Chapter 237: Invitation
Back in his office, Roland spread fresh paper and began drawing.
The days since the First Army and witches had departed for King’s City had been, paradoxically, the busiest of his year. Without Nightingale, without the expedition contingent, the shape of Border Town’s problems changed—less immediate and deadly, more structural, requiring the kind of patient sustained work that he found easier to lose himself in. Even the rare quiet evenings with Anna were rare in practice: there were too many displaced people to house, too many processes to establish, too many machines left unbuilt.
The smelting work had absorbed weeks. The old method—all accumulated feel, no verifiable standard—had been replaced. With Lucia’s material decomposition ability providing exact composition data after every melt, Roland could now write down the process: stirring time, charcoal quantities, limestone for sulfur and phosphorus, alloy ratios. The same quality of iron ingot. The same quality of steel. Every time. A craft that had spent centuries inside individual craftsmen’s hands had been made into something transferable.
The new furnace was built for this—four meters square, two high, tilted to a steam-driven discharge gate, Anna’s black fire replacing what would otherwise have needed a combustion system. Fifty tons a melt. Half an hour to smelt. An hour total. Sufficient.
What he was drawing now was the bullet stamping equipment—because Anna’s black fire was precise but slow, and a line of stamping machines with thirty ordinary operators could produce ten thousand rounds a day, and soldiers would no longer reload by hand.
He drew past dinner. The midnight bell rang while his pen was still moving. He put it down, looked at the twelve sheets spread across the desk—initial concepts, details still to be tested—and felt something he rarely felt at the end of a workday: not tired, not drained, but wound tighter than when he’d started.
He gathered the drafts. Put them away. Took Tilly’s letter from the drawer.
If this were any other evening he would already be half asleep. Tonight he wasn’t even close. He gathered the drafts, put them away, and took Tilly’s letter out of the drawer.
The appended list.
More than sixty auxiliary witches with their abilities described. From what Maggie had told him, Sleeping Island sheltered somewhere between two and three hundred people—meaning Tilly had chosen carefully what to share. A reasonable opening move from a careful leader. She had offered enough to demonstrate sincerity without surrendering everything at once.
He put up a fresh candle and began reading through the names.
By the time he had gone through the list three times, comparing against Border Town’s current needs and future trajectory, he had his five. He set the list aside, drew a new sheet of parchment toward him, and began writing.
My dear sister—I am very glad to have received your letter.
I am both excited and pleased by your decision. With your assistance, my chances of withstanding the Church’s eventual assault improve considerably.
As for how I obtained the witches’ trust: the reason is simply this. Within all of Graycastle, Border Town alone has completely erased the Church’s influence. The native population does not merely tolerate witches—they fight alongside them. From the battle against the demonic beasts through the confrontation with the Church’s forces, my people and the witches have become inseparable. Witches can be seen throughout the town, participating in construction, operating machinery. The steam engine you found interesting was possible only because of a witch. This is not the end but the beginning—my intention is to extend this to the Western Territory, and eventually the whole kingdom.
To do that, the Church must be entirely dismantled, and their teaching that witches are the Devil’s messengers must be turned to dust. Rescuing an entire civilization from that kind of ignorance will be slow work. But I cannot do it without your help.
As for what changed me—that is a long story, better told in person than on paper. There is not space here to do it justice.
Concerning the visit next month: I look forward to it. There is a route I have already planned that avoids the Church’s eyes and ears from beginning to end, requiring no harbor passage. The only risk is the navigation itself—but if you allow Maggie to fly ahead and show the way, the possibility of losing the route is small. I will attach the map to Maggie when I send her back.
When the witches arrive, they will of course attend the Basic Knowledge lessons. I am more and more convinced that what drives evolution is not the knowledge itself, but a deeper understanding of the world—of nature, of magic, of oneself. Every witch who evolves is one more reason for the Church to be afraid of us. On this we are agreed.
The five I have selected from your list:
Land Shaper — Lotus.
State Preserver — Candle.
Winemaker — Evelyn.
Beast Tamer — Honey.
And Eye of Truth — Sylvie.
I wish you all the best. Your brother, Roland Wimbledon.
Chapter 237 Invitation
After returning to his office, Roland immediately began to draw the blueprints for the new machines.
During the days, the First Army and witches had all gone to King’s City, instead of doing nothing, Roland felt that he was busier than ever. Even without Nightingale around, Anna’s and his time spent alone with one another was also very rare. Besides finding a place for the refugees to live that were coming with each ship, he also asked Anna and Lucia to test the composition of smelting products together, as well as constructing a new smelting furnace.
Before, no matter if it was smelting iron or making steel, it had purely been done by experience and feeling, never knowing what the result would be after the refining. But now with Lucia’s help, Roland finally had a precise method for determining the composition of the ingots. With the aid from the material decomposition ability, he could finally obtain the necessary detailed data for smelting metal after repeated comparisons between results. For example, the post-melting stirring time, the exact amount of charcoal added, and whether to add limestone or other additives to remove sulfur and phosphorus, or which other metals and raw materials had to be added to get alloy and so forth…
Based on these data, Roland could summarize a standard process for the smelting industry, which would guarantee the continuous production of iron ingots and steel that had the same quality each time. This would also disperse the dense fog hovering over the material science and engineering field.
The new smelting furnace had also been built for this reason.
