Kabanata 5: 5. Tools of the Trade
The hammer snapped clean in half.
The blacksmith—broad-shouldered, sweat pouring down his soot-streaked face—cursed under his breath as the wooden shaft splintered. He tossed the broken handle aside, muttering about poor oak and weaker trade routes.
Our "Oracle" watched from the workshop doorway, curiosity prickling at him. Smoke curled from the forge, the smell of iron and charcoal thick in the air. Sparks danced with every strike, but the rhythm faltered whenever tools gave out.
He stepped inside, ducking beneath the low lintel. "So… blacksmithing patch day?"
The blacksmith blinked, not understanding, then shrugged. "Iron dulls. Wood breaks. We make do."
But the programmer saw more than tools. He saw glowing glyphs crawling across every object in the room—scripts of durability, strength, sharpness. Most were written with sloppy shorthand, centuries-old functions cobbled together without optimization.
It was like watching someone run modern code on Windows 95.
His fingers twitched. "Mind if I… take a look?"
The blacksmith hesitated. Then, remembering who stood before him, he stepped aside. "Do as the Oracle wills."
The broken hammer glowed faintly.durability = 0;material_integrity = false;
He smirked. Easy fix. He rewrote the durability function to scale with material density, not just arbitrary values. Then he applied a reinforcement subroutine:durability = material_strength * 2;
The hammer re-formed in his hand, the wood knitting back together, stronger than before. The iron head gleamed as if freshly polished.
The blacksmith's jaw dropped. He grabbed the hammer, swung it hard against the anvil—and the clang rang out crisp and clean. No cracks. No splinters.
"By the gods," the blacksmith whispered.
The Oracle grinned. "Nah. By patch notes."
Word spread. Within hours, villagers lined up with tools—hoes, plows, knives, axes. He debugged them all, tweaking edge retention, sharpening routines, and resilience functions. Rust dissolved. Blades gleamed. Handles felt lighter yet sturdier.
The village's productivity doubled overnight. Farmers plowed faster. Carpenters cut smoother. Even the children's wooden toys seemed unbreakable after a casual tweak.
And every successful fix filled him with a quiet thrill. This wasn't just survival anymore. This was optimization.
But not all scripts were simple.
One afternoon, Maren brought him to her healer's hut. The shelves overflowed with dried herbs, poultices, and tinctures. She pointed to a bundle of bitterroot. "This cures fever, but often weakens the body. Can you make it safer?"
He picked it up. The glyphs glowed faintly:effect = reduce_fever;side_effect = weaken_body;
He frowned. A dual-function script, tied together by poor logic. He split the functions apart, isolating the fever-reduction while nullifying the weakness trigger.
effect1 = reduce_fever;effect2 = none;
The herb pulsed faintly, brighter and cleaner. He handed it back. "Try it now. Should debug the side effects."
Maren tested cautiously on a fevered child. Within minutes, the boy's cheeks cooled, his breathing eased—and his body didn't sag with exhaustion.
She turned to him, awe flickering in her eyes. For once, her calm broke. "You… you changed medicine itself."
He swallowed hard, realizing what that meant. It wasn't just farming now. It wasn't just tools. He was rewriting biology.
And biology was… fragile.
Still, experiments grew.
At the carpenter's request, he strengthened beams used in housing, doubling their load-bearing code. Roofs became sturdier, safer. At night, he tinkered with oil lamps, optimizing burn rate for longer light without more fuel.
Each improvement brought cheers, gratitude, reverence. The villagers began to call him not only Oracle, but Maker. A title that made his chest tighten.
Because with every miracle, with every optimization, he felt the ripple spread wider—like pinging a server and knowing someone on the other end was logging the request.
Someone had to be noticing.
That evening, Maren found him again by the fields, where fireflies floated among the crops. She carried a jug of water and sat beside him, quiet for a while before speaking.
"You give much," she said softly. "But I see your eyes. Each act costs you."
He rubbed his temples, exhaustion buzzing behind his eyes like static. "It's not just the energy. It's… the weight. Every change I make? It rewrites the world. And the world doesn't like being rewritten too much."
She studied him. "Then why do it?"
He looked at the glowing fields, the laughter echoing from sturdy homes, the child who'd been healed hours earlier.
"Because… for once in my life, I can fix things that matter."
Silence stretched between them, comfortable yet heavy. Finally, she said, "Then may the Maker find balance, before the world decides the cost."
Her words lingered like a warning.
The next day, he decided to push one last experiment—architecture.
The villagers were building a new granary, stacking stone upon stone with rope pulleys and sheer muscle. He crouched near the base stones, scanning their glyphs.
weight_tolerance = limited;stability = 70%;
Not good enough. He optimized the load distribution, rewriting functions so weight spread evenly across the structure.
The moment the changes took, the foundation pulsed, anchoring into the earth as if welded by invisible hands. The walls rose faster, straighter, stronger.
By sunset, the granary stood finished—a project that should've taken weeks, completed in a single day. The villagers cheered, calling it the Oracle's Storehouse.
He smiled with them. But deep down, his gut twisted. Each miracle made life better. But each miracle also sent that ripple further outward.
And in the dark corners of the world, something—or someone—was watching.
That night, as he lay awake staring at the ceiling beams, he whispered to himself:
"Okay, patching farming, tools, medicine, buildings… what's next? Version 2.0 of society?"
His laugh was hollow. Because he already knew the answer.
When systems change too fast, someone always tries to roll them back.
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