After an extra day celebrating Dragon’s Peak’s partnership with the Everwood Kingdom, Thea, Zenith, my guards, and I returned to Sundell with 2,000 low-quality ball bearings and other parts I had ordered, including bushings and die-cutting tools.

It was time to trigger an industrial revolution. The goal: interchangeable parts.

Interchangeable parts, introduced by Eli Whitney in 1798, revolutionized weapons manufacturing by allowing people to fix their weapons and ensure they didn't explode. It was an important development that led to the modern bullets and weaponry we know today. More importantly, it enabled mechanics to repair cars and machinery, which is critical for rebuilding society.

The concept seems like common sense nowadays: interchangeable parts are obviously the way to go! Well, people since the time of Gilgamesh also thought so!

People weren't dumb. Interchangeable parts didn’t become standardized until the 19th century because people lacked the necessary tools to make them. If you tried to assemble a gun using pre-made parts without precision, it would likely explode, and then it’s goodbye hands.

Several dozen critical machines allow for interchangeable parts, but two are critical and within our means to create: the milling press and lathe.

Both are like cookie cutters for metal, allowing metal makers to replicate the same shape whenever they make an object.

The difference between the two is how they cut.

Lathes take metal rectangles and transform them into cylinders. They resemble pottery wheels that spin so potters can use their hands to elongate and shape clay, except lathes use a piece of metal instead of clay and a harder metal piece to grind it down instead of hands.

Lathes are necessary for creating uniform screws, ball bearings, washers, and pipes.

Milling machines are the opposite. Instead of spinning the metal being cut, they use a spinning metal piece to grind down the metal like sandpaper on steroids. They also have drills that cut uniform holes into metal as well, making them very versatile.

These two machines will change the world. That's why I'm commissioning them from my favorite overworked blacksmith. I'm sure he'll be excited to see me.

***

“Is that… Dragon’s Peak liquor?” Carter asked with wide eyes, seeing me walk through the door with a box of colored bottles, each with the Dwarven logo on it.

“Not just Dragon’s Peak liquor,” I chuckled, glad I avoided his sighing. “This is the stuff made for kings. Well, I’m a king, so I got it.”

Carter salivated, and then he frowned. “What’s the catch?”

I dropped the box on his shop table, garnering the attention of all the blacksmiths. “There’s no catch. It’s yours.”

“Sorry for sayin’ this, but I feel like there’s more to this,” Carter sighed.

“What are you talking about?” I smiled. “I already work you to the bone. It’s not like I have to give you booze to do that.”

He gave me a wry smile and then looked at the alcohol bottles. “Well, hell, this is far better than not havin’ anything but unspendable money.”

“Indeed,” I grinned. “Well, anyway. You’ll be building new tools now, so I need these things built as quickly as possible. It’ll take a while to tweak it for the new steam engine design I’ve provided you.”

I pulled out a folder and dumped 50 drawings on the table.

These were blueprints for the bed, headstock, spindle, chuck, tailstock, tool post, carriage, lead screw, feed rod, and gearbox for the lathe. Additionally, the base, column, table, spindle, arbor, knee, saddle, overarm, and vise for the milling machine. These pieces hold the metal, cut it, move it from side to side, guide it, and allow it to stay in place.

These machines weren’t particularly complicated, but they did require precision. Add in the designs for a more complex steam engine to power it through faster rotation, and there was a kaleidoscope of things that needed building.

“There it is….” Carter groaned. “I’m going to need alcohol to get through this.”

“Oh, don’t be a baby. I already had the hardest parts made for you,” I huffed, pulling out and dropping a box of ball bearings, making them spin. “That, and the dies and cutting tools.”

I pulled out the dies and cutting tools for the machines. “Wait, are those….” Carter was stunned, looking at blue pieces of metal.

“The most expensive rods of metal in existence?” I scoffed, throwing the blue metal pieces on the table. “Yeah. It’s Mythril. Here are some saw blades and drill heads, too,” I added, throwing metal cutting saw blades and drill heads onto the table.

