Chapter 2

Vorn had seen enough.

The first man had collapsed during the children's outdoor duel. Then another. Then several more, each taken into the shelter where the Shaman attempted to drive away whatever evil had entered the tribe.

The rituals had changed nothing.

People were still becoming sick.

Vorn sat near the edge of the settlement, his back against a cold granite wall. Beyond the cave mouth, the mountains stretched beneath a pale sky. Smoke from the tribe's cooking fires drifted upward, carrying the smell of burning wood and roasted meat.

He had no interest in watching the Shaman perform another ritual. He had already spent enough time observing the sick, listening to their symptoms, and reconstructing their movements in his head.

The pattern was becoming difficult to ignore.

Different households. Different hunting parties. Different daily routines.

One common factor.

Water.

The tribe collected water from a shared source. Everyone drank from it. Some carried it back to their families, while others drank directly at the source after returning from the mountains.

The water looked clear.

That meant very little.

In his previous life, Vorn had learned that a system could appear to function normally while hiding a catastrophic failure. A machine could run until the moment a worn bearing seized. A structure could stand for years before a small defect propagated into a fracture.

Water was no different.

Contamination could be invisible.

If the water is the source, I need to make it safe.

The answer came easily. Implementing it was another matter.

Vorn closed his eyes.

Inside his mind, blue lines appeared against a dark, empty space.

His [Mind Blueprint].

At first, it had been nothing more than a strange ability to visualize lines and shapes. He could draw a circle, rotate it, or arrange several geometric forms into a larger structure. He could map objects in his mind without needing to scratch the diagrams into the ground.

It did not tell him what to think.

It simply gave his thoughts somewhere to go.

He drew a container.

Then a flame beneath it.

Water inside.

Heat.

Boiling.

The diagram was straightforward. He remembered how to make water safer to drink. What he lacked was the equipment.

He opened his eyes and examined the settlement.

The Barbarians cooked meat over open fires. They roasted it on wooden spits, held it above flames, or placed it directly against heated stones. Their cooking methods were simple, practical, and suited to a people who spent much of their lives hunting in the mountains.

But Vorn could not see a single proper cooking pot.

There were no metal kettles, no ceramic vessels, and no large containers designed to withstand repeated heating over a fire.

He had seen people carry water in animal skins and wooden vessels. Those were useful for transportation, but they could not simply be placed over a flame.

No pot. No boiling.

He shifted the diagram.

A rough bowl appeared, followed by a more rounded vessel with a narrow opening.

Clay.

He needed to find clay, shape it, dry it, and fire it into a usable earthenware pot.

That solved only one part of the problem.

He needed salt and sugar.

In his old world, both had been ordinary commodities. He had never needed to think about where either came from. Salt sat in containers in kitchens and restaurants. Sugar came in bags, bottles, and packets. They were so common that their origins barely entered his thoughts.

Here, there was no convenient supply.

The tribe did not keep a stockpile of salt for cooking. They ate meat, gathered plants, and relied on what the mountains provided. Vorn had not seen refined sugar or any stored sweetener among their supplies.

He could not simply ask someone to bring him a spoonful of either ingredient.

He had to find them.

Vorn began arranging his thoughts into a sequence.

First, a vessel capable of holding water over a fire.

Second, a source of salt.

Third, a source of sugar.

Fourth, a way to prepare the solution with safe water and consistent proportions.

He drew four simple symbols in his mental workspace and connected them with lines.

The process looked clean when reduced to a diagram.

Reality would be less accommodating.

He knew that the treatment he remembered was called oral rehydration solution, or ORS. It would not kill the organism responsible for cholera. It would not magically stop the illness.

It could, however, replace the water and electrolytes a person lost through severe diarrhea.

That distinction mattered.

A person could lose fluid so quickly that the resulting dehydration became fatal. Replacing those losses could mean the difference between survival and death.

But only if the ingredients were appropriate, the proportions were correct, and the water was safe.

He could not afford to be careless.

Vorn stood and brushed dust from his rough clothing.

There was no point in drawing more diagrams before he had materials to work with.

He needed clay.

He needed salt.

And he needed to find them before the situation deteriorated further.

He picked up a crude stone tool from beside the wall and inspected its chipped edge.

