Herald of Steel

Alexander had a few secret projects he had given Takfiz to oversee.

Of course, the old man wasn't appointed to oversee the production, but the operational security of the projects.

He was there to make sure the slaves involved in the project did not flap their mouths to anybody.

"How's the security around those houses?" Alexander asked even though he knew the answer.

"We have done as you asked, my lord. The slaves never discuss anything related to work to anybody and all their various activities like entry and exit time during work and even where they go between work is recorded." Takfiz loyally recorded.

"Umm, good," Alexander nodded pleased.

Alexander knew it was unlikely that these slaves, that were bound to his estate would really find a way to divulge these secrets to anyone.

And anyone infiltrating, accessing the information, and then leaving with it right under his nose, inside Alexander's private lands was close to impossible.

And besides, the people of this were much simpler and honest, without the infinite number of knots in their hearts as modern humans do.

So, this might seem excessive, but Alexander by nature was a paranoid man and he always preferred to make plans for contingencies.

And so the slaves that worked were constantly monitored by a few strong men under Takfiz, lived in separate quarters from the rest of the men, and generally were given a better standard of living with bigger, better rations, access to better medicine and healthcare, and also better housing and clothes.

If a slave was married, his family would also be given better privileges than the rest of the slaves and those bachelors even had access to women for entertainment, all to keep them happy, tight-lipped, and working quietly.

Alexander was not satisfied even with all these precautions as he even planned to make a separate counter-industrial espionage force or CIE to oversee the protection of his core technologies.

But the latter's formation was still just an idea as today he was here to officially here to see the start of production of four of his businesses.

"Let's go see the paper shop first," Alexander gestured Takfiz to lead the way.

Alexander had seen the paper-making process once in a television show which featured how a Vietnamese family was keeping this old tradition alive and the steps were so simple that he had remembered them even after his transmigration.

So, during the later days of the plague, while Alexander was still camping in the harbor, he had gotten a few of his slaves together and did a little test run.

In that show, they used the branches of mulberry plants, which were thin and long, but the test run showed that Alexander could basically use any thin long plants as a substitute.

So, naturally, right after he got his new home, he employed some of his slaves to scale up production and start making the thing, planning to substitute papyrus with it, use it as wrapping paper, and as a major export.

And Alexander was here today to see how the production process of this valuable good was going on.

Hearing Alexander's desire, the old man quickly trotted ahead and soon Alexander, his bodyguards, and the old man came to a large wooden house that had been converted from originally a large stable

There, about one hundred slaves, both men, and women were busy working away.

The first batch of slaves was busy sorting a bunch of thin, dry, long twigs and branches, slowly and manually taking the barks off them.

The next batch of them was busy taking these cleaned bits of trees and using a wooden mallet to smash and crash them, basically with the intention of separating the branches into the long, individual fibers that constituted them.

The third group was taking the smashed wood, manually separating any leftover fiber with their hands, and then dumping them into a boiling pot of hot water and stirring them.

Once the fibers were cooked for an appropriate amount of time, a fourth group would take them out and then again mash them using a mallet, this time for hours if needed, until the individual fibers were broken up so much that they all lumped together to basically look like a small ball of brown colored dough.

Afterward would come the work of the fifth group, who would take the small paper dough and leave it to dry, either over a fireplace or simply under the sun.

And once dry, these doughs would be chopped into small pieces using a large butcher's knife.

This was done to turn the singular, long, stringy fiber that was formed by the fusion of all the individual fibers in the previous process into bite-sized pieces.

And then to make them even smaller, they would further be slowly pulled apart with hands, producing small balls similar to look like the ones would make if he were to pull some cotton from a whole ball.

'Hmm, I should invent scissors,' Alexander said to himself as he observed the paper butchers turn the paper dough into mincemeat, the *bang*, *bang* ruckus, stinging his eardrums.

There were things called scissors in this time period, but they were very different from the scissors Alexander was used to.

These so-called scissors looked more like tweezers with blades, made from two bronze blades connected at the handles by a thin, flexible strip of bronze â€" which served to hold the blades in alignment and to allow them to be squeezed together, and to be pulled apart when released.

They were slow and uncomfortable to use for an extended period of time and so Alexander opted for the butcher's cleaver.

With this thought embedded in his mind, he turned to observe the last step of the process, the actual paper-making process.

The sixth and last group was responsible for doing as they first took these small bits of fibers and dumping them into a rectangular tub of water. Then they would use a rectangular cloth mesh tied to a smaller wooden rectangular mold and sink it into the water and after giving the mold a little shake, quickly bring it up, along with a thin layer of the fine suspended fibers that would be caught up in the mesh cloth.

The mold would be then inverted and this wet paper would fall into a dry piece of cloth below and then a worker would use a heavy wooden roller to press the fine fibers together and squeeze out all the water.

Afterward, this cloth containing the paper would be taken to be dried either over a fire or under the sun, and in a few hours to a few days depending on the drying process. a white, sheet of paper would be produced.

This paper was around A2 size, so around forty (40) by sixty (60) cm and after drying, it could be cut to smaller, desired sizes.

As Alexander toured the 'factory' naturally all the slaves bowed or kneeled in front of him as he passed their station, while everyone chanted some variations of the same thing, 'My lord,' 'Master.' 'Great Pasha.' etc.

"Okay, okay, now please return to work," Alexander tried hard to keep his exasperation in check.

He certainly was happy to see the slave fear and respect, and he also did not want to appear too friendly in front of them fearing that the slaves might mistake his kindness as a weakness.

But getting repeatedly bowed certainly bored Alexander.

"Here, master, please," Alexander was handed a recently made, cut into about A4 size piece of paper by Takfiz and as he moved his fingers over the processed fibers, its texture was as he had expected, rough and coarse by any stretch of the definition.

And this was something very much within Alexander's expectations as, of course, his handmade product would be nothing like the fine paper he was used to before,

But then again, it was certainly wrong to compare the exquisiteness of using an industrial shredder to turn the fibers basically into a paste to manually cutting the fibers into small pieces.

This was also why so many of the processes were dedicated to making the fiber pieces as small and fine as possible.

But there was always a limit to human capabilities and Alexander certainly could not expect his workers to work for weeks turning a small piece of paper dough into as fine a paste as possible, as that would make the speed of production abysmal and the cost astronomical.

Thus Alexander was prepared to make this compromise, saying to himself, "If humans could produce as fine a paper as the machines, then what use would be there for the machine?

There was also the fact that paper making was a delicate art requiring years if not decades of training and experience and since this was literally the first time paper was being made, and no one knew how to make it before, naturally, its quality would be lacking.

But overall, Alexander was quite pleased with the product, evidenced by his large grin while caressing the paper.