Fred had got back home early in the morning, “Mooom” he leapt off the carriage and ran into Isabella’s embrace.

“Hello Fred”, Isabella Chuckled.

Fred then left the warm embrace to wave Rudy and Delphine off, the other carriages didn’t go to the castle and headed straight for the port, it seemed everyone was missing their families.

Rudy and Delphine could reach their county by the afternoon, so they didn’t stay long either. And as soon as goodbyes were said and the servants removed the luggage, they were off.

Isabella and George headed inside with Fred once the carriage was no longer in sight, “That girl delphine looks cute” Isabella teased,

Fred looked at Isabella as if she said something uncomfortable, “She’s, my cousin! and first of all, isn’t weird for someone of my mental age to look at a girl that young” he said with emphasis on cousin.

“O yes, sometimes you act so young and cute that I forget about your other mental age, but don’t forget Fred you are 5 as well” she teased.

‘Wait, am I going to be grossed out of seeking anyone under 300 because of the connotations with the old world’s stance.’ Fred felt like he would be stuck in a philosophical debate, he was technically both 300 years old and 5 years old. How would he go about courting the fairer sex? What about marriage proposals? In his old world, this wasn’t a thing, but being noble, and a landed noble at that as well as being tied to a big house, he might not have much choice in the matter.

He had a lot of responsibilities to manage when he grows up, and he might not be able to afford personal and emotional choices in the matter. Come to think of it, families usually decide when the persons in question are quite young in this period. Sometimes, but not always, It was so they could spend time growing up together while they were still impressionable and therefore create a stronger bond.

‘Wait, I’m missing something, o god no, she didn’t address the cousin part, o fuck,’ some dynasties in his old world practised inbreeding to ‘keep the bloodline pure’ a famous example was the von Habsburgs, however, they ended up losing the ability to properly breed over time and had to resort to marrying outsiders, this introduced the house of Lorraine to the Austrian dynasty and so it became Von Habsburg-Lorraine.

“Hey, Mother… isn’t it bad… to you know… marry your cousin in this world.”

“Why would you think that?”

Fred’s face turned ashen, “Mother, for the sake of our family, your future grandkids and the future of our lands, please, whatever you do, don’t consider anyone that is closer than cousin 3 times removed.”

Both Isabella and George paused their steps and looked at Fred with wonder. “Why, Fred?” Isabella was the one to ask.

“Let me tell you about one of the strongest dynasties in my previous world, the von Habsburgs… and so they introduced the Lorraine dynasty so they could at least start having children again.”

Isabella and George were quite mortified about the von Habsburgs and looking back about what they knew from some people from her own family and other duchies, she couldn’t dismiss his worry, she just never connected the dots. In fact, no one really thought too much into it especially as any study could be construed as a slight on the person or a diplomatic insult between houses.

“Alright, Fred I promise.” She heard Fred let out an audible sigh.

They reached the lounge and sat down, this time George spoke up, “So Fred, I heard you cause a fight in school.”

“Yeah, it was great, we kicked their arses.” Fred cheered.

“That was just how your father was.” Isabella was reminiscent.

“Well, that’s beside the point, you shouldn’t be causing fights in school.”

“Yes, I should. It’s the best time to cause fights, the consequences are less politically impactful, and we get to learn our strengths and boundaries, and it’s a great way of strengthening bonds between friends. I said something on these lines to the dean and he agreed. He ended up refuting the Knight’s request to punish us.”

Fred had him there, he couldn’t refute that.

Isabella giggled at George’s stupor, “All alright, what else did you get up to at school?” Isabella had read the school report letter, but as well as it not retailing everything, it was nice to chat with Fred about it.

“Well, I aced all my exams,” Fred said disinteresting, “and we learned about the original Great heavenly empire of the High elven race, that spanned from the known east to Iberia and even up here, connecting their lands to the Wood-elves. Although the teacher had a few biases against them, calling them a bunch of religious nutjobs. We learnt that they were attuned with the heaven, light, life, fire and lightning elements and that their capital in the east is situated by the strongest Heaven, life and light springs recorded.”, Fred paused “But that was about it for History so far, he said we will be studying their height this year and their eventual fall next year.”

“Yes, our current situation is the aftermath of that, so it is necessary to start there for better understandings.” George chimed in “you can see influences of their architect in the city, the bank copies their structure with the marble pillars at the front, in fact, that was a rundown ruin of the high elves that the bank restored.”

“Ooo,” Fred had seen the bank the few times he ventured into town, he thought it looked Romanesque, but come to think of it, the high elves borders had a lot in common with the roman empire. ‘Maybe there are more similarities. Does the heaven affinity produce light as well, the other affinities they are attuned to do?’

