It was five in the afternoon.
The sky was still bright and clear. The lingering warmth of summer had eased up and wasn't nearly as suffocating, and with not a single cloud overhead, the whole world above them was a vast stretch of blue—staring at it for a while was oddly relaxing.
Luke and the three girls rode in a carriage to the printworks.
When they arrived, they saw another carriage already parked outside. Luke glanced at the crest on it—House Buvelle's emblem.
"Is Kahina here too?" Lux's eyes lit up.
She'd been missing her friend, and the moment she saw that carriage, she hopped out impatiently.
Luke hadn't seen Kahina in a while either.
Once they stepped inside, it was immediately obvious the workshop looked different from a few days ago.
For one, it had been divided into multiple sections. There was new equipment, too. And following Luke's suggestion, Navis had installed several powered fans inside.
It was basically a stripped-down version of air conditioning.
Unlike the water-driven fan system at Luke's place, the workshop fans were gear-powered, providing workers with just enough relief to keep them from overheating.
They hadn't walked far before they ran into Kahina head-on—she looked like she'd just arrived as well.
She wore a pale long shirt and black shorts that softly traced the lines of her legs. Like always, her hair was tied up in a neat ponytail, and she radiated that fresh, youthful energy.
"Good afternoon, you three."
Kahina greeted them first, smiling, clearly happy to see everyone.
When her gaze fell on Luke, it was the same as before—just a hint of warmth, the quiet kind you only notice if you're paying attention. No awkwardness, no lingering weirdness from last time, like it hadn't affected her at all.
Everything was normal.
The four of them chatted as they walked to Navis's office.
When Luke pushed the door open, Navis—buried under a pile of documents—looked up. The moment she saw him, her eyes brightened behind her glasses.
"Your Highness!"
She rummaged through the papers on her desk, grabbed a few pages, hopped down from her chair, and rushed up to Luke with barely contained excitement.
"The hand-cranked printing press was fully assembled this morning. We ran multiple test cycles and didn't find any issues."
She looked thrilled, which made perfect sense.
For a craftsperson, there wasn't much that felt better than watching their work come to life.
And the concept Luke had thrown out so casually back then had actually become real.
By now, Luke's status in Navis's mind had climbed into the "untouchable" category.
Luke accepted the sheets she handed him. Lux, Kahina, and Fiora all leaned in, curious, and looked them over.
Every page had identical content. The ink was crisp, the lettering clear and easy to read—obviously the result of the new press.
Luke scanned it and said, "Take me to the press."
"Right this way."
Navis led them out.
A short walk later, she stopped at a room and opened the door.
There were two people inside. Luke glanced over and recognized them immediately—Maylee and Korsen.
The siblings were treating the machine in the center of the room like a sacred relic, carefully wiping it down with cloths.
"Your Highness!"
They hurried over and bowed. Their respect wasn't forced, either—it was completely genuine.
A week ago, they might've acted polite while privately refusing to accept him. Now? They were fully convinced—mind, body, and soul.
To put it bluntly: if Luke told them to do something, they'd do it without hesitation.
The reason was simple.
The hand-cranked printing press existed.
At first, they'd only had a vague sense that Luke and Navis were working on something big.
Once it was built, they realized it wasn't just "big." It was world-changing.
This machine practically solved the problem of written information being painfully difficult to spread.
A device that could put printed words into people's hands—anyone's hands. Just think about how insane that was.
Luke glanced at the siblings' starry-eyed expressions and didn't bother responding. He walked up to the press and stopped beside it.
Fiora, Lux, and Kahina stepped closer too, studying it with interest.
Lux poked it with a finger. "So it's just… a huge chunk of metal? It's really as amazing as you said?"
"Watch and find out."
Luke inspected it more closely. Honestly, it was his first time seeing something this close to an ancient-era machine.
But in Demacia, it was cutting-edge.
"Let me demonstrate for you!" Korsen blurted out, stepping forward with obvious excitement.
"Move."
Maylee walked up and kicked Korsen out of the way without hesitation. Then she ignored his furious glare, stood in front of Luke, and said respectfully, "Your Highness, I'll demonstrate."
Korsen glared at her, but didn't dare argue.
"Go ahead," Luke said casually.
To him, it didn't matter which of them demonstrated.
With Luke's permission, Maylee immediately went to a storage rack and began explaining as she selected parts.
"These are the lead type pieces we've produced over the past few days. There are different amounts for each character. They're stored here in an organized way, sorted by labels, so when you need something, you just follow the markers."
