25. Testing New Materials

To test the horn, Mark first grabbed a regular hammer made of refined iron to see if the horn would hold up to blunt force from refined iron.

"I have already seen the blades slide off the horns without leaving a scratch so I know it is at least harder than refined iron, but just being harder than this iron does not mean it is impervious to any attack from a weapon made out of it."

Mark was talking to himself again as he prepared to conduct the tests. With everything in place, he began smashing the hammer on the horn.

"Thonk, ping!"

His hammer hit the horn and subsequently slid over to the anvil before ringing from the metal-on-metal contact.

Mark placed the hammer on the anvil and shook his hand as he looked at the results of his first experiment. He picked the horn up and started to turn it right in front of his eyes. With the bone right in front of his eyes, he was able to scrutinize every small detail of the horn.

"Hmm, there is not even a little scuff on it. It looks like this thing is quite durable indeed. I doubt any weapons with these things would be good, but they would be great for handles to one-handed weapons."

Satisfied with the initial test, he then grabbed a pot of water and put it next to the fire, and threw the horn in to let it boil for a while.

"We will see how this thing holds up after being boiled as a sort of test of its longevity as a material and the different types of durability it has."

Mark then walked over to his iron pot of bones and grabbed one of the bones from the panthers and set it on his anvil.

They had not been boiling long enough to soften them up, if that were even possible, but the sinew and bones had long fallen off at this point.

"I am fairly certain that these bones will be fine for any type of weapon but if they can take some punishment then they will most certainly become battle axes. It is hard to get a light and durable handle for battle axes so it would be nice if they can hold up to some stresses."

After Mark was done talking to himself, he swung his hammer down with as much force as he could muster and the hammer hit the leg bone square in the center.

"Bam!"

The hammer didn't slip off the bone as the bone was not as rounded as the horn, but the results were much the same.

Mark once again picked up his experimental piece and rotated it in front of his face.

"No obvious fractures and not even an indentation from the hammer. What the fuck did these guys eat?"

The unblemished bone proved itself to be an easily workable material and since it was a femur from the hind legs of the panthers it was easily long enough for a battle axe.

"I should see if the fifth step will work on these bones. . ."

Mark was now considering the implications of his inheritance since the hammer that he used for the fifth step had a big purple crystal seemingly melded with the metal of the hammer. 

"If they could seamlessly bind metal with a crystal like that, then I should be able to do the same with a bone like this right?"

He was still looking at the bone in his hands as he considered trying the fifth step with it.

"I should test how it deals with high heat then."

He then placed the femur on the coals like it was a metal weapon that needed to be heated up before being worked on. He also took an extra step in heating up the bone by rolling it back and forth in the fire slowly to see how it was being affected.

The bone slowly turned black as it accumulated the byproducts of the coals burning but the bone itself showed no signs of weakening, catching fire, or fracturing.

After leaving it in the flames long enough to turn metal red hot, Mark removed the bone and began to examine it again.

"The bone is black but it does not look burned nor has the smell changed, it seems more like some soot has gathered on it. I should hit it while it is hot, then when it cools I can clean it."

He placed the bone on his anvil and grabbed his hammer again. With a good swing, he struck the bone.

"Thunk!"

There were, once again, no problems with the bone after striking it so Mark struck it a few more times.

"Thunk!"

"Donk!"

""Thunk!"

Each strike gave off the sound of a hammer hitting something solid, but the bone never showed any signs of breaking or weakening.

"Well, it seems like if everything looks good when I clean it off then I should be able to work with this bone like it is a metal. The places where I hit it have some of the black smeared or cleaned off but I need to clean it entirely before I can conclude those spots are not damaged."

Mark then placed the femur into a barrel of water. Even though it was still quite hot, he figured the rapid change in temperature would be a good test as well.

"It shouldn't act as a quench since it's not really metal but I guess I've never worked with bones like this. Well if it's ruined I still have three more to work with."

He watched as it cooled rapidly, causing the water to boil and steam. Once the water had calmed down and the bone looked like it had cooled off, he took it out of the barrel and touched it with his hand.

"Still warm but it should be workable. Now for the pattern. . . "

He turned it over in his hands once again as he thought of how he would etch a pattern into the bone to fill it with metal before using the fifth step. As he was looking at it he used a rag to wipe off the impurities from the flames so he could clearly see what was going on with the surface of the bone.

"If I use the knife to carve it, it should work without too much effort. That blade was a prototype of the spearhead after all."

As he was talking to himself he walked over to his bench and grabbed the knife that he thought could carve the bone.

With the knife in hand, he started on the side that he wanted to attach the axe head to and started carving a spiderweb pattern that actually looked like a spiderweb instead of lightning since he needed to cut out a circular area to anchor the battle axe blade to.

"It's a bit rough but this knife is doing just fine carving this hard bone. Another thing I am seeing is that it does not seem to have suffered much damage from the flames nor from dipping it in the water before letting it cool down."

Satisfied with the work of the knife and the pristine condition of the bone after being put through so much, Mark continued on to the other side of the bone where he would put the pick end of the battle axe that would also act as a counterweight.

It only took him a few minutes to finish the pattern with his knife.

"Now for the metal."

Mark just looked at the bone with the carved patterns on it for a while.

"What metal should I use?"

Mark looked over at the refined metals he had at the ready.

"There is plenty of iron but that is quite heavy on its own. It is fine for spears and swords but a battle axe will require much more metal for its two parts which would make it unusable for probably anyone but me."

He looked over at his aluminum bars that he used to make the lighter alloys out of.

"An aluminum alloy would be great since it could make the axe much lighter, but it might compromise the ability of the refined iron to reliably smash things with a bunch of force repeatedly."

Then his eyes landed on some of the small bars of the silver metals with different sheens to them.

"If I just used a little bit of these with some aluminum and refined iron, it could make a fairly light but durable metal that won't cost me huge amounts of time to reproduce. . ."

Mark just thought about what combinations of the different metals would be best for his current project before he broke himself out of his reverie.

"For the initial bonding process, I just need some refined iron as a base that the different heads can be attached to after I cast them with whatever alloy I choose. For now, I just need to do this bonding to see if it will even work."

Mark then grabbed the refined metal beads and set them in the crucible to melt on the flames.