Chapter 183 (1/2)

Chapter 183 The Township Construction Plan

“What is this?” Nightingale asked while looking at the black, shiny stone on the table.

“Obsidian.” Roland didn’t even raise his head a bit, entirely busy concentrating on drawing the blueprint.

“Ob… what kind of stone?”

“No, I was just speaking nonsense.” He sighed, slightly looking upwards at the shape and color of the stone, only the ghosts will know what this is, ah. After all, he wasn’t a geological engineer, even if he had a pure metal right in front of him, it still wasn’t guaranteed that he could distinguish it, even less by what the ore looked like.

The knowledge he had in his head only told him that most of the ores were a complex composition of compounds; different impurities gave them different colors. For example iron ore could be composed out of: hematite, pyrite, and siderite, which when looking only at by using their outer appearance, seemed to be thousands of miles apart.

Especially pyrite, which would sometimes show a light yellow metallic luster, leading to the situation where it is often identified as gold, giving it the nickname, fool’s gold.

As for their heat-resistant… the compounds themselves didn’t have a fixed melting point, this was related to its impurities and its ingredients, so by using temperature alone, it still wasn’t possible to distinguish between all the different varieties. Furthermore, even if the metal elements existed in their ion state, as long as he didn’t know its purification method, the smelting would be useless.

“There actually exists something you do not know about?” Nightingale asked in astonishment.

“There are a lot of such things,” Roland put down his quill and made himself a cup of black tea, “do you want to drink something?”

“No,” she waved her hand to decline. “Ah! That’s right, beef jerky isn’t as delicious as salted fish, it would be better if you put some salted fish into the drawer later.”

“…” For a moment Roland was silent, then he decided it would be for the best if he pretended not to have heard her.

Regarding the stone, he intended to give it to Kyle Sichi and let him deal with it. After all, minerals were radioactive to some extent, so placing them in his office just so they could serve as decoration wasn’t a very good choice.

Recently, after Soraya’s ability had evolved, he had suddenly discovered that there were a lot of new things he could now create.

The first of which would be a tap water system, which would greatly enhance the standard of living for the residents. Just thinking about what it would be like if he was one of the residents, who came home covered in sweat after a busy day: but when the they wanted to clean their sticky bodies and they happen to discover that the water tank was empty which meant they would have to go to the next well to fetch some water, this kind of feeling had to be bad.

Moreover, Roland was very tired of the process of always having to get a jar of water when he wanted to wash his face or wash his hands. In addition, he always got the feeling that there would be some parasites growing within the water after a few days spent inside the tank; not to mention that water tank was rarely ever cleaned even once each month. And when he took a closer look, over the sediment at the bottom of the water tank he could also see some caterpillars like creatures flowing.

In case they used a water tower for their water supply, there would be no additional technical difficulties. They could just use a steam engine to pump the water from Redwater River directly into the water tower, and from their they could rely on the siphon principle to let the water flow through the pipelines and into each house, with this they would have formed an infrastructure for an automatic water supply system. The reason why Roland hadn’t put it into practice until now was because… of the missing materials.

If they used water supply pipes made out of iron or copper, which didn’t have any anti-rust treatment, the pipes would be turned into scrap iron within a few years. Brass pipes were perfect for water supply pipes, they were corrosion-resistant, and their internal walls wouldn’t also become encrusted, they were non-toxic, and with their copper ions, they would also be sterile. But from which area should he take the money to produce these pipes? The output of the North Slope Mine was far from being sufficient to be used for luxury products. Even within later generations, high-grade copper water pipes were still considered as products only used within high-end residential areas.

At present Border Town was not only unable to export ore. They were even reliant on external sources to satisfy their demand. So, whether it were iron pipes or copper pipes, Roland was very reluctant to use them for something which didn’t give much benefit but was purely for his own enjoyment from getting a water supply system.

But now it was different, with Soraya’s coating magic he could make the piping out of thin air. With her magic, they could easily manufacture water pipes, for example by taking an iron pipe as a mold, wrapping it in paper and then have Soraya cover it in her coating. Afterward, they only had to take out the mold and they would get their pipe. Even if these kind of water pipes didn’t turn out to be pressure-resistant, it would be sufficient as long as the water pipes were placed in a covered ditch.

Second, would be the creation of a power supply system… He was afraid that there was no way to spread it over the whole town within a short time, but to let the castle shine in full light had always been something that Roland had wanted to achieve. Having to read books using the weak lighting of a candle wasn’t only too painful for the eyes, it also caused them great harm. Furthermore, the summer was coming up soon with its hot temperatures even during the nights. If they then also had to put on candles and torches, what kind of atmosphere would it then be?