B2 - Ch8 - The Cotton Gin and Spinning Jenny (Patreon)

My strategy for proving I wasn’t spying on Cyrvena was simple: I would present attire and products from multiple European countries. That way, I could prove my legitimacy without mass-producing French goods.

To do that, I’d need multiple machines. The first was the cotton gin, a simple invention that spurred a textile revolution.

"Is it necessary for me to be here?" Carter complained, dismounting from a griffin. We were on a cotton farm, sweating in the sweltering sun. "This place gives me the creeps."

The appearance of a cotton field morphs depending on your perspective. Up close, cotton plants look like delightful sticks with cotton swabs for leaves. If you overlook the field while standing, it looks like a field of bushes in the dead of winter, covered in fresh snow. And God forbid you're a masochist who decides to look at the field from above; then you'll find that it looks like a crop field fell victim to the white mold you see growing on wheat bread.

"It is," I replied. "That machine design I gave you may look like a mechanical reaper, but it’s very different. I’m here to show you why."

I reached a nearby cotton plant, pulled a "boll" off it, and passed it to Carter.

"Cotton is similar to wheat in that you must remove the seeds from the plant," I explained, stretching the cotton and pulling out a seed.

Carter wiped his brow and took the cotton boll. "How the hell will we get the seeds out? This looks much more difficult than wheat."

"It’s actually quite simple," I smiled, pulling out a chain-link fence and a dozen baseball-sized balls from my spatial bag. Then I used the omnipotent tool to create a massive pile of cotton and put the balls into the center of it.

"I’m not an expert, but I fail to see how a fence is gonna solve this problem," Carter frowned.

"It’s just the concept.” I reached through the chainlink fence, grabbed the cotton, and pulled.

"Oh…." Carter chuckled, watching the colossal mass of cotton stretch through the chainlink fence opening. The balls stopped once they hit the fence, but the rest pulled through it. Once all the cotton was through the fence, the balls fell to the ground.

"That’s how the cotton gin works," I smiled. "There are rotating brushes that hook cotton and pull it through a fence thinner than the seeds, separating them. It’s a simple machine—you could make it in an afternoon."

Eli Whitney made the cotton gin model in ten days; Carter could make it with a blueprint in six hours.

"That seems simple enough," he mused, rubbing his chin.

I smiled. "Unfortunately, making the cotton picker will prove a bit more challenging. After all, the machine must pick cotton through the field like the mechanical reaper cuts and harvests cotton."

Carter looked at the field with a deep frown. "Just thinkin’ a machine could pick cotton off these plants in one go is a headache."

"It is," I replied, overlooking the area. "That’s why you should make the cotton gin first, then work on the picker next. Let’s prioritize things that have immediate effects."

"Sure thing, Boss," Carter sighed. "Well, let’s get to work."

The two of us went to the farms and collected a few hundred pounds of raw cotton, still containing the seeds, and returned to Goldenspire, Carter’s temporary headquarters.

Thea and I hadn’t even stepped down from our griffin when Rema greeted us, tapping her foot with an expression that swore—absolutely swore!—that she would not forgive me, not this time, anyway. She would put her foot down and make it clear that I needed to change, that I needed to take my duties as a ruler more seriously and not run off whenever I wanted to pick cotton with my favorite blacksmith.

However, the second I made eye contact and gave her a bemused smile, her foot stopped tapping, and her face melted into a state of perplexion, removing her anxiety and making her forget what she was planning to say.

"I…." Rema muttered as I dismounted and walked to her.

"This is where you tell me the kingdom is on fire and I need to do my job more seriously," I reminded her, walking past.

The redhead stood frozen for a few seconds before spinning around and chasing after me.

"That’s exactly what I was about to say!" Rema declared.

"Uh, yeah," I chuckled, "I know."

"If you’re always this predictable, do you even have to talk to him?" Thea mused, watching the redhead’s face heat up.

"Of course, I’m predictable!" Rema snapped. "It’s my job to be an advisor to the king and come to them with problems daily. If I weren’t predictable, I’d be a terrible politician!"

