Chương 66: Chapter 2.3: Weather Watching

Favius groaned as he got up and gestured to the door.

"I'm not divining anything. I am predicting." The others followed, but Brutus smiled sweetly at him.

"So, Favius, again I challenge you to explain the difference between divining and predicting the future." Favius sighed and glared over his shoulder as both Urania and Caliga snickered. Serran maintained a carefully neutral expression as they walked down the corridor.

"I use known information and systematic observation to recognize patterns, and therefore have some idea about what will happen in the future." He accepted his fur overcoat from one of the servants. Brutus grinned.

"And pray tell, my dear little cousin, what do you think a priest does in a ritual of divination?" Favius swallowed. Those people are genuinely religious. I cannot just badmouth their faith, and Brutus knows that I cannot do it in public. That damned bastard. He let out a long breath and gestured.

"They perform a rite of invoking divinity." Brutus grinned.

"Oh, but how often do you think a priest needs to share genuine divine inspiration with a supplicant instead of simple, wise, and commonsensical advice which he learned based on observing patterns?" Favius sniffed as they walked back out into the snowy cold. While the others were chuckling and talking, he again touched the heavy metal weight in his satchel. Starting a weather station without having a thermometer, that's just wrong. After whether or not it rains, that's the most important thing people care about.

But yeah, I need glass. Marius ran up to him and poked the satchel. They shared a silent grin, and Favius allowed himself to smile at his little brother's expression. He's still so genuinely excited about that. Me, I just feel like a jaded scientist, frustrated that I don't have all the instruments I'm used to. I mean, hell, I haven't even bothered trying to make a barometer to measure pressure changes in the air because I'm fairly certain that I'll need mercury and glass for that.

Well, not that lenses are avoidable either. Optics... They walked along a path and soon reached a small shed. At this distance, the only extraordinary thing was the flags flying above it. As they got closer, they saw various devices that had already been shoveled free from the snow sitting on a table. Brutus removed the cover, and Marius leaned up against the table.

"So how does it work? What are you doing?" he demanded. Favius cleared his throat. Straightening himself, he threw a look at the others around him. I've mainly worked on this with Urania. The others, well, they don't know much. Favius gestured at an earthen jar.

"If you look in there, you'll see markers. It's collecting water so we can know how much it's been raining." Marius sniffed.

"But it's obviously snowing right now, not raining." Caliga bumped him on the head.

"Don't be a smartass with your older siblings."

"I'm not a smartass. I'm just smart," the little brother murmured. Favius leaned forward.

"What was that?" he asked in a friendly tone. Marius straightened up, and they engaged in a short staring contest before Favius shook his head.

"That's what I thought," he said, not putting much effort into trying to poke Marius, who dodged only to be poked in turn by Urania. They laughed, and Favius continued after a moment.

"Well, we are measuring the rain, but also—" He looked at Serran.

"Have all the other stations been set up?" Serran nodded.

"Indeed, Young Dominus. One each at the mountain stream, the small river coming out of the valley, at the Loran tributary, and down by one of our estates at the Eron River as well. The water is gauged three times per day, as per your instructions." Favius smiled and nodded.

"So, Marius, why do we care about this?" The young boy scrunched up his nose and glared at Favius in concentration.

"Because," he ventured, drawing out the word, "all the water that falls from the sky flows down the river?" Urania shared a smile with Favius and continued.

"Oh, but if that's the case, why do we need to measure at four different rivers? Couldn't we just measure one river?" Marius shrugged.

"Maybe. I don't know." He shifted uncertainly, and Serran tipped his chin.

"If I may." Favius nodded to him.

"You seek to measure how long it takes for water that falls as rain to reach the main river."

"Yes," Favius said.

"But it's more than that. Not all rivers flow above ground." He pointed down at the snowy earth, frowned, and cleaned some snow away until his foot tapped on dirt.

"Water is retained underground. That's what matters for our fields." Serran nodded, but Brutus sniffed.

"Yes, water retention is fundamental for plants to grow in the mountains." Favius looked at him and nodded.

