Inventions

Retaining her memories from her past life as Urano, Myne has recreated a number of items, dishes, and other products from her old world, mostly for her own comfort. Many are based on what she learned from her previous mother.

Claiming that Tuuli would be cuter with a "hair ornament", Myne used the lace tatting technique to make flowers out of thread. The flowers are then sewed together by their ends and attached to a wooden pin.

Once Myne enters a business relationship with Benno she, Lutz and her family start to make these for winter handywork, though a little later Myne sells Benno and his Gilberta Company the rights to produce hair ornaments of his own, along with teaching his sister Corinna how to make them. The hairsticks are a great success and sell very well, even spreading to the nobility.

There is a wide variety of hair ornaments available for every level of society. Versions meant for poor people tend to be bought as finished products, usually made from comparetively thick and rough thread and featuring an assortment of smaller flowers, very reminiscent of the very first ornament Myne made for her sister's baptism. The higher the quality of the materials and elaborate the designs, the higher the price climbs.

Higher ranked nobles usually have their ornaments custom-made to order, rather than buying pre-made variants. Naturally they choose to have their ornaments made out of the thinnest and smoothest thread dyed in the most vibrant colours and turned into big and elaborate flower designs.

Following a trend started by Lady Rozemyne with a dress she designed for her at the time guardknight Brigitte, some noble women have also started to order the flower ornaments without the hairpin parts to sew them to their dresses as decorations, rather than just putting them in their hair alone.

Spoiler for Part 4 Volume 4 A mere five years after they first became available to buy, the product has become so well established in Ehrenfest that almost every woman at the commoners' Coming of Age Ceremony in the winter had a hairpin, whether they were rich or poor. In winter they are particularly popular since in the other seasons women can just pick flowers to put in their hair, but there are no winter-blooming flowers growing in Ehrenfest.

A thin wooden stick made from whittling wood. Myne asks Tuuli for a stick similar to Tuuli's doll's legs to tie up her hair, which she makes for Myne.

 See Culinary 

All three of these games were inspired by those on Earth. They are all played on the same checkered wooden board, but use different playing pieces. Ferdinand points out that they are good at training strategic thinking and that chess shares some similarities with the local game "Gewinnen" which requires mana to play and thus is only for nobles.

Flash cards with letters on them. They are designed to help kids identify letters and learn to read. The game mechanics follow the same rules as the karuta from earth which centers around the hundred poems. Myne's karuta cards have a drawn illustration and the starting letter from the object drawn written on them. The objects are focusing on topics of the bible.

These cards were inspired by Earth's card games. The cards have numbers from 1 to 9, three figures and the ace and can be used for a variety of games. Apart from entertainment, they can also be used as learning games to help children learn basic math. Initially they are made out of thin pieces of wood, but after a breakthrough in paper-making by the workshop in Illgner, the Rozemyne Workshop has started to make playing cards out of trauperle paper.

Works like the game from earth. Made out of wood.

These are made like regular animal fat candles, but with the method of salting out the ingredients it is possible to produce much higher quality oil and thus make candles that produce considerbly less bad smell. While still not as pleasant as candles made from bee-wax, they are much cheaper to produce, making them a good alternative for poorer families.

By adding various herbs to the candles while making them, they spread a pleasant scent when lit. This can be done with both animal fat and bee-wax candles. If the herbs are put on the outside or near enough the outside to show through a thin layer of wax, the herbs can also make the candle look nicer.

Simple All-in-One Shampoo, later renamed to Rinsham by Benno for marketing reasons, is made with meryl oil (or other vegetable oil), herbs for aroma, salt, and hot water to dissolve the salt. The simple all-in-one shampoo turns out to be valuable, as it makes the hair smooth and shiny, and the effects especially draw the attention of women.

Upon Rozemyne's entry into noble society Rinsham becomes very popular among even the highest ranking nobles of Ehrenfest.

Over the course of several years Benno establishes workshops dedicated to the production of Rinsham, not just in Ehrenfest, but with the help of his younger sister and other more distant family members in cities throughout Ehrenfest.

