Chapter 12: The Fountain’s Secret

The maintenance cabin was, ironically, a graveyard of good intentions: rusted shovels, broken hoes, and piles of rotting timber filled the small wooden structure.

Arthur kicked aside a bucket with a hole in it and scanned the workbench.

“Come on,” he muttered, coughing as dust filled the air. “There has to be one.”

His eyes landed on a heavy iron pipe wrench hanging on the back wall. It was massive, clearly designed for the mining era of the estate’s glory days.

He grabbed it. It was heavy—far too heavy for his arms to comfortably wield.

If I had a system like a normal transmigrator, I wouldn’t be dragging this right now, Arthur thought to himself. He grimaced as he hauled the wrench back to the fountain, the metal scraping loudly against the stone path.

Elara was still there. She hadn’t moved; she stood under her parasol, watching him with a mix of skepticism and curiosity, as if waiting for a play to finish so she could critique the actors.

Arthur ignored her. He had a hypothesis to prove.

He knelt by the seized valve at the base of the fountain. Rust had welded it shut, turning the threads into a solid block of orange corrosion. He fit the jaws of the wrench around the nut and pulled.

Nothing happened.

He pulled harder, gritting his teeth as a vein bulged at his temple. His frail body shook with the effort, but the valve didn’t budge a millimeter.

From the corner of his eye he saw Elara smirk.

“Do you require assistance, Cousin?” she called, her voice dripping with sweet poison. “I could summon a servant. Or… use a bit of that ‘inefficient’ magic to blast it open?”

Arthur stopped pulling. He stood, breathing heavily, and wiped the sweat from his brow. He didn’t get angry. He looked at the wrench, then at a long, discarded hollow fence post lying in the weeds nearby.

“No, thank you, Cousin,” Arthur replied calmly. “Physics will suffice for now.”

He grabbed the hollow post and slid it over the handle of the wrench, effectively doubling its length.

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Elara tilted her head, confused. “What are you doing with that pipe?”

“Multiplying my torque,” Arthur muttered.

This time he didn’t pull with his arms. He shifted his footing and leaned his full weight into the end of the pipe. Simple mechanics. The lever groaned, metal protesting like a clearing throat.

Elara took a step back, startled by the noise. Arthur gave one final, heavy shove.

CLANG. The valve spun freely.

For a second there was silence. Then a deep, subterranean rumble shook the ground beneath their feet, like a sleeping beast waking.