I had forgotten about childhood discomforts.

While we were preparing for the end of the year celebrations, I was nearing my eighth spring. Currently, the cold wasn't a problem for me any longer. My family could afford as much firewood as we needed for a warm house and the palace where I was staying half of the time was always comfortably warm.

What kept me awake at night wasn't the nightmares either, but the pain. Not only was my hand still tingling and painful as the nerves were slowly creeping their way back down to the tip of my fingers, but I also had all kinds of pains in my bones.

Growing pains was a long forgotten memory. Strangely enough, I felt almost none till now. Maybe a kid's nervous system isn't mature enough to process it at an early age? The backlash was just fiercer. Right now it felt like someone was inflating my bones every night, trying to blow them from the inside.

Same problem, other flavour, were the teeth. I was currently losing them and couldn't take a bite of bunta without painfully losing one. I had forgotten the pain that a growing tooth was, when it was making its way through the supple flesh.

All this exquisite nightly tortures were making me quite grumpy, the constant pain and lack of sleep weren't a pleasant combination.

I was to visit the construction site for the Niter plant this morning. No expenses were spared by the military and they were powering through the winter for the construction. The Marshall had promised an infinite budget but reality was a bit more lacklustre. General Suji and the lord were the voice of reason there and tempered the sums available for the project. Not that they didn't believe in gunpowder, both were positively impressed with it, but because they knew the Shieldom financial situation. Coffers had been emptied by the disastrous winter from two years ago and were still recovering. It would take time for trade to fill up the losses.

After a light breakfast of “oats”: chips of bunta in koati milk with a spoon of honey-jam and a sprinkle of dried fruits, I wrapped myself in furs and went on my way. This winter wasn't as dire as two years ago but it was still freezing cold outside. Snow would fall every other day when the winds would come from the north.

I now had a guard assigned to me permanently and in plain sight. It was both better and worse than the shadow stalkers. It was better because you felt less spied on but it also drew a lot more attention on me. Attracting the attention of the powerful ones with all the changes I was bringing was one thing, but now I also had to deal with passer-by looking at me. I was fine with the curious gazes but deep down I also knew there could always be some heretics somewhere targeting me.

We went to the next block to meet up with Gelcaria. The Shieldlord had been generous and she now had her own house. It was a bit smaller than her previous one but it was hers. This meant no rent, only protection fee to pay and Gel's wages were enough to cover them. The princess paid her enough and I think Moatimu liked Gel quite a lot, not only as a sparring partner but also as a trusty friend.

Gel's mother and brother followed her and they were now living closer to the city centre in the westernmost part of the eastern district.

They were now freed from Danik's influence and threat. I don't know what will happen to him now that he was alone. Could he afford the taxes and house on his own? Would he become a serv? It was hard to say. The only time I brushed the topic with Gel, she made it quite clear she didn't care. The only thing that mattered was that her mother wasn't contrived to “worship” Akolaï.

I just hope she won't regret the outcome later on. I'll try to keep an eye from afar on Danik.

Gel was waiting in front of her new house when I arrived. Her purple eyes lit up when she saw me and she quickly joined my ride. Now that she had her own place, she had fewer opportunities to stick around me. She would rarely come to my house and would only occasionally stay at the palace. Her new magic mentor was training her till late almost every day and Gel had to go to her master's mansion in the western district. I believed it was good for her growth to part from me a bit more.

Her training regimen was now different. She was still training Chi in the morning alongside the princess and the rest of the squad, but during most afternoons she would now study under a magician.

Her mentor was a mentoress, a blade from the western lands. There was little to be known about her teacher. Blade Iharo Wakam was quite mysterious and Gel wasn't allowed to talk much about her. I knew magic was a touchy subject and she just said that she had vowed secrecy and couldn't tell me much about her training with the elusive old blade. All she could tell was that her teacher was quite harsh but that she was willing to groom her into a magician.

At first, this worried me and I asked Nutusi about this blade but even she knew very little. It was like she had been there for a while but no one paid much attention. This felt strange for a magician who was hand-picked by the Marshall himself.

Gelcaria had a natural talent for magic. It was something rare among commoners, or at least something rarely found. I still believe there must be more people with some magic affinity. It can't be just extraordinary luck that made so many of my friends blessed with a rare occurrence. It was statistically improbable.

I believe blades voluntarily slacked on their search for new talents, to ensure their kids will be the only ones able to take their stead. It was a classic situation where an elite was grabbing all the power for themselves and the level was slowly degrading because of this nepotism. All this at the detriment of the greater picture: the eternal war.

It meant there should be a lot more mages in the population, maybe enough to push back monsters, but this wasn't sitting well with the people in power. I couldn't expose this theory to anyone unless I wanted to be labelled a traitor, seditious, or heretic; so I just kept my suspicions to myself.

If I ever get enough influence, especially on the schooling system, I'll try to implement a broader screening for talented kids. I'm convinced I'll find a lot more people talented in magic and this will help a lot in the war. Not only with the war but also with the productivity, more magicians would mean that I'll be able to use some of them as workforce rather than having all of them monopolized by the military.

It will ruffle a few feathers among powerful people though. So I should wait to have enough back-up before introducing this kind of reform.

* * * *

The nitre plant was slowly building up. Chi users could dig up as much as mechanized tools and with the help of cement, laying walls was faster than it should have been with their usual methods.

The trusty and moustachy Kirli was overseeing the construction as my foreman and my young secretary, Akili, was my main “architect”. The woman had seen the plans I had drafted and understood how much plumbing was important for this project.

We used a hefty amount of lead and copper to make the plumbing. Enough for it to look like a luxurious expense for any out-looker. It would pay back in time but for now, I knew there were some protests coming from officers and blades. I was diverting a lot of military resources and many didn't understand why.