"Fair point," I smiled, waving to Carter as we separated. I weaved through the noisy hive of politicians and diplomats, all working to keep this dumpster fire of a capital in check. "Let’s speak in the audience chamber."

Inside the chamber, a dozen people rushed me, but I brushed them off as Thea and I sat in our throne chairs. Then we both gave Rema ugly mugs to show how serious we were.

"Are you ready, yet?" Rema frowned, tapping her foot again.

I looked at Thea and shrugged. "Sure."

Rema’s cheek twitched, and she spoke through her teeth. "Do you have any sense of money anymore?"

"I’m a rather successful businessman," I replied, crossing one leg over the other. "Has that changed?"

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. "You blew up the Bringla port, and the country lost fifty million in reserves from the loss in trade."

"As was the point," I admitted.

She took a deep breath. "Now it’s your port, and that fifty million gold deficit is your problem."

"We’ve rebuilt the port, and trade is increasing rapidly," I retorted. "We’re now trading in higher quantities with the other nation countries."

"But we have bills now," Rema countered. "Even if we’re making an extra five million a month, it will take the better part of a year to make up for the loss, and we need money to supply our armies, perform public goods, maintain our subsidies, pay our civil workers, and fix buildings."

The redhead pulled a stack of papers from her bag. "Yet you’re spending ten million on your worker education program monthly. Five million to build a new economic district. One million monthly for importing skilled workers to the Everwood Empire. One million a month for road construction. Half a million a month for building a library."

Rema looked me in the eyes. "Ryker—I get these are investments. However, you’ll go bankrupt before any come to fruition."

I pointed at the ceiling. "Even if we melt down the gold in this place? It’s gaudy."

Rema’s trembled, crumpling the papers in her fist. "Money doesn’t work like that."

Thea was surprisingly tolerant of people teasing or disliking me. However, she did not allow for hostility. As a result, she stood, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her back down.

"How much money do we need to make it to next year?" I asked calmly.

"We’ll need at least another ten million monthly," Rema replied, ignoring Thea. "If you don’t, we’ll go bankrupt and be helpless in a war against Cyrvene."

I frowned at her reminder of Cyrvena. It was indeed a serious problem—one that I wasn’t expecting or prepared for.

"Consider it done," I reassured.

“Why are you so confident?” Rema asked.

“At a minimum, humans can’t go without food, water, clothing, shelter, or safety," I said. "We’ve already lowered the cost of food and shelter, making us rich. Once we hit the clothing market, our treasury will overflow."

When Rema stared at me with a captivated gaze, I sighed and flicked my fingers. "Now shoo, shoo. Go keep the kingdom together to counterbalance my negligence."

"As you will, Your Majesty," Rema sassed, curtseying and stomping out of the room.

Thea smirked as she left, making me chuckle. "Why are you smirking?" I asked.

"Because she doesn’t really love you," she replied. "Real love is accepting someone for who they are. You wouldn’t treat someone you love like they’re insufferable."

‘Rivalry, huh?’ I mentally noted, smiling. ‘It’s unnecessary—but cute.’

I cast her a gentle smile. "I’m not sure if that’s how that works. You’re just special, Thea. You’re one of a kind."

Thea blushed to the tip of her ears and fidgeted, forgetting about Rema completely.

***

The next day, I set to work on my textile revolution plan—something I was already dreading.

While cotton clothing makes sense from a modern perspective, it didn’t make sense until almost the 19th century.

Cotton is an economically unfeasible crop; picking and separating one pound of clean cotton by hand takes ten hours, making it time-consuming and expensive. That’s why cotton wasn’t a major crop in Goldenspire or elsewhere.

The cotton gin changed that, allowing people to process fifty pounds of cotton per gin daily. It was an instant revolution in textiles and quickly changed the world.

Luckily, it was easy to build. It was just a machine that spun with claws moving through a fence thinner than seeds.

As a result, it only took a day to make a working cotton gin and two days for testing to make it workable. By weeks’ end, we had sent cotton gins throughout the plantations, creating a massive stir.

