Lord: Starting with Biological Modification

In the Royal Capital’s canal district, morning mist clung to the water’s surface, seeping into every damp alley.

The bell at the docks had yet to ring, but the mill’s giant water wheel had already begun to turn, letting out a rhythmic groan.

The city had not yet fully awakened.

In a cheap tavern by the river, a tavern hand was yawning, using a greasy rag to wipe down the tables.

The air was thick with the sour smell of cheap ale and the reek of stale sweat.

A few dock porters, just off their night shift, were nursing bowls of watery wheat gruel and gnawing on hard black bread.

They were regulars here. For a few Copper Leaves, they could nap in a corner and wait for the next cargo ship to arrive.

A respectably dressed bard walked in.

The tavernkeep looked up, clearly recognizing the regular, but when a whole Silver Moon slid across the bar, a flicker of surprise still crossed his eyes—the bard was being far more lavish than usual.

The tavernkeep collected the coin without a word and promptly served him a glass of his finest wine.

The bard didn’t rush to drink. He walked to the center of the tavern.

He didn’t rush to speak.

Strumming the lute he held, a soothing melody flowed out—not a battle hymn for a Knight’s charge, nor the decadent music of a noblewoman’s love affair.

There was a touch of melancholy in the melody.

A few of the porters stopped chewing and looked up.

"Friends, I won’t be singing of princesses and dragons today."

The bard began, his voice gentle.

"I’m going to tell a true story. The protagonist is named Elvin, a genius from the Mage Academy."

"A genius?" one of the workers scoffed. "Which of those Mage lords doesn’t call himself a genius?"

The bard ignored the jibe and simply continued.

"Everyone at the academy said he was a genius. But his ideas were different from everyone else’s."

"Other Mages were all thinking about how to make their Magic Power stronger, to create more valuable Magic Potions. But Elvin spent his days squatting in the dirt, studying how earthworms tilled the soil and how mushrooms grew."

At this, the porters exchanged glances, their laughter dying down.

That didn’t sound like a Mage, more like an old farmer from the countryside.

"Elvin said that the power to make the land bountiful shouldn’t be held only by Mages. He wanted to find a way to make the land itself fertile, so that all farmers without Magic could also grow more and better crops."

"He wanted everyone to have enough to eat."

"When the academy professors heard this, they all laughed at him, calling him ’the madman in the mud’."

"They wouldn’t give Elvin money for his research and even took away his only palm-sized experimental plot. Everyone avoided him as if he had the plague."

As the story reached this point, the tavern gradually grew quiet.

The smile on the stubbled porter’s face vanished. He remembered last year, when he had figured out a more labor-saving way to assemble a pulley system. He tried to tell his foreman but was kicked aside and cursed for "not doing his job and just thinking up crooked nonsense."

"They said, if everyone knew how to farm properly, who would they sell the high-yield seeds they spent Magic Power to create? And how would the great merchants who hoard grain control the prices?"

"So, they cut off Elvin’s research funding and took away his only experimental plot. Everyone avoided him as if he had the plague."

"Just as Elvin was about to starve to death, a lord from the south found him."

The bard’s voice rose.

"Baron Velin of the Grey Marsh Territory. He told Elvin: ’Your research isn’t madness. It’s a grand undertaking that can feed everyone. Come to my territory. I’ll give you a whole valley for a laboratory! Whatever money you need, I’ll give it to you!’"

"And so, Elvin went south. He’s going to prove with facts that those professors and merchants who want to keep knowledge and wealth clutched in their hands forever are the real fools!"

The last note from the lute string faded.

The story was over.

One of the workers crushed the bread in his hand.

"Damn it, well said!"

"Those lords in the guilds and academies, they just can’t stand to see us common folk have a good life!"

"The Grey Marsh Territory? I’ve heard of it! Isn’t that the one that set up a recruitment stage on Golden Cross Avenue the other day but didn’t manage to hire a single person?"

"Looks like it’s not the Baron who’s a fool. It’s this bunch of guild masters and Mage professors in the Royal Capital who are blind!"

The same story played out in different versions in every corner of the Royal Capital.

