Step 1

A/N: Pat-reon: HelloDarkness07.

Surprise Second Chapter!

~~~

Two months after the establishment of Camp Half-blood, there were already 35 kids under the age of 16, and 7 above it. And of those 7, 2 were not Demigods, nor did they have 4 Demigod Grandparents.

For some reason, my Beacon brought them here too, which means they were in a too dangerous situation, and the only way to save them was bring them to Camp Half-blood. We didn't mind, but Chiron, as the Camp Leader, had to be blunt to them, a lot.

Demigods are naturally a bit stronger than regular mortals, and descendants of Gods or not, Julius and Mohit were plain mortals. So, there were chances of jealousy acting up, later in life.

Which is why, Chiron had them join the other adult Demigods as teachers, or Camp Counselors.

Chiron was the leader, obviously, and taught strategy. Mohit was fairly good at archery, so he taught that, while Julius taught pottery. Luke, a son of Ares, taught hand to hand combat, and was responsible with making the children strong enough to defend themselves, while Thena, a daughter of Ares was responsible with teaching them swordsmanship.

A Demigod turned God of Weapons, called Matsumoto was responsible for making weapons, and tools, for everyone out of the Magic infused steel mother regularly provided him with, and he also supervised Thena's classes. The rest had taken over the tracking, stealth, cooking, and a number of classes they felt the kids might need.

But it wasn't just classes. The classes only went for 5 hours per day, while most of the time the kids were given to play. The purpose of the camp was to make sure kids can have a safe place, not to turn them into soldiers.

Well, they were just taught this stuff so they can learn to defend themselves against Demonic, Mundane, Magical, as well as Divine threats. A few of these children, like Brian, were here because some God wanted them, and not always to eat them.

Feeling a body impact my legs, I bring myself out of my musings, and look down. "How are you enjoying yourself, Manasi?" I ask.

Manasi, the 8 year old daughter of Kali smiles widely, and says, "It's all so wonderful, Theo! Everyone is so nice and smart and strong and- and- wonderful! Did you know Mr Matsumoto is 3000 years old? And, and, he used to be a mortal! Not even a Demigod! How cool is that?!"

(A/N: I apologize if I'm overdoing it.)

Chuckling, I pull Manasi up, and hold her around my hip. She had come here just yesterday, as I had decided to let the camp settle down into a routine first, and boy did she fit it.

This was the first time she had seen children her age, that weren't dumb on the account of being cavemen. And being that she was brought here by me, and she was so close to me, Manasi found herself to be a bit popular amongst the kids, which is probably why she was with me right now.

"Juno tiring you with questions again?" I ask, smiling amusedly when she looks away, huffing.

She says, "He's annoying! So many questions, and they never end! Even I don't talk that fast."

"Annoying he might be, but he is a child, Manasi. If he just annoys you too much, more than you can handle, just stomp on his feet and run away. Although, not too harshly." I say, and put Manasi down.

Manasi nods, and then seeing something, brightens up again. She says, "I have to go! Mr Jules promised to show us a real sword fight with Mr Luke!"

Jules was the one who taught them stealth, but he was also a fair hand at swordsmanship. He was amongst the top 1000 in the world at least, amongst mortals. But he loved to teach Stealth the most, and was damn good at it. He had to be, being the son of the Nature God, Pan.

Huh, there were a lot of Greek descendants here. Says something about the Olympians, doesn't it. Not saying they deliberately harm mortals, but they probably care a bit lesser than they should.

Anyway, not my problem for now. The Beacon will bring the mortals here, if they need it. Not everyone, but a lot. Thankfully, the island is big enough to handle a few thousand kids at a time, without being crowded.

Sighing, I see Manasi sit down with the other children, her new friends, and start walking towards Chiron, who was talking with mother.

Looking up at him, I ask, "Will you be alright with the rest, Chiron?"

Nodding, Chiron trots in his place, and says, "No harm shall come to the children, my friend. I will defend them with my last breath, if need be."

Mother smiles at the declaration, and says, "Don't worry, my son. Manasi is in good hands. You and the girls can move on with your project. And tell them to visit Manasi if they wish. I wouldn't begrudge them of that."

Smiling, I give one last look at Manasi, and saying my goodbyes to mother and Chiron, teleport to Donna. I appear right outside the ship, and without any delay, I create a portal, sending my ship to Andalok.

"Chhaya! Kali!" I yell, entering through the portal, and into a spare room in my partition. The room was magically enlarged to be big, so the ship doesn't get harmed, and was really close to the partition of Kali, allowing them to come without an unnecessary delay.

As they walk through the door a few seconds later, I say, "Manasi is safely playing with kids her age, and mother told me to tell you, that you two are free to visit her."

Kali breathes a sigh of relief, and looks at the ship. She says, "I will be sure to do so. I thought we were supposed to refine this Uru first? Why did you bring the ship here so soon?"

Waving them inside the ship, I say, "Refining the metal is not going to be an easy task. I have had Sonny going through the metal working data that mother had, and even 2 months later, he isn't done devising a method suitable for Uru."

"So.. what now?" Chhaya asks, looking around in curiosity.

"Have you prepared to rooms for metal working, like I'd asked?" I ask instead of answering.

Rolling her eyes, Chhaya says, "Yes, the room is prepared, according to the exact details you wanted."

Getting giddy, I rub my palms together, and say, "Then let's get down to business! Kali! Your duty is to study the Mixing Alloys for Dummies folder, ask Sonny about it. Chhaya, you will provide the heat for me to melt the Uru ore. Until Sonny can tell us how we can create pure Uru without resorting to my Cosmic Energy, we will have to melt Uru and see if we can use Magic to do our work for us."

With a smile on all three of our faces, we get to work. Kali moves towards the ship's open door, while Chhaya and I sprint towards the Forge.

Once there, I look around, and nod, feeling satisfied with it. The room was made of rocks, mostly, and Chhaya and Kali had enchanted the walls to be heat resistant. There was a giant furnace in a corner. The furnace also had a couple openings near the bottom, for me and Chhaya to provide our Magical flames.

Chhaya's flames were undoubtedly hotter than mine. I could only manipulate the Blue flames of mine, while Chhaya could create and manipulate the entire fire spectrum, as long as it can be found naturally on a star. So no Hellfire, or Holy Fire for her, unless she learns those spells.

Right above the furnace was a chimney, allowing the smoke to leave the room, and then join the air of Andalok to be magically purified. What? I'm not going to be an irresponsible person, you know. I actually care for Induk, as well as Andalok.

In the opposite corner of the room, was what I'd also requested of Chhaya. As much of pure gold as she can get. Why gold? Because it's the one metal that's more compatible with a Divine metal than other Divine metals. Vibranium comes second, but only because of it's destructive tendencies when it comes to Magic, otherwise it would have been first.

Smiling, while looking at it, I point my hand towards it. In the other hand, a small stone made of the Uru ore appears from my Dimension, allowing me to transmutate the 10 cubic meters of the gold, to just about 5 cubic meters of Uru ore.

Damn, the equivalent exchange rate, while better than that for Rock-Adamantium, is still pretty high. Sigh, I'll have to transmutate more Uru, probably. 5 cubic meters is barely enough for our experiments.

Feeling a glare at my head, I turn around, and see Chhaya doing it. She clenches her fists, and says, "That was all of my gold! And some of it I had to gather from Induk!"

Sighing, I say, "I'll get you your Gold, Chhaya. Don't worry." Donna has a shit ton of gold, and I haven't used even a little bit of it.

Hmm.. maybe I should do that next, transmutate the precious minerals from Donna to Uru. At least this way we won't just use up all the Gold.

"You better." Chhaya says, narrowing her eyes at me.

Shaking my head, I turn back to the Uru rough chunks of Uru ore, and say, "Shall we get started?"

Rolling her eyes, Chhaya moves towards the furnace, and lights it up with the snap of her fingers, making the flames reach a thousand degree Celsius within a few seconds.

Whistling in appreciation, I say, "We're going to need flames a lot hotter than that. But we can increase it step by step."

And with that, we start our tasks, hoping against all hope, that we find a Divine Alloy worthy of us.

