Iron snapped his fingers, instantly freezing the Slime's kinetic energy.
Looking closely at the greenish mass, Iron saw that all sorts of natural debris was stuck inside the slime: dry twigs, pesky rocks, and small bits of trash.
He applied pinpoint gravity to the center of the mass. The density of the polymer itself changed, and under the pull of normal gravity, all the foreign objects simply dropped out of the slime.
A perfectly clean, transparent liquid polymer remained suspended in the air in front of Iron.
"Right..." Iron calculated that he needed about a hundred and fifty milliliters of slime.
A faint, low hum from Lumon echoed inside his head, confirming the calculations and projecting the necessary numbers to his peripheral vision.
For the next quarter of an hour, Iron moved through the surrounding lowlands and caves, finding slimes, freezing them on the spot, and pulling all the internal garbage out with gravity.
Having purified the last large slime, Iron added the final portion of transparent mass to the overall sphere.
Iron collapsed space.
A second later, he materialized right in the middle of the camp. But the moment his feet touched the ground, a searing pain shot through his head.
The ground beneath his feet violently pitched to the side. The world blurred and spun before his eyes, and a deafening ringing filled his ears.
Iron swayed hard to the right. Barely keeping his balance and concentrating with all his might on not dropping the giant bubble, he dropped to one knee.
His breathing hitched, and nausea rose in his throat.
"Damn it..." Iron hissed to himself. "This is so annoying..."
Overcoming the bout of dizziness, Iron pushed himself up from his knee. Every movement sent a throbbing ache through the back of his head.
Barely moving his feet, he walked over to the bed.
Iron moved the hovering sphere right over the frame and released his hold on it all at once.
In a matter of seconds, the liquid mass spread evenly across the entire surface of the base, filling every corner and turning into a perfectly flat, jelly-like foundation.
"Alright, part one is done..." Iron muttered, breathing heavily.
He turned to the armful of fluffy wool lying nearby. The wool lifted into the air and followed Iron.
The engineer headed a little deeper into the forest.
Stopping among the trees a couple of minutes later, Iron leaned his shoulder against a pine trunk.
He extended both hands toward the hovering ball of wool and channeled a powerful, compressed stream of air straight through the entire mass. The air pressure instantly blew all the trapped dirt, fine debris, parasites, and odorous molecules out of the wool. A second later, an absolutely clean, snow-white mass hung in the air.
Without letting the wool drop, Iron spun a high-frequency ultrasonic vibration around it. The hairs began to rub against each other at incredible speeds, their microscopic scales locking together dead tight.
In ten seconds, the loose armful compacted into a dense, springy, perfectly shaped mattress that no longer shed or lost its shape.
Iron closed his eyes for a second, fighting down a surging wave of nausea, and exhaled quietly.
A short time later, Iron returned to the camp.
Approaching the wooden frame, he canceled the freeze on the slimes. The transparent mass inside the base instantly came to life, quivered slightly, and tried to crawl up the sides.
Iron focused his energy on the very top layer of the gel. He tightly bound the molecules on the surface together, forcing them to polymerize. Right before his eyes, a tough, elastic rubber "skin" formed over the slime.
And at that moment, his internal pressure suddenly spiked, and Iron felt blood trickle down his cheeks from the corners of his eyes.
He coughed raggedly, clamping a hand over his mouth. His vision swam, everything washed in a red haze.
"Damn it... And I still have to make the glass..." flashed through his mind.
Barely staying on his feet, Iron directed the force vector and carefully lowered the mattress.
Iron's knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the bed.
The pillow yielded softly, absorbing the impact perfectly, and molded exactly to the shape of Iron's body.
The engineer lay on his back, breathing heavily. Through the smeared bloody curtain clouding his eyes, he looked up at the scorching sun in the sky... and a second later, fell fast asleep.
Some time later, Noah appeared at the edge of the clearing, carrying another set of giant trunks on his shoulders. Dropping the timber to the ground, he swept his gaze over the camp.
Iron lay motionless on the bed. Noah held his gaze on him for a second, then turned and headed to a shady spot under a sprawling pine, where Elyria was.
She was recovering her strength in the shade of the branches.
"There are way too many monsters in this forest," Noah said, stopping in front of her. "Hey, do you hear me?"
"Yes, I hear you... And why does that even bother you? You should be glad. Now stop bothering me."
"Did you forget your place?" Noah asked.
