Black powder.
The words lingered in the periphery of Dimitry’s mind whenever he treated a patient, trained his employees, or lay in bed. Now was no different. He stood in his office, staring at the line of grayish dust on his granite desk.
It was the latest variation of black powder and the product of over a dozen trials.
Dimitry didn’t prepare it alone. When surgeon work kept him too busy to visit the lab personally, he sent Clewin instructions on how to alternate black powder’s formula. The goal was to discover a better preparation of chemicals resulting in faster ignition rates and less residual matter. Slow-burning powder produced weak explosives, and if it left excessive residue, weapons would clog, reducing their accuracy and power.
So they experimented.
The first change came after Clewin observed that crushed potassium nitrate grew larger the longer it rested on a counter. Dimitry realized it was because the chemical absorbed moisture from the air. On a molecular level, water blocked nearby compounds from interacting, leading to sluggish reactions. A counterproductive process resulting in weaker explosions. He began roasting potassium nitrate on an incendia enchanted towel to evaporate excess water before weighing and mixing it into black powder.
Seeing some improvement, they altered the formula. Instead of willow charcoal, Dimitry tried using oak charcoal or that of lomn, a twisting tree native to this world. Neither produced better results. Undeterred, his next step was to juggle the ratios of every ingredient. Slightly increased sulfur content seemed to help, but the change was too minuscule to confirm without timekeeping devices for comparing reaction speeds.
This world’s unreliable measurements compounded the problem. For example, a heng could weigh as little as an acorn, or as much as a large rock. When Dimitry found the time, he would make his hospital and chemistry lab operate on the metric system. But that was a problem for later.
He had a more pressing matter: the black powder on his desk.
It was the second delivery from the lab this evening and the amalgam of every improvement Dimitry and Clewin made over the past two days, with the recent addition of grinding sulfur and charcoal in the same mortar. Without potassium nitrate to act as an oxidizer, the chemicals couldn’t explode in a chemist’s hands no matter how hard they crushed the contents.
Dimitry hoped the integrated blend would make the black powder burn faster and without leaving excess residue. That this batch would be the one that changed the way people fought heathens forever. The way they mined ore. Blasted tunnels.
He took a deep breath, lowered a flint rock to the desk, and struck it with a horseshoe-shaped piece of steel.
Sparks fell onto the black powder trail, setting it alight. The flame wafted warm white smoke smelling of spent fireworks into the air as it fizzed across the desk, depositing dark grime along the way. Then, after several seconds, the fire died out. Although quicker and more luminescent than previous trials, this batch was nowhere near as combustive as the black powder in the relic’s vision.
Dimitry dropped into his chair.
Progress came, but it came slowly.
Judging by one of yesterday’s batches, where he ignited a sealed ceramic jug filled with black powder, this blend wouldn’t have the power necessary to make a bomb capable of breaching a heathen’s stone armor, nor did it have the cleanliness required to charge a flintlock. The excessive residue would take too long to clean between shots. With firing rates reduced so much, even crossbows were better and cheaper.
Where did he go wrong?
Did impurities remain in the mixture, preventing potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal from reacting? Unlikely. Dimitry set aside the cleanest chemicals for this sample, removing every stone and foreign speck before Clewin pulverized them. It couldn’t have resulted from poor mixing either. The apprentice who delivered it said they shook the jar all morning.
Dimitry thought of only one explanation for his failures: granulation. It was the biggest difference between his black powder and the ones in his vision. The next test he designed would seek to reproduce those chunky black fragments.
“You know,” said the faerie lounging on Dimitry’s shoulder, her feet kicking back and forth, “most people would have given up by now. I respect the effort, but did you ever consider getting a new hobby?”
“Are you trying to motivate me, or annoy me?”
“I’m just saying you’d make a good incense maker.” Precious lifted her head and sniffed. “I didn’t like the smell at first, but it’s kinda grown on me.”
“Wait until you see the real deal. When I’m finished with it, I’m sure you’ll like the sound, too.”
“What kind of sound?”
“Like a really loud pop.”
