Chapter 77 — A New Furnace
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
"Well... if processed properly, perhaps they could serve as explosive-type magic items. For mages of ordinary strength like me and Rebecca, they would certainly be useful, and they could also be distributed to soldiers as auxiliary weapons," Hetty said, having stretched her imagination to its limit. "But beyond that, I can't think of anything else they could be used for."
Gao Yang looked at Hetty's slightly bewildered expression, opened his mouth, and found it hard to make her understand the picture taking shape in his mind.
Until one had seen with one's own eyes explosives blasting open mountains and the scenes of industrial mass production, no one living in the Middle Ages could possibly imagine such things.
So he simply did not explain, and instead raised the leather pouch in his hand. "I'll leave all these samples with you. Frankly, there aren't many, so try to determine their various properties before you use them all up, and while you're at it, test whether the 'detonation arrays' in the Gondorian crystals work on them. I'm going to find Rebecca and figure out just how that girl managed to produce these things."
Hetty accepted the leather pouch from Gao Yang's hand with the utmost care, then, as if something had occurred to her, she deliberately added: "Ancestor, Rebecca is a very hardworking child, but she has hardly ever been praised from childhood to now, so..."
"Don't worry, I'll praise her properly," Gao Yang laughed, pointing at the leather pouch in Hetty's hand. "I've even decided to call these crystals 'Rebecca Crystals'—if that girl can reproduce them."
Having said that, Gao Yang reminded Hetty once more to be extremely careful with safety and to take proper protective measures when testing the detonation arrays, and then left the magic laboratory.
And even after Gao Yang had left, Hetty still could not bring herself to voice what she truly thought. What she had actually meant was for Gao Yang to go easy when praising Rebecca—the child had never been praised by anyone growing up, and once someone did praise her, she might just leap right up into the sky...
But never mind. Since the Ancestor was so happy, she had best not spoil his mood.
Anyway, Rebecca was tough and optimistic; if she really did leap into the sky, a good beating would settle it...
After leaving the magic laboratory, Gao Yang went straight to the place where Rebecca had been attempting to fire cement, but found her gone. Only a few workers were in the kiln area, cleaning up the residue of failed batches, and upon inquiring he learned that Rebecca had already gone over to the "steelworks."
The foundational portion of the magic net had been completed, and the first furnace had entered its final installation stage; Rebecca had gone over early that morning to supervise.
Gao Yang inspected the waste residue cleared from the kiln, confirmed that no crystals were mixed in, and then set off for the "steelworks" on the east side of the camp—though at present only a framework had been erected.
The moment he arrived at this place, which not long ago had still been called the "blacksmith's shop," Gao Yang realized that handing this matter to Rebecca had indeed been the right decision.
The courtyard, once trenched with great gouges dug for laying the magic array, had now been properly leveled and compacted; on the tamped ground not a trace of the magic array could be seen. The only proof that an array was indeed buried beneath it was the neat rows of silver-white pillars rising from the courtyard's surface every dozen or so meters.
Those pillars were primitive magic sensors coated with a layer of mithril.
And apart from these "sensors" protruding a meter or so above the ground, Gao Yang also saw in the courtyard numerous neatly arranged stone slabs. These slabs were distributed among the sensor pillars at even intervals, but covered only half the courtyard.
On the surface of the slabs, glittering runes could be seen.