Elyria flared up in irritation. The ground at Noah's feet swelled, and a root burst from beneath the turf, trying to wrap around his ankles.
But Noah had already vanished in a blurred flash. In that same second, fifty meters from the clearing, Noah appeared behind a large beast about to pounce from the bushes. Without slowing down, he spun and drove his sword into the monster's skull.
Yanking his sword from the carcass, Noah shook the dark blood from the blade and cast his gaze into the depths of the forest.
"Still..." he muttered quietly to himself, "there really are way too many monsters."
Meanwhile, Eliza walked into the center of the clearing. Spotting Iron sleeping right in the middle of the camp, she scoffed:
"What's he doing lounging around?.."
She didn't bother waking him up, though. Instead, Eliza set about preparing a fire pit. She quickly cleared a flat spot of dry leaves and rocks, then arranged large branches and logs around it, prepping the base for the fire.
Looking over the finished setup, Eliza remembered that they had already completely finished off the boar carcass from that morning.
"So what do we do now?" she muttered.
But at that moment, Noah emerged from the bushes again. This time he was dragging the carcass of a beast behind him—a massive carcass with a single horn growing right out of its back.
Eliza waved enthusiastically at him:
"Oh, you're right on time! Can you carve it up? I'd like to make lunch."
Noah nodded, dumping his catch on the ground near the fire pit:
"Alright."
About forty minutes passed.
The beast's meat was sizzling on a spit over the fire Eliza had set up. The juicy aroma of roasted meat and the low hum of conversation gradually pierced through Iron's sleep.
He twitched slightly and slowly opened his eyes. The bloody haze was completely gone—his vision was sharp again. Bright sunlight immediately hit him right in the face. Iron raised his left arm, shielding himself from the scorching rays with his palm, and muttered quietly:
"Damn it... I'm going to burn up in the sun like this."
Leaning on the mattress, Iron pushed himself up and sat. A little to the right, near the fire, the whole group had already gathered, patiently waiting for the meat to roast.
Noticing Iron was awake, Elyria spun joyfully in the air:
"Oh, our sleepyhead is up!"
Iron got out of bed, walked unhurriedly over to the fire, and sat down on a small log next to the others.
"So how's the bed? Is it good?" Elyria asked.
"If I fell asleep that fast, it means the bed turned out good," Iron muttered quietly. "Better tell me, have you recovered?"
Elyria nodded quickly and confidently.
"Then get to building the house," Iron got straight to the point.
At that moment, Eliza, who was turning the meat on the spit, sliced off the first browned, fully cooked piece. She handed it to Clerk, who immediately passed the food to the youngest guys in his group of ten.
"You're always bothering her with your chores. Maybe she could at least do it after eating?" Eliza said sternly.
"But..." Iron started, staring at her, but cut himself off, thinking in bewilderment:
"Why... why can't I ever argue with her?"
After a short pause, Iron just exhaled heavily:
"Fine... Let her do it after eating."
Elyria spun triumphantly in the air.
Eliza went back to carving and passing out more meat. Elyria eagerly devoured her portion.
Handing a portion to Iron, Eliza asked:
"Well?"
"It's good..." Iron grumbled, taking the meat.
Chewing his food, he sank into his own thoughts while the others chatted animatedly:
"Right... The bed is done. The house itself—Elyria will do that. All that's left is to make the windows..." Iron ran through the plan in his head. "Making glass is actually easy. First, Elyria needs to materialize some sand—I hope she can do that. I'll need to use electromagnetism to strip away the impurities responsible for the sand's cloudiness, and then heat the sand. After that, I'll hold the liquid glass in the air using force vectors, completely dampening any external vibrations. Under the pull of gravity, the molten glass should naturally spread into a perfectly flat square of even thickness. Then I'll gradually drop the temperature: rapidly cooling the outer layers with air while leaving the core warm. And finally, using focused pressure, I'll slice the finished sheet into perfect rectangles to fit the windows."
Iron finished his piece and looked at Eliza:
"That's all well and good, but will I be able to pull that off today?.."
"Eliza," he asked out loud, "give me some more meat."
A while after the hearty lunch, everyone wandered off to do their own things, leaving only Iron and Elyria in the clearing.
"First off, Elyria, make me a pile of sand," Iron requested.
"Why?" the spirit asked in surprise, but didn't argue and waved her little hand.
Right in front of them, a mound of sand spilled out of thin air.
