Chapter 137 — Pea

With Frostmoon approaching, the weather was growing colder day by day, yet the new Cecil domain was steadily getting onto the right track. The first generation of mana engines—adjusted and optimized from prototype to practical model thanks to Nicholas's tinkering—had now formally appeared before the domain's people. These bizarre, immensely powerful machines, which ran on magic yet could be operated by ordinary folk, had made many people's eyes pop. When they were first put into use, quite a few serfs and commoners had watched those machines with eyes full of fear—as though they believed countless invisible little devils dwelled between the repulsion mechanisms and the connecting-rod bearings, and that it was devils' hands pushing those heavy, terrifying pieces of steel into motion. At first it had been difficult to recruit operators because of this, and later even coercive measures had been needed to ensure every machine had enough hands to run it...

But this ignorant and ridiculous state of affairs lasted only a very short time.

At Gao Yang's insistence, the domain upheld a system of "public proclamation" and "enlightenment"—all new things, whether new laws or new machines, had to be repeatedly read out and explained to the people. Gao Yang was determined to stamp out ignorance and foolishness in this land, so within a few days people came to know that those machines were a brand-new kind of magical device, and that ordinary people could operate them not because devils inside were draining the souls and flesh of common folk, but because they were the crystallization of wisdom and craft.

In his propaganda, Gao Yang deliberately emphasized the presence of "ordinary people" throughout the machine's research and development team, and in particular had the names of all the craftsmen who had taken part in the early development engraved upon the machines' surfaces. Those craftsmen lived alongside everyone else day to day, and thus reaped countless looks of admiration and praise. What Gao Yang reaped was the slowly kindling spirit of those once-numb and ignorant serfs and commoners.

Now in the domain, one could already see ordinary people walking about with smiles on their faces.

And driven by the surging power of the mana engines, all manner of basic production in the domain was proceeding at a jaw-dropping pace.

The mine was now using mana engines to haul ore carts and pump out seepage, and the supply of iron ore was becoming steady. The only thing limiting supply now was the uneven road between the mine and the steelworks, and Gao Yang had already ordered that stretch of road built. With Hetty's magical assistance, leveling the ground and laying a simple road was not difficult at all.

The machine works' production pace was astonishing. That iron-skinned star-man's golden thigh—though he had no legs at all—proved even more formidable than Gao Yang had anticipated. Every manner of simple lathe he could conceive of was being turned out day and night; had it not been for the rune-furnaces powered by the Magic Web and the ample ore supply already in place, the entire domain's steel reserves would likely have failed to keep pace with Nicole's consumption.

The brickworks had already put the simple molding machines from the machine works to use, and Rebecca's tinkering with "cement" had yielded preliminary results—she had managed to produce a binding substance of acceptable strength. Though output and yield rates remained problematic, Gao Yang could now begin to consider moving the domain beyond wooden huts and tents into a phase of "hard buildings"...

With material construction proceeding so smoothly, the greatest problem was the shortage of talent.

Labor was not a problem for the moment, since the area opened up in the domain was still only so large, but the steady stream of new machinery and new techniques had no sufficient pool of people to maintain them and keep pushing them forward.

Technological progress cannot be carried by a handful of individuals. Though the occasional flash of inspiration from a rare genius might indeed produce something capable of transforming an age, to spread such things and form a sustained industrial chain required a great mass of mid- and low-level technical personnel.

Among those hundred people there were not many "geniuses"—scarcely even many capable hands.

Not everyone cast out by mainstream society for being unorthodox is a genius; often they are excluded merely for having low emotional intelligence—and the emotional intelligence they lose does not turn into skill points added to their intellect.

Gao Yang had once said, "The domain welcomes the unorthodox," but that had been more to encourage himself and lift spirits than anything else. He knew perfectly well that expecting the royal capital to sift a hundred epoch-makers for him was utterly unrealistic, and the facts bore this out: apart from Jenny—a talent of enormous value—and a few promising seedlings, those hundred people were by and large mediocrities. They might handle their assigned work, but no more could be asked of them.

Who knew how many educated people Viscount Andrew might find for him... Considering the overall level of education in this age, one could not hope for too much.

Just then, a shout from not far off abruptly interrupted Gao Yang's musings.

"Ancestor-worshiper~! Ancestor-worshiper~!" Rebecca came bounding and skipping toward him, yelling at the top of her lungs, brandishing her signature iron staff in one hand and a large roll of paper in the other.

At the sight of the iron staff in the girl's hand, Gao Yang gave an involuntary shudder—was she here to test the Rite of Repose on him again, on behalf of the Frostvein Sect?

But then he saw Jenny following behind Rebecca. The runesmith lady was carrying even more scrolls, and she was running after Rebecca with considerable difficulty, calling out for Rebecca to slow down.

Only then did Gao Yang breathe a sigh of relief: it seemed Rebecca was not here to murder her ancestor...

After the two of them had run up to him, Gao Yang regarded his great-*-plus-one-granddaughter with curiosity: "Slow down, slow down, catch your breath—what's happened to you?"

"I... the two of us studied the wild mage's notes and... and those rune patterns," Rebecca panted heavily, then drew a deep breath and got it all out in one go, "and then we calculated the Magic Web's infinite expansion structure!!"