Inspired by the Mesopotamian civilization, Myne shaped clay into tablets to write records on them. However, like the imitation papyrus attempt, it failed, the first time due to Fey and his friends stepping on them, the second time due to the gate closing, the third time due to a rainstorm, and the fourth time due to failure to bake them in the kiln.

Papyrus is made from the fibers of a stalk and weaved like a piece of cloth. Myne tried making paper imitating papyrus as her winter handiwork, but she gave up.

When coloured plant-paper ink is applied onto plant paper or mixed with other colours, the colours change in counter-intuitive and seemingly random ways. The ink also quickly loses intensity, leaving only faded letters behind. This can be prevented by treating the paper with a fixing agent before applying the coloured ink. This was able to figure this out thanks to her mother's expertise with dyes.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 During Rozemyne's coma, Heidi continued her research and made some strides. She managed to develop a varnish-like fixing agent that can be applied on top of ink that allows to apply a differently coloured ink on top without the two mixing, thus preventing the unexpected changes in colour that were found in the initial research.

Mokkan from the Huang civilization, are pieces of wooden slips. Originally, Myne planned to write on them with ink, but she didn't have any ink, so she used soot mixed with water as a substitute, but that was a failure. Effa used her first mokkans as firewood later, resulting in Myne getting frustrated and collapsing.

There are several different types of paper that Myne and Lutz make. They all use wood from trees. It's a production requires several days in which and requires steaming, soaking and beating the wood, before it is mixed with other ingrediants, filtered and eventually dried.

''See Paper Making Process

Once Rozemyne starts to show off plant-paper at the Royal Academy she switches to calling it "new paper" to hide any insight into the production method for as long as possible, to maximize the profit Ehrenfest can make from it. After a discussion with her trusted merchants the decision is made to name the plant paper after the provinces it is produced in. Volrin and Trombe paper thus become "Ehrenfest Paper" and trauperle paper is called "Illgner Paper".

Since the regular ink used for parchament is too acidic and damages plant paper over longer periods of time, as well as the high cost of buying the quantities of ink required for printing, Myne had to invent her own ink. This ink is made by mixing finely crushed soot with oil.

Later she tasked the Bierce Workshop with developing coloured ink. The people doing the actual research within the workshop were Heidi and Josef, who Myne granted the title of Gutenberg upon the successful completion of the task.

Mixing the ingredients for the ink with different oils results in very unexpected colour changes that at first didn't seem to make any sense and could only be empirically researched and documented.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 As Rozemyne discovered later by chance in an unrelated project, the colours are actually related to magic. Even non-magical plants and minerals contain tiny quantities of mana and the unexpected colours are a result of the elemental makeup of this mana. But since magic tools to test the mana-quality of ingredients are very hard to come by even for high-ranking nobles, they are still stuck with empirical research.

During Rozemyne's coma the method to produce black printing ink has been spread to multiple provinces in the Duchy of Ehrenfest, but for now the way to produce coloured printing ink held exclusively by the Plantin Company and their associated workshop.

Also sometimes shortened to Soot Pen, this invention was made by Myne as a primitive substitude for Earth's pencils. They are created by mixing soot with wet clay and letting the mixture dry in the sun. Once they are completely dried, they can be used more or less like the core of a pencil from Earth. Since they lack the wooden or plastic outer shell of their Earth counterparts it is necessary to wrap some kind of cloth around it if you want to avoid getting your hands dirty.

Compared to Earth's pencils, soot pencils are very soft and brittle so you have to be very careful when writing. Putting too much pressure on them will result in letters being broken and unreadable.

By having Ingo, Johann and Zack cooperate, Rozemyne is able to create various versions of printing presses - machines that can very easily create multiple copies of the same texts in a very short timespan. They started out by modifying a food press as a proof-of-concept and a stepping stone, but have since developed purpose-built printing presses that are expected to revolutionize the world.