“Also Fred isn’t it normal to be biased against other races, I mean the system does a good job of rewarding us when we fight them. Above other things, and those bastards attack us every chance they get.”

“What do you mean by rewarding us when we fight.”

“Most of the stat bonuses you get from our races achievements are through the conquest of new land, as well we lose bonus points if we lose land. It’s rare to gain points through inventions as you did. And conquest pays a lot more than inventions. Your Astartes was an exception but that was probably viewed as a preparation for conquest. After all, it’s listed as a soldier class.”

“So, no chance of Diplomatic talks,”

“The high elves view themselves above the world and look down on us. The wood elves on the other hand had gone a bit feral from the Nature affinity, they still have a few towns like the one across the straight from us, and a makeshift navy but they are mostly small tribes, but they have regressed since the time they were connected to the high elves.”

“Has there been any news on the Steel foundry?” Fred asked, this was his top priority at the moment it would decide his future plans.

“Yes, following your plans we have 4 blast furnaces in operational with 2 in idle, due to Iron ore shortages, and the materials for 6 more in storage. Your friend we met at the wholesale district says he can’t meet demands for the foundry, but the Iron is making a lot more profit,” Fred decided to bring this person on as a business friend and merchant consultant as he was quite friendly and helpful to Fred last time. “He reminded us again about the iron mountain just north of the river, but that would be hard to achieve with the Bridge.”

“What about the families, are they happy with the products?”

“Yes, they have sent over quite a few blacksmiths to help and said you can access the copper mine. The Chief blacksmith loves the ability to mould cast and has designed a few blueprints of armour for general-purpose, he said the smiths on the continent can just tailor them to fit at the end destination, this will allow better… mass production, was it?”

“Yes, I might be able to resolve the bridge problem as well as an idea a forward fort and a dock that side. But do we have enough manpower?”

“We can resolve the manpower, originally the family wants armours to be prioritised down south to the Castilian order. There are two iron mines under the dwarven influence between us and the Catalan order,

But over the conflicts of the past few years, their influence over the region is about to collapse, this would result in a rush for the mountains and possible conflicts will arise when the king goes missing. However, after hearing about the metal mountain up north the families said they could send out 200 men to help occupy it if we can resolve the bridge.”

“So, it’s true that the king will be going into hiding then?”

“Well, the families are acting as if it’s true. What’re your thoughts on the bridge?”

“Well, two really, a pontoon bridge, we connect boats together and walk our troops across, then we set up a fortified port, or the other would be a steel bridge.”

“A steel bridge? Well, we are short on iron at the moment, but we can think of it when the north side is stable. But I like your… pontoon idea, yes that could work, I’ll contact the families to send troops over and some boats, what were you thinking for the port?”

“Concrete, first you make cement by heating a precise mixture of finely ground limestone, clay and sand in a rotating kiln we can make a rotatory device with steel, it won’t take too much iron, and we have the fire bricks to make the kiln in the meantime. This comes out as grey sand, once you add water it turns into a paste that hardens into… like a stone when it dries’, but to make it more robust you add sand and aggregate into the mix before mixing it with water and pouring it where you want. Preferably once we have a steady supply of iron, we can make reinforced concrete that uses steel poles in a mesh pattern and then covered in concrete.”

George was fascinated about this process, “How long would it take to make a fortified port?”

“It could take from 2 weeks to a month, we can make the solutions here and ship them over, using the pontoon as a makeshift port in the meantime.”

“That fast. Is it good for making town walls?”

“Yes, a lot better and it will hold under bombardment for longer,”

“Nice.”

“Hey, do we have to worry about our family stealing our technology?”

“No, first, there are too many examples of families destroying themselves over something like this, while families can hide from external enemies and then build-up later, making it harder to completely rout out a family, bit internal conflicts are the biggest killers of families. Secondly, more places that have your technology, means more chances of enemies taking it. They only ask two things, steps in place to prevent the loss of technology from the fall of a single city, and that once our enemies learn of the technology, you help the family ramp up production so we can keep ahead of the game.”

“O that sounds reasonable.” Fred was expecting constant political conflicts and schemes in big families like what he’s read in stories, but it was surprising to see such an emphasis on familial bonds and sticking together.

___

A few days later Fred was lying on his bed, he was reminiscing over his time at school, and slowly his thoughts wandered over to his travel to and from, looking at all the farmlands and pastures when suddenly he had an idea. He got up and met George and Isabella in the lounge.

“You ok, Fred?”

