Ki-woo knew exactly why the man was sprinting toward him.
The heavy, rust-colored rock clutched in his hand was unmistakable.
"I found it! I found the place you spoke of!" Big Rock shouted, his voice thick with elation as he skidded to a halt.
'He found it faster than I expected,' Ki-woo thought. A surge of relief washed over him, but he kept his face perfectly composed. He was the Chief Spirit; he had to act as though this was all preordained. He reached out and took the chunk of ore.
Even without modern testing equipment, his trained eye could gauge its quality. It was incredibly dense, with a rich, dark oxidation.
"This is high-quality iron ore," Ki-woo said, his voice steady and approving. "You have done well. Where is the source?"
"It is a long walk from the village, far enough to make your legs ache," Big Rock said, his chest puffing out with pride. As one of the original sixteen warriors who had witnessed Ki-woo's arrival, Big Rock loved to boast, but his physical endurance and loyalty were undeniable. "Do you want me to show you?"
"Yes. Lead the way."
As they hiked through the dense forest, Ki-woo's mind wandered to the logistical nightmares ahead. There were no clocks here. No calendars. More importantly, there was no written language to record production quotas or engineering blueprints. While complex numerical systems existed far to the south in Central America, the Creek tribe relied purely on oral tradition.
If civilization was going to leap forward, he had to introduce a writing system.
Arabic numerals were a given, but the alphabet was a different matter. Chinese characters were far too complex for a rapid societal shift. The Latin alphabet was efficient, but after weighing his options, Ki-woo made a firm decision: Hangul.
It was his mother tongue, completely phonetic, and scientifically designed to be learned in a matter of days. He would need to adjust the pronunciation rules to fit the Creek language, but its geometric simplicity made it the perfect tool to drag this tribe into a literate age.
"We are here, Chief Spirit!" Big Rock announced, breaking Ki-woo's train of thought.
They stepped into a clearing at the base of a jagged incline. Several other scouts were already there, pointing at the exposed rock face.
Ki-woo approached the outcropping and ran his hand along the coarse stone. It was a massive, surface-level vein. With their current lack of deep-shaft mining technology, this was a godsend. They could extract the ore simply by breaking the surface rock with their new iron pickaxes.
'The first true iron mine in the Americas,' Ki-woo mused. If his plans succeeded, centuries from now, this exact spot would be preserved as a world heritage site—the cradle of a new global superpower.
***
The climate of what would one day be Alabama was an industrial blessing. The winters were mild, meaning the ground rarely froze solid, allowing the mining camp to operate year-round.
Ki-woo enforced strict safety protocols, using his modern knowledge to prevent tunnel collapses and rockfalls. So far, not a single warrior had been seriously injured.
The outpost was a hive of perpetual motion. The labor was divided strictly into three teams: foragers hunting for daily rations, loggers felling timber for supports and fuel, and miners extracting the ore. They worked from sunrise to sunset. Weekends and holidays did not exist in the Neolithic era.
'Every day is an endless grind,' Ki-woo thought, suppressing a sigh. 'No wonder there are no evil bosses here. The world itself is the tyrant.' "We are ready to move," Straight Tree reported, stepping into Ki-woo's makeshift wooden office.
Ki-woo nodded and stepped outside. Sixty warriors stood in formation, each bearing a heavy wooden A-frame pack strapped to their backs.
"I desperately need carts," Ki-woo muttered to himself. But carts required flat, paved roads, which they did not have. For now, human pack mules were the only option.
The mining outpost lacked the massive furnaces, charcoal reserves, and crushed limestone needed for smelting. The raw ore had to be carried on foot all the way back to the central Creek village.
"Let's move out!" Ki-woo ordered.
As the column of warriors began their grueling trek, Ki-woo looked back at the mining camp. He had taught the foremen the basics of identifying and extracting the ore. They would have to manage without him. The central village needed him more; he had to teach them how to turn this rock into an empire.
***
A river of iron ore began flowing into the central village, but pre-modern smelting demanded a terrifying amount of labor.
