Omen: 6, 15

Karot yawned after his teeth were brushed, before he rested his head against his father’s arm. He wanted to return back to sleep, the festival having exhausted all the children out. The last day had been the most relaxing day, but the children continued to play their games while the adults relaxed in the evening.

Adam made a face as though he had just eaten a raw lemon, trying to resist the urge to skip work that day in order to play with his children, but he let out a long sigh. ‘I need to work hard so they can sleep easy.’

“You’re going to work?” Filliam asked.

“Yeah,” Adam replied, sighing lightly. “I’ve got to work, you know?”

“Yes,” Filliam said, adjusting his glasses. “I know.”

Adam turned to face the tinkerer, blinking towards him. Adam’s face remained neutral, almost tired and sad. ‘When did Filliam get here?’

“What work will you complete?” Filliam asked, innocently.

“I was thinking about speaking with the Chief and Elder Zijin about smithing, but I’m not entirely sure,” Adam said. ‘There’s also the magical weapons I owe Rose. I should work on those passively too. Luckily they only asked for Basic Enhanced. I think they wanted it with a charge like Jurot’s?’

Adam finished playing with the children in the morning, his own children, as well as Gurot and the others. They walked together for a short time before they played with the balls, pushing and kicking them with some effort, before they were ready to wash their hands and eat.

“Adam,” Mirot said, staring at the Half Elf. “He must learn to feed himself.”

Adam held a sliced vegetable in his hand, which was nearing Gurot’s lips. “Just one, please.”

“Just one,” Mirot allowed, watching as the Half Elf offered each baby something to eat, but only one thing.

Gurot waited for more, and pouted when he didn’t receive any more from the Half Elf, and he made to cry. However, his mother placed his hand over the vegetable, and he grabbed it, before shoving it into his mouth.

“Daddy!” Jirot huffed at the Half Elf. “You!” She began to babble at him noisily, staring up at him while her mouth was covered in porridge.

“I see.”

“Yes,” Jirot said, before returning back to her porridge.

“What did she say?” Sonarot asked.

“She said what she said,” Adam replied, before eating a light breakfast of scrambled eggs, lightly salted. ‘Should I skip breakfast? It always feels awkward eating before working, my stomach feels so weird.’ He looked to the children, who were eating happily. ‘No, they might try to copy me.’

Once they were done with breakfast, Jirot pointed up at her father. “No!” She stared at him in shock, before looking to her grandmother. “No?”

“Your father must go to work,” her grandmother said.

Jirot shook her head, her hair bouncing from side to side. “No…” Her voice was uncharacteristically quiet, slowly dipping her head as her lips quivered into a pout.

“Come, Jirot, I will take you to babo,” Sonarot said, reaching out her arms.

Jirot rushed into her grandmother’s arms, and as she was picked up, she thought about what the older Iyrman had said. “Babo?”

“Yes. Babo will play with you.”

“Pay?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

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Sonarot planted a kiss on her forehead, before looking down to Little Jarot, who waited patiently to be picked up too, his eyes staring up at her expectantly. The look in his eyes was the same that Jurot used to give her whenever he wanted hugs as a child, but didn’t want to ask for them. She smiled, lifting the little boy up, planting a kiss on his forehead too. His lips formed a small smile, and he embraced his grandmother.

‘I’m only letting you steal them from me because you’re my aunt,’ Adam thought, narrowing his eyes at the woman.

The Half Elf made his way from the estate to the estate in the centre. Each shared estate was only one ninth of a super block of estates, with the central estate belonging to the Elder.

“What do I owe the pleasure?” Elder Zijin asked, with a young Devilkin teen sitting beside him.

“I came because I heard you’ve been stealing Churot for so long, isn’t that right, Churot?” Adam asked, shaking the Elder’s forearm before ruffling Churot’s hair.

“No,” the boy replied, staring up at Adam. “I like maths.”

“Aha? You’re doing maths for the Iyr?”

“Yes.”

“Are they paying you well?”

“No. I am an Iyrman. I am helping.”

