The Release That Witch
Chapters 12's

Roland stood near the burning furnace in the backyard, waiting for the first batch of cement to be released.

The brick house he designed for cement production was fifteen meters long and four meters wide. The front and back each have a door, the widest front door, so that people can easily transport materials into the house. Instead the back door was only as wide as one person, its only use being to let Anna quietly enter the firing room.

Therefore, he also built a wall that was in the middle of the house, import and export arrangements were guarded by the knights - they were Carter's men, their loyalty was beyond doubt.

The production process of cement is very simple. First the limestone will be ground into a powder, then mixed with clay, iron powder, then calcined by dry or wet methods. It can then be used after the final grinding along with plaster. The raw material is very common, only iron is difficult to obtain and store in large quantities, the critical fact lies in the process of reaching the right calcine temperature.

Roland did not remember the specific temperature required to produce the cement, even if he remembered it, it has no possibility to measure and control the temperature - whether it is with an infrared thermometer or a thermocouple temperature measuring gun both tools are not available. He only knew that the temperature was almost the same as the melting point of iron, and that the calcification process was also an obstacle in cement production.

In the era of less advanced smelting technology, maintaining the temperature of the furnace has become a problem for everyone. The heat loss from an ordinary open furnace was too great; it was difficult to maintain the temperature at 1200 degrees. But then he would also need a high temperature resistant furnace, he also had to think of how to make fireproof bricks. The traditional iron making blasting furnace will be heated to the melting point, the temperature may reach the standard, but the narrow space is too small for cement calcination to occur, the, Roland was afraid that the time before Demon Moon was not long enough for him to prepare for all of this.

Therefore, Roland's design for the kiln did not have any heating size, he only relied on Anna's ability.

The limestone and clay particles that have been broken down are all mixed with water into a slurry, this is then evenly dispersed in the kiln. The knights then locked the door and left. After that Anna entered from the back door, use the fire to bake the ground porridge until it melted into iron powder.

Roland was a bit uneasy; this was his first step to improving Border Town. If he couldn't produce cement, building a wall in three months would be sheer nonsense. Without walls, no one would want to live in this place. Be it in real life or in fiction literature, if you want to progress, a stable base is always important.

"Your Majesty, can this kind of product really fuse the stones?" Carter, who was standing beside the fourth prince, asked. Although the prince had told him that this was the latest result of Graycastle's alchemist research, he remained skeptical. After all, those people have so far not really made a useful product.

"Who knows? After all, that was what they said," Roland stretched out his hand resignedly.

The world of alchemy and astrology is known as the art of sages. On the mainland, all of these professions are very popular. In general, the royal family would develop their own alchemists and astrologers, which were meant to purify and predict fate. For ordinary people, this study was too classy. Given this, Roland would naturally make the source of the cement formula come from the alchemists in the capital. As for whether the knight chief trusted him or not, it didn't matter.

Through the window they could see the flames slowly stopping burning, it seemed like the calcination had been completed.

As Roland stood up and went to take a look, Carter had been kicked out of the park, so he waited alone in front of the back door to look for the bricks.

The gate creaked open and Anna walked out. The first thing Roland did was to hang a robe over his body, then bring him a cup of water, "How are you?"

The witch's face was full of dust, as the processing system was wet and the amount of dust was also small, but the hot air needed for calcification still produced quite a lot of dust. He was not wearing a mask, staying inside for more than 10 minutes was obviously not very comfortable. He coughed and nodded, "The porridge has already turned into powder."

Roland waited until the temperature in the furnace was quite cold, although he needed to wrap his head in a wet towel, he still picked up the shovel and stepped into the back door.

"Is this what you want?" asked Anna, who was now wearing her witch clothes.

"It looks very similar," Roland spread out the fine powder on the ground, using his finger to feel its temperature, "to find out if for sure we need to test it first."

"What's the point of that?"

“To build houses, or repair bridges and roads, can be used in many other places as well. If successful later the community is not afraid of the wind, or their homes can be destroyed, by the cold, rain or snow. " With his other hand, he patted the girl on the head, "This is only possible thanks to your ability."

Anna lowered her head, Roland did not know if it was an illusion or not, but he felt that the girl's breathing became faster after he patted her.

According to the theory, it is important to burn the grinded material together with gypsum, with this it is possible to adjust the hardening time. But now there was no need to think too much about it, after a short break Roland picked up the shovel again and picked up the cement again. He then called Carter who was standing outside the courtyard, letting him prepare three different mixtures of powder with sand to make a compound cement mortar.

The chief knight in no way objected to this manual work, to him, doing this kind of work was much better than the substitute fights he had done for His Majesty, whenever he fought with other young masters while he was still active.street with young women (prostitutes) in Graycastle.

Since it was already inside, no iron powder was added to its raw materials, the color and luster that came out was lighter than usual, looking pale gray. Roland spread the grout on the brick, and he then placed another brick on it. The cement compaction process took about four hours, but taking into account the instability caused by the cement production, he intended to wait until tomorrow before seeing results.

On the second day in the morning, Roland, Carter and Anna all hurriedly rushed to the gunfight in the backyard. When he opened the door, he saw that the cement seemed to have hardened, the two bricks were tightly tied together. Consolidation seems uneven, and in some places, appears to freeze.

Roland crouched down, scraped the frozen ice, and tried to squeeze his finger into the hardened cement, the touch made his heart feel happy, the cement surface was solid, very different from the touch of the ground being hit, that is, the touch of the ground being hit, using a nail to scrape it leaves no trace.

Carter repeated the fourth prince's actions, trying to move the stone, but he was also unsuccessful. He even firmly kicked his side with his feet, until the relationship between the cement and the ground broke, but the two pieces of bricks were still tightly bound. Finally, he swung the hilt of his sword at the brick, but only a small piece in the corner came off.

"It's the effect of 'cement'," Carter immediately realized his goal, "It's incredible. Yesterday it could flow like a melted candle, just one night later, like a rock. With this kind of material, building a wall city would move faster. As long as we have enough stones, we can even build a wall around the border in five years! "

"What's the point of that?" Roland did not accept the suggestion, "The high wall will not be able to stop the enemy coming towards us from within. I would rather turn the old wooden house of Border Town into a sturdy concrete room, so that my people would not have to worry anymore about the natural disasters that made them homeless.

"......" The Chief Knight was speechless; he really did not expect the fourth prince with all kinds of bad habits to say this.

"In the future, you'll see," Roland reaffirmed himself once again about the importance of the path he would go through - with regards to the many battles he would have to fight in the future, science and technology are his best allies. And knowing this, the help of the witches was the first step on the path he had to take.