Rozemyne got inspiration for these machines from Earth's Johannes Gutenberg, who also started his pioneering of the printing technology by modifying a wine-press.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 During Rozemyne's coma the carpentry workshops of Haldenzel have learned how to build their own printing presses to a standard that satisfies Ingo. They are yet to produce metal letter types that meet Johann's approval, but are confident that they will achieve this soon.

Wax Paper is made by coating a piece of paper with very thin layers of wax in a specialized machine. Once the wax is cooled down, this wax paper can be used to create stenzil templates that work better and last much longer than those made from regular paper. It can also be used to prevent the surfaces on which the printing takes place from getting ink on them. The thinner the paper used for this the better.

The only paper that can be made thin enough to be suitable for this process is trombe paper, since any other kind of paper the Rozemyne Workshop tried to thin down became impossible to peel off of the drying stand without ripping.

Recently Illgner managed to produce the equally thin rinfin paper, which is sure to reduce the cost of wax paper, since trombe paper is the highest priced premium paper due to it's quality.

Following the picture books, Myne begins creating and printing children's bibles. The first part is about the seven higher gods and following books deal with their respective subordinate gods. To be more suitable for children Myne simplified the more complicated language used in the regular bible. It also contains blac-and-white illustrations drawn by Myne's attendant Wilma.

Initially the children's bibles are only used to teach the orphans and young grey robes to read. When Rozemyne introduced them in the winter-playroom they quickly spread among the nobility too, since knowledge of the gods is important for performing blessings and certain other forms of magic and thus a subject at the Royal Academy. With the children's bible noble children have an easier time learning the theological basics than with the much dryer learning style of the academy.

At this time there is only a single book that was produced with coloured illustrations. Printing with colour instead of black-and-white is far more timeintensive, costrly and difficult. Keeping overlapping colours from mixing is particularly hard. Currently the Rozemyne Workshop uses mimeograph printing to print coloured illustrations.

These books are mainly text-books, but with a few illustrations. Rozemyne personally wrote a collection of knight's stories she gathered. Her mother Elvira also penned a couple of books, mainly focussing on romance, which have been very well received among the female nobility of Ehrenfest.

When Myne found out she was going to be a big sister, she decided to make a picture book for the baby. It has pictures containing simple forms like squares and triangles arranged in certain manners. It uses particularly thick paper to make the pages more resilient and long-lasting, since a babies the books are intended for are far too young to treat a book with care.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4

Based on an idea by Rozemyne these bookshelves have small wheels at their bottom, which run in rails. This allows to place more bookshelves in a given space than you otherwise could.

The current prototypes are technically working, but very hard to move when fully loaded with books, which led it's creator Ingo to start a redesign of the carriage parts in cooperation with the smith Zack.

Used to sort books into an order in a library. There are 10 categories and several sub-categories to classify the books into. It is based on the Nippon Decimal System.

0. General Works

1. Philosophy

2. History

3. Social Science

4. Natural Science

5. Technology/Engineering

6. Industry/Commerce

7. Art

8. Language

9. Literature

In Myne's new world it is common to discard the broth after the vegetables have been overcooked, leading to a flavourless soup. Myne introduces tasty soup by making people use the water they cooked their vegetables in before.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4

A technique that Rozemyne remembered from her previous life on Earth.

This is a technique to dye patterns or even text or complex pictures directly into fabric. The parts that are to remain free the particular colour applied in the current step are covered in wax, so only the uncovered parts take the colour. After the colour has dried, the wax is melted and washed out in hot water. By using different kinds of wax, different textures can be achived. Pliable wax for example will produce sharp lines, while stiffer wax can be cracked to allow the colour to seep in to a limited degree and make patterns.

Rozemyne first offered it to the Gilberta Company, alongside the Tie-Dyeing technique, but anticipating that they would not be able to meet demands, Corinna advised to spread the technology to the Dyer's Guild. To facilitate this, the Gilberta Company created a competition officially "to revive old technologies" with the coveted title of Gutenberg as a potential price for the best workshop.

