Chapter 291 Chemical Industry Development

Many people in the Harland Mage Association have successfully advanced. Now, in addition to the three mid-level mage Richard, Sophia, and Wendy, the Mage Association already has four three-ring magicians Anne, Butler, Heath, and Roentgen as the backbone. .

Anne is the grand-niece of Gibson's housekeeper and a member of the Harland family branch. She has a moderate magical talent and has been studying magic for more than ten years.

Butler and Heath came from the Tower of Death and were recruited by the Harland Mage Association. Heath is already in his forties and has relatively average talent. Butler has better talent, but he needs to spend time deriving and creating meditation methods. He may not be able to advance as quickly as Anne.

The meditation method that Anne practices is the same as Sophia, Richard, Wendy and others, which are highland meditation methods. This meditation method has twelve levels and can be cultivated to the ninth level.

Before the Nine Rings, Anne, like Wendy, did not need to worry about meditation, because the more talented Sophia and Richard were ahead of them.

With Richard and Sophia leading the way, it would be slightly easier for Wendy and Annie to learn magic.

Roentgen was a wild magician. When she was young, she accidentally found a meditation method recorded by an ancient magician. This meditation method was relatively complete and could meditate to the fifth ring.

After Roentgen became a mage through meditation, he has been living in Nolan. She originally wanted to join the Grant Mage Association, but the Grant Mage Association has a very conservative atmosphere and does not recruit many outsiders. After the wild mages join, they are very restricted and can only become cannon fodder. It is extremely difficult to obtain magic knowledge.

Compared with the Grant Mage Association, although the Harland Mage Association is weak, its atmosphere is very open. As long as a certain contribution is made, most knowledge can be copied and reviewed.

When the magician wants to leave, the Harland Wizards Association will not stop him.

Relying on loose conditions, the Harland Mage Association has recruited seven magicians and more than a dozen mage apprentices in recent years. These wild mages have also brought a lot of magic information to the Harland Mage Association, which is very important to Harland. Contributed to the growth of the Magisters Association.

Roentgen was still a second-level magician when he joined the Mage Association last year. After being exposed to a lot of novel knowledge from the Harland Mage Association, he successfully advanced in March this year.

This December, another important research breakthrough occurred in Haaland territory.

This research is called a searing ray gun. This energy firearm does not have a trigger and does not rely on gunpowder bullets. You can release the second-ring magic scorching ray by consuming the magic power inside the magic crystal.

This kind of firearm uses the lowest-end blood steel material, which can be welded to the arm armor, with scorching ray runes engraved on it, and then connected to the magic crystal through magic lines.

Because of the loss of magic power conversion, one magic crystal can only emit four scorching rays.

Richard came to the Harland Mage Association, played with the scorching ray gun in his hand, and with the magic power surging in his hand, he aimed at the target in the distance and fired a scorching ray.

A crimson ray was emitted from the red steel pipe on the gauntlet, exploding the target thirty meters away.

Looking at the exploding target in the distance, perhaps his expectations were too high. Richard said unsatisfied: "The power of the spells released using magic devices is slightly weaker than standard magic, and its destructive power is only about 40% of that of alchemy bombs. It takes multiple hits to pose a fatal threat to the snake body, and its power is not as powerful as the enchanted bow."

The research on the searing ray gun was mainly carried out by Wendy and Roentgen, and the project team had only been established for two years. Wendy is very knowledgeable in the conversion efficiency of magic energy and achieved a breakthrough in just one year.

"Ray guns certainly have advantages. At least using this weapon does not require lengthy training.

Training an ordinary soldier into a third-level marksman who is always accurate requires not only talent, but also at least ten years of training. As long as you are not blind when using a ray gun, you can shoot scorching rays at the enemy. "

Seeing that Richard dismissed the searing ray gun as worthless, Wendy immediately retorted.

After hearing Wendy's rebuttal, Sophia strongly agreed with her statement and continued to add: "In fact, this weapon has another advantage. Like the enchanted armor, soldiers of the warrior profession can also use it. If equipped with several scorching ray guns, What kind of scene would it be like if the squadron fired hundreds of scorching rays together on the battlefield?

