It has been a week since Ward returned to the village, when he woke up he found concerned eyes of the neighbors pointed at him. Some were concerned for his sake, and others were worried about the men that he traveled with.

After he explained what happened, there was a mix of relief that the village does not need to pay more tribute, and anger that their children were kidnapped just like that. The villagers convened and prepared a plan to accumulate as much wealth as fast as possible to get their people back. They also prepared backup plans in case something like that ever happened again.

Someone was sent to the papermaking town to call on merchants in order to sell them some all the valuables they could find around the village. Others started working on handcraft. They did a variety of products, they wanted to show them to the merchants, and whatever sold well, they intended to start producing in full capacity. The rest continued working on the farm, they were almost done with harvesting, but because Ward sneaked out of the village and skipped his duty, he was punished with more labor than a child his age was usually given.

The adult men were the ones to cut the wheat, once they did children would pick up the sheaves and arranged them together. Afterward, an adult would throw these sheaves in the wind. The seeds would fall in one place, but the seedless sheaves would fly a bit further away. Ward’s new responsibility was to collect these seeds and store them in sacks later to be transported into the village warehouse.

Once he collected as much as he could, he needed to feed the cows.

They have lost two cows in the journey, luckily they still had some left. As he was feeding the cows, Ward heard Wayl calling out to him from behind the barn’s window.

With a cheeky smile that was looking for trouble, he excitedly told Ward "the old man set up the grinding process but went to do something else, hurry up before he returns!”

Ward forgot his worries for a moment, and with a child’s innocent and sparkling eyes he followed Wayl where he found three other kids already waiting in the warehouse.

A bull had a metal sledge attached to it. The sledge was dragging on the floor behind the animal as it walked around stepping on seeds in the process. Usually, an adult rides the sledge adding weight to it, grinding the wheat in the process, turning it into flour.

The kids were switching turns, each time a two would ride the sledge and get dragged by the bull. As Ward looked at the situation, he started remembering what the adults have explained.

Flour sold for much more than the seed did. In their rush to pay the tribute they couldn’t grind the seeds previously, and now the seeds that remain are what they need to eat for the rest of the year - they can’t give them up either, but the villager decided that this time it would be better to store everything as flour instead of letting each house grind it on their own. So in the future, if there was a need to immediately tap into the village food rations, it would still be at a better benefit.

As he remembered those words, he also recognized the predicament the village was in, and remembered the friends he made on the way to the capital that were unable to return with him.

Everyone was rushing and working full time, even through the night in order to prepare everything they could think about before the papermaking town’s merchants heard their invite and came to their village. Ward started thinking about what he can do in order to help speed up the process.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

In his past life, when he was young, he did not live in a farm, but in a city - however, he still knew that machinery did all the heavy lifting, and he had ideas for a machine that he could make himself. As he kept thinking about what he could do, he suddenly had the idea of creating a windmill, he understood the concept behind it so he reckoned that with trial and error he would be able to make something similar.

He did not continue waiting for his turn on the sledge, and instead ran out of the warehouse and headed to the chief's house to tell him about his idea.

The chief was plagued with guilt, but he did not show it to Ward. Instead, he smiled to him when he saw him, he was grateful that he got to know what happened to his daughter, and he knew that the entire village was putting all their efforts into getting her and the others back. As he started listening to Ward’s explanation, the chief started getting excited. It was because he was learning new information. Windmill had existed for even before the great founder. But the chief’s eyes sparkled that Ward gave him information that he couldn’t possibly know since his village never saw a need to work on a windmill.

“Do you have any other idea we can work with?”

Ward figured he could make a bicycle with scythe attached to it, to make it easier to cut the wheat instead of making someone bend down for each batch. His idea was once again shot down by the chief.

“We are almost done with harvesting, we can work on that next year, but do you have something that can work immediately?”

Ward had no immediate response but promised the chief he would return once he thought of something.

As he headed out back to feed the cows, he remembered the tomato he brought, and the pizza he wanted to make. He changed the direction he was headed into and instead went to his room. He went through the dark living room that doubled as his parent's room and his little brother’s crib, and into his small dark room to rummaged for the seeds. He suddenly got the idea to revolutionize the new world with light.

However, he just as quickly banished the thought, while he knew how to do it, he did not think there is anything he could do at the moment, he needed copper and tungsten.

Perhaps the green mountains next to his house had copper, but what about tungsten? He saw on the map that to the south of the village there is a mining town. He carried the tomato seeds with him and returned to the chief to tell him about his new idea.

When he returned, he saw the chief shaking in anxiety as he sat in his chair. Once the chief spotted the young child, he immediately appeared to be much calmer, with the excitement returning to his eyes.

“Did you think of something?”

“Light! I can turn the night into the morning when we will it, without needing fire” the chief's eyes sparkled like the stars were in them, before he could ask anything, the boy added “I just need material like copper and tungsten”

The chief was conflicted “I don’t think I’ve ever heard about tungsten. When the merchants come, we can ask them about it.”

Before anyone could add anything, Alby, a handsome man with a head full of golden hair fluttering in the air, coughed to bring the attention to himself.

“Cheif I am ready, shall we discuss preparations now? Or should I return later?” he asked after he felt the excitement in the room.

The Cheif sighed and asked Ward to continue thinking about more ideas and to tell him about them as soon as he does.

Once Ward left, the chief directed his words toward Alby “I think the boy should join you.”

Alby was surprised “It is a perilous journey, and I am not experienced, I only trained because...” there was silence, neither of the men wanted to speak about the disappeared merchants.

“The boy returned from his journey, with new ideas, new goals - if he saw the world, saw the state it is in, understood more of it and the materials we have, once he returned, he would already have the experience and better understanding of what he needs to do. This would be of great benefit to us” the chief then smiled and continued “perhaps you can gather information more easily this way, no one will suspect a child afterall"