By the river where the washerwomen gathered, the story became about a "genius Mage who was spurned by a female professor and angrily left for the south to make his fortune."

In the salons of noble ladies, the version became that Elvin had mastered a secret formula to double a manor’s yield. This led several ladies who owned vast tracts of land to start privately inquiring about the Grey Marsh Territory, as they too detested the seed merchants who jacked up their prices.

When the news reached the Mage Academy, it caused a huge uproar.

"This is betrayal!" the professors fumed in the council hall. "Elvin sold the Academy’s knowledge to a remote Baron! This is a disgrace!"

"We must immediately strike him from the registry! And notify all Magic Materials suppliers to never do business with him!"

An elderly Mage sighed.

"If we do that now, won’t it just confirm the rumors? That we suppress a genius who could help the people prosper, all to monopolize knowledge. What will the nobles think when they hear this?"

"Then what should we do? Just let that country Baron walk all over the Mage Academy’s reputation and win the people’s hearts?"

They argued endlessly, but no one could come up with a solution.

The angrier they got, the more they resembled the villains from the story who stood in the way of progress.

This same wind blew into the Royal Capital’s artisan quarter.

Hog Iron Hammer stood in the center of the Stonemason Association’s workshop. The atmosphere was oppressive.

On the long table before him was a huge sheet of parchment, on which a complex set of architectural diagrams was drawn with charcoal and a straightedge.

A circle of the Stonemason Association’s elders stood around him.

"Hog, I’ll say it again: burn these drawings." The association’s president, a white-haired old man, tapped the table with a mahogany ruler. "For generations, we have used thick stone walls for support. This is a rule passed down for five hundred years."

"President, rules are made by men," Hog’s voice was low. "With my ’ribbed vault’ structure, we can distribute the load-bearing force to the exterior of the building. The walls can be thinner, allowing for huge windows. Buildings will no longer be dark stone boxes; sunlight can illuminate every room."

"Heresy!" an elder barked. "Exposing the skeleton on the outside? Unsightly! It’s a desecration of architecture!"

"I’ve calculated the load capacity. The angle and force of every single arch have been precisely calculated. It’s more stable than any existing structure," Hog tried to explain.

"Enough," the president cut him off. "We don’t need your fancy calculations. A stonemason’s craft relies on tradition, not scribbles on paper."

"Hog, because you have repeatedly proposed these ’fanciful notions’ that shake the foundations of our trade, the association has decided to suspend you from work for one month. Go home and reflect on your actions."

Hog looked at the elders.

The drawings he had painstakingly created were crumpled into a ball by the president and casually tossed into the wastebasket in the corner.

Without a word, he turned and walked out of the workshop.

The few young apprentices following him had faces full of indignation.

"Master, they..."

Hog waved a hand.

He walked to the tavern on the corner, ordered a mug of ale, and sat alone in a corner.

The tavern was noisy. A bard was in the middle of an impassioned story, his words spraying.

"...that Mage named Elvin is a true hero! The Academy wouldn’t let him do his research, so he went to a place that would!"

Hog’s hand, which was lifting his mug, froze.

"You have no idea, but that Baron Velin of the Grey Marsh Territory, right in front of everyone, gave Elvin a contract guaranteeing ’unlimited research funds and complete freedom in the process’!"

"Good heavens! Is there really a lord like that in this world?"

"You bet! What he wants is the real talent you’ve got in your head! Not like our guilds here, where if you dare have a new idea, the old master’s whip comes cracking down!"

Every word from the bard hammered into Hog’s heart.

Elvin the Mage.

Hog the Stonemason.

Different fields, yet what a similar plight.

’A lord who would let a Mage research freely would surely not refuse a stonemason who can fill rooms with sunlight.’

Hog drained his mug of ale.

He set the heavy earthenware mug down hard on the wooden table with a THUD.

Everyone in the tavern looked over.

He stood up and tossed some coins onto the table.

He walked straight out of the tavern and back to his own workshop.

His apprentices were dejectedly putting away their tools.

Hog walked to the center of the workshop and picked up the large iron hammer that sat on his workbench.

The hammer’s head was covered in the marks of time.

He said to the young men who followed him.

"Pack your things. We’re going somewhere."