It was not a proper mining pick. It was simply a piece of stone attached to a wooden handle, secured with twisted plant fiber and strips of hide. The binding was uneven, and the head could shift if he struck too hard.

It would have to do.

Vorn started toward the cave entrance.

Behind him, the settlement continued its usual activity, though the rhythm had changed. Adults spoke in quieter voices. People carried water more carefully. The Shaman moved between the sick, his expression grave.

Vorn did not stop to watch.

He had a problem to solve.

And for the first time since arriving in this world, he had a reason to put his knowledge to a practical test.

-

Vorn had almost reached the entrance of their home when he noticed a small figure sitting beside the bedding.

His younger sister.

Their home occupied a sheltered hollow within the enormous Tribal Cave. A low fire burned near the entrance, its smoke drifting toward a crack in the ceiling. Animal hides covered the sleeping area, while hunting tools and bundles of gathered plants rested against the rough stone walls.

His sister usually had trouble sitting still. She followed people around, watched the adults prepare their hunting equipment, and asked questions whenever something caught her attention.

Today, she was unusually quiet.

She sat with her knees drawn toward her chest, her face pale and her shoulders slumped. A wooden cup rested between her hands.

Vorn stopped.

She looked up at him.

"Water," she murmured.

She lifted the cup and drank. Her hands trembled slightly before she lowered it again.

Vorn recognized the signs. The weakness, the thirst, the exhausted expression. They matched what he had seen among the other sick tribespeople.

He approached and crouched in front of her.

"How long have you been sick?"

She blinked at him, apparently too tired to answer.

"When did your stomach start hurting?"

"Earlier."

Her voice was faint.

"Did you throw up?"

She nodded.

Vorn studied her for another moment. He had suspected that the outbreak was spreading through the tribe's shared water supply. Now another person in his own household was showing the same symptoms.

Another case. Another person losing water and electrolytes.

He glanced at the cup.

"Where did you get this water?"

"Someone brought it," she answered.

"From the usual source?"

She nodded again.

Vorn looked toward the entrance. Beyond it lay the mountain slopes, the shared water source, and the materials he needed to investigate the outbreak.

His hypothesis was becoming more convincing, but that didn't make the solution any easier.

He still needed a vessel to boil water. He still needed salt and sugar. And he needed to determine how to prepare the solution correctly.

His sister shifted on the bedding.

"Where are you going?"

Vorn turned back toward her.

"Out."

"Where?"

"To find something."

She stared at him, waiting for more. When he didn't elaborate, she tightened her grip around the cup.

"Are you coming back?"

The question made him pause.

He had been thinking about materials, procedures, and the sequence of steps needed to prepare ORS. He had already calculated the time required to reach the mountain and search the exposed rock. He had considered which tool to bring and how much he could carry.

He hadn't considered that she might be worried about him leaving.

"Yes," he said.

"When?"

"When I'm finished."

She lowered her eyes to the cup.

Vorn couldn't tell whether that answer satisfied her. He didn't ask.

He stood and checked the crude stone pick he had prepared for the journey. The head was secured to its wooden handle with twisted fibers and hide. It wasn't a proper mining tool, but it would have to serve.

Behind him, his sister spoke again.

"Will you bring something back?"

"If I find what I need."

She nodded faintly.

Vorn turned toward the entrance.

He had no particular desire to remain beside her. He didn't know her well enough to feel the kind of attachment that would make leaving difficult. She was his sister in this life, but the relationship was still an unfamiliar fact rather than an emotional bond.

Her illness mattered because it was part of the same problem he was trying to solve.

If the outbreak continued, more people would become sick. If they lost too much fluid, some would die. His sister was one of them.

That was enough reason to act.

He stepped outside, leaving the firelight behind him.

The mountain air was cold against his skin. He adjusted his grip on the stone pick and looked toward the exposed slopes above the settlement.

First, he needed suitable clay for a pot. Then he needed a source of salt, followed by sugar. Once he had those materials, he could begin preparing a rehydration solution.

It was a sequence of problems, each dependent on the one before it.

Vorn started walking.

He would return when he had something useful.

The mountain grew steeper beyond the settlement.

Vorn followed a narrow trail between exposed granite and patches of hardy vegetation. Wind moved through the crevices, carrying the cold smell of stone and damp earth.

He held the stone pick in both hands.

