Chapter 10: The Republic of Ascar

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The dispute between the pigment merchant and the client did not interest Felice, nor did she have time to marvel that Master Giovanni was not only an architect and sculptor but could also paint murals. What thrilled her most at that moment was the chance to witness firsthand the original process of making pigments.

To keep up with the times and for convenience in revision, Felice had largely abandoned hand-painting in favor of digital art since starting work.

But before digital art took the world by storm, she had spent many years working with pigments.

Thanks to advances in modern chemistry, dyes and pigments were quite affordable in her era.

Especially after entering university, the rise of computer hardware and painting software further reduced the cost of painting, allowing someone from an ordinary background like her to learn this skill purely out of passion.

Felice loved painting, naturally. Even though work often mingled her passion with pain, the habit ingrained over years had become second nature; doodling with a pen when bored was a form of muscle memory.

But in this harsh and difficult era, one misfortune after another left her no free time, let alone leisure to entertain herself.

Since awakening in this body, she hadn’t seen even a single book in reality; the only paper and writing she had encountered were her grandfather Massimo’s will.

Without paper or pen, she never expected to come across something as sophisticated as pigments—yet, by a twist of fate, she found herself watching the pigment-making process.

Overwhelmed with excitement, Felice suffered a rare sleepless night, tossing and turning in bed until past midnight.

Upon waking, she dressed quickly and hurried downstairs, her bright eyes fixed on the lady of the house, Isabella, as if fearing she might flee at a glance.

Isabella found this sudden enthusiasm from the “little shadow” both helpless and amusing—she could not fathom what about such a dull task could be so eagerly anticipated.

Making pigments was a required skill for every painter, a vital part of their livelihood, and normally not something shared casually with outsiders.

But the girl was young, and rather than fearing she might steal the technique, Isabella, as an adult, worried she would cause trouble during the pigment-making.

Felice’s determination to watch was so strong that Isabella finally relented, emphasizing repeatedly that she must not interfere, before allowing her to follow into the backyard.

Though she had imagined it, Felice still gasped quietly when Isabella produced several chunks of blue stones.

“Want to touch them?” Isabella smiled, pointing to the stones beside her, “Touch them now, or you won’t get another chance.”

Felice’s eyes brightened, but she was modest, only touching the smallest stone before withdrawing her hand obediently.

Her most commonly used paint had been acrylic.

Acrylics offered strong opacity, were more convenient than oil paints, and dried faster—most importantly, these modern industrial pigments were far cheaper than traditional oil and watercolor paints, making them beginner-friendly for those without wealth.

In her time, aside from watercolors which sometimes came solid, oil, gouache, and acrylic paints were mostly sold in tubes or jars, ready to use. Who would bother wondering how a tiny tube of paint was actually made?

Her knowledge that stones could be used to make pigments came from research while developing a game. Although the information was general—some pigments came from stones, others from plants or insects, ground up, mixed with various things, boiled, and dried into powder—the written descriptions had never been seen in action until now.

Step by step, the words on paper came alive through Isabella’s movements.

The woman first broke the blue mineral into smaller chunks, then placed them into a covered mortar, slowly crushing and pressing them with a pestle into finer grains.

The roughly ground particles were poured into a small stone mill’s trough, a little water added to prevent dust from flying, and the stone wheel pressed back and forth by hand until the particles became fine powder, which was then carefully collected and left to dry in the sun.

Though the quantity of mineral was not large and could not be finished at once, Felice’s hands already ached just from watching.

Seeing the sweat on Isabella’s brow and the slight swell of her belly, Felice offered to help, but was firmly declined.

“What can those little arms of yours do?” Isabella wiped her brow and waved her off. “If you find it boring, go play inside. There’s nothing interesting about this.”

Felice recognized this step was indeed tedious but shook her head and continued to watch the woman repeat the motions.

If only there were machines, she thought again. Even if not fully automatic, wind- or water-powered grinders would make the work much easier.

But knowing the rumored cost of this mineral, they probably wouldn’t use grain mills for it, either.

As Felice’s mind wandered, Isabella resumed crushing and grinding the mineral chunks in the empty mortar. Repeatedly, she worked until the church bell rang and the maid summoned them for lunch, still not having finished the first step.

After a brief rest, Isabella returned to grinding. Once all the stones were powdered, she sifted the dried powder several times, crushing the larger particles again until every bit was fine powder.