Gel and I were riding the same Toja. When Kirli spotted us he came to greet us, his bushy moustache was comically whitened with frost and his grotesque nose was a mountain with a snowy peak. This made me flash him a toothless smile.

“Welcome bosskid,” he greeted me, “and m'lady,” he added for Gel.

I had tried to have him just call us by our names, but now that we were free citizens, he refused to. I found to be 'Mr. Awanui' a bit too pompous for a kid so I accepted his proposal for 'boss' or 'bosskid'. I was his boss after all.

He showed us the progress of the work, leading us to a dozen deep-dug holes. “The pools are almost all dug, we're just tampin' them and we'll lay the cement then.” He rubbed his hands in anticipation, cement had become his pride, he was the most knowledgeable about it.

This would be the first cement pools ever built in this world. The plumbing system was going to bring the collected urine straight to the pools. We weren't that lower than the servs' quarter so we'll have to build a pool midway, near the river, and use a waterwheel to raise the liquid again.

Pumps would be more efficient but they would need way more development, joints, and testing. I just wanted this to run as quickly as possible. Further improvements could come down the line later.

After showing us around, Kirli led us to the river where the first wheel was going to be raised. It was today's goal for my visit. This was a crucial part not only for the plant but for me to gauge this world's knowledge about water wheels.

The Hoyirin was a far smaller river than the Awanui. It stemmed from the nearby mountains and its water was clear and pure, famed for its healing properties. The river was still about 30 meters wide and the stream was flowing more quickly than the Awanui. It was faster to sail down, but harder to sail up and there were no further cities up north apart from ours, so they barely sailed upon it except for a few anglers.

Its northern part was providing water to the richest part of the city, in the western district, where blades and free citizens were living. While the downstream part was providing water for the poorer, the servs' district, and what little farms were outside the walls west of the city.

A small trench had been dug in which the waterwheel would soon turn. Kirli proudly patted the huge wooden wheel. “This is it. Woodworkers have been at it for a week, look at this beauty,” he was praising. A shared axis will connect the main water wheel to another one in the urine pool. The wheel was about 6 meter in diameter and could haul water up to four meter above the ground. There were buckets on each blade, carrying water up while the current will keep pushing the wheel.

From there, the sewage and water collected will flow towards the niter plant. We'll need a lot when purifying Niter and to keep the place clean.

The servs were usually emptying their chamber pots directly in the river but now they had to either use the pool or the few public latrines that were built in their block.

I took inspiration from the roman system. Emperor Vespasien had installed toilets everywhere in Rome on a standardized model.

We'll need to hire people to clean the place and keep the pipes clear but it would be worth the trouble. Both for the hygiene of the servs, they weren't getting as much attention from Fusaad priest as the rest of the citizens and epidemics would sometime happen. Mostly simple enteritis since a priest would intervene for things stronger,such as cholera-like diseases but it still killed many people every year and would represent a loss of workforce. One was less productive when he had diarrhoea.

Once all the faecal sludge will be collected in the pool, the waterwheel will rise the sludge high enough so that it will flow down across the river in a small aqueduct built for the occasion. An earth mage raised pillars to support the concrete columns that will support the aqueduct.

All this might look like a lot of investment for just nitre but it showed how important the military were believing my gunpowder to be. This was also an opportunity to test more about cement in construction. The construction site was near the city and before using it more extensively for constructions, it will be a good way to train a workforce of commoners to handle cement. Then, we'll spread them across the Shieldom during spring to build up defences.

Most kilns were now used to make coal for the citizens, so we only had a small amount of remaining cement. Experimenting in the secured vicinity of the city patrols was the best we could do.

I sighed when I thought I was going to have to find a solution for our lime supply issues before then. I was planning to have better kilns built anyway but without lime to calcine they won't be of much use.

* * * *

Another growing pain in my left tibia brought me out of my thoughts and back to the cold reality. Gelcaria was frowning while looking at the empty pool. She knew that soon, we would fill it with human wastes.

“It will be better for the general hygiene,” I emphasized the positive aspects. I was providing sewage facilities for the servs at the same time as collecting a valuable resource. Plus the composting would provide a lot of rich black earth for the nearby farmlands.

She shrugged and frowned even more, her purple eyes were beaming with anger. “Do you know how people are calling you?” she called me out.

It was my turn to shrug. Was I famous enough to be called by nicknames? “No. I don't really care,” I answered with indifference.

She shook her fist angrily before stabbing me in the shoulder with a reproving index. “You should! People are badmouthing you. My mother is worrying about all the strange rumours going around you!”

Now this was interesting, even commoners heard things about me?

Gel kept ranting. “There are people calling you the shit-kid and saying you have a weird fascination for faeces...”

I almost laughed at how ridiculous this was. I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. I was bringing a lot of changes and this had already and would keep hurting the business of many people.

Just the army embezzlement case was enough to garner a few enemies.

If all they found to fluster me was some cheap name-calling, I was fine with it. What I feared the most were more brutal attempts against me or my family and friends, especially my family. I was under the protection of the lord, the old lord, the Temple, a god, and the prince, this was putting me in some safety. I also had guards watching over me.

My family had none of this.

I was fearing the day one of my sisters would get hurt because of me, that someone would use them to get to me.

Insults? I could shoulder them, I wasn't the susceptible kid they thought me to be.

I brushed the problem aside. “Let them talk. It doesn't do harm. If you really want to shut them up, focus on your training and become strong enough to force them to shut up.” I gave her a goal to reach to distract her from doing anything rash.

This was enough to convince her, her anger turned into resolve in her amethyst's eyes and I could feel the burning aura around her become a chilling vengeful mist. It was way more frightening than her anger and reminded me of the threatening aura the old lord could convoke.

May Otik have pity for my foes.