Borin stared at the intricate drawing on the stone floor. It was a chaotic mess of circles, levers, and lines, but to his craftsman's eye, it was a beautiful, terrifying symphony of mechanical logic.
A forge powered by the stream. A fire hot enough to purify the "cursed" ore.
It was madness.
It was genius.
"It will take weeks," the blacksmith finally rumbled, his voice a low mixture of awe and exhaustion at the mere thought of the work ahead.
"The woodwork alone... creating the gears, the camshaft... it's a master carpenter's job. And the bellows... they'll need to be massive, reinforced with steel bands."
"Then we'll find a master carpenter," Kaelen said simply.
"And you will forge the steel bands. This is now the barony's top priority. I want every available hand that isn't farming or mining put on this project."
He looked Borin straight in the eye. "I will fund it. I will provide the food and the pay. I just need you to be the master craftsman. Can you do it?"
For the second time, Kaelen was asking not just for obedience, but for Borin's professional pride. He was making the blacksmith a partner in this grand, insane endeavor.
A slow, wide grin spread across Borin's sooty face.
"Aye, my Lord," he roared with a laugh that shook the rafters of the forge. "Let's build your inferno!"
✧✧✧
The next day, Greylock was transformed.
The failed smelting attempt, far from discouraging the populace, had become a source of intense curiosity. Their Baron had not been deterred. Instead, he had immediately launched a new, even more ambitious project.
Kaelen effectively split his time into three roles.
In the morning, he was the Chief Engineer. He worked alongside Borin and a team of shell-shocked woodworkers, led by Finn, whose grandfather's story had earned him a promotion.
Kaelen was a relentless and demanding supervisor. He translated his complex mental blueprints into practical, step-by-step instructions.
"No, the teeth on that gear are too wide! It will create too much friction!" he'd shout, grabbing a piece of charcoal to redraw the design on a wooden plank.
"We need a finer tolerance! Measure it again!"
The carpenters, used to building wobbly chairs and uneven doors, were thrown into a world of precise measurements and complex mechanics they had never imagined.
It was a grueling education, but under Kaelen's demanding tutelage, their skills grew at an explosive rate.
In the afternoon, he became the Logistics Manager. He oversaw the mining operations at the swamp and the steady progress at the "Baron's Folly."
The turnip and clover shoots were growing stronger, a constant, visible reminder that his strange methods worked. He made sure the compost from Seraphina's "Sanitation Initiative" was properly turned and applied to the field.
Seraphina herself seemed to have accepted her fate. She ran her operation with military precision.
Her guards, no longer just slouching spearmen, now marched with a sense of purpose, even if their mission was to inspect dung heaps.
The village was cleaner, healthier, and the compost piles grew larger by the day.
An unspoken, professional respect was slowly forming between her and Kaelen. She didn't understand his methods, but she could not argue with his results.
In the evenings, Kaelen was simply a Trainee.
His sessions with Seraphina continued. He was still clumsy, still awkward, but he was no longer pathetic.
His daily morning runs had improved his stamina, and the physical labor of helping with the forge construction was building muscle onto his lean frame.
"Better," Seraphina commented one evening, after he successfully blocked a series of her attacks without falling over. "You're starting to anticipate instead of just reacting. Keep your elbow tucked."
He nodded, sweat dripping from his brow. He was still no match for her, not even close, but he was no longer a complete liability.
His mana meditation, however, remained a wall of frustration. He felt nothing. The "world's essence" remained a mystery, a silent energy he couldn't grasp. It was the one variable he couldn't control, and it drove him mad.
✧✧✧
One week into the construction of the water-powered forge, a new problem arose.
"We need more nails," Borin grumbled, gesturing to the massive wooden frame of the water wheel they were assembling near the stream.
"And brackets. And steel bands for the bellows. We're using up our refined scrap faster than I can make it."
Kaelen looked at the half-finished structure. They were stuck in a loop. They needed the new forge to make more steel, but they needed more steel to finish the new forge.
"What about the weapons in the armory?" Kaelen asked.
Borin snorted. "Most of 'em are rust-eaten junk. Melting them down would give us a few good ingots, but not enough."
Kaelen's mind raced. He needed a source of ready-made, high-quality iron.
Something they could reforge immediately. The secret chest from his great-grandfather had contained a sword and a dagger.
The thought of melting down his only inheritance felt wrong, but practicality had to win.
But even that wasn't enough.
He walked through the castle, his eyes scanning everything, not as a lord, but as a scavenger. He saw decorative iron sconces on the walls, old iron gates leading to abandoned cellars, forgotten iron tools in storage rooms.
It was all junk to anyone else.
To him, it was a treasure trove of raw materials.
He returned to the forge, a new, almost manic gleam in his eye.
"Borin," he announced. "We're going on a salvage mission. The entire castle is our scrap yard."
That afternoon, the villagers watched in stunned silence as their Baron, followed by the blacksmith and a team of workers, began systematically stripping the castle of every non-essential piece of iron.
Ornate gates were pulled from their hinges. Decorative grilles were pried from windows.
Kaelen even had them pull up the old, rusted portcullis at the main gate, which hadn't been used in fifty years.
"This is insane," Seraphina muttered, watching from the battlements as a team of men struggled to haul the massive iron gate towards the forge. "He is literally tearing his own house apart."
Gideon looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "The heritage! The history!"
But Kaelen saw it differently. Heritage and history wouldn't feed his people. But a water-powered forge and a stockpile of steel just might.
He was sacrificing the past, melting it down to forge a new future. A future where, hopefully, he could finally get some peace and quiet.
.
.
.
Author's Note:
Thanks for reading!
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