It was heavier than he would have preferred, and the wooden handle had an awkward balance. The stone head was broad but poorly shaped. It could break softer material, but it was not designed for precision.

Still, he needed a tool that could strike rock.

He searched the exposed slopes for mineral deposits.

His knowledge of geology was practical rather than encyclopedic. He understood that different minerals formed under different conditions, that water could transport dissolved substances, and that evaporation sometimes left mineral crusts behind.

But he could not identify every rock by sight.

A pale vein in granite might be quartz. A white crust might contain several different minerals. A deposit that looked promising might contain no usable salt at all.

He examined one outcrop, scraped away loose dirt, and struck the surface.

The stone pick chipped off a small fragment.

He inspected it.

Nothing immediately useful.

He moved farther along the slope.

At a sheltered hollow, he found a patch of pale material clinging to the rock near a narrow trickle of water. He crouched and rubbed a little between his fingers.

The deposit crumbled.

He collected a fragment.

Then another.

He could not tell whether it was a salt-bearing mineral or something else.

If I could inspect the material more closely...

The thought brought his attention back to the strange ability inside his mind.

He closed his eyes.

The [Mind Blueprint] appeared, its blue lines suspended in darkness.

He had used it to organize shapes, map distances, and compare possible arrangements. It helped him visualize relationships between objects. It had never provided answers that he had not supplied himself.

He focused on the fragment in his hand.

Nothing happened.

He concentrated harder, trying to imagine its surface and structure. He thought about the differences between the fragment and the surrounding rock. He pictured the grains, the color, the way it broke under pressure.

The blue lines shifted.

For a moment, the mental space became unusually bright.

Then a new pattern emerged.

Fine blue outlines spread across the fragment in his mind. The image separated into layers, emphasizing irregularities that he had not consciously noticed. When he turned his attention to the surrounding rock, the outlines changed.

The ability was no longer limited to the shapes he deliberately drew.

A message appeared in his awareness.

[Mind Blueprint — Development Detected]

[New Ability Unlocked: Scan]

Vorn went still.

He read the information again.

Scan.

He did not know what the ability could do, but the name suggested a function.

He looked at the fragment and concentrated.

A faint blue outline appeared in his mind, accompanied by a rough impression of its surface and internal structure. When he turned toward the larger deposit, the same process occurred over a wider area, though the information became less precise.

The ability was not showing him a complete chemical formula.

It was showing him differences.

The fragment had a distinct structure compared with the surrounding rock. Some portions of the deposit appeared more uniform than others. The nearby stone contained different patterns.

That was useful.

He tested it again.

He scanned a loose stone, then a patch of soil, then a strip of exposed granite.

Each produced a different impression.

The process demanded concentration. The farther he moved his attention, the less detailed the results became. When he tried to examine too many things at once, the mental display blurred into overlapping lines.

He stopped.

Range, resolution, and attention limits.

The terms came naturally to him from years of working with technical systems. He did not need to know the ability's underlying mechanism to begin testing its behavior.

He crouched beside the mineral deposit again.

Scan helped him distinguish parts of the deposit that were different from the surrounding rock. It did not tell him whether the material was safe to eat, whether it contained harmful impurities, or whether it was suitable for preparing a medical solution.

He would still need evidence.

But he had gained a new way to gather it.

Vorn smiled faintly.

For the first time since his reincarnation, something in this world had become easier to investigate.

He collected several more samples, marking their locations in his mental workspace. He also recorded the shape of the rock face and the direction of the trickling water.

Then he looked farther up the mountain.

There might be more deposits higher along the slope.

He tightened his grip on the stone pick and continued climbing.

Vorn returned to the settlement with a bundle of mineral samples and a small amount of clay-rich earth.

He had found the clay in a sheltered area where water had collected fine sediment. It was not pure, and he could not guarantee that it would make good pottery, but it had enough plasticity to hold a shape when wet.

That was a start.

He spread the earth on a flat stone and began working it with his hands.

First, he removed small roots and coarse fragments. Then he added a little water and kneaded the mixture until it became more uniform.

The clay clung to his fingers.

He pressed it into a rough lump, then tried shaping the walls of a small vessel.

The first attempt collapsed.

Vorn stared at the misshapen lump.

He had expected the process to be difficult. He had not expected the material to behave so differently from the neat mental model he had constructed.