Farmers had picked and cleaned all the cotton in their fields within a couple of weeks, leaving the spinners busy and countless people out of work. To ease people’s anxieties, we sent reeves to the serfs with monetary bonuses for their labor, but there would still be political unrest soon.

That was a problem for the future, however. At present, we need to focus on making pretentious clothing to save the world.

"Okay, it’s time for a harder but more significant invention," I said, walking into Carter’s office.

"Can’t you let me revel in a victory… for once?" he slurred, pointing his glass of whiskey at me. "Accordin’ to you and the farmers, we just changed the damn world! The world, they say. The whole goddamn world! And are you satisfied?" he posed, taking a drink and exhaling sharply. "No! You’re never satisfied."

I grabbed the bottle off his desk and looked at the empty bottles beside it. Due to soul mana healing, getting drunk takes an immense amount of liquor. That meant that he was trying hard.

"Do you need a vacation?" I frowned.

"Vacation?" Carter laughed. "Nah, I don’t needa vacation. I’m loaded! Connected. Women give me these funny looks now, you know? It’s just that…."

I turned to him. "It’s just that what?"

"I wanna celebrate for once, Boss!" he said. "Ain’t that how it’s supposed to be? You become a millionaire, change the world, do all sorts of shit, and then ya… hic… celebrate!"

"Then why haven’t you celebrated?" I knitted my brows. "You have two days off a week and as many as you want when I don’t need new inventions."

"Nah, you don’t understand," Carter said, snatching back the bottle, pouring it into a dirty rocks glass, and pushing it to me. "It’s not… right if you ain’t celebrating."

I looked at the glass, dirty at the edges and filled with three and a half fingers of subpar whiskey, with a twitching cheek. "What difference do I make? I’m a hardass without much personality."

Carter shook the bottle, letting it slosh around. "That’s what booooooooze is for."

Thea burst into giggles and reached into her bag, pulling out a set of glasses from thin air and a bottle of brandy. "Why not?"

I turned to my giggling cat queen with a look of betrayal before turning to him. "One glass. Say whatever, but don’t expect even a ‘woo’ out of me. Got it?"

"EY!" Carter yelled, stumbling to the door, opening it, and yelling, "STOP WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU’RE DOIN’ ‘LESS YOU’RE IT’S GONNA BURN THE PLACE DOWN!"

The atmosphere froze, and everyone turned to the man in fear.

"Carter, what the hell are you—"

"THE BOSS IS CELEBRATING WITH US, BOYS!" Carter roared.

An explosion of three hundred excited cheers waved through the steelworks, suppressing the sound of ovens, hammering, and machinery.

"This isn’t what I agreed to, Carter," I growled.

"Sure it is, now, ain’t it?" Carter grinned, pointing his glass at me. "You can’t celebrate shit with just three people, now can ya?"

I snatched the dirty glass from his desk and took a large, disgusting swig that burned my throat like peppermint. "This is absurd," I declared.

Thea giggled, frosting a clean glass with ice magic, creating some cubes, and pouring some brandy. Then she slid it over to me. "I think it would be fun to get drunk with you."

I turned to her with a complex gaze. "Why?"

She poured herself a glass as the other workers came in, then pointed out Carter, babbling strange truths to the others. "Some truths only come out when you’re drunk, and I’ve never seen you drink enough to get tipsy," she giggled. "You don’t have to, but I think it would be fun."

If there was one thing I’ve never been able to do, it was say no to Thea.

My lovable cat woman never asked for anything. So whenever she did want something, I couldn’t deny her.

"Okay," I sighed, taking a swig of brandy. A dozen workers cheered the moment I swallowed.

A celebration immediately went underway—if you could call it that. It was mostly just people betting on how many bottles it would take to get me drunk. After finishing my fourth, the bets doubled.

At some point, Carter got annoyed because his workers were bringing out bottles of spirits they stored away at work, showcasing a problem in the place.

Work hard, play hard, I guess.

Around my eighth bottle, my head became cloudy, and I laughed, pointing a half-drunken bottle of rum at them. "What the fuck’s up with you guys? You’re already drunk! You’re weak!"

