Chapter 30: Water Wheel and Winter Farms
The first true winter of Alexius's reign approached with a creeping, insidious chill on the morning air. The frantic energy of the post-war reconstruction had settled into a steady, productive rhythm. The new Royal Service was taking root, the first national Prince's highway was laid across the land, and the Principality was, for the first time in a generation, stable and secure. But peace brought with it new, more subtle challenges.
In his solar, Alexius studied the agricultural projections prepared by Lillia. The "Miracle Harvest," a result of her divine blessing, had filled the nation's granaries to overflowing, averting the immediate threat of famine. The new farms, managed with her guidance, were thriving. But the reports all carried the same grim footnote: an estimated 90% of their current crops—the wheat, the barley, the standard fare of Leo—would wither and die with the first hard frost. The small, magically-warmed greenhouses she had established near the capital were a marvel, producing fresh greens and herbs. Still, they were a boutique operation, not a solution for feeding a population that had swelled to nearly 800,000.
The problem was no longer about preventing starvation; it was about nutrition, health, and morale. A winter of nothing but hard bread and salted meat would lead to sickness and discontent. He needed a sustainable way to provide fresh food through the cold months. He needed a new miracle, one forged not from divine intervention, but from ingenuity and determination. For that, he went to the source of the last one.
He found Lillia at the Royal Agricultural Research Fields, where she spent almost all her time. This sprawling tract of land west of Aethelburg was her sanctuary and her laboratory. Under her care, it had become an oasis of ordered life. He saw experimental plots of strange, leafy green plants she called 'winter kale' and patches of hardy root vegetables. He saw the shimmering, translucent walls of her greenhouses, within which the air was warm and humid, a pocket of summer defying the autumn chill.
She was on her knees in a patch of dark, rich soil, her simple linen dress smudged with dirt, her silver hair tied back loosely. She was speaking softly to a row of young plants, her fingers gently tending to their leaves. She radiated a sense of peace and belonging that she never displayed in front of others. When she looked up and saw him approaching with only Cilia as an escort, her initial formal deference quickly gave way to the easy familiarity of a colleague.
"Your Majesty," she said, rising and brushing the dirt from her hands. "I trust the crop reports were satisfactory?"
"They were a testament to your skill, my lady," Alexius replied sincerely. "You have fed this kingdom. But now we must solve the problem of winter."
They walked through the fields as she explained the limitations she faced. "My own Aura can enrich the soil and coax life from it," she explained, her brow furrowed in thought. "And I can maintain the warmth in these few greenhouses. But to do so on a larger scale… to heat dozens of acres… it would drain me completely. It is not a sustainable path. Furthermore, the harvest we have is so immense that our mills, powered by oxen and men, will be working until spring just to grind it all into flour."
She had perfectly articulated the two bottlenecks: warmth energy and energy for processing. As Alexius listened, an idea sparked in his mind—a memory from a world of forgotten physics, a simple machine that had powered a revolution.
They sat on a simple wooden bench near the banks of the mighty Elmsworth River, which flowed steadily past the fields. Pulling a piece of his fine paper and a charcoal stylus from a pouch, Alexius began to sketch.
"You are trying to solve two problems with your limited energy, Lillia," he said, his voice filled with a new excitement. "What if we used an energy source that is limitless and never tires?" He pointed with his stylus to the river. "The river flows day and night. It has immense power. We simply need to learn how to catch it."
He drew the unmistakable shape of a large wheel, with paddles or buckets along its edge. "We build this—a water wheel—in the river's current. The flow of the water pushes the paddles and turns the wheel, endlessly." He then sketched a series of gears connecting the wheel's axle to a massive millstone. "This can turn your mills. A single water-powered gristmill could do the work of fifty oxen and never need to rest. It could grind our entire harvest in a month."
Lillia's eyes widened, her keen intellect immediately grasping the simple, profound elegance of the concept.
