Rothester

Chapter 4: The Bad Side of Town

A bit over a week has passed since the banquet, which is a success for both Ken and Ardai. Since then, he has been busier than any other time in his life. Every hour of every day, he works with various craftsmen, blacksmiths, and miners to convince them to innovate their industry.

The problem that Ken identified in Scorcia is that it is not industrialized even though the technology exists in some form or another. Spending time in the marketplace at the plaza led Ken to see iron, steel, silver, and other metals being sold as silverware, tools, toys, and other items. Clearly, the technology to produce them in large quantities exists, but he hasn't yet seen the infrastructure in Efielge to do so. The Stonegate District outside the city walls on the north side is the closest to an industrial district as Ken has seen, but the most advanced technology he has seen is a handful of primitive blast furnaces. He has also noticed that most independent blacksmiths produce their iron through their own homemade bloomeries. Steel production is essentially non-existent, and upon questioning merchants, Ken has learned that nearly all steel and most subsequent products are imported from the Venesian Empire. Even worse, when Ken visited some of the blast furnaces, the owners told him they were lent or bought from the Venesians.

To further give himself prestige, Ken has to produce something for sponsors and backers to continue supporting him. Otherwise, the banquet was a waste. Ardai's first product will be a new luxury coach that he will sell to the wealthy upper class, and that is his focus for the first week. After being rejected by many blacksmiths and carpenters, Ken met a craftsman named Edgar, who reluctantly agreed to build Ken's prototype. The only reason Edgar agreed is that Ken offered to pay for the materials and pay Edgar a good chunk of money to make it.

Since then, the prototype is nearing completion, but today, Ken's focus is on another subject. To put it simply, the prototype is expensive, and Ken projects that units to be sold would be too costly to produce in any significant number. The new Ardai A1 Coach heavily relies on steel parts. Thus, Ken is forced to buy overpriced imported Venesian steel.

When he first arrived, Ken was perplexed at how iron could even be produced without coke as temperatures achieved without it couldn't be high enough to melt iron ore into molten iron. However, Ken learned that the blast furnaces used burns regular charcoal with magic crystals to boost the temperature, bypassing the need for coke. For Ken, this is too inefficient because it requires the stone to be actively used by a person to maintain the high temperature. Because of this, Ken's first change in the iron industry is to introduce coke ovens to increase iron production.

Today, Ken is visiting the Stonegate District. He had commissioned the construction of these ovens and other furnaces on property owned by an acquaintance he met at the banquet. Unfortunately, the sky is cloudy and looks as if it would rain, and the temperature decreased a bit.

When he arrived, the man is already there. Knox Brookse is a businessman who dealt in producing iron, who graciously agreed to work with Ken to test new metallurgy techniques and technologies.

"Mister Brookse!" Ken shouts.

"Greetings, Mister Kai. Welcome back. Good timing as well," Knox replies.

"How's construction going?"

"The coke ovens have been producing the coke you mentioned, and I must say they burn magnificently. Better and cheaper than the magic crystals. I am impressed. Your redesigned blast furnace is also being constructed. However, I wanted to ask and question some aspects of its design..."

"Oh? What of it?" Ken asks.

"Well, if anything, it looks like it will be more efficient at melting the iron ore into molten iron, assuming it works because I'm not entirely sure how it will work. I'm aware that it will need air to burn hot, but isn't the entrance too small? It will be difficult for anyone to blow enough air in there for extended periods of time. The crystal might be able to blow enough air through the small opening but only for short intervals."