Gelu pulled three forging hammers of different sizes from his belt pouch and set them on the workbench.
The smallest one was three times heavier than the heavy hand hammer Su Li had used in his old world.
Su Li picked it up and tested it. One hand on the handle, he raised it and brought it down. The hammer face struck a piece of scrap iron used for testing.
It missed.
He had enough strength, but not enough control. The gravity here had thrown all his muscle memory into disarray. The feel he had honed over three hundred years in his old world needed to be recalibrated from scratch here.
He switched to gripping the hammer with both hands.
The first strike landed half a finger's width too far to the right. The second was too strong, directly smashing the scrap sheet out of shape. The third barely landed where it should, but his wrist twitched as he withdrew the hammer, dragging the part he had just corrected out of alignment again.
All three attempts were ruined.
Su Li set down the hammer, his palms slick with sweat.
Gelu sat on a low stool beside him, chewing dry rations as he watched. He neither urged him on nor mocked him. When Su Li failed for the third time, he merely pointed at a brass timer beneath the furnace.
"Eight. Copper Wheels." Gelu raised eight fingers, then made a gesture like overturning an hourglass.
Eight Copper Wheels per hour. That was the furnace fee.
Su Li did the math. He only had two Copper Wheels left in his pocket. In other words, he had only fifteen minutes of furnace time to make mistakes.
The two loaves beside the bread stall still had to serve as today's breakfast and dinner.
"Scrap."