Place coal in the central hole. Insert raw ore into the drawer above.”
Leon quickly pulled out one piece of coal and five copper ore, placing them into the furnace as instructed.
The moment he did, the central hole lit up, flames roaring to life and filling the space.
The heat made Leon instinctively take two steps back, away from the new heat source that felt like a miniature sun.
But he didn’t retreat too far—he wanted to watch exactly how this furnace would turn raw copper ore into a solid ingot.