Oh this isn't a normal blacksmith forge. It's a huge thing with loads of workers. Like a mini industrial foundry.

The concentrated solar energy is used to melt steel inside silicon carbide crucibles. You put your steel in and send er up! Once melted, they bring it down and pour it out into molds or they can direct the concentrated sunlight down into a pseudo crucible (an oven, really) that heats the object to workable temperatures.

They've got it down to a science, literally.

Then my protagonist comes along and tells them about the Bessemer process and the blacksmith (his dad) is like, "well FUCK! We just revamped the whole forge two years ago!"

There's a forger's guild and they're super excited about the information the MC gave them and all the blacksmiths in the guild are rushing to be the first to get that process working.

My MC was a biologist in their past life, but they're all into this forge stuff! From their perspective, they are like a forger's guild superstar, haha. Even nearby royalty are trying to get his attention (steal him away to their countries). Even though he wasn't really an expert on metallurgy in his past life. He just knows a bit more than the current world's level of technology.

Then he accidentally gets himself stuck as a girl at age ~13.5 by being hexed by a witch into a Common Reed Frog for a month (that species can change its sex under certain conditions). Hahaha.

Suddenly the forger's guild isn't interested in her anymore. She's tiny! She can't wield a hammer or move heavy steel works!

She ends up getting stuck working as a seamstress apprentice for ~2.5 years, waiting for the [Shapeshifter] [Sex Change] skill to unlock (it's an "adults-only skill" so The System won't let her use it until then).

This entire time he/she has been trying to min/max their build. Unlock all the skills! Level them up to max level! Which is the attitude that got him stuck as her in the first place.

I've got all sorts of cool "tech uplift" stuff in the story:

• MC upgrades the biogas system to bubble the gas through slaked lime to remove the CO2 to make it burn hotter (she ends up needing all those crushed sea shells and limestone later for [Bone Shaping] which lets her make stuff out of bone).
• The process of refining aluminum starts: Bayer process, then struggling to make magnets and electricity for the Hall–Héroult process.
• Explaining the process to make flat glass (pouring on molten tin) and trying to come up with a way to do that with solar energy.
• Loads and loads of ceramic pipes in and out of the volcano, haha.
• Sulfur harvesting to make, well, everything haha.
• Trying to remember how to make silver nitrate to make good mirrors.

Etc etc.

All while this is going on, she's an unhinged maniac, bleeding herself as much as possible every day to level up her [Blood Production] skill (which she unlocked after getting her first period! Haha).

She also laid hundreds of frog eggs when she was stuck as a frog and now those "kids" are growing up as sapient half human frogs. They need bedtime stories! Hehe.

It's a comedy and I have so much silliness to cover, I don't think I could cram it all into a traditional publishing format without sacrificing a lot of the world building that I want to do.

I know that's a classic mistake! Too much detail! However, if I squeeze a little bit in every chapter and focus on character development, maybe I can keep the reader interested throughout it all 🤷