Sui Xiong had produced a lot of salt when he was saving the whole Main Plane. It was so much that it could be piled up into a mountain.
Of course, the salt was coarse salt, bitter and astringent. Maybe poor people didn't mind its taste, but Sui Xiong hated it very much. In his opinion, this salt was rubbish. Not only did it taste bad, but it also contained a lot of harmful minerals. No matter how lacking Sui Xiong's scientific knowledge was, he knew that seawater was not drinkable. The key reason was not that it was dirty, but that it contained a lot of harmful minerals.
Sui Xiong once heard a popular science saying that the reason why seawater was not drinkable was that it contained too much salt and other minerals. He didn't remember what those minerals were, but he could remember their names. Emetic salt, Epsom salt … Just by hearing the names, he knew what would happen if he ate it.
So although he got a mountain of salt when he got fresh water from the sea for disaster relief, he didn't find a good way to use it. Finally, he gave Palin, the chief scientific expert of the Church of Void Mask, a task to study how to purify the coarse salt into edible salt.
There was also the technology of drying salt in this world. Naturally, there were ways to turn coarse salt with a lot of impurities into fine salt with almost no impurities. But those methods required the help of magic, and the cost was too high. Apart from being enjoyed by the upper class, it didn't have much practical value.
The special spell 'Coarse Salt Purification' was a middle-rank spell. A wizard who could cast this spell was at least equivalent to a knight. Moreover, he could only cast this spell two or three times a day, and could only purify 10 to 15 kilograms of salt in total. "Purify Saltwater" was a little lower. A wizard close to the middle level could cast it, and an ordinary wizard could cast it about ten times a day. But considering that salt could only be obtained after the saltwater was evaporated, the efficiency of producing fine salt was actually not as good as "Purify Coarse Salt."
In general, considering human resources and casting materials, a pound of purified fine salt was worth about 20 gold coins — this was the cost, pure production cost, and only the cost of drying salt could be so low. If it was boiled salt, it would cost three to five gold coins per pound. Plus transportation … the fine salt in inland areas could sometimes be sold for more than 100 gold coins per pound!
This was undoubtedly a profiteering industry, but in fact, very, very few people engaged in it. Because in most cases, people would rather eat coarse salt that cost no more than five gold coins per pound.
What? You said the taste was bad? You said it was harmful to the body?
Wouldn't it be fine if he ate less?
Therefore, the market for refined salt was not big, and the profits were not huge.
The task that Sui Xiong gave Palin was to find a way to purify coarse salt as cheaply as possible. As for the research budget, it was the same old rule. Don't worry about money, spend as much as you can.
Even so, Palin spent more than ten years to complete this research.
The solution that he and the researchers he led finally found was extremely simple.
It was so simple that only two words were needed.
"Powder" and "wash".
Yes, those were the two words that Palin had used to name the salt.
The specific method was not complicated at all. First, grind the coarse salt as fine as possible. It would be best if it was as fine as flour. They were then poured into the salt water. As more and more salt was dissolved in the salt water, it gradually became insoluble in the water. In physics terms, it was called "saturation."
This saturated salt water could no longer dissolve the salt, but it could dissolve the impurities in the salt. Using it to wash the coarse salt powder, one could get fine salt with very few impurities.
After washing, the content of impurities in the fine salt obtained was very low. If necessary, this salt could also be used to make saturated salt water for a second washing, or even a third time …
Generally speaking, the fine salt obtained after washing three times would be very pure and without any odor. Palin also added some filtering, precipitation and other impurities in the process. In the end, the fine salt obtained was as fine as rice flour, snow-white and crystal clear, and tasty.
He named it "washed powder salt."
After listening to his report and inspecting their research institute, he could not help but be sincerely happy for them.
"This is a great achievement!" He said. "Palin, if I am right, if you are willing to widely disseminate this technology, with this achievement, it may be enough to be a god. Of course, it is estimated that it will only be the lowest level of weak divine power."
Palin smiled, but there was no excitement on his face.
It was not that he looked down on weak divine powers. No matter how weak a "weak divine power" was, it was still a god, a great immortal existence, a level that was beyond the reach of mortals. It was just that this was not what he was pursuing.
"In the process of researching fine salt, it was not me who really made a great contribution," he said. "It was Fira Kenji."
Of course, Sui Xiong knew who Fira Kenji was. Known as the "Green Magician," he was originally a pig-headed cook. Later, he had an adventure and swallowed the soul of an ancient wizard who tried to take his body and resurrect. Only then did he become a magician. Later, with the help of Miramon and Mado, he researched and created the Green Magic, which was characterized by "learning magic by swallowing magic beasts."
Sui Xiong also saw Fira in the research base. Because pig-headed people did not have a long life, Fira's hair was already white, and his fat face was gradually thinning, which proved that his life had come to an end. The battle with the soul of the ancient wizard had certainly benefited him a lot, but it had also caused him to lose a lot of his life. In addition, later, in order to fulfill his long-cherished wish of many years with his old rival, Ruby Slyu, he risked his life to use a forbidden method to defeat his opponent in the World Number One Martial Arts Competition and take revenge for being looked down upon and bullied in his youth.
Now, he was almost at the end of his life. Although it was not to the point where he could not even walk, in fact, it would not be strange if he fell down tonight and did not wake up the next day.
Sui Xiong knew about his experience, but Sui Xiong did not expect that this short-tempered, limited pig-headed person, who seemed to have become a magician only by luck and the help of friends, was the key person who invented the technology of coarse salt purification.
Looking at the peaceful smile on Fira's old face, Sui Xiong could not help but think of a famous saying.
This is really … don't judge a book by its cover!
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