Adam stared down at his Cousin, who was also far too adorable. “Right, right. If they’re not paying you, maybe I should pay you.”

“No. I will do the maths.” Churot stared up at Adam defiantly.

“Fine, fine, you can do the maths,” Adam said, ruffling his hair some more.

“Grandfather has one less leg,” Churot stated, far too matter of factly.

“Yeah…” Adam remained silent for a moment, noticing how much Elder Zijin was enjoying the awkwardness. “Since he has one less leg, you need to love him more.”

“I cannot love grandfather more,” Churot said. “I already love him so much.”

Adam covered his lower face, hiding the smile, but also doing his best not to let out a laugh. ‘Why is he so cute? Was he always this cute?’

“We will remember that little Churot is assisting us well,” Elder Zijin stated. “The Iyr never forgets.”

“I seem to have missed your birthday,” Adam said, still ruffling the boy’s hair. “Is there something you want?”

“No,” the teen replied, blinking up at Adam.

“Hmmm…” Adam noted the lack of the tattoo on his forehead. ‘He’s still a kid, so it’s not like they can refuse my gifts for him. Should I make him something cool?’ “You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

“…”

“Would you like another book?” Adam asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll get you another book.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you come here to speak with only the boy?” Elder Zijin asked.

“No, I actually came to speak with you about…” Adam paused, looking to Churot. ‘Hold on…’ “Actually, I think Churot might be useful for this.”

“What is it?”

“I was thinking about how to become an industrial powerhouse of a smithy for the business so we have a large stock of weapons that we can pump out quickly to enchant,” Adam said. “It’s nice to have one smith who can make a sword every other day, but I wanted to figure out a way to create more weapons quickly, and consider the Iyr is the death machine of this entire land, I realised it’s probably best I tell you how it works, so that maybe the Iyr can go through the trials to figure it out?”

“What did you have in mind.”

Adam began to explain to Elder Zijin the concept of an assembly line, but also how to use maths to have the appropriate number of people within the same station. “I would recommend finding out how many days it requires for each section of an item, from the pommel, the hilt, the blade, and so on.”

Adam began to draw out the hypothetical into a book. “Let’s say one person can make ten pommels each day, another person can make five hilts each day, and the last person can make one blade each day. Then what you need to do is find out a number in which all these three meet up, in a reasonable way.”

Churot leaned in to pay deeper attention to the conversation, since he would be tasked with this.

“Luckily, ten, five, and one, all have a shared number they meet up with pretty quickly. Ten. So, all you need to do, is find the number of people for each task to reach that number. Which is one person for the pommel, two people for the hilt, ten people for the blade.”

Elder Zijin narrowed his eyes slightly, slowly nodding his head, Churot doing the same.

“Of course, there are other factors you have to take into consideration, but once you figure out that thing for basically everything you can manufacture, you can make double, triple, maybe even more, in terms of the weapons. The thing you lose, obviously, is that people become specialised doing one thing. However, if you have people who aren’t smiths, they can still do something to help out, like assembling things, and each person assembles the same thing, every time.”

“So we will create weapons at a faster rate, but of lower quality?”

“Potentially lower quality, but considering you’re Iyrmen, as long as you don’t focus too much on speed, you can make items of the same quality. Really, does a pommel need to be the best quality? No. As long as it meets the minimum standard, should be alright, and obviously it depends on which weapons you make.”

Elder Zijin thought, furrowing his brows. The Iyr made sure they always had enough smiths, enough to repair and create whatever they needed. However, if they really could speed up their process by even a little, they could shift some smiths into this new process and test it out.

“You are going to work?”

“Yeah, that’s another thing I wanted to speak to you about.” Adam smiled. “I need to repay someone for something, and it requires two Basic Enhanced weapons, similar to Phantom, although, obviously, not going to make something like Phantom. I’d like to know how much I can do…”

“As long as it is weaker, it will be acceptable,” Zijin confirmed.

“A weaker charge once per day?” Adam asked.

“That sounds acceptable.”

“Cool.” Adam let out a gentle sigh. ‘Politics sucks.’