'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 3: The Prophecy

Blenders, Peanut Butter and Jams

"Alright, since we had gotten ourselves in a set of new products that come hand in hand here, there would be another set of things that had bend drawn by Our Majesty and he had termed this as blenders."

"From his crude drawings, I am unable to picture what these things were made of and how it functions because I am not a technical person but as far as he had drawn it, it could be used as a milling stone but mainly used for blending or milling foodstuff."

"Here, I pass the whole journal to the engineers who would be able to understand and decipher what our Majesty had drawn up. Hope it would come to his expectations and let me draft out the ingredients the would be used for this blender."

I went to the writing slate that had been wiped clean by the domain helper and I wrote the three ingredients on it, marked as roasted shelled monkey nuts, salt and sugar. The name of the product is called peanut butter.

After I had sat down, one of the engineers took the journal and peered into it and fiercely buzz and debate over the crude drawings before one of them stood up and went to the writing slate and had a clear mind as he picked up the piece of chalk.

He drew something basic for everyone to understand and it was first drawn as a top-down picture of a four-bladed device in a circular drum. The blades were drawn up close to the edge of the drum and its shape was something like a sickle.

The concave part of the blade was anticlockwise which means the rotation of the blades when the crank was utilised would be anticlockwise too.

The engineer drew an arrow near the crank part and showed three pieces of gear. Before he continued, he asked if Old Jack the Blacksmith would be present since he would also be spearheading in this production.

Someone summoned Old Jack and he came pacing back to the conference hall as his presence would be an importance to the team.

When Old Jack arrived, I narrated to the whole members of what had transpired as earlier do not involve him but now he plays an important role. I then thanked Old Jack for being here and to give his best ideas as possible.

"No worries there, Your Majesty. Anything that would be important for this town would also be important for my contributions. So let's get on with the meeting, shall we?" Old Jack was equally excited since there would be more things for him to do besides tinkering with some farming tools that needs repair and so on.

"Here, Old Jack. We are trying to make a small crank here but the person had to be standing over this machine which I don't think it would be conducive over a long period of time, don't you think so?" one of the engineers drew the arrow on the top of the blender and put a huge question mark.

Old Jack peered at the drawing and asked how many gears would need to run the device and how big would the device be.

"At least, the circumference would be 3 to 4 feet. Any larger it would not be a tight blend and there would be lots of loose pieces in them."

"Our Majesty had drawn up something called peanut butter and I think it would be processed into one of the food manufacturing factories to be distributed out to the 15 towns and the other 15 cities as well."

Old Jack pondered on as we all looked at him and saw him doodling in a piece of paper with a quill pen and then handed the doodle over to one of the engineer to take a closer look.

There was a big horizontal wheel at the side of the blender and on the axle of the wheel was some large gear that connects to the centre of the blades by a belt. At the end of the belt was the centre of the blade mechanism and there was a slightly smaller cogwheel.

"Let me explain, when this big wheel turns a single rotation, these big gear that would be able to turn this smaller cogwheel at a much faster speed."

"It's the same as the concept of the upgraded sawmill. Previously it was only like 1:3 rotations for each turn, but had been improved to make it a 1:5 rotation instead."

"The main chain wheel had been enlarged to accommodate the speed and improved rotations needed."

The engineers looked at the doodle on the piece of paper and then transferred it over to the writing slate for everyone to see and evaluate. After the drawings had been transferred, everyone could see what Old Jack was talking about and it was soundly approved...!

"About the blades, could it be made by the new steel pieces that were used to make the smaller pieces of weapons and armours that were put on display? The ones that had a watery design on its finishings?"

The engineers asked Old Jack and he knew that the pieces of metal globules were conjured up by Priest Michael himself and there's an abundance such metals in the blacksmithing area.

In fact, Priest Micheal who used to conjure up a single piece of such materials from his pan was able to conjure up to 5 pieces of such metal globules at one time.

If only His Majesty were to know if his breakthrough, I think he would like to have more pieces of blue sapphires to be conjured up as well. Hahaha.

"Yes, that could be done so. Let's make it 4 feet in diameter so the blades would roughly fall short of 2 feet from the centre. It would be a snug fit with only a difference of like 1/16th of an inch apart from the edge of the canister, would that be alright?"

"The canister would be made of tin which in case if I run out of it, it could be brought in from Corral and speak if the devil from Corral, here he is right now...!"

Old Jack finished his sentence and pointed to the outside of the domain where a carriage had stopped and out stepped Marcel with a lady with him. Both looked elegant and seemed like they were very much acquainted with one another.

Everyone stopped what they were doing as they watched Marcel stepped down from the steps of the carriage and held out his hands as a petite lady stepped out from it in a very elegant way.