The workers were taken aback, stunned, ashamed, smiling wryly, and slightly bitter.

"Carter!" I demanded, turning to the man. "Why’d you tell me your people were so weak? They need magic! And meeeeeeeeeeeat! And good weapons and shit. Everyone here deserves a fuckin’ katana or something."

Carter and the workers morphed from depressed and bitter to bewildered and delighted, lightly cheering as I ranted.

“I mean, serious, Carter!” I complained. “You people are THE steelmakers of this fuckin’ world. Them fancy Antiguians and their transmigrators would’ve killed that little bitch Edikus if they recreated Earthian shit. That means they’re not there, but guess what? Guess what, Carter?!”

Carter rubbed his bald head with wide eyes, swaying slightly. “W-What, Boss? J-Just… say it!”

“WE’RE ALREADY THE BEST!” I roared, triggering battle cries. The workers clanked their glasses, laughing and hugging each other.

The party then commenced again until Thea looked at me.

“Do you like Rema?!” Thea slurred. “Because I want you to be happy, but I also want to murder her, you know?”

I looked at her flushed cheeks and chuckled. “Even if I was lonely and I didn’t have an endearing woman by my side, do you think I’d date her? I’d rather stick my dick in a hornet’s nest!”

Carter chuckled and poured another glass, already sobering up. There was a race against the clock to stay drunk with people with soul cores, so Carter hastily threw back another glass. “Don’t get me wrong, Boss,” he said, pointing at Thea. “Treason or not, I’d kill ya if you didn’t do right by the Little Lady.”

He swigged his glass again. “But assumin’ you didn’t have the Little Lady, why wouldn’t you? That woman’s fine. Some unattainable fairy tale shit.”

I poured another glass, froze it, alcohol and all, then used a heat spell to melt it, causing an uproar among the workers, who were listening like drama queens.

“Meeeeeeeeeeeeeetings!” I groaned. “So many meetings. How the hell do people work with meetings? Banquets. Balls. Councils. Tea. Fuck. Do you know how much nobles eat?”

Carter frowned. “No.”

“Enough to become overweight!” I laughed, confusing them. “People here eat vegetables—meat once a day if they’re lucky. Business people eat toast with jam as if it’s a delicacy. So if you see someone overweight here… like fuckin’ nobles… it’s because they’re spending ALL their time eating!”

The workers laughed in bewilderment.

“I mean, no offense, but this is all common sense, right?” Carter laughed.

“Not to me, it’s not!” I retorted, looking at him with drooping eyelids. “Where I’m from, people melt cheese onto tomatoes and bread, then put more cheese on it before dipping it in more fucking cheese. That’s why we’re overweight. But you? You have to try hard to be overweight! It’s almost a sport!”

I rocked to the side, and Thea wrapped her arms around me like a seatbelt so everyone could see my face stable as I broke their minds. Bewildered, everyone burst into laughter.

“So much eating, not enough… doin’,” I slurred. “That’s what I always say.”

“You’ve never said that,” Thea giggled.

“I haven’t? Well, I have now!” I declared, making everyone burst into laughter.

Carter laughed, almost a hiccup. “So what about you? Were you super overweight?”

A flashback of my boney appearance flashed into my mind, and I slammed my glass on the table, unintentionally cracking it. “No,” I laughed. “Where I’m from? I’m a nobody. No-bod-ie.”

I leaned back into Thea’s arms and looked at the ceiling.

“Where I’m from, I was worked like you all are paid half as much….” I said, making the room fall silent. ”Shit…. Fuck that place….”

“I think you’ve had enough,” Thea smiled, picking me up. “Let’s head back.”

Carter chuckled. “Shit. I guess he is a bit drunk. I never thought I’d see this day.” He helped lift me and brought me out the door. “Let’s go.”

The workers cheered as I walked out, seeing me out like a Roman returning to a triumvirate.

Outside, Carter helped me onto Thea’s back. “I’m kinda jealous that you have a Little Lady this perfect,” he chuckled. “She’s a bit scary at times, but she does you right.”

Thea blushed, smiling at his half-compliment. Contrary to common belief, Thea was reasonable regarding me: she just had rules.