"After all, when a landowner wants to ensure healthy forests, even a Lireni will hire one of our Rhexioni woodkeepers."

"Why does a wood need keeping?" asked Marius. Brutus snorted.

"Because Rhexion lives and dies by the purity of its bronze and the strength of its warriors. The largest of the southern Minurian islands used to be a hub of copper working too, until the Matriarchy cut down the last remaining forests, and now they can barely sustain their own demand, never mind export." Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"I've heard of woodkeepers, but on this main estate—well, we simply buy timber if we need it and hold no large managed forests." Serran stroked his chin with a thoughtful look.

"Would you mind elaborating, Ovinius Kestrelo?" Brutus smiled.

"Certainly. What's fundamental is that you slow down streams in the mountains using swales and small redoubts. That way, not only do you reduce erosion, you also allow more plants to grow. And plants are what become soil. At least that is what my sworn Brother told me." The others nodded along, and Favius couldn't help but grin. Well, it seems like those long YouTube evenings watching permaculture and sustainable farming videos weren't entirely pointless. Swales, permaculture, basic soil fertility.

Don't think I'll need many system requests from the entity to help with the agriculture, especially when it comes to improving the estate. He grinned to himself. Surely it can't be harder than making paper? Caliga tilted her head to the side and looked at Brutus.

"Why does Rhexion have woodkeepers and no one else?" Brutus snorted.

"Because we Rhexioni nobles are brought up to know our land, to know the cliffs and the sites where we might ambush enemies. The Lireni sit in their gilded mansions, and the Cindrathi—" He gave Serran, then Favius, an apologetic smile.

"—are busy discussing politics while their slaves work the fields. So it is the mortals that manage their lands." He grinned at the girls after giving Favius a brief wink.

"Tell me, girls, why is it better if a cultivator manages the land than a mere mortal farmer?" Favius couldn't help but sigh. Oh well. Classism 101 lecture incoming.

"Because cultivators are just better than mortals," asserted Urania. Brutus sniffed.

"Such is obvious. But that is no answer worthy of a philosopher, Urania." She squeezed her lower lip in thought. After a few seconds, she murmured, "Because they live longer." Brutus snapped his fingers.

"Precisely. A mortal's fifty years are barely sufficient to see a tree that was planted at their birth grow to maturity. But a Patriarch with sufficient cultivation might live up to two hundred years. They will see several harvests and plantings of trees. More than that, they will remember and see the changes they have wrought upon their ancestral lands, which they shall soon justify before the family's ancestors." Favius nodded along and observed the thoughtful expressions around him.

Another one of those odd things. Environmental damage becomes so much more visible if you are long-lived. Would a society of immortals be perfect environmental stewards? Before he could start thinking about it in earnest, Marius poked him in the side.

"You are supposed to show me what you are doing, not ask me strange questions."

"Asking strange questions is most of what we are doing," quipped Brutus, until Favius glared at him. Favius picked up Marius, who struggled briefly before Favius shook him.

"I'm just showing you something. Stop fighting." Marius gave him a chagrined expression, and Favius pointed at an array of four pine cones with small straight sticks affixed to them.

"What's the point of those?" Favius sniffed and raised his face at the expressions around him.

"Those aren't pine cones. That's a hydrogonometer. It measures how wet the air is." Marius sniffed.

"The air isn't wet. Only fluids are wet. That's basic elemental theory. Cassian told me about it." Brutus clicked his tongue and lifted up the gleaming metal of his axe.

"All elements as found in nature are mixtures. Only a mage can purify essences. Thus there obviously is water in air, just as there is fire in air, which only comes out in contact with wood." Favius grimaced, and Marius looked between the two of them. The transmigrated scientist sighed.

"Yes, Brutus is correct. Air contains many essences. It is an impure mixture of various essences, some of which can become a fluid. Others are required for fire to burn." Caliga sniffed.