Every available hand—warriors, elders, and women—was mobilized to operate the bellows, haul charcoal, and crush limestone flux. Fortunately, the genetically modified sweet potatoes and grains Ki-woo had introduced yielded a massive surplus, keeping the exhausted workforce fed.
Yet, even working at maximum capacity, they were barely scraping by. Ki-woo micromanaged every step, optimizing the workflow to save precious minutes, but he was already pushing toward the next massive hurdle.
Wrought iron was a start, but it was too soft for his ultimate ambitions. He needed steel.
The concept seemed impossible for an ancient society, but history proved otherwise; India had produced crucible steel as early as the 4th century BC. Ki-woo intended to replicate the legendary Wootz steel method.
First, high-purity ore was smelted into brittle, carbon-heavy pig iron. Then, chunks of this pig iron were sealed inside clay crucibles along with measured pieces of charcoal and glass. The crucibles were baked in a blast furnace at extreme temperatures. As the pig iron melted, it absorbed the exact amount of carbon needed from the charcoal, transforming into high-carbon steel.
It was a painstaking, low-yield process, but the results were undeniable.
"Strike it!" Ki-woo commanded.
In the center of the village square, a muscular warrior raised a newly forged steel sword. Sunlight gleamed off the polished, faintly rippled gray metal.
With a fierce shout, the warrior brought the blade down on a thick rod of standard wrought iron secured between two logs.
Clang! The wrought iron rod cleanly snapped in two. The steel sword didn't even have a notch on its edge.
Gasps and terrified whispers rippled through the gathered crowd.
"How is that possible?" Smart Head asked, his eyes wide as he inspected the cleanly severed iron rod. "They are both made from the same bleeding stone, are they not?"
"They look similar on the outside, but their nature is completely different," Ki-woo explained. "It depends on how the fire purifies it, and what is fed to the metal while it melts."
Smart Head looked down, thoroughly overwhelmed. "My name is Smart Head, yet I cannot grasp the Chief Spirit's words. I bring shame to my title."
"Do not think like that," Ki-woo said gently, placing a hand on the warrior's shoulder. "True shame is not found in ignorance. It is found in refusing to seek the truth when you do not know it. Keep asking questions."
Smart Head's eyes brightened. "I will, Chief Spirit!"
Ki-woo turned back to the steel sword, immense satisfaction swelling in his chest. 'With weapons like this, we are untouchable.' This military leap was an absolute necessity. As the Creek tribe grew richer with abundant crops, warm cotton, and metal tools, neighboring tribes would inevitably notice. Worse, across the continent, the bloodthirsty Aztec Empire was currently expanding its reach. If Ki-woo built a wealthy utopia without an invincible military to defend it, he would simply be preparing a feast for conquerors.
***
Spring arrived, bringing the planting season.
The production of iron and steel began to stabilize. The introduction of steel hoes, sickles, and weeders drastically cut down the time needed to till the fields. Small but revolutionary items like iron nails, sewing needles, and scissors were slowly distributed, transforming daily village life.
Despite the grueling, non-stop labor, the tribe adapted, their morale bolstered by the visible improvements in their living standards.
But as Ki-woo sat in his dwelling, staring at his crude, charcoal-drawn blueprints, a deep sense of frustration settled over him.
His mind was overflowing with innovations: pottery kilns, cement production, paved roads, river barges, water wheels, paper, soap, and eventually, gunpowder.
'It's all a pipe dream right now,' he realized grimly. 'I don't have the hands.' Even with the massive food surplus freeing up foragers, and even with women joining the industrial workflow, a population of roughly twenty thousand was simply too small to trigger a true industrial revolution.
Worse, Ki-woo's strict hygiene laws and improved diets meant the infant mortality rate was plummeting. A population boom was coming, but in the short term, every newborn meant a mother temporarily pulled away from the foundries and looms to care for her child.
Ki-woo stared at the map of the surrounding territories, his eyes tracing the borders of neighboring, rival tribes.
'I need labor,' he thought, his jaw tightening. 'Is there really only one way to get it?'