Three days after the mine was discovered on May 15, 219 AD, the eastern hills of the family estate were almost impossible to identify.
The terraced excavation pit was now a fully operational strip mine.
The ore they were extracting was of such an unprecedented density and purity that the weight of the daily yield required a larger workforce to transport it to the surface.
Cassius, driven by the intoxicating scent of imminent wealth, had immediately dipped into their remaining funds to hire more men from the local populace.
At the old mine, they had operated with a meager crew of eight men who constantly tripped over each other in the poorly ventilated tunnels.
Now, on the wide terraces of the new site, eleven men worked.
To a project manager, eleven men was a small crew, but Lucius knew that with his block-and-tackle systems and precise shift rotations, these eleven men were outputting the raw tonnage of fifty traditional Roman slaves.
Standing at the edge of the pit, Cassius turned to his son, his eyes gleaming with greed.
"Look at it, Lucius," Cassius praised, clapping a hand on his son’s shoulder. "We have amassed enough raw iron in three days to fulfill the monthly quota for the Third Legion’s quartermasters. Once we load this onto the wagons and send it to the military encampments, our financial troubles will be behind us. We will be rich beyond measure!"
Lucius gazed at the sprawling piles of raw hematite. "We are not selling the raw iron, Father."
Cassius frowned. "Not selling it? Have the gods struck you mad, boy? The quartermasters are expecting their shipmentز If we do not sell the raw iron, how do we profit?"
"..." Lucius raised his hand. "Tell me, Father, what is the price of a single pound of raw iron ore at the market?"
Cassius blinked. "A handful of copper asses. Perhaps a single sestertius if the quality is exceptionally high."
Lucius nodded. "Now, tell me the price of a standard, well-forged Roman gladius or a cavalry spatha."
Cassius furrowed his brows. "A good sword can fetch anywhere from twenty to fifty silver denarii, depending on the craftsman."
"That is why I intend to take these rocks, forge weapons from them, and sell them for a high price. The Severan dynasty is weakening our currency; the silver content in the denarius is decreasing year by year." Lucius said.
Cassius stared at his son as if he had grown a second head. "Forging weapons? The art of the forge belongs to the plebeians and the followers of Vulcan. How could you know how to forge weapons of war?"
Lucius frowned. "I will try. I will experiment with the ore we have extracted."
Cassius hesitated. Traditionally, a Roman patrician would never dirty his hands with the labor of a smith. Yet, he looked at the pile of ore his son had miraculously discovered. Lucius had saved their family from financial ruin once already.
His track record over the past two weeks was flawless. Cassius’s inherent greed quickly overpowered his traditional sensibilities.
"Very well," Cassius finally conceded, letting out a sigh. "But how do we begin? We do not possess a forge."
"I am going to build a furnace right here, next to the mine." Lucius said.
Cassius nodded. "I will authorize the purchases. How long will it take to construct?"
"A few days to properly lay the refractory lining and cure the clay," Lucius estimated.
He already had the blueprints for a primitive blast furnace mapped out in his head.
While traditional Roman bloomeries only reached about 1200 degrees Celsius Lucius’s design would push past 1500 degrees.
He would liquefy the iron, allowing him to cast it directly or carefully control the carbon intake to produce rudimentary steel.
However, building the furnace was only one variable in his overarching equation. If he was going to mass-produce weapons, he needed infrastructure.
He needed an anvil, standardized casting molds, and eventually, a water-powered trip hammer to automate the forging process.
He had other, far more ambitious plans that required his immediate attention.
Leaving his father and the freedman overseer, Titus, to manage the extraction of the ore, Lucius departed the mining site and headed back toward the bustling local markets of the nearby settlement.
He utilized a small pouch of silver coins he had requisitioned from the family coffers to purchase a variety of specialized supplies.
He bought several large sheets of expensive, high-quality vellum, fine charcoal pencils, vials of squid ink, and a set of wooden straightedges and compasses from a Greek merchant.
Upon returning to the family estate, Lucius secluded himself in his private study.
He spread the vellum across his desk and began to draft.
His first blueprint was the exact schematics for the blast furnace, detailing the exact angle of the tuyeres... the nozzles through which pressurized air would be pumped into the combustion chamber.
His second blueprint was a design for a dual-chambered bellows system, designed to provide a continuousflow of oxygen to the fire.
Hours passed in silence, save for the scratching of charcoal against vellum.
Lucius had just begun drafting the dimensions for a standardized Roman spatha when a sudden knock at his chamber door broke his concentration.
He looked up, slightly annoyed that his workflow had been interrupted. "Enter."
The door creaked open, revealing his younger sister, Julia.
She was fifteen years old now, hovering on the very edge of Roman womanhood, dressed in a simple but elegant pale yellow tunic.
Unlike their father, who viewed Lucius as a golden goose, and their brother Marcus, who was somewhat intimidated by Lucius’s sudden change in demeanor, Julia still looked at him with the innocent affection of a younger sibling.
She stepped into the room, her eyes briefly glancing at the drawings scattered across his desk, before looking up at his face.
"I am sorry to disturb your studies, Brother," Julia said softly, her voice carrying a respectful tone. "But there is a guest waiting in the atrium courtyard. He says he is your friend, and he insists that he must speak with you immediately."
Lucius frowned, though his facial expression remained placid.
A friend? Since he had transmigrated into this body two weeks ago, he had been so consumed with the engineering and logistics of the iron mine that he had neglected the social life of the original Lucius.
He possessed the youth’s memories, but they were fragmented and deeply buried beneath his own dominant 39-year-old consciousness.
He searched his inherited memories for any associates who would brazenly demand an audience with him in the middle of the afternoon.
Several faces flashed through his mind... fellow equestrian youths, sons of local magistrates, drinking companions but none stood out as someone of critical importance.
"Tell him I will be out momentarily," Lucius said calmly, rolling up his blueprint for the blast furnace and securing it with a leather tie.