The successful completion of the aqueduct did more than just provide clean water; it provided a new source of power. The stream flowing from the spring was steady and strong, and my engineering knowledge whispered of a potential far greater than mere hydration. It whispered of mechanical power.
While the city celebrated its new fountains, I took Jor, my Minister of Public Works, to a narrow point in the stream just outside the city walls. On a stretch of smoothed sand, I drew a diagram that would once again revolutionize our society. I drew a water wheel.
Jor, a master blacksmith who had spent his life powering his forge with the sweat of apprentices working a hand-bellows, stared at the drawing with utter incomprehension. "My Lord," he said, shaking his head. "The water pushes. How can a push turn a wheel without end?"
"It is not the push we will harness, Jor," I explained, sketching out the design for a more efficient overshot wheel. "It is the weight. We will lift the water above the wheel, and its ceaseless falling will turn it for us. The stream will become our tireless apprentice."
The construction of the water wheel became the next focus of our industrial ambition. It was a complex project requiring precise carpentry to create the buckets and a strong axle to transfer the power. The influx of skilled artisans from the captured legion proved invaluable. They worked alongside our own craftsmen, their combined knowledge, guided by my system-born blueprints, creating a machine of remarkable efficiency.
When the twenty-foot wheel was finally hoisted into place and the wooden sluice gate was opened, a channel of water diverted from the aqueduct's main flow poured over its top. With a groan of straining timber, the great wheel began to turn. It moved slowly at first, then gathered momentum, its rhythm a steady, powerful, reassuring heartbeat. Oakhaven now had a source of tireless, unending mechanical power.
This was the dawn of our iron revolution. We connected the wheel's axle, through a series of wooden cams and levers, to a massive new set of bellows in a newly constructed forge complex. The forge, now powered by the stream, could produce a constant, roaring blast of air far hotter than any hand-bellows could manage.
In the heart of this new forge, Grak of Ironpeak, who had extended his stay in Oakhaven out of sheer professional fascination, stood with Jor before a new type of furnace I had designed.
"More heat," I instructed, showing them how to mix charcoal with the iron ore. "And a measured amount of this." I introduced a flux, crushed limestone, which would help separate the impurities.
The result of this new, high-temperature process was an ingot of metal unlike any they had ever seen. It was lighter than their crude iron, yet immensely stronger and held a sharper edge. It was a crude, inconsistent form of steel, but it was steel nonetheless.
"By the mountain's soul," Grak breathed, testing the cooled metal with his hammer. "It does not dent. It sings."
The water wheel's second great contribution was a trip hammer. We constructed a massive, iron-headed hammer, lifted by cams on the wheel's turning axle, which would rise and fall in a steady, relentless rhythm onto a great anvil. This simple machine could do the work of ten men, tirelessly beating impurities out of the raw iron blooms and shaping them into uniform bars. It was the birth of mass production.
With our new steel and our automated hammer, our industrial capacity exploded. We began producing high-quality swords and armor that were the envy of Grak himself. But more importantly, we began mass-producing steel plowshares, axes, saws, and chisels. These tools flowed out into our new, expanding city, making every farmer more efficient, every carpenter more precise, every mason more productive. The iron revolution, powered by the water that gave us life, was now building our city at a speed that was truly miraculous.