“Why does it pop?”
“It doesn’t always pop.” Dimitry sealed the pouch containing remnant experimental black powder. “Only if you put the powder inside a small container and set it on fire. Then it explodes.”
“Explodes?” Her legs kicked more excitedly than before. “What can it explode?”
“Trees, rocks, people… probably heathens.”
“What?!”
“Yep, sends all kinds of stuff flying with a really, really loud sound.”
Precious pulled up to Dimitry’s face, her chiming green wings tickling his cheek. “Show me!”
Entertained by her childlike enthusiasm, Dimitry swiped his hand across the smooth surface of his granite desk, sweeping burnt residue onto the floor. “I just need some time to figure out exactly how it works. You’ll like what you see when I’m finished. Guarantee it.”
“What are you waiting for? Finish it already!”
If only progress came that easily.
Impatient knocking slammed against the office door.
“Dimitry!” a muffled feminine voice called. It was Angelika. “There’s some guy here who says he really needs to see you!”
“Just a moment,” Dimitry said.
Precious slid down his uniform. She glanced up with gleaming, golden irises. “Remember. Explosions.” With those words, she dove into his pocket.
For such a gentle-looking creature, she sure loved watching things go to shit. Dimitry brushed black specks from his clothes. “You can bring them in now, Angelika.”
A girl whose curly red-brown hair drooped from under a crimson robe’s hood stomped into the room. “Did I interrupt your conversation with that thing?”
“No. Precious wasn’t saying anything important. Like always.”
Small fingers pinched him through his uniform’s pocket.
“Right.” Angelika pointed back with her thumb. “Anyway, do you know this guy? He just showed up and started begging me to take him to you.”
A lanky man in a ruffled and dirty brown tunic shuffled behind her. Legs shaking, perhaps after a tense encounter with an impatient combat sorceress, he carried a worn sack over his shoulder.
“I don’t think I do.” Dimitry stepped forward. “Hello. Have we met before?”
“A-are you Sir Dimitry?”
Being called ‘sir’ in a groveling tone made Dimitry feel as if he were an ill-tempered slave driver. “That’s me. Can I help you somehow?”
The man dropped to his knees. “Your Lordship Richter sent me, sir!”
Dimitry stood with furrowed eyes before realizing that this must have been the person Marquis Richter promised to send for the plant crossbreeding project. Only a few days had passed since their discussion. Although dismissive, nobles worked quickly. “There’s no need to kneel. I’m not someone so important.”
“Yessir!” The man grasped Dimitry’s outstretched hand with one covered in embedded dirt, calluses, and scars, then pulled himself to his feet. “Thank you, sir.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jesco, sir.”
“Judging by your hands and who sent you, I assume you have experience as a farmer?”
“My whole life, sir.”
Dimitry nodded at Angelika to signal that the visitor was welcome. “Can you tell Claricia to see me on your way out?”
“Yeah, fine.” She waved as she strode out of the room. “If you have anything else for me to do other than stand out in the cold, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“If it gets too cold, you can take a break and stand watch inside the cathedral. I don’t want you to get sick.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Thanks for your hard work.”
Angelika glanced back, a grin on her face. “You got it, sir Dimitry sir.” The door slammed shut as her crimson robe’s silhouette disappeared into an unlit hallway.
Hiding his amusement at his bodyguard’s sarcastic quip, Dimitry pulled out a chair. “Jesco, care for a seat? It’s not very comfortable, but you look like you’re exhausted after what I can only assume was a long journey.”
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The man took several hesitant steps forward. He wore an expression of disbelief. “M-may I really, sir?”
Was Jesco from a place where chairs were a commodity? “Help yourself. And please, don’t call me sir. Just Dimitry is fine.”
“Yessi—” His eyes opened wide as if they committed a grave error. “Y-yes.” He lowered himself into the cushionless furniture’s hard and rigid embrace.
Dimitry sat at his desk. “Did Richter tell you why I asked you to come here?”
“He said a surgeon wanted me to grow something, and to come back when he gives up. Kinda strange, though. I didn’t see no plant pots or fields nowhere.”
