At the edge of the industrial zone in the east of Cecil City, Gwen, Rebecca, and Egg Nicholas were in a research room in the mechanical manufacturing institute.
The round Iron Ball was floating in the middle of the room. Beside him, a complex and exquisite metal model was floating with him. The metal model was obviously the chassis of the vehicle. Under the high-precision processing ability of Egg Nicholas, every gear and connecting rod had been restored to the most accurate state, and various operating demonstrations were carried out along with the magnetic field.
"This is the general traction chassis after it has been finalized. Of course, it is just a model. We still need the technical staff to work on it." A metallic voice came from the Iron Ball. As he spoke, he rotated the model so that Gwen could see the details inside it. "Based on the previous design, we have readjusted the connection between the magic net unit and the power ridge, and added a layer of shock absorber. This allows the chassis to adapt to more complicated and harsh roads. This shock absorber structure can be removed and replaced with additional magic net units to increase the output of the chassis. This way, it can be used as a tractor for construction machinery in relatively flat areas."
Gwen looked at the model presented by Egg Nicholas and listened to his explanation. He nodded gently. "… Not bad."
Now that the magic car was born, the first problem it had to face was the terrible road conditions of this generation and the difficulty in maintaining it.
There were no smooth and solid highways in this era, and there were no service areas and repair shops in the vast wilderness between cities. Since Rebecca created the cement, Cecil's road construction had never stopped. But even with the convenient means of magic, the road facilities in the Southern Realm were seriously incomplete. At this stage, only three roads in Cecil were 'modernized.' There was a wide cement road from Cecil City to Kant, and a similar road from Cecil to Tanzam. The road to the Gelen area was just completed a few days ago. Other than that, there were only messy roads built by the nobles in the Southern Realm.
Among these messy roads, the one in the best condition was the temporary road from Tanzam to Hosman City. But it was only leveled and reinforced by the mages and engineers with magical terminals using 'Stone to Mud' and 'Mud to Stone'. It could be used to transport people and supplies temporarily, but in the long run, it was not up to Gwen's standards in terms of durability and scale.
As a remnant of the old feudalism, the roads were a big problem in front of Gwen. The nobles had their own ways of building roads in their own territories. Not only were the quality and scale of the roads a mess, but the planning was also a mess. Sometimes, to prevent the nearby nobles from raiding, they even deliberately destroyed the areas where the roads between two territories met, using magic to create a large number of man-made potholes, sand, and quagmires. Now that the Southern Realm was unified, the former lords had withdrawn from the scene, but these irritating things were left to the builders of Cecil.
It was fortunate that this world had inconceivable magical technology. Arcanotech terminals that were specially designed for ordinary engineers had also been popularized. With the help of various spells such as' Stone to Mud ',' Mud to Stone ', and' Weight Reduction ', the road construction project in the Southern Border was progressing smoothly. Even so, considering the actual conditions of most remote regions and the situation outside the Southern Border, the early arcanotech vehicle chassis still had to consider how to deal with the harsh road conditions.
"The universal chassis has to be the most adaptable, so we redesigned its size according to the current average width of most of the roads in the Southern Realm. Basically, it's a little narrower," Rebecca said, gesturing as she continued. "The widest part is no more than 1.8 meters …"
Gwen thought to himself. 1.8 meters was the width of the world's largest double-driver carriage. Strictly speaking, it was the maximum width for two horses with a set of harness. Although the roads built by the nobles were varied, their widths were generally similar. Except for small paths and village roads, the narrowest 'official' road was no less than this. If it was narrower than this, large double-driver carriages would not be able to pass through.
Cecil's road construction was based on the old roads, and the personnel and supplies needed to be transported by horse carriages. Therefore, each lane of the new cement road was also affected by this number. Basically, it was the width of a large double-driver carriage plus about a meter of 'safety margin'. On this basis, the scale of the magic car also had to meet the requirements to be able to drive safely on such a lane.
As far as Gwen knew, something similar happened on Earth. The original width of horse carriages affected the standards of the roads, the standards of the roads affected the size of early cars and trains, and the size of cars and trains affected the size of all the transportation tools, cargo boxes, and other things built on the basis of early roads and railways.
Two completely different worlds, after all, led to the same destination on this point.
Gwen suddenly thought of the hometown that he had been separated from for countless years. He could only sigh silently, and in the midst of his sigh, his thoughts gradually scattered.
The magic car was an epoch-making means of transportation. Of course, it was countless times stronger than the current horse carriages. With these powerful and tireless vehicles, the development of the Southern Territory would definitely take a big step forward. But if it was only them, it was still far from enough.
