The day after the Rising Sun Merchant Guild caravan left was a special occasion for Lucas, or at least it would have been if he had been an ordinary boy.
A child's 10th birthday in the Rockwell Kingdom was a momentous occasion as it signified the start of their cultivation journey. Of course, the actual aptitude test for a child was generally not conducted on their birthday unless they were particularly well off, but it was still a major event which many families celebrated.
For Lucas, however, there really wasn't much fanfare on his birthday this year. He had already had his Innate Talent tested and begun cultivating in earnest several months ago, so he didn't have that to look forward to.
Additionally, having just celebrated his Big Sister Eris' birthday together with all of his friends, Lucas wasn't particularly interested in attending another giant get together.
Given all the recent excitement, and his more mature personality, Lucas asked everyone around him to not make a big deal out of his birthday, saying he preferred to just spend it quietly at home with loved ones.
And so, May 12th, 876 NE, essentially passed by uneventfully, with Lucas sharing a nice meal at home with his parents, his Aunt Sasha and Uncle Charles, and his Big Sister Eris. The small group laughed and celebrated together, with no need for extravagant preparations or elaborate settings; it was just a warm, family affair.
As for gifts, Lucas specifically requested that they not get him anything as he already had everything he wanted.
Of course, this request was completely ignored, with everyone presenting the now 10-year-old boy with small tokens, like a new pair of arm-guards from his father, or an embroidered handkerchief from his big sister.
The only unpleasant moment the whole day was when Lucas asked if it was a cat which Eris had stitched onto the cloth, which resulted in his big sister tearing up, saying she'd take it back and fix it.
Not knowing what he had said wrong, Lucas frantically tried to smooth things over, saying it was small and cute, only to have his mother smack him upside the head and whisper that it was supposed to be a fierce wolf.
Even this, though, ended up being a funny memory which was eventually settled with an extra serving of cookies, another of Lucas' recent inventions made possible thanks to the appearance of sugar.
While most of the 150 kg of lych tree sugar, or Maple Sugar as Lucas had taken to calling it, had been sold to the Rising Sun Merchant Guild, the boy had kept over 30 kg of the sweet crystals.
After distributing 5 kg to his employees as a gift, 5 kg to the staff at the Town Lord's Manor who had helped him with making the sugar, and another 10 kg to Sasha as a simple thank you, Lucas was left with just over 10 kg at home, more than enough to use as long as he did so sparingly.
Evening rolled around, and the Newton Family returned home.
Lucas' 10th birthday came to a quiet end with him falling asleep in his bed, his mother and father tucking him in and kissing him goodnight. It was a far, far less dramatic day than his 9th birthday had been, to say the least, and that was something Lucas and his parents cherished deeply.
The mere thought that on this day last year, Lucas had nearly died, made every moment from that point on seem like a precious gift, one he and his whole family were determined not to waste.
…..
"Alright, let's try this again!"
Sweating profusely, Lucas called out with a fair degree of exhaustion, having lost count of just which attempt he and his team were on now.
For the past 2 months, the young boy had been working on a major project which was aimed at improving the lives of everyone in Redwood Town, the construction of a large bathhouse.
When Lucas first proposed this project to his parents, his aunt, and his uncle, they had all rolled their eyes, wondering just why this boy was so obsessed with bathing. However, after going through his entire plan and pointing out all the benefits this large public bathhouse would bring to the town, the adults eventually got onboard with the idea.
Finding an appropriate piece of land next to the Belton River, flattening the ground, laying a solid foundation, and putting up a large wooden building had been fairly simple as these tasks didn't involve any knowledge of techniques beyond the level of the townsfolk.
Labour and materials were even less of an issue as Lucas and the other sponsors of the project had all recently gained quite a bit of wealth from selling soap and sugar. Together with skilled masons and carpenters, and over 30 labourers hired from around town at a high wage, the bathhouse's main building was up and ready less than a month after Lucas' 10th birthday.
It was only then that things stopped going so smoothly.
In order to have a sufficient supply of water in his new bathhouse, Lucas had designed a kind of bucket-scoop waterwheel which he planned to attach to a reservoir though a series of wooden channels.
Ideally, Lucas would have preferred to use pipes of some kind, but there were no bio-metals, crystal-composites, or even simple plastics available.
The only options would have been to used pure metal pipes, but not only was that extremely expensive, it was also incredibly difficult to manufacture such pipes with the level of development in the Rockwell Kingdom. Using clay was a viable option as there were craftsmen in Redwood Town familiar with baking clay tiles and bricks, but producing appropriate pipes would have taken much, much longer than Lucas was willing to wait.
Wood, on the other hand, was readily available, easily shaped, and could be made waterproof by applying a couple coats of special tree resins. As such, Lucas commissioned not just wooden channels, but also a great number of wooden boards to make reservoirs and tubs out of.
Assembling a new waterwheel wasn't too difficult as Redwood Town already had several of these contraptions as well as a number of artisans who knew how to build and maintain them. The waterwheel Lucas designed was a bit special, but it wasn't too difficult to build and assemble, so it was completed around the same time as the bathhouse.
Unfortunately, when they went to install the waterwheel in the river, the construction team discovered that the ground was too soft.
