The fields for growing linen and the cotton equivalent, Bulpurp, had been hugely expanded alongside imports. Food was a non-issue, and simple tactics like crop rotations and dung-based fertilizers had been easy to implement. Farmers were a superstitious bunch, and had only converted a third of their fields to his new methods. It would be enough to cut food imports in half, and they would be fully convinced by the next harvest cycle.

  Water was simple enough-many freshwater streams ran from the mountains towards the larger river and the sea. Wells could be prospected later.

  A decent coal vein had already been being mined, and would support his steam industry for at least a few years. A large portion of the slaves had mining experience or even expertise, increasing production.

  Thankfully, the coal was bituminous-the perfect fuel for the fires of industry. Modern mining techniques could hugely improve yield as well as reduce danger to the miners.

  Notably, one issue Kyle saw arising was the utter lack of local lumber. There were small forests nearer to the mountains, but that was it. The lumber outpost he had passed through a month ago had supplied this area with its wood, as the region had none.

  The mountains were rich with metal ores, but the monstrous inhabitants made extracting it difficult. Clay, sand and some lime could be found on the floodplains as well.

  Kyle himself could handle the machinery in the beginning, but eventually he wanted industrial toolsmiths to handle making more machines and repairs. He had some ideas for that; namely, making several basic mechanical presses for metal parts. The presses could then make more presses and moulds, and industrial efforts could truly begin.

  The second industry that could start immediately for some cash was Bessemer Process steel.

  ———

  Kyle’s second factory was filled with any former slaves with blacksmithing experience and some overseers.

  “Alright. This is an invention from my homeland-a method of making steel as cheap as any iron.”

  Many of the blacksmiths guffawed or snorted at this proclamation. Many magical methods for producing steel existed, as did countless metals stronger than steel like mythril or orichalcum-but steel was still a hugely demanded resource. It was cheap enough and strong enough for anyone not sponsored by the royal guard to afford.

  Well equipped town garrisons, adventurers, mercenaries, all of them wanted the magical metals-but most settled for steel.

  Kyle walked the group of blacksmiths through the entire Bessemer process. The huge furnaces were designed to blow air on the molten iron, removing impurities by oxidization. Afterwards, carbon could be reapplied to the iron. Combined with some tempering, the process would be essentially complete-the iron could be molded into anything he needed.

  The demonstration took three days. From melting the ore to oxidizing it to final steps like adding trace manganese and reapplying carbon, he’d created some decent quality steel.

  At night, while the smiths went to their apartments to sleep, Kyle would keep furnaces warm or finish longer processes.

  Finally, on that third day, the molten steel was ready to be tempered. Hammering it and quenching it took only part of the day.

  Finally, the smiths crowded around the finished set of bar molds. It was funny to Kyle, watching the muscled and usually stoic smiths crowd around the steel like excited little girls. They passed the bars around and inspected them closely.

  One, who was a half troll, tried to break one of the longer pole shaped molds across his knee. Despite all his efforts, the metal barely gave. “Gentlemen, I present to you, the Bessemer Process. My overseer here will help you continue to execute it flawlessly. Your responsibility is to educate those without a smithing background in the process as well.”

  Most of the smiths were still too stunned by the sheer quantity of steel and how easily it was made, but he got a few absent nods of consent.

  Using his HUD, he drafted some molds for the essentials-minie rifled barrels and percussion caps. In order to access the mountain mineral deposits and to protect future mines, his men would need guns.

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  Earlier, during his HFGPR joyride, he’d simultaneously done some basic scanning of the mountain. Decent mines of a variety of industrial ores-lead and tin among them. Copper was easy enough to find, and iron was luckily plentiful in the region.

  Gunpowder would become an issue soon enough. Kyle had no need for smokeless powder, and didn’t need too much-only 400 men would be equipped with firearms.

  ————

  The first step was the mass-production of charcoal. Easy enough, as Kyle had filled a single factory with furnaces called retorts, designed for producing charcoal.