"But that is only the beginning," Alexius said, growing more animated. He sketched again, this time showing the wheel powering a strange-looking pump. "What if the wheel powers a pump that draws water from deep within the earth? There are hot springs in the foothills west of here. The water beneath the ground is warm." He drew a network of clay pipes running from the pump to one of her greenhouses. "This system could circulate the naturally warm water beneath the soil of your greenhouses. It would provide a constant, gentle heat, day and night, allowing you to cultivate thousands of acres of winter farms, and it would not require a single spark of your magic."
It was a breathtaking concept—a fusion of his mechanical knowledge and her mastery of the land. A true Magi-tech solution born not in a forge, but in a garden.
As he leaned over the parchment, explaining the mechanics of the gears, his hand brushed against hers. The brief contact sent a jolt through him that had nothing to do with Aura or the System. He looked up, noticing for the first time a small smudge of dark soil on her cheek. He felt a gentle, almost unconscious urge to reach out and wipe it away, but he stopped himself, his heart giving a strange, unfamiliar flutter.
Lillia, too, seemed to notice the shift in the air. She looked at him, at the intense focus in his eyes, the weariness that always seemed to linger there, now replaced by the pure, unburdened joy of creation. He was not a sovereign at this moment. He was an inventor, a partner, sharing a secret. She felt a wave of admiration and a deep, resonant empathy for the immense burdens he carried so silently.
"Your homeland… it must have been a remarkable place," she said softly, her voice barely a whisper.
Alexius froze for a fraction of a second, caught off guard. He gave a small, sad smile. "It was… a place where people learned to make the rivers and the winds do their work for them," he said, the vague answer a truth more profound than she could know. It was the first time he had ever spoken of his past to anyone. It was a complete trust.
Their shared moment was interrupted by a cough. Cilia was sent for Borgin, and the dwarven Master of Works had arrived, drawn by the promise of a new engineering challenge. Alexius explained the concept of the water wheel.
The dwarf's eyes lit up with a fire that dwarfed the sun. He stared at the designs, his mind already seeing the finished product. "By my ancestors' beards," he breathed, his voice filled with reverence. "It's so simple. So powerful. It uses the mountain's blood to do the work! Gears, pumps, mills… Your Majesty, with this, we can not only grind all our grain, we can power sawmills to cut lumber for the new districts, power bellows for my forges… this one invention will change everything."
As Borgin and his team of dwarven engineers immediately began taking measurements and arguing animatedly about water flow and axle torque, Alexius and Lillia walked away, leaving the boisterous sounds of engineering behind. They strolled along the riverbank as the autumn sun began to dip towards the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and gold.
They walked in comfortable silence for a time, the charged energy of their creative breakthrough settling into a quiet, shared peace.
"Are you ever tired, Alexius?" she asked suddenly, using his name without his title for the first time.
He looked at her, surprised by the directness of the question. "Every day," he admitted, the honesty of it surprising even himself. "But the work must be done."
"You are trying to build a future to protect this Principality," she said, her eyes reflecting the painted sky. "A future of laws, and armies, and new machines," she hesitated and continued, "A place for everyone regardless of where they are from and which races they belong to, like myself, I can surely say a fortress to protect everyone".
"It is the only way to survive what is coming," he replied grimly.
She stopped and turned to him, her expression soft and serious. "A fortress of stone can still be a cold and empty place. You build with stone and iron, and I with soil and seed. Perhaps together," she said, a faint, hopeful smile touching her lips, "we can build a kingdom that is not only strong, but also alive."
He looked at her, at the genuine warmth in her eyes, at the way the setting sun haloed her silver hair. In that moment, the endless calculations of the System, the weight of his crown, the dread of the future—it all faded away. He felt a simple, profound human connection, a feeling more real and more vital than any strategic victory.
The future was a terrifying darkness, but standing here, with her, a small, warm light had been kindled against it. And for the first time, he felt that might be enough. (Continue....)