Seeing that both Wendy and Sophia were very satisfied with this magic prop, Richard knew that his request was too high. After thinking about it objectively, Richard said: "This kind of magic item costs more than the alchemy bomb, but its power is much weaker than the alchemy bomb. The price/performance ratio is not as good as the alchemy bomb, but it exceeds the explosive arrow. And it is smaller in size and can be directly equipped. Go to the arm armor. If there is a surplus of blood steel at the end of the year, you can try to make some."

Hearing what Richard said, Sophia immediately answered: "Since we want to make a scorching ray gun, the consumption of magic crystals will probably be very large. Although we have a lot of magic crystals in stock now, we should save some in the future. Those messy things Most of the magic crystal research should be stopped.”

Sophia was very dissatisfied with the magicians and the research institute who wasted magic crystals and did some messy research.

As of December this year, more than 400 magic crystals were used in scientific and magic experiments in the Harland territory, and some of the research was very unscientific. In Sophia's understanding, magic crystals are very precious resources and should not be wasted on worthless research. It was just that Richard attached great importance to the institute, so Sophia did not openly express her dissatisfaction.

After listening to Sophia's complaints, Richard nodded and said, "Research without progress and direction can be stopped first, but we should still support research with progress and prospects.

The William Castle Mage Tower is about to be completed, and we will have the third artificial magic well. Wendy's charging technology researched this year has made progress again, and the efficiency has increased to about 6%.

Next year, we will charge about 2,200 magic crystals, which is enough for us to use."

Richard and the other two discussed for half an hour, left the shooting range together, and came to the William Castle Mage Tower.

The William Castle Mage Tower was built near the Earl's Mansion, about 60 to 70 meters away from the west city wall.

After more than ten years of operation, the area of ​​William Castle has doubled, and a large number of institutions and houses have been built outside the city wall, especially the area of ​​the South City, which has expanded the most. Now the civilian area of ​​the South City has a population of more than 40,000.

The buildings in the West District are mainly government offices and the Earl's Mansion. Although it has also expanded a little, it is mainly official institutions and is not very chaotic.

The Harland Territory controlled two wizard towers and was familiar with the internal situation of the wizard towers. With the legendary dragon crystal as the energy room, the construction of the wizard tower was not too difficult.

Since returning in July, Richard has mobilized more than 6,000 contract slaves, plus a dozen low-level wizards to provide help. It took nearly four months to successfully build the wizard tower.

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The William Castle Wizard Tower has five floors underground and six floors above ground. The top of the wizard tower is engraved with a six-ring magic petrification ray spell.

Because the magic power of dragon crystal is more abundant than that of legendary monsters, this wizard tower energy room can release sixteen petrification rays a day. Compared with the two wizard towers in the swamp basin, Richard arranged a single defense spell in the William Castle Wizard Tower, focusing on attacking elite personnel.

After the construction of the William Castle Wizard Tower was completed, the Harland Wizard Association immediately moved its headquarters. After all, magicians are also human beings and like to live in prosperous places.

Although the swamp basin is well developed, it is not as prosperous as William Castle after all, and there are many entertainment activities.

There are about 30 magicians living in the petrified tower of Williamburg, and more than 40 people live in the two magic towers of flame and lightning. The remaining 30 magicians are all incorporated into the army.

Relatively speaking, the magicians incorporated into the army are paid a little higher and the conditions are more difficult.

Richard and others presided over the petrified tower, and the two magic towers in the swamp basin were temporarily managed by two three-ring magicians, Roentgen and Heath. Less than three years after joining the Harland Territory, he was able to manage a magic tower and had the right to read most of the magic knowledge. Such a change made Roentgen feel extremely happy. She kept writing letters to magician friends to recruit members for the Harland Mage Association.

In mid-December, the Chemical Research Institute brought good news. After years of exploration, researchers extracted aniline from coal tar. Aniline was mixed with sulfuric acid to make sulfate, and then potassium rotamate was added to make the first synthetic dye aniline purple.

This discovery represents a groundbreaking discovery by the Chemical Research Institute of the Harland Territory.

The dyes in the Dawn Plane are all natural dyes, mainly from plants and minerals in nature, such as blue dyes extracted from indigo and woad, red dyes extracted from cochineal and safflower, and purple dyes extracted from moss and shellfish.

