—
Smirking as he saw the dwarf grow excited over the future he envisioned, Gustave was glad that his right-hand man was someone pragmatic—unlike himself, an idealist.
Unlike Gustave, who planned things long before they happened and made decisions in advance—such as choosing Zoltan as his right-hand man before any close bond ever formed—the dwarf before him was more focused on dealing with what stood directly in front of them, or in other words, was more pragmatic.
Gustave knew that for someone like himself, who loved to envision grand possibilities, if he didn't pull back to reality, those visions would remain only designs, never becoming tangible results.
That was why, to make his work more efficient and streamlined, having Zoltan—raised in dwarven society, fond of cursing, and unconcerned with noble upbringing—created a healthy working environment that kept him grounded and focused on the present moment.
Now, seeing the first machine designs that would allow them to create even more machines—a starting point for the airborne manufacturing balloon factory he planned for the future—Gustave was once again reminded by the dwarf to get to work on the designs, pulling him back from his musings.
"What're ye standin' there for?! Let's smite this bugger out, Prince lad! Me balls're itchin' fer it!"
Zoltan had just pulled the tongs from the wall hanger when he suddenly paused, remembering he was speaking to a tall boy who had only turned five or six this winter.
Too comfortable—forgetting himself and speaking as if to a grown man—despite the rumors spread far and wide through the palace that this lad had grasped college subjects three years ago, that even as a babe he could read a book, Zoltan shook his head.
No matter the savant tales, the body before him was still that of a child. Turning back to the princeling, Zoltan swatted a hand to usher him away from the forge.
"Prince, ye've silk boots. Step back a wee bit, will ye? Slipped right outta me skull—ye're still a young'un. Yer wisdom makes me thick head forget itself, speakin' like ye're one what's already done growin' up."
Amused at being treated like a child again after these past three years—especially since, when he lay in bed, the Morse code did the acting—Gustave no longer needed to concern himself with being suspected of being a grown man in a toddler's body.
There were now multiple reasons for that: his DNA was essentially brand new; the anti-divination aftereffects of the Elder Blood [Recall] ability provided cover; he had sufficient alibis through his ability to grow using the "Eye of Knowledge"; and, most importantly, his Savant Sequence evolution was complete.
A Savant Sequence treated as a genius not because of age or retained knowledge from Earth, but because of a natural course of development he had crafted and followed instinctively—one that, though still flawed by his own assessment, was sufficient to be recognized by the world.
And considering that the paranoid phase of his life had its time and place, and that he no longer needed it—since the destiny he had instinctively shaped was now sufficient to ensure that his fate across the timeline would no longer be shunned or rejected by his family and allies—he knew it was time to move on to the next stage of his life.
So, walking through the forge and wishing to imitate what Regis had done in Baptism of Fire, Gustave placed his hand upon the burning hearth, holding it within the fire for a couple of seconds before pulling it back—bare, without any heat-resistant gloves.
"Are ye outta yer mind?! Did a donkey kick yer skull in?! Are—oh…"
Dashing as fast as he could to grab the boorish princeling's hand, Zoltan stopped short with a simple "oh," halting mid-stride when he saw that the lad's hand was unharmed.
Puzzled—because he knew from the elders' knowledge that a hand was only protected by a thin layer of sweat for mere milliseconds when touching something lava-hot—Zoltan swore that the boy had already passed the limit of safety.
Then he saw the faint, burned part of the boy's hand slowly regenerate, returning as if nothing had happened, the lad's complexion only slightly sweaty after the process. Zoltan's eyes widened, finally able to connect the dots as he remembered the silhouette of the monster that had wrought havoc in the palace three years ago.
So much so that mages from all over the world had arrived during the first year—Aretuza, Ban Ard, and even the Chapters—drawn by the rumors of appearances in the square from time to time, crowding the city and eventually making Zoltan realize that Cintra had also become a place of spark-slingers, driving other finger-glowers out of the city.
But although he could only suspect by intuition—since many things, especially monsters, could regenerate their bodies like ghouls and some vampires—Zoltan didn't know why seeing the prince made him jump to such conclusions, especially when his thoughts came to rest on vampires.
Shaking his head, not wanting to assume something so far-fetched without evidence, Zoltan still asked solemnly, "Prince… perchance yer spell-braced bones, tempered proper like a Mahakaman-born, won't burn easily. By me knuckles, for me poor heart's sake, don't go swingin' that one more time, will ya?"
Chuckling, Gustave replied, "Of course I wouldn't do that again. This is just for demonstration. And to show you that, except for my eyes—which are similar to Queen Calanthe's and many of Cintra's mages—my body is also magically enhanced."
"Ah!"
Finally understanding why the lad was always wearing eye-bands and licking salt from time to time, Zoltan realized why the prince behaved the way he did. It was because, just like those spark-slingers who always behaved oddly, this princeling lad might be the same—a sorcerer with his own eccentricities.
Pushing thoughts of the monster from three years ago to the back of his mind, Zoltan no longer dwelled on it and nodded. "Aye, if that's how it is, we'll hammer up this whirligig together. Hoist the anvil!"
Knowing that he wanted to create a lathe modeled after the Egyptians' design—because using Da Vinci's would be redundant, as he planned to build a more advanced version for the red metals—Gustave decided that after completing the Egyptian lathe, he would move on to Jacques de Vaucanson's design.
