The fourth was Sylvie.
In front of this witch, Roland always felt a little uncomfortable. It wasn't because Nightingale said that she lied too much. In modern society, except for relatives and good friends, few people would speak frankly. He had long been accustomed to all kinds of special effects of flattery and rumors.
He just felt that in front of her, he had a feeling that he had nowhere to hide. What was worse, he knew that this was not an illusion, but the other party's ability. Her vision could ignore obstacles. As long as she wanted to, the clothes on her body were as good as nothing. Roland secretly lamented why he didn't have such an ability. He couldn't help but change his sitting position, crossing his legs.
In terms of appearance, she could be regarded as the most unique of the five witches: she had long green hair that fell straight to her shoulders, and slender eyebrows that were faintly discernible under her bangs. Her amber eyes were so transparent that there was almost no depth to them. It was as if they were mirrors that reflected all the light outside. After looking at them for a long time, Roland always felt that a red mark would suddenly appear inside them.
Sylvie's ability was very easy to understand. She could see everything around her, even behind her, and her vision could penetrate obstacles. The specific depth of vision depended on her thoughts. In addition, she also had a branch ability similar to Nightingale's: she could see the gathering and dissipation of magic.
This made Roland feel a little surprised. If the branch ability could be so close, then what about the main ability? He asked Sylvie this question, but the latter hesitated and said that among the hundreds of witches on Sleeping Island, there was no one with the same ability. Nightingale gently pinched his left side to verify that this sentence was true.
Perhaps it's because there are too few samples, Roland thought.
The last witch to appear was Candle.
She, like Anna, had ushered in her Day of Adulthood during the Months of Demons last year. When she was a minor, her ability could only be used on illuminating objects such as candles, lamp oil, and torches. After adulthood, her magic was stabilized, and the effect was greatly enhanced. She could maintain the original characteristics of the objects she touched for a period of time. For example, after casting the ability on an ice cube, it would not melt under the sun, and would still emit bursts of cold air.
At first glance, this ability seemed incredible, and could achieve many things that could not be done by conventional means. However, after several rounds of testing, Roland found that it was not as perfect as he had imagined. First of all, it was a kind of enchantment ability, which required direct contact with the target. This limitation made it difficult for Candle to solidify some high-temperature objects.
As a result, his plan to obtain a drop of molten steel that was always in a state of incandescence and could provide a continuous source of heat for the blast furnace failed. Apart from Anna, no one dared to touch something that was thousands of degrees Celsius with their hands. But if it became a thin wire, Candle could hold the other end and enchant it, but this led to another problem.
That was, the farther the solidified state of the object was from its normal state, the greater the consumption of magic, and the shorter the duration of the effect.
Roland used ice cubes to verify this point. After solidifying two ice cubes of the same size, one was placed on the hot ground, and the other was thrown into a basin of water. The former only persisted for half an hour before it quickly melted, while the latter still maintained its original shape even after the water temperature dropped to ice-cold.
This meant that if it was replaced with red-hot wire or steel, the effect would only be worse.
Finally, the size was also a factor that restricted Candle's ability. Just like Hummingbird and Mystery Moon, the larger the object, the more magic it consumed. And according to Nightingale's observation, her own magic was in the lower middle level, like a golden mist, and had not yet formed a strong cyclone.
But even so, this seemingly introverted girl was still Roland's biggest gain. In the field of industrial production, the solidified state of the object could be called a priceless treasure, the key lies in the word "normal state". Under the influence of heating, cooling, friction, force, and other factors, the metal would fatigue, and the structure would deform. He didn't need a drill that would become hot because of friction, nor did he need gears that were increasingly worn out. If the key parts of a machine could always be maintained in normal state, it meant that it could always maintain the highest efficiency and the highest precision.
In other words, the burning flame could effectively improve the mechanical strength of inferior metals.
…
Returning to the castle office, Roland once again browsed through the recorded abilities, and then began to plan the content of their future work.
"How is it?" Nightingale poked her head out of the fog, "Among these five witches, is there anyone you particularly like?"
"All of them are not bad," Roland casually replied.
"What! You like all of them? "
He glared at the other, who stuck out her tongue and walked away with a piece of dried fish in her mouth.
Obviously, at present, the most useful ones were Lotus and Candle.
With the ability to transform the terrain, he could easily build a new earthen wall outside the city wall. In order to save materials and speed up the construction period, he chose to build the original rubble cement wall at the foot of the Northern Slope Mountain, which was the closest pass to the Redwater River. Although this could be completed before the arrival of the Months of Demons, at the same time it also limited the scope of the town's westward expansion. With the continuous increase in population, the development of this wilderness and the Concealing Forest was only a matter of time.
The new earthen wall would extend to the outer edge of the Concealing Forest, and at the same time include a part of the forest, so that the town would nearly double the area. As for the lengthening of the line of defense, it could be solved by expanding the source of soldiers and artificially guiding the direction of the demonic beasts' attack. In any case, compared with last year's wooden spears and preloaded flintlocks, the current firepower of the First Army had undergone earth-shaking changes, and the defensive measures such as the battery and the redoubt could also be completed with the help of the new city wall.
In addition, he also intended to let Lotus open a passage in the southern mountains, so that Border Town could directly reach the Ford. In this way, the town would be able to obtain a natural harbor, and trade with the Fjords would also be more convenient. Taking into account the huge magic consumption of transforming the rock formation, this project might take several months.
Candle's job was to cooperate with Anna and Lucia to create a new generation of machine tools for the production of firearms and other mechanical equipment. If everything went well, Anna could also be freed from the tedious processing and production.
Sylvie's task was very clear, mainly to explore the Northern Slope Mine and the Concealing Forest. According to the miners, the Northern Slope Mine had more than a hundred natural caves, and no one knew where they ultimately led. So far, they had mined and cleared only twenty tunnels, but they had already found several kinds of ores. Roland was very curious about the credibility of the so-called ancient monster's lair. Now that he had a witch with the ability to see through things, he wanted to completely explore the Northern Slope Mine, draw a detailed map, and let Lotus cooperate to adjust the terrain to improve the efficiency of mining.
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