Although Tang En said that he was going to take Brian to try making steel, he did not know how to do it. In short, he first took Brian to get some limestone, then ran to the charcoal factory to get a batch of charcoal. After that, he found a place at the edge of the forest where there was no one and planned to start work.
"Big brother, what are you going to do?"
Brian looked at Tang En squatting there and studying the stones with a conflicted expression. He was clearly asked to observe and learn, but he could not even understand. What was there to learn?
"Burning limestone."
"Limestone?"
"Here, these are the stones."
Tang En pointed to a few pieces of limestone next to him. "Making steel requires quicklime. When these limestone are calcined at high temperatures, quicklime and a kind of gas will be produced."
"This kind of stone? We have it all over the place. "
The Amblis Mountains itself was a super huge mineral vein. Coupled with the fact that the dwarves dug here and there, it was normal for there to be a lot of limestone.
"Oh, then remember it well. This kind of stone is indispensable for making steel."
After Tang En finished speaking, he probably recalled most of it. With a hook, the Magician's Hand grabbed a few pieces of limestone and floated up. Then, a thought flashed through his mind, and a cluster of blazing flames suddenly appeared in the air.
"Eh!? Big brother, you're a mage? "
Brian was very surprised. "When I saw how you fought before, I always thought you were a warrior!"
"Don't tell anyone."
Tang En said casually, but his eyes were fixed on the limestone. The temperature of the flames kept rising.
"Why?"
Brian scratched his head. "Mages are much more popular than warriors. If your people know that you're a mage, they'll probably worship you more and be more obedient. If it were me, I would definitely tell them. But why do you want to keep it a secret? Do you want to maintain a sense of mystery? Or do you have enemies? Or — "
"If you talk nonsense again, get out of here!"
Tang En's face was conflicted. This Brian was active in work and fighting. He was also quite a good person. It was not a problem to be friends, but why was he so talkative? Especially after drinking, it was as if a dam had been opened, and it flowed endlessly …
Brian said righteously, "How can you forbid me from speaking? Speaking is a gift from the Goddess — "
Silence.
Tang En's lips moved slightly, and Brian's voice disappeared instantly.
Eh? Why is there no sound?
Brian touched his lips and opened his mouth, but he still couldn't make a sound. He immediately became anxious and shouted at the top of his lungs. Unfortunately, he still couldn't make a sound.
Tang En was too lazy to pay attention to him. He concentrated on calcining the limestone.
Soon, the color of the limestone turned white. With a gentle wave of the Mana Hand, a layer of powdery calcium oxide fell off, which was the so-called quicklime.
With the help of magic, it only took a few minutes for the limestone crushed by Tang En to be completely calcined and turned into quicklime.
After putting away the pile of quicklime, Tang En looked back at Brian and almost laughed out loud.
This guy actually opened his mouth wide and used his hands to dig inside. Did he think that there was something wrong with his throat?
Tang En lifted the Silence spell and said, "The next time you talk nonsense, I'll make sure you can't speak for a day."
"Big brother, I — Eh!? I can speak! Damn it — it's your spell! "
Brian suddenly jumped up. "You actually restricted my right to speak!"
"That's when the spell comes into play."
Tang En said with a straight face, "Are you going to continue watching or not?"
"I —"
Brian said dejectedly, "Okay, you win!"
Brian originally wanted to fight Tang En to his heart's content, but after thinking carefully, he didn't fight much close combat with Tang En. Now that he knew that Tang En was also a Mage, how could he fight him?!
Tang En pointed to the pile of quicklime and said, "See, this is quicklime."
Brian leaned over to take a look. "I've never seen it before."
"It's normal … Don't go near it. It'll be troublesome if it gets into your eyes."
Tang En said, "When this stuff comes into contact with water, it will become mature lime. At the same time, it will release a lot of heat. It's very dangerous."
"Oh? Then wouldn't it be good to use it in a battle? "
Brian just said casually, but Tang En's eyes lit up as he found another use for quicklime.
Speaking of which, when Wei Xiaobao watched The Deer and the Cauldron, he relied on this magic weapon to kill a lot of enemies. It could be seen how powerful the quicklime was. The people in Prandal had never seen quicklime before, so they definitely did not know how to deal with it. If they suddenly used this magic weapon in battle …
Tang En silently noted this point, and then said, "The quicklime and charcoal are ready. Now we can make steel."
"How?"
"Originally, we were going to smelt the ore first, but to save time, I got some pig iron ingots from Edgar."
