Chapter 551: Industrial Materials

"In the Sovereignty, they had a massive furnace that could fully liquify iron, allowing most of the impurities to be separated in one go," Eda explained, "I have a rough idea how they managed that, and even drew up plans for a similar furnace, but I could never get approval to actually build it."

"Was it because the Elder Council felt there was no need for so much iron?" Marco asked Eda, who was technically his Senior Sister as she too had once been a student of Old Braxton.

"Pretty much," the female smith shrugged, "I actually agreed with them at the time. Sure, producing more iron sounds good, but there didn’t seem to be much point in spending so much Gold just to satisfy my curiosity."

"Are all the other variants of iron, like Flame Iron, produced using this method?" Lucas asked.

"That’s right," Eda nodded, "Even Spirit Iron is processed this way, though it requires far more time in the furnace to burn off the impurities, and then much more effort to hammer in order to shape as its doesn’t get nearly as soft at the temperatures we use to heat Mortal Grade Iron."

"In any case, we’re here," Eda said, stopping in front of a furnace that was currently being loaded with iron and charcoal.

The workers there were also pouring buckets of white sand into the furnace, which apparently was what the female smith wanted to show them, "Ever since I saw that big refinery in the Kore Sovereignty, I’ve been adding various types of rock and sand to the furnaces to try to help displace impurities from the iron, and these two have proven particularly useful."

Motioning for the young man who was loading the furnace to step away, Eda picked up a handful of sand and explained, "This is a powdered form of a type of white, porous rock that is pretty common on steep, rocky shorelines along the Lorren. There’s a particularly large amount of it around Falcon’s Bend, but since we don’t really have another use for it, there are no dedicated mines for it."

"As for this," Eda pointed to another bucket, also of a type of white sand, "This is actually a byproduct that comes from Spirit Crystal mines. It’s treated as waste, so I can basically get it for free."

Pouring both into the furnace, Eda concluded, "By adding these sands to the heating process, I can reduce the overall amount of impurities in the final raw ingot significantly, which means far less time and effort are needed to processes it into pure iron."

.....

Limestone! Lucas was immediately able to identify one of these sands from the description Eda gave him.

This was a very, very important discovery!

The Rockwell Kingdom might not know what limestone was used for, other than this eccentric Spirit Smith who had found it could separate waste from raw iron in the refining process, but Lucas knew that limestone was the primary component in cement!

And having cement meant having concrete!

Ever since he had learned about ’Flowing Rock’, Lucas had been desperately searching for a way to produce his own cement as it was critical for an enormous amount of infrastructure projects he wanted to undertake.

Currently, the Rockwell Kingdom imported all its cement at enormous cost, but if they could start making it themselves, not only would it be significantly cheaper, but it would also dramatically increase the available supply!

It was in Falcon’s Bend this whole time! Lucas felt like bashing his head against the nearby furnace after learning that, as this burly female blacksmith put it, there was a ’huge’ deposit of it just sitting there, so close by, completely untouched!

After he finished mentally beating himself up, Lucas whipped out his notebook and jotted down several lines in it, grinning stupidly the whole time.

The young boy’s behaviour hadn’t gone unnoticed by the others around him, but when Eda was about to ask what was wrong, Allina, Marco, and Adam all motioned for her to stop, with Allina saying exasperatedly, "Don’t worry about him, he gets like this sometimes."

"Uh... right," Eda frowned, but ultimately nodded. If this was ’normal’ behaviour for Lucas, then so be it.

A few seconds later, Lucas abruptly lifted his head and asked, "Master Eda, where exactly did you say the limestone deposits were located in Falcon’s Bend? And approximately how large are they?"

"Limestone?" Eda tilted her head, confused by the new term.

"En, limestone, the first white powder you showed us," Lucas nodded.

"Limestone... limestone... alright, I never really gave it a name, so limestone it is," the smith decided to just go along for now, "As for the deposit, its..."

After getting all the details from Eda and writing them down in his notebook, Lucas snapped it shut and bowed deeply, "Thank you very much for you help!"

"Err... sure," Eda, now more confused than ever, could only shrug.

Turning his attention to the other bucket of white sand, Lucas also recognized it as he had known about it for some time now.

Since it came from Low-Grade Spirit Crystal mines, and as far as Lucas could tell, Spirit Crystals were a special type of quartz, he assumed that’s what this sand was, specifically silica or silicon dioxide.

Quartz had been of interest to Lucas ever since he uncovered knowledge of about its many uses from his inherited memories.

Specifically, silica was essential for making glass, ceramics, and electronics, but while Lucas was definitely interested in manufacturing these products in the future, they weren’t an immediate necessity, at least not compared to things like iron, steel, and cement.

Forcing himself to set aside this exciting new discovery, Lucas returned his attention to the matter at hand.

Looking around, the young boy soon noticed that the rough, raw ingots of iron from the furnaces were being taken out of the ironworks to a small dock, where they were loaded onto boats that then sailed down the river.

Curious what was happening, Lucas asked, "Where are the raw ingots being taken now? What happens to them next to turn them into usable iron?"

"Did Old Braxton really not teach you any of this?" Eda asked incredulously, unable to believe her former teacher had been so negligent with his young apprentices.

"It’s one thing to hear about it, it’s another to actually see it," Lucas shook his head, "the forge in Misty City only imports finished ingots, and while some of that is then worked into steel, we mostly deal with shaping metal into final products, rather than producing it."

"Hmm... fair enough," Eda, who had worked in Misty City for many decades, was familiar with how Braxton ran his smithy, so when Lucas explained it like this, she was easily able to accept it.

Adjusting her mindset slightly, the burly female smith grinned, "Good, let me show you how we finish things up here, but first..."

Reaching into her Space Bag, Eda pulled out something similar to earplugs and handed them out to Lucas’ group, "You’re going to need these, trust me."