Road to the Crown

17th April 1574

"Are you really sure it was a good idea to share your inventions, even if they are still nothing but a project on your drawing board, with the governor? While I can get while you went all out while speaking to prince Cherrie, I'm not that sure if putting all our hopes in the protective umbrella of Jan can work in the long run!"

Riding down the earthen road that connected the town of Pilzno to Tarnow, where the second part of the festivities would take place, I made sure to ditch all the responsibilities of the host and move at the very front of the entire column of the guests, traders and even whores that followed such a big gathering of people, hoping to use the time that this manoeuvre would save me to further at least a single project of mine.

"It's not like he can come up with any design by himself if he only knows the base idea for the entire project. Just like you know how gunpowder works, I'm quite sure you wouldn't be able to make it from its base materials, could you?"

Speaking about it, this was the problem that I had to face myself. While I knew that in the modern mining, people used nitroglycerin to smash the huge parts of the stone wall apart to make the mining process easier, even though I knew that I only required two acids and glycerine… I had no idea how to obtain either one of them!

Thankfully, just like I mentioned the gunpowder to Elia, it could be used as a replacement for the nitroglycerin or even dynamite, even if its effectiveness was way worse. But that also meant that I would've to start some massive orders for any given amount of gunpowder!

Even though any of my projects related to mining have yet to really start, I could already tell what would be the reaction of both my local neighbours and the countries rivalling the commonwealth when the market would be swept clean from all traces of gunpowder!

In the end, if I really wanted to use gunpowder as the viable solution for the mining, then once again I would most likely have to rely on the system capabilities to create both the item in question and the recipe for obtaining it. Even if setting up gunpowder factory would cost me more than all the other projects put together, it was still something that simply has to be done, especially with my intention to develop rapid-firing guns later on!

"While it's true that I can't really make gunpowder on my own if I were given the general idea how it is made and enough resources to fund the research on it, it wouldn't pose me any problem to figure out the way to make it!"

Contrary to my expectations, Elia actually managed to bring a really good point this time! After all, I wasn't some kind of super engineer well versed in math, chemistry, biology as well as social studies, politic and diplomacy like in some of the books I read back in my original timeline. While I should be glad that I was the one to transmigrate or be chosen to reincarnate after sudden and unexpected death, I couldn't help but curse at my fate at this point.

How much easier all of my projects would be if I had a proper scientific background to know how to make all of this stuff instead of relying on my system?

But thinking about it in this way, maybe I received the help of the system precisely because rather than being an omnibus engineer, I was a simple white-collar worker knowing only how to code back-end for the phone apps and just enough of marketing to sell them on the modern markets of yet another set of mobile apps?

"Well, point for you. Thinking about it in this way, the governor will most likely be able to create a design for the finished product basing on the idea alone… but why would he do so in the first place?"

Just as I was about to admit to losing in this debate, I realised that we couldn't limit ourselves to just a single point of view! After all, human relationships and one's actions were caused not by a single emotion or reason, but a complex formula that brought forward the result that certain action was either worth the effort or not!

"What do you mean by that? Isn't it obvious that he would love to free himself from the disadvantageous position he is when compared to you? Seeing how big of a figure he is, I don't think he likes the idea of you holding all the aces in this game!"

Shifting her position on top of the saddle, Elia almost managed to throw me off my train of thought with how this subtle movement of her forced my mind to replay all the images of when she, rather than riding the horse, was happily riding on top of my hips.

After taking a moment to calm myself down and push aside those impure thoughts, I looked back at Elia, trying my best to not let her cute face throw me off once again.

"I already agreed to work with him. What's more, with how reliant we will be on the mines he gifted to us, he will be forced to take care of one of the most important places in the entire project of mine, the one producing all the steam horses. And just like I told you last night, most of our future projects will rely heavily on those!"

Considering how I already changed the name for the machine guns to reaper guns, there was no point in trying to stick with the conventions I knew from the future times. With how insanely popular and deeply engraved in polish culture the horses were, using the name of a steam horse would make the steam engines even more popular where the time for selling them all over the country would come!

"Don't you think that on the other hand, puts us at his mercy? What will happen if he were to suddenly die? In the end, there is no way for us to make sure that his successor will like the idea of cooperating with us!"

Once again, Elia was on her roll of proper points that I didn't think about before, yet this time, she managed to hit at the matter I didn't have any real countermeasure for. Just like she pointed out, if something were to happen to the Governor and his heir would block us from both the mines or just the steam horses factory, most of the rapid progress that would hopefully be happening all over my lands, would almost instantly slow down to the point of stalling!

"While there is nothing we can do about this, who said that we can't set a single factory for the steam horses on our lands? Even if we would lose the access to the mines, we could still buy the iron all over the continent, and as soon as our roads will connect us to even a single diffrent mine, just by throwing enough gold at its owner we could not only help to modernise it, but also buy the rights to a part of its haul!"