The Southern Territory was not big, but it was definitely not small either. The narrow shape of the territory made it particularly difficult to travel from east to west. At present, in order to build the four new industrial cities on the "Cross Axis," Gwen needed to allocate a large number of materials and personnel from all over the Southern Territory, including the ores in the Tanzan- Cecil area, the wood in the Gelan area, the stones and magic materials in the Peibo area, as well as the huge number of immigrants brought by the population migration project. All of these were basically carried by the several river channels centered on the Whitewater River. However, there was a natural limit to river transportation after all. As the scale of the several cities grew larger, especially when the "Cross Axis" began to extend to the east and west, some raw material production areas far away from the river channels would sooner or later be put on the right track. Gwen had to find a more efficient means of transportation.
The advantage of the magic car was its flexibility and convenience. It was quite suitable for short-distance, small cargo transportation, but when dealing with the development pressure of the entire Southern Territory, its power would definitely be stretched.
Of course, the people of this world and this era probably would not think so, because the magic car was already the most advanced and powerful means of transportation they had ever seen. However, Gwen had seen something better than the magic car. Those that galloped on the rails, could transport thousands of tons of cargo at a time, and were as powerful as the blood vessels of the industrial society.
Trains.
Compared to those things, the magic car in front of him naturally paled in comparison in terms of transportation ability.
At the end of the day, the magic car was not entirely born to solve the transportation problem in the Southern Territory. It was only a supplement in this regard. Its real significance was to start a major transportation reform in the future, to replace the traditional carriage, to make agricultural machinery, to make construction machinery, and even to prepare for military chariots.
Gwen knew that the birth of trains on Earth was far earlier than the birth of practical cars powered by internal combustion engines (not counting the early experimental locomotives powered by steam engines). This was because the "stupid, big, black, and crude" steam engines used in trains on Earth were far inferior to the precise, compact, and efficient internal combustion engines in terms of technical starting point. At the same time, the various front-end technologies used in cars (tires, batteries, spark plugs, etc.) had also gone through a relatively long period of development. All of this was determined by objective historical facts. However, in this world, the development of many things was destined to be different from that of Earth, and the order of many things was naturally different.
The steam engine could not be realized, but the rotor-type magic engine was born. This world leaped into the emergence of a high-efficiency power source similar to the internal combustion engine or the electric motor. At the same time, due to the accumulation of technology in this world and Gwen's conscious guidance, the "magic car", a sophisticated and complex vehicle, appeared in this world earlier than the train. However, this did not mean that this world did not need the train.
In fact, now was the time when the Southern Realm needed it, and it also had the technological foundation to develop it.
After living here for so long, Gwen had learned to abandon some of his old views and realized the real situation hidden under the dark and obscure surface of this special era. The world's technological reserves were far richer than he had imagined, and the technological starting point was far higher than what he had seen. However, these technologies were concentrated in the hands of a few people, or scattered in the hands of scattered intellectuals in a fragmented state. This phenomenon of "excessive technological concentration" and "technological fragmentation" was the result of the collapse of the ancient Kingdom of Gondor. This caused the society here to look far more backward than its actual technological level.
After understanding this, it was not difficult to understand Cecil's technological development speed. Most of the time, those technologies were not developed from scratch at all. Instead, it was just mass production of existing "upper level" technologies, or reconstruction and transformation of broken technologies. To be honest, if a copy of Gwen's "scientific thinking" was made and thrown to a country like Typhon, which had a strong foundation and a lot of talents, their development speed would only be faster than Cecil's.
Even so, Gwen still recognized and respected the talents and efforts of those researchers, and maintained the highest degree of trust in his research department. He knew that science was a gradual thing. As the broken pieces of technology were constantly reconstructed, and as the theories in the field of magical technology were perfected day by day, sooner or later, this land would break away from the shadow of the ancient Kingdom of Gondor and step into the realm that even the great mages of the Sparkle Age had not set foot in.
"Ancestor? Ancestor? "
Rebecca's voice suddenly came from the side, waking Gwen from his thoughts.
"What are you thinking about?"
Rebecca came up to Gwen with a look of concern and curiosity on her face.
Gwen realized that he had been thinking too much and was a little distracted, so he quickly coughed twice to adjust his expression, and then said while thinking, "Rebecca, you know, in fact, the arcanotech car is not the most powerful means of transportation on land..."
Rebecca blinked and said, "You mean... a bigger arcanotech car? Using multiple rows of linked engines to pull a bigger car bucket? "
"... It's not the same. It is indeed a bigger car, but its operating mechanism is completely different from the arcanotech car." Gwen organized the easy-to-understand vocabulary to describe the thing that had never appeared in this world before. "You can imagine such a car: it has a 'magical engine' that is a dozen times, a dozen times, or even a hundred times more powerful than the arcanotech car, and this magical engine pulls a dozen carriages to run on the ground..."
Rebecca's eyes widened. "How is that possible? The ground will collapse! And what about turning? What if there are bumps? "
"So it needs to run on rails. The rails are laid on the ground, made of steel grooves or rails. They can disperse the pressure of the heavy carriages, reduce the wear and tear of the metal wheels, and improve the stability of the train..."
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