The Birth of the Screw

After seeing off the last person who had been duped, Xu Yi let out a long breath and stretched.

"Whew, finally done. I'm exhausted."

Heinz handed Xu Yi a cup of warm tea at just the right moment and smiled. "You knew this might happen today. You should've called those students in too. Of course you'd be tired handling it all yourself."

Xu Yi shook his head. "I couldn't do that. Their studies at the academy are important, and I can't interfere with them. Besides, the contracts we signed made it clear that their work couldn't conflict with their classes. The production of Magic Fans depends on them, too. If I wore them out and production suffered, that would be a problem."

"And you can't wear yourself out?" Heinz shot him a look.

"Hey, this much is nothing. Back when..." Xu Yi stopped abruptly.

He had been about to say that when he worked on research projects at the institute, he had once slept only four hours over three days. Compared with that, this was nothing.

But then he remembered that he was no longer in his old world. He would probably never return to that feverish atmosphere of research.

A trace of melancholy passed through Xu Yi's heart.

Seeing Xu Yi suddenly fall silent, his expression distant, Heinz didn't understand what had happened. He knew better than to pry, though, and fell silent too.

For a while, the only sound in the room was Alex tidying up.

After a long moment, Xu Yi gave his head a vigorous shake and smiled at Heinz.

"Sorry, my mind wandered. What was I saying?"

"You said you couldn't wear out the students and affect production."

"Oh, right. Speaking of that, Heinz, find time to visit Baron Rector Magic Academy again and recruit more students if you can. You could also ask the students we've already hired to spread the word. That might work even better. I'll have the second version of the Magic Fan ready soon, and we may start production before the end of the month. We'll probably need a lot of hands then."

"Got it." Heinz jotted down Xu Yi's words in the little notebook he carried.

Xu Yi couldn't help smiling at the sight. Heinz looked just like a capable secretary.

Heinz had no idea what Xu Yi found so funny, but opening his notebook reminded him of something else.

"Oh, right, Xu Yi. I asked around, and Bunta City really doesn't have anything like the newspapers you described. The closest thing would be the bulletins the city lord's office puts out now and then. But those only go to the nobles in the city. Ordinary people never see them."

"I see. Forget it, then. I'll think of another way to advertise." Xu Yi waved a hand, setting the matter aside. "Speaking of manpower, Heinz, I think we should hire some blacksmiths ourselves."

"Huh?" Heinz blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Hire blacksmiths? Why? If it's to forge fan housings, wouldn't it be better to contract the work out to the smithies in the city?"

"That leaves us too dependent on them. If something goes wrong at those smithies, we'll have a hard time dealing with it." Xu Yi shook his head. "More importantly, we need people who specialize in the work. I've never been entirely satisfied with the fan housings the city's smithies make. Their quality doesn't meet my standards. We've only kept using them because we haven't had an alternative. After what happened today, haven't you noticed why it was so easy to convince those people that the Magic Fans they bought didn't come from us? Ours are better made. If you want to protect a brand's value, you have to protect its quality."

Heinz thought back over the day's events and realized Xu Yi was right.

If the difference in quality hadn't been so obvious that those people had to admit their Magic Fans were not Xinfei Magic Fans, the matter probably wouldn't have ended so easily.

"But where are we going to find that many suitable blacksmiths?" Heinz frowned.

"We don't necessarily need master craftsmen. We need blacksmiths who can specialize in the work and do it properly. Do you see what I mean?" Xu Yi asked.

"You mean... we just need to hire blacksmiths with some forging experience and have them make fan housings exclusively for us?"

"Exactly. In fact..." Xu Yi smiled faintly, a curious gleam in his eyes. "Once we've developed far enough, we won't even need many of those specialized blacksmiths."

It was already afternoon when Xu Yi left Heinz's General Store. He looked up at the sky and realized he had taken yet another day off. That made three days this week, nearly half his working hours away from the Magic Tower.

The others in the research lab must think I'm planning to quit. Maybe they'll say I'm a fool for giving up the chance to study magic under Grand Magician Camilla. Xu Yi smiled wryly. Come to think of it, Grand Magician Camilla hasn't said a word about it. Anyone else might already have thrown me out of the magic tower.

As he wondered what Grand Magician Camilla really thought, Xu Yi rounded several street corners at a brisk pace and arrived once more at the Volcano Smithy.

