Immediately an incredible things started to happen on the surface of the copper, a thin white film began to appear, looking like a beetle’s shell. The white layer became larger and larger, slowly covering the whole surface of the copper, while the colorless acid slowly turned blue.
“The white precipitate is silver, and the newly created copper nitrate, just like silver nitrate, is soluble in water. However, the copper nitrate will turn the water blue.”
Looking into the cup, Kyle Sichi saw that it had turned blue, just as stated.
…
Early the next day, when Chavez came to the AlchemicalWorkshop, he was greeted by the Chief Instructor who looked completely haggard with deep black circles under his eyes, shocking him greatly.
“Didn’t you get any sleep last night?” Chavez asked surprised, “Had you worked the night through to create a second batch of Crystal Glass?”
Kyle just shook his head and signaled that he should follow him to his table. There he tiredly asked: “You are the disciple of which I’m the proudest, so I would like to ask, what do you think alchemy is?”
“Uh… just what you have taught me,” looking at the table Chavez noticed that it was fully loaded with a number of glasses, including a few cups which were filled with solutions of different colors. For example one of them was sky blue and very eye-catching. Could this be the reason that the Chief Instructor did not sleep last night? Although Chavez was full of confusion, he still replied honestly, “I think the same, the essence of alchemy is to find the truth of the world in all the disorder and chaos…”
“No, no, Chavez, I was wrong,” Kyle interrupted. “Everyone was wrong. That isn’t Alchemy.”
“Will never increase or disappear? What are you talking about? Isn’t that what alchemist usually do? To create new things, we just put some commonly seen raw materials and combine them after filtering and separation,” Chavez answered in bewilderment.
“Yes, ah, I also thought like so, but now after I have read the letter sent by the Lord of Border Town…” Kyle patted his shoulder, opened his mouth and said some surprising words to Chavez, “I will soon leave this city, and go to Border Town to find some answers. You… Do you want to come with me?”
Roland received the first purchase order for the steam engine, and the transaction’s amount was the largest so far.
Each “naked engine” for the price of 500 gold royals, with the first delivery, planned for in two months, followed by an increase of one engine per month until it reached a total of ten engines together. For future technical support, like replacing broken parts or improving equipment a payment of additional gold royals would then be required. Since the natives had never heard of a free warranty service, it meant more money for Roland.
Barov was the one who was most excited about the deal, in his view, every increase in the Town Hall’s revenue no matter whether it was by looting or by trade was worthy of praise. But there were naturally also some who were against it, for example, Carter, Scroll, and Nightingale expressed all their opinion, they felt that it was still too early for them to sell these powerful machines to outsiders, even more so, considering in hindsight, that Border Town didn’t even have enough machines for themselves.
Roland didn’t explain his reason to them because he didn’t look at it only from the view of a Lord. No, he also looked at it from the perspective of a way in which he could promote the speed of the industrial revolution.
It was almost impossible to achieve the task of advancing the process of industrialization alone, even with the knowledge of later generations. After all, the amount Border Town could handle was extremely limited. Even if he produced a lot of industrial products now, there would still be no one there to buy them from him. So, there was only one solution available to him, he must allow more people to join in on the revolution, only by doing this could new power applications sweep across the kingdom like a wave.
What would he get by selling the steam engine?
A sufficient amount of money, a huge number of new jobs, as well as a group of skilled workers, with the latter being the most important part.
This was also the reason for Roland’s low production rate.