In a drawing, a pot was simply a shape with a hollow interior and walls of consistent thickness.

In practice, the clay sagged under its own weight. The base became too thin when he pressed the walls upward. When he tried to correct one side, another side deformed.

He started again.

This time, he made a thicker base and built the walls gradually, pinching and smoothing the clay as he went. He kept the vessel simple, avoiding a narrow neck or complicated curves.

A squat pot would be easier to construct than a tall, elegant one.

He also mixed in a small amount of finely crushed stone grit. The temper would not make the vessel indestructible, but it could help control shrinkage and reduce cracking during drying and firing.

He worked slowly.

The pot began to take shape.

It was crude, uneven, and far smaller than he wanted. But it could potentially hold enough water for a useful test.

He was smoothing the rim when a shadow fell across the ground.

"What are you doing?"

Vorn looked up.

Kaleal stood a short distance away.

Even among the Barbarian children, Kaleal was easy to distinguish. His movements were quick and balanced, and he seemed to carry himself with an effortless confidence that Vorn found irritating.

Kaleal looked from Vorn to the clay.

"Making mud?"

"Making a pot."

"That looks like mud."

"It is mud."

Kaleal crouched to inspect the vessel.

Vorn continued smoothing the wall.

"Why?"

"Because I need a container that can hold water over a fire."

Kaleal glanced toward the nearby cooking area.

"Why not use a skin?"

"Because I need to heat the water."

"Then heat it."

"How?"

Kaleal opened his mouth, paused, and looked back at the pot.

Vorn returned to his work.

The answer was obvious to him. A container made from animal skin could carry water, but it could not simply sit over an open fire. Vorn needed something that could withstand heat without collapsing or leaking.

Kaleal picked up a loose piece of clay and pressed it between his fingers.

It flattened.

"Why not use a stone bowl?"

"Do you have one?"

"No."

"Then I will make a pot."

Kaleal gave him an unimpressed look.

"You could have asked someone to make one."

"Does someone here know how?"

Kaleal did not answer immediately.

Vorn took that as sufficient confirmation.

He returned his attention to the vessel, carefully reinforcing the base where the walls met. The shape was not perfectly symmetrical, but he had learned enough from his first attempt to keep it from collapsing.

Kaleal watched him for a while.

"What are you going to put in it?"

"Water."

"Only water?"

"To begin with."

Kaleal looked as though he wanted to ask more questions. Vorn was not particularly interested in explaining his entire plan to someone who had arrived only to criticize it.

He finished smoothing the rim.

"Don't touch it," he said. "It needs to dry."

Kaleal raised an eyebrow.

"I wasn't going to."

He stood and wandered away, though he glanced back once before disappearing around the rock wall.

Vorn looked down at the pot.

It was ugly.

It was also the first object he had made in this world for a purpose beyond immediate survival.

He placed it in a sheltered spot where the wind could reach it without exposing it to rain or direct heat.

Then he began preparing the next batch of clay.

If the first pot cracked, he wanted another attempt ready.

-

The clay needed time to dry.

Vorn understood that rushing the process would only create more work. A vessel that retained too much moisture could crack or even break apart when exposed to the heat of a fire.

He checked the pot each morning.

Its surface gradually became firmer. The color changed slightly as moisture escaped, and the walls began to hold their shape more reliably.

While he waited, he returned to the mountains.

This time, he was not alone.

Kaleal followed him along the trail.

Vorn noticed the other boy almost immediately.

"Why are you following me?"

"Why are you climbing the mountain again?"

"I'm looking for something."

"So am I."

"What?"

Kaleal grinned.

"You."

Vorn stared at him.

Kaleal laughed and continued up the trail.

Vorn considered telling him to leave. Instead, he decided that arguing would waste time.

He continued toward the mineral deposit.

The climb was harder than he had expected. The path narrowed around exposed rock, and several sections required him to use both hands to maintain his balance.

By the time he reached the deposit, his arms were already tired.

He set down his samples and began striking the rock.

The first blow chipped away a thin fragment.

The second glanced off the surface.

The third broke the edge of his stone pick.

Vorn examined the damaged tool.

The head was still attached, but the impact had chipped away part of the striking surface. The handle binding had loosened slightly.

He tightened it and tried again.

The result was marginally better.

