When Seraphine swept out of the dining hall, leaving her family behind at the table, she missed the profound satisfaction of watching her treacherous sister trembling in absolute, bone-deep terror.
Instead, she retreated directly to her chambers to draft a new set of technical schematics.
She had already concluded that Sabine Keller could be fully trusted, and that the veteran forewoman would readily agree to stamp her own name on the new innovations if necessary.
For the next hour, Seraphine meticulously drafted the cross-sections of a beehive oven - the absolute most efficient method available in this technological era for converting raw bituminous coal into coke.
And coke, in turn, was the utterly indispensable fuel required for a blast furnace to operate at maximum efficiency.
Having finished the blueprints, she promptly left the castle grounds and made her way down into the bustling town nestled at the foot of the hill.
The ancestral fortress of House Karsfeld loomed over the entire valley, perched arrogantly atop a central elevation - a massive, heavily fortified stronghold from which her family had ruled for generations.
They wielded absolute, unchecked authority over this domain, answering only to their direct sovereigns, the Duchesses of House Falkenrath, who reigned over both the Duchy of Ardenia and the County of Tyravia.
Currently, however, a cadet branch of the Falkenrath dynasty governed Tyravia from their seat of power in Arnsbruck.
It was the Countess of that branch who had officially blessed the betrothal of her eldest daughter to Cordelia. Even Seraphine couldn't completely suppress a sharp sting of jealousy over the match.
The fiancée was not only a breathtakingly beautiful young woman rapidly blossoming into maturity, but she was also the direct heir to a Count’s title - a match that practically every aristocratic futa across the empire would kill for.
Seraphine had absolutely no idea what labyrinthine political schemes Cordelia had woven to secure such a prize. After all, it was exceedingly rare for a Countess to marry her daughter down to a significantly lower tier of the nobility, let alone to the younger futa of a modest Barony.
Yet despite the odds, Cordelia had pulled it off - even Seraphine was forced to grudgingly respect the sheer, cunning ruthlessness required for such a maneuver. The girl wasn't even sixteen years old yet, but she had already managed to successfully manipulate a Count's court and lock down the promise of an unimaginably prestigious marriage.
Meanwhile, Seraphine remained entirely unattached, utterly stripped of any marital prospects due to her historically frail constitution.
That narrative, however, was about to violently change.
Who knew, perhaps one day she too would stand at the altar beside some terrifyingly powerful heir?
The mere thought of a highly publicized, aristocratic marriage between two women drew a soft, amused chuckle from her lips.
For now, she had vastly more critical matters to handle. Realistically speaking, the odds of securing a similar political alliance in her current state were basically zero, and frankly, she preferred to stay as far away from toxic court politics as humanly possible.
If she could successfully forge unimaginable wealth and military might for her family's lands through the sheer power of heavy industry and modernized agronomy, that would be more than enough for her.
She couldn't care less about the rotten, decadent intrigues of the high aristocracy.
Her ambitions began and ended with securing her rightful inheritance and dragging Karsfeld violently into a golden age.
Armed with modern tactical doctrine and next-generation weaponry, she could effortlessly shatter any threat that dared cross their borders. Conquering foreign lands was a logistical nightmare anyway, and she had absolutely zero desire to spend the rest of her life bogged down in endless, bloody military campaigns.
For the moment, however, those grand strategies had to remain on ice - Adelgarde still held absolute, formal authority over the Barony, and Seraphine was forced to operate strictly within the narrow confines of her current, limited leverage.
As she drew near Sabine Keller’s workshop, loud, explosive shouts bled out into the street. This was hardly the first time the master artisan’s notoriously volatile temper had flared up.
If Seraphine was correctly diagnosing the shrill, furiously indignant voice shrieking back at her, the opponent was none other than Petra Holtz.
Just the thought of dealing with that woman left a bitter taste in Seraphine’s mouth. She genuinely despised puffed-up, arrogant blowhards who wildly overestimated their own worth simply because they had inherited a noble title from their ancestors.
While Petra would never dare openly insult the firstborn heir of Karsfeld to her face, absolutely nothing stopped the arrogant noblewoman from violently taking her insecurities out on Sabine.
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As the vicious screaming match inside the forge crossed the line of basic decency, Seraphine shoved the heavy, iron-bound doors open, loudly announcing her arrival. Before either woman could fire off another word, she cracked her voice like a whip:
"Out!"
A vicious, triumphant sneer instantly bloomed across Petra's face. She mistakenly assumed Seraphine’s command was aimed straight at the lowly artisan.
"You heard the young lady, get out of here!" Petra snarled at Sabine, proudly thrusting out her velvet-clad chest.
Seraphine pinned Petra with an absolutely freezing glare. She normally kept an iron grip on her temper, but this aristocrat’s staggering lack of self-awareness and sheer arrogance was pushing her straight to the edge.
"I was talking to you."
