Hmm hmm.
Faced with the Fourth Princess’s doubt, Lulumiya not only showed no sign of panic, but her lips even curled into a “ω” shape.
She—or rather, the predecessors on Earth—had already noticed this problem long ago, which was exactly why Block Printing had been replaced by Movable Type Printing.
Lulumiya felt grateful that she had demonstrated Block Printing first.
From the very beginning, she had only considered Block Printing as an appetizer.
“Mm… that’s true. Your Highness, the Fourth Princess, is right. Although the doctrines of the Istelle Church rarely change, other popular science books and storybooks are often revised. Those who are literate and can afford books are all nobles. Their demand for books is very low. If you had to redo an entire block just to change a few words, the cost would be far too great.”
Lain stroked his chin thoughtfully.
He loved money, but he wasn’t stupid, and he could certainly see the value of the printing press.
“But this technique is quite interesting. If Her Highness the Fourth Princess isn’t interested, I can sell it to someone else and use the proceeds to pay back my debt to you, Your Highness.”
“I never said I would sell the technique to you. Don’t flatter yourself.”
Lulumiya let out a snort.
She had told Eno to quickly hire her precisely to guard against this day.
If her ownership were under the workshop’s name, then all the value she created would be stolen by Lain.
She looked at Lain’s stiff expression and said smugly, “I am now the Magi Puppet of the Immaculate Saint Canon Son, Eno. Everything I create belongs to Saint Canon, and has nothing to do with you.”
As if in response to Lulumiya’s statement, there suddenly came a knock at the office door.
Immediately after, a servant hurried in to inform Xinleila that the visitor was Saint Canon candidate Eno.
Xinleila nodded coolly, granting Eno permission to enter.
Then, a young girl, whose temperament was entirely different from Xinleila’s, elegantly stepped into the room. In an instant, a sense of sanctity and tranquility washed over them, forcibly pushing aside the cold arrogance that had filled the space, and making everyone involuntarily look her way.
Eno still wore her pale blue hair down, dressed in a white priest’s dress and pure white boots.
The gilded trimming of her priest’s dress gave her an aura of religious solemnity, while the platinum iris hair ornament on her side braid made her appear even more approachable.
Every move exuded courtesy and refinement.
Her smiling, delicate features were like the warm sun in spring, brightening the entire room.
On the other side was Xinleila, dressed in a deep red formal gown, silent as a dark moon, as if from a completely different world.
Eno was clearly accustomed to being the center of attention.
She passed through the servants directly and came to stand beside Lulumiya.
“Sorry I’m late. The Cardinal’s side delayed me far too long. You haven’t finished yet, have you?”
“No, Eno-sis, you’re here just in time.”
Unlike her earlier tone when sparring with Lain, Lulumiya adopted a cute, childlike air as she introduced Eno.
“This is Her Highness, the Fourth Princess.”
“I am Eno, Saint Canon candidate of the Istelle Church, Geffen Diocese. I have long heard of Your Highness the Fourth Princess’s reputation. Seeing you today, you are indeed as beautiful as the world says.”
“Mm.”
The Fourth Princess closed her folding fan and nodded slightly.
“Xinleila Sienheim Atenasheim Shelun, Seventh Princess of the Therran Empire, Fourth Princess of the Ouenheim Holy Nation.”
She sized up Eno from head to toe, a faint trace of surprise flickering in her deep red eyes, but she said no more.
Eno smiled and continued, “Sorry to interrupt. I am Lulumiya’s master, and I have the right to know about today’s affairs. Please, everyone, continue. Lulumiya, begin.”
“Mm, understood.”
Lulumiya cleared her throat.
“Your Highness the Fourth Princess already pointed out the flaw earlier, and I’ve long since thought of a solution. The method I just showed, using an entire wooden board as a template, I call ‘Block Printing’. It does indeed have the problems of being cumbersome to make and impossible to revise. But if I break up the characters on the template into individual pieces, this flaw is resolved.”
