Soon, the others in the room hurried off to draft plans for their long-cherished dreams, hoping to secure Arthur's financial support to make them a reality. Arthur, however, kept Karl 'Bi' behind.
Karl looked incredibly anxious. "My Lord, I have many unformed ideas in my head, but I think it would be better to create a comprehensive plan first."
The Smithing District now had ample raw materials and gathered artisans from various trades. Coupled with the management and evaluation systems of the Blacksmith's Guild and other guilds, this fostered exchanges and collisions of ideas among the craftsmen. Karl had seen many excellent concepts and improvements emerge.
However, due to the limited funds and resources under his control in the Smithing District, he couldn't greenlight all these ideas. He had been forced to make painful choices about what to support and what to shelve.
Recently, Karl had been focusing on a project of immense value born from the collective brainstorming of various guilds: constructing watermills along the upper and lower reaches of the Torrentine River.
Watermills were similar to the trip hammers powered by water wheels used in smithies. Both operated on the basic logic of converting the kinetic energy of flowing water into rotational force. The trip hammer used a simple rotating cam to forge pig iron.
A watermill, however, was structurally much more complex.
A water wheel placed in the swift current of the Torrentine would be connected by cranks and connecting rods, transmitting kinetic energy through a simple wooden transmission system.
The rotation speed of the millstones in a watermill was no longer tied to the fickleness of the weather, allowing it to completely replace traditional windmills and crank mills powered by humans or animals.
Most importantly, it never tired, and aside from minimal maintenance costs, it required no wages.
Beyond meeting the traditional needs of the smallfolk along the Torrentine for grinding grain and pressing olive oil, watermills had other uses.
They could be used for sawing large blocks of timber and stone for the Carpenters' and Masons' Guilds.
They could meet the Blacksmiths' Guild's needs for crushing various ores and charcoal for metallurgy.
They could even handle the Weavers' Guild's headache-inducing need for fulling wool.
Furthermore, by using overshot water wheels, artificial canals could be built—mimicking the Sweetwater Canal of Braavos—to divert Torrentine water to distant farmlands and orchards, increasing the irrigated area along the river.
Besides this ongoing watermill project, Karl had several other high-quality projects he believed were highly feasible.
Several glassmakers from Myr had reported finding large deposits of high-quality river sand and sea sand within the Starfall domains, particularly along the lower banks of the Torrentine, near Beacon Tower, and at Elbow Bend.
These were excellent raw materials for making mirrors and glass panes.
The quartz mined from the quarry beside Ironstone Keep in Violet Canyon, once crushed, could also be used to fire glass panes.
Artisans knowledgeable in salt-making had also pointed out that with Dorne's intense sunlight and Starfall's long coastline, it was perfectly feasible to build salt pans for drying sea salt.
Ideas for tool improvements and construction projects within the Smithing District were countless. But all suffered from a lack of resources and funds. Many plans had to be shelved as energy was focused solely on the watermills.
Even the operation of watermills required the Lord's permission beyond just the Smithing District. Karl understood that he or the artisans alone couldn't push these projects forward.
Not to mention the obstacles faced in mining sand or building salt pans.
Just as Karl was fantasizing about returning to the Smithing District immediately, summoning the guild masters to turn these ideas into concrete, executable plans to secure Lord Arthur's funding and realize them one by one...
"Since your ideas are unformed, take some time to think them over. But first, listen to this urgent matter." Arthur took a piece of obsidian he had brought back from Dragonstone out of a cabinet.
"I want you to melt this into weapons—swords, spearheads—while maintaining the weapon's strength. Make this your primary research focus, the top priority for every guild in the Smithing District."
"If you can succeed and achieve mass production, those who assist will receive a bonus of one hundred gold dragons. The leader of the project will receive not only ten thousand gold dragons but also a fiefdom and a title. I will even commission a statue of him in the Smithing District!"
Faced with such exaggerated rewards, Karl's mouth fell open. It took him a long while to recover.
"This is... obsidian?"
Having traveled through the Free Cities as a young man to learn forging techniques, the knowledgeable Karl recognized the crystal refracting glassy light in the sun at a glance.
"Why do you want to incorporate obsidian into weapons?" Karl carefully took the obsidian, feeling its smooth texture, and asked in confusion. "Although obsidian has sharp edges and is hard, it is extremely brittle and shatters easily."
Arthur answered truthfully, "I believe obsidian might be a key material for forging Valyrian steel."
"Valyrian steel and the techniques to forge it all came from the Valyrian Freehold, which was destroyed in the Doom."
"That place was known for the Fourteen Flames, a chain of active volcanoes. The Freehold was destroyed by volcanic eruptions. Obsidian is abundant near volcanoes. I think there might be some connection between them."
Arthur linked Valyrian steel and obsidian based on more than just geography. There were also the names and special effects.
Valyrian steel was also called Dragonsteel, and obsidian was called Dragonglass. Both shared a common property: they were potent weapons capable of piercing the defenses of the Others and wights.
As the saying goes: Bold hypothesis, careful verification.
Arthur was responsible for the bold hypothesis. The careful verification would be left to the professionals in the Smithing District.
Karl asked cautiously, "Besides researching obsidian, can I propose other plans?"
"Of course." Arthur waved his hand expansively. Truth be told, he wasn't sure how to spend the massive sum of one million gold dragons. Compared to the one hundred thousand he had in Braavos, this amount was on a different scale entirely.
What he needed most now was collective brainstorming to spend this money wisely.
"There is plenty more obsidian in the warehouse. I'll have Nick transport it to the Smithing District for you. I will also be procuring obsidian in large quantities later." Arthur gripped the Summer Islander's shoulder and spoke solemnly.
"Karl 'Bi', if you can reproduce the process of forging Valyrian steel, you must understand the value contained therein, yes?"
"All your material needs being met is just the baseline. You will go down in history, looked up to and worshiped by every smith in the world. Perhaps the Faith will even model the statue of the Smith after you."
Karl's eyes shone. He grinned excitedly, revealing two rows of pearly white teeth, and patted his chest. "Rest assured, my Lord. I will devote myself entirely to the matter of smelting obsidian."
Arthur watched Karl stride out of the room with firm steps. He wasn't sure how much of the pie in the sky he had painted Karl would actually be able to eat, but he figured the results wouldn't be bad.
For a blacksmith, especially a renowned master like Karl, the temptation of reproducing the lost art of Valyrian steel forging was something impossible to refuse.