Carter’s heart almost stopped beating when I dumped them out with zero concern.

“Don’t make that face,” I rolled my eyes. “People buy Mythril because it’s damn near indestructible. So I better be able to shoot this thing with a cannonball and have it not break.”

“You’re a wild kid,” Carter muttered. “What is all of this going to do anyway?”

“This machine—the lathe—will allow you to create perfect cylinders, screws, pipes, and all other rounded metal in minutes,” I said before moving to the other. “The other—the milling machine—will allow you to make perfect square and rectangle pieces, as well as cutting perfect holes in things for various parts.”

His eyes widened in shock. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“Nope. As I said, your journey with metal-working automation has only begun,” I said. “One day, you won’t pick up a hammer to make anything unless it’s art.”

Once I finished my sentence, I picked up a bottle of Dragon’s Peak spirits. “Carter’s Steelworks is the future!”

Carter sighed and rubbed his bald head. “You always leave this place with me hyped up. Then I gruel and suffer for months, hatin’ my life. Then somehow, you show up, and get me hyped again. But screw it, pour me some of that booze. It’s the good stuff, and that’s worth some excitement.”

“Good man,” I grinned, pulling out twenty shot glasses. “Let’s get a toast.”

The workers rushed over, leaving their forges running. Modern inspectors would have a heart attack if they saw the exodus. However, the burly men didn’t even care. They removed their gloves, wiped the sweat from their brow, and picked up their shot.

“To Carter’s Steelworks, the frontier of metal manufacturing!” I said, raising my shot up high.

“To Carter’s Steelworks!”

Everyone yelled in unison, clinking their glasses together. It was time to start the interchangeable parts revolution.

***

Leaving a bunch of drawings with Carter wasn’t the same as getting things done. They would probably burn through a thousand ball bearings just getting the lathes and milling presses ready. However, once they had one, we could start making better, more accurate, and more reliable lathes and milling presses. Getting the first one right by hand was enough to get things started.

Luckily, these machines weren’t difficult to make. The real difficulty was converting a steam engine to create the spinning rotation. We were finally out of an area of knowledge as I flipped through books on almost everything, looking at the pictures and incidentally memorizing things. However, there’s no manual on how to make individual steam engines for specific things. Therefore, as time passes, I’d have to teach real engineers, and they’ll have to find solutions. I suppose I should start doing that.

That night, I went home and started copying the Skylandish alphabet, like Roman characters, creating a mnemonic jingle to memorize them.

“What are you doing?” Thea asked, bringing me a glass of phinks root tea. It wasn’t actually called tea, but that’s how I saw it.

“I’m improving the learning boot camp I used to teach you reading and writing so I can send it off for everyone in the Everwood Kingdom,” I replied. “We need to make learning effortless, so we can send these books to everyone, teaching them numbers and reading.”

Thea blinked twice. “Why?”

“So we can give people instructions on how to do things from afar,” I explained. “In my world—the new world—everyone will enjoy education and a higher standard of living.”

After a moment of silence, I looked at Thea and found her tearing up. “W-What’s wrong?!” I stammered. If there was one thing I hated, feared, and couldn’t handle, it was if people got emotional. And, while I would normally just ignore people, Thea was the one person I didn’t like to see cry.

“It’s just….” Thea gulped, wiping a tear from her eye and giving me a stunning smile. “You taught me how to read and write, and it improved my life so much. The thought of you bringing that to everyone… it just makes me so happy.”

I gently smiled once I understood she was shedding tears of joy.

Then I patted the ground, and she ran over for our relaxation ritual, with me kneading her ears like a stress ball and her purring and loving life.

I wished this simple relationship we had would never end.

***

The next morning set off a flurry of activity. I set to work with normal affairs, touring Sundell’s development. It was springtime, and a lot of work progressed smoothly the year before. There was now large community housing for the workers, which allowed up to fit two thousand immigrant workers while the homes were being built. There were also 100 simple houses with cellars already built and 300 more in the works.

