"What is going on here?" A lazy question floated out from the air behind the pair locked into a staring contest. Aru the commander waded through the crowd of immobile observers, confusion and frustration tweaking his brows even as his eyes remained detached.
"Commander!" Bian was quick to speak up, "This troublemaker is trying to incite rebellion among the slaves!" He didn't really expect the charge to stick, he merely wanted to muddy the waters so Anak would be put on the defensive. Hopefully, in this way Anak wouldn't get his way.
However the commander merely rolled his eyes. "I'm lazy, not stupid," he sighed in a surprising moment of self-awareness. "Anak, please, tell me concisely." Aru pleaded from the young man he trusted far more than his own subordinate. Bian was a petty, spiteful man, and Anak was the person everyone in Ischuros admired.
"I simply want to do all of today's labor on my own." Anak generously summed up concisely just as the commander asked.
"And you think this is possible for you?" The commander dubiously cocked his brow. He hadn't even witnessed the incredible scene Anak made before, and there was much more work to do than merely mixing. The bricks had to be shaped, then baked, then hauled away to the next labor zone. It was absolutely necessary for there to be multiple people.
"It is." Anak asserted confidently in the face of Aru's doubt. "Let me prove it to you." Anak tried to persuade Aru, but Aru slowly shook his head.
"If I let everyone take the day off, and I don't meet my quota I'm the one who has to deal with all the trouble that will follow." Aru wasn't convinced, and if there was any chance he had to do extra work he'd be loathe to agree. "Why are you so bent on doing this?"
Anak considered his intentions, then slowly spoke, "It's my proof of concept."
"Proof of concept?" Aru cocked his head in confusion.
"Yeah," Anak smiled, "I'm going to show King Gal-ed that the students of the Armazel Academy can do this labor far more effectively and efficiently than can be achieved by any amount of slave labor."
Aru's eyes gleamed with understanding. "And with this you hope to end slavery." After a moment's thought, Aru shook his head despondently. "All I can say is things won't go as you wish."
Anak slightly frowned, "How about this," Anak put on a merchant's smile with difficulty, "Whether I succeed or not, when I leave here, I will directly recommend you to one of the generals under my father. They will give you a job inside a castle, out of the heat and far from the field of battle, where you can live the rest of your days in tranquility and ease."
Aru's eyes shook. This was too good of a deal, and he didn't think Anak was a liar. However, like he'd said before, he was lazy but not stupid. Regardless of whether Anak succeeded here, he was destined to fail in his grander ambitions. "One condition. I can't let you do absolutely everything. Choose one job. You can take over that one. Deal?"
Anak thought for a moment before grinning like a thief with a big-time score, "Deal. I'll do the mixing." He and Aru shook hands at the conclusion of their agreement.
The soldier who had broken his sword earlier had an odd premonition, but he didn't feel he had the right to speak up any longer. Anak made his way to the next pit of clay. He turned to Aru, "Oh, since I'll be mixing, it might take a bit before it's ready to be shaped and baked. Why not give the others a ten minute break?"
Aru contemplated, and decided it wouldn't hurt much to add ten more minutes onto an already lengthened break period. He nodded in agreement, and the surrounding slaves all wore relieved expressions. The slaves working the ovens immediately ran out from the area, some of the injured ones dunking their burnt limbs into cool clay for relief.
Anak then went straight to work, shocking Aru who hadn't yet seen his methods, and amazing everyone else for the second time. Over the next ten minutes, Anak finished mixing the clay in every pit with the divine copper flakes entirely. Anak wiped his brow, finally seeming to have exerted himself somewhat. He grinned broadly at Aru, who nodded back with a slack jaw.
After finally snapping back to reality, Aru began barking orders to help himself feel better, "Alright, everyone, break's over. Back to work!"
The soldiers jumped to attention, and stiffly went about looking for something to do, as the slaves grumbled, and some grabbed shovels to scoop out the mixture and carry it over to be shaped. However, almost simultaneously hundreds of shovels broke with a loud clamor.
"Ah, I forgot to mention. I'm probably the only one who can move and mold this mix, given its sturdiness." Anak shot Aru a devilish smile, and Aru sighed. He realized he'd been tricked, and now only Anak could even try to make bricks from this batch.