People hating her was okay—calling her a whore devalued me and wasn’t okay. Saying she was crazy was okay—saying I had a crazy lover wasn’t. Carter knew the rules and spoke accordingly.

“Thea’s the best. She loves me and stays by my side, blood-rain or shine,” I chuckled, making him shiver. “But rejoice! I’ve actually found you a woman!”

Carter’s eyes lit up but quickly deadened when he heard me laughing. “Who is this woman?”

“Jenny,” I cackled. “Spinning Jenny.”

I reached into my spatial bag and pulled out a few drawings. “In my world, she’s halfway between a 2D girlfriend and a tangible lady killer. Oh, God, the puns….”

“We need to get you home,” Thea giggled, elegantly passing the drawings to Carter. “Goodbye, Mr. Phobes.”

She slightly stumbled with me on her back, making Carter preemptively try to catch us. However, he stumbled, too.

It was a mess.

“Goooooood~night!” I slurred before Thea jumped in a fifteen-foot leap, running through the streets as I yelled excitedly, throwing my fists in the air.

I’d cherish that night forever.

***

I regretted that night forever.

The next morning, I played back those memories and promptly holed up in my office for three days, telling Rema to do my job or let the kingdom burn.

It was the worst.

Luckily, Thea picked me up, as always, and reminded me of the good in the world, and everything was fine. Still, I didn’t leave my room until I got word that Carter had a woman who wanted to see me.

“I’ve never seen Carter with a woman before,” I furrowed my brows, intrigued. My curiosity finally overcame me, and I finally left my room and walked over to the Goldenspire branch of Carter’s Steelworks.

When I arrived, Carter smirked an amused smirk that should’ve never been smirked.

“Speak,” I frowned, eliciting laughs.

“I brought you a woman,” Carter clapped, making Thea’s face flare up. However, when he had two men bring out a machine, her eyes widened. “Meet Jenny, my newest lover!”

My lips curved into a smile. “Let’s see her spin some thread.”

“Gladly,” he smirked, drawing a crowd.

Spinning thread is simple in concept. Imagine winding string around a stick—that’s what yarn is. The only difference is that the string is a stretched-out ball of cotton or wool.

A spinning machine is just a wheel; when someone steps on a petal to spin it, it turns the fibers into a string and lands it on a bobbin.

Naturally, there’s more to it than that. A person processes the fibers, combs them so they’re parallel, and then feeds them to the wheel evenly to get thin, uniform string and not lumpy wool. It’s a very skilled trade that has existed for thousands of years.

A Spinning Jenny is like that—times eighteen—without any skill. With one rotating motion, it spins 18 bobbins of yarn simultaneously, using unified motion to spin the thread consistently.

Compared to the other things Carter has made over the years, I was super simple, and soon he’d make a steam engine version that used a bicycle to stretch the fibers as they spun. But this was more than enough.

“Carter,” I said, patting his back as I watched it spin eighteen bobbins. “You’ve changed the world again.”

I paused and looked him in the eyes. “Celebrate without me.”

The workers groaned and then burst into laughter.

Carter rubbed his head with a guilty smile. “But Boss, everyone’s been workin’ overtime hopin’ to ask about that cheese dish…” he chuckled. “It just sounds so disgusting….”

“In theory, it is,” I smiled. “In practice—it’s food fit for gods. I’ll make it for you. But I won’t make the second and third types of cheeses. Someone else can do that. I refuse.”

Whoever made specialty cheese was a sadistic cretin.

I’m not talking about the person with milk traveling through the desert who got desperate and was like, "Oh, shit. This curdled milk actually tastes damn good.” NO!

To make parmesan cheese, you mix cow's milk with bacteria that comes from harvesting the fourth stomach of a slaughtered calf, drying and cutting it into pieces, and soaking it in salt water to extract chymosin.

Then, in a sadistic twist of fate, you take milk from the mother of the baby you slaughtered, mix the stomach bacteria with its milk, and BAM! Cook that shit, and you get parmesan cheese.

