Although the blacksmith shop was already under construction, it was still a long way from completion. In Gwen's plan, the wooden house was not the same as the "blacksmith shop" that people in this world knew. It was just that for the convenience of understanding, he temporarily called this place a blacksmith shop.
According to his idea, he intended to name this place "Cecil Steel Works" ….
As the only blacksmith in the territory, Old Hanmer was also puzzled by the Duke's order to build this "blacksmith shop". In his opinion, this building occupied an unnecessarily large area. In addition to an extraordinarily large plank house, it also included an open space of about 100 meters in both length and width, as well as a wooden shed with only a few brackets. To call such a large facility a "blacksmith shop" was neither fish nor fowl, but he did not dare to say that the famous founding Duke was a layman who pretended to know and commanded blindly. Although he did think so in his heart, he absolutely did not dare to say it out loud.
After all, he was just a commoner, and the duke was a great noble who was on equal footing with His Majesty the king.
Due to the size of the 'blacksmith shop', it could only be located at the eastern edge of the camp. Its' big yard 'extended to the wasteland outside. It was as funny as a neat wooden fence protruding out of it. The things that they brought from Tanzania Town were pathetically few in this giant blacksmith shop. They only occupied a corner of the wooden house, and the only furnace was placed in the open space outside, sheltered from the wind and rain by a simple wooden shed.
As for Gawain, the reason why he had set aside such a large space for his blacksmith shop, close to the edge of his territory, was only because he had considered the future demand for production and the convenience of expansion. In this era, he did not need the traditional blacksmith shop where a blacksmith with a few apprentices, or a small house with a furnace, and the clanking of ironware was not what he needed.
But now he had no way to explain all this to the old blacksmith and his stupid apprentices.
In addition to the production capacity and future expansion considerations, Gwen did not intend to directly set up a furnace in the yard like the transmigrators in the novels he had read before. Although he did think about it, a few days ago, after seeing Heti use magic to help the raft dock and strengthen the foundation of the camp, he temporarily suppressed the idea. Instead, he asked the only blacksmith in the territory, Hamel, to build a traditional furnace in the yard.
When he arrived at the smithy, Rebecca was already waiting for him. Hamel, the old blacksmith with white hair and beard, and a few of his apprentices were there as well. There were also a few people in short sleeves standing in the yard. The baskets at their feet were the first batch of ore that had been shipped in.
Gwen went straight to the traditional furnace.
It looked like a rather crude benzene furnace. It was about one meter tall and was clearly divided into two parts. The bottom part was a large hemispherical structure, while the top part quickly shrank into a cylinder. There were two openings in the hemispherical structure at the bottom. One was at the bottom, obviously for adding fuel, while the other was near the cylinder structure, where the ores could be poured in.
There was nothing special about these parts. It was just an ordinary furnace, but its special part was on the side.
There were three runes arranged there.
The three runes were engraved on a kind of pitch-black stone plate. The three stone plates had obviously been carefully polished and adjusted before they were inlaid on the furnace to ensure that their spacing was exactly the same and that their edges were parallel to each other. The stone plate at the bottom was engraved with a triangular symbol, and there was a wavy line in the symbol, which was the starting symbol of the fire element in the magic book. The stone plate in the middle was a square with a rhombus inside, which was the starting symbol of the earth element. The stone plate at the top was a vortex symbol, which was related to the wind element, but was not the starting symbol.
In addition to these three stone plates, there was also some fine, glittering dust in the material of the furnace. Gwen knew what it was: quartz sand, the quartz sand of this world.
Quartz sand was a material with magic properties. Although its effect was extremely weak, it was cheap enough to be used by civilians, so it was widely used.
Gwen looked up and glanced at the old blacksmith. "You made this furnace?"
"Yes, yes, my lord …" The old blacksmith heard the lord's question and nervously grabbed the hat in his hand. He hurriedly lowered his head and answered, "Oh, half of it was made by me, and the other half was made by the apprentices under my command …"
Gwen nodded but did not ask any more questions.
Magic was an extraordinary power, and it was not a field that the "untouchables" could come into contact with. However, in this world that was filled with magic power everywhere, even the civilians who could not cast spells had traces of magic power in their lives.
Some of the basic uses of magic did not require the knowledge and ability of spellcasting. Everyone had magic in their body, and as long as they used a specific material and carved a simple symbol on a specific material, everyone would be able to slightly trigger the mysterious power that existed everywhere.
