Chapter 7: The Copper Dividend
The rhythmic, deafening clatter of rusted iron and shattered quartz hitting wooden collection bins was the most beautiful sound Austin had ever heard. To anyone else, it was just the noise of a junkyard. To the God of Progress, it was the sound of a monopoly crumbling to dust.
For two straight hours, the line outside the forge hadn't stopped moving. Thousands of freezing, desperate citizens of Ashbourne shuffled forward through the gray morning, eagerly handing over the useless remnants of the old world in exchange for a piece of the new one.
"Ten pounds of slag iron!" Brom roared over the din of the crowd. The massive blacksmith effortlessly hoisted a rusted, heavy wagon axle and tossed it into an overflowing bin. He snatched a glowing Ember-coin from the mountain of processed stones on the workbench and pressed it into a soot-stained miner's trembling hand. "Next!"
Austin stood a few paces back from the transaction point, his eyes closed, simply breathing in the atmosphere.
With every single trade, a golden thread of pure, unadulterated belief snapped into his chest. It wasn't a trickle; it was a torrential downpour of divine energy. His internal spark had expanded from a flickering candle into a roaring, localized sun. He could feel the physical changes rewriting his frail apprentice body. His lungs drew in deeper breaths, his previously malnourished muscles corded with unnatural, magical density, and his mind processed spatial variables at a terrifying, superhuman speed.
He was no longer just surviving the Twilight. He was actively conquering it.
BWOOOOM.
The deep, mournful blast of a heavy war horn shattered the chaotic, joyous hum of the market.
The sound echoed off the heavy stone walls of the fiefdom, originating from the high keep overlooking the square. The line of peasants instantly froze. The desperate chatter died in their throats, replaced by a collective, terrified gasp.
"The Baron's horns," Brom whispered, the blood completely draining from his face. He dropped a handful of scrap copper, the metal clattering loudly against the stone floor. "He's called the Heavy Guard. Austin, they're locking down the tier. They're coming to execute us."
The crowd outside began to panic, a rippling wave of pure terror passing through the thousands of people. They knew exactly what the Heavy Guard did to rioters.
Austin opened his eyes. The pupils glowed with a fierce, unmistakable golden light. He didn't look scared. He looked profoundly annoyed that his production line was being interrupted.
"Keep trading, Brom," Austin commanded, his voice perfectly level, cutting through the rising panic. "Do not stop the line. We need the raw materials."
"Austin, there are fifty armored men marching down that hill right now with heavy crossbows!" Brom yelled, his composure finally breaking. "An Ember-coin won't stop a steel bolt!"
"I know," Austin said, walking briskly over to the collection bins. He plunged his bare hands into the pile of traded scrap. "That's why we aren't going to use Ember-coins."
Austin hauled out a massive armful of tarnished copper piping—likely ripped straight from the walls of an abandoned old-world bathhouse. He grabbed a sack of high-grade, unblemished quartz that a miner had just deposited, and threw it all onto the primary workbench next to the resting Mana-Lathe.
"Keep them trading for three more minutes," Austin said, his eyes already darting over the copper, measuring lengths, tensile strength, and structural integrity with a single glance. "I'm going to build a deterrent."
Austin didn't bother stoking the forge fire. The ambient heat radiating from his own body, fueled by the localized belief of the thousands of people outside, was more than enough.
He grabbed a thick copper pipe with both hands. Channeling his divine energy, he pushed the golden heat directly into his palms. The air around his hands shimmered and distorted with blistering heat. The thick copper instantly glowed cherry-red, becoming as pliable as wet clay under his grip.
He bent the pipe into a perfect, reinforced tripod base, fusing the joints together with a seamless, magical weld. He was moving with terrifying, machine-like efficiency. Give the God of Progress materials, and he would rewrite reality.
He took a large, concave iron shield—the very first item traded that morning by the elderly man—and placed it on the anvil. Using the heavy blacksmith's hammer, Austin struck the shield with divinely enhanced strength.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
In three perfectly calculated strikes, he inverted the shield, transforming it into a deep, parabolic focusing dish. He welded the dish directly to the top of the copper tripod.
"They've breached the lower square!" Brom shouted from the doorway, handing out Hearthstones as fast as his trembling hands could move. "I can see their black armor! They're pushing through the crowd!"
"Let them push," Austin muttered.
He turned to the Mana-Lathe. He took three of the largest, clearest pieces of unrefined quartz from the sack and locked them into the machine's heavy iron vice grip.
He didn't use the standard thermal-loop equation this time. He closed his eyes and dug deep into the memories of his past life as a master artificer. He needed something that didn't just emit ambient heat; he needed something that weaponized light. He needed a kinetic repulsor array.
Austin grabbed a piece of chalk and rapidly altered the runic blueprint on the floor, rerouting the mechanical logic of the Lathe.