It was a square furnace with a length and width of four meters, and a height of two meters, with the bottom tilted towards one end. It’s thick outer shell was made of pig iron, while the internal layer consisted of clay bricks as
well as Soraya’s “earth” coating, which all guaranteed excellent heat resistance. The lower end was provided with a movable gate, which was driven by a steam engine. Considering that those high-end heating methods, such as oxygen, electric arc and so on haven’t reached the implementation stage yet, the furnace simply didn’t have any combustion systems installed – And depended entirely on Anna’s black fire for smelting molten steel. After adding the right amount of raw materials and to smelt the metal in accordance with the finished test, the molten steel was directly discharged from the tailgate.
The furnace could produce 50 ton of steel at once, and with it, Anna would only need a short half hour to complete the smelting. Together with the feeding and tapping time, it would take around one hour to complete, its output could then meet the current need for firearms and artillery production. Nowadays the town’ smelting plan was that the group of blast furnaces and shaft furnace were responsible for producing a great amount of pig iron, which was not only be used in the manufacturing of the daily use ironware and steam engines but could also be used as the raw material for further smelting, for example wrought iron or steel.
…
The blueprints Roland was currently drawing, was the set of production equipment used for bullet stamping – with a stable and reliable source of steel, processing and assembling a stamping machine would no longer be hindered by material problems. So, when the trial production of the mercury fulminate succeeded, they could immediately start with mass production of the new bullets. Even though cutting with Anna’s black fire was efficient and accurate, but even in the case where a person could complete the whole process, they would still need to spend a long time doing so. However, in the event that a line of stamping machines was put into production, after learning how to operate them, more than 30 ordinary people could at least produce ten thousand bullets per day. Furthermore, the soldiers would also no longer need to manually reload their ammunition.
Even after dinner, he was still busy drawing, only when the sound of the midnight bell came through the window could his set of sketches be considered complete. Of course, this was merely the most initial plan of his
concept, he still didn’t know if some of the details was feasible, and because of this it needed to be tested before he could finalize his plan.
If it were like usual, Roland would have already yawned again and again, but today he was in high spirits, not feeling even a little sleepy at all.
After putting the more than ten recently drawn draft papers away, Roland took the attached parchment to the 5th Princess letter out of the drawer, spread it over the table, and finally came to the long awaited task – the selection of the visiting witches.
The list held more than 60 auxiliary witches and their abilities, but from Maggie’s mouth, Roland had heard that Sleeping Island sheltered between two hundred to three hundred people, which made it obviously that Tilly had not put all of the auxiliary witches on the list at his table. This was also in line with the way a leader should behave — taking the initiative to reach out her hand in friendship, rather than holding on to family bonds. In this way, the opposite party had already expressed enough of their sincerity in wishing to form an alliance. Then Roland put up a new candle and concentrate on going over the witch abilities on the appendix.
He soon had to acknowledge, that this was a tough decision to make, but after a going through the list many times and comparing them from all sides, he finally chose the name of his five visitors.
Roland then spread out a new piece of parchment and began to write his reply.
“My dear sister, I am very glad to have received your letter.
“I am excited and pleased with your decision, with your assistance, I now have a bigger chance of blocking the Church’s assault.
“The reason I could obtain the witches’ trust and support, is because of this: within the entire Kingdom of Graycastle, only Border Town has completely erased the influence of the Church. Not only do the natives accept the witches, they even fight together, side by side. Beginning from the battle against the demonic beasts upto the confrontation with the Church, my people
and witches have come to form an inseparable whole. Nowadays, the figures of witches can be seen everywhere within the town participating in the construction. The steam engine that makes you wonder was also only possible to achieve due to the help of a witch. All this is already a good start, and all I have to do is to extend this situation to the whole of the Western Territory, until it spreads through the entire kingdom.
“Therefore, I have to destroy the entire Church, and turn their statement that the witches are the Devil’s messenger into dust. However, rescuing all the people from their ignorance and stupidity will be a long and slow process, for which I will need even more help from you.
“Concerning, what would lead to this decision, what caused me to no longer so indifferent to everything as I was in the past, are trivialities that can slowly be elaborated on when we have the time, but the ability to express oneself in a letter is limited, so I won’t say more than is necessary.
“Concerning the witches’ visit next month, I’m very much looking forward to it. There is no reason to be anxious about their safety, I have already planned a direct route to Border Town for them, which will also allow you to avoid the eyes and ears of the Church completely and which doesn’t need the support of a harbor. The only risk will be the navigation, however, if you let Maggie fly in front of you to show you the way, there will be only be a tiny possibility losing your way. I will attach a map with the specific route to Maggie when I send her to Sleeping Island.
“When these witches arrive at Border Town, they will naturally be able to participate in the lessons of Basic Knowledge – the so-called knowledge which boosts the evolution of the witch’s ability. However, I am more inclined to the idea that it actually a deeper understanding of the world itself that leads to their transformation, whether it was regarding nature, magic, not excluding the understanding of their own person. I have not the least doubt that our odds of winning in a fight against the Church increases with every witch able to evolve her ability, on this point your opinion and mine are completely in line.
“Finally, I will now list the five selected witches and I hope to see them as soon as possible.
“Land Shaper – Lotus.
“State Preserver – Candle.
“Winemaker – Evelyn.
“Beast Tamer – Honey.
“As well as Eye of Truth – Sylvie.
“I wish you all the best. Your brother, Roland Wimbledon.”