"When we hear a heartfelt call,
the world should stand together,
people in some places are hanging on by a thread,
it's time to reach out and lend life a helping hand,
this is the greatest gift."
As more and more disaster victims arrived at the camp, the people hired in Wessen Territory also came here by carriage, singing as they went, to help manage and build up the camp.
Frederick sat beside the water pump on the river embankment, listening smugly to the songs he had painstakingly translated into Rhenish.
Compared with written words and dry sermons, songs were easier to remember and more likely to touch people's hearts.
Frederick remembered seeing a question on Zhihu in his previous life: How could you tell a real soldier from a fake one? The most popular answer was to ask about the Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention. Anyone who immediately sang them was definitely the real deal.
He also remembered a scene from Underground Traffic Station. During the training of fake Eighth Route Army soldiers, a former puppet soldier who had been captured also sang the Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention from memory.
That was why he had put a lot of effort into music as part of building spiritual civilization, plagiarizing and adapting many songs. His music teacher had even gone on strike because their ideas about music differed.
But Frederick faced a problem, too: musical development went hand in hand with the development of instruments. The instruments of the day couldn't produce the effects he wanted, and he knew nothing about the history of their development, so he had to make do.
"Frederick..."
A lovely but timid voice brought Frederick out of his thoughts. He turned and saw Maria standing nearby with her head lowered, clutching her skirt in both hands.
"Maria, um, what's wrong?" Frederick noticed that something seemed to be bothering the little girl.
Maria lowered her head and asked, "Am I a bad girl? Did I make you angry? You don't play with me anymore."
Frederick blinked, and it took him a while to understand what she meant.
At first, he had stayed in the castle that belonged to Maria's family. Once the camp was built, he moved there so he could oversee the work on-site. Even Tarot, the maid who had come with him, and the coachmen had moved there, too.
While he had been living at the castle, he'd had time to play checkers and such with Maria. But after the camp was built and the disaster victims began arriving, he no longer had the time.
"Of course not." Frederick's face broke into a bright smile. "I've just been really busy lately. How about I come play with you again after things settle down?"
Maria seemed to relax, and a smile appeared on her face.
Frederick saw Philip standing in the distance with an old man, several experts following behind them. He said to the little girl, "There are lots of bugs around here. You should hurry back to the castle. I'll come back to the castle for dinner tonight."
"Really?" Maria beamed even brighter. "You can't lie!"
The little girl only left after Frederick had promised her several times. A maid escorted her back to the castle.
Then Frederick found himself cornered.
The way Philip looked at him was like a pig eyeing a cabbage seedling in someone else's garden.
The old man's gaze was as sharp as a knife, as if he meant to stab a certain someone full of holes.
Frederick put on an adorable expression, hoping to get out of it by being cute.
A cloud of steam rose into the air, breaking the brief standoff.
The old man glanced at the water pump and asked with a frown, "What's this?"
In front of them stood an iron box about the size of a washing machine. Ceramic pipes connected its top and bottom, leading respectively to the river and the camp. At one end, a handle like the one on a bellows moved back and forth. The principle behind the reciprocating pump was the same as that of a bellows.
The handle was being worked by a strange machine. A metal rod about as thick as three fingers was mounted on it, connected to a magic circuit. The rod extended and retracted rhythmically, pulling an iron bar that operated the reciprocating pump.
Beside the machine was a stand holding a wooden bucket with a slanted opening. A stick passed through it, and a little-finger-thick pipe from the top of the reciprocating pump poured water into the bucket. When the water reached a certain level, it tipped over by itself and poured onto the machine's constantly moving metal rod, cooling it.
"Your Grace, Grand Duke of Mainz, this is a water pump," Frederick said in a cute voice. "The river's water level has dropped a lot, so we can only pump water over the embankment with this."
Frederick had recognized the old man at a glance from his guards. He was Philip's liege lord, Dalberg von Mainz.
Dalberg seemed somewhat interested in the machine. After examining it, he asked Frederick, "Who made this?"
"The scholars at Weissenburg University," Frederick replied.
A reciprocating pump wasn't high-tech. This one had been modified from the bellows at the Iron Smelting Plant, and its seals had been reinforced with Slime Gel.
As for the machine that produced the reciprocating motion, after hearing Frederick's suggestion, Aumert had asked his students to take apart one of the Golem Puppets they had brought with them and use its Magic Muscles to build a proof-of-concept machine. The Magic Muscles from the Golem Puppet's limbs and waist were enough to make ten machines. Five were horizontal like this one, and the other five moved vertically. They later found that the vertical models were quite handy for forging iron, provided they could solve the heat dissipation problem.
Dalberg nodded. "Looks pretty useful."
"Of course!" Frederick immediately said. "It's very powerful—equivalent to ten horses—and it can also replace a waterwheel to power a millstone."
"As long as its magic crystal stays charged, it can work all day without stopping. All it needs is water for cooling and the occasional replacement of worn parts."
"We've also done comparison tests. The magic crystals it takes to grind a ton of wheat cost less than the feed for horses."
"And it isn't expensive, either. It costs just 100 Florin Gold Coins."
At first, Dalberg had thought it sounded pretty good, but when he heard the price, he shook his head.
"Too expensive," he said. "That price could buy you fifty sturdy draft horses."
Frederick shrugged. "You can't exactly get fifty horses working together in a place like this."
Dalberg frowned and shook his head. "Too expensive."
"Oh," Frederick said, then stopped talking about the machine and instead said, "I'm truly sorry for the trouble I've caused the Duchy of Mainz these past few days. Please forgive me, Your Grace."
The machine's production cost was less than ten Florin Gold Coins. Even a brand-new one would only cost a dozen or so. He had quoted a high price mainly because he didn't want people to get the impression that magic-powered machines were cheap. Otherwise, how would he sell future machines?
For now, the only potential customers for magic-powered machines were wealthy landowners, and they had no competition.
Unlike malt sugar, whose rich customers already had plenty of honey, these machines could be aimed at the wider common market only if their price was relatively low.
So naturally, Frederick wanted to sell them for as much as he could. No one ever thought they had too much money. In a way, "climbing the tech tree" and "spending money like water" meant the same thing.
But he wasn't in a hurry to sell. The problem of heat dissipation still limited the machine's use.
Dalberg was already tempted. He was a wealthy man with mines of his own and had run into the same problem of pumping water. This machine was just the thing for use in cramped mine shafts.
A hundred Florin Gold Coins wasn't much to him. The warhorse he owned, which had unicorn blood, could buy ten of these things, and a suit of armor could buy five.
But his money didn't grow on trees. If he could haggle, he naturally would—but he hadn't expected Frederick to stop negotiating.
"Fine, 100 Florin Gold Coins it is," Dalberg said generously. "I know you're short on money, so I'll pay the price you asked. I'll buy three."
The Weissen Family had been tricked by King William using the disaster victims. In the long run, the situation would benefit them more than it hurt them, but in the short term, it had certainly left Frederick badly strained.
Everyone in luxury goods circles knew that almost all the gold objects owned by the Weissen Family had already been sold. There were rumors that they were preparing to sell their silver tableware next.
Seeing how Frederick had handled everything so well, Dalberg had formed some ideas of his own. He decided to take this opportunity to help him out when he was in need.
But Frederick was even more generous. He said earnestly, "I can give Your Grace five of them. I only ask you to help me with something."
"It's not a big favor. I'd just like you to take the lead in expanding the scope of Patent Law, from patterns for weaving, cooking, and brewing to other fields."
Dalberg's gaze turned even sharper as he looked at Frederick.
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