"Welcome to Gracehaven, my dear Maricel. This is the place where you can find all the glorious bread, biscuit and cakes and be never bored of it."

"There's a lot of new innovative products that you might also be interested in them. Hahaha."

"I guess they are in the middle of a meeting. Let's head to the Greasy Spoon and have that crispy flatbread that I had been ranting to you throughout the journey. Hahahha."

"Well, since Marcel does not wish to disturb our meetings then we would continue as per normal and discuss on the machine called the blender."

"It would take a week to forge and design the crank, chain wheel and cogwheel for the blades to rotate and it would be best to make the designs for the blending blades first since the drum could be adjusted accordingly."

Old Jack concluded as we decide to have a prototype to be ready within a weeks time and then be tested out. Since the ingredients to make the peanut butter was simple, we moved on to the earlier product that had been discussed — the porcelain ware.

"The porcelain ware containers to store the toothpaste would be round, able to hold at least ¼ pounds if contents inside it and have a removable lid on top. To secure it, a simple linen cloth would be used to cover the top and be secured at the neck of the container."

I drew the sample on the writing slate and Molly took note of it and nodded her head. I was a simple design and could be used to produce one within a few minutes by an adopting the press mould methods of a dry ball of clay.

Next comes the container for the peanut butter and discovered that a pound of peanut butter would be great to supply to the foodies out there.

"This next porcelain container is a bit unique. Ben, could you take note of the design here since we would like to have a wooden stamp designed by Frank and be directly pressed into the side of the container for the peanut butter."

"This container or I should call it as a mug, as what His Majesty had drawn here, looked like your ordinary half mug of ale but with a cover on it. The stamp would read as 'Peanut Butter — Gracehaven Town'."

"His Majesty idea was written here in this journal of his. Once the peanut butter had been used up, the porcelain ware would not be thrown away but could be used as a mug to hold some chilled water or some hot beverage."

"The moment a person reaches up the handle of the mug, he or she would be able to see the words 'Peanut Butter — Gracehaven Town'."

"It is more like a visible subliminal message that sends to the brain to go and buy more peanut butter from us...! Hahaha."

"Not only that, but we would also be marketing out our own fruit jams to the outside world as well."

"As the fruit jams had a kind of natural preservative, it would be able to store for a long time if stored inside the Standing Icebox. For those who don't have a standing Icebox could also purchase from their respective merchant's house."

"His Majesty had mentioned about a Gutenberg machine in the realm of his and he would be able to make some promotional pamphlet to fold it up in each of the fruit jams mugs in the future that somehow promotes how to store this bottle of jams for longer in the Standing Icebox."

"It would also inform where it could be bought and for what prices. And of course, Ben, please take note of the number of fruit jams we would be able to produce by using this blender machine."

"Besides the peanut butter and fruit jams would also be housed in a single factory and delegated into different lines per product. If we can make peanut butter and also 5 fruit jams, then we would have 6 production lines with 10 people on a single line."

"Ben, we would have 60 workers per shift and 180 workers per day, am I right?"

Ben jumped slightly when his name was called again and he bobbed his head and answered affirmatively. "Aye, Your Majesty, a total of 180 new workers for the peanut butter and fruit jam factory and another 60 new workers for the toothpaste and toothbrush factory. Got it, Your Majesty...!"

Everyone snickered looking at Ben's attitude since he was not used to be called by me but by Audemars most of the time.

Besides, Frank would be involved in this to make the wooden stamp and he would be presenting some samples of the stamps so we would see which one is the better one.

At least it would be made into several pieces for the workers to press in the completed clay mugs before being fired inside the kiln to make porcelain ware.

"Alright, we adjourned this meeting and be right back here tomorrow after lunchtime so we could discuss the rest of the matters. His Majesty is at the back in the orchards as we speak and would be joining us once he had done bring with nature."

I announced as everyone clapped their hands to conclude the meeting and once again refer their notes to ensure that everything that had transpired during the meeting was in sync.

The domain helpers cleared away the table as the members had completed their refreshments and went about their own ways to discuss the process of their new projects that would be implemented for the factories.

There were exactly 2 unused factory buildings beside the cold storage and it would be used to expand the productions for these two items in time to come. When I took a glance at the journal that Audemars had written, I saw that he had scribbled some 8 new upcoming products which two had been in the process right now.

"Sigh... How I wished I could enter the realm with him and see with an even clearer picture of what he would like to implement right now." I thought aloud to myself as I noticed Audemars emerged from the orchard and was running briskly towards the Macleod Coliseum as he would be running another one or two rounds around the Macleod Coliseum.