💥 Chapter 16: Fire and Stone — The Birth of Gunpowder
🌍 January 23, 99 BCE – Late Winter ❄️
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -Â
The time had come. The Batcave, once a crude, guano-choked cavern, had been transformed into a hidden workshop of alchemical ambition — and now, it would become the birthplace of something far more volatile.
Junjie stood beneath its soot-streaked arches, eyes reflecting the flicker of lantern light as he took a long breath. Everything he needed was finally within reach: saltpeter scraped and leached from the cave's depths, sulfur glinting like fossilized fire along the stone, and the towering spruce forests above promising the final ingredient, charcoal.
Gunpowder — once a fireside tale, now real in his hands. He would not only forge it in secret but unveil it in thunder, a gift of flame to shape stone, and perhaps history.
🧪 Extracting Nitrates
Junjie set down the bundle of wood, clay, and reed tubing he had carried up from the village. Before he could begin shaping it, a familiar shimmer rippled along his forearm. From the seams of the bracer, Nano's swarm flowed out — a haze of metallic dust moving like a living fog.
Junjie froze. "Wait. I thought you said you don't do sorcery."
"This isn't sorcery," Nano said evenly. "It's craft. I am using machines."
"Machines? I don't see any machines."
"They are too small for your eyes. Think of your own body — it is made of countless tiny parts, each with a purpose. My nanobots are the same — unseen workers that build, carry, and shape. This is skill and learning, not magic."
"Tiny parts?" Junjie frowned.
"You have had them your whole life, though you've never seen them. Let us change that."
A thread of the swarm darted to a small vial of Batcave water. "Spit into this," Nano instructed. Junjie did, watching as the swarm whisked the vial into a thin crystal lens it was forming in mid-air. It settled onto a clay stand before him.
"Now, look."
Junjie leaned over. Under the lens, tiny shifting shapes moved in the water — small, clear blobs, each pulsing faintly.
"That... that's me?"
"Those are your smallest pieces," Nano said. "Everything you are is made from them. My workers are built on the same idea — countless tiny parts, each doing its task."
Junjie pulled back slowly, eyes wide. "Still feels like witchcraft."
"It only feels so when it is strange to you," Nano replied. "Do you want to see mine?"
Before Junjie could answer, the swarm whisked away the vial and replaced it with a droplet from the bracer's inner reservoir. This time, the lens revealed tiny metallic shapes — some like insects, others like minuscule chisels and hammers — moving in perfect rhythm.
"That... lives inside you?" Junjie asked quietly.
"Yes. Your small pieces keep you alive. Mine keep me alive — and allow me to shape the world in ways your hands alone cannot."
The shimmer spread across the wood and clay, shaping them into rough but functional frames, clay troughs, and collection pots. Nano deliberately left small imperfections — uneven chisel marks, faint bends in the wood — so nothing looked impossibly perfect.
Once the swarm finished, Junjie took over, fitting the pieces together. Water trickled through layered ash, soil, and guano, dripping into the clay trays. Day by day, the solution would thicken, potassium nitrate crystals forming with each leach cycle.
🔥 Refining Sulfur
From a hidden vein in the cave wall, Junjie hauled out rough chunks of sulfur. He set them down beside the nitrate rig, eyeing the crude tools they'd need for distillation.
Without a word, the swarm slipped from the bracer again, curling around the clay and copper scraps Junjie had collected. In moments, the parts began to take shape: a lidded clay retort, bent copper tubing for the vapor path, and a simple clay bowl for collection. As before, Nano left imperfections — a slight dent in the tubing, uneven edges on the clay lid — enough to make it look hand-shaped and hammer-worked.
"This works like the nitrate one," Junjie observed as he fit the parts together.
"Different craft," Nano said. "Nitrates dissolve in water. Sulfur must be turned to vapor and caught again. Your tools must bear high heat and hold the fumes."
Once assembled, Junjie set the retort over a steady fire, feeding in the raw sulfur chunks. Yellow vapor hissed through the tubing, cooling in the clay bowl to form soft flakes. Impurities stayed behind in the retort.
"Sulfur purity at eighty-seven percent and climbing," Nano reported.
🌲 Crafting Charcoal
While villagers used coal for heat, Junjie needed something lighter and faster-burning. He ventured into the spruce forest, selecting older logs and building oxygen-starved pits. Slow smoldering over several days yielded fine, silvery charcoal — perfect for powder.
"Best burn will come from spruce charcoal," Nano noted. "Ready for mixing."
đź’ĄÂ The First Demonstration
With saltpeter, refined sulfur, and charcoal ready, Junjie mixed them in careful proportions under Nano's watch. Every caution was taken — no stray sparks, no rough grinding — until the blend became a fine black powder.
Beyond the east ridge, villagers gathered at a safe distance. A sealed clay pot of powder sat atop a boulder.
Junjie lit the fuse, ran for cover, and—
BOOM!
The explosion shattered the boulder, dust and shards spraying skyward. Silence, then cheers erupted.
"By the gods, what was that?!" a stonemason cried.
Junjie, catching his breath, grinned. "With this, we can do more than just mine. We can remake the valley itself."
Chengde stepped forward, cautious. "It's like a storm in your hands... but dangerous."
"There is no end to what we could do," Junjie said. "With care, it is a tool."
Nano's voice was calm in Junjie's mind: "Quarrying and mining uses confirmed. Defensive power—considerable. Suggest care and planning."
The blacksmith crossed his arms. "You've given us the means to break stone like it's nothing. What else could it do?"
Junjie's smile didn't fade. "It could change everything. It could lead us into a time none of us could have imagined."
As the crowd murmured, the weight of the moment settled over them all.