Chapter 52: The cult of Alex(2) (1/2)
Back when Hermes told that he should expand his realm of influence, Alex was perplexed on how to do so.
But then, he realized he could skip over 2 millenniums of history and technology and introduce an invention that would forever change how knowledge spread, and to the eyes of the mortals of this era, it would be nothing less than divine work.
In school back on Earth, Alex learned of a man by the name of Johannes Gutenberg. He was a german most well-known for the invention, or at least refinement, of the printing press with moveable type.
The printing press allowed for text material to be produced at an incredibly fast speed and books that were previously only accessible to the upper classes became common.
The influence this had on the rest of history, through democratizing knowledge and causing many repercussions centuries later, was nothing short of incredible.
Alex had one use in mind for the printing press, but after a few seconds of brainstorming that was only improved by Athena's Essence, he realized the printing press would not be fully appropriate for his desired use.
Therefore, he fast-forwarded 4 centuries later and focused his attention on the invention of the mechanical typewriter.
While the typewriter had much less output than the printing press, it was much more convenient as it allowed for unprecedented flexibility in writing, which was formerly restricted by the available metal types.
'How did they make typewriters, though?' Alex was perplexed.
After thinking further on it, however, he realized his typewriter only needed two features.
”It needs to be able to type letters onto paper, obviously.”
”And, it needs to be able to switch positions every time you type a letter.”
It would be a bit complicated, but Alex got an idea.
Through a complicated system of levers and strings, every time he would type on the letter of the keyboard, that he would hand-make, the mechanism would imprint his desired symbol on the paper and another lever would be responsible for moving the strings left-to-right, and top-to-bottom.
He was working with metal pieces, so to allow for that kind of flexibility, he needed to make the entire machine modular.
Athena excitedly agreed to help him and granted him all of her stock of string that she used for various applications.
As for the reasons why he was going through all of this hassle, it was all part of the first axiom of his plan for world domination.
His plan for consolidating his status as an Olympian god.*
He was going to write a book on various topics of the modern age, including medicine, health, politics, love and mental wellness, and propaganda for his cult.
He would print it out using the typewriter and assign a mortal to print more copies that would be spread among the upper classes, where rates of literacy were very high.
The information in the book would be elementary to Alex, concerning pasteurization and cures for common diseases, but these were all unknown to people of this era.
When the book and the typewriter, these revolutionary inventions are all attributed to him, Alex was sure he would gain a lot of devouts.
”I'm pretty sure it's a bit unethical to steal ideas from the modern world and use them to make a cult, but that's none of my concern.” Alex felt like a cartoon villain.
Over the following days, he attempted making the typewriter at a smaller scale just to see if his method worked.
He even invited Athena and Herms, who happily obliged to see the typewriter in action. Alex took a parchment he used when he was writing with Crista.
'I think Crista would love this invention...' Alex didn't forget how much she loved writing.
Under the questioning stares of two deities of Olympus, Alex typed on 'Alpha' the first letter of the Hellenic(Greek) script.
He then, accordingly, typed 'Beta'.
After that, he took out the paper, and there they were, two letters, imprinted in sharp strokes next to each other.
Athena and Hermes looked on with admiration and praised.
”Alexei-boy, you never cease to surprise me!”
”This is revolutionary, Alex...”
Since his prototype worked, Alex would now begin the work on the real deal.
The process took a whopping six days, but the results were nothing short of spectacular.
____________________________
(Typewriter)
Quality: Divine
State: Great
Additional Information: An invention far ahead of its time made by a craftsman with divine skills.
______________________________
Alex was extremely proud of himself.
This was something only he could make, through the combination of Hephaestus' incredible metalworking skills and Athena's thorough dexterity.
He got to write the first page of his book as soon as he finished.
He titled it ”Ways of Life from Alex of Olympus.”
In one chapter, he spoke of the first antibiotic, penicillin.