When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1018 Changes in Suimi Town
Michelle stood on the boardwalk at the dock in Sapphire, feeling the wooden planks beneath her feet bounce with every step she took.

He followed behind Horn, who was walking forward, but his eyes kept glancing around.

As Horn chatted with the local town council priest, Michelle looked straight ahead at the town.

The stone mooring posts used to hold the small boats are still incredibly smooth from being rubbed by the ropes, and the walls of the town's stone houses are still decorated with quartz sand.

But when you look up, you see thin, grayish-white smoke floating in the sky, with occasional wisps of yellow smoke swirling around the white smoke like venomous snakes.

There was no smell of cooking smoke or fish; all that remained was the smoky aroma of beech charcoal mixed with the sweet scent of molten glass.

"How is it? Do you still recognize your home?" Horn asked with a smile as he walked on the cobblestone street.

Michelle shook her head, then nodded.

"Let's keep watching."

Stepping on the fine quartz sand dust on the ground, Michelle followed Horn out of the residential area and into the outer glass workshop area.

Scattered along the roadsides in the workshop area are fragments of colored glass, reflecting strange, multicolored light.

Located next to the glass shards are the remains of a crucible.

It looks like a charred honeycomb, with crystals of glass enamel still stuck to it.

The waste was arranged unusually neatly, indicating that someone cleaned it up regularly.

This is often the first job for unskilled refugees and laborers.

However, the pasture where Michel used to herd sheep during his childhood, the few dilapidated wooden houses outside the city, and the small ponds were all gone.

Perhaps next time he comes, he won't even be able to find his way back to his hometown.

Michelle couldn't help but feel melancholy.

Horn was quite excited, because glassmaking was driving a very important scientific industry—optics.

To be more precise, it's glass lens technology, used in high-precision telescopes, microscopes, and measuring instruments.

Currently, the scrap rate of parts produced by Horn lathes is very high because the lathe's dial is quite poor, resulting in very low precision of the parts.

The spring mechanism can only be made by hand by old dwarf craftsmen. If the precision can be improved, the production of steel and orchards can be increased.

Then Horn can get rid of those useless dwarf masters who drink all day and neglect their work.

Not to mention the standardized production of various subsequent machines, all of which are based on the requirements for precision instruments.

Not all craftsmen have the keen eye and precise touch of a master craftsman, so they have to rely on tools to assist them.

Not to mention the packaging and logistics revolution brought about by mechanized glass production, which also had an undeniable impact on alchemy and pharmaceuticals.

It also plays an irreplaceable role in the mechanized preparation of pharmaceuticals and in water-based alchemy.

It's worth noting that in the past, apothecaries and alchemists often used bronze vessels to create water-based alchemical potions.

The pharmaceutical industry in places like Franconia is highly developed, largely because they have mature transparent glass manufacturing technology, which allows them to observe changes in pharmaceuticals with the naked eye.

This allows for precise control of the production process.

In this world, pharmaceuticals are not a backward technology; in fact, one could say that pharmaceuticals are the core of the world's chemical industry.

Important industrial raw materials such as soda and alum are produced through pharmaceutical processes.

Horn and Sylph had long since vaguely realized that potions and alchemy were actually one and the same.

The only difference is that the former uses purely physical means to trigger the so-called alchemical reaction, while the latter uses magical means to catalyze it.

For example, in the transparent glass process provided by the Kingdom of France, it was proven that a key to preparing transparent glass is the soda ash produced by combining soda ash with beech wood ash.

In addition, high-quality quartz sand and flint are required.

Horn reached into the raw material area and grabbed a handful of quartz sand, feeling the crystalline powder floating in his hand. He turned to the workshop's main pipe and said, "Could you please give me an introduction?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Please see, glassmaking is divided into three chambers: the melting chamber, the annealing chamber, and the preheating chamber..."

The main furnace lay like a black whale within the high-walled workshop, and the closed crucibles made from hollow clay residue were being fed into the furnace by shirtless kiln workers.

This hollow soil residue actually contains a small amount of mithril, but the refining cost is too high.

However, for some unknown reason, it was exceptionally refractory, and eventually this crucible was made.

