Chapter 69 — The Failed Project

Watching the little old man's gleeful expression, he looked for all the world like someone who had been out of work for two weeks and had finally landed a new job. That image wiped out any lingering impression Gao Yang had of him as some transcendent sage. By now Gao Yang was utterly certain: the fellow's tattered cloth robe, his patched soft cap, his scruffy beard—none of it had anything to do with the ascetic life of a hermit. He was genuinely, simply poor...

The sight made Gao Yang lean over and mutter to Amber: "This person you found... is he really reliable?"

"Oh, relax, will you? His personality may be a bit odd, but you've seen it for yourself, haven't you? At the very least, the druid's skills are real. And you're not one of those hidebound nobles who judges people by birth and clings to rigid rules—don't you always say talent is what matters most?"

He hadn't expected his usual mutterings to sink into this half-elf's heart, and to be turned against him at a moment like this. Gao Yang could only purse his lips in resignation and ask, out of curiosity: "By the way, how did you two meet?"

A little old man who looked like he might well be the disgrace of all druids, and Amber, the disgrace of all elves—they did not look out of place together. Still, Gao Yang was curious how these two had come to know each other. Was it simply that, being the shame of their respective groups, they had found each other kindred spirits?

He hadn't expected his low murmur to be caught by the little old man beside him. This druid, whose ears were just as sharp, turned his head and gave a chuckling grin: "My lord, Amber's foster father and I are old acquaintances. I watched this little girl grow up—by seniority, she ought to call me uncle..."

Amber rolled her eyes at once: "And you, who don't act like an elder in the slightest, expect me to call you uncle?"

"So that's it—there's a history between you." Gao Yang nodded in understanding. He had heard Amber mention her foster father, and knew the man was a human prowler—in plain terms, a thief scraping by at the bottom of society.

Amber wagged her head as she spoke: "This guy used to be thick as thieves with my foster father. Back in the day they even flew some banner about being 'Nightwalkers' and planned to become the greatest thieves in the Southern March—though they never made so much as a name for themselves."

Gao Yang frowned instinctively and looked at the little old man: "You were a thief too?"

"That was years ago, years ago," the little old man waved his hands again and again. "I'm not in that line anymore. Everything I've done these years has been honest work."

Gao Yang found it amusing: "So you switched trades because you couldn't make it as a thief?"

"Because his skills were too lousy," Amber rolled her eyes beside him, her face full of scorn. "He got caught even stealing from the dead, and got beaten black and blue for it. He was never cut out to be a thief—and never cut out to be a druid either, apparently. And now it turns out he's not cut out to be an antiques expert or a cook either."

Gao Yang was stunned: "How do you get caught stealing from the dead?"

"Mainly because there were over two hundred people standing nearby visiting graves at the time..."

The little old man could only stand to one side with an embarrassed smile. Clearly, despite being her elder, his manner toward Amber was remarkably easygoing, and being teased like this by her was probably nothing new. Especially on this subject, Amber had every right and reason to mock his thieving skills: after all, he had been beaten senseless for stealing from the dead, whereas Amber had not only stolen a dead man out, but gone and brought the dead man back to life besides...

Though technically, that situation hadn't really counted as "stealing"...

After a few more words of small talk, Gao Yang suddenly realized he had forgotten something crucial: "Right—I still don't know what to call you."

The little old man pressed a hand to his chest and performed a rather unorthodox bow: "Piyun Lauren, at your service. You may simply call me Piyun."

"Very good, Piyun. You can rest for now—I'll arrange for someone to take you to your quarters shortly. You've seen this place for yourself; everything is still in its early stages, and the living conditions may not be ideal. But as long as you work as hard as my people do, this will soon be a prosperous and comfortable new home."

Piyun Lauren's face broke into a radiant smile: "For those shiny little darlings, I shall give it my all."

This jack-of-all-trades druid left the tent with the guide Gao Yang had arranged, leaving Amber and Gao Yang staring at each other. After a brief read of the surrounding atmosphere, the half-elf lady gave an awkward laugh and prepared to slip away—only to be caught fast by Gao Yang: "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to help patrol around the camp!" Amber hopped on her feet and hollered, "Hey, let go of me!"

"First explain what 'dug up a seven-hundred-year-old antique' was about. I haven't forgotten that line."

"Eek—"

Everything in the camp was getting on track, but not everything would go smoothly.

In a courtyard west of the workshop district, Rebecca was staring blankly at the thing before her.

In front of her stood a kiln of peculiar design, built from fireproof bricks and mortar mixed with quartz sand. It resembled a giant bowl overturned on the ground, its sides painted with simple runes for raising temperature and controlling the flame, and at its base a kiln door that had just been opened, previously sealed with clay. It looked somewhat like a brick kiln, but what was fired inside it was not brick.

What was being fired was stone—or rather, a mixture of limestone powder and clay fired together. The Xuanmai Sect said that once this calcined product was mixed with the slag brought over from the smithy and ground into powder, it could become a new kind of building material.

But nothing about it looked like a success.

In the baskets before the kiln lay the finished products: a grayish-black caked substance, dirty and ugly to look at, its fragments of every size shot through with many hard, brittle clumps. Rebecca had already tried grinding some of the fragments together with the slag into powder, then mixing it with water as the ancestors had instructed. Now the first batch of test mixtures had dried, and they had turned into something that crumbled at a touch, like rotted wood.

There was no way this could build a house.

Rebecca propped her chin on her fingertip and sank into thought, her face so blackened and filthy she couldn't be bothered to wash it.

These past two days she had either been at the smithy—now renamed the Cecil Steelworks—supervising the installation of Magic Net No. 1 and the new furnace, or running over here to fire stones. A fine viscount's daughter, and she spent more than half of every day looking like this, filthy from head to toe. Yet the knights and soldiers of the domain thought nothing of it—after all, the viscount's daughter had always been like this. Singeing her face black while practicing fireball spells was a common occurrence, and sometimes she would run off into the woods to wrestle with wolves and come back covered in mud. Everyone was used to it...