The transition from a ragtag group of refugees to a disciplined labor force happened at Michael's barked command. He didn't have time for a monarch's grace; he had the cold, calculated urgency of a project manager with a hard deadline—winter.
"Varick! Gather your kin," Michael shouted, pointing toward a jagged, dark-grey outcropping the System had highlighted in pulsing red. "I want a shaft sunk right there. Six feet wide, slanted at thirty degrees."
The dwarf squinted at the spot. "And what are we looking for, Highness? Iron? Copper?"
"Everything," Michael snapped, his eyes scanning a holographic readout only he could see. "Magnetite, anthracite, silver—I don't care what comes out of the bucket first. Bring it all to the surface. We're going to need every gram of mineral wealth this mountain has been hiding from my father's 'experts.'"
Varick grunted, the prospect of deep-earth mining finally putting a spark back into his dull eyes. "Aye. If it's in the stone, the Dwarves will find it."
Michael turned to a group of Aen Seidhe who were huddled by the treeline. "You! Scour the forest floor. I need every bit of organic matter you can carry. Leaf mold, peat, animal droppings—if it can rot, I want it in a pile by the river. We're building a composting system that would make a Druid weep with joy."
The elves looked confused—the "Prince" was asking them to gather manure—but the sheer conviction in his voice moved them.
Finally, Michael approached the Gnomes. They were the most anxious of the bunch, clutching their salvaged belongings. In his past life, Michael would have given anything for a team of gnomes in a precision laboratory.
"The cargo I told you to prepare before we left Ard Carraigh," Michael said, looking at the lead gnome, a spindly fellow named Fipple. "The glass vials? The lead-lined beakers? The distillation coils?"
Fipple nodded vigorously, pulling back a heavy canvas tarp to reveal a clinking collection of Laboratory Glassware. "Wrapped in wool and packed in sawdust, just as you ordered, Lord Michael. Not a single crack."
Michael let out a breath of relief. He then turned his gaze toward the group of Halflings standing nearby. They were farmers by nature, and they looked at the frozen, "unproductive" North with souls full of despair. They saw only death where there should be crops.
"Wait," Michael commanded, looking the lead Halfling in the eye. "Don't look so grim. I know the stories. They say this land is cursed, that nothing grows in the North but ice. They're wrong. It's just hungry."
The Halflings shifted uncomfortably, their eyes darting to the barren soil.
"Just wait," Michael repeated firmly. "I know how to make this land work again. I am going to create something that will allow you to farm. When I am done, you will have more work than you can handle, and more food than you can eat."
He turned back to his System Interface, his finger hovering over the [Chemical Engineering: Nitrogen Fixation] unlock.
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[INVENTION POINTS SPENT: 1,000]
[BLUEPRINT ACQUIRED: PRIMITIVE HABER-BOSCH REACTOR]
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"Let's get to work," Michael whispered. "We have a world to fix."
******
The northern wind howled, but it could no longer drown out Michael's voice. Under the flickering light of a massive pine-wood bonfire, he stood before a makeshift chalkboard made of charred wood and flat slate.
"The alchemists of the South and the mages of Ban Ard tell you the world is made of four elements: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth," Michael said, his voice cold and surgical as he sketched a grid of 114 boxes. "They are wrong. Those are states of matter. This is the Periodic Table. This is the blueprint of the universe."
A murmur of shock rippled through the crowd. To contradict the foundations of Aretuza was heresy, but they looked at the prince who had already mapped their "useless" mountains, and they listened.
Michael didn't stop at theory. He spent the next weeks in a fever of industrial education. He taught the Gnomes how to use their glass beakers to synthesize the first volatile batches of Chemical Fertilisers. He organized the Elves into teams, teaching them the precise science of Aerobic Composting—managing the heat and moisture of manure to break down organic matter into life-giving humus.
To the Dwarves, he brought the revolution of Modern Metallurgy. "Forget Meteorite Ore," Michael challenged Varick. "I will show you how to balance carbon and chromium to create alloys that make Henselt's finest steel look like brittle glass."
From a distance, the Halflings watched. For months, they remained skeptical. They saw the "Prince" and his "Scientists" pouring strange salts and dark, steaming compost into the grey, sandy dirt. At first, nothing happened. The North was stubborn; the permafrost didn't yield easily, and the nitrogen levels took time to stabilize.
But Michael was an engineer; he understood Lead Times.
Slowly, the "Curse" began to lift. It wasn't a flash of light, but a gradual deepening of color. The soil shifted from a dead, ashen grey to a rich, loamy black. When the first soil tests finally showed the return of a healthy pH and nutrient balance, the camp erupted. The non-humans weren't just refugees anymore; they were owners of the most mineral-rich soil in Kaedwen.
Michael felt a hand on his arm. He turned to see his mother, Aine, her eyes brimming with tears of joy. "You've done it, Michael," she whispered, her voice thick with pride. "You didn't just give them land. You gave them a reason to stay."
The Halflings didn't need to be told twice. Seeing the soil finally ready, they stepped forward with a renewed vigor that had been missing since their exile.
"The land is restored!" Michael commanded, his voice echoing across the valley. "I want the winter wheat and the hardy rye in the ground by morning. You said you wanted to farm? Start farming."
The Halflings grabbed their plows, their small hands steady as they cut the first furrows into the rejuvenated earth. As the first seeds were sown, Michael's System chimed.
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[MISSION COMPLETE: AGRICULTURAL RESTORATION]
[REWARD: 2,000 INVENTION POINTS]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 6,000 PTS]
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Michael smirked. The "useless" land was now the most productive acre on the Continent.