Wrecking Fantasy with Technology

Royal Palace, Country of Eruchea:-

A few more days later, Harry had received all the necessary deliveries.

Now, he had all the parts necessary for making the advanced steam engine.

It was called a steam engine but in reality, it was closer to the first version of the modern-day steam turbine. The one built near the end of the 19th century.

That aside, the quality of the pieces that Harry had received from the blacksmiths was quite amazing.

Sure, all of the parts forged by them would have been rejected instantly by anyone in that field of work back on Earth as too crude to use for any practical purposes.

But even then, the final parts forged by the blacksmiths were extremely high-quality ones if you considered the level of civilisation on Etheldor.

‘Hmmm, if I use these, the turbine should last for a year at the least!

And in that time, I can totally work on improving the design and standardising the procedure!

Yeah! If I can make a steam turbine-powered production line for these turbines, the quality of the newer models would be much, much better! And then, I can just keep replacing the old turbines with the new ones that the factory makes!’

Harry was getting excited just by thinking of the endless possibilities that this opened up for him and his country.

This thing could be used in so many places!

Harry could make steam-powered ships, steam-powered machines for mining, steam-powered power looms and the best thing of them all, locomotives!

There could be so many other uses for it apart from this as well.

‘I remember, I think the entire “steampunk” thing came into fashion because of steam engines only, right?’

Now, he was on the path to industrialisation! 

Naturally, he still had to do a lot of improvements even now.

This model of the steam engine was made of iron.

So, it would probably not last the year due to all the snow in the winters.

That’s why Harry had planned on gathering up the blacksmiths and teaching them about making steel and stainless steel.

They weren’t completely alien to this stuff but weren’t that advanced either.

Things made of alloys such as bronze and brass existed.

Even things made of steel existed.

But, the production process of the steel goods was very useless and pathetic in Harry’s eyes.

The blacksmiths took the old way of hammering iron till it absorbed carbon and stuff from the air and turned into steel.

That’s why steel was ultra-expensive in this country and so little goods were made from steel that they were treated as precious family heirlooms by the few people who managed to get their hands on one.

No one had even heard of stainless steel in this world.

As for all the energy-users and other races, they never bothered with this stuff. They always worked with the fantasy items like spiritual jade (trademarked favourite material of all the powerful cultivators) or mana infused metals or similar fantasy metals.

No one looked too much into the non-fantasy 92 natural elements. They were the plain stuff without mythical energy that everyone felt they shouldn’t waste their time on.

No one even bothered with the good stuff like Uranium or Plutonium! (Which served as a huge blessing for Harry.)

And that’s why Harry had kept his schedule relatively free today.

All he planned on doing was assembling and demonstrating the working of the steam turbine/engine and teaching the blacksmiths about alloys.

He had already made an announcement to the blacksmiths and the soldiers about the showcase of the new machine.

Everyone was supposed to gather in the barracks to not let the public get any misunderstandings if they saw the army suddenly on the move.

Looking at the time, Harry decided to get moving.

It was already 3 o’clock.

If he didn’t finish the presentation thing by max 5, he wouldn’t be able to teach the blacksmiths about alloys unless he stayed there till 9 at night.

And if that happened, it wouldn’t be much different from his usual jam-packed day.

Harry did not want that one bit.

He had specifically set today up so that he’ll get free by 7 in the evening so that he can spend time relaxing at home.

Harry quickly called for his butler and told him to get someone to carry the metal parts lying around his office over to the barracks.

Then, he quickly went to call Jeanette and the siblings before setting off for the barracks.

He had already officially announced that he and Jeanette were getting together to the citizens a few months back.

He had surprisingly received quite positive feedback from the people.

It turned out that many of them knew about Jeanette’s past and were happy to see that she was going to be the queen.

Harry knew that some people must be there who’d be against this, but they seemed to be a very small minority at best and hence not much of a concern.

Even Liang had congratulated him, though she didn’t meet Jeanette personally again, fearing that her looks might scare her again.

***

Military Barracks, Country of Eruchea:-

Harry and his group arrived at the barracks a few minutes after the parts of the steam engine had already arrived.

The moment they reached, Harry jumped out of the carriage and rushed to check on the parts.

Seeing that everything seemed to be in order, he told the nearby soldiers to transfer everything inside.

The blacksmiths were already assembled in the training grounds.

There were also several chairs kept for the audience in front of the empty area where the steam engine parts were being deposited.

This was going to be a surprise for everyone present, considering it actually works and doesn’t end up exploding.

Qing and Shin knew exactly what was going to be presented since Harry had already tried explaining to the three of them about the steam engine.

Jeanette, on the other hand, had no knowledge of science like Qing and Shin and ended up not understanding anything.

So it was going to be a bit of a surprise for her too.

Once everyone was assembled, Harry gave a short speech thanking all the people who had worked on the project.

He also mentioned his plans to go with the blacksmiths afterwards to discuss future projects, causing them to get big smiles on their faces.

Working for the royalty was a much sought after thing for anyone and everyone.

But Harry decided to not try to explain the working of the steam engine verbally.

No one would be able to understand it in the first place since these guys hadn’t ever heard of anything that can move on its own without any mystical energy.

