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Knowing how expensive it was to raise and maintain a standing army, I offered the entire treasure chest to Dad as a financial cushion in case one or two costly emergencies actually happened. It hurts a bit to let go of a chest full of treasure, but it's not like I was hurting for money. Professor Sageira was still holding onto my winnings from my fight with that whelp of a red dragon, Druuv. That amount of gold ingots alone made me richer than a good number of minor noble houses.
Hearing my offer, my parents and grandparents smiled at me, but Dad eventually shook his head. "As happy as I am at your offer, son, I do not think we will need it. Better to get it appraised and deposited at the bank. Besides, did you not mention that you had some side projects that you wanted to get started? This would be a great launching off capital." Dad said as he patted the lid of the treasure chest.
***
After a long bath, I was lying in bed for the night, thinking about those side projects that Dad mentioned. One of those side projects that has been a long time coming was a toilet with proper plumbing. Just the logistics of the project were enough to give me a headache, but my butt cheeks yearn for the cold kiss of the porcelain throne. I had spent more than a decade sitting on wood to shit in a bucket, but no longer shall I stand for this!
The only thing standing in my way… was that I had little to no idea what to do. Back in my old world, sure, I could change a shower head and tighten a leaky pipe, but I was no plumber or handyman.
That meant small-scale tests, trial and error, and a lot of math would most likely be involved. And if it was going to get things right, I was going to need some scaled-down modals.
That night, I fell asleep with ideas and plans for what I wanted and what was needed to accomplish it.
***
The next day, after breakfast, I entered my neglected workshop and started by using some wind magic to remove the dust and stale air.
After I finished, I cleared my table and took out some paper and a pencil to start sketching rough plans. After staring at the paper and doodling gibberish, I realized that I didn't know where to start.
This calls for some structuring. I turned the paper over and started thinking about how I should start the whole plumbing system to begin with.
First things first, I need a source of water. In my hometown, Glenfell, we do not have any streams of running water or nearby lakes. What we do have is an aquifer that we dig wells to supply water to the whole town, so that is taken care of.
The next problem I need to solve is how to pressure the water so I can feed it to my home if I want running water. Because let's face it, if I am going to go through all the trouble of having plumbing to flush a toilet, I might as well go all the way and get running water for the whole house where it is needed.
Believe it or not, besides the Royal Academy, which had faucets with running water, almost everywhere else, people drew water and washed their hands and things in basins or buckets of water that were drawn from a well, stream, or some other water source... by hand.
After further investigating, it turns out that the Royal Academy is able to have such luxury because they have massive complex water collection arrays that are powered by the runoff mana every time a student casts any spell on campus, so they can well afford the mana expenditure and the water produced from it.
As for why they did it, it turns out that a few centuries ago, there was a minor civil war over the crown after the king died, and one of the princes besieged the Royal Academy after some of the most magically powerful mages in the kingdom refused to support him. After that, the headmaster went on a whole campaign of self-sufficiency to avoid being strong-armed into anything, political or otherwise.
As for me, I already had a water source, and the simplest way I knew to pressurize water was to let gravity do the work. That meant I had to build a water tower. As for how to get water into the water tower, I could make a hand-crank pump, but with some enchanting work, I could make the pump automatic and operable even by people with small mana pools like the house staff.
After addressing the water supply and pressure problems, the next step involves the piping and appliances like faucets and toilet bowls, but those are minor issues. What is truly important is sewage purification. Because, unlike a running river, an aquifer is a limited source of water that is trapped underground, and if we use more than it naturally replenishes from surface water leaking through the ground, the town is fucked. So we need to purify water enough that it can be fed back into the aquifer.
I could just dig a pit and let all the dirty water flow into it, but that would risk contaminating the aquifer we get our water from, especially since I plan to introduce running water to the rest of the town if it works well at home. However, that means I will need a sewage treatment facility. And that means that the town would eventually need a sewer system.
This project is starting to get a lot more expensive than I first thought.
***
"I have finished it! ... I think," I shouted while holding up a thick bundle of paper, surrounded by towers of books I had been using for reference.
These books were the only ones I could find in Mum and Dad's library, covering topics from geology and magical purification rituals from ancient societies to the city sewer ecosystem. All to develop a plan for a closed-loop water and sewer system for my home and possibly the rest of the town.
I wasn't entirely sure about the prices of the materials I needed, especially in the quantities I wanted, at least for the house, but I was fairly confident I could afford it. However, if it was for something on the scale of a town… that was something that would require the support of the local lord's purse. AKA, my father.
But first, I needed to present the plan to my parents because it would be just plain rude if I brought in a team of craftsmen and started knocking holes in the floors, walls, and ceiling.
Before I left to present my plans, I looked out the window, realized that it was the dead of night, and decided that presenting my case to renovate the house could wait until morning.