As she spoke, she picked out thin little pieces of type and gathered a handful, then carried them to the composing area.
"You arrange the type here. The characters can be combined freely, and the layout can be set in different directions."
She demonstrated while talking, placing the pieces into a typesetting frame.
That frame was essential. The structure of a paper—main sections, smaller columns, separate blocks—was decided right here.
In a modern setting, you could create complex layouts instantly. Without that kind of convenience, this was how people did it: prepare a few frame styles in advance, slot in the type, and you got the layout you wanted.
It was also the most tedious step.
All the content had to be assembled here, and even one piece placed wrong would ruin the print.
The four of them watched quietly, not interrupting Maylee as her focus deepened.
Once she carefully locked everything into place, she finally let out a slow breath.
"That should do it. Next we ink it, and we can verify the sample."
She placed a fresh sheet of white paper over the frame, pressed it down evenly with a tool so it adhered perfectly, then lifted it from top to bottom.
The first sample sheet was done.
"Please review it." She handed it to Luke.
Luke looked it over. The content was randomly assembled for testing, but the block layout showed how much could fit on a single page.
The size and word count obviously weren't like modern newspapers, but for this era, even having a single printed page like this was impressive.
That was exactly why Maylee, Korsen, and Navis had come to see Luke as terrifyingly capable.
He could pack a small sheet with a lot of content—and mass-produce it in a short time.
"Once the sample is confirmed, we can start printing," Maylee said.
She lifted the locked frame carefully and mounted it into the press.
The hand-cranked printing press had several main components: a transmission system, a feeder and paper-transfer system, an inking system for spreading ink evenly, and—most importantly—the printing pressure mechanism.
All those pieces worked together, driven as a whole by the hand crank.
Next, she poured in ink and loaded a stack of blank sheets into the feeder.
When she turned the crank, the machine came alive.
A support arm dropped into place to receive the printed sheets. The feeder pulled blank paper one sheet after another, pressing it onto the rollers. As the paper passed the type frame, pressure was applied and the content transferred cleanly onto the page, then the support arm guided the finished sheet out to the other side.
Again and again.
One printed sheet after another rolled out.
Luke wasn't surprised. This was exactly what he'd envisioned from the start—though Navis had improved a few details and made it even better.
But Lux, Kahina, and Fiora couldn't stay calm.
They watched pages appear one after another, ink even and clean, and the shock in their eyes was impossible to hide.
They still remembered what Luke had told them a week ago—this whole "newspaper" idea.
And now, just seven days later, the machine was right in front of them.
They were noble daughters. They'd never lacked books.
Even so, they understood how hard it was for ordinary families to get their hands on even one.
And this machine could duplicate information in huge quantities, in almost no time.
Even without deep technical knowledge, the three of them could already imagine other uses.
What if it wasn't used to print a small paper… but to print books?
Bookmaking was slow and exhausting for many reasons, but the biggest one was always the same: copying the content took forever.
Luke had solved that in a single week.
That was why Maylee and Korsen looked ready to worship him on the spot.
As children of a craftsman house, they could see the machine's potential even more clearly than the three girls could.
"You did well. All of you worked hard," Luke said, looking genuinely satisfied at his capable team.
Not bad. He'd expected it in the next few days, but they had it done today.
Which meant they hadn't slacked off. If anything, they'd probably been secretly working overtime.
"Your Highness, this is what we should be doing. You're the one who worked the hardest."
"It's my life's honor to serve you."
Maylee and Korsen immediately started praising him shamelessly.
And to be fair… compared to how brutal the past few days had been, what Luke had brought them was far more valuable.
The hand-cranked press was the kind of invention that would end up recorded in history.
And their names would be mentioned too—even if only briefly.
For craftsmen like them, that mattered more than anything.
Just thinking about it made them feel like those fifteen laps had been completely worth it.
Luke ignored the two of them. If anyone had truly suffered, it was Navis.
She'd practically been living at the workshop. The full set of press schematics had been on her shoulders alone.
The more Luke looked at her, the more satisfied he was. He reached out and patted her shoulder.
"You did great, Navis. Keep it up."
Navis wasn't nearly as shy as she used to be. Hearing his praise made her look genuinely happy, and her cheeks flushed slightly.
She nodded seriously and raised a fist. "I'll work even harder, Your Highness!"
Her eyes were blazing with motivation, like she had invisible flames roaring behind her.