“Every time I come in here, you two are just lounging about drinking tea.”

“You little shit,” George commented, while Isabella burst out laughing.

“Anyway, I wanted to ask about our farming situation.”

“What about it?”

“Like is it good, bad, are we importing or exporting, what are we doing to developing it?”

“Well except for the occasional poor harvest every 6-7 years, we import about 20% of our food needs. But except for opening up more land what other developments is there.”

“You said you receive poor crops harvests periodically, are you planting the same crop every year.”

“Yes, of course, wheat is the biggest sustenance for our populations.”

Fred put his head in his lap “Of course he says”, sigh “What about irrigation or fertiliser?”

“What are those? And what’s wrong with planting the same crop over and over again?”

“What’s wrong with planting one crop every year? I don’t know how about poor harvests every few years.”

“They are related?”

“George, have you ever received something from nothing?”

“What like free stuff?”

“Let’s put it this way, can you grow tall, and support yourself and a family on free handouts.”

“No”

“Can a kid grow without food, or more importantly can a kid survive without food?”

“Neither”

“So, when a seed becomes a long stalk of wheat, where did all that mass come from.”

“I don’t know”

“Well, I’ll tell you where it comes from, it comes from food in the ground. Or more precisely nutrients.”

“There’s food in the ground, why do we grow the plants if there is food under the soil?”

“Why do we eat pigs when we can eat pig feed? Come on George your smarter than this.”

“Well, I don’t look into farming that much.”

“Look the point is there are different types of nutrition in the soil, the wheat plants eat 1 type of nutrition, and that nutrition doesn’t get replaced at the same speed as we grow crops. So, every few years we exhaust all the nutrients in the land. And you get bad harvests, to mitigate this, my old world used crop rotation. They would split the fields into 3 patches of equal size, and they would plant a different food crop on each of the patches, and then rotate them each year.”

“And that would prevent poor harvests?”

“Not only that, but it will also increase your average Yield per year, as each crop will have 3 years supply of their needed Nutrition every year.”

“Wow, also you mentioned irrigation and fertilizer,”

I need to do some experiments with fertilizer first, but water irrigation is about creating small channels from the river to draw more water inland, making the farmland more fertile, as plants need to drink water too. It also brings in more variety of nutrition from upstream.”

___

Over the next week, Fred had started drawing up his plans for the copper. It turns out, tin was quite common and could be found in shallow patches here and there, allowing him to create bronze, he went over to the foundry with George, and spoke to the foreman in his office. Fred handed over a 3 image Sketch of the project capturing all angles, “So you want me to make moulds for this tube thing with it sealed one end is that correct?”

“Yes,”

“And how long are these going to be?”

“12 foot. Long”

“And you want 6 of them?”

Yes”

“And this is going to be made out of steel?”

“No bronze, the last page should have the ratios of Copper to tin for the specific bronze I want.”

The foreman turned to George, him being the adult of the two, “And are you sure about this?”

George nodded while Fred continued “I won’t be here when the Copper arrives as I have to attend school, but if anyone asks what you are making, please say you are just making some rich kid’s toy.”

This got a chuckle out of the Foreman, “That’s what it looks like to me anyway kid.” This time Fred was the one to smile.

“Also, I need dual layer Lead covered steel balls with about equal thickness for lead and steel, each ball needs to be able to fit inside the tube on its own and should not fall out if the cannon was to tilt downwards. I’ll need a lot of balls for this about 300 per tube, for now, so you might want to create a reusable mould for it.”

“Lead melts at lower temperatures to steel so this shouldn’t be a problem to coat.”

As the meeting was over everybody go up to leave “Thank you”

“No worries kiddo, leave it to me”

“Once I’m back from school in the summer I’ll show you what they do. Also, did you have any questions about the mounting cart?”

“I’ll look forward to it, my mate down the street, he’s a carpenter, and runs the carriage workshop, he should be able to help me with it if you don’t mind me bringing him in on it.”

“Na that’s fine.”

Fred and George left and headed home. “Still not going to tell me what it is?”

“It would ruin the surprise. Do me a favour, it can be an exercise for the troops. While I’m at school get the troops to build a town wall, about 4 miles south, it only has to be about 200 meters wide, with a town gate in the middle as well.”

“You’re asking a lot,”

“Practice for the Soldiers so they have some experience building forts before you throw them into hostile territory. But don’t use the method’s I’ve told you about. Copy the methods used on the current town wall.”

“Ok” George was sceptical about this but decided to follow along.

“Also find me an enchanter for when I come back.”

“There is one in the city, we can go now.”

“Not ready yet, I need those tubes first.”