Chapter 553: Steel Refinery

Similar to the raw ingot workshop and the iron refinery, this steel refinery featured a massive furnace; however, this furnace was very different compared to any of the others Lucas had seen today.

In fact, Lucas had never seen any furnace like this one in the Rockwell Kingdom.

That being said, while he hadn’t personally seen anything similar before, his otherworldly benefactor had.

In the centre of this smaller workshop, on an elevated platform, sat a very large, very thick-walled furnace.

This furnace was dome shaped and almost 2 metres in diameter, with the base being made entirely from some kind of ceramic brick.

The top was also made from the same type of ceramic; however, it also had a metal casing and a number of loops which, if the winch system high up above it was any indication, were used to actually remove this ’lid’ from the furnace.

Peeking down below the oven, through a few holes in the brick and metal skirt, Lucas saw a ring-shaped burner, similar to a stove element, but instead of using firewood or charcoal, it appeared that this burner was fueled purely by coal.

Again, in the Rockwell Kingdom, coal wasn’t all that common as trees were so readily available, making both firewood and charcoal extremely cheap to procure. That, however, didn’t mean coal didn’t exist and wasn’t used at all.

Coal burned hotter than wood or charcoal, so obviously it was useful for things like melting iron, just like what Lucas assumed was happening here.

There was surprisingly little smoke coming from the burning coals, something Lucas didn’t quite understand, but what smoke there was was diverted up and away through a set of special chimneys.

The furnace oven itself was sealed right now, so Lucas couldn’t see inside of it, but given the design, he figured that the heat was all being concentrated in its very centre where, presumably, steel was being made.

A large waterwheel attached to a kind of two-way-bellow was constantly blowing air at the coals, stoking the flames and increasing their intensity, further raising the temperature of the fire.

There were no menial labourers or low-level workers in this workshop, only professional smiths. This was most likely for two reasons; because this work required skilled hands to perform, and to maintain a degree of secrecy about how the precious steel was made.

.....

"Magnificent, isn’t it?" Eda said with clear pride in her voice, and Lucas could see why, nodding along as he took in the sight.

This was indeed an impressive setup.

"So," after a minute or so, Lucas calmed down and asked, "can you explain exactly what is happening here?"

Smiling widely, Spirit Smith Eda Mathews beckoned for Lucas’ group to follow her over to the far side of the workshop, where a smaller furnace and a set of very large ceramic bowls were stored.

"There are several methods we know of to make steel," Eda began, "but there are only 2 that are really suited to producing large batches of the metal. The first is to tightly pack a large furnace with finished iron ingots and a specific type of charcoal, seal it up, and then let it bake for 5 to 10 days."

"We call this the ’cold method’ as it doesn’t require special equipment or as hot a temperature, making it much simpler to use," Eda continued, "however, it’s pretty inconsistent, and the quality of steel you get out of it is generally quite low, requiring quite a bit of extra work in order to produce a usable end product."

"I see," Lucas mused, "So if that’s the ’cold method’, what’s happening here must be the ’hot method’?"

"Precisely," Eda nodded, "this method requires placing a carefully measured amount of iron and the same special type of charcoal used in the cold method in a large heat-proof vessel, like the ones you see here, topping it with fine white sand, then heating it in our domed furnace until everything melts together."

"As long as the iron ingots used were processed properly, and precise measurements are made, this method produces relatively consistent results, so it is favoured by almost all the steel-makers in the Rockwell Kingdom," Eda concluded.

"How much steel can be produced here?" Marco asked curiously, having never actually seen how the metal he worked with on a daily basis was made in such a large quantity.

"That depends on the type of steel, but if we’re talking about the most common Mortal Grade Tier 2 stuff, then we can do up to two, 500 kg firings per day," Eda answered, crossing her burly arms and grinning widely.

Adam rapidly did the calculations in his head and muttered half to himself, half questioningly, "So, this one refinery can produce around 400 tons of steel a year?"

Hearing this, Eda’s face cramped a bit as she shook her head, "Of course not. Although I say we can run 2 batches of plain steel a day, if we really tried to do that continuously, the furnace would surely crack."

"There are also several special types of steel that require much longer firings; Meteor Steel, for example, can take up to a day and a half inside this furnace to properly melt and mix, after which we need to shut it all down and perform maintenance for a day or two before using it again."

"Last year, our workshop produced 218 tons of steel, 84% of which was ordinary Tier 2 Steel. That represents just under 9% of the kingdom’s entire output," Eda listed the numbers without even having to think about it, showing how meticulously she kept track of these statistics.

"By the way," Eda suddenly thought of something, "I heard a rumour that you were the one who came up with the new units we’re using to measure things, Lucas. Is that true?"

Defaulting to his usual innocent child-like face, Lucas tilted his head and smiled, "I don’t know what you’re talking about, Master Eda."

"The new metric system was jointly developed by the heads of the craftsmen departments in order to standardize how we measure things," Allina added from the side.

"Really? That’s the exact line, word-for-word, that I always get whenever I ask any of those old farts how they came up with such a brilliant and comprehensive system, almost like they were told to repeat it until everyone believed it," the knowledgeable Spirit Smith snickered.

Eda was almost certain the boy standing beside her was the one who introduced metric units to the Balfour Family, she just wanted to see if he would actually admit it.

Regarding this new system of measurement, most senior craftsmen working for the Balfour Family had been reluctant to adopt it at first, preferring to stick with their personal methods or the more traditional ones they were used to.

Eda and the smiths in Torren Ridge had felt similarly averse to this whole new way of doing thing being forced upon them all-of-a-sudden, but with a decree coming from the Elder Council that only reports and requests made in metric would be considered ’official’ from now on, they had little choice but to relent.

At the time, Eda couldn’t understand why the Elder Council, or rather, why the Marquess was being so adamant about this, but 6 months later she was glad they had been.

Many long-standing supply-chain issues had been resolved by the wide-spread adoption of the metric system in the Balfour March and South-East Province as a whole.

In fact, Eda had even heard that Second Queen Natasha was pushing hard for it to be implemented nation-wide, going so far as to only use metric measurements for all the new infrastructure projects her Economic Cultivation Initiative was spearheading.

The precision scales and other metric measurement tools that came out of Misty City were also very helpful when it came to Eda’s work, especially in this very steel-refinery.

Before, when one of her large scales broke or wore out, Eda would have to spend quite a bit of time building and calibrating a new one before steel making could resume.

Now, she could just pull out another mass-produced scale from the warehouse, make some simple adjustments, then get back to work.

And that was to say nothing of how the new system incorporated ways of accurately defining temperature and calculating things like volume and density which, until now, had mostly been expressed using a mish-mash of different, unrelated units.

Eda had even begun drafting plans for a new set of furnaces based on this new measurement system, but it seemed those would need to be scrapped now.

This didn’t disappoint the burly female blacksmith, however; quite the opposite, in fact.

It was clear to her that Lucas and those behind him were planning something much, much bigger for Torren Ridge, something revolutionary even, and that was more than ’okay’ with Eda Mathews who believed it might just be possible now for her to build the steel-works of her dreams.

This steel refinery was already the biggest one in the entire kingdom, which made sense as most of the steel in the Rockwell Kingdom was put towards military use and the most dangerous border was here in the South-East Province.

However, if what Lucas had mentioned earlier was true, that he was looking to increase iron and steel production at least 10-fold, so forget expanding the current facilities, whole new refineries would have to be built, ones that were much more advanced than the ones they were using right now.