So Richter expected Dimitry’s crop hybridization project to fail? Not that that was surprising. Anyone would express disbelief when told a doctor could create plants with better harvests. As far as the Marquis knew, crops changed over dozens of generations with only minor improvements after careful selective breeding.
How wrong he was.
But Richter wasn’t to blame. People living in a scientifically illiterate world couldn’t have discovered genetic hybridization, or in all likelihood, the intricacies of plant sexual reproduction. Both were aspects vital to industrial level food production. Aspects Dimitry could easily apply.
Except another problem remained. Dimitry’s theoretical knowhow did nothing to remedy his agricultural ignorance. He had never walked through a wheat field, let alone tended to one. Such was the folly of urban life.
That was where Jesco came in.
Dimitry folded his hands onto the desk. “I was told that samul and wheat were the most popular crops in this kingdom. Is that correct?”
Jesco hastily nodded. “That’s most of what you’re gonna find. Some lords make people grow fent and reyum, but yeah. Samul and wheat.”
It was strange how this world had crops both foreign and identical to Earth’s. “And you’ve handled all of them?”
“N-no. Mostly just samul and wheat. I did grow herbs for the village herbalist, though. Groundboar too.”
“And how much land did you manage?”
“Huh?”
“How big is your farm?”
Jesco stared at his dirt-caked boots. The emerging wrinkles on his suntanned forehead belied his actual age, which couldn’t have been over twenty. “Maybe like three fels. Thing is, it’s not my farm. Me and my dad and some of my neighbors borrow it from His Lordship Richter.”
Dimitry didn’t know how big a fel was but chose not to display his ignorance. He couldn’t afford to appear clueless, and he already learned what he wanted to know—Jesco was a small-time sharecropper. That was good enough for Dimitry’s purposes.
“Would you be able to handle a crop field as large as this room?”
The man’s eyes shot around the office. “W-what?”
“I’ll be making samul and wheat fields no larger than this room. And I want you to be in charge of them.”
“My sorriest apology, sir Dimitry.” He bowed. “I can’t understand.”
“Have you ever heard of a greenhouse?”
“No, sir.”
“Indoor garden?”
“N-no…”
Perhaps the technology to create those structures didn’t exist yet. And, even if it did, a sharecropping farmer wouldn’t have the luxury to experience them. “Think of it as a farm inside of a building that can grow plants.”
Jesco’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “But there’s not enough windows here! They’re even boarded up!”
“We won’t need windows.” Dimitry pushed away from his desk and stood. He pointed at the ceiling. “I’ll be using illumina to replace light from the sun. Incendia to imitate its warmth. That way, no matter the season or temperature, we can grow plants indoors.”
“M-magic? I don’t know if… something that expensive.” His face displayed the horror of watching someone shred stacks of hundred-dollar bills. “… just for a few beans and grains?”
“Our goal isn’t to make food. We’ll be making something else. Something that’ll change the way your friends and family back home farm forever.”
Jesco gulped. “What’s that?”
“We’ll be making new plants. Breeds of wheat and samul that are hardier, grow faster, and produce more grain and beans than any other. All of that in this very cathedral.”
Like a sane man agreeing with the whims of a maniac to avoid enraging them, Jesco nodded. “T-that’s good. That’s good.”
“I’m sure it’s a difficult thing to accept right now, but over the coming months, you and I will change agriculture forever.”
“Anything you say, Dimitry sir.”
Dimitry’s visionary speech ended when he realized that crossbreeding crops without a variety of seeds was impossible. He sat in his pressure ulcer-inducing chair and leaned forward. “By the way, did Richter tell you to give me anything?”
“Yessir.” Jesco dug inside his bag. “He gave me all kinds of seeds. A lot of them are useless, though. No one would ever grow them unless it’s for festivals or something.” The man sorted over a dozen pouches onto the granite desk.
Some contained shrunken black beans. Another had plump red ones. Long, white seeds. And a strange bag amongst them had a thick, pink paste.
