Herald of Steel

Alexander was impressed by the initiative shown by Harun, a vital quality in Alexander's eyes.

So he quickly approved the idea, albeit with a bit of modification, "Follow the plan as you wanted. Just keep the water periodic instead of continuous, like lightly drizzling it."

"Then my lord I will do it every four hours or so," Harun very enthusiastically replied, quite happy at his core idea getting approved.

With that order, Alexander then addressed the issue of coal storage scarcity, simply ordering, "Three days from now, send all the excess coal that you don't need to my estate. I will use them in something else."

Alexander planned to make coal briquettes using them to make salt by boiling seawater.

Harun did not ask Alexander what he needed two thousand (2,000) tons of coals daily for, for he did not really care.

He was only relieved that this potential time bomb problem would soon be solved, and he expressed his pleasure by flashing a slight grin and saying, "As you command, my lord. I will send them to your manor as soon as you command."

With this done, Alexander spoke to Harun about a few more general topics and finally decided to bid goodbye, the entire tour having lasted from morning to near dusk.

'Well that was a long day,' Alexander said to himself as he made his way back to his manor, looking around the surrounding while doing so.

And anyone would be surprised by how drastically everything had changed around here in the last one and a half months.

Landmarks and landscapes that made remained unchanged for centuries were undone by the ever-industrious hands of the workers appointed by Alexander and the once lush forest around the manor was in the process of being stripped clean, to be replaced with structures that its current owner found dear to his eyes.

This was the result of Alexander expanding his workshops and businesses, resulting in the requirement for more space.

More space for working, more space for accommodating the workers, and more space for their families to live in.

Hence came Alexander's orders to clear the entire one square kilometer of forest that surrounded his manor into residential and commercial areas and transform it into his sweatshops, a place where tens of thousands of families would work, eat and live, serving Alexander and his ever-growing thirst for ropals.

And the reason that Alexander had chosen to do so so near his home, much to Cambyses's annoyance as she saw so many people moving in and around the vicinity of her house as disturbing the tranquility of the surrounding, was because of security.

There were many inventions and technologies here that Alexander did not at all feel comfortable leaving out in the open city and thus birthed the necessity of building the huge, striking wooden wall that everyone could see the moment they approached the manor.

It perimetered the left side of the manor, as if designating the boundary between the owner and the workers, and worked to keep secrets secure, for within the total one-and-a-half square kilometers right in his backyard, Alexander could enforce draconian security measures that would be impossible to implement on a large scale.

This was also why Alexander had not merged this small industrial district with the official southern industrial district.

'I will visit the place tomorrow,' Alexander said to himself, intent on checking up on the various workshops' progress which included not only the four original ones of glass, soap, paper, and weapons but also two more,- the sugar production plant and Gelene's tailoring shop.

The latter was of particular interest to Alexander as he had given his unofficial concubine a few simple inventions to help her spin her threads much faster and to protect such innovations, had ordered her to relocate her production facilities inside the secure compound.

He had also ordered a few new types of dresses to wear during the marriage ceremony that was two weeks from now and wanted to confirm how they were carrying along.

And lastly, he now had the new task of designing the production process of coal briquettes and a salt production plant.

'*Sigh*, so much work,' Alexander lampooned as he dragged his tired body into the huge manor, eager to have some much-needed shut-eye.

After a nice hot bath, Alexander dressed himself comfortably and then joined the rest of the nobles in his house for dinner.

"Oh! Is this another new dish Your Grace has prepared for us?" Mikaya cried out in delight as she gazed at the new dish placed on her silver place.

It was a pasta dish, golden and round with a bulge in its center, presented with a sage on top and garnished with shredded cheese.

"Yes. It's a pasta dish called ravioli, made using egg yoke, ricotta cheese, and spinach," Alexander lightly smiled as he answered.

'Hmmm, seems pretty simple,' Mikaya like many others made the classic mistake of underestimating this classic Italian dish.

The list of things need to make ravioli might be fairly simple, with eggs and spinach readily available and ricotta cheese being made using milk, cream, salt, and some kind of acid like lemon juice.

But as a matter of fact, ravioli was a deceptively hard dish to make.

The challenge of this dish did not lie in procuring or processing the ingredients but in bringing these ingredients together and most importantly securely placing them inside the pasta, making sure that the pasta did not break even placed into the boiling water.

An effort that had taken Mean and her team over a month to master.

"Hehe, Pasha Alexander seems to be full of new ideas every day. I guess that is the difference between a genius and us poor folk," Seelima very melodramatically praised Alexander, her lips pursing to a smirk.

In the minds of these high ladies, a noble involving himself in the affairs of women, especially in the department of cooking was seen as unmanly and even wimpy.

Neither she, nor Mikaya or anyone else in Seelima's entourage for that matter had ever entered the kitchen in their life, a place that was universally seen by the aristocracy as base and low.

And so for Alexander, who was a pasha and among the highest rank of nobility, to frequently visit such a filthy place bought shame and disgrace to all of the nobility in Seelima's case.

But with that being said, the dishes that Alexander made were truly mouthwatering.

Very much different from the dishes the palace chefs made, which were only slight variations of existing dishes, Alexander's cruises were brand new, using ingredients in ways others had never thought of it, and introducing new styles of cooking that were revolutionary, to say the least.

If Alexander was not a noble, or even if he was a low one, Seelima was sure she would have hired him as her personal cook.

"Haha, well then let's dig in before it starts getting cold." Alexander turned a blind eye to this slight barb by the Queen mother, such a thing of not any importance to him, and instead cheerfully urged to start the supper.

"Yes, yes, they look delicious." Azira excitedly agreed with Alexander3 her eyes sparkling at the delicious food.

"Mmm, I am also interested in using this spoon called the fork," Azura frankly agreed with her sister, and then without further ado dug into the heavenly soft pillow of pasta.

Forks had not been invented before Alexander and the addition of this new cutlery had garnered such amazement from the royals.

"It's so easy to pick up food with!" The Queen mother had for the first in Alexander's eyes let out a genuine exclamation of praise at this three-pronged silver spoon and then showered Alexander with superlatives of various compliments.

Soon everyone followed Azura's lead, and cut into the pasta, and immediately afterward slight gasps of awe and looks of amazement bloomed around the luxurious dining table, as they witnessed the egg yolk flow out like liquid gold from the broken pasta.

"Oh, how beautiful!" Azira let out a candid scream of delight at this culinary art and then emulating Alexander, cut a chuck of the pasta containing the ricotta chess using her knife, basted it in the beautiful yolk, and then bought it into her mouth using her fork.

"Delicious! Truly heavenly," Azura was already having her second helping as she said so, her cheeks cutely puffed up with the pasta dough inside.

The tanginess of the cheese cut straight through the richness of the egg yoke and the beautifully cooked pasta wrapped the two heavenly flavors around its soft, pillowy doughy texture, inviting its eater to come for seconds and thirds.

And for seconds and thirds did everyone go, as for some time, the usually chatty dining table being replaced with the hurried clinking of silver hitting silver and the silence but rapid munching of the delicious pasta.

"Alex, I want to hire you as my cook more and more now, hehe," Mikaya, having had a few of the delicious dish, took a large gulp of the wine as she made this seemingly rude remark again, letting out a sultry smile as she did so.

Though this time the reaction was much warmer, with the Queen mother only sending Alexander an apologetic look after glaring at Mikaya.

Mikaya had made similar statements a few times already and Alexander had seemingly brushed them all off as harmless banter.

There was little point in getting angry when he would get to humiliate this spoiled princess soon.

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