Carter and Timothy’s new factory buildings were almost complete, an exciting point on the near horizon. Likewise, the various smaller trades had new buildings as well.

The buildings didn’t have floors yet because they still had plumbing networks to set up. Therefore, the plumbing would just require us to rip up the flooring again.

We now had a full perimeter of walls with mounted ballistae, cannons, and rudimentary impact-triggered mortars. All my soldiers took trips to Everthorn, where they ate soul mana meat and trained in Nightshade Forest. So while I had the smallest army in Novena and couldn’t occupy territories, I was heavily fortified.

The farmers sowed the fields by hand. While I wanted to make a seed drill, Carter was busy with the lathe and milling press and would be for quite some time. Therefore, things continued as normal.

However, I did oversee the digging of contour ditches, which intercept and collect water, preventing it from running off the field. We placed them strategically to distribute water to the fields.

Next year, with the piping system set up, I’d oversee installing a gravity-fed drip irrigation system, which would evenly feed water directly to crop roots, preventing water wastage and runoff and minimizing weed growth and soil erosion. For now, we were doing things the tried and true way with slightly improved systems.

In areas that didn’t require direct plumbing, I oversaw the building of concrete roads. Asphalt would be ideal, but it requires bitumen, a byproduct of oil refining. It was yet another reminder of crude oil's profound need and usage.

Luckily, concrete is an excellent substance for making roads, and it’s widely used.

The main benefit of asphalt is its flexibility, making it resistant to cracking and fatigue from heavy traffic. However, it’s prone to deformation and rutting.

By contrast, concrete is rigid and offers higher compressive strength, withstanding heavy loads while preventing deformation under traffic. However, it’s prone to cracking.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Both had advantages and disadvantages—when you have semis driving over them!

The average semi-trailer truck in the United States can carry 80,000 pounds—over 40 tons—of supplies, and modern roads must handle that. In a world of horse-drawn carriages and wagons, concrete was a nuclear-grade overpowered invention that only high heat, time, and seismic activity could destroy!

With these things in mind, I oversaw the installation of roads and paid workers from the other cities and settlements throughout the territories to start building a road to Silverthorn.

Meanwhile, our economy skyrocketed from pottery exports, steel production, and woodwork, all of which benefited from waterwheel technology that we freely distributed. Now that we had a steam engine, the world could have waterwheel technology, as steam engines were far more effective and exponentially harder—and more dangerous—to replicate.

The steam engine had various usages right off the bat. First, we used it to create power saws for Timothy and band saws for Carter, which naturally came with the safety glasses we had Kaley make. Since the glass wasn’t curved, it didn’t cause any distortion. Therefore, they were great for preventing splinters from getting into people’s eyes.

We also used the steam engine to make pottery wheels, cement mixers, grinders, wood shredders and pulpers, blast furnaces, and almost everything else we originally used the waterwheel for. It was a true revolution that made things exponentially easier.

***

—Three Months Later—

Three months later, I celebrated my sixteenth birthday, and the town enjoyed a big feast in town hall, a massive building using steel support beams and create architecture hidden behind beautiful ornate walls. It wasn’t complete, as artisans insisted upon installing wood carvings, statues, and art everywhere, but it was a good start.

“To Sundell!” I said, raising a large goblet.

“TO SUNDELL!”

The number of people in attendance had grown slightly. Regma came but didn’t get to speak much, as Chieftain Zora, now adorned in gold jewelry from the prosperity of Luminara’s trade, got wildly drunk with King Thrain, and she had to nurture him.

Seraphim showed up with our trader friends, and all the founding members from Peggy’s Soap Company showed up alongside Carter, Timothy and his family, and Kaley’s crew.

My father and mother had been busy, giving me two siblings over the years. The first was Samson, my baby brother, who was approaching five. He still didn’t know how to have an intelligent conversation, so I mostly just asked him questions and prayed that he didn’t ask me to play games. At my strength, throwing a football could likely kill a man, so I’d rather refrain.