He quickly called for the soldiers and blacksmiths to help him with the assembly.

And after a few minutes, the steel steam engine was sitting on the grass, fully assembled.

“All right everyone here is the fruit of the hard work done by our country’s blacksmiths!

This chunk of metal, or ‘machine’ as I call it, can move on its own using nothing but some hot coal and water!

I can assure you, this machine can run in an environment that doesn’t have a drop of mana or qi!

You may not believe it. Not even the blacksmiths who made this machine might believe it.

But what they can believe is that this machine has nothing that can use mana or qi!

And as for my ‘wild claim’ about its functioning, you all can see for yourself as I turn on this ‘Steam Engine’!”

Harry quickly poured in some water in the boiler unit of the machine as he finished his little speech.

He had already put some coals inside and lit them up as he was talking.

And with the pull of a few levers, the steam engine started moving.

The movement wasn’t anything special. It was just a piston attached to the main body to which one other piece of equipment could be attached.

But Harry wasn’t going for any really fancy display here.

All he needed to show was the practical example of the idea.

The idea that even the mortals who do not have any special powers can do something impossible like making a lump of metal move on its own.

Just the idea that anyone with the right skills can do the impossible was all that Harry needed to spread.

Some people might think of this as propaganda. But for Harry, this was very important.

Development needed manpower.

And the only way that Harry was going to get the manpower was to unite his country as one.

It didn’t matter if he plagiarized some propaganda idea from somewhere on Earth.

He wasn’t trying to take over the world and make some sort of Chinese or Russian style communist kingdom encompassing the entire world.

All he needed was that his own countrymen (and women and any other gender) stand together as one and don’t end up collapsing the country from the inside.

Because even if he gave them a lot of cool sci-fi tech that made them feel like they were in heaven if they felt like they might earn more by selling country secrets, his own citizens might end up leading to the collapse of Eruchea.

And if he tried to be very strict, he might get assassinated or something like so many other tyrannical leaders in Earth’s history.

That’s why Harry’s only way forward was to use whatever means he could use (even if he didn’t like the methods he had to use) to create a sense of nationalism and patriotism in as many of his citizens as he could, as long as no one had to die for it.

And as for the people in front of him, Harry felt that they had latched on to his little idea according to his plan.

This could be seen in their eyes.

From the soldiers who had simply taken the parts from the carriage outside and kept them on the ground, to the blacksmiths who had either forged the parts themselves or had seen the forging, all of them had a look of wonder in their eyes.

Now, Harry could only hope that he was guessing correctly and none of them were thinking of selling off this new invention instead.

Because if they were planning on doing so, he might need to ask the system to at least keep a track of them and inform him if any of these guys were doing something suspicious.

‘You know what?

Better safe than sorry and better now than later!

Hey system, can you at least tell if any of these people or anyone secretly watching plan on espionage or something?’

[The host need not worry about that. There is no one in the nearby vicinity whose neural activity suggest any such activities. However, even if such an individual appears, this system will inform the host before the situation can get out of hand.

Also, due to successfully running a steam engine, the host will be given a reward. The host can collect it at the end of the day, after finishing up all the tasks assigned for today.]

This was good! Now Harry wouldn’t need to worry about spies nor would he need to beg the system every time he needed to check.

Harry now kept looking in the crowd’s direction but only kept his eyes on Jeanette.

Everyone else’s reactions were pretty satisfactory, but Jeanette’s reaction looked very cute to Harry.

Most people were just admiring the steam engine and seemed to be praising Harry’s wisdom.

But she looked like she honestly wanted to learn about it.

She looked like a little child who was watching a rocket launch and thinking about how he is going to become an astronaut when he grows up and fly in one of them too.

She looked like a child in terms of cuteness too.

If they weren’t out in public and Harry didn’t have to go with the blacksmiths, Harry would have probably attempted to smother her with kisses. (He had been getting better at it since the two kissed each other quite often.)

Harry let the steam engine run until the water finally ran out before turning it off.

Now, he needed to go with the blacksmiths to teach them new stuff and ask them to make more of the steam engines.

He needed them to make more steam engines so that he could set up factories and start building proper houses before winters properly arrived.

Once all this was done, the steam engine was disassembled by the blacksmiths present and loaded back on the carriage it came on.

Everyone started returning to where they came from.

But Harry followed the blacksmiths.

Now it was time for the lecturing to begin.

Their group travelled to one of the large smithies that some of them worked at.

There, Harry started explaining to them the concept behind alloying and the proper method to do it.

He taught them to make many different types of alloys other than bronze and brass.

He did teach them the method for manufacturing steel easily but couldn’t teach the method for stainless steel since they didn’t have chromium, one of the necessary metals to turn iron into stainless steel instead of plain old steel.

He had to show them some of the processes in person. (He only instructed them instead of doing it physically since he had to somewhat maintain his image as their king.)

All in all, Harry managed to rush this stuff and finish it before the clock struck 7.

Seeing that, Harry wrapped up and rushed home.

He planned on enjoying the rest of the day flirting with Jeanette or something. (If Qing and Shin would allow him to, that is.)

But even now, he had planned out his next big project.

He would teach the alchemy guild some real chemistry!