Watching that small frame carry so much weight made Luke feel a little guilty. He was starting to look like the kind of boss who tossed everything onto one person and called it leadership.
He cleared his throat. "You don't have to push yourself that hard. Make sure you rest too."
Navis stubbornly shook her head. "No. There are still a lot of tasks you gave me that I haven't completed. And I've had new ideas—give me just a few more days, and you should be able to see an improved version of the hand-cranked press."
Luke: "…"
He honestly didn't know whether this world was just too beautiful… or his old world had been too miserable.
He hadn't even had a chance to start "boss talk," and his employee was already working like she'd been injected with pure motivation.
She was talking about building a second-generation press already.
Luke was genuinely a little stunned.
Meanwhile, Lux, Kahina, and Fiora all looked at him with open disdain.
Navis—a young girl—was doing all this work, and Luke, the "boss," was always lounging in his yard in the sun.
Feeling their stares, Luke broke out in mild shame.
But in truth, Navis really was the only one who fit perfectly with him.
In Demacia, she was one of the few people who could keep up with how Luke thought.
And before Luke showed up, Navis had been lost.
She loved inventing, but she'd grown up under people's judgment and ridicule. Aside from her mother and her grandmother—who was gone now—no one cared about what she did. Her confidence had been beaten down over and over.
She read countless books, but everything she made turned into "useless junk," and she was mocked relentlessly for it.
Eventually, she even started doubting whether she belonged in a craftsman's world at all.
And when she was at her most uncertain, when her direction was fading and she was on the verge of giving up—
Luke appeared.
Their first meeting left her thinking the prince was strange.
But as they talked, she realized he was extraordinarily knowledgeable.
A few offhand words cleared up questions that had haunted her for ages.
And later, he assigned her tasks with an almost unreasonable firmness.
But Navis didn't hate it.
Through Luke, she slowly found her direction again. She found her love for craftsmanship again.
She really did love inventing.
She loved the joy of seeing her work praised. She wanted her inventions to make people's lives easier.
Navis didn't think she was suffering. If anything, she loved the feeling of giving herself fully to one thing.
And because Luke recognized her, she'd decided to recognize him too.
She would give everything she knew—everything she had—to help him.
That was what lived inside that small body.
At that moment, Kahina asked, "So what do we do next?"
The first press was done. Now it was time for the next steps.
But the details still needed Luke's direction.
After thinking, Luke looked at Kahina and said, "The next key part is you."
"Me?" Kahina looked confused.
"Yes. One press is still too slow, but we can start by printing small bulletins to test market reaction," Luke said evenly. "I need you to send word out and have the Illuminators collect information to fill the pages. That's just for the early stage—later, I'll find more suitable sources."
A paper was only as valuable as its information, and information always came from the mainstream flow of life.
One reason Luke had chosen the Illuminators was that they traveled constantly and moved among common people. That meant they could gather a lot of everyday information.
And then there was official information.
That part wasn't a problem. Luke had ways.
Don't ask. The answer is my dad's the king.
One source from the streets, one from the palace—that covered the two main arteries of news.
Everything else could be added gradually. No need to rush it all at once.
And what came next… was the part that would truly burn money.
Because they were about to need a lot of manpower—craftsmen to build more presses, and workers for everything else around it.
Luckily, choosing the Illuminators had another advantage: finding people to distribute papers would be easy.
Kahina nodded. "Understood."
"Now we need someone to sort and organize the information once it comes in," Luke continued.
The instant he said that, Maylee and Korsen squeezed forward like they were about to fight for the job.
"Me, Your Highness!"
"You can trust me with it—I just demonstrated in front of you!"
They were already scrambling to grab the task, shoving each other like they were afraid they'd miss their chance.
Luke looked at them and said, "Then you'll do it together."
Hearing that, the siblings immediately turned sharp with rivalry. They exchanged a hostile look, then separated, each clearly irritated by the other.
After that, Luke laid out the early-stage plan.
One press wouldn't be enough. The capital was too large. Forget covering the entire city—printing enough papers to reach even a third of it quickly would be difficult.
They'd just tested the speed.
Forty papers per minute.
At most, two thousand four hundred per hour.
And the capital's population was over one hundred fifty thousand.
Those numbers alone showed the gap.
So next they needed to expand manpower—and Navis's improved press design needed to be pushed onto the schedule as soon as possible.
Of course, it wasn't like they had to cover the entire capital the moment the first paper launched.
Even Luke had to start small and expand outward over time.
That was inevitable.
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