My newest sibling, a little sister named Eris, was still a newborn, so I got to hold her and pretend I was a good brother. I spent the whole time panicking that I might drop her, so it wasn’t as endearing as people might think.

By request, all the maids and butlers of Mother and Father’s estate arrived and enjoyed a feast, getting doted on by other servants, something they found surreal.

It was a good night topped off by me kneading Thea’s ears.

***

Following my birthday, we enjoyed our first wheat harvest, which we utilized our mechanical reapers for, drawing the attention of the Goldenspire farmers. How couldn’t we? While they were busy on the other side of the river with hundreds of people doing back-breaking labor with scythes, we reaped all the wheat in a few days, and the farms were empty. The contrast was too insane to ignore!

That was only the start of it. Within a week, we were already selling flour to our settlements and the surplus after stockpiling to the Aerulian Empire, Valeria, and Dragon’s Peak.

A week.

A goddamn week.

Moreover, the price was far lower. After all, we needed a fraction of the time and labor to reap the fields, so we could get it out as quickly as possible.

That said, we didn’t have an immense amount to sell. Half of our fields were now growing legumes, commonly referred to as the bean family. We grew and harvested lentils this year, which helped fix the soil's atmospheric nitrogen through a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria known as rhizobia. Once we grow wheat there, it will have far more nutrients and increase the yield output.

Things were taking off nicely. A bit too nice.

“King Everwood!” Mayor Aleric yelled, bursting through the king’s audience room.

I stopped kneading Thea’s ears with a cold expression. “What is it? Speak clearly and concisely.”

“Duke Revington of Goldenspire is here!” he stammered. “He’s demanded we show him our technology or he’ll deem us heretics!”

I furrowed my brow at the thought of being labeled a heretic. “So?”

Branding me a heretic and banning trade with me would be economic suicide for them. If they want to hang themselves, I’ll gladly let them. Actually, come to think of it, that’s ideal!

“What do you mean, so?” Mayor Aleric hiccuped. “Goldenspire is the leading voice of the Church of Solara. If you get branded a heretic, you will also alienate the million believers of Solarianism in other countries.”

My eyes flashed with a venomous light, and I grinned murderously. “Wait, so they showed up unannounced and threatened us with real consequences?” I muttered before looking down at Thea. “Do you want to teach this man the price of threatening us with economic sanctions?”

Thea clapped her hands cheerily, hiding her murderous bloodlust behind a cute smile. “I’d love to!”

“Okay, let’s go,” I said, standing and walking out the door, leaving the poor Mayor stunned. After he broke out of his haze, he ran out the door, begging me to reconsider.

***

“You impious people make me sick,” Duke Revington spat at a farmer couple. He was adorned with white robes accented with golden silk around his body that gave off a noble feel. “I can’t believe you won’t even consider cleansing.”

The husband gritted his teeth as his beautiful wife cowered. “What type of cleansing requires my wife to get naked? What’s it called?!”

“You insolent worm!” the duke yelled, pulling back his hand and swinging it at the commoner’s face. The husband braced for impact with his wife, but no strike ever came.

All the guards around Duke Revington unsheathed their swords when they saw me holding the Duke’s wrist. They didn’t know when I got there!

“W-What is this?!” Duke Revington stammered in horror.

“You dare come onto my property, try to assault my women, and physically strike my men?” I asked. “Do you understand the ramifications of your actions?”

“W-What are you doing, you brutes?! Kill this person!” he yelled.

The guards tried to charge, but massive black birds circling the sky in an eerie pattern shot down simultaneously, screeching as they dive-bombed the soldiers, overwhelming them.

Duke Revington quivered, watching his men scream as the birds pecked their eyes out. They had ghostly speed, evading sword strikes, and the lucky few hits that connected barely left scratches.

They weren’t normal birds—they were Crowls from the Nightshade Forest. The men could struggle all they wanted to, but the fight was over before it began.

Duke Revington opened his mouth. “W-Witchcraft!”

CRAaaaCK!