That’s just the start. Most people don’t want to know how blue cheese is made, and I wish I didn’t because that shit tastes damn delicious….

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat. “It’s called pizza. Trust me; you’ll love it. The extra cheese is very unnecessary. That’s just how some people eat it. We can celebrate with it once this is over.”

Carter furrowed his brows. “When it’s over…? What’s next?”

“We need a power loom that is well within your skill level but significantly more advanced,” I said. “Once it’s done, we can mass-produce clothing like we do steel.”

Carter sighed. “You got it, Boss.”

“Prioritize shipping out fifty of those Jennys, then start at it immediately after,” I instructed, putting down a spatial bag and pulling out a crate of Dragon’s Peak liquor.

“After you celebrate without me,” I smiled.

The shop exploded in cheers and requests for me to join, but Thea and I quickly snatched the Spinning Jenny, wove through the crowd, and disappeared.

***

Now it was finally time to put this machinery to good use. Weaving through Inspira, I walked into a quaint building in the center of town and walked up to a light-haired brunette. She wore a vibrant purple sundress adorned with intricate patterns of flowers and a gentle smile as she hummed, sewing together fabric.

While she looked kind, the thirty women around her looked like Spartans, singing songs as they spun thread, loomed fabric, and sewed to a rhythm. They didn’t even think of breaking concentration.

“Hello, Ms. Filon,” I greeted, looking around Goldenspire Textile Guild. “You wouldn’t happen to want to join the Everwood Company yet, would you?”

“No~pe,” Lily Filon hummed, greeting me with a big smile. “But thank you.”

“Even if it meant you could make this?” I asked, pulling out a navy blue cocktail dress with lace patterns at the top. Around the knees, it had a transparent mesh section separated by beautiful floral lace accents that gave a peek at a woman’s legs before turning solid, giving a tasteful sense of finality.

“GIMME THAT!” Lily exclaimed, jutting up from her chair and grabbing at the air. She had made my and Thea’s clothing for years, so we were relatively close.

I chuckled and handed it to her, watching her run her thumb over the lace with a fascinated gaze. “Join the Everwood Company, and you’ll be able to make far more than this. You’ll be the number one designer in the world.”

Lily gulped, looking at it and then at me. “I still can’t…. This is my family’s legacy.”

“Hoh?” I frowned. “It looks to me like this is the Goldenspire Textile Guild. Just like Sundell Textile Guild and Elderthorn textile guild. Wouldn’t it make more sense to spread ‘Lily’s Textiles’ to the world? ‘Filon Fashion?’”

Her eyes widened, and she swallowed hard.

“I suppose you don’t want one of these, either,” I muttered, putting the Spinning Jenny from my spatial bag. “This machine can spin eighteen bobbins of high-quality thread simultaneously.”

The thread spinners stopped and shuddered, sensing the threat to their jobs.

“Of course, since Lily’s Textiles will be Solstice’s top textile supplier, everyone will need pay raises, and we’d need to hire another 200 people to operate these machines.”

All the workers turned to Lily with complex expressions. My technology would soon put them out of business if she didn’t join me—a time-tested trend.

Thus, her two options were to agree to my proposal and succeed or agree later when I bought up her business wholesale.

I was a walking racket.

Lily swallowed under the pressure.

“I also need tailors and seamstresses,” I said, materializing a three-piece suit made from the finest wool the women had ever seen. “Things like this require modification.”

The women broke their concentration and ran to the suit, touching it and giggling in fascination.

Lily gulped when she touched it. “Let’s… discuss terms.”

Negotiations didn’t take long. She readily agreed to give me 25% of the business in exchange for heavy machinery, a larger warehouse, and seed investment for hiring new workers.

It was simple, as I collected taxes from her succeeding.

After shaking her hand, I pulled out a folder and handed it to her. “These are the designs that I need you to make. They’re going up for auction next month, so make sure they’re fit for royalty.”

Lily gulped and opened the folder, expecting the worst. However, when she saw the designs inside, her eyes widened, and she suppressed a squeal of excitement.

Solstice was about to have its first Earthian auction—and she could tell it would be a sensation.