Although the blacksmith shop is already under construction, it is still too early to be completely completed - and in Gawain's plan, the current wooden house is actually not the same kind of "blacksmith shop" that people in this world recognize. Things, but to facilitate everyone's understanding, he temporarily called this place a blacksmith shop.
According to what he meant, he planned to name this place "Cecil Steel Works"...
As the only blacksmith in the territory, Old Hammer also had a strong interest in it. The "blacksmith shop" ordered to be built by the Duke was quite confused. In his opinion, this building occupied an unnecessarily large area. In addition to an unusually large board room, it also included a large wooden house with a length and width of enough. With a hundred meters of open space and a wooden shed with only a few supports erected at present, it would seem nondescript to call such a large facility a "blacksmith shop", but he did not dare to say that the famous founding prince was not. A layman who knows how to pretend and give blind orders - even though he really thinks so in his heart, he never dares to say it out loud.
After all, he is just a commoner, while the other party is a nobleman who can be equal to His Majesty the King.
Due to the astonishing area of this "blacksmith shop", it can only be placed on the eastern edge of the camp. Its "big yard" extends to the wasteland outside, like a neat wooden The protruding piece on the fence looks so funny, and the guys brought from Tanzania Town are so few in this giant blacksmith shop: they only occupy a corner of the wooden house, and the only one The iron-making furnace was also placed in the open space outside, covered with a simple wooden shed to protect it from wind and rain.
As for Gawain, he arranged the reserved land for the blacksmith shop to be so large and close to the edge of the territory, just to take into account future production capacity needs and the convenience of expansion—— The traditional blacksmith shops of this era, with one master and several apprentices, a hut with a furnace, and clanging iron tools were not what he needed at all.
But now he has no way to explain all this to the old blacksmith and his stupid apprentices.
In addition to considerations of production capacity and future expansion, Gawain does not intend to directly erect a pile of soil blast furnaces in this yard like the senior time travelers he has seen before. Although he did think so, after seeing Hetty use magic power to dock the raft and strengthen the foundation of the camp a few days ago, he temporarily suppressed this idea and instead asked Hammer, the only blacksmith in the territory, to Er built a traditional furnace in the yard.
He came to the blacksmith shop. Rebecca was already waiting here, as well as the old blacksmith Hammer with gray hair and beard, several of his apprentices, and several others wearing short shirts. The citizens stood in the yard, and in the big basket under their feet was the first batch of ore shipped.
Gawain went straight to the traditional furnace.
It was a rather crude-looking stove, about one meter high, divided into two obvious upper and lower parts., below is an expanded hemispherical structure, and the top quickly shrinks into a cylinder, and two openings can be seen on the lower hemispherical structure, one opening is located below, which is obviously a place for adding fuel, and the other The opening is located near the cylindrical structure, where the ore should be poured.
There is nothing unusual about these parts, they are just ordinary furnaces, but the special part is on the side.
There are three runes arranged there.
The three runes are all engraved on a kind of dark stone, and the three stone pieces have obviously been carefully polished and their positions have been carefully adjusted before being inlaid on the furnace body to ensure that they are spaced apart. Perfectly aligned and parallel edges. The bottom stone piece is engraved with a triangular symbol, and there is a wavy line inside the symbol, which is the starting character representing the fire element in the magic book; the middle stone piece is a square with a rhombus inside it. It is the starting character of the earth element; on the upper stone piece is a group of swirling symbols, which are related to the wind element, but are not the starting character.
In addition to these three stone flakes, you can also see some fine, shining dust in the material of the furnace body. Gawain knows what it is: quartz sand, "this world" "Quartz sand.
Quartz sand is a material with magic-guiding properties. Although its effect is extremely weak, it is widely used because it is cheap enough to be used by ordinary people.
Gawain raised his head and glanced at the old blacksmith: "Did you make this stove?"
"Yes, yes, sir..." The old blacksmith heard the lord ask. Speaking to himself, he immediately grabbed the hat in his hand nervously and hurriedly lowered his head to answer, "Oh, half of it was made by me, and the other half was made by my apprentices..."
Gawain nodded. , but no more questions.
Magic is an extraordinary power that is not accessible to "untouchables". However, in this world where magic is everywhere, even civilians who cannot cast magic still have the shadow of magic in their lives. .
Some basic uses of magic do not require the knowledge and ability to cast spells - everyone has magic in their body, and as long as a specific material is used and a simple symbol is carved on a material of a specific shape, each Individuals can slightly activate those wonderful forces that are everywhere.
