Chapter 294
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Over the weeks it took to complete the plumbing renovation for the main house, I have been working on my own renovations in the secret lair. This was easier to do without notice, mainly because the craftsmen had to clear out certain rooms to lay piping and patch up the parts of the walls and ceiling where they had to make holes. So it would not look weird if I moved around with some furniture to furnish my new hideout.
And now that I have my own money, not accounted for in my allowance, I was also able to buy a few more conspicuous things to outfit my secret lair. All I needed to do was slip the vendors a few extra gold coins for their discretion.
In the end, my sacred lair looked like this. The workshop that everyone knows about was out in the open, and then comes the basement that only my parents know about.
Now comes the part that only I know about. That basement has a section of wall that has an enchanted mechanism behind it to open said section of wall, leading to hidden stairs and a cargo elevator.
The stairs and cargo elevator bring me down to the first level of my secret lair, which I designated as a living area. So far, I have not done much with it except put in the essentials, like a master bedroom with an attached toilet. I had to sneakily attach my plumbing to the one being built for the main house and conceal it, but I think it was worth the effort since I now do not need to refill the water myself.
Next was a fully stocked and functional kitchen with enchanted appliances, which included a fridge and a heating stove, all of which would make the kitchen staff green with envy. I would consider making one for them, but I have yet to put the one I have enchanted through its paces, so they would just have to wait until I can confirm that this line of enchanted kitchen appliances is ready for a proper debut.
After the kitchen was the dining area, which was nothing special, just a square table with a single chair, and next to the dining area was a living room with a long couch. I honestly had no idea what use I had for a living room, but I had and still have too much space to spare.
The last room I had in the living area was my personal armory, where I stored finished and experimental arms and armor for my own use. Even so, more than half of the space I cleared out remained empty. It was all just floors, walls, and ceilings of compressed rock, waiting to be filled with rooms. I was tempted to fill that space with workshop equipment, but in the end, I decided it would be for future expansions, so I boarded the entrance to the empty space to stop the echoes of every sound I make from resonating through the whole place.
The level below the living area was another workshop, but it has yet to be properly set up. The only thing that has been properly set up here is another magically enchanted steam engine to power the whole secret lair. Eventually, I plan to populate the place with more tools and my future projects, especially power tools. That would take time to craft more power tools like the ones I have in the above-ground workshop, but this time I have some improvements planned to increase their performance.
Lastly, below the workshop floor, there is what I simply call the storage. Just as big as the two floors above it, it is totally empty at the moment. The only things installed are some cheap mana crystals embedded in the ceiling for lighting.
***
Finally, the day the renovations were completed arrived. And the foreman stood next to the main water tower’s water pump while facing my family and house staff. Fortunately, by the time the craftsmen finished, the last term for the academies around the kingdom had come to an end, and all the children who had been away for their studies had come back for the end-of-year holidays.
This meant my younger sister, Charlotte, and my younger brother, Cedric, were back in time to witness the official debut of our home’s plumbing and water treatment. And joining my excited siblings were the children of the knights and house staff. This included Emma, who had been joined to me at the hip ever since she got back, her younger brother, Otto, who had returned from the Ironspire Academy, and lastly, her younger sister, Heidi, who came back with her from the Royal Academy.
The foreman gestured to the water pump and said to my father, “My Lord, would you do the honors?”
Dad nodded, stepped forward, placed his hand on the pump’s enchanted panel, and sent mana into it. The moment he did so, the pump whined to life as the air enchantments pushed air through the multiple pipes toward the water tower, creating a vacuum that sucked up water from the well.
As water was pumped into the water tower, a buoyant dipstick that stuck out the top began to rise, indicating the level to which the water tank was filled.
While the water was being filled, the foreman led us inside the mansion, bringing us to every area with a faucet, like the kitchen and the laundry area, where I had a surprise waiting for the house staff.
Out by the laundry area, I revealed the surprise by pulling back the tarp, revealing what could only be called a still for distilling spirits that was almost as tall as I am… mostly because that was what it was… but it has now been repurposed as my top-loading washing machine version 1.0.
I found this still behind the town’s local blacksmith, slated to be melted down, but I bought it off their hands. It was to be melted because the still had a rupture in the side, and even if mended, it could no longer be trusted to hold under high pressure. However, no pressure was involved in what I needed it for. So I took it back to my workshop, mended the rupture, put a proper hinge on the lid, crafted and enchanted the rotating paddles that agitate the water, along with a few other parts with preprogrammed actions, and put it together. There was already a drain port in the bottom of the still, so I attached a water inlet, hooked it up to one of the faucets, and waited for the plumbing to be completed.
Not knowing what they were seeing, everyone gave me questioning looks until I explained and told those in charge of laundry to bring all the dirty clothes they had at the moment and dump them in the washing machine, which turned out to be quite a lot and meant to be washed in batches, but they all fit in the washing machine.
I demonstrated that using the washing machine was as easy as using the water pump for the water tower. Simply put soap in the washing machine along with the clothes, raise the water indicator to where the top of the dirty clothes were, so that the machine knows when to cut off the water, and pour mana into the enchanted panel on the side.
My audience watched in amazement as the washing machine filled with water, stopping at the indicated water line. Then the agitation paddles spun, first clockwise for ten seconds, stopped, then counterclockwise for ten seconds. This cycle repeated over and over before I had to move them along. I told everyone that the wash cycle would take around forty-five minutes. I can't wait to show them the spin-dry function, which would need another charge of mana.
We toured every faucet, testing each and every one of them, much to our satisfaction, especially when we showed off a separate, enchanted copper tank in each bathroom that would provide hot water for the bath. The only downside was that the water was not kept constantly hot, and like the rest of the enchanted equipment in this plumbing project, it needed an injection of mana through an enchanted panel on the wall, and a few minutes for the hot water tank to heat the water. But even so, it saves the house staff a whole lot of work to bring hot water to the baths.
I could practically see the joy on the house staff’s faces as they saw the improvements to their lives that these renovations brought.
When everything was to our satisfaction, now came the payment. After dismissing the rest of the audience, Mum, Dad, and I moved to Dad’s study and brought the foreman along. Dad pulled up a small chest of gold that was their payment with a bonus for the satisfactory work.
That was when Dad made the offer. “We would like you and your men to stay here on standby in case there are any faults or failures that come up as we put the pipes through their paces, and monitor the water recycling process.” we could already see the foreman about to object, which is understandable, if we keep him and his men here, they cannot take on more jobs.
Dad raised his hand to stall the incoming argument. “If you stay here and monitor for a month, and if there are no major faults, I would like to offer you a job to construct the same thing, but for the whole town of Glenfell, and maybe beyond if you do a good job.” Dad said as he slowly stacked gold bars in a loose pyramid.
The foreman’s eyes widened as they followed the gold bars stacking, and I could almost hear the gears in his head turning as he calculated how much he would earn for a project at the scale of a town.
He obviously tried to hide the greed in his eyes, but he was a poor actor. It was then that we knew that he already had him.