He changed the angle of the strike, aiming at a visible fracture in the rock. A larger fragment broke free, but it fell into a narrow crack and wedged itself between two stones.

Vorn tried to pry it loose.

The tool slipped.

He struck again.

The fragment moved, but the pick's edge chipped further.

"You're hitting it wrong," Kaleal said.

Vorn did not look at him.

"I am hitting the rock."

"Yes. Wrongly."

"I would appreciate it if you stopped commenting and started being useful."

Kaleal folded his arms.

"You could ask."

Vorn gave him a sharp look.

"Show me, then."

Kaleal's grin widened.

He took the mining tool from Vorn and inspected its head.

"First, your grip is bad."

He adjusted Vorn's hands on the handle.

"Second, you're trying to force the rock apart with every part of your body. That's why you lose control when the tool strikes."

"That sounds like a problem with the tool."

"It's a problem with you."

Vorn's expression hardened.

Kaleal raised the pick.

"Watch."

He focused.

Vorn had seen children channel mana during their outdoor duels. He had watched the way they concentrated before a strike, the faint glow that sometimes appeared around a weapon, and the bursts of force that made their wooden swords collide with startling strength.

But this was different.

Kaleal's mana gathered around his hand and flowed into the tool.

The energy did not spread evenly through the entire object. It concentrated toward the striking end, forming a faint, controlled pattern.

Kaleal swung.

The pick struck the exposed rock with a sharp crack.

A large fragment broke away.

Vorn stared at the result.

Kaleal handed the tool back.

"Now you try."

Vorn adjusted his grip.

He knew how to think about force. He understood leverage, momentum, and the way the angle of impact affected how energy transferred into a material.

Mana was the unfamiliar part.

He closed his eyes briefly, trying to sense the energy he had seen Kaleal control.

Nothing happened.

He concentrated harder.

A faint sensation appeared in his hand, almost like pressure beneath the skin. He tried pushing it toward the handle.

The sensation spread through his palm and faded.

"You're forcing it," Kaleal said.

Vorn opened his eyes.

"How else am I supposed to move it?"

"Don't push everywhere. Focus."

"That explains nothing."

Kaleal sighed.

"Feel where it is. Then guide it."

Vorn tried again.

This time, he paid attention to the sensation itself rather than imagining the energy as something he could physically shove. He focused on the hand holding the tool, then the handle, then the head.

The flow weakened as he tried to direct it.

He adjusted his concentration.

A faint pulse reached the striking end.

It vanished almost immediately.

Kaleal nodded toward the rock.

"Hit it."

Vorn swung.

The impact was weak, but the tool struck more cleanly than before.

He tried again.

The mana dispersed halfway through the motion.

Again.

This time, he felt the energy reach the head, though the strike was poorly aligned.

He stopped and considered what had happened.

He had been treating mana as a force to be increased. But simply increasing it did not help if he could not direct it.

He needed control.

He drew a small diagram in his [Mind Blueprint]: a line representing the tool, a point representing the impact, and an arrow indicating the intended direction of flow.

Then he tried again.

He focused the mana into the handle, maintained its direction toward the head, and swung along the angle he had chosen.

The pick struck the rock.

A fragment broke loose.

Not as large as Kaleal's, but larger than the pieces Vorn had been extracting earlier.

He looked at the tool.

Then at the fragment.

Kaleal smirked.

"See?"

"I see that it works."

"Because I taught you."

"Because you explained it."

"Same thing."

"No. It isn't."

Kaleal laughed.

Vorn returned to mining.

He still lacked Kaleal's instinctive control. His mana flow was inconsistent, and concentrating it while coordinating his movements required effort. But now he understood the principle well enough to practice.

He experimented with the amount of mana, the angle of the tool, and the location of each strike. When a blow failed, he tried to identify why.

Kaleal occasionally corrected his grip or pointed out a better fracture to target.

Vorn accepted the corrections without thanking him.

Kaleal did not seem particularly bothered.

By the time they had collected a reasonable amount of material, Vorn's arms were aching. His stone pick had suffered further damage, but it remained usable.

He crouched beside the samples and activated Scan.

The mineral deposit appeared in his mental workspace as a set of contrasting patterns. Some fragments resembled the surrounding rock. Others had a more uniform structure, suggesting that they might belong to a different mineral layer.

That was promising.

It was not proof that the material was edible salt.

