Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 58 Production Accident
"Come to think of it, your teacher is really not a human being!" Reiner looked at the hybrid elf Egno with sympathy, feeling quite sad about his tragic experience.

He respected and loved his magic teacher as a father, and risked his identity being exposed to use his elf-given healing magic to save his teacher's son who was seriously injured and dying after falling off a horse. However, he was discovered by the teacher and reported to the Federation.

If Egno had not had a magical device of transformation passed down from his father's family, and had not cleverly disguised himself and escaped from Alayeh in advance, he would probably have been taken to the elven city of Lórien and imprisoned.

Egno sighed, not wanting to talk about the past that made him depressed.

"I have enchanted all of these seeds. After the crops are harvested in late summer, you can set aside a piece of land to try growing these enchanted seeds."

Although Harvey has publicly stated that as long as Egno always has good intentions, he is willing to take in Egno, a hybrid elf spellcaster with nowhere to go, and can keep his identity secret.

But Egno has been here for nearly half a month. Apart from wandering around the territory every day, no one has assigned him anything to do. He eats exquisite food delivered from the teleportation array all day long and sleeps on the soft and comfortable bed in the single bedroom, which makes him feel ashamed of living a life of eating and drinking for free.

We were not allowed to enter the underground laboratory, and when we wanted to walk to the military camp to see the soldiers carrying strange iron rods all day, we were politely asked not to get close.

Egno was well aware that he had not yet been fully trusted and accepted by the people here.

When he finally couldn't control his emotions anymore and wanted to find Lord Harvey and ask for a job for himself, Reiner came to him.

Give him a batch of various crop seeds and ask him if he can enchant them to repel pests and diseases and increase yields.

Egno was no stranger to the natural magic of growth. His mother was the agricultural officer in the clan who was specifically responsible for catalyzing the golden tree. If there were an amplification tool to assist in casting spells, he could even directly catalyze a seed into a sapling of a certain number of years of growth within a few minutes.

"This batch of seeds can resist most natural pests and diseases, but it cannot withstand low temperatures. After all, I haven't made such improvements yet. I can't guarantee the yield. You need to wait until the harvest to observe the results."

Reiner nodded in satisfaction and called two people from the Ministry of Agriculture to prepare to move the bags of seeds away.

"Wait!" Egno quickly stopped Reiner and asked a little embarrassedly. "Can I go to the farm with you? I don't have anything else to do, maybe I can help..."

Reiner froze for a moment, as if hesitating.

Egno quickly added, "I won't disturb others from working. Don't worry. Let me check on the crops in the fields. After all, I'm a nature spellcaster."

"Um...Okay, follow me."

Egno tidied up his loose hair, made sure to hide his pointed ears, and followed Reiner to the farm at the foot of the mountain.

……

When Egno arrived at the farm, he found that the scene he had imagined of farmers working hard under the scorching sun and covered in dust did not appear.

An endless expanse of golden fields is neatly divided into dozens of plots. A one-meter-wide water channel brings clear water from the mountain. After passing through several small mills, it disperses into several tributaries and flows into the ditches beside the farmland.

The gentle slope near the foot of the mountain has been repaired into the shape of terraces, where some lush green vegetables are planted. Several humanoid alchemy beasts with short stature but extremely long arms are moving around in the vegetable fields, picking fresh vegetables with skillful movements.

The barley harvest is approaching. Several farmers wearing straw hats are walking along the ridges of the fields, observing the ripeness of the wheat ears and discussing the best time to harvest.

Seeing Reiner and others approaching, he hurried over and bowed.

"Such a large piece of land, and only a few farmers can take care of it?" Egno found it incredible.

Reiner pointed to the nearby woods and laughed, "The heavy labor is done by the alchemists. It's too hot in the summer afternoons, so most of the farm workers are out in the woods picking fruits right now."

Egno stood on tiptoe and looked into the woods. He found that there were indeed figures moving inside, and bursts of rough laughter broke out from time to time.

A good harvest does bring joy to people.

But what he didn't expect was that after a while, the joy that infected him turned into fear.

……

Mai Sui felt his whole body trembling, cold sweat running from his forehead into his eyes, but he didn't dare close his eyes.

The screams of his companion Wugua on his back had become hoarse. He quickened his pace again, wishing he could grow eight legs like those alchemical beasts that patrolled the woods all day long.

