Cthulhu Gonfalon

Chapter 308: Chapter 18

Inside the black forest, there came another earth-shaking noise. Flames along with countless rubble and iron slags were splashing everywhere.

Sui Xiong jumped into the river nearby and sighed as he heard the sizzling of the hot rubble and iron slags coming into contact with the cold water.

“So many times I’ve failed!”

He looked at the explosion site. The ground was in complete chaos. The scattered stone mud mixed with iron peat and iron slags was the result of his “iron-making blast furnace.”

“What on earth is wrong with it?”

After so many failures, even an art student could sense that something was wrong. Sui Xiong dared to bet on his morality that his iron-making blast furnace technology must have some fatal defects or maybe there were some mistakes in the key link. But he thought it over and over again and still didn’t know where the mistakes were.

Iron ore reacted with coal at high temperatures, reducing the combined iron to iron atoms—he remembered that from high school chemistry.

Although Sui Xiong was an art student, he was also formally admitted to a university. The oxidation-reduction reaction was a key point in high school chemistry. How could he forget it all?

But… Why did it go wrong?

Iron ore, coal, and high temperatures—he had them all. And in order to make them react fully, he specifically blended the iron ore and coal evenly. He practically ground and mixed them together.

But why did it end up burning and exploding? What was the problem?

Sui Xiong was not an ignorant man nor did he make the iron without any preparations. Before he started, he also went to the blacksmith’s shop to inquire about and observe iron-making technology.

The iron-making technology in this world was roughly like this: Mix mud and straw to build a furnace with an elliptical barrel and a short chimney; there would be two air intakes and one iron slag outlet under the furnace. Then the iron ore and charcoal were stacked layer by layer and ignited slowly. At the same time, they were also added in slowly layer by layer.

This was a very slow process that would produce a lot of useless iron slags. It took a long time to fill the iron blocks with holes. Then these iron blocks were burned and slowly forged in a forging furnace. Finally, the bubbles and impurities of these iron blocks were removed, and the actual iron was obtained after that.

Generally speaking, this method was inefficient and cost a lot of manpower and material resources. So the iron price in this world was very expensive; even goods made of iron were also very expensive.

In fact, bronze was still widely used in many parts of the world.

Of course, there was also a solution to such a problem in this magical world—that was the magic furnace.

Magic could produce amazing heat that could burn the iron ore. By adding reducing agents to it, the molten iron could be obtained smoothly, and then pig iron could be obtained. Next, by adding carbon into it to re-forge, the wrought iron could be obtained, and finally, steel could be obtained by mixing the pig iron and wrought iron.

This method of iron-making was very efficient, and the quality of the iron produced was also very good, but it would cost too much money.

The cost of a magic furnace was staggeringly high, and several magicians were also needed to assist in the operation. In addition, more precious magic crystals would be consumed. Once a furnace was opened, hundreds of gold coins would be thrown away regardless of success or failure.

As a result, the price of steel was still very high while its output was very low.

The Church of the Goddess of Wealth once calculated that under the existing conditions, the iron-making method with the lowest cost was that of a high-level magician using “plane travel” magic to search for pure iron veins on the earth plane…

Sui Xiong also learned that the dwarfs inherited a special spell which could raise the temperature of magma. This high temperature could melt the iron ore, and then the molten iron was extracted from it directly by using a secret magic technique.

The ingot iron obtained by this method was known as “dwarven steel” or “lava ingot.” It was the most advanced steel among all the known steels.

The output of this kind of steel was also the lowest.

Firstly, it was very hard to find good lava, and even if the proper lava was found, there were few masters who could cast the special spells. Even for most dwarfs, this spell was only an ancient legend, and no one has ever seen it.

If there weren’t any dwarven steel products in the world, many people would have doubted whether it was just a legend or not.

Sui Xiong’s plan was to develop low-cost and efficient iron-making technology. In his impression, even in the backwards areas of the earth, steel was absolutely not rare. Weren’t third world countries using machetes?

Of course, Sui Xiong certainly didn’t know that all these machetes were actually “made in China.”

But developing such technology wasn’t easy!

Sui Xiong sighed deeply, flew out of the river and then reinvented his magic to build the blast furnace.

“The explosion was due to poor ventilation. I should increase ventilation…”

Obviously, this experiment had to be continued.

This experiment may have a great impact on the future development of the world, but Sui Xiong who was presiding over this experiment was actually only a battle avatar. His noumenon remained in the “sanctuary” of the kingdom of God.

“Auscar, are you going to hatch eggs?” Javier asked with a smile as he looked at Sui Xiong who was lying on the ground motionless. “It’s strange that hens lay eggs under their bodies while you lay eggs on top of your head!”

Sui Xiong also couldn’t help but laugh and said, “This is not an egg. Have you ever seen a god that could hatch an egg?”

Sui Xiong was lying on the ground, and his body became a concave, circular, tray-like shape. In the center of the tray, a white cocoon was steadily placed in it. From the bottom of the tray, strong Divine Power was constantly flowing into it. Dozens of tentacles were connected to the light cocoon which fixed, guided and fine-tuned the Divine Power.

No one could see clearly what was inside because the light cocoon was opaque. In fact, even if you could see clearly, it was useless because there was only chaos in it at present and nothing was shaped.

What was inside the light cocoon was the “Love Angel” who was swallowed up by Sui Xiong when he attacked Cloud City.

The predecessor of the Love Angel was the God of Healing, who was very good at healing and had taken it as her clergy. But the god always had bad luck and fell into the hands of the Sun God, who had taken her priesthood and transformed her into an Angel.