As she spoke, Lulumiya took back the wooden board from the typesetting table and instead unfastened a cloth pouch hanging from her waist, which was filled with many wooden blocks the size of a thumbnail.
These were type molds processed by the father-and-son duo Shaun, already good enough for use.
When Lulumiya went to inspect them this morning, Shaun and Cooper both had heavy dark circles under their eyes.
Shaun was still finishing up the last smoothing on Cooper’s block—thank goodness there weren’t many words on the first page of the Istelle Church doctrine, or Cooper could never have managed to carve it all in just an afternoon and a night.
Following the content of the first page of the Istelle Church doctrine, Lulumiya arranged the type molds in order on the typesetting table.
Although Cooper had only prepared enough molds to make the first few sentences, that was already sufficient for Lulumiya.
She once again directed the servants to repeat the previous process: apply ink evenly to the molds, lay down white paper, push the typesetting table into the printing press, and finally have the servant pull the long lever to print the ink onto the paper.
Lulumiya was not finished yet. She pulled the typesetting table out again, rearranged the type molds according to the opening history of the Ouenheim Holy Nation, and printed another page.
Two sheets of printed paper were presented to everyone.
The characters on both pages were neat and clear.
Lulumiya could barely suppress the smile on her lips.
She had the servant pick up the pages and display them in turn for the Fourth Princess and everyone else in the room to see.
“I call this printing method ‘Movable Type Printing’. It perfectly solves the problem of not being able to revise text, and the block’s heavy, hard-to-store, hard-to-carry defects. The type molds can be reused. As long as a typesetter who can read arranges them as desired, you can print any content you want.”
“Although I’ve only shown a few sentences to Your Highness the Fourth Princess, that’s just because time was tight and I couldn’t make more type molds. If given enough time, the results could be exactly the same as with Block Printing.”
“Compared to tedious and time-consuming hand copying, where a single mistake means starting over, printing wins by far in both efficiency and accuracy. With this, the cost of producing a book will be greatly reduced, and the Church can spread doctrinal classics to even more distant places. Even ordinary people will be able to collect a Saint Canon in their homes—something they could never have afforded before.”
Lulumiya glanced around the room.
Although some servants still looked puzzled, Lain’s face was already very grim.
This proved she’d achieved her goal—Lain had already seen the advantages of Movable Type Printing.
Her smile grew wider.
“Your Highness the Fourth Princess, what do you think? With this technique, far more books can be produced, and all sorts of precious classics will be free from the fate of being one-of-a-kind.”
“This isn’t worth much.”
Lain, bleeding inside, still wouldn’t give up. He pointed at the page printed by Movable Type Printing.
“The spacing between these letters is uneven—it’s like something written by a child who just learned to write. The hand-copied versions look much smoother. No noble would like something this crude.”
Just as Lain said, because Cooper had no idea what printing was supposed to look like, he simply carved the letters onto the wooden blocks without further thought.
This led to uneven spacing in the printed letters.
The Ouenheim Language wasn’t a pictographic script like Chinese, but a phonetic script, like Russian or English, using letters to form words.
So if the physical space between letters is inconsistent—like turning “world” into “w o r l d”—it becomes much harder to read, especially in a long passage where the letters of words all run together, creating a reading nightmare.
That is to say, Movable Type Printing required visual uniformity.
A normal person’s handwriting would have some connecting strokes, with letters in the same word placed close together.
But what Lulumiya had just demonstrated—with uneven spacing between letters in the same word—would be nearly unreadable to ordinary people.
That explained why the servants were bewildered.
In fact, not only the servants—even Eno tilted her head, unable to understand what Lulumiya was trying to convey.
“But that’s not a problem.”
Lulumiya wasn’t fazed, confidently explaining to everyone.
“The cause of the issue isn’t me, but you, President Lain. I did take your concern into account. It was only because you gave me such a tight deadline that I couldn’t make further improvements. In fact, making the printed pages as neat as handwritten manuscripts is very simple.”
She raised a type mold and wiped the ink from it.