It took a lot of diverting, digging, foundation laying, and reinforcing before the waterwheel was finally up and spinning properly.
At that point, Lucas thought the hard part was over and all he needed to do was lay down the channels to the large reservoir, then connect his water supply to the bathhouse, but a complication soon arose.
The water in the river looked clean and clear on the surface, but after being drawn up by the waterwheel, Lucas discovered that there was actually quite a bit of debris and dirt in it. Obviously, this wasn't suitable for bathing with, so he had to figure out how to filter the water first.
After studying the problem for a few days, constantly wracking his brain while also trying to access as many relevant memories from the other world as he could, Lucas developed a potential solution.
Forget about advanced filtration techniques like particle separation or magnetic sorting, Lucas didn't even have access to basic chemical cleaners, so his only real option if he wanted to clean out the river water was to use physical filters and natural settlement techniques.
Now, his inherited memories didn't contain any specifics about how such processes worked, but with a little ingenuity, Lucas was able to come up with what he felt would be an appropriate process.
The first thing Lucas did was install a kind of L-shaped wall around the front of his waterwheel, with the front section being a large open grate. Although this restricted the waterflow somewhat and reduced the efficiency of the waterwheel, it also caught most of the large debris such as sticks, driftwood, plants, and even blocked the occasional fish that swam too close.
Next, Lucas set up a small initial reservoir and filled it with gravel. The idea was that water would first flow into it and any debris which had made it past the grates in the river would be caught here.
Lucas had wanted to use a fine metal mesh to skip this process, but after discussing it with his father and realizing how hard it would be to forge the thin wires needed for such a thing, he gave up and decided to use a rock filter instead.
Thankfully, since all he wanted to do was stop small twigs, leaves, moss, and clumps of dirt from getting through, this first reservoir didn't need to be so sophisticated. Essentially, Lucas just needed to build a watertight wooden box, cut a small drain hole in the bottom of the side which was facing away from the waterwheel, and then fill it with gravel.
The gravel in this initial reservoir would need to be taken out and cleaned once in a while, but that wasn't a big concern as the river was literally just steps away.
At this point, Lucas could have run the 'filtered' water into his bathhouse and been done with it; after all, during the hotter months of the year, like right now, the townsfolk would literally just jump into the river to wash themselves off.
If they were very particular, they might use a bucket of well water and a cloth to wipe themselves down, but for most, a cool dip in the river was preferable after a hard day under the scorching sun.
In fact, when he first checked the quality of the water flowing out of his gravel filter into the main reservoir inside the bathhouse, Lucas felt it was probably good enough as is.
Satisfied, Lucas allowed the reservoir to fill up before stopping the flow from the gravel filter and allowing the water to flow from it back into the river. He could have stopped the waterwheel itself, as he had built in a brake to do just that, but stopping and starting the wheel constantly would surely increase the wear and tear on its gears, so Lucas opted to build an overflow channel instead.
With Lucas announcing everything was set, everyone cheered and returned home for the day, preparing for the bathhouse's grand opening tomorrow.
The next day, Lucas arrived at the bathhouse as soon as he finished his morning routine, only to find a large group of people who had worked with him on this project standing around with frowns on their faces.
Pushing his way through the crowd, Lucas arrived at the main reservoir and saw what the problem was.
Overnight, a fine layer of silt and scum had formed on the bottom of the tank. This wouldn't be an immediate problem, but if dirt continued to build up like this, eventually it would become an issue.
If someone came to the bathhouse specifically to wash with clean water, having the water be muddy would naturally turn them off.
Wrinkling his nose, Lucas quickly analysed the situation before a wry grin formed on his face. Fortunately, there was a simple solution to this problem, it would just delay the bathhouse's opening for a bit longer.
Gathering the workers around, Lucas assigned a new set of tasks to them, including building two more large reservoirs outside the main building, each of them elevated slightly above ground and about 20% larger than the one in the bathhouse. He also ordered a gazebo like structure to be erected to put a roof overtop of these new reservoirs.
10 days later, wiping the sweat from his little brow, Lucas called out for the drain on the gravel filter to be opened again.
Water flowed from the waterwheel into the gravel filter, then down a channel into one of the two large external reservoirs. As this reservoir was filling up, Lucas went to check the already full reservoir and was satisfied to find that all the dirt and silt had settled to the bottom. He then opened the drainage channel at the top of the full reservoir, allowing clean water to gently flow into the bathhouse.
Once the originally full reservoir was mostly drained, Lucas had some workers come in with brooms and buckets to sweep out the dirt and silt, cleaning it completely before he began filling it up again.
Leaving the entire setup for one night, Lucas and his crew returned, checked the water in the main reservoir inside the bathhouse, and let out a cheer. The water, as far as they could tell, was pure and clean, without any dirt or grime.
The bathhouse was finished!
Or at least, the summer version was. Lucas planned to install a wood-burning boiler of some kind, which he had yet to design, into the main reservoir, so that in the fall and winter, there would be hot water to use for washing. He also needed to find a way to provide light inside the bathhouse, and to equip it with towels, indoor shoes, soap, workers…
In short, he still had a lot of work to do.