Salting out is used to reduce the stench and create higher quality oil for candles etc. Salt is put into the cooking water and left simmering while removing emerging impurities.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4

Originally Rozemyne remembered this technique from her days on Earth, but upon a meeting with the Gilberta Company, she learned that it actually had existed in Ehrenfest in the past. This method to produce multi-coloured clothes was well established in Ehrenfest in the past. Once an Ahrensbach noble - very likely Lady Gabriele - married into the duchy, the trends of the far higher ranked greater duchy supplanted many local customs, which included fashion made from clothes dyed a single colour. The lack of demand caused the workshops to switch entirely to dying clothes a single colour and due to the lack of literacy among the commoners, barely any written records of this technique exist, leading to the technology more or less dying out. Some people still remember it's existence, but nobody alive knew how to do it, until Rozemyne re-introduced it.

Rozemyne first offered it to the Gilberta Company, alongside the Rozemyne Dyeing technique, but anticipating that they would not be able to meet demands, Corinna advised to spread the technology to the Dyer's Guild. To facilitate this, the Gilberta Company created a competition officially "to revive old technologies" with the coveted title of Gutenberg as a potential price for the best workshop.

In the beginning Myne was unable to do math using a calculator. She uses her slate and solves problems using the methods taught on earth. Mark is intrigued and learned a bit from Myne.

Chopsticks are made of bamboo and can be used for a variety of tasks. Among other things they can be used to handle hot food or stir the sticky mass out of which paper is made. They are equivalent to chopsticks from earth.

Myne asks her father Gunther to make a stick with a hook end out of wood so that she could make Tuuli's hair ornament. After they aquire the rights to producing hairsticks themselves, the Gilberta Company orders varients of these made out of metal to allow for even finer work.

The clothing hangers used in this world are simply bars. Myne suggests to make them more rounded like the ones used on Earth, since they are less likely to damage the fabric and doesn't crumple up the clothing as much. They can be made our of wood or metal.

The diptych is the equivalent to a notepad. It is made of two wooden carved-in boards connected with metal rings on one side. The boards are hand-sized and filled with wax inside them to note down things using a stylus.

The stylus a piece of metal formed like a pen which has a pointed end on one end and a flat-shaped on the other end. The pointed end is used to write on the diptych's wax whereas the flat end is used to erase the writing. It comes with a hook, resemling earth's pens, so that it can be attached to the metal rings of the diptych.

Hide glue is made of a really sticky paste harvested from the skin and bones from animals. It is used to harden book covers and for making a certain ink. Glue made from skin had a higher water resistance than glue made from bones. Both glues are made by creating a mixture containing limewater.

The precision knife is a small and narrow blade used to cut paper. The handle is made out of wood and the exchangable blade is made of metal. Myne requests the blade to be fit perfectly into the handle to ensure safety.

The roller is made of metal and used to spread ink evenly.

The first stencil templates Myne and Lutz used were made from tick paper. Later Rozemyne used wax paper to make stencils that were thinner and re-usable.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4

This technology pioneered by Lady Rozemyne and her Gutenbergs incorporates springs between the axis of a carriage and it's main body, which allow for a much smoother and more comfortable ride than classical carriage designs, without having to rely on magic tools like the carriages of the nobility do.

The blueprints were created by Zack and refined with input from Johann. The finalized product requires a cooperation between a smithy and a carpentry workshop.

Handpump are devices that can be installed at wells to enable easier access to water. By using a vaccum within the device, you can get water to flow out of the nozzle simply by pumping the lever, which requires far less time and strength than using a rope or chain to pull a full bucket from from the bottom of the well.

In the absence of rubber seals, the metal parts need to smithed with exceptional precision. At this point the only smith known to produce work of sufficient precision is Johann.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 During Rozemyne's coma this technology spread all throughout the City of Ehrenfest and Haldenzel and is expected to become widely available in the eastern parts of the duchy soon.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4

Another one of Rozemyne's inventions, based off of her memories of Earth. This bed uses metal springs below the matress for a softer feeling in bed. The blueprints drawn up by Zack during Rozemyne's coma have not yet yielded a prototype of satisfying quality, so it is still a work in progress.


 * Japanese Wiki