Due to the limitations of raw materials and extraction processes, the output of dyed fabrics is small and the price is very high. They can only be used as luxury goods, and the market size is relatively small. Compared with chemical synthetic dyes, natural dyes have obvious disadvantages, such as incomplete color spectrum and poor printing and dyeing fastness, especially after being rinsed with soap and exposed to the sun, color mixing and fading will soon occur.

Once the Harland Territory successfully develops chemical synthetic dyes, it will inevitably sweep all naturally dyed fabrics into the garbage dump.

But whether to manufacture aniline purple on a large scale? Richard still needs to consider it carefully for a while.

The Grant royal family is also engaged in the manufacture of dyed fabrics. Before it has sufficient strength, the Harland family should avoid making enemies everywhere.

Because of the brown sugar industry, the Harland family has offended the Earl of the South, and the steel industry has squeezed the interests of Duke Edward.

In a world where the bigger the fist, the more reasonable it is, the more powerful the forces will covet the interests of others. Sometimes it can be coordinated through negotiation, and sometimes conflicts will break out, which often depends on the strength comparison of both parties, geographical location, external situation and many other factors.

Moreover, Richard is still a vassal of King Roger. According to the simple values ​​of the Dawn Plane, vassals cannot compete with feudal lords for power and profit, and feudal lords are naturally superior in terms of righteousness. A conflict with King Roger will be very troublesome for the Harland family.

If Richard sells at a large price and grabs the market, he may conflict with other nobles.

Once a commercial conflict breaks out with the Grant family, he may be beaten up by others, give up more interests, and the high-speed development speed will be interrupted.

The best way is to avoid impacting the original market, develop new markets, and sell to other countries. But in this way, it will offend the local nobles who control dyed cloth.

As an outsider, it is impossible to compete with the local nobles.

The only thing that the Harland Territory can fight for is the market of the Grand Duchy of Stannik. Through the relationship between the Church of the Goddess of Wealth and the Watson family, it will give up a large amount of profits and impact the Hughes family market.

Whether there is an expected market or not, laboratory research must continue. Even if laboratory products are still very far from industrial products, it may take ten or eight years. To solve the process problems.

Coal chemical industry is a vital field for industrial development, and research in this direction cannot be interrupted.

After the discovery of aniline purple, the chemical department couldn't help but get excited and straightened their backs.

The Institute of Chemistry has been established for more than ten years, and the results are pitifully few. The only thing worth mentioning is that a small-scale sulfuric acid plant has been established, using the lead chamber method to produce sulfuric acid.

Harland Territory has salt lake mines, which can produce potash ore, salt, soda ash, etc. Relying on natural minerals, the chemical department has begun to make progress.

Now aniline purple has been extracted from coal tar, which is equivalent to taking a new path.

Harland Territory has established coking furnaces for more than ten years, and has developed from ordinary earth kilns to coking plants. Coal tar is a by-product of coal coking.

This kind of thing is regarded as black paint by the chemical department, which is a complete waste of resources in Richard's eyes.

Richard knew that coal chemical industry was a very important branch of the chemical industry. Coal tar could be refined into benzene, aniline, asphalt, fuel oil and many other substances, each of which was very useful.

There were coal mines in the Harland Territory, and a coking plant had been built, which was gradually improved from earthen kilns to coking ovens.

After the coal was mined, it was cleaned, screened and crushed in the coal washing plant, and then made into fine coal powder and sent to the coking oven. After high-temperature dry distillation, coke was produced, and then sent to the steel mill for steelmaking.

In the first few years, the gas produced during the dry distillation of coal powder was directly discharged into the atmosphere, which not only polluted the environment, but also wasted coal gas and coal tar.

At Richard's request, the coking plant began to add gas condensation devices and built cooling towers to separate and collect coal tar from the dry distillation gas of coal powder.

How to build a cooling tower and collect coal tar is a very difficult task.

Because Richard's previous life was also unclear about the structure of the cooling tower.

Without Richard's guidance in the general direction, the engineers in the Harland Territory were completely in the dark and could only keep thinking and improving the process. After several years of continuous experiments, the process of separating coal tar in large quantities is still immature.

It was not until the discovery of red glue and the availability of sealing materials that the process gradually matured and the coking plant began to produce coal tar stably.

This time, the extraction of aniline from coal tar and the synthesis of aniline purple are actually laboratory results, and there is still a long way to go before industrial production. Richard estimates that it will take at least six to ten years for the process to mature.