When the sun began to wane in the afternoon and the bell tolled, Isabella finally completed processing all the minerals.

Before starting dinner, she fetched a small pot from the storeroom and hung it over the fire, adding three kinds of semi-transparent yellow solids in sequence. Felice couldn’t identify them, but one’s scent suggested it was rosin.

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As the pot heated, the three gelatinous substances melted together.

When fully blended, Isabella gradually added the sifted lapis lazuli powder in batches, stirring until a paste formed, then poured it onto a clean linen cloth spread on a wooden board.

Felice watched as the woman kneaded the deep blue “dough” repeatedly, dividing it into several roughly equal “dough balls.” Thinking the process was complete, she was surprised to learn this was only the second step.

Those “blue doughs” were then left to rest for three days before Isabella began the third step.

By then, the cathedral’s construction had halted, no longer short of workers, and Master Giovanni had finally sent one of his apprentices to assist his wife in pigment-making.

“Too late to come now; I’ve done the hardest part already...” Isabella grumbled but did not waste the free labor.

She prepared three large bowls—two old glass ones of poor quality and a small, more casual wooden basin.

Pouring heated water into the bowls, she added some murky liquids Felice couldn’t identify, then handed the task to the young apprentice standing nearby.

This apprentice, called Mario, looked barely older than Felice’s body—twelve or thirteen at most—but already had years of experience.

He took over the work from Isabella without questions, coating his hands and forearms with oil before placing the “dough” in water to knead.

Unlike Isabella’s usual silence, Mario was talkative, unfazed by the child watching him closely, and soon the two struck up a lively conversation amid the tedious work.

Thanks to Mario’s open chatty nature, Felice finally learned what Master Giovanni had been occupied with since the cathedral’s suspension.

“...There was an earthquake last winter, right? The meeting hall was in session or something, and several chandeliers and candle holders fell, starting a fire. It was quickly put out, but many murals on the walls were damaged,” the boy panted as he kneaded, “Also, the bell tower... It was supposed to be finished before the Festival of Creation, but a part collapsed in the quake, killing someone...”

His voice suddenly stopped, and glancing at Felice, seemingly unaware, he cleared his throat before continuing.

“Anyway, Giovanni had given some advice on the bell tower’s construction. They asked him to check again and mentioned restoring the murals in the meeting hall. Those murals were Lorenzo’s last works — Giovanni has always admired him, so he jumped at the chance!”

Looking at the boy’s eyes shining with excitement, Felice understood he was likely a devotee of that master as well.

Unfortunately, her memory of art history was too vague to recognize that name—perhaps it had never been mentioned in class.

After all, numerous painters capable of leaving their names behind existed in history, not to mention countless anonymous artists. Even if a teacher tried to recount them all, the time allocated per person would be trivial.

Just like this young apprentice and his master Giovanni.

Being hired with a heavy sum to oversee the cathedral’s expansion surely made Giovanni one of the top architects of his era and region, yet his name meant nothing to her.

Was it that his lifetime achievements weren’t enough to be remembered centuries later? Or was she simply ignorant? Or perhaps none of this was real?

After all, it had been a week since Massimo’s death, and Felice was certain she had arrived at the dawn of the Black Death.

Yet despite knowing a plague had broken out, people around her went about their business with fewer outings but no widespread panic—vastly different from her knowledge of a plague that wiped out a third of the population in the West.

And the ghost who called himself Professor Palaeuso? He vanished after that day she overheard why she had been robbed. No other spirits had appeared since.

Could it all be a hallucination?

Had she finally been driven mad by work, leading to this vivid yet absurd dream?

How masochistic was she, to dream nothing but suffering?

Lost in these thoughts, the apprentice continued kneading silently.

Seeing Felice biting her finger in deep thought, the boy assumed the mention of the bell tower’s collapse and death had reminded her of her father’s passing. Embarrassed, he stopped chatting and focused on his task.

Kneading the “dough” made from lapis lazuli powder, beeswax, gum arabic, and rosin was laborious, mainly because of the time required.

Lapis lazuli powder was hydrophilic, while the impurities were hydrophobic. Continuous kneading allowed the pure lapis particles to enter the water, leaving the impurities in the “dough,” so the longer it was kneaded in the first bowl, the better.

Under Mario’s persistent kneading, the originally clear water in the bowl gradually turned deep blue.

