Chapter 114 Dewatering Mines

It was Frank’s second year in college, and currently he sat in his lecture hall. At the moment, his focus was entirely on his professor, who was speaking of a topic even he found dull. Still, he was hard at work, jotting down the information into his notes.

Frank rarely, if ever, looked at his notes after having written them. Rather, he explicitly made use of the notes as a memorization tool. Simply by taking notes, he was able to more thoroughly remember the content that was being taught. His professor was speaking words and pointing towards a diagram on the whiteboard while he jotted the information down.

“In the fifteenth century, the Germans came up with a way to pump water out of mines by using mechanized wooden pumps and animal power. Water was removed by buckets using rope conveyor belts powered by horses on treadmills. As you can see in this diagram, this was how such a device functioned.”

Frank continued to jot down notes of the information that was provided by his professor until the bell rang, which a friend who was in the same class then slapped him on the back. The young man smiled as he saw Frank’s surprised expression before speaking to him further.

“What a boring fucking lecture? How about we go get burrito barn for lunch and smoke a couple of these bad boys?”

The kid did not even bother to look around to see if they were being watched as he pulled out a small packet which contained a few joints of marijuana in them. Frank, however, treated the incident with a bit more seriousness, as he grabbed onto the boy and dragged him out of the lecture hall before scolding him.

“Brad, how many times do I have to tell you, sooner or later, you’re going to get caught, and they will kick you off the team? You think I don’t want to smoke as much as you do? But I’m dedicated to wrestling, and I’m not going to take the risk. Besides, I plan on eating my lunch in the library.”

The kid named Brad seemingly did not hear a word that Frank had said. Instead of listening to his friend’s lecture, the asshole lit one of the joints and took a heavy hit before puffing it in Frank’s face. After doing so, he chuckled and mocked Frank for his concerns.

“There, now it is in your system, too. So you can stop being a bitch and come have some fun with me. Honestly man, fuck the library, come hang out with me instead. I met this one girl at last week’s party. Bro, she is fine as hell and she has a twin sister. You know you want to!”

Brad could immediately see the scowl forming on Frank’s face. He knew he was about to hear an earful and decided to cut his losses. He took another hit from his joint before blowing Frank off.

“Man, whatever, you go hang out in the fucking library like a nerd. I’m going to go have some fun.”

After saying that, Brad walked off, while continuing to smoke the join in the halls of the university. Frank could only sigh after the guy disappeared before muttering under his breath.

“I do not know why I hang out with that asshole…”

It was at this moment Frank heard a feminine voice speak up behind him. It was not the tone of a young woman who was filled with friendly energy, but rather that of a woman judging her man to be guilty of a serious offense.

“Oh? So you know Brad? I thought you weren’t keeping secrets from me, Frank!”

Frank immediately felt his spine tingle as he heard the accusation labeled against him. He immediately turned around to see the beautiful young woman glaring at him intensely. The woman’s hazel eyes practically peered into his soul, and determined his guilt on the spot. Frank could only haphazardly defend himself in that moment.

“Isabella, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

The girl’s gaze only sharpened as her brow furrowed slightly. Obviously, Frank was playing games with her while trying to avoid the question. She would not tolerate such disrespect and clearly pointed out what Frank was doing before reiterating her question.

“You didn’t answer my question Frank, how do you know Brad?”

It wasn’t that Frank felt guilty of knowing Brad, sure the guy was a bit of a playboy, and a monumental ass at times. However, the way that Isabella was staring at him made him deeply uncomfortable, to the point where he couldn’t think straight. Resulting in the man deflecting the question by asking one of his own.

“Well, how do you know Brad?”

Isabella’s gaze sharpened even further. She was certain that Frank was up to no good. The fact that he knew Brad was a bad sign in and of itself, but now he was deflecting her question over and over again. This man was guilty of something, and she knew it. She finally had enough of Frank’s shit and compelled him to be honest with her.

“Answer the question, Frank!”

By the way Isabella was staring at him, Frank could tell she disapproved of the kid, and because of this, he didn’t want to admit that they were pretty good friends who went out and partied together every weekend. Thus, he scratched the back of his head as he made a true statement, but one that omitted certain details.

“I know him from wrestling. We’re on the same team after all…”

Isabella’s sharp gazed pierced into Frank’s soul. She could tell he wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but she didn’t know him well enough to continue pressing him on the matter. If she did she would come off as some sort of psycho and because of that, she sighed heavily before giving Frank a warning about his buddy.

“Let me tell you what I know about Brad. That boy is a bi-polar sociopath who copes with his mental illness by heavily self medicating. He doesn’t care who he hurts so long as he can have fun. If that idiot were to have one redeeming quality, it is the fact that he is a creative genius, but he suffers from terminal laziness, and because of that, he will never be successful in life. Don’t let that asshole drag you down with him. You will regret it.”

Frank scoffed when he heard this remark. Clearly, Isabella was quite intimate with the man in order to understand him so well. He immediately made an assumption in his mind, and in an act of petty jealousy, he decided to pass off his theory as a joke.

“You sound like a jaded lover. You know that, right?”

Isabella stared at Frank in silence for several moments. The man could tell that he had supremely pissed her off with that statement. He was willing to accept an earful for his statement, but instead of yelling at him, Isabella merely sighed, and avoided discussing the issue further.

“Enough of Brad, if you don’t get your butt in gear then I’m going to leave you behind…”

After saying this, the beautiful young woman who was oddly reminiscent of Placidia, in terms of appearance, walked past Frank and headed towards the library where they previously agreed to have lunch and study together.

Frank scampered off like a trained dog when he heard the woman’s commands. After which Marcellus awoke from his dream. He didn’t care too much about Frank’s personal life, but he did enjoy the lecture. With this information, he would be able to increase the capacity of his mines.

If there was one problem which plagued the Roman Empire, it was a severe lack of ability to mine iron and coal. One of the reasons behind this was the fact that they lacked any decent means to dewater a mine after it had been flooded. Thus, their approach when such a thing occurred usually was to abandon it and look for an alternative source.

With the introduction of blast furnaces, Marcellus’ economy would become ever more reliant on iron and coal, and he simply could not afford to expand his empire’s territory in order to claim new mines. Because of that, he needed a way to dewater the ones he currently possessed. Thus, after waking up from his power nap, he quickly got to work, jotting down the plans he had seen from the lecture in his dream.

After spending most of his afternoon working on the dewatering method, he dispatched the orders to the nearest manfuactorum to create and test several of the devices. Though it might take a few weeks to get the first wooden pumps under production, he could already taste the wealth and power that Rome would gain once it had iron and coal flowing out of its borders.

Thus, while Constantius was dispatched to Constantinople in an attempt to negotiate with the Eastern Roman Empire over the border dispute that occurred recently, Marcellus was quick at work devising new techniques to increase his industrial output.