This was not casting spells at all. The effect was so weak that it was almost laughable in the eyes of the real 'extraordinary'. This kind of borrowing power was like picking up a stick from the ground as a crutch, or picking up a stone to smash a walnut. It was not technical at all. Even the illiterate civilians could remember how to draw a few weak symbols with weak effects. But it was this little bit of power that determined this world and Gwen's familiar hometown were different places.
It was like the difference of one degree Celsius between the time when water boiled.
With the help of the three runes, this' traditional furnace 'only needed firewood as fuel. Without the help of a blower and without optimizing the combustion chamber structure, it could smelt molten iron.
If the fire element runes were carved on a piece of mithril, this furnace could even use straw as fuel!
However, it was also because of the existence of these ancient runes that the humans of this world had not considered how to improve the efficiency of the furnace from the perspective of improving the combustion efficiency of fuel. They had been constantly improving the materials used to carve the runes and the format of the runes themselves.
So Gwen did not build an indigenous blast furnace. Instead, he first observed this primitive and backward traditional furnace.
The old blacksmith looked at the great noble in front of him more and more nervously. He did not know why Roland suddenly asked a question and then studied the furnace. He also did not know if he had done something wrong. He only knew that nobles were powerful and temperamental. Although Miss Rebecca and the lords before her were kind and generous, the one in front of him was the legendary pioneering hero, a warrior, and a duke. What kind of character would such a great noble have?
Just as the old blacksmith was feeling uneasy, Gawain finally straightened up and asked him a second question, "With such a furnace, how much iron can you refine every day under the condition of ensuring a sufficient supply of ores?"
Hammer heaved a sigh of relief. 'Finally, a normal question.'
"If we use the ores over there, we can smelt 50 kilograms of iron every day," the old blacksmith said proudly.
However, Gwen could not help but frown when he heard the answer. "So little?"
With the help of the runes, the output was only so much?
"That's not enough?" Hamel could not help but say. Then he nervously added, "I'm not questioning your judgment, but —"
"It's okay. Don't be nervous when you talk to me," Gwen comforted the old blacksmith. "I'm a lord who protects you, not a bandit who comes to kill you."
"Yes, Master." Hamel nervously wiped his sweat and then explained, "But this is really the limit. The furnace looks big from the outside, but the space inside is actually limited. And every time after refining a furnace, we have to rest for an hour to let the runes outside the furnace cool down. So, we have to cool the furnace down and then start the fire again. So, we can only smelt 50 kilograms of iron every day!"
"Let the runes cool down?" Gwen frowned.
"Yes," Hamel explained. "This is just a little trick that we engraved on the black stone. It can't be compared to the real magic runes of the mages. It's very easy to break, especially the fire runes. Once they come into contact with the fire element for a long time, they will crack. Even if we change to a stronger material, it won't work. Once the runes crack, the whole furnace will be useless. So, when you smelt iron, you can't keep burning it. "
"What if we make the furnace bigger?" Gwen asked again.
"There's no other way," Hamel said worriedly, wondering why the duke kept asking such a difficult question. "The runes can only provide so much firepower. If we make the furnace bigger, the firepower will not be enough. The ores won't be able to smelt molten iron, and the earth runes will also lose their effectiveness. The refined iron ingot will have more impurities in it, and it will be completely useless."
Gwen pinched his chin. "So, the restriction on the output is entirely because of the runes?"
The old blacksmith blinked. In fact, he didn't quite understand what the restriction on the output meant, but he quickly nodded. "Yes, yes, it's the runes."
Gwen looked at Rebecca. "What do you think if we change the runes into … Erm, how about we call Heti over?"
Rebecca's face immediately turned red. "Ancestor, I know magic theory too! It's just that I can't build the spell model. "
"Theoretical knowledge is okay?" Gwen raised his eyebrows. "Then, how do you think we should solve this problem?"
Rebecca thought hard. "Since you just said that the runes are a shortcoming, how about we change the runes?"
"Change to what?"
Rebecca continued to think. "In fact, the functions of these runes are very simple. They are nothing more than raising the temperature, controlling the airflow, controlling impurities, and so on. The effect is very weak. If we replace them with a real magic array, the efficiency will be increased many times. Moreover, the magic array can channel the energy by itself, and it won't self-destruct even if it continues to operate."
Gwen raised his eyebrows. "Engrave a magic array on each furnace?"
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