Herald of Steel

Alexander's fourth shop was his most special one because the product it was making would revolutionize warfare.

It was also his most skill-based shop, employing only carpenters and smelters.

"Master, here," Takfiz invited Alexander into a workshop, the smallest in size of the four.

It looked ordinary and inconspicuous and if one were to walk by it, no one would think to glance at it twice.

As Alexander and his bodyguards were invited in, he found the shop to be dirty and dingy, with wood shaving and small bits of metal bit strewn all over the floor

The large windows let in copious amounts of light, letting Alexander see the thirty men that were tolling way, all too busy to properly pay attention to him.

Some were shaping the wood making it into a bow.

Some were shaping the wood to make a crossbow, drawing grooves on the wooden stock, and using a tool called the plain to make the wooden ends narrower than the head.

Some were seen working the forge, making iron to make the crossbow bow.

And some were seen assembling the whole product.

It was a special kind of crossbow-making factory, making both a crossbow and another what Alexander liked to call the instant bow!

"Faziz, how's the bow's coming?" Alexander asked with a light smile, being more interested in the latter's production.

Engrossed in his work, this head carpenter, who had not till noticed Alexander quickly turned from carving the wood, a large smile forming on his face as he greeted. "Oh, my lord, welcome."

And then, without showing much courtesy, very excitedly showed Alexander their completed bows, saying, "My lord, here! Your ideas are truly like nothing out there. I have made thousands of bows in my life, but nothing like this one."


The reason why he said this was because this instant bow that he was showing Alexander looked like a regular bow but with one difference, it had a horizontal wooden block-like mechanism stuck to it,

It was made of two planks of wood, one able to slide over the other and the part that was not able to slide was tied to the bow shaft using ropes, while the second movable part had a slot in it that housed the bowstring and a wooden trigger to engage and release the string.
This slot was on the bottom and had a little notch on it, while the top part was hollowed out and could hold five arrows,

How this almost over-designed bow worked was one would horizontally grab the wooden handle attached to the back of the slidable panel, pull back the horizontal wooden trigger at the side of the handle using his thumb to open it, and then use his arm to push the slidable panel forward.

This would cause the stationary string to slide over the notch in the lower slot, which was there to avoid the string from catching the arrows on top of it and once the string moved past the notch it would raise itself up, moving parallel and in contact with the body of the arrow and ultimately the string would move itself to the space behind the trigger at the back.

At which point the trigger would be pushed down and the heavy wooden piece of crescent-shaped wood, would close itself, locking the bow string behind it.

Then the slidable panel would be pulled back, and due to the courtesy of the trigger, the string would follow with it, thus effectively loading the bow.

To ensure that the string could not push the trigger open by itself, the crescent-shaped wooden trigger would sit in a groove inside the plank and it was even advisable to push against the trigger with the thumb when pulling back the slidable panel to keep the trigger locked.

And although this prototype used a wooden trigger, Alexander could later use the much more abundant iron to make the trigger out of iron to make it heavier.

Once the slidable panel had been pulled back to its limit, then it would be the easy job of releasing the trigger, and as the string raced to return to its original position, without the notch it would catch one of the arrows from the chamber, and shoot it out of the slotted opening.

And then the cycle could be repeated by again pushing the slidable part forward, and viola, you could send five arrows in five seconds, whereas a traditional archer would take a minute to do that.

This was a toy that Alexander got to play with when he worked for that medieval reenactment company, where one of his colleagues had made this for fun.

And surprisingly when the product got so popular after the man uploaded it to the internet, he sold it to many medieval enthusiasts even though it was not medievally accurate.

And when some of the medieval purists whined that it could not have been using ancient technology, that colleague made a video using only medieval techniques to shut them up.

And fortunately, Alexander got to be a part of that process because that man needed a helper, and Alexander happened to be the closest one available.

Alexander took the bow and tried pulling the hundred-pound bow several times and though his strong arms struggled a bit, after bending a bit and putting his back muscle to work, he could do load and unload the bow several times.

Of course, the bow was blank and he did not shoot any actual arrows.

Alexander was impressed with the build quality and found that the wooden panel smoothly slid over one another without much friction, giving the movement a slick feeling.

"You did a good job, it mustn't have been easy," Alexander smiled in delight, handing the bow back to the man.

"No, no, we only followed master's instruction." Faziz humbly replied, then added, "We could have never even dreamt up such a thing in a million. It must be what is used in the heavens."

Alexander only politely smiled at the man, while saying to himself, 'You guys have no idea what is used in heaven. Neither can you imagine even if I were to tell you," Alexander could imagine how mind-meltingly difficult it would be to make these people understand the concept of modern firearms from tanks to aircrafts to drones.

He had also always found it weird that many ancient religious scriptures claimed that gods fought with swords and arrows, and would always ask himself, 'If gods really did exist, then why do they use such primitive weapons?'

Alexander kept these thoughts to himself and instead said to Faziz, "I have heard that you converted to the faith of Gaia. Welcome to the path of light."

This was one of the small tidbits of extra info Takfiz had shared with him while they were coming here.

"Yes, yes," The carpenter let out a huge grin at the knowledge that his master was taking the time to remember him as he eagerly and zealously announced, "The things you taught us have convinced me that you are truly divine, master. And that's why I have decided to convert to the faith of Gaia."

Alexander lightly smiled and nodded, while thinking back on the things he taught them.

He did teach them quite a few number of things while showing them the design of the wooden mechanics of the bow during the plague week.

First of all, he taught them mechanical drawing which was about drawing and properly labeling all the dimensions of the drawing written next to them.

This sounded easy, but for these men who could barely read, it was no joke.

He also taught the to properly measure things.

For example, there was no standard on how to measure the distance between two circles in a straight line.

Some of the carpenters measured it from end to end, some from the center of each of the circles, and some even used different ends of the two circles, giving three different measurements for the same distance.

Same case for a circle with a smaller hole in it.

They did not know if they should measure both the circle or measure one circle and then add or subtract the thickness of the material.

Next Alexander gave them the design and manufacturing of a new drill.

The people of this time used the cord drill, which had a cord attached to a stick and by pulling the cord to both sides, the stick would spin, and with it, the metal drill attached to the end.

And in this way, a hole could be made.

But this was very laborious and inefficient, leading to very slow work.

To rectify this Alexander invented the crank drill which was exactly what it sounded like, basically, a hand-powered crack with a drill bit attached to it.

And this could not only make holes a few times faster than its primitive brother, but the holes would be of more accurate dimensions too, as unlike the cord drill, the crack drill would not wobble and move around so much.