He would need to examine it more carefully before using it in a solution intended for sick people.

Vorn marked the location in his mental map and collected several representative samples.

Kaleal watched him arrange them.

"What are you doing now?"

"Recording the differences."

"Why?"

"So I don't have to search the entire mountain again."

Kaleal considered this.

"You could just remember where you found them."

"I could."

"Then why draw it?"

"Because a record is more reliable than memory."

Kaleal looked at the strange way Vorn had arranged the samples.

"You're strange."

"So I've been told."

They began the descent.

Halfway down, Kaleal asked, "What do you need the salt for?"

Vorn considered how much to explain.

"The people who are sick are losing too much water. I need to prepare something that helps replace what they're losing."

"Medicine?"

"Something like that."

"Will it cure them?"

"No."

Kaleal looked at him.

"Then what is the point?"

"It can help them survive while they're sick."

For once, Kaleal did not immediately make another joke.

He looked back toward the settlement.

"Then you'd better make it work."

Vorn turned away and continued walking.

He had not expected Kaleal to understand the whole problem. He did not expect anyone to understand it yet.

But Kaleal had shown him something useful, and Vorn had learned a technique he could not have mastered through diagrams alone.

He filed the experience away as another piece of information.

Then he returned to thinking about the pot.

-

Vorn had spent much of the following day checking the mineral samples.

Scan helped him compare their structures, but it could not establish every property that mattered. He needed a way to determine whether the material was actually suitable for consumption.

The distinction frustrated him.

In his previous life, he could consult references, inspect specifications, or obtain a sample for laboratory testing. Here, the information he needed was locked behind unfamiliar materials and limited tools.

He had to be cautious.

A substance that looked like salt was not necessarily sodium chloride. Using an unknown mineral in a medical solution could make a sick person worse.

He set the questionable samples aside.

The sugar problem remained.

Vorn sat near the edge of the settlement, studying the supplies people had gathered. There were dried plants, meat, animal fat, roots, and a few bundles of fibrous stalks.

He examined them without much success.

Then he remembered something.

The children received sugarcane when they won a duel.

He had seen it before, though he had never paid much attention to the practice. After a particularly good sparring match, a child might be given a stalk to chew while the others congratulated the winner.

Sugarcane.

A source of sugar.

The answer had been present in the tribe's customs all along.

Vorn mentally revised his list.

Clay: found.

Salt: still being investigated.

Sugar: potentially available.

Water: still required treatment.

The next problem was acquiring the sugarcane.

He could try winning a duel, but that would require time and a public contest. He would have to challenge someone, demonstrate his skill, and hope the reward was sufficient.

It was an inefficient method.

He could also ask for a stalk.

That would require explaining why he needed it, and he did not want to spend time answering questions about his project.

There was a third option.

Take it.

Vorn waited until the area where the tribe kept the stalks was quiet. He watched from behind a stone outcrop, observing the movements of the adults and children.

When the opportunity appeared, he slipped over, selected several stalks, and tucked them beneath his rough clothing.

He left without being noticed.

The act was not difficult.

He felt no great guilt about it. The sugarcane was a resource, and he had a use for it. He had not stopped to consider that the tribe's reward custom meant something to the children, or that someone might notice its absence.

His reasoning was simple.

He needed the material.

He had obtained it.

Back at his work area, he cut the stalks into smaller sections and began extracting the juice. He crushed the fibrous material using a heavy stone and collected the liquid in a clean container.

The juice was sweet.

That was encouraging, but sweetness alone did not tell him how much sugar it contained.

He could not treat concentrated cane juice as if it were identical to refined sugar. Its water content and concentration would affect the final mixture.

He would need to control the amount he used and avoid making assumptions about its composition.

Vorn sketched the process in his mental workspace.

Extract.

Measure.

Combine with safe water and suitable salt.

Check the proportions.

He did not have a modern measuring set, so he would have to establish a consistent method with the containers and tools available. That introduced uncertainty, but uncertainty was not an excuse to guess carelessly.

He set the extracted juice aside.

The pot was nearly ready.

If it survived firing, he could finally begin testing the complete process.

-

The pot had dried over several days.

Vorn inspected it carefully, turning it in his hands and checking the base and walls for visible cracks. The surface was rough, and the rim was uneven, but the vessel had retained its shape.