Sui Xiong had swallowed her up and gotten the legacy of the Sun God. Therefore, he constructed such a system, taking himself as the biochemical modulation tank of the evil doctor and trying to return the Love Angel to her original clergy. This would turn her into the God of Healing again.

It seemed to be an easy thing that could be done in just a few words, but it was actually extremely difficult to do. He failed several times in the beginning, and the Love Angel was blown up into chaotic fragments. Fortunately, he had made some preparations beforehand and had wrapped the Love Angel in the light cocoon. The materials were not depleted no matter how many times it exploded or failed, and he could still continue to work hard and try to improve it in the direction he wanted.

But even if the materials were not depleted, his spirit and energy would be. After all, if the light cocoon could be regarded as a machine and the Love Angel inside the machine was a material that could not be damaged, the Divine Power used as the mechanical power and the energy required to control the machine would inevitably be depleted.

Therefore, Sui Xiong would take a break every once in a while to relax himself. At the same time, he summarized his previous research experience so as to start the next stage of the experiment.

“How long are you going to spend on the experiment?” Morani asked curiously. “It seems that you are going to spend quite a long time.”

“Three days is not short and a hundred years is not long,” Sui Xiong smiled and said. “Anyway, this is the most important work for me in the next few years. When she is transformed successfully, I will add a nurse to our team, and it will be the end of my work.”

“That will take a long time… I’ve been looking for someone to inquire about this. I’m afraid that thousands of years have passed since the Love Angel first reappeared after the Sun God caught the God of Healing,” Javier said.

Sui Xiong sighed and said reluctantly, “Actually, I’ve been riding a tiger now. If I stop debugging, the divinity and Divine Power of the Love Angel will be depleted by a lot, and the possibility of success next time will be greatly reduced. So even if it takes me more time, I’ll just stick to it until I succeed.”

“And… In fact, this debugging work can also benefit me,” he continued. “In the process of debugging, I also learned a lot of things and summed up many valuable experiences. So even if the experiment lasts for a long time, it’s not a waste of time.”

His friends suddenly realized whether he succeeded or not, Sui Xiong could also achieve great achievements. No wonder Sui Xiong had been working hard all this time with no intention of giving up.

Sui Xiong rested for a while and then began to drive the magic power in. He used soul power to control the magic gently and tried to reconcile the chaotic divinity in the light cocoon in order to form a complete structure.

Of course, this structure was not randomly arranged. It was necessary to combine them into the clergy of “therapy.”

This was extremely difficult, even if he had received information from the Sun God on the clergy of therapy. It was not easy to draw gourds.

There are many famous paintings in the world, but there are few painters who can copy them exactly like the original.

The information given to Sui Xiong by the Sun God was really all-encompassing and profound. It constituted a complete system of clergy, which could be used as a basis to construct a simple but at least a complete world. In addition, it contained almost all the domain knowledge of the known categories that could be gathered together into a professional, high-level encyclopedia fit only for a god.

However, Sui Xiong himself had not been able to use the encyclopedia freely.

It was not because his Divine Power was not strong but because he did not have sufficient knowledge.

Many things that were common for powerful gods like the Sun God, and those that were too simple to be explained needed to be studied and speculated by Sui Xiong himself. He could not understand them all at once.

But it was precisely for this reason that he could get more benefits from this information than through powerful Divine Powers such as Le Feng.

When the Sun God was dying, he copied several copies of his wisdom and experiences in one breath and entrusted them to all the powerful gods or potential masters whom he thought might threaten the God of Light. Among them, the main gods of the following holy pedigree, such as the Orcs, natural gods, and war gods, were better than the Sun God. Even if they were not as strong as the Sun God, they could still compete with him and were better than the Sun God in their own areas of expertise. For them, this information may just be a supplement to the minor issues they did not care about, or it may just provide some valuable ideas on some of the minor difficulties, that’s all.

Like them, everyone who was strong enough already had their own way. No matter what benefits they might get, they could never change their way.

As the saying went, “If I imitate your dragon as a snake, you imitate my Phoenix as a crow.” Every strong man had their own understanding of the world and their own conception and pursuit of the way ahead. The Sun God had just stepped up one more level than them, and finally, he was defeated by the God of Light, proving that this step was wrong. In this case, how could powerful gods rely so much on this indecipherable information?

But Sui Xiong was different. Although he knew a lot about domains and powers, he was still the lowest god. The information given to him by the Sun God was like a complete set of scientific and technological materials for a new, poor country with a lot of precious experimental data. Although this information may not be completely correct, at least it was the most complete and informative piece in the world.

After obtaining such a set of information, the next step was to learn and understand gradually according to their actual situation, integrating it and enhancing their strength.

If one day Sui Xiong could learn all the materials that the Sun God had given him, he would surely have stepped into the level of a powerful divine and could pursue the realm of “great Divine Power” on his own.

Perhaps, all the copies of information given by the Sun God were useless. The only copy that could fulfill the Sun God’s dying dream and bring troubles to the God of Light was the one sent to Sui Xiong, an insignificant jellyfish without even a clergy.

Maybe… after many years, Sui Xiong might really embark on the road of pursuing the highest level because of this information. There would inevitably be a dragon-and-tiger struggle between the God of Light and him.

Of course, this would be a long time from now. There were two most important things for Sui Xiong at hand: First, debug slowly and calmly in order to return the Love Angel to the God of Therapy as soon as possible, therefore adding a powerful nurse to their team. And second, seize the time to work hard and strive to complete the blast furnace research and development as soon as possible. This would thus open the territory of the iron and steel era and blow the horn of the industrial revolution!