The Royal Workshop was not a place of labor, but a cathedral of artistry. Sunlight poured through vaulted windows, illuminating workbenches carved from solid oak and tools made of silver and fine steel. However, as Deacon walked through the space, he saw the same flaw he had seen in the Coal Sinks: the "Master Craftsmen" were relying on talent and magic to compensate for a total lack of standardization.
A master smith was laboriously filing a gear for a clockwork orrery, checking the fit by eye and touch. There were no micrometers, no gauges, and no way to replicate that specific gear if it ever broke.
"This is the pinnacle of Imperial engineering?" Deacon asked, his voice flat.
Standing in the center of the room was the Empress herself, having traded her heavy silks for a high-collared tunic of dark wool. Beside her stood Master Hali, a man whose forearms were corded with muscle and whose apron was stained with the oils of a thousand failed experiments.
"It is the pinnacle of precision," Master Hali countered, holding up a delicate brass escapement. "Each piece is unique, blessed by the Forge-Mother and fitted by the hand of a master. Your 'machines' from the North are crude, Lord Cassian. They are rough-cast iron and heavy bolts."
"Crude is a matter of perspective," Deacon said. He signaled his Oakhaven porters to bring forward the long, heavy crate containing the Mark II. "Your gears are beautiful, Master Hali. But if that clockwork breaks, it takes you a month to hand-file a replacement. My machines are designed so that if a part fails, a child can swap it out for a spare that fits perfectly every single time."
Deacon stripped the oil-cloth from the Mark II. It wasn't a weapon or a pump. It was a High-Precision Screw-Cutting Lathe.
The Imperial smiths crowded around, their expressions a mix of confusion and mockery. "A spinning bed?" one laughed. "We have potters' wheels for that, Northerner."
"This isn't a wheel. It's a system of measurement," Deacon said. He picked up a rough rod of cold-rolled steel and secured it into the chuck. He then engaged the hand-crank, the gears clicking with a mathematical rhythm that had been calibrated in the Oakhaven forge.
Deacon adjusted the cutting tool, his Logistical Insight calculating the exact depth of the pass. As he turned the lead screw, the tool bit into the spinning steel. A long, curling ribbon of silver metal spiraled off, revealing a perfectly smooth, uniform cylinder beneath.
The mockery in the room died instantly. Master Hali stepped closer, his eyes widening as he saw the consistency of the cut. No human hand, no matter how steady, could maintain that level of pressure and depth over the entire length of the rod.
"How?" Hali whispered, reaching out to touch the polished surface. "There is no mana-tremor. No spell-circle."
"It's a lead screw," Deacon explained, pointing to the long, threaded rod that moved the tool carriage. "Every rotation of the handle moves the tool a fixed distance. The machine doesn't have a 'mood.' It doesn't get tired. It just obeys the ratio."
For the next six hours, the "Great Refinement" turned into a masterclass. Deacon didn't just show them the lathe; he showed them the Vernier Caliper and the Standardized Thread. He explained that if every bolt in the Empire had the same thread-pitch, an army could repair its wagons in the field using spares from a different province.
The Empress watched from the shadows of a stone pillar, her amber eyes reflecting the silver glint of the lathe. She saw the political subtext that the smiths missed: Deacon wasn't just offering tools; he was offering a way to bypass the Alchemist Guilds entirely. If precision could be achieved through mechanics rather than "blessings," the Silver Circle lost its monopoly on high-end manufacturing.
"You are teaching them how to replace the masters, David," Livia said, stepping forward as the sun began to set.
"I'm teaching them how to be productive," Deacon corrected, wiping the oil from his hands. "Master Hali is a genius, but a genius is a bottleneck. If you want a fleet of airships or an army that never runs out of parts, you need a system that works when the geniuses are asleep."
Hali looked at the lathe, then at his own scarred hands. "I spent forty years learning to file a straight edge. This machine did it in forty seconds."
"Now imagine what you can build," Deacon said, "when you don't have to spend those forty years filing."
As the smiths began to experiment with the lathe under Deacon's watchful eye, Julian approached his brother, his face pale. "The Silver Circle has requested an emergency audience with the Empress. They claim your 'standardization' is a form of dark sorcery that strips the soul from the craft. They're calling for a Trial of the Five Guilds."
Deacon didn't look up from the gears he was adjusting. "Let them call it. If they want to prove their 'soul' is better than my 'iron,' they can try to out-produce me. We're staying in this workshop tonight, Julian. We're going to build a prototype for the Empress that even Belasco can't argue with."
"What are we building?" Julian asked.
Deacon looked at the Empress, then back at the lathe. "We're building a High-Pressure Steam-Stamp. We're going to show them how to mint a thousand coins in the time it takes them to hammer one."