The Shaft Furnace
The Shaft Furnace
Roland performed a series of tests after this discovery.
The test results had highly pleased him. Perhaps she had been influenced by the concept that the longer a painting could be preserved, the better it would be, and therefore, the photo-like painting she had drawn before had the advantage that the painting could hardly be erased unless its carrier was destroyed. Unexpectedly, the evolved ability shaped the advantage to a new level.
First of all, the special "pigments", which were highly adhesive and light performed two distinct features in physical properties. When they were working on a painting, they could change their flexibility according to different objects. For example, when painting the sky or the clouds, it would soften like the cotton candy and had a very high resistance to extension and cutting. When painting something like iron ingots or glass, it turned hard, brittle and could easily be broken by hammers. In other words, due to its special quality, it performed better in flexibility than rigidity, matching Soraya's understanding of the pigments.
Second, no matter which features it performed, its chemical properties were very stable. It not only was unable to react with the diluted sulfuric acid or diluted nitric acid but also repelled the water and oil. When he filled a painted box with water, the thin bottom of the box did not leak. After pouring off the water, he could see the clear droplets rolling within the box, like dews on a lotus leaf. The bottom of the box was dry when he touched it.
As Anna dropped the molten iron into the painted box in the high-temperature resistant test, the paper, which was the carrier, suddenly caught on fire, but yet the coating did not change much except being slightly swelled by the molten iron. When Anna's Blackfire continued heating up the coating, it began to melt and deform while emitting white smoke, and finally turned into a mass of black jelly.
What had excited Roland most was that the coating was also insoluble. The copper wire covered by the coating looked just like enameled wire in the modern world. He had proved this point with the simply equipped DC generator in the compound.
At this point, Roland could comprehensively understand Soraya's new ability.
Unlike Anna whose evolved Blackfire had completely surpassed the initial green flames, it seemed that Soraya had extended her ability of painting after evolving. Now she could draw virtual "oil paintings" as well as thin "photo-paintings", which depended solely on the idea in her mind. Most of all, both abilities could be used at the same time.
In addition, when creating virtual paintings with the thickness thinner than one centimeter, Soraya could keep painting for hours without any rest. Yet, when the thickness was thicker than three centimeters, the painting would consume magic power much more quickly. As long as the thickness reached 10 centimeters, which was a threshold, she would run out of all of her power in one or two strokes. Of course, to think it in another way, it could be view as the most effective way to drain her power when the bite of magic power came.
The ability was still a summoning type of skill. As soon as the magic pen entered the effective range of a God's Stone of Retaliation, it would disappear abruptly. Meanwhile, Soraya would not be able to continue the painting. But the God's Stone of Retaliation could not affect the finished coating. According to what Nightingale had observed when she was in the Mist, there was no trace of magic retained on the coating—in other words, the materials created by the magic pen were real.
As for the application of the coating... It was too much. Soraya would never expect what enormous change her new ability was going to bring to the town. It meant that Roland would soon get a number of water pipes with rust preventive coating and a large bundle of enameled wires, or even heat-resistant fire-proofing tiles. Three supplies projects (water, electricity, and access) which had seemed out of reach before, had become accessible.
At the same time, it warned him that any knowledge learned from personal experience was more profound than that from books.
If he could let the witches see the micro-world more intuitively, would it accelerate their acceptance of particle theory and lead to a new round of evolution? Such as... a microscope that could be used to observe cell structures and microbes.
Roland felt it was necessary to try something.
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The North Slope Mine Kiln.
"Pump! Make the fire burn brighter!" Lesya shouted.
Although he could not see anything inside the shaft furnace, the stones should have been burned red as three carts of charcoal were added in.
When Lesya had come to Border Town called by a letter from Karl Van Bate, he had thought it was a desolate barren land. He would never go to the border of the kingdom to pick up his former career if it was not written that Mason Guild would be reborn at Border Town.
After packing up his things and saying goodbye to the family, he had prepared for the worst like drinking gruel and living in tents. He would be willing to accept a situation that was lacking in men and funding as those problems were common in construction.
Lesya hadn't intended to stay in Border Town for long, and a chance to see his very old friend Karl and other colleagues who had been exiled or lived in seclusion would be enough to make him content.
But the fact was that it was a fantasy.
After Lesya arrived the dock of the town by boat, he saw Karl Van Bate, an excellent mason of Graycastle as well as a strong contender for the next leader of the Mason Guild. Compared to how he looked in Lesya's memory, Karl looked stronger rather than thinner, and his face looked glossy, despite the fact that his sideburns had gone gray and he had more wrinkles.
After the greeting, instead of taking him to the tumultuous construction site, Karl led him to a clearly new-built residential building and handed over a key, saying, "This is your house now. Put down the luggage before we go to the tavern and grab a good drink."
... After that, Lesya heard a series of incredible stories from Karl.
The lord had recruited Karl, a civilian, into the City Hall and appointed him as the supervisor of the construction department as an official with a regular monthly salary!
If I stay, I can work at the City Hall like him!
And free housing!
After working for 10 years, I can get a retirement allowance! What's a retirement allowance? Something that means I don't have to work to get the money!
Lesya had thought Karl was drunk, but it turned out... what he had said was true.
"My lord, the ores are melting. I can see the iron liquid flow!" the worker on the top of the furnace shouted.
"Open the slag outlet to deslag!"
After he started the work, the troubles that Lesya had expected did not appear at all. Whatever he demanded, the money or the men, the superior fulfilled his demands very soon. They often gave the answer the day after he submitted the application. Furthermore, the town produced an alchemical material called cement that could adhere bricks quickly which significantly fueled the construction speed. Unexpectedly, he felt so carefree here—a feeling that he had never experienced before.
In no more than a month, Lesya had built up five furnaces with bellows, and three shaft furnaces for ironmaking.
Now in front of him stood a shaft furnace which was a design he had worked for many years after he left Mason Guild. The work was built on years of experience. Before the construction of the designed shaft furnace really began, he had always expected that the design would have been handed down on paper.
This improved shaft furnace was two meters tall with the inner diameter 75 centimeters long. There were a number of inlets in the lower part of the furnace for pumping air or drawing in air. A slag outlet and iron liquid outlet was set at the bottom. A sand slope was built up beside the shaft furnace for the workers to feed in materials and observe the burning situation.
Today the first shaft furnace would be formally put to use, and before the start, they had to do the regular examination of the smelting.
After they intermittently opened the slag outlet more than ten times and fed in two carts of charcoal, the examination was passed. There was iron liquid covering the bottom of the furnace now and the slag outlet was unhindered. Meanwhile, since the temperature was high enough to melt the iron, there was no need to waste any more charcoal to keep the fire going. In order to cut the cost, they used the waste ores stacked in the corner of the stockyard to do the tested melting every time the furnaces started.
They opened the outlet to discharge the melted iron liquid, and Lesya announced to shut down the furnace.
…
Two days later, the townspeople found some dark black stones when they were cleaning the furnace. All of the waste ores melted and shrunk greatly in high-temperature except those black ores which not only were unchanged but also had a sleeker surface and had become as dark as ink after going in.
Even Lesya could not tell what kind of ore they were. From their shapes and looks, they did not look like useless waste ores, but yet supposing that they were useful, how could he made them into products if they could not be melted. After thinking for a while, he picked up the squarest one and wrapped it up before ordering his men to send it to Roland Wimbledon, the Lord of Border Town, in the castle.
Perhaps his well-informed lord knew the answer.