Michelle leaned close to the control port and could see the molten glass inside the crucible like a liquid sunset, with golden sparks occasionally flying out from the orange-red vortex.

The kiln workers' bare backs were tinged bronze by the firelight, and sweat trickled down their muscles, rising in fine white mist on the ground. They were so engrossed in their work that they were completely unaware of Horn and his men's arrival.

A master blowpipe from Fran is holding a blowpipe that is about 1.4 meters long.

He inserted the blowpipe into the crucible, and the molten glass scooped up by the end of the iron pipe flowed like lava, quickly solidifying into amber teardrops in the air.

"Press it quickly!" The words in Leia's heavily accented French rang out, and the workers immediately rolled the billet onto the iron plate.

The next second, you hear the sound of iron pipes rubbing against metal and the crisp sound of glass breaking.

"No, it's not done yet, it needs to be kept burning."

Although the apprentices couldn't tell the difference, the master craftsman could clearly distinguish that it was the sound of something that hadn't been fired properly.

Even after the glass is formed and slowly cooled in an annealing furnace, it will still be brittle and not transparent enough.

Continuing onward, beside the annealing kiln, female workers are wiping freshly fired goblets with oil-soaked leather.

Their aprons were covered in quartz powder, as if they had been sprinkled with frost.

Michelle intended to follow, but when her gaze swept over the female workers, she paused.

Among the female workers wiping the wine glasses was a young girl.

Like the town itself, Michelle felt both strange and familiar with it.

He was about to ask Horn to let him speak to him when he suddenly pulled his foot back.

Because the girl was wearing a headscarf that only women would wear, and she also had an iron ring inlaid with stained glass on her ring finger.

"Michelle, what are you trying to say?"

“It’s nothing.” Michelle glanced in that direction. “Is the pay high here?”

"It depends. The best blown glass workers earn 90 dinars a month, the best kiln workers earn 60 dinars, and even the lowest-paid ones, like those female workers, earn 20 dinars a month."

"This salary isn't low."

"That's not low. Our workshop can produce 200 glass products every day..."

As they chatted with the workshop manager, the group walked outside together.

Among the female workers who were wiping and inspecting the work, one of them suddenly looked up and glanced outside.

Why does one of the voices sound so familiar?
Stepping out of the glass workshop, Michelle found herself in front of the fishing port they had passed earlier.

At this moment, bundles of beech logs and woven baskets of charcoal are piled up here, and coachmen are adjusting the goods with iron hooks, while women carry buckets of water as they pass by.

The wooden wheels made a rustling sound as they rolled over the quartz sand, while the cleaners poured the quartz sand into the sedimentation tank to wash away the dirt and impurities.

Michelle stroked the felled beech tree stump: "It's different now."

"What's different?" Horn asked with a smile.

“Everything is different now. There are more people than before, it’s more lively, and people are making more money. But there are fewer forests and grasslands.” Michelle paused, looked at the small fishing port that was being demolished, and suddenly laughed. “The people are different too.”

"Oh?" Horn was about to ask another question when the mayor rushed over eagerly.

According to the procedure, Horn should now cast the final net, marking the complete demolition of the fishing port and its relocation elsewhere.

Of course, Horn wouldn't actually cast a net to catch fish; the net was already cast, and all he needed to do was pull it.

Arriving at the last remaining boardwalk, under the watchful eyes of many kiln workers and former fishermen, Horn reached out and grabbed the fishing net.

Pulled along, the perch leaped in the net, bidding farewell to the fishermen who had caught them for generations, and were caught by new fishermen downstream.

As the sun set, the scales of the perch reflected a silvery light, and Michel's melancholy gradually faded away.

Regardless of the changes, people are doing better than before, aren't they?

Isn't this the ambition he set when he went to war with the army?
Exhaling a breath of stale air, Michelle was about to turn and leave to return to the queue when she saw a dark, blurry thing in the silver light.

It looks like some kind of bronze vessel, and it's quite large.

“No, no.” The more Michel looked at that thing, the more familiar it seemed. It looked just like the Ark of the Sacred Heart in the church murals.

"Your Majesty! Look at that!"

　P.S. I accidentally fell asleep while writing this. I was supposed to update two chapters before midnight tonight.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)