As usual, a wave of heat hit him the moment he stepped inside.

"Hey, Master Ranu, catch!" Without looking, Xu Yi tossed the bottle in his hand into the smithy.

A thick arm reached out through the heat and caught it firmly.

"You brat, can't you see I'm working? What if you'd—huh? Good liquor!"

Ranu had barely started scolding him when the rich aroma spilling from the bottle caught his attention. Without another word, he took a long swig.

"Whew... Now that's good liquor!" Ranu breathed out contentedly and followed it with a belch before looking at Xu Yi. "Hey, kid, this is Sachi Manor's thirty-year-old vintage, isn't it? A bottle costs at least five gold coins. You wouldn't bring me this for nothing. Out with it—what strange request do you have this time?"

"What do you mean, strange?" Xu Yi protested. "Master Ranu, were you unhappy with my earlier requests? Don't forget, you agreed to them yourself. Didn't those two machines work much better after you made the changes I asked for?"

"Hmph! I did say that, but every request you make puts me through the wringer."

Xu Yi gave a dry chuckle and looked toward the two oddly shaped machines standing in a corner of the smithy.

"Wow! Master Ranu, I've only been away two days, and you've already finished them?"

Xu Yi rushed over excitedly and circled the machines several times, looking as though he had found treasure.

"Hmph! Who do you think I am? They're just two machines. What's so difficult about that?" Ranu took another swig of liquor.

Xu Yi had already begun examining both machines from top to bottom.

One was the Magic Thread-Rolling Machine he had asked Master Ranu to make a while ago. The other was the Magic Heading Machine he had requested later.

Both were essential to making screws. If they worked, Xu Yi's plan to produce screws in batches would become reality.

Screws might look insignificant, but they were everywhere in an industrial system. They were practically indispensable.

On Earth, industrial machines and products of every size and complexity contained screws.

Successfully producing screws in batches would mean Xu Yi had finally taken a solid step down the path to industry on the Sains Continent!

"Master Ranu, do these machines work now?" Xu Yi turned and asked.

"Of course! I told you they were finished. Why wouldn't they work?"

"Good." Xu Yi picked up a thin iron rod in the Blacksmith Shop, placed it in the heading machine's mold clamp, and pressed the switch.

Nothing happened.

"Idiot! You haven't put in a magic crystal! How could it move?" Ranu roared behind him.

Xu Yi slapped his forehead. In his excitement, he had forgotten the most important thing.

He hurriedly took out a high-grade crystal he had prepared, placed it in the heading machine's power source, and pressed the switch again.

The punch inside the machine erupted with a bang. It shot forward at high speed and slammed into the top of the iron rod in the mold.

Clang—

A sharp, strangely pitched crash burst from the heading machine. The machine shook violently, and even the floor of the Blacksmith Shop trembled. The force of it was startling.

Xu Yi stared.

It's only making a screw head. Does it really need to make such a racket?

A moment later, he came to his senses and pressed the switch again. The punch slid back to its starting position.

Xu Yi removed the iron rod from the mold. To his delight, the tremendous pressure had flattened one end into a round head with a cross-shaped recess on top—a standard screw head.

"Not bad." Xu Yi nodded in satisfaction. "Now for the thread-rolling machine."

Compared with the simple, brute-force heading machine, the thread-rolling machine was far more complicated.

Even after Xu Yi had simplified it as much as he could, the Magic Thread-Rolling Machine still required four magic arrays. Drawing them alone had taken a great deal of effort, let alone integrating all four perfectly with the machine.

But as he watched the cutting tool rapidly carve rings of thread into the screw shaft, Xu Yi forgot all the work that had gone into developing the machine. A sense of accomplishment filled him.

This was the Sains Continent! This was a world with no industrial foundation at all!

Making a single screw in this world was a tremendous achievement!

As one of the people most responsible for making it happen, Xu Yi had every reason to be proud!

Beside him, Ranu watched in amazement as an ordinary iron rod became a neat, finely made screw after passing through the two machines.

At first, he had only thought the machines Xu Yi designed were strange. He had built them for the challenge.

Now that he had seen what they could do, Ranu suddenly felt that these two machines might be more important than any ironwork he had ever forged.

How did this kid come up with them? Ranu looked at Xu Yi with unconcealed curiosity.