"I mean, that's just obvious. Air is purified in a cultivator's body into vital pneuma, so it cannot just be gas." Favius sighed again but shook his head. Well, I'll have to teach them chemistry at some point, but with how interwoven their understanding of essences is with spirituality... Let's just see how my mathematics and measurement books land before I attempt something truly controversial. And not just heretical.

"But how does it actually work?" Marius poked at one of the pine cones whose scales held the wooden sticks at various angles. Favius gestured at Urania, and his younger sister straightened.

"You see, every pine cone is imperfect. But if you take them all together and measure the angle of each of them—" She gestured at the wooden sticks.

"—you can learn how much the average pine cone has bent under this humidity."

"An average?" Marius murmured. But Urania patted him on the head.

"Don't worry. I'll teach you about numbers as soon as spring comes." Favius smiled at her. Yes, that's actually a great idea. Teaching something is a vital step in understanding it properly. They turned as crunching footsteps in the snow could be heard, and a scribe under a thick woven reed coat holding a wax tablet walked towards them from the estate.

"Ah, Metis," Serran called out. The scribe gave him a sour expression.

"How is your new assignment agreeing with you? We will be gone shortly. We are just showing—" He gestured at Marius.

"—the youngest Dominus the project." The servant, whom Favius was fairly certain was a freedman, bowed and smiled.

"I serve at the pleasure of the young aristocrats." Favius straightened and pointed at the flags.

"Want to guess why we have those flags?" Marius was lifted up onto the table by Brutus and studied them through narrowed eyes.

"One is just a normal flag with—" He poked at the cross beneath it.

"—four arrows... I think those are for the celestial directions?"

"Very good," praised Urania.

"That flag is where we measure the direction of the wind. And the other?" She gestured at the tube of fabric. Favius couldn't help but inspect the windsock. It was nearly half a meter long with proper red and white sections. Still surprised how easy it was to get the ladies of the estate to sew that thing for us. At the moment, it was roughly half-filled and hung downward at a steep angle commensurate with the low wind.

"Metis," Serran said, "would you mind showing the little Master how you measure the strength of the wind?"

"It would be my pleasure, Majordomo." He stepped forward and took out an angled piece of wood. He moved his finger along a numbered semicircular scale and murmured, "Thirty degrees," making a note of it on the wax board. Caliga held out her hand, and the man handed over the angle. She frowned.

"Ninety degrees? Why isn't it one hundred?"

"While ten is a very convenient number we are all used to, if you need to divide numbers a lot, like in geometry, splitting a circle into three hundred and sixty sections is a lot more convenient." Urania sniffed.

"Yes, I told you that you should have spread a base-twelve number system in your book. Base ten is just so inconvenient if you have to work with thirds." Favius shrugged his shoulders.

"As I said, everyone is used to base ten. So geometry is the only place where this makes sense." Serran hummed.

"But most scribes are not used to working with such a number system. Won't it result in the kind of confusion you wanted to avoid by insisting on regular decimal intervals with all your other units?" Favius shifted his hand from side to side.

"It's always a tradeoff, and this is the decision I made. I considered the alternative, but the mathematics just turn out too ugly if you don't have three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle." They continued bickering about it for a while longer, and while Urania defended the three hundred and sixty degrees, the others criticized it. Favius couldn't help but smile. My little math genius sister.

He looked between the scribe, who was just now pouring some water onto the black angled stone of the evaporation pan and making careful notes of snow height, perceived temperature, and cloud coverage while noting down all the other values of the weather station. I sure hope that this entire data-gathering project with the prices in Cindrath and the weather pays off.

But, well, we'll definitely need a few years of weather to make useful predictions, so it's best to start this now, even though it cost me some of the money I made from the honey and wax. As the scribe Metis left, the others discussed other subjects. Soon Urania was asking leading questions of Marius. All of a sudden, Favius felt something. He wasn't sure what, but when he saw Brutus's body go stiff as well, he realized that he hadn't just imagined it.

The warrior raised a fist, and all conversation died in an instant.

"What is it?" whispered Caliga in a low voice. Brutus turned his head toward the workshops.

"I felt something. An aura." He looked over all of them and hefted his axe.

"Let's go."