5 RNG: Texan In Another World - V1.5 - Growth (1/2)

The Plans for his laboratory were actually fairly simple. What Mike needed was to remove the roof from the building, create drains and build a water tower. He already knew how to make water filters from high school projects that were constantly shoved down his throat during his youth.

The roof was replaced with a set of retractable sails that, when pulled tight would cut the light off from the outside. The hours of the world were close, but Mike wasn't sure about the times exactly. That was one of the reasons why he had been looking for a clock maker.

'It would probably be a good idea to get a good door lock for the Lab. I wonder how advanced locks are in this world.'

Every day he would go check on Plants, he had only planted the two times. The first seed that he planted near the Magistrate office was already a foot an half tall, The light was significant enough to keep the inter-nodal length down to just under 3 inches. Mike couldn't see any nutrient deficiencies or curling.

The second plant in the planter had all three seeds sprout. They grew in opposite directions but didn't bump into each other. Mike was worried that he would run into spacing problems that could lead to mildew or prominent spots for bugs to hide, but he couldn't find any bug nearby which left Mike a bit confused.

Asking a guard nearby Mike found the answer rather quickly. There was a barrier around the city that kept bugs out with sonics that barely registered for the Poocha. Mike took note of it and went to the market square for a bit to look at other products that the people were making.

Mike eventually found what looked like a make shift art gallery. There were carvings of all manner of beast laying about and paintings stacked against the walls. Noticing a bucket of paintbrushes, Mike grabbed one that looked unused.

”Do you have any more of these, I'll need about 20.” It was a tall order indeed.

The Shop owner hand crafted everything in the shop. Paintbrushes required banding, glues, and most importantly bristles. The only source for bristles that were in season were the wild pigs outside of the city.

”Send the bill to Prince Troeg, here is a deposit.”

Mike dropped three gold coins on the table and continued down the road with his paintbrush in hand.

”These aren't bad” Mike whispered to himself as he roamed the stalls.

Occasionally he would find something interesting. When he finally reached one shop he saw a Telescope and nearly fell on his ass.

”I'll take this, do you have any more?” Mike pleaded with the shop owner and eventually got him to sell his lenses. Mike had an idea for a Jewelers loop to help him determine a better bloom harvest schedule.

He also had a few solutions to the bad locks that were currently attached to the building, but Troeg was paying the bill. Mike had carpenters and blacksmiths working day and night for almost a month. He had wanted a clock maker to come by and help him with timers to open and close the light barrier. If he could get it to where it was somewhat automated, he wouldn't even have to rely on a staff to bring contamination into his grow.

Prince Troeg managed to find the glass blower that made the lenses for the telescope and set him to make the flasks and tubing for isolation. Mike needed a super cooled liquid gas to separate the good stuff from the plant matter, but creating Butane was another story all together.

Mike wasn't into chemical businesses like the Oil companies, His grandfather had worked on Wells, but Crude oil was a far cry from Quality Butane. Kicking himself for not paying more attention to late night television documentaries, Mike decided to look for other solutions. The method would have to change a bit, but The desired outcome was a different story.

Mike didn't have a lot of opportunities to screw up. He could always make Basic Essential Oil extracts or teach people to bake. He put a pin in the idea and went back to supervising the construction and layout.

Every now and then, the Glass blower would ask for specifics. Mike had him making beakers and test tubes, spiral tubes and condensers. His biggest issues with making essential oils with ethanol or whatever high temperature alcohol these people had was that they wouldn't be able to screen it properly. The netting and fine wire they could produce was a mess at the best of times.

Most of the time when Mike would do an extraction, he would use a .45 micron screen. But these people didn't even know the word. After some thought, he remembered hippies making mushroom tea.

'Coffee Filters!' The idea suddenly came into his head.

Mike knew he'd lose a lot during the filtering process if he used hand made coffee filters, but it would probably be the best he could do. The parchment that was used for the books was about the right thickness. Mike would have to do a few experiments when the time comes to be sure about the removal of particulates but it was at least plausible.

The glass blower made a storehouse for replacement parts that numbered in the hundreds, he had to make a few different versions of things in case they needed to be changed out or adjusted.

The blacksmiths had created the railing system for the drying room, it was set up just like a winery. There were racks and rows of stands to hang cut plants on. Because half of the building was located underground, the average temperature in the dry room was a nice cool 68. Mike really had to appreciate cheap gas station toys. He had a few really useful items that were just laying around in his truck.

He had a thermometer/hydrometer combo that sat on his stash buckets in the truck. He had four of them with sensors, so he removed one and used it for testing the environment. There was enough airflow with the top removed from the building, during the night cool air would keep the humidity to a low as long as they didn't water too early in the night.

It was always better to water in the morning before the sun came out. That way the plant wouldn't get the chills and go purple, the wrong way. Anandamide was an excellent thing to have present in plants, Grand Daddy Purp was one of the first to be recognized for its high levels, but If a plant is subjected to regular colder than average temperatures, I could easily bruise itself purple tints. It was somewhat rare to find a strain of purple.

Mike sat down and took another Dab in his office. He setup a pulley system with a fan on the roof to power a fan in his office. Albeit a bit crude, Mike found himself relaxed in only a moment after taking his first hit of the day.

”Nestebaha!” Mike blew out his hit and praised the first release of his day. After fighting in the Middle East, Mike had gone over to Egypt to see the culture from the other side. What he found was a bunch of poor people who didn't care that they were poor, they cared that they were sick.

Many of the population did whatever they could to dull the pain, giving rise to some of the earliest forms of Hash. Mike was successful in getting some Hash plant seeds, but the Bongo from Alexandria was terrible in comparison to modern cultivated plants. For a while Mike collected seeds, His seed collection was impressive enough but it wasn't with him when he came to on this world.