"I… I'm willing!"
She leapt to her feet in excitement.
"I will train the finest talents for the Tribe!"
"Good."
Wu Liang nodded with satisfaction.
"I've already picked a name: Black Rock First Academy."
Only when education is widespread and every clansman is better educated
can Black Rock Tribe provide an endless stream of talent for its future, higher-level development.
When the council ended, the others filed out to make their preparations.
Eliza stayed behind.
"Liang, I have some ideas about the school's curriculum I'd like to discuss."
She walked to Wu Liang's side and laid out her thoughts.
When he finished listening, he was rather surprised.
Eliza had not only folded the pinyin, numbers, and basic arithmetic he had taught into the core curriculum,
she had even added—based on her own understanding—subjects like tribal history, herb identification, and star observation.
"Very good."
Wu Liang praised her.
"Your ideas are excellent, but I'd like to add two more courses."
"Which ones?"
"The first is Moral Character."
Wu Liang smiled.
"Its main content will be studying the Tribe's rules and cultivating every clansman's sense of belonging and pride."
Eliza nodded in agreement.
"And the other?"
"The other is Physical Education."
Wu Liang said.
"A strong body is the foundation of everything."
"Whether on the battlefield or in the factory, you can't do anything without good health."
Eliza nodded thoughtfully, noting every suggestion.
Wu Liang pulled a thick sheaf of new drawings from his robe and handed them to Eliza.
"These are the school's master plan and an outline for the basic courses. Take a look. If you have ideas, come to me anytime."
Eliza took the drawings and carefully unrolled them.
The paper showed a vast complex of bright, spacious classrooms,
laboratories for all kinds of experiments, and even… a huge area she couldn't make sense of.
"Liang, what's this?"
She pointed at the space divided into sections by lines.
"Oh, that's the sports field."
Wu Liang explained with a grin.
"The body is the capital of revolution. Our clansmen can't just learn knowledge; they also need strong physiques."
"Sports field?"
"Right. See this rectangle with goalposts at each end? That's for a game called football."
"And this part with baskets on both sides is for basketball."
Wu Liang introduced them enthusiastically.
"These games train the body and foster teamwork and competitive spirit."
"Later we'll hold tribal leagues, and the champions will get rich rewards!"
Football? Basketball? Leagues?
Eliza wondered silently but merely memorized everything.
The two discussed school details until late at night.
Eliza yawned, fatigue showing on her face.
"All right, it's late. Go and rest."
Wu Liang kissed her; Eliza nodded and left.
In the days that followed,
Sa Lan led the Scout Battalion deep into every corner of Great Desolate Mountain.
Carrying Wu Liang's mineral maps, they climbed ridges and surveyed every suspicious patch of ground.
Akomann followed with a thousand elite Black Rock Army warriors, protecting the survey teams.
Florgloria and Loliya's logistics department shipped grain, medicine, tools, and clothing to the front in a steady stream.
They also organized every spare laborer in the Tribe into reserve mining teams, ready to rush to any newly discovered ore site.
Eliza threw herself wholeheartedly into setting up the school.
Under Wu Liang's guidance the site was quickly chosen: east of the Tribe's central plaza.
Scores of Artisans and laborers were mustered; with cement and brick, new classrooms shot up at amazing speed.
Eliza stayed at the site every day supervising.
She was either discussing drawing details with the Artisans or studying the teaching outlines Wu Liang had given her:
Black Rock Tribal Universal Pinyin Scheme, One Hundred Basic Arithmetic Problems, Natural Science Primer: The World Around Us, Thought and Character: The Leader's Brilliance.
The more she read, the more fascinated she became.
The deeper she went, the more she felt the greatness of Wu Liang's ideas.
Wu Liang left education entirely to Eliza; his focus was on the Military Workshop.
Industrial growth needed tougher, stronger materials to support his grander industrial blueprint.
Inside the Military Workshop heat surged.
Every fall of the huge steam hammer shook the ground with deafening thunder.
Suina stood beside the hammer, the firelight glittering on her sweat-streaked cheeks.
"Fantastic! This steam hammer is a miracle weapon!"
She watched a glowing iron ingot as big as a millstone reshaped like dough under the hammer and couldn't help shouting.
With this steam hammer the workshop's efficiency had multiplied more than a hundredfold.
Components that once required dozens of Artisans swinging hammers for days were now finished in hours—and better.
The armory was filling at an unprecedented rate: sharper, tougher blades and thicker, more reliable tower shields rolled off the line.
"Suina, this is only the beginning,"
Wu Liang's voice came from beside her.
He walked over.
"It's still not enough."
"Not enough?"
Suina blinked, puzzled.
"Isn't this already powerful?"
"Our current smelting is too slow and costly; it can't meet the Tribe's future needs."
"Future needs?"
Suina blinked again; she thought present output was already astonishing.
"Exactly,"
Wu Liang nodded.
"We need a metal harder than wrought iron and tougher than cast iron, something we can mass-produce."
Suina was startled.
"We need to make steel."
Wu Liang spoke with weight.
"Steel lets us build higher-pressure steam engine boilers, precision lathes, longer rails, sturdier warships—and more powerful cannons!"
"To make steel we first need a new furnace."
He pulled a prepared scroll from his robe and spread it on the table.
"This is…"
Suina leaned in at once, her gaze caught by the strange pear-shaped vessel on the drawing.
"I call it a converter."
Wu Liang traced the drawing with his finger.
"See? The principle is simple."
"We pour molten iron into this vessel, then force air in through these tuyères at the bottom."
"The iron contains lots of carbon and other impurities—those are what make pig iron hard and brittle."
"The oxygen in the air reacts fiercely with the carbon and impurities at high temperature, burning them and releasing huge heat."
"That heat won't cool the melt; it will make it even hotter."
"Once the impurities are burned off, what's left is pure molten steel."