~~~

"KEEP IT STEADY!" I yell, seeing the Uru ore begin melting, while I had my palms facing the enchanted crucible.

Uru ore had an astonishing melting point of 76,500°C. And it melted completely to liquid, at about 80,000°C. After which, we had to get rid of the impurities.

15 days of working on the refining, and the only method that showed a modicum of chance, was our own Magic.

At first, I'd thought that since the melting point of Uru ore is so high, we can just get rid of the impurities by burning them off. But the problem was, the impurities were Neutranium varients, and hence, also made within the core of the Blue Dwarf. So, yeah, that plan was a flop and the Uru was ruined.

We only went through 2 batches of Uru ore per day, by breaking them down into pieces to melt. Thankfully, Ànemos and Astrapi were more than enough to do so, but only because it's unrefined, as well as unforged. Right now, we were on our 31st batch overall, as well as the 1st batch of the day.

With a grunt, Chhaya increases the temperature of the flames, turning the flames light blue, leaning towards white, and slowly keeps making them hotter. And once more, I am thankful that I'm a Celestial, while Chhaya is a Sun God. The temperature doesn't bother us one bit, other than making it harder to look for me.

Slowly, the Uru ore speeds up it's melting, and before long, I'm looking at a dull grey liquid, shimmering in the crucible, while popping bubbles once in a while. But I could still feel it, that it wasn't refined yet. It wasn't pure Uru yet.

Taking a deep breath, I focus inside and call up my magic. As my hands glow green, the magic from them starts floating towards the blinding white crucible, and then towards the melted Uru ore, giving the liquid a green shimmer.

With a small pulse, I chant, "Cleanse!" and then repeat the pulse of magic. For 7 times, I do it, and finally on the 7th chant, I feel the impurities being destroyed by my magic.

"It's done." I whisper, not believing myself. As I see Chhaya start to get up, I yell, "No wait! Just a second!"

Chhaya immediately drops back down, keeping her focus on the flames.

Turning back towards the now pure, melted Uru, I take another deep breath, and pick it up with my magic. With a green glow surrounding it, the Uru lifts up, still in liquid form, and Chhaya immediately turns her focus to me, focusing on keeping the Uru melted.

Nodding gratefully at her, I mumble to myself, "Now just have to cast this Uru."

And with the help of my own Magical energy bolts, the Uru starts changing shape. It was like my magic that surrounded the melted metal was the cast itself, as the Uru finally starts settling down.

A few minutes later, I see in my bare hands, my first brick of purified Uru.

"This is it?" Chhaya asks, looking at the brick over my shoulder.

Nodding, I hand it to her, and say, "Yup. The most Divine Metal yet. Just a tad bit less durable than Adamantine, but just as much more magically receptive. Where Adamantine is sharper naturally, Uru can be enchanted to cut through almost anything."

And now, I have the magical metal for myself, and for my family. And so, we completed our Step 1. Refine Uru.

Time to figure out a stable alloy with Adamantine, and whatever more material we might need. I really hope Kali is doing better than us.

~~~

A/N: I will probably skip to whatever alloy they make, or the last step of making it. Suggest names for the alloy? I have one already in mind, but just want to ask for your opinion, to figure out if I want to change the name lol.

Just want to clarify, Sonny didn't factor the Magical spells in his computations, which is why he didn't manage to find the proper method before they managed it by themselves.

That's all folks! Tata!