He looked down and found that his hand was gnarled and limp from where I gripped it, shattering it.

“Let me explain something, Duke Revington,” I said. “Your petty duke title means nothing to a king, and you ordered your men to kill King Everwood. That’s who I am.”

Blood drained from Duke Revington’s face, and he quivered, dealing with the adrenaline and shock from his splintered wrist. It was on a countdown until the pain kicked in and he started screaming, so I got straight to the point.

“I lack the patience for you to shame your peaceful religion with excuses,” I declared. “I’ve read and memorized your book and customs, and no ritual involves a woman being naked. That was assault. You came here trying to steal our technology, threaten economic sanctions, and kill me. That’s provocation. So save the villainous monologue about piety and pray you live.”

I chopped the back of his neck, dropping him unconscious. I didn’t want to hear him speak.

“K-King Everwood! Do you understand what you’ve done?!” Mayor Aleric exclaimed.

“It’d be pretty hard not to,” I replied, dropping Duke Revington’s body with a resounding thud.

“This is tantamount to a declaration of war!” he countered.

“Yeah, I thought so, too,” I nodded. “Did you not just hear my last statement?”

Mayor Aleric’s bloodshot, tired eyes filled with panic. “So you’re declaring war?”

“No, I’m sending a letter to Priest Aelius stating that one of his ‘chaste’ clergymen came to the Everwood Kingdom unannounced, tried to assault a woman, declare us heretics, and kill me. All of those things are against international decorum and signs of provocation—he’ll understand that.”

A torrent of conflicting emotions crashed through the man’s mind. However, my words partially appeased him.

“I’m not declaring war, Mayor,” I said, patting his shoulder as I passed. “I’ll only do that if he doesn’t give us land as reparations.”

Once I left, I promptly wrote my letter to Priest Aelius in the least words possible.

***

After dinner that night, Lyssa came to my personal parlor, where Thea and I were working on the teaching system. “King Everwood,” she said, formally while taking a knee.

“I can differentiate between political and non-political, formal and informal without you making a scene,” I rolled my eyes. “Just speak candidly as always.”

She took a deep breath and locked eyes with me. “Do you want war?” Naturally, escalating the situation with Duke Revington and then demanding land as reparations would almost certainly lead to war. So I understood that.

“I don’t want war, Lyssa,” I sighed. “I don’t want to kill or oppress people and find no enjoyment in watching them suffer.”

“Then tell me why,” Lyssa implored.

“War is unavoidable,” I asserted. “My farming technology will destroy their economy, and people will suffer for it. Their treasuries will deplete, and then they’ll attack us to steal our technology to survive. War is rational for them; that’s just how it is.”

“It’s unavoidable?” she frowned. “You just created an alliance with King Thrain to avoid economic issues. So why not Goldenspire?”

I sighed. “Innovating food production will destabilize the entire world, Lyssa. These reforms can make every country worldwide go to war with us, and they’re a bordering nation. That’s why. We can give them things all they want, but they will go to war with us. Feeding enemies technology would be stupid.”

“Then why introduce these inventions so fast?” Lyssa grimaced, feeling her stomach twisting. “You could give people time to adjust.”

“There’s no time, Lyssa,” I replied. “I’ve seen a prophecy of a major threat to beastkin and humankind. So we must accelerate our modernization as quickly as possible.”

Lyssa bit her lip.

“Lyssa,” I said, low-toned yet firm. “War is unavoidable, and war brings casualties. My innovations will bring starvation and political unrest if we don’t handle them correctly. These are facts. Therefore, we must prepare for the least number of casualties.”

Lyssa looked up at me. “You’re minimizing deaths?”

“Of course,” I replied, lifting up a sheet of paper. “While the Everwood Kingdom will always have an advantage, I’m mass disseminating technology to every kingdom, as well as materials to educate them.”

Her mouth fell open slightly. “Wait, what? Why?”

“So countries can employ their displaced farmers,” I replied. “Soon, we’ll be selling food so cheap that everyone can eat their fill and still have money. It’ll be a time of prosperity for Novena. However, millions of serfs will be priced out. Therefore, we need to give them jobs.”

