Elias Thorne did not sleep. Sleep was an unnecessary drain on productivity and an inefficient use of the 90 days he had left. Instead, he spent the night hunched over his desk, ignoring the velvet clothes and the aristocratic surroundings, sketching frantically.
MAOI Optimization: [Objective: River Water Transportation to Mine Site]Blueprint Generated: Triple-Action Piston Pump and Gravity-Feed Sluice System. Efficiency: 92%.
The design was elegant: a simple hand-operated pump that used a lever and basic piston to raise water far more reliably than any bucket. It was utterly basic by 21st-century standards, but here, it was nothing short of blasphemy.
"My Lord," Sir Kaelen's voice, a steady, low rumble of misery, cut through the night. Kaelen had been standing sentinel outside the door for five hours. "The charcoal is secured, and the workers await. They are... confused by the timber demand."
"Confused?" Elias looked up, his eyes bloodshot with manic energy. "It's geometry, Kaelen! They need straight lumber, not some crooked firewood. We need to maintain the right angles for the piston housing."
Elias threw open the door and practically ran Kaelen over. "We're wasting time! Let's go introduce these peasants to the power of basic fluid dynamics!"
The Barony of Ironspur's mine camp was a miserable affair. A dozen scrawny miners and a few older servants stood huddled by the riverbank, shifting nervously under Kaelen's imposing presence. They were used to digging or hauling, not building complex wooden structures by the river.
They stared at the Baron, who was wearing a grime-stained shirt and had grease smeared across his face—a look no noble had ever worn.
"Listen up, you lumps of inefficiency!" Elias yelled, already stripping off the last vestiges of his noble tunic. "We are going to build a device that will deliver twenty times the water with one-tenth the effort! This water will feed the sluices, which will clean the ore faster, which will lead to more profit! Any questions?"
A grizzled old miner named Gark slowly raised a hand. "Aye, Lord Baron. Is this some kind of summoning circle? Are you bargaining with the River Spirit?"
Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. Superstition, the most critical flaw of all.
MAOI Alert: [Optimization Protocol Failed. Cultural Resistance at 88%. Communication Strategy Required.]
"No, Gark," Elias sighed. "It's a machine. It's technology. It's… magic in the hands of the educated."
He spent the next three hours leading the construction, his mechanical engineering skills kicking into high gear. Kaelen and the men stared in stunned silence as Elias used rough diagrams and furious gesturing to turn lumber into perfectly aligned parts. He showed them how to fashion a watertight piston from treated wood and leather, and how the careful placement of the lever allowed a single man to do the work of four.
Kaelen stood by, his face a mask of escalating spiritual horror. (Internal Monologue): "My Lord is touching wood! He is using a crude saw! He is measuring things with a dirty stick! This is an insult to the noble house. If the Duke sees this... they will not send an army; they will send an exorcist."
When Elias finished bolting the lever onto the wooden frame, he stepped back, wiping sweat from his brow. "There. The Triple-Action Piston Pump is complete. Now, someone demonstrate it!"
Gark, trembling slightly, approached the device. He placed his hand on the wooden lever, looking nervously at the river.
"Gark," Elias snapped. "It's a lever. Push it down. Use the fulcrum point to your advantage."
Gark pushed. The lever went down easily. With a smooth hiss and a powerful gurgle, a continuous, strong jet of water shot out of the spout and began filling the holding tank.
The miners gasped. They didn't gasp at the mechanics; they gasped at the magic.
"He's done it!" Gark yelled, dropping the lever. "He made the water flow uphill! He commanded the River Spirit!"
Elias ignored the worship, focused only on the numbers flashing in the air next to the pump.
Project: Piston Pump Installation. Labor Cost: 18 Man-Hours. Resource Cost: 3 Silver.
Output Analysis: Water Delivery Rate: 120 Liters/Minute. Efficiency Improvement: 950% vs. Bucket Brigade.
Profit: Time Saved: 4.2 Hours/Day. [Exploitation Potential Unlocked.]
He turned to the workers, a self-satisfied smirk replacing his scowl. "See? No spirits. Just engineering. You will now be able to clean three times the ore, which means we will sell three times the product. And since you now work three times as fast…"
He paused for dramatic effect, letting the men cheer.
"…I will generously raise your wages by ten percent."
The cheers immediately died. Silence fell.
"Ten percent?" Gark sputtered. "But… three times the work for ten percent more coin?"
"Ten percent more coin for the same amount of effort!" Elias corrected, spreading his hands wide. "This machine is doing the extra work, not you! I invested the silver, I risked the engineering, and I solved the problem. You are simply operating my solution. Be grateful! The only alternative is going back to hauling buckets, and then you get zero raise."
The miners exchanged defeated glances. The argument was airtight. They were being exploited, but efficiently, and they knew it.
Kaelen finally stepped forward, his eyes burning with moral outrage.
(Sir Kaelen's Internal Monologue):"The Devil's stick is an apt name. It enslaves men with greed and calculation. I am sworn to protect this man who is committing wage theft with a beautiful wooden device. I must… I must endure."
"My Lord," Kaelen said stiffly. "The workers are fed. What is the next task? Surely we now train for combat, to defend our new water source."
Elias shook his head, already marching toward the nearby iron mine entrance. "Combat is a terrible waste of resources. It has a catastrophic loss-to-reward ratio. No, Kaelen. Tomorrow, we redesign the mine interior. We are going to build the world's first truly efficient transport system."
He stopped at the mouth of the cavern, a dark, narrow hole in the mountain.
"Gather every rope, every cart wheel, and every pulley in the barony," Elias commanded, his voice echoing. "We are going to move the mountain's ore with the power of the inclined plane and the counterweight. No more tired backs. Just pure, clean, predictable profit."
He looked at Kaelen, his face alight with greedy anticipation. "We are going to engineer a mining miracle before that snake Vesper knows what hit him. Now find me some damn grease for these axles!"