As Tang En spoke, he took out some pig iron ingots. The magic flame instantly burst out a temperature of more than 2,000 degrees, and in a short while, the pig iron ingots were melted into a liquid.
"After the pig iron is melted, blow the charcoal and quicklime into the liquid …"
On Earth, the common material used to make steel was coke, which was produced by distillation under high temperature and pressure in coal mines. At present, Tang En hadn't heard of coal mines in Prandal, so naturally, he wouldn't consider coke. But then again, charcoal was actually more effective in making steel. Although the consumption of charcoal was large … wasn't the boundless Ladya Forest and Emerald Forest next to Ellington the best source of charcoal?
As long as he used it as he liked and didn't offend the elves …
Brian scratched his head. "Why do you have to blow in the charcoal and quicklime?"
"Because the iron is not pure. In the iron ore … Damn, how should I explain this?"
Tang En was conflicted. Did he have to popularize basic chemistry with Brian?
"Iron ore is actually a composite product called iron oxide. The process of melting the iron ore is actually the process of removing the impurities inside. The higher the temperature of fusion, the more complete the reaction …"
Tang En originally wanted to talk about the oxidation-reduction reaction, but when he saw Brian's blank face, he decided not to.
Anyway, his chemistry was only at a half-baked level …
When blowing in the charcoal, in order to increase the degree of reduction, Tang En also used a wind-type spell to blow a large amount of air into the liquid. Originally, he should have blown in pure oxygen, but Tang En had no way to make the raw material for storing gas …
It was easy to make pure oxygen. If he could make an electrolyzer to electrolyze pure water, the gas at the cathode would be hydrogen, and the gas at the anode would be oxygen. Even if he didn't know which side was the cathode and which was the anode, he would know when he tried …
But the problem was storage.
Tang En had no way to make a high-pressure storage tank to store the produced gas …
So, he could only use the simplest way, which was to blow in a large amount of air.
"As for why I blew in the quicklime, it's to let the impurities in the liquid condense together to form slag and be discharged. See? Those tumbling things on the surface? That's the slag formed by the quicklime. "
Tang En gestured for Brian to see the slag clearly. With the stirring of the Magician's Hand, many lumps floated on the molten iron. Brian took a closer look and was stunned. "These pig iron ingots were made by me and Edgar together. How can there be so many impurities in them?"
"Of course, many things can't be seen by the eyes, but it doesn't mean they don't exist."
Tang En shrugged and kept his eyes on the flame above the molten iron. When the flame weakened and became weak, Tang En filtered out all the slag — this could be done easily with magic.
In fact, the process of making steel was far more complicated than this, but Tang En only remembered this part. He really couldn't remember the other complicated processes.
After continuing to stir the molten iron to let the carbon powder and iron react fully, Tang En planned to set the shape.
As for the other processes … Haha.
After the magic flame stopped, the molten iron was restrained by Twain's magic power and turned into square pieces. After cooling down, they were placed neatly on the table.
Brian went up and touched it. "Big brother, is this steel?"
"Well, probably —"
Because his memory was too vague and unprofessional, Tang En was not sure whether his attempt was successful or not. But of course, he couldn't lose face in front of Brian. He smiled proudly and waved his hand. "— Of course! To be precise, it's a carbon-iron alloy, but … you don't have to care about the name. This is steel. Yes, it must be steel! "
"But it looks no different from pig iron ingots."
"The difference is huge … Go back and use this steel to make a few weapons and try."
Tang En had manually made dozens of kilograms of "steel" this time, which was enough for Brian to experiment.
"No problem!"
Brian was quite interested in experimenting with new materials. He really wanted to know how good the "carbon-iron alloy" mentioned by Tang En was.
The two of them began their return journey. Tang En was deep in thought along the way. If they could produce some steel that could be put into practical use, then they could consider starting the construction of the steel mill. Before that, the problem that still needed to be solved was how ordinary workers could implement several of the more important technological steps in the process.
Constant magic could be used to blow carbon and lime. Slag removal could also be achieved by using tools made of magical metals that were resistant to high temperatures. Stirring could be achieved by adding a magic array to the bottom of the furnace and controlling the output of mana through a simplified switch on the outside.
After going through the process in his mind, Tang En let out a long sigh. With his poor knowledge, this was the best he could do. If even he could only make that kind of scrap steel, he had to consider other methods. Prandal was a world with magic, so it was normal to make some strange special alloys. Maybe there was an alloy better than steel?
After returning to Ellington, Brian immediately began to test the characteristics of the steel. = = = PS: I almost forgot to update … Finished reading the poll ~ ~ ~
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