Smoke rose from the Neva like incense from a steel cathedral. The clanging of hammers echoed from the outskirts of St. Petersburg, where the first state-sanctioned foundries had begun their awakening.
Mikhail stood on a scaffold above one such factory—Zavod No. 1, the prototype industrial zone birthed from his blueprints. Coal furnaces belched heat. Rail spines stretched outward like veins.
He smiled, though soot stung his eyes.
[System Update: Industrialization Tier I Achieved – Access to Early Manufacturing, Weapon Prototypes, and Trade Efficiency Bonuses] [Innovation Points +80 | Resource Control: Steel, Coal, and Tools Unlocked]
He walked the floor with inspectors, quietly noting inefficiencies, suggesting layout changes, implementing rotating shifts and incentive bonuses—concepts lifted straight from his previous life.
He knew it wasn't just about machines.
It was about logistics.
He had already begun reworking the empire's chaotic river barge schedules. He negotiated with Baltic merchants and German toolmakers, disguising military-grade equipment as agricultural implements.
In a drafty war ministry hall, he unveiled the blueprint for what he called the Arktikon Rail Spine—a lightning-fast, single-track military rail network connecting Moscow, Kiev, Tsaritsyn, and eventually the Caucasus.
"We must be able to move an army in days," Mikhail said to skeptical generals. "Or die like Napoleon's ghosts."
But not all doubted.
Count Orlov backed the project. So did Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, a man obsessed with Prussian tactics.
Opposition stirred, too.
Sabotage in the Ural iron mines. Disappearances of loyal engineers. The mysterious collapse of a half-built locomotive prototype.
[System Warning: Sabotage Detected – Internal Threat Confirmed] [Initiate Investigation Protocols?]
Mikhail accepted.
Within a week, agents tracked the interference to Anya Vetrova—Catherine's own shadow.
But Catherine was gone. Left for Warsaw under the guise of expanding their reformist network.
He confronted Anya in a candlelit archive room.
"You tried to burn what I'm building."
"You're building a prison," she said, blade hidden behind her back. "With steel bars and smiling faces."
"You don't understand what's coming," he whispered. "You never did."
She lunged.
But Mikhail had trained. Not in swordsmanship—but in anticipation. He sidestepped, grabbed her wrist, disarmed her. Gently.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said.
"You already are."
She slipped away into the night.
[Character Departure: Anya Vetrova – Status: Rogue Agent | Faction Loyalty Lost] [Security Upgrades Unlocked | Sabotage Risk Lowered | Legacy Points +30]
That night, alone in his study, Mikhail penned a speech for the engineers of Zavod No. 1.
"We do not build for today," he wrote. "We build so that when the fire comes, Russia will have steel in its bones."
He signed it with his new name.
The Iron Tsar.