The factory floor rattled with noise. The rhythmic pounding of hammers on steel, the hiss of quenching tanks, the grinding roar of lathes enchanted with mana circuits—every corner of the vast hall buzzed with energy. Smoke clung to the rafters, shafts of sunlight cutting down in dusty beams, catching the shimmer of sparks and molten metal. Workers moved in coordinated flows, raw ore dragged in through one end, smelted, refined, and steadily taking shape into sheets of plating and reinforced joints at the other.
At the center of it all stood Logos.
He was not barking orders like a foreman, nor idly watching from an elevated platform like a noble would be expected to. He was down among the workers, coat sleeves rolled up, face smudged with grease and dust, hands marked by charcoal and ink stains from constantly scribbling notes. Every so often, he adjusted the angle of a piston, re-etched a rune, or corrected a smith's hammer strike with the precision of a craftsman who knew exactly what he wanted.
Above the deafening noise, he raised his voice.
"Check the hinge tolerances again! They must not exceed half a finger's width!"
The smith frowned, sweat dripping down his temple. "Lord, with iron that thick, we can't get it perfect without—"
"Without recalibrating the mold," Logos finished for him, pressing a freshly etched rune-strip into the casting frame. The glyph flared softly, stabilizing the metal flow. "Now you can. Try again."
The man obeyed, casting again. When the hinge cooled, it fitted seamlessly into the prototype socket. A perfect joint. Workers nearby murmured in awe. One muttered under his breath, "The boy's got devil's eyes… sees problems before they even happen."
Lucy arrived with her usual tray, though this time it wasn't just food. She had papers tucked under one arm—documents from the town scribes tallying ore shipments, labor rosters, and a stack of complaints from overworked apprentices. She weaved through the crowded floor until she found him crouched over a blueprint, surrounded by scraps of etched copper runes and half-used chalk.
"You haven't slept again," she said flatly.
"I closed my eyes for a few hours," Logos replied without looking up. "Between casting cycles."
"That doesn't count." She set the tray beside him, glaring with the full force of an older sister figure. "Eat."
Obediently, Logos picked up a chunk of bread and chewed absently while still sketching. He paused mid-bite, frowning. "Is this garlic?"
"Yeah," Lucy said, brushing soot from her dress. "The spice trade's going really well lately."
Logos swallowed, thoughtful. "Though it's a problem. We don't have enough farms to grow spices and essentials together."
Lucy arched an eyebrow. "Well, we can't do anything about it. Our knowledge of agriculture is pretty limited."
"Don't worry," Logos said, already flipping through a sooty book on crop rotation. "I'll bring some from the capital. I read it here—" he tapped a page with his charcoal-stained finger, murmuring almost to himself, "Every revolution starts with bread."
The words weren't meant to be dramatic, yet the foreman standing nearby overheard and repeated them with a grin. "Every revolution starts with bread!" he barked, and the line of smiths around him chuckled. Soon the phrase echoed down the hall, a strange little chant blending with the hammer-strikes.
Lucy sighed, rubbing her temples. "Great. Now you've started slogans."
By evening, the mood shifted. The clangor of work slowed as workers finished their shifts, but the core staff remained. Logos climbed onto a raised platform at the heart of the floor, blueprint unfurled across a drafting table. Around him clustered foremen, rune-engravers, and senior smiths, their faces lit by the blue glow of the schematics projected from etched stones.
"This," Logos announced, tapping the parchment with the end of a charcoal stick, "is not a weapon. Not yet. It is a framework. A foundation. Every joint, every plate, every rune is meant to be reproducible. If one craftsman falls, another can take his place. If one forge burns out, another can take up the load. No secrets. No bottlenecks."
Murmurs passed through the crowd. For generations, blacksmithing secrets were guarded jealously, passed only to apprentices sworn by blood or coin. To hear their young lord dismiss that tradition so easily unsettled many.
"Lord Logos," one rune-engraver ventured cautiously, "if we spread knowledge this freely, won't outsiders steal it? Rivals? Even enemies?"
"Just because anyone can make it," Logos replied evenly, "doesn't mean everyone will have it."
Confused silence met his words.
He sighed. "Let me make it simple. Ferous isn't something that can be made by just anyone. It's not one thing. It's the individual parts."
Still, blank faces.
So Logos leaned forward, voice sharper. "This armor is made of six hundred sixty-six different parts. Each of those parts is made by a separate team. A hinge here, a piston there, a rune strip elsewhere. On their own, they mean nothing. Together, they mean power. So unless our guards are the very definition of incompetence and let all six hundred sixty-six methods be stolen, our secrets are safe."
Realization dawned across the foremen's faces. Some chuckled nervously. Others glanced at each other, weighing the genius—and the danger—of the system.
One smith, gray-haired and scarred from years of work, raised his hammer like a salute. "So even if one of us falls, the work keeps moving."
"Exactly," Logos said. His eyes gleamed with that strange mixture of youth and inevitability. "Ferous isn't just steel. It's the proof that this land can build something greater than any one man. Greater than me."
The room fell silent. Even the roaring forges seemed muted for a moment.
Lucy studied him, unease creeping into her chest. Logos wasn't rallying them like a commander or inspiring them like a noble. He was… changing them. Changing the way they thought about labor, about ownership, about knowledge itself.
And that, she realized, was more dangerous than any cannon or machine he had built so far.
But when the workers began to clap, slow at first, then faster, until the whole factory floor thundered with applause, Lucy knew there was no stopping it. Logos' revolution—whether of steel, of bread, or of ideas—had already begun.