Lord Harland

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 a total of twelve levels, which 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. The power is not as powerful as the enchanted bow and arrow."

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, A squadron of soldiers fires hundreds of scorching rays together on the battlefield, what kind of scene will it be like?"

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. On to the gauntlet. If there is a surplus of blood steel at the end of the year, we can try to make some."

Hearing what Richard said, Sophia immediately answered: "Since we want to make a searing 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 opinion, magic crystals are very precious resources and should not be wasted on worthless research. 6̾̾It’s just that Richard attaches great importance to the institute, so Sophia did not openly express her dissatisfaction.

After hearing Sophia's complaint, Richard nodded and said: "Research without progress or direction can be stopped first, but we should still support research with progress and promise.

The Fort William Mage Tower is about to be completed, and we will have a third artificial magic well. The charging technology studied by Wendy this year has made further progress, and the efficiency has increased to about 6%.

The magic crystals we will charge next year will be about 2,200 yuan, which is enough for us to use. "

The three of them, Richard, discussed for half an hour, then left the shooting range together and came to the Fort William Mage Tower.

The Wizard's Tower of Fort William is built near the Earl's Palace, about sixty or seventy meters away from the west city wall.

After more than ten years of operation, the area of ​​Fort William has tripled. A large number of institutions and residential buildings have been built outside the city walls, especially the Nancheng area, which has expanded the most. Now the Nancheng civilian area is home to more than 40,000 people.

The buildings in the West District are mainly government offices and the Earl's Palace. Although they have also expanded a bit, they are mainly official institutions and are less chaotic.

Harland controls two mage towers in the territory and is familiar with the internal conditions of the mage tower. Because of the legendary dragon crystal acting as an energy room, the construction of the mage tower is not too difficult.

Since returning in July, Richard mobilized more than 6,000 indentured slaves, plus a dozen low-level mages to provide help, and spent nearly four months to successfully build the mage tower.

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The Fort William Mage Tower has five floors underground and six floors above ground. The top of the Mage Tower is inscribed with the six-ring magic petrification ray spell.

Because the magic power of dragon crystal is more abundant than the legendary monster, this mage tower energy room can release sixteen petrification rays a day. Compared with the two mage towers in the Swamp Basin, the Fort William mage tower Richard deployed single-target defense spells to focus on attacking elite personnel.

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

Although the Swamp Basin is maturely developed, it is not as prosperous as Fort William and has abundant entertainment activities.

Today, there are about thirty magicians living in the Petrified Tower of Fort William, and more than forty people live in the two magician towers of Flame and Lightning. The remaining thirty or so magicians were incorporated into the army.

Relatively speaking, magicians who are incorporated into the army are paid better and the conditions are more difficult.

Richard and others are in charge of the petrified tower, and the two mage towers in the swamp basin are temporarily managed by two three-ring mages, Roentgen and Heath. Within three years of joining the Harland Territory, he was able to manage a mage tower and had access to most magical knowledge. Such a change made Roentgen feel extremely happy. She continued to write letters to her magician friends and recruit members for the Harland Wizards Association.

In mid-December, good news came from the Institute of Chemical Engineering. After years of exploration, researchers have extracted aniline from coal tar. Aniline was mixed with sulfuric acid to create sulfate, and then potassium sulfate was added to create aniline violet, the first synthetic dye.

This discovery represents a groundbreaking discovery by the Harland Territorial Chemical Engineering Research Institute.

The dyes in the Dawn Plane are all natural dyes, mainly coming from natural plants and minerals. For example, blue dyes are extracted from indigo and woad, red dyes are extracted from cochineal and safflower, and purple is extracted from moss and shell snails. dye.

Due to 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 chemically synthesized dyes, natural dyes have very obvious shortcomings, such as incomplete chromatography and poor printing and dyeing fastness. Especially after being rinsed with soap and exposed to the sun, color mixing and fading will occur quickly.

Once the Harland Territory successfully develops chemically synthesized dyes, all naturally dyed cloths will inevitably be swept into the garbage.

But should we manufacture aniline purple on a large scale? Richard will have to think carefully for a while.

The Grant royal family is also engaged in manufacturing dyed cloth. Before they have sufficient strength, the Harland family must avoid making enemies everywhere.

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

In a world where big fists are justified, powerful forces will covet the interests of others. Sometimes it can be coordinated through negotiation, and sometimes conflict breaks out. This often depends on the strength comparison between the two 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 the lord for power. The lord is naturally superior in terms of justice. A conflict with King Roger would be very troublesome for the Harland family.

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

Once a business conflict breaks out with the Grant family, they may be beaten up and give up more interests, interrupting the rapid development.

The best way is to avoid impacting the original market, develop new markets, and sell to other countries. But this would offend the local nobles who controlled the dyeing of cloth.

As a foreigner, it is impossible to compete with the local nobles.

The only thing that Harland's territory can compete for is the market of the Grand Duchy of Stanik. Through the relationship between the Church of the Goddess of Wealth and the Watson family, it has given away a large amount of profits and impacted the Hughes family market.

Whether there is an expected market or not, laboratory research must continue. Even if laboratory products are still far away from industrialized products, it may take ten or eight years. Only then can we solve the technical troubles.

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

After discovering aniline violet, the chemical industry department couldn't help but become excited and straightened up a little.

The Institute of Chemistry has been established for more than ten years, but its achievements have been meager. The only thing worthy of praise is the establishment of a small-scale sulfuric acid factory that uses the lead chamber method to produce sulfuric acid.

There is a salt lake mine in the Harland territory, which can produce potassium rock ore, salt, soda ash, etc. Relying on natural minerals, the chemical industry has begun to make progress.

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

Coke ovens have been built in Harland Territory for more than ten years, and they have developed from ordinary earthen kilns into coking plants. Coal tar is a by-product of coal coking.

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

Richard knew clearly that coal chemical industry was a very important branch of the chemical industry. Coal tar could be extracted into benzene, aniline, asphalt, fuel and other substances, each of which had great uses.

There are coal mines in Harland territory, and a coking factory has been built, which has been gradually improved from earthen kilns to coking ovens.

After the coal is mined, it is cleaned, screened, and crushed in a coal washing plant, and then made into pulverized coal and sent to the coke oven. After high-temperature carbonization, coke is produced, and then sent to the steelmaking plant for steelmaking.

In the first few years, the gas produced during the carbonization of pulverized coal was directly discharged into the atmosphere, which not only polluted the environment but also wasted 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 the coal tar in the pulverized coal carbonization gas.

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

Because of Richard's past life, he was also unclear about the structure of the cooling tower.

Without Richard's guidance in the general direction, the engineers in Harland Territory were completely blind and could only continue to ponder and improve the process. After several years of continuous experimentation, the technology for large-scale separation of coal tar is not yet mature.

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

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. When the process is mature, Richard estimates that it will take at least six to ten years.