"Alright, everyone! Clean up those tools, then take the day off!" Aru gave Anak an appreciative glance. Even though he'd tricked him, he'd done so spectacularly, and for noble reasons. The slaves all cheered as one, and someone began the chant that eventually filled the whole brickworks.
"Anak!"
"Anak!"
"Anak, the liberator!"
Finally the crowds cleared, leaving behind only Anak, Urmu, Tzipora, and Bian. Aru had decided to take the day off along with everyone else. Tzipora was gazing at Anak with mixed feelings of awe and perturbation. He was so powerful, and he had helped her and the other slaves selflessly. So why did he have to be so annoying? She shot Anak a wry smile, and he grinned back like a fool. Just that little smile made him immeasurably happy.
Bian was watching the scene bitterly, and determined to watch 'til the end for any mistakes in Anak's performance. He wore a permanent scowl as he glaringly watched the proceedings.
The first thing Anak did was have Urmu disable the unnecessary heat generating enchantments and add some wind enchantments around the ovens to clear the unbearable baking air. He did these things for the sake of the slaves, who he might not be able to help. Aru's warning hadn't gone completely unheeded.
Then he quickly got to work shaping the bricks. He demonstrated his precision and speed yet again as the bricks came out perfectly and all perfectly shaped in under an hour. In the hour after that, Anak, being naturally heat resistant because of his star blood, cranked up the heat of the enchanted ovens to unbelievable heights, and quickly finished baking all the sturdy, already nearly unbreakable bricks into a truly impervious form. Urmu had a significant hand in this endeavor as well.
Finally, the finished total of peerless bricks Anak made amounted to over 10,000. They were piled high onto hundreds of palettes and were still spilling over. Urmu had to use a binding enchantment on the palettes to keep the bricks in place, and he used a weightless enchantment combined with a locomotion enchantment to make them float over to the construction labor zone. Ever since his bout with Anak, Urmu had ceaselessly studied to learn an even greater number of enchantments.
As Anak, Urmu, and Tzipora made to leave, Bian snidely remarked, "You can't do all the work in the whole city alone. This was meaningless."
Tzipora looked at Bian complacently, "No. This was a proof of concept." Her eyes were cold looking at Bian, no longer having any fear towards him, before drifting Anak's way as she finished her declaration.
Anak looked at Tzipora and laughed. This girl, it seems she was really taking his words to heart. Anak was very pleased at the thought, and he looked bemusedly at Bian while putting his arm around Tzipora's shoulder, "Besides, weren't you listening? I won't be alone."
Tzipora's shoulders stiffened slightly at Anak's touch, but she quickly relaxed, and didn't try to shrug him off. Her heart pitter-pattered in her chest like a frightened rabbit, and she felt nervous, happy, and shy all at once. A light shone from her pupils as she stared up at Anak's handsome, sweating face. The trio walked away towards Tzipora's home.
Bian glared after them. "Not alone? Does he mean that slave girl?" Bian sneered, but then a thought struck him, as he recalled what Anak said before.
'This is my proof of concept.'
'The students of the Armazel Academy can do this labor far more effectively and efficiently than can be achieved by any amount of slave labor.'
Bian realized what Anak meant and it terrified Bian, who had comfortably lived within a society that benefited from slavery for years. He didn't want anything to change, especially something so big. He felt a sudden sense of foreboding.
The miraculous job done by Anak spread around in rumors through the working class and slaves, causing his place in their hearts to rise even further. Only those who captured and sold slaves to the kingdom felt a shiver in their spines at the rumors, while Aru merely felt relief and a bit of respect.
Within the throne room of the royal palace, after receiving news of Anak's achievement, King Gel-ad stayed silent, simply musing to himself for a moment, before shifting back to his previous topic with his court. Included were Edo and Eva, who felt both proud and nervous at the news. They were going over the Tome of Kings that Gel-ad had received, as the king instructed them on certain new policies.
A similar meeting was being held in a certain merchant's home with a few of his close friends, where they perused the Manuscript of Mercantilism. Their eyes gleamed with greed as they saw the concepts of gathering interest, seeking profit, and other annotations that had suddenly appeared at the end of the drab economics lecture.
The Haskud Kingdom was once again changing, for better or for worse.