“That’s why Ryker’s creating manuals for soap making, candle making, road making, and countless other trades to give to people!” Thea beamed, trembling from excitement. “He’s also offering to employ people and make partnerships as they adjust!”

Lyssa looked at me in disbelief. “Won’t governments get angry that you’re dictating their entire economy?”

“That’s what violence is for, Lyssa,” I smiled. “I’ll bring countries more food, teach them, and give them technology. However, if I give them everything and they look a gift horse in the mouth—I’ll overthrow their kings and install puppet governments.”

Her excitement died instantly, and she frowned.

“Isn’t Ryker the best?!” Thea squealed, hugging me intensely on the couch.

“He’s something,” Lyssa sighed. “At least you’re not drunk on power.”

“I’m not,” I confirmed. “My only goal is to revolutionize this world and minimize suffering. That’s all. To accomplish that, I’ll do just about anything.”

Lyssa gave me a wry smile. “I’ll get you two tea.”

“Thanks, Lyssa,” I said after she left the room, thankful to avoid the “you’re actually okay” discussion. She knew I hated that.

I looked at the paper I held up. “Now it’s time to practice what I preach.”

I glided my fingers through Thea’s hair, reminding her she was still hugging me. She turned bright red and flew to the other side of the couch, happy I wasn’t bothered by it.

Thea was the cutest. It made me smile again, easing the strain of what I’d have to do.

There was another major reason that I wanted to get this over with: I’d soon have minorly healed emotions. The last thing I needed was to have second guesses about what was rational. However, I kept that information to myself.

***

The next day, I checked on Carter, who had finally created a lathe, the easier of the two.

“Boss, this is the coolest machine I’ve ever seen,” Carter said as soon as I walked into his shop. Everyone was standing around the lathe, watching it with wide eyes and fascination.

“It’s pretty simple but effective, isn’t it?” I chuckled. “Let’s see it from the start.”

Carter had put a small metal brick into clamps, making it hover in the air. Then he started the steam engine by putting water and coal into the machine, making it chug and spin the flywheel, which spun the spindle extremely fast due to ball bearings reducing friction. Lastly, the Mythril tool stayed stagnant as the carriage, the sliding part, moved forward, bringing the metal chunk in contact with it, shaving off metal.

The result: a perfect cylinder.

“I’ve never seen something so smooth!” Carter exclaimed, gushing uncharacteristically at the perfect unthreaded screw. “Oh, and the threading capabilities are incredible, too.”

By moving the carriage at a certain rate, the grooves from the cutting with the threading cutting tool are uneven, creating screw threading. In the future, we needed an automatic system that regulated feeding speed to make standardized screws. However, that would take time.

“So I take it you like it?” I asked sarcastically, pointing out his fangirl demeanor and making the blacksmiths burst into laughter.

Carter gave me a mocking smile. “Yeah, it’s alright. Now if only you gave us the extra time we’re saving off. But I know you’re not here to celebrate.”

“No~pe,” I smacked, pulling out another stack of drawings. “The next thing you’re making is called a rolling mill, which is similar to this machine, so you already have the technology. Once completed, I need you to mass-produce pipes. Prioritize it over the milling machine.

Let me know how many more people you need to give you some breathing room. Just be reasonable: if you need more than a hundred, you’re being inefficient.”

“One hundred?” Carter echoed, looking at his 20 men.

“You’re going to have a thousand in a few years,” I replied, walking to the door. “We’re manufacturing for the world now. So get used to it.”

With those parting words, I left the building. Next month, we will build the plumbing network, deal with Goldenspire, and set up public education systems. There was a lot to do, and every moment was precious.

Oh, and I amassed a fortune of 100 million gold from my business ventures, not counting tax revenue or cuts to my business partners. I think that I’ll start buying and trading books now. Since King Redfield never gave me access to Valeria’s famous Royal Library, I guess I’ll just have to build one of my own.