[Chapter Size: 1200 Words.]
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Hearing Tyrion's words, Melisandre began to chant incantations.
With a deafening roar, flames burst from her hands out of thin air.
"What the hell is this?" Tyrion exclaimed, wide-eyed with shock.
Magic was returning, and at a pace unprecedented in history. Never before had a magical tide risen so swiftly. The Night King's power would soon eclipse that of any age before.
Melisandre's tone grew grave. This magical surge was far too strange.
It advanced a hundred times faster than any phenomenon ever recorded, as though some hidden valve had burst open.
It was terrifying. If even pyromancers could wield fire with mere spoken spells, then the Night King's sorcery of ice would reach unimaginable levels.
As a servant of the Lord of Light, Melisandre believed it was her duty to stop this. She intended to aid Theon in uniting Westeros before the Long Night arrived, and then rally the continent's strength to defend the Wall.
"I know magic exists. I know there are strange sorcerers in Essos, but… but you…" Tyrion faltered, unable to put words to what he had just witnessed.
To him, warlocks and mages were lunatics, their spells dependent on lengthy rituals and bloody sacrifices.
Never had he seen fire conjured from nothing by a mere incantation. Even the old books described such feats only in scattered fragments.
At that moment, Tyrion suddenly recalled a phrase Theon had spoken casually when reading a letter of plea from the Wall, sent to King's Landing.
At the time, Theon had said: "It's far too early for this cursed thing to come. Just make sure Daenerys isn't killed."
No one paid attention then, thinking it one of his jests.
But now, it seemed Theon had already known something about the White Walkers.
"Theon is not in the Riverlands. He's at Pyke. I'll send someone to take you to him, but first, you'll need an identity."
"That strange little card?" Melisandre asked curiously.
"Yes. Every person, from birth, is registered at the local office."
Tyrion then arranged for the fastest passenger ship to carry Melisandre to Pyke.
At the same time, he penned a letter and sent a raven to the Iron Islands.
Meanwhile, Theon was reading a desperate plea from the Wall. The Night's Watch had only a few hundred men left, their food supplies dangerously scarce.
Scouts reported that one hundred thousand wildlings were marching toward the Wall, seemingly fleeing from something unspeakable.
According to earlier reports, it was almost certainly the White Walkers, or, at the very least, the wildlings were in flight from them.
"André, increase next year's recruitment by ten thousand. That will make it thirty thousand in total."
"Yes, Your Majesty," André replied. That year, Riverlands revenue had reached nearly four million, with soap trade to Essos accounting for nearly half.
Theon then visited a newly built factory not far from Pyke.
Several scholars were staring at the massive structure before them, their eyes shining as though they had discovered priceless treasure.
"What?" Theon asked suddenly, startling the maesters.
"Your Majesty, you're here!"
"You are correct. Mixing wood ash with water in a 1:20 ratio and filtering it with charcoal can indeed remove most impurities. Judging by current results, the chances of producing fine salt are very high!"
At the maester's words, Theon's eyes lit up. The process of refining salt was not overly complicated, the difficulty lay in the fact that fine salt had always been a royal monopoly.
But Theon cared little for such restrictions. All he needed was secrecy.
As with the soap factory, none of the workers here were ever allowed to leave. Even their families were kept under Theon's supervision.
Suddenly, Theon remembered the method of producing fine salt. He had forgotten it before, losing what amounted to a year's worth of gold.
Fortunately, it was not too late. Pyke had no shortage of seawater for producing coarse salt. Had Theon developed fine salt earlier and sold it to Essos, the profits would have been several times greater than those from soap.
After all, fine salt was indispensable to every noble household, especially among the slaveholders of Essos. Wealthy and indulgent, they would gladly pay a high price for Theon's refined product.
Once the salt was ready, it would be packaged in small glass bottles, five centimeters tall and three centimeters wide, and sold to Essos at a provisional price of one gold dragon per bottle.
Glass already existed in Westeros, though its production had long been monopolized by the Citadel, which had profited greatly by selling it at high prices.
For Theon, however, glassmaking was not overly difficult. The true challenge lay in producing sodium carbonate.
The process of creating soda ash was complicated, making it impossible for Theon to mass-produce glass at present, a pity indeed.
Westeros did have its own methods of refining salt, but even the so-called royal salt was tinged with yellow, still far from the pure, snow-white salt Theon's process produced.
A single filtration method could yield a wide variety of refined salts.
This year, Theon's Department of Engineering had created many useful inventions. Though some experiments produced nothing but rubbish, any device that boosted productivity was worth the effort.
For example, the loom allowed a woman to weave four times faster than before. A family owning one could earn as much from cloth production alone as they had previously earned from all their work combined.
Though the loom was far inferior to the legendary "Jenny," once a prototype existed, further improvements would be far easier.
The development of the steam engine, however, faced grave difficulties. Two craftsmen had already died in an explosion.
The problems were clear: the poor quality of steel, inadequate sealing, and extremely low efficiency in transferring power.
According to Theon, the most recent steam engine could not even power a simple cart, let alone a ship or train.
After inspecting the progress on refined salt production, Theon returned to Pyke with a sense of excitement.
By now, the inventions created by the Department of Engineering, drawn from Theon's memories, had greatly boosted productivity in the Riverlands. With the addition of refined salt, Theon stood poised to amass a fortune.
Higher productivity meant faster population growth. According to current statistics, the population of Riverrun was expected to reach 3.6 million by the year's end.
Theon estimated that, at present, the Riverlands could support a maximum of one hundred thousand full-time soldiers.
Thanks to his productivity levels, far beyond the current medieval standard, the proportion of troops in Riverrun reached an impressive 2.8%.
Still, Theon would never allow the Riverlands to outgrow its capacity. Judging by the situation, large-scale war would not come for a few more years.
He still had time to prepare. Resistant strains of wheat were already being cultivated on the fertile fields around Riverrun. In two years' time, Theon would no longer need to worry about food.
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