The forty goats we had acquired from the Ashen tribe had, under Kael's expert care, flourished into a herd of over two hundred. The [Animal Husbandry] technology was not just a passive knowledge set; it was a guide to active, generational improvement.
Kael, now the undisputed Minister of Agriculture, had become a master of his craft. I had taught him the principles of selective breeding from my system knowledge, and he had applied them with an artist's touch. He separated the goats with the finest, softest wool from the others, breeding them to create a lineage of superior fiber-producers. He did the same for the best milkers, whose offspring now produced a richer, more abundant supply of milk than their ancestors. The herd was no longer just a source of meat; it was a versatile engine of production.
This new abundance catalyzed a series of secondary industries that transformed the daily life of our citizens. The first was the creation of a textile industry, led by my mother. Elara, with her practical wisdom, organized the women of Oakhaven, both original and newly integrated, into a weaving cooperative.
They built spinning wheels based on my designs, a vast improvement over the simple hand-spindles they had known. They learned to card and spin the soft goat wool into strong, consistent yarn. Then came the looms, larger and more complex than any they had used before, capable of weaving wide bolts of cloth.
The scratchy, uncomfortable leather hides and crude fibers they had once worn were steadily replaced by soft, warm woolen tunics, cloaks, and blankets. The sight of a child wrapped in a soft, dyed blanket on a cold desert night was a symbol of our new prosperity, a luxury that even the wealthiest nobles in the kingdom would have envied. The cloth became a valuable trade good in its own right, highly sought after by the Ironpeak smiths who worked in the cold mountain air.
The second industry to emerge was a dairy. Kael's herdsmen would milk the does each morning, and the milk would be brought to a new, cool stone building we called the 'Cheese House'. Here, again under my mother's supervision, the women learned the art of cheesemaking. They learned how to use rennet, derived from the stomachs of young goats, to curdle the milk. They created fresh, soft cheeses for immediate consumption, and, more importantly, they learned to press and salt the curds into hard, aged wheels.
This aged cheese was a revelation. Like the hardtack, it was a high-energy, nutrient-rich food that was portable and would not spoil for months. It became the new staple ration for our scouting parties and for the army. It was also a delicious and sought-after luxury, another high-value item to add to our trade caravans.
The herd gave us more than just wool and cheese. Their horns were carved into cups and spoons. Their rendered fat was used to make soap, improving hygiene, and high-quality tallow for clean-burning candles that pushed back the darkness in our new stone homes. Their dung, once a waste product, was now systematically collected and used to fertilize our fields, enriching the soil and ensuring the bounty of future harvests, a practical application of the [Crop Rotation and Soil Fertilization] technology I had unlocked.
Every part of the animal was used. Nothing was wasted. This cycle of production—from the goat, to the weaver, to the cheesemaker, to the farmer—created an intricate, self-sustaining economic web. The people of Oakhaven were no longer just surviving off the land; they were transforming its raw materials into products of increasing value and sophistication. We were not just a city of farmers and soldiers anymore. We were becoming a nation of artisans.