Not only that, but because he knew that the very first lathe and its first recorded inventor was Vaucanson, he decided to commemorate his first-ever lathe in this Witcher world by naming the precision machine tool lathe Vaucanson 1.0, much like his RDBM, which had not yet been upgraded.
In choosing the French inventor's technical drawing, he did not stop there. He also modified it to allow more space so the original mechanism could be fitted with a new, automatic cam, eliminating the need to create multiple frameworks just to fit lathe cutters with different functions.
This made it resemble a modern manual lathe—one that could be powered by a steam engine, largely following Holtzapffel's steampunk-like design.
As for why he didn't go for the latest CNC diagram, which used computers and electricity, it was simply because creating the computing and processing components would take too much time.
Moreover, considering that he knew Alvin had the mindset of a cryptographer, he assumed that some of the mages would have a similar mindset, which would immediately nullify his advantage as a machinist if he used a computer-operated lathe.
Just as he had planned back then, he wanted everything he created to be off the grid. Even though it might seem far-fetched to imagine mages hacking a computer with nothing more than a weave of their hand spell, he could not take that risk—considering any lathe could be considered a weapon, or more accurately, a machine that creates tools to make weapons.
Thinking about mages capable of hacking a computer, he remembered one piece of knowledge that had slipped his mind: aside from Alvin, there was also Atlan Kerk.
Even though Kerk was not at Alvin's level in understanding computer science, from his understanding and deductions based on history and Calanthe's reports, Gustave knew he was only a step away from fully grasping it, thanks to their magic, which had elevated their understanding to an instinctual level of quantum programming.
Gustave also knew that Kerk was essentially the one who had created a textbook spell curriculum for lifting highly complex magical barriers, the same curriculum taught at Aretuza and Ban Ard.
In other words, Kerk was designing programmatic decoherence to pierce magical barriers, which, in the realm of computer science, is closely related since the programmatic knowledge overlaps.
Wanting to consider another person, Gottfried Stammfeld—a mage who had completed the creation of a fully functioning AI, according to knowledge from Witcher 3: Tower Out of Nowhere—Gustave could not muse further, as he was once again pulled back to the present moment by the dwarf.
"Oy! Lad! Get crackin' an' quit dawdlin'! Got a future to cobble out!"
Rubbing his head foolishly, always thinking so far ahead but now knowing he already had allies and a meatshield he could depend on, Gustave shook his head to clear the distracting thoughts. The planning phase of his life was complete; now it was time to implement.
"Coming… coming…" he said, equipping the protective apron and forge gloves. "You got one of the poles, yeah?"
"Aye, work one o' the anvils by that nook. Now, the stout rod—here, snap up!"
Catching the metal rod tossed by Zoltan, Gustave picked up a free hammer and began heating the tip of the iron rod that would later hold the workpieces. After bringing it close to melting temperature, he removed the rod from the forge and placed it onto the anvil.
Ting, ting, ting, ting!
Hitting it again and again, shaping it into the form of dowsing rods—only the very top section, not bent halfway—Gustave was finally able to finish it in under a minute, thanks to his Sequence 8: Archaeologist body, which could adapt the [Knowledge] ability of blacksmithing that he had collected up to this moment.
"Duvvel hoael… Ye're gifted at this. Did yer ma teach ye the second ye crawled outta yer ma?"
Chuckling as he walked to the filing block, Gustave replied, "No, my mother didn't teach me the moment I was born. But close enough."
Because he didn't need strong iron that required quenching or tempering, only the right shape for mounting the workpieces, Gustave skipped that step. He simply let the rod rest for a bit, splashing a little water on it for faster cooling so he could move on to the next process.
Once the metal had cooled and he removed his gloves, he took a double-cut file and filed the tip into a pencil-like shape so it could securely hold the workpieces that would spin around the axis.
With the metal piece completed for the Egyptian lathe—not the real Vaucanson 1.0 that he intended to create, since a lathe is just a machine to create an upgraded version of a lathe—he looked around the room for a bow.
Finding one that was very cheap to make, since it was only for the treadle—the component that would make the workpieces rotate around the axis—Gustave turned to Zoltan, who had just finished filing the other metal rod and now wanted to create the drilled wood so that the two prongs could be fitted together.
Still wanting to ask permission, even if it was a minor piece, he said, "Dwarf, I'll take this. For the hand-operated treadle bow. Is that okay with you?"
"Is that okay?!!! By the tits of Melitele, lad! Me balls'll turn to polished stone afore ye quit askin' permission! We're hammerin' out a future, dammit!! Pick what strikes yer fancy!!"
Chuckling at Zoltan's new way of cursing balding testicles, Gustave, amused, collected these colorful curses as data to use later. He then took the cheapest bow from another corner of the room and placed it on the table to be used when needed, after mounting the ancient basic lathe pieces.
"Here… it's fitted as stout as a virgin who's never laid eyes on a handsome young chap."
Taking the simple contraption into the holding devices and placing the bow between the two metal prongs, Gustave nodded to himself, knowing this Egyptian lathe was done—simply just like that.
But since this was not exactly what he was looking for, as this lathe was only a transitional version for the upgraded model, he said, "Now we just need to forge the lathe cutters: parting, right-cut, left-cut, round-nose, and the threading one."
Turning to the dwarf, he asked, "So, dwarf, what is the hardest metal you have here in this shop?"
"Meteorite silver ingot. Got but two—hardly enough. Blast it all!"
Shaking his head, Gustave reassured him, "No, it's only for you, dwarf. For me, it's enough."
—