"For the windows," Iron explained, looking at her intently: "Do you think you can do it?"
"Yes! I can!" Elyria exclaimed confidently, soaring a bit higher.
"No. I mean, can you build the house right over my bed? So I don't have to shrink it down and drag it inside later?"
Elyria hovered in the air, squinted, and hesitated:
"Well... Probably!.."
Iron looked at her shifting eyes and immediately knew: if she tried, she would just bury his bed under a pile of collapsed logs.
"Never mind..." he sighed. "Just do it normally, in a clear spot."
"Got it!"
Elyria squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated. A small green sphere flared up in front of her again. The sphere rapidly began to expand, stretching in width and height, and a moment later took the shape of a house. A second later, the magic dissipated, and a complete wooden house stood before them.
Iron walked closer and inspected the structure. The walls were standing, the roof was in place, but the whole building was shivering ever so slightly.
"Fix it up here and here," Iron pointed to the unstable joints near the roof.
"Oh, right on it!" Elyria touched the wall, and the wood immediately fused together.
"Good. Now you need to make a second one."
"Yep!" she replied enthusiastically.
The spirit formed the green sphere again. This time, the second house turned out much straighter, sturdier, and nicer than the first. Elyria beamed proudly and started flying circles over the building:
"Did you see?! See what I can do?!"
She immediately set about making a third house:
"Watch, I'll make this one even better!"
"Just be care..."
The sphere flared too sharply, the magic faltered, and instead of a whole house, only a single wooden wall formed in the air.
The wall tilted and came crashing down right on top of Elyria, who was standing directly below it.
"Ahhh!" the spirit squeaked, darting out from under the falling wall at the very last second.
Iron calmly finished the word he had started a second earlier:
"...ful. See what pride does to you? I hope you understand your mistake."
Elyria froze guiltily in the air, rubbing her bruised elbow and staring at the collapsed wall.
"Make as many more houses as you can," Iron added, turning back to the pile of sand. "I'll get to work on the glass."
He walked up to the pile of sand and extended his hand. A hum was already starting to build in his temples.
The sand lifted into the air, swirling in a vortex.
Iron pumped a powerful electromagnetic pulse through the grains, stripping away the impurities responsible for the sand's cloudiness, and then instantly spiked the air temperature at that spot to fifteen hundred degrees. In a fraction of a second, the sand melted.
He held the scorching mass in the air, completely dampening any external vibrations. Under the pull of gravity, the liquid glass spread perfectly evenly into a flat, smooth square. Then, with a sharp blast of air, he cooled the outer layers, leaving the core warm.
With focused pressure, Iron sliced the finished sheet into perfectly straight, transparent rectangles cut to fit the windows.
Iron squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his fingers hard against his eyelids to fight down the surging flash of pain, and exhaled deeply.
Taking the first two panes of glass, he walked over to the first finished house and, with a soft click, set them into the window frames. Iron carried the rest of the glass sheets over and laid them right on his mattress.
At that moment, another crack and crash came from the construction site, followed by Elyria's furious squeak:
"Why is it doing this again?!"
Iron turned back to his outdoor bed.
To avoid having to widen the doorway to get the frame inside, he hovered his palm over the wooden frame and temporarily increased the intermolecular pressure inside the wood.
The distance between the carbon atoms in the wood's structure rapidly shrank. Right before his eyes, the entire bed, frame included, compressed to exactly half its size, turning into a very compact and dense construct. The slime and wool inside the frame also compressed under this pressure, pushing out the excess air.
The bed became small, but its mass remained the same.
Picking up the shrunken bed using force vectors, Iron directed it straight through the house's doorway. The bed smoothly floated through the air and ended up inside the spacious room.
As soon as the bed touched down in its chosen spot in the corner, Iron immediately released the excess intermolecular pressure.
The distance between the carbon atoms in the wood instantly returned to normal. With a soft hum and a quiet crackle, the frame smoothly expanded, the slime-and-wool layer expanded back into shape as it filled with air, and the bed took on its normal size again.
And in that exact second, Iron's legs instantly gave out. He collapsed onto the mattress, miraculously avoiding the glass sheets for the remaining windows that were stacked on the side.
He lay on his stomach, the tension slowly draining from his cramped muscles. Iron turned his head with difficulty, swept his gaze over the building's interior, and muttered quietly:
"Even the floor here is made of wood..."
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