When Dimitry dipped his finger into it, it clung to his skin like adhesive slime. “What’s this?”
Jesco looked up. “That’s, that’s…” He snatched it away. “S-sorry, I shouldn’t—”
“May I?” a monotone voice called from outside.
Dimitry watched as the man hid his secretive slime. To avoid a scene and to prevent Jesco from running away in shame, he swallowed his curiosity. “Perfect timing, Claricia. It’s open.”
A woman with silken dark-blue hair and a somber expression walked into the room. If what Clewin said was true, no one could fault his wife for her gloomy disposition. Losing a child would tear anyone with grief. Despite her circumstances, Claricia performed well as a stock manager for the hospital and the laboratory. She would know if something as inconsequential as a blanket went missing.
Dimitry turned his attention to Jesco. “Since you’re away from home, I was wondering if you had anywhere to stay.”
He took a handful of copper marks out of his tunic. “I was thinking of buying a few nights at an inn, then helping out to earn a spot in their barn.”
“Richter doesn’t pay you?”
“He does, but I give it to my wife and kids. Times are tough.”
Shocked and impressed that someone so young could be a caring father, Dimitry helped pack the man’s belongings. “Hold on to the seeds and beans for now. And don’t worry about that… pink stuff. As long as it isn’t dangerous, you could do whatever you want with it.”
“T-thank you.”
“Claricia, would you arrange for Jesco to have his own room and bed? Preferably close to the altar room on the second floor.”
She shook her head. “There aren’t any beds. The only spares we have are straw mattresses.”
Dimitry frowned. He expected difficulty in furnishing a cathedral during a crisis and famine, but lacking beds in a hospital was unthinkable. “Is a straw mattress okay with you?”
“An entire room?” Jesco dropped his traveling sack. “Just for me?”
----------------------------------------
A rusted iron bolt held the door shut. Granite walls, supporting collapsing bookcases and slanted shelves, kept the secrets of a dusty room hidden from prying eyes. Only the waxing green crescent peeking through boarded windows saw the shifty surgeon and the golf-ball-like object he held.
Dimitry stood in an abandoned chamber on the cathedral’s third floor, relic in his palm. It was cold now, but if his experience on the boat from Waira was anything to go by, it wouldn’t be for long. The alien item would burn over once he demanded it retrieve long-forgotten agricultural knowledge from the recesses of his mind.
What would he rediscover?
Like hollow husks hinting at greater wisdom, only fragmented kernels of plant biology he once studied rattled in his mind. That and his experience growing cacti on his condominium’s window sill, many of which died from negligent care, was all that remained.
If Dimitry wanted to revolutionize agriculture, he would need to know more.
And he had to use that knowledge soon.
Heathens invaded this kingdom’s fields, pushing northern borders back, the land available to farmers diminishing. Their harvests weren’t enough to feed a country overrun with hungry refugees.
Malten would have crumbled already if it wasn’t for southern countries sending food aid—support not born of generosity. They did it to sustain a barrier between demonic invaders and themselves: This kingdom was a sacrificial lamb whose dying breaths provided them time to raise defenses and an army.
And if they deemed Malten no longer efficient to maintain? If they discontinued their aid? Countless civilians would die, friends’ lives would be lost, and Dimitry would become homeless once more.
It was time to act.
However, now that Richter sent an associate, now that everything went as Dimitry planned despite doubts over whether he would get the Marquis’ help, he was unsure of what knowledge to request.
Too broad a query and the relic would present useless information. Too narrow, and it would be incomplete. Last time, he inadvertently asked for guns and cannons but saw visions of rifled barrels and bullet casings—neither of which he could ever hope to reproduce. The limit was five unique visions per orb. Each had to pay dividends.
When a stiff wind carrying winter’s biting frost whistled through boarded windows, Dimitry shuddered. He wondered how much glass panes would cost. The cold was getting unbearable.