He pulled the lever.
Zzzzt-CRACK!
The runic needle dropped, spinning so fast it shrieked against the tough quartz. Sparks of golden magic and stone dust sprayed across Austin's leather apron. He carved all three stones simultaneously, linking their magical frequencies together into a localized, cascading feedback loop.
When the Lathe popped open, the three new stones weren't glowing with a soft, comforting warmth. They were violently pulsing, practically vibrating against the iron vice grip. They were dangerously overcharged.
Austin snatched them up, his divinely protected skin easily handling the blistering heat, and slammed them into a custom-built copper housing at the exact focal point of the parabolic iron dish. He grabbed a heavy iron lever and welded it to the side of the housing.
"Clear the doorway!" a booming, authoritative voice roared from the street outside. "By order of Baron Vance, this forge is hereby condemned! Disperse, or you will be fired upon!"
The crowd of peasants screamed, scattering into the muddy alleyways, abandoning their spots in line. Through the open doors of the forge, Brom could finally see them.
Fifty of the Baron's Heavy Guard stood in a perfect, disciplined shield wall. They were clad in thick, overlapping plates of blackened steel. Behind the shield wall stood two dozen crossbowmen, their heavy weapons raised, bolts loaded and aimed directly into the glowing interior of the blacksmith's shop.
Leading them was Captain Thorne, a scarred, ruthless veteran wearing a pristine wolf-fur cloak. He drew a massive steel broadsword and pointed it directly at Brom's chest.
"Step aside, blacksmith," Captain Thorne spat, his voice dripping with old-world arrogance. "We are here for the boy, the glowing rocks, and the machine making them. Resist, and we will pin you to the wall."
Brom slowly backed away from the doors, his hands raised in surrender. He had fought in the Baron's wars years ago. He knew what a loaded crossbow line looked like. It was over.
"I wouldn't step inside if I were you, Captain," a calm, echoing voice rang out from the shadows of the forge.
Austin stepped into the light. He wasn't holding a sword. He wasn't cowering. He was dragging his new, ugly, brutalist creation behind him.
The copper tripod screeched against the stone floor as Austin positioned it squarely in the center of the open doorway, aiming the parabolic iron dish directly at the center of the shield wall.
"What in the silent hells is that?" Captain Thorne sneered, eyeing the strange contraption. "A new toy? I have fifty men in heavy steel, boy. Your glowing rocks won't melt armor."
"No," Austin agreed, casually resting his hand on the heavy iron lever attached to the machine. His golden eyes locked onto the Captain's with absolute, chilling certainty. "But armor conducts kinetic force. And light is just a wave waiting to be amplified."
Captain Thorne's eyes narrowed. "Crossbows! Aim for the boy's chest!"
Two dozen heavy crossbows clicked as the guards adjusted their aim.
"I call it the Aegis Beacon," Austin said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, thrumming whisper. "Generation Two."
Austin pulled the lever.
Inside the copper housing, the three overcharged Hearthstones violently aligned. The parabolic iron dish caught the cascading magical feedback loop, compressed it, and forcefully expelled it forward.
FWOOOOOOSH!
It wasn't a projectile. It was a solid, localized wall of concussive golden light.
The beam erupted from the dish with the deafening roar of a jet engine. The light was so utterly blinding that it instantly washed out all color in the street, turning the world into a stark, high-contrast photograph of pure gold and pitch-black shadows.
The wall of light slammed into the Heavy Guard's shield wall.
Captain Thorne didn't even have time to scream. The kinetic force of the amplified light hit the blackened steel armor with the impact of a charging rhinoceros. The entire front line of elite guards was physically lifted off their feet and violently thrown backward into the freezing mud. Their heavy steel shields warped and shattered under the sheer, impossible pressure.
The crossbowmen behind them were blinded, dropping their weapons to clutch their eyes, crying out in terror as the blistering heat washed over them.
The beam held for three terrifying, awe-inspiring seconds, pushing the heavily armored platoon completely out of the market square, scattering them like discarded toys in a hurricane.
Austin slammed the lever back up. The beam cut off, leaving the street plunging back into the gray, muted light of the Twilight morning.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Fifty of the Baron's elite guards lay groaning in the mud, their blackened armor smoking, their weapons scattered across the cobblestones. Not a single one was dead, but none of them were getting up anytime soon.
The thousands of peasants who had fled into the alleyways slowly peeked their heads out. They stared in absolute, reverent shock at the smoking copper machine, and the glowing boy standing casually behind it.
Austin let go of the lever, brushed a speck of soot off his leather apron, and looked out at the terrified, awe-struck crowd.
"Now," the God of Progress said, a massive, undeniable smile spreading across his face as the greatest wave of belief he had ever felt crashed into his soul. "Who's next in line?"