The smug grin instantly shattered, utterly wiped from Petra’s lips, replaced by slack-jawed, utter confusion.
She pointed a finger at her own heavy cleavage, asking in pure disbelief:
"T-To me?"
Seraphine remained dead silent, continuing to impale her with a severe, merciless stare that made it abundantly clear every passing second Petra remained in the room was pushing the heir's patience closer to the breaking point.
After several humiliating seconds of staring blankly at Seraphine, reality finally managed to penetrate the young noblewoman’s thick skull.
She bowed her head with a stiff, agonizingly forced show of respect. Though her voice remained technically polite, absolute, murderous fury boiled behind her emerald eyes.
No one had ever dared treat her with such humiliating contempt. She would carry this insult to her grave.
After delivering the curt bow, Petra bolted from the workshop, her heavy, luxurious skirts violently swishing against her hips.
Sabine was left standing alone, awkwardly scratching the back of her neck.
"You didn't have to do that, my lady..."
Seraphine strode briskly over to the older artisan and clapped her companionably on the shoulder.
"Nonsense. Her presence does absolutely nothing but actively sabotage our operations. Besides, I brought you a new set of blueprints."
Sabine’s eyes instantly lit up like a child in a candy shop. She reflexively reached out for the rolled parchment, but Seraphine smoothly pulled her hand back, keeping the plans just out of reach.
"Not so fast! I have one absolute condition..."
Sabine’s bushy eyebrows shot up. For a fraction of a second, the dark thought crossed her mind that the young aristocrat was about to brutally screw her over.
But the words that actually left Seraphine’s mouth threw her completely off balance.
"I need you to personally take the credit for this invention."
The forewoman’s jaw practically hit the floor. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected the Baroness's daughter to voluntarily surrender the glory for inventing something that instantly looked like a foundational pillar of modern metallurgy.
After a brief, calculating pause, Sabine gave a firm nod. She didn't need to dig into the exact reasons why Seraphine preferred to hide her terrifying genius behind the artisan's name.
There were undoubtedly labyrinthine court politics at play here, and the veteran master wanted absolutely zero part in them. Fifty-seven grueling years of life had hammered one absolute truth into her skull: the further you stayed away from aristocratic games, the longer you kept your head attached to your neck.
"Agreed. We will play it exactly how you want it, my lady."
Seraphine smiled with genuine satisfaction - not just because she got the agreement, but because of Sabine’s absolute discretion.
The woman didn't ask a single pointless question, demonstrating a brand of hard-earned wisdom that brainless peacocks like Petra could never comprehend.
The second the parchment finally landed in Sabine’s calloused hands, the forewoman could no longer suppress her absolute awe.
A radiant, massive grin split her weathered face.
The blueprints contained violently detailed instructions on the process of degassing bituminous coal to yield pure coke, alongside extensive notes mathematically proving that coke was a staggeringly superior fuel for blast furnaces compared to traditional charcoal.
By an absolute stroke of geographic luck, the jagged mountains encircling the Karsfeld valley held not only rich veins of iron ore, but massive, untapped seams of coal.
"You are an absolute genius, my lady!"
Seraphine chuckled softly. In her former life, Evelyn Weiss had been respected as an exceptional military engineer, but she had hardly been considered a generational genius.
Here, however, in this brutal, late-medieval reality, she was unequivocally the most scientifically advanced human being on the entire continent.
Still, it was deeply satisfying to hear the genuine praise.
"So, how quickly can you drag these three projects from parchment into reality?"
Sabine scratched her chin. She was practically burning to get to work, utterly desperate to see the terrifying machines from the drawings forged in iron and stone.
After a moment of cold, rapid calculation, she held up a single, thick finger.
"Give me one month. I swear on my life, in thirty days I will have at least one fully operational prototype of every single design standing in this town!"
Seraphine nodded with profound satisfaction. That was significantly faster than she had dared hope. Looking into Sabine’s feverish, completely obsessed eyes, she had absolutely zero doubt the master artisan would work herself to the bone to deliver on that promise.
She had no intention of smothering that fire; she simply added a warm note of caution:
"Just remember to take care of your health and get some sleep. I’ll drop by every few days to inspect the progress. If you run short on capital, go directly to my Sire. I am absolutely certain she will authorize whatever funds are necessary to rip these designs into reality. After all, this is a direct investment into the future wealth of the entire Barony."
Sabine flashed a wide, toothy grin and enthusiastically shot a thumb into the air. She was overwhelmingly thrilled to have secured a patron who completely shared her manic obsession with mechanics.
"You can count on me, partner!"
With that, Seraphine offered a final farewell and strode out of the forge.
The very first stage of the industrial revolution was firmly planted in the right hands. For the next thirty days, she intended to ruthlessly pivot her entire focus toward overhauling the region's stagnant agriculture.
The work of a true heir, it seemed, was truly never finished...