This is not a spell at all, and its effect is so weak that it is almost ridiculous in the eyes of the real "supernatural beings". This kind of borrowing is like picking up a stick on the ground to use as a crutch, picking it up anywhere. There is no technical content like using a stone to smash walnuts. Even illiterate civilians can remember how to draw a few weakly effective symbols. But it is this little bit of power that determines the world and Gawain. The familiar hometown is a completely different place.
It's like the one degree centigrade difference between when water boils.
With those three runes, this "traditional furnace" only needs firewood as fuel, without using a blower and without optimizing the combustion chamber structure., you can smelt molten iron.
If the runes of the fire element are engraved on a piece of mithril, this stove can even use straw as fuel!
However, it is precisely because of the existence of these ancient runes that humans in this world have not considered how to improve the efficiency of furnaces from the perspective of improving fuel combustion efficiency - they are constantly improving. What matters is only the material used to carve the runes and the format of the runes themselves.
So Gawain did not build any earthen blast furnace, but first observed this primitive and backward traditional furnace.
The old blacksmith Hanmel looked at the noble man in front of him more and more nervously. He didn't know what the other person's purpose was for suddenly asking a question and then studying the stove, and he didn't know if he had done something wrong. What, he only knew that nobles were powerful and moody - although the lord Miss Rebecca and the previous lords were both kind and generous, this one in front of him was the legendary pioneering hero, a thoroughgoing A lowly warrior and a duke, what would be the character of such a great nobleman?
Just when the old blacksmith was uneasy, Gawain finally straightened up and asked him a second question: "With such a furnace, under the condition of ensuring an adequate supply of ore, how can you make it every day?" How much iron can be smelted?"
Hammer suddenly breathed a sigh of relief: Finally asked a normal question.
"If we use the kind of ore over there, we can produce fifty kilograms of iron every day." The old blacksmith said with some pride.
However, when Gawain heard this answer, he couldn't help but frowned: "So few?"
With the help of those runes, how much is the output?
"Isn't that too little?" Hammer couldn't help but say, and then nervously made up for it, "I'm not questioning your judgment, sir, but..."
"It doesn't matter, don't be nervous when talking to me," Gawain comforted the old master, "I am the lord who protects you, not a robber who comes to kill you."
"Yes...yes "Master," Hamel wiped his sweat nervously, and then explained, "But this is really the limit. The furnace looks big from the outside, but the space inside is actually limited, and every time after refining a furnace, You have to rest for an hour to let the runes outside the furnace cool down, so you have to cool down the entire furnace and then light the fire again... After going back and forth like this, being able to smelt fifty kilograms of iron every day is really the limit! "
"Let the runes cool down?" Gawain frowned.
"Yes," Hammer explained, "This is just a little trick carved on black stone by us people. It is incomparable with the real magic runes of those Master Mages. It is easy to break, especially It is a fire rune. If it is in contact with the fire element for a long time, it will crack. Even if it is replaced with a stronger material, it will not work. Once the rune cracks, the entire furnace will be useless, so it is necessary to make iron. It must not be burned continuously..."
"What if the stove is made larger?" Gawain asked again..
"There's nothing we can do about it," Hammer said worriedly, wondering how the Duke could ask such a difficult question. "The runes can only provide so much firepower. No matter how big the furnace is, the firepower will be reduced." If it is not enough, the ore will not be able to produce molten iron, and the earth runes will also become invalid, and the refined iron ingots will have more impurities, which will be completely unusable..."
Gawain pinched his chin: "So the restriction on output is entirely because of these runes?"
The old blacksmith blinked. He didn't really understand what restricting output meant, but he still nodded quickly: " Yes, yes, it’s a rune."
Gawain looked at Rebecca: "Do you think if you change the rune to...um, maybe call Hetty over..."
Rebecca's face suddenly turned red: "My lord, I also know the theory of magic! I just can't construct a spell model..."
"Is the theoretical knowledge OK?" Gawain She raised her eyebrows and said, "Then how do you think we should solve this problem?"
Rebecca thought hard: "Since you just said that the runes are a shortcoming, then replace the runes?"
p>"Replace it with what?"
Rebecca continued to use her brain: "Actually, the functions of these runes are very simple. They are nothing more than increasing temperature, controlling air flow, controlling impurities, etc. And it’s the type with extremely weak effects. If it is replaced by a real magic circle, the efficiency can be improved countless times - and the magic circle can self-channel energy, and it will not self-destruct if it runs continuously..."
Gawain raised his eyebrows: "Carving a set of magic circles on every iron-smelting furnace?"
"But it's not actually possible," Rebecca stuck out her tongue, "Aunt Hetty and I can help carve a few magic circles, but... the blacksmith and the blacksmith apprentices can't use them!"