Heart rate escalating, he refocused onto the relic. Asking for general knowledge about ‘agriculture’ was pointless. Dimitry occasionally read about modern gadgets that improved yields by a few percent or something similarly insignificant. Neither solar-powered cameras nor visions about tractors were useful. Just wasteful. Only major strides reproducible in a technologically bankrupt world would help—discoveries that changed farming forever despite poor infrastructure.
At the same time, Dimitry forgot almost everything he learned about plants. What did he need to know? What information could Jesco provide in place of the relic? Although this world had familiar produce like wheat, knowledge specific to Earth crops wouldn’t help cultivate vital foods like samul.
His request had to be specific.
Calculated.
Dimitry leaned back against a hard and freezing wall. He stood there, thinking. Postulating. Fretting.
A moon twisted across a starry night sky beyond the crevices of shattered stained glass and misaligned planks. Time dripped by. It melted into an uncertain abyss between midnight and dawn before he came to a decision.
Dimitry exhaled a misty breath, tightening his grip around the relic, hoping his choice would be the correct one. Then, to a vacant room, he spoke. “Arable crop sexual reproduction and essential advancements in pre-electric agriculture.”
Dark clouds burnt through the white-quartz ball, heat erupting through its cold surface. The orb blackened. A ravenous hunger shot from within and surged into Dimitry’s arm. When it reached his brain, the world stopped.
The stiff wind grew still. The granite wall against his back lost its slick rigidity and body-warmed heat. The stars no longer twinkled.
Roses sprung from the speckled stone floor. Then, as if victims to the precise and unseen blade of an assassin, their organs scattered along an insensible breeze.
Dimitry focused on a drifting flower.
The petals vanished to reveal an underlying ovary, the carpel rising from its top, the stamens jutting from the sides. Anatomy and functionality forgotten long ago made themselves known to Dimitry. How anthers produced pollen and how the stigma received it. How greenery often reproduced asexually through apomixis or self-fertilization unless they received pollen from another. How seeds stored fat for use while germinating.
All were facts he once learned through biology textbooks. As if he had just pulled a coffee-fueled all-nighter in one of his former university’s library booths, they held firm. The information was clear in his mind. Dimitry might have gasped if his lungs could move.
The vision ended, and winter’s chill returned to hound his exposed neck. Heat lingering in the relic warmed his otherwise cold palm.
That was exactly what he needed.
What he hoped to see.
Dimitry slid down the wall until he fell to the floor. There he sat, breathing ragged breaths as a crescent moon moved across a star-filled sky, waiting eagerly for the next vision to arrive.
Seven fields formed a circle, each one growing produce belonging to a different family of plants. Crop rotation. A vital development Dimitry learned about in an anthropology course. By alternating plants based on their size and the nutrients they absorb from or add to the soil, fields could grow crops yearly while preventing pests from taking hold. Not only did that improve harvests, but it also allowed farmers to raise feed for livestock.
Then, a diagram depicting the Haber process, including the conditions required to produce liquid ammonia—a fertilizer that revolutionized farming. The details were limited to what an undergraduate organic chemistry textbook required students to know. Not that Dimitry expected to reproduce it in his lifetime. As far as he knew, neither magic nor medieval technology could create two hundred atmospheres of pressure.
A warped scene of a faceless man transplanting pollen from one flower to another. It came from an Internet video about cultivating the world’s hottest pepper.
The last vision comprised four pistons and gas pipes forming a circle, conferring details about the Carnot Cycle. Dimitry remembered struggling with the topic in his physical chemistry class, and the relic’s fuzzy details reflected that. It wasn’t a significant loss. Though the Carnot cycle formed the theoretical basis for perfectly efficient engines and refrigeration, the concept was too inefficient for practical use. Dimitry would need vast resources and many months if not years of development to do something productive with the knowledge. A project best saved for when he had the manpower and money.
By the time dawn’s early light filtered onto Dimitry from a brightening sky, the relic began to repeat itself. It imparted five unique visions—just like the previous one. Although not all the information was useful, learning about crop rotation and the ability to manipulate plant reproduction satisfied Dimitry.
They would change this world forever.
If Dimitry could figure out how to put it into practice.