  Kyle had imported a small amount of saltpeter, but he’d set up some nitre beds to start producing it locally. Purifying saltpeter was a simple process, boiling and recrystallizing.

  The third main ingredient, sulfur, could actually be found locally, but he’d had to buy mining rights from another local lord.

  Gunpowder was milled and mixed using a wheel mill-something simple with another steam engine thrown together using steel. All of his steam engines had been reinforced using expensive nanites-no risks of explosions taken.

  The roller crushed the wet mix together into a kind of putty. The putty was then condensed using a screw press to increase burn consistency and storage stability.

  The pressed chunks of gunpowder were then dried in drying shacks far away from anything of importance.

  The final step, Corning, was what made it superior to medieval powder. A spark-proofed room with some sieves and steam-powered crushers could turn the dry cakes into grains.

  Different sizes of grain were used for different purposes-from priming powder to cannons. Kyle would be able to easily mass produce decent blackpowder once he got more sulfur.

  There sadly were no professions that could translate to this, and he didn’t have any alchemists who could learn it. As such, he’d spent nearly all the MedInebriators on 150 overseers to handle this.

  MedInebriator fluid was the substance that allowed for BAC technology to work. It basically increased the brain’s receptivity to knowledge in a similar way to how some hallucinogens could, without the side effects.

  It was hugely expensive for his nanofactory to make. The process had put it out of commission for 2 weeks.

  Kyle would watch over the first few batches of gunpowder personally, and would allow the armor AI to fix the errors of workers.

  Kyle’s armor AI wasn’t a true artificial intelligence-it was a Slaved Machine Intelligence. Capable of original thought only by the infinite simulations it could run, finding the best possible solution through math alone. Using computronium cores built into the armor, it interfaced with his implants and determined the best way to do things by brute force simulation.

  Kyle had a passion for technological uplift stories. His plans that he’d drafted as a passion project mostly consisted of ways to get rich, but the introduction of fantasy elements like a dragon’s tendency to hoard gold changed those.

  Kyle had decent knowledge of industrial production, held mostly in his Static Selective-Access Memory Module. An implant that added a separate and instinctually accessible memory to his head.

  As such, gunpowder production was a rather simple thing to implement. Steam powered presses, grating wheels and compactors, and steel for the machines themselves were all completed.

  The workers selected for that field were those with the best health in their arms. Many slaves had had broken arms and atrophied muscles in their arms, so only the most sure of hand could work in that field.

  The first gunpowder batch failed, as too little sulfur was added. The second was too watery. The gunpowder mix had water added to it for fire safety-but a worker had accidentally tipped a reservoir too deep, and soaked a batch.

  The third and fourth batch also had ruined proportions, but the fifth was a success. Kyle had made a single cap lock musket and a few caps themselves using the nanofactory.

  Out on the flat field near the isolated production facility, Kyle had set up a basic armor stand.

  On it, some scale male typically used by the Veskayan Legionaries was propped. The workers and overseers crowded around the field, excited to see what this “gun powder” the lord had them make was.

  Kyle poured some grains of gunpowder down the barrel. Then, he inserted the simple bullet into the barrel. As the gun was rifled, he’d decided to skip the ball stage of warfare and skip to actual bullets.

  Then, he inserted the percussion cap, also made by nanofactory, into the “nipple” of the gun. Finally, he cocked the hammer that would detonate the percussion cap.

  “Everyone! Cover your ears-this may be the loudest thing you’ve ever heard. Trust me.” The crowd quickly did so, but still maintained their excited demeanors.

  Kyle pulled the trigger. The hammer fell forward, igniting the potassium chlorate in the cap. The detonation ignited the powder charge, and propelled the bullet down range at the suit of armor.

  The surrounding crowd was stunned by the flash and incredibly loud noise. They were stunned again when the armor displayed a proud hole through where the heart would be. The bullet had continued and hit the hillside behind the stand.

  All in all, a successful proof of concept. The age of gunpowder warfare had arrived, just like that.