“I never said there had to be only one letter per type mold. If we want the text to look like handwriting, we just need to make a small modification: use combination molds that group frequently joined letters together.”
“Next, refine the single-letter type molds. When making them, make the narrow and thin letters a bit wider, and the wider letters a bit narrower.”
“Combine the two, and you can eliminate the gaps between letters, making the printed text almost identical to handwritten manuscripts.”
Take English for example: combination molds would group common pairs like “de,” “be,” or “us” onto one mold.
As for adjusting the single-letter molds, it would mean thickening slender letters like “i,” “l,” or “n,” and narrowing wide letters like “o,” “c,” or “e.”
That way, the flow between letters is preserved and the printed result matches handwriting.
If only there were a blackboard, Lulumiya would have written out examples to show it clearly.
“Nonsense. Ask anyone else here—do they even understand what you’re saying?”
Now that Lain realized this technique should have been his, he felt as though a piece of his heart had been ripped away, and kept trying to devalue it.
But Lulumiya responded simply with a shrug.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand. At most, give me a month, and I’ll show you the value of the printing press with real examples. The long-term profits it can generate are definitely worth far more than five thousand gold coins.”
Lulumiya really wanted to strike while the iron was hot and ask Lain if he dared to bet with her, but unfortunately, she didn’t have a penny to her name and had nothing to wager.
“What does Your Highness the Fourth Princess think?”
Turning her gaze to Xinleila, Lulumiya began to worry.
She knew that just talking about her improvements was rather abstract, but time was too short.
She’d need a few more weeks to perfect her press and show the final product.
Xinleila didn’t speak.
With a calm face, she walked over to the servant holding the pages, scanning them with her deep gaze.
After a moment, she finally spoke in a lazy tone, her manner suggesting indifference.
“The idea is good, but the ink is too poor—the characters are blurry. If you can fix those two flaws as well, it’ll be a good thing.”
She’d gained recognition.
Lulumiya was overjoyed.
Her efforts hadn’t been in vain.
As long as she had approval, everything else would be easier.
“But I have a more important question—”
Xinleila suddenly paused, her deep red eyes boring straight into Lulumiya.
In that instant, Lulumiya felt a sense of exposure, as if her very soul were laid bare before the Fourth Princess’s burning gaze.
She even found herself breathing more cautiously.
If she had to describe it, she’d say it felt much like locking eyes with Eno in her vampire form.
Xinleila’s tone abruptly turned cold, her words sharp as a sword at Lulumiya’s throat.
“Can this technique be used to make Magical Books or magic scrolls?”
For a moment, Lulumiya’s pupils shrank, an inexplicable chill wrapping around her whole body.
She’d never considered that question.
Now, with the Fourth Princess pointing it out, she instantly sensed the hidden danger.
If printing technology could be used to mass-produce Magical Books and magic scrolls, the threshold for ordinary people to use magic would be dramatically lowered, and the entire structure of the world would change.
It would be nothing short of triggering a magical revolution in this other world.
As the person who started the revolution, she would inevitably be drawn in.
Too naïve.
“I don’t think it’s possible.”
Xinleila replied coolly, a faint smile curling her lips as she opened her folding fan and said leisurely, “Making Magical Books and magic scrolls requires Magic Power. Without both Magic Power and Spiritual Power, what you make is just waste paper—a mere mechanical process can’t solve it.”
“Everyone in Ouenheim knows I love books, but they don’t know I love Magical Books. Your invention can make money, but it’s still not enough to interest me.”
The more Xinleila spoke, the more anxious Lulumiya felt.
The more nervous Lulumiya became, the more satisfied Xinleila seemed, as she slowly walked up and squatted in front of Lulumiya.
“But since you showed me something decent, I’ll let you off for now. However… why are you different from before? You weren’t like this previously.”
Within those deep red eyes lurked a predatory intent, as if she could swallow Lulumiya whole.
Xinleila stared intently into Lulumiya’s eyes, searching for the slightest clue.
“…Who are you?”