After an unknown duration, he glanced up at the sky, moving the “dough” into the second bowl, kneading for about an hour before transferring it to the third small basin.

The blue concentration in the three vessels deepened progressively, the first bowl’s blue being the richest.

As time passed, the color settled, becoming the ultramarine Felice remembered so well.

Staring at that familiar, unparalleled hue, Felice was momentarily stunned.

Richer than cobalt blue, brighter than prussian blue, its intense saturation made it appear almost unnatural.

Perhaps its rarity in nature explained why such a pure color so easily captured the eye and had been prized since ancient times.

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“Isn’t it beautiful?” the apprentice, still kneading in the third bowl, smiled. “Treasure it well. This stuff is now more precious than gold. This might be the closest you get to it in your life!”

Felice ignored his words, moving closer to squat beside the bowls, silently watching the color slowly settle like mist.

“…What next? Just dry it?” she murmured after a long pause. “It’s already perfect…”

The apprentice wasn’t surprised by her naïveté, raising an eyebrow triumphantly.

“Not yet. First, you wait for the color to settle completely, pour off the clear water, then boil it to remove impurities, let it settle again, pour off water… It takes about three more days to remove all moisture and dry it into pigment powder.”

“And don’t be fooled by the amount of stone used—top-quality ultramarine powder is only one twenty-fifth the weight of the stone.”

He nodded toward the settled blue liquid in the first bowl, gesturing to the other two.

“The second and third grades don’t fetch high prices. Master Ambro probably wouldn’t want them. If he doesn’t want Giovanni, the latter will just keep them for himself…”

The boy’s voice faded with the afternoon bell, but Felice no longer paid attention.

A stirring deep in her blood and heart urged her to grasp this splendid, familiar blue.

Thrown into an unfamiliar world where illusion and reality blurred, she had cloaked herself in another’s skin for safety, drifting along.

But if safety meant erasing her original character and submitting to current rules, who was she then? The original Felice, or this merged Feliciana?

At that thought, her heart already knew the answer.

No one willingly becomes another. At least, she would not.

She had her own unchanging essence, her own pursuits—things she would hold onto no matter where or when, even if forgotten for a time, as long as a small flame appeared before her.

“……”

“If I want to paint, what must I do?”

Suddenly she raised her head, urgency clear in her voice. “If I want to use this pigment to paint… if I want to become a painter, must I first apprentice under a master?”

The apprentice, surprised by the sudden question, paused his kneading.

“To become a painter, you’d want an apprenticeship. But you…” He hesitated, then shook his head, “I’ve never heard of a master taking on a female apprentice, nor of any female painters…”

Seeing her eyes dim instantly, the boy awkwardly kicked his leg, offering clumsy consolation.

“That’s not work for women… If you really like it, you could marry a painter or a merchant, maybe you’d get to try…”

Though well-meaning, Felice didn’t want to hear more.

Just as she was about to turn away, a hoarse, unfamiliar laugh came from the courtyard gate.

“Since our birth, the Lord’s grace has been fairly given to all.”

“During harvest, women work alongside men in the fields; Asca’s monks also take part in wool combing and spinning. Since the Lord never distinguished professions by gender, there is no job a woman cannot do…”

The calm, measured voice caught both Felice and the apprentice’s attention.

Master Giovanni stood at the courtyard gate with an unfamiliar old man holding a wooden staff, dressed in a gray robe, wearing a kindly smile.

Felice’s first impression was simply: old.

Unlike the tall, upright Professor Palaeuso with his thick white beard, or the abbey’s prior, this gray-robed elder was thin and stooped, leaning heavily on his staff as if it alone kept him standing.

Drawing closer, more details emerged.

His thin robe appeared patched countless times, as if sewn from scraps of many fabrics. The dark skin visible beneath resembled winter’s dry bark; heavy eyelids obscured his eyes so well it was hard to tell if he was even looking.

“Of course, the secular world is full of prejudice, and it’s true that on the Enno Peninsula no female painters have appeared, but that does not mean you cannot learn to paint.”

“I know several convents have scriptoriums. Though smaller than monasteries’, some produce exquisite Books of Hours that even Queen Roland admires…”

The old man spoke slowly, stepping forward with the staff. His already bent back arched further as he reached the girl.

“Long time no see, Feliciana. May the Blessed Virgin keep you well,” the gray-robed elder smiled. “I am Brother Salvatore of Asia; I hope you still remember me.”