"You look pale, Master Iron," his voice echoed through the hall. "Magister Willem claims your source is empty."
"A source is just a tank of energy, Your Excellency," I replied, looking him in the eye. "If the tank is empty, it doesn't mean the machine has stopped being a machine."
Wayland leaned forward slightly. I saw his fingers drumming on the armrest.
"Magic on a different level..." he muttered, more to himself than to me. "Magic that doesn't need mana? It sounds like heresy. Or the greatest find of the century."
"Call it whatever you like," I allowed myself a faint smirk.
"Come," Wayland stood up abruptly. "Show me what you can do."
It worked, I exhaled silently.
We left the hall and descended through the passageways into the depths of the castle.
The Count’s personal "Forge of Wonders" was a vast room filled with smelters, workbenches, and stacks of parchment. It smelled of sulfur, copper, and sweat. A dozen people—the best minds of the Collegium and alchemists—were scurrying around a massive construction of bronze and chains.
They were trying to force water to rise to the upper levels of the castle using a complex system of counterweights and magical pumps.
"It keeps breaking," Wayland stated, pointing to a pile of snapped chains. "We spend thousands of gold pieces on enchanting the links, but the mechanism cannot withstand its own weight. The water is too heavy, and the pumps require constant feeding from mages."
I approached the main blueprint laid out on a massive oak table. An old alchemist in a stained robe looked at me with disdain.
"There isn't enough purity of ether here," he grumbled. "If we could only stabilize the flow of mana..."
It was... pathetic. Trying to "defeat" gravity with brute force while completely failing to understand the principle of the lever.
"Give me a pencil," I snapped.
One of the apprentices handed me a graphite rod. With a few thick lines, I crossed out their central hub.
"You're putting the fulcrum here," I jabbed at the drawing. "That's why your shaft is experiencing colossal breaking tension. Move the lever two meters to the left, add an intermediate gearbox with a three-to-one ratio, and replace these chains with a system of cables and pulleys."
"But that will weaken the pull!" the alchemist protested.
I looked at him like he was a slow child.
"You need less friction and more understanding of mechanics. You gain in force, you lose in distance. But the water isn't in a hurry, is it?"
I quickly sketched a diagram of a hydraulic press. Pistons, valves, and pressure.
"Assemble it like this," I tossed the pencil aside. "And get rid of the mages. Let a horse turn the wheel, or just the flow of water from the external aqueduct. The pressure will do the work itself."
Dead silence fell over the workshop.
Wayland walked up to the blueprint, stared at it for a long time, and then turned his gaze to me.
An hour later, we were sitting in his private study. There were no guards here, only the smell of expensive tobacco and old books. Wayland poured a dark liquid into two glasses and pushed one toward me.
"You are a dangerous man, Iron," he said quietly. "Proposing a world where kings do not depend on mages."
He took a sip.
"But that is exactly what makes you so damn special."
"I am offering you the status of First Inquirer. My budget, my people, my resources. In exchange, I want everything. The recipe for your 'black powder,' the design of the pneumatics, and all your blueprints that no one has ever heard of."
I felt cold calculation stir inside me. This was the moment of bargaining.
"Too cheap, Your Excellency," I leaned back in my chair, ignoring the pain in my shoulder. "I need only one thing, and if you can do it, so be it."
"What is it you desire?"
"Dornheim must receive the status of a free economic zone. Full autonomy. No taxes to the Count for the next five years. And no Inquisition within my walls."
"And one more thing. I need the waste from your copper casting."
The Count frowned.
"Slag? Why do you want that filth?"
"Everyone has their quirks," I shrugged.
I couldn't tell him that this "slag" contained isotopes that Lumon had flagged as necessary for restoring my channels and creating a new type of energy cell.
Wayland remained silent for a long time, weighing the risks.
"Fine. Dornheim will get autonomy. For three years. Take all the slag you want. But if in a month I don't see working prototypes of your weapons in my arsenals... you know what will happen."
At night, I was escorted to the assigned chambers. The luxury here was excessive—silk sheets, carpets, gilded furniture. But as soon as the door closed, Noah stepped out of the shadows, and Elyria materialized by the window.
"It's a golden cage," Noah sniffed the air. "There are speaking tubes in the walls. And behind the door... those aren't just guards. They smell of dried blood and old charms."
I sat at the table, feeling my strength leave me. "Elyria, what did you find?"
The spirit flickered, her voice like the rustle of leaves.
"Deep under the castle, Iron... there is a level that isn't marked on the plans. There is no magic there, only cold and a strange hum. I saw locked doors there made of metal that rust doesn't touch."
Noah stepped closer, his eyes glowing faintly yellow in the dark.
"Wayland is looking for a replacement for magic no less than you are. I suspect he wants to understand how you are connected to whatever is lying in his dungeons."
I nodded, pulled out a clean sheet of parchment, and began designing a "modernization" system for the castle. A small valve here, a fragile support there. In six months, I would have Castle Wayland by the throat. One button—and the fortress would be without water, without lifts, and with its gates locked.
At one point, leafing through the papers given to me to "familiarize myself with the territory," I came across an old, yellowed map of the region. My eyes caught familiar outlines.
Dornheim.
But on this map, dated a century ago, a strange sign stood in place of my village—a perfect circle with a dot in the middle and three radiating beams.
Lumon issued a short message:
[Coordinate match detected... Warning: Entry Point #1 is in critical proximity. Recommended: Begin decryption procedure of local archive.]
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