He felt like he deserved to die. Lord Reiner had clearly reminded him repeatedly, so why did he still neglect it?

At the beginning, he was complacent about being assigned to control the alchemy beast.

Ever since the large, metallic-glowing mill was installed, their work had become much easier. They no longer had to repeatedly pedal the waterwheel to transport water from the lower reaches to the terraced fields on the hillside, nor did they have to push the heavy stone mill to grind wheat flour.

This iron tower-like alchemical beast only needs to put a crystal gem in it, and it can quickly use belts to pull the water wheel and stone mill, making them work non-stop.

Lord Reiner demonstrated to them several times that if they continued working for more than two hours, they would need to remove the crystal gem and replace it with an icy ice gem. This would cool everyone down and prevent them from getting fever due to excessive labor.

Mai Sui originally kept these words firmly in his heart.

But today he failed in his duty!
As the harvest season approaches, everyone has less work to do each day and their attitude has become much more relaxed.

After the wheat ear was loaded with the first crystal gem, it secretly ran out of the mill, lay down in the pile of wheat grains, and dreamed of its future life.

Wogua, who had just been assigned to his work, heard the heavy breathing of the big machine in the mill. Without waking up Mai Sui, he ran to check it out. Just as he was about to take off the crystal gem, the big machine opened its black iron mouth and a thick white high-temperature steam whistled out, directly spraying towards Wogua.

Wheat Ear was awakened by a heart-wrenching scream, and crawled into the mill, where he found thick smoke billowing inside and Wedge Melon lying on his back, rolling around with half of his face covered.

He pounced on Wogua's hands and pried them open. He felt a chill down his spine. Half of Wogua's face was already stuck to his palms. When he pried them open, half of the rotten skin was instantly peeled off.

His shoulders, chest and right arm were all covered in blood, his clothes were stuck to the rotten flesh, and blood was slowly seeping out.

Other people who heard the news gathered together and realized that the squash might not be saved.

"Fire... everybody... it's on fire, put out the fire..." Wogua endured the severe pain, still holding Mai Sui's hand tightly, and kept muttering.

The mill is full of grain, and there is a barn next to it, so there must be no fire!
Mai Sui's eyes instantly turned red. He struggled to pick up the melon and asked everyone to cool down the group first and put out the fire in the mill.

He ran out with the pumpkin on his back.

He ran into Reiner who had also received the news and rushed over.

"Sir! Wuwuwu... It's all my fault... Wuwuwu, please save Wugua, he's only twenty years old..."

Reiner saw the miserable state of the injured man on his back, and his eyes blazed with soul fire. He angrily asked, "Steam burns? What happened? Why didn't you operate the Alchemy Beast according to regulations?"

When he was debugging this kind of alchemy beast before, he often couldn't control the time accurately, causing the alchemy beast to overheat, but for Reiner, it was nothing more than a free steam sauna.

But for ordinary people, this would be fatal.

"Please, Lord, please give me some magic potion to save the pumpkin!" Mai Sui put down the pumpkin, which had gradually become silent, from his back and kowtowed on the ground.

"It's too late to go back to the main castle to get the potion. Let me try." Egno walked forward, squatted down and covered half of the bloody face of the glutinous rice with his hands, but he tried his best to turn his head away and stare at the ground.

"What kind of magic move is this?" Reiner asked in confusion.

A dark green mist gradually condensed in Egno's palms. The mist seemed to be alive, flexibly breaking away from his palms and gently covering the eroded face of the pumpkin.

Then the wound immediately changed. The burned facial skin kept falling off, and new skin grew out at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The huge blisters on the neck immediately shrank, were gradually covered by new granulation tissue, and eventually disappeared.

The gourd stopped trembling in pain, his breathing became gradually steady, and he seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep.

But in just a few minutes, Egno fell to the ground with sweat all over his forehead, looking at Reiner for help.

"I... I don't have enough magic power. Can you give me a charging magic stone?"

Reiner immediately took out a piece from the bag on his waist, handed it to him, and asked again.

"Does your healing technique require a twist of the neck? That's amazing..."

Egno blushed, looked around at the crowd, and reluctantly began to explain.

"No, I just... I'm just fainting from blood."

(End of this chapter)