He placed it in a sheltered fire area and warmed it gradually before exposing it to stronger heat.

He had no kiln, no temperature gauge, and no reliable way to know exactly how hot the clay had become. He could only control the process as best he could, watching for signs of cracking and avoiding sudden changes in temperature.

The first firing was tense.

A sharp sound made him flinch. He leaned forward, expecting to see the pot split.

It held.

He waited longer before allowing it to cool.

When he finally lifted it, the vessel felt firm. Its color had changed, and the surface was no longer soft clay.

He tapped it gently with a wooden tool.

The sound was dull but solid.

It was not fine pottery. It might crack after repeated use, and he could not assume that it was perfectly watertight.

But it was usable enough to test.

Vorn cleaned it as thoroughly as he could, filled it with water, and placed it over a controlled fire.

The heating took time.

He watched the surface until the water reached a rolling boil, then maintained the boil long enough to make the water safer to drink. Afterwards, he moved the pot away from the fire and allowed the water to cool without leaving it exposed to dirt or careless handling.

The next step required even more caution.

He had obtained mineral samples that looked promising, but he could not simply trust their appearance. He continued examining the material and used the safest suitable salt available to him rather than treating an unidentified deposit as a confirmed ingredient.

The tribe had no refined sugar, but he had the cane juice.

He now faced the problem of proportions.

Too much salt could be dangerous. Too much sugar could worsen diarrhea by drawing additional water into the intestine. A solution that was too concentrated could cause harm instead of helping.

Vorn had learned the principle behind ORS, but he did not have a modern packet with standardized ingredients.

He used a consistent method to measure the ingredients he had verified, keeping the quantities conservative rather than pouring in whatever seemed right. He prepared only a limited amount at first.

Then he examined the result.

It was not the perfect, standardized solution he remembered from his previous life. The cane juice introduced uncertainty, and he could not measure its sugar concentration precisely. He knew that a reliable preparation would require better control over the ingredients.

But the attempt gave him a starting point.

He brought the prepared solution to the shelter.

The smell inside was heavy with smoke, sweat, and illness. People lay on hides and woven mats, some too weak to sit up without assistance.

The Shaman was talking to an older tribesman when Vorn approached.

"What have you got there?" the Shaman asked.

"Something to help the sick."

The Shaman looked at the container.

"Medicine?"

"Not exactly. It helps replace the water and salts their bodies are losing."

The Shaman frowned.

"Will it make them well?"

"Not by itself."

"Then why give it to them?"

"Because they keep losing water. If they lose too much, they'll die before they can recover."

The Shaman fell quiet.

He glanced toward the people lying on the ground. The rituals had not stopped the sickness. Whatever its cause, the people were still getting weaker.

"Can you use it on them?" he asked.

"On those who can drink safely. I'll start with a little and see how they handle it."

The Shaman nodded.

"Then try."

Vorn approached a man lying near the wall. The man was awake, though his face looked tired and drawn.

"Drink this slowly," Vorn said, offering the container.

The man sniffed it.

"What is it?"

"Something to help you get your strength back."

"Does it taste bad?"

"I don't know. Drink it."

The man gave him a suspicious look before taking a small sip.

He swallowed, made a face, and took another.

"Strange taste."

"It's supposed to."

"That doesn't make me feel better about it."

"Do you want to drink it or not?"

The man grumbled but continued drinking.

Vorn moved on to the next patient, explaining the same thing each time. He watched to make sure they could swallow and did not force the mixture on anyone who was too weak to drink safely.

It took time.

There were too many sick people and too little equipment. He had to keep track of the water, the ingredients, and how much he prepared. Every batch required another round of heating, cooling, and measuring.

After a while, the man from earlier called out to him.

"Hey."

Vorn turned.

The man had managed to sit up. He still looked sick, but he seemed more alert.

"What?"

"I'm thirsty again."

"Then drink some more, slowly."

The man took another drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"That's better."

Vorn watched him for a moment.

"How are you feeling?"

"Still tired. My stomach hurts."

"Then keep resting."

The man looked toward the entrance.

"Can I go hunting tomorrow?"

Vorn stared at him.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you're sick."

"But I feel better!"

"You were lying on the floor an hour ago."

The man grunted.

"I've hunted with worse injuries than this."

"Then you've made some bad decisions."

The man looked offended.

Vorn turned away before he could answer.

Their bodies might be tougher than ordinary humans, but that doesn't mean they can ignore an illness.

He had no idea how much their giant ancestry affected their recovery. He wasn't going to assume that physical strength made them immune to dehydration.

Feeling better was encouraging, but it didn't mean the danger had passed.

He continued helping the others.

The Shaman watched him work, occasionally asking what he needed or helping direct another adult to bring water. He didn't understand the mixture's purpose completely, but he could see that Vorn was taking care with each batch.

When Vorn finally reached his younger sister, she was lying on her side.

He knelt and offered her the container.

"Drink a little."

She took a small sip.

"More," he said after she swallowed.

She drank again, then turned her face away.

"Enough?"

"For now."

Vorn set the container beside her.

He checked that someone could keep an eye on her, then returned to the other patients.

There was still too much to do.

He continued helping the people who could drink, while urging the adults to seek the Shaman's attention for those who were severely ill.

The work consumed the rest of the day.

Collecting water. Heating it. Waiting for it to cool. Preparing another batch. Keeping the containers clean. Measuring ingredients again.

He quickly realized that a single pot was not enough.

Neither was one person.

By evening, the shelter was still full of sick people. Some remained dangerously weak. The outbreak had not stopped.

Vorn sat outside with the empty pot beside him.

His first solution had worked only in the narrowest sense: he had made a way to prepare safer water and a rehydration mixture.

It was not a cure.

It was not enough for everyone.

And it did not remove the cause of the outbreak.

He looked toward the shared water source.

The next problem was already waiting.

-

Vorn returned to the shared water source the following morning.

The water moved over stone, clear enough that someone could easily mistake its appearance for proof of cleanliness. People had been collecting it for as long as anyone in the settlement could remember.

That familiarity was part of the problem.

A source could be used for generations and still become contaminated. Human or animal waste upstream could introduce pathogens without leaving any visible sign.

Boiling water in individual batches could reduce the danger, provided it was done correctly. But the tribe had few suitable vessels, limited fuel, and many people who needed water every day.

Even if Vorn produced enough ORS for the sick, the tribe would continue drinking from the same source unless its collection practices changed.

He crouched near the stream and studied the surrounding terrain.

Where did the water originate?

How did it travel down the mountain?

Where did animals gather?

Where might waste enter the flow?

He used Scan to examine the rock and the immediate surroundings. The ability helped him distinguish surfaces and identify structural differences, but it could not reveal every pathogen or certify that a water source was safe.

He needed to investigate the terrain itself.

Vorn followed the stream uphill.

The ground became rougher as he climbed. The water narrowed between stones, then disappeared beneath a shelf of rock before emerging again farther up the slope.

He continued until he found a natural spring.

Water seeped from a crack between exposed rocks, collecting in a small basin before flowing downhill.

Vorn watched it for several minutes.

A spring was not automatically safe. Its catchment could still be contaminated, and he would need to examine the surrounding area carefully. But it offered a possible alternative to the tribe's current collection point.

He began thinking about how to protect it.

First, the collection point would need to be kept clean and away from places where people or animals could contaminate the water.

Second, the tribe would need suitable containers for transporting and storing it.

Third, he needed to understand how the spring's flow changed over time. A small trickle might not provide enough water for the settlement.

Finally, he needed a practical way to bring the water to a protected collection point without creating another source of contamination.

Vorn opened his [Mind Blueprint].

Blue lines formed the rough outline of the mountain. He added the spring, the settlement, the slope between them, and the existing water source.

He rotated the model.

A route that looked simple from one direction crossed a steep drop from another. Another route avoided the drop but passed through a narrow section where loose stone might make construction difficult.

He began sketching alternatives.

He needed something simpler: a protected source, a reliable collection point, and a way to store water without contaminating it.

Perhaps a small channel could be built where the terrain allowed. Perhaps containers or hollowed plant sections could help transport limited quantities. The best design would depend on what he could find and what he could construct.

He needed to measure the route, inspect the materials, and determine how much water the spring could provide.

Vorn marked the spring's location in his mental workspace.

Then he looked toward the settlement below.

Now he faced the same problem on a larger scale.

The spring was only the beginning.

But he had found the next problem to solve.

And this time, he would need more than a diagram.