Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 166 Natural Rubber Fruit
Two days later, Harvey, who was obsessed with disassembling and studying the demon clan's pharmaceutical equipment, was suddenly begged by Egno to go to the territory medical hospital.

"Hasn't a way to deal with this fruit been found?" Harvey took the strange wild fruit handed to him by Egno, weighed it in his palm, and asked with some confusion.

Egno happily explained, "No, my lord, you don't realize how much this small, exotic fruit can help the treatment technology of the territory's medical center..."

He put on a pair of special leather gloves, picked up a fruit and crushed it on the metal tray, then picked up a ball of sticky flesh and showed it to Harvey.

"This completely non-toxic, strong adhesive can completely replace silk sutures as a treatment method for wounds. It can be directly applied to the wound as a dressing to close the wound, and there is no need to remove the stitches afterwards."

As he spoke, he pulled Harvey over and showed him a soldier who had been sent back from the mining battlefield. The huge knife wound on his leg was covered with a thick layer of jam.

"Not only is it a clean, non-toxic wound adhesive dressing, but it also has a certain degree of hemostatic, swelling-reducing, and analgesic properties. It's truly a miracle drug for treating trauma!"

Only then did Harvey realize that this small wild fruit actually had such powerful effects. He immediately called a personal guard and told him to quickly notify Pierce and arrange for the guard team still stationed in the mining area to collect a large amount of this wild fruit in the surrounding area and send it back to the territory.

Egno quickly added, "Not only do we need to collect the ripe fruits, but we also need to find a way to dig up some young fruit trees! This fruit doesn't even have seeds inside. I suspect it's a plant that relies on its roots to reproduce and grow..."

He planned to transplant some of them into his own magic potion plantation. If the survival rate was high, he would open up a special area in the territory to plant them in large quantities and quickly catalyze their growth.

Harvey asked in confusion, "How did you discover that using strong liquor could make the fruit's stickiness disappear, freeing those unfortunate soldiers?"

Egno smiled complacently. "It was just an accidental coincidence. When they were brought here, I noticed their faces were covered with scars from desperately digging at their mouths, which were stuck shut. I had the doctors disinfect them with distilled liquor, and it actually dissolved the sticky pulp directly..."

Although we don’t know the principle, there are still certain rules of mutual promotion and mutual restraint among the various strange substances in this world.

The fruit's adhesive ability is so strong that, in addition to being used in medical technology, it is also very useful in other places where strong adhesive effects are required - such as the structural bonding of some precision alchemical instruments.

At this time, Egno took out a large piece of black block from the alchemical crucible and placed it in front of Harvey.

"Sir, I tried boiling the flesh of this fruit in a crucible, and it actually melted and solidified into a black substance with very strange properties... It's soft, elastic, and solid..."

Harvey subconsciously took the black block and squeezed it gently in his hand. It was indeed elastic, but it immediately returned to its original shape and would not allow Harvey to knead it into various shapes.

Wait! Elasticity! A light bulb went off in Harvey's head, a sudden, strangely familiar reference.

Isn't this just natural rubber?

It’s incredible that natural rubber can be extracted from wild fruits!

He immediately ordered Egno to remove all the condensed fruit lumps, then left the hospital without looking back and returned to his underground laboratory in the castle.

Reiner used the high-temperature welding gun equipped on his arm to condense a small flame and gently cut the black pectin block into pieces.

A light white smoke emerged from the cut surface of the black pectin when it came into contact with the fire. Harvey sniffed it and found that it was not the familiar odor emitted by burning rubber products.

The cut pectin is thrown back into the crucible and heated, and it gradually melts into a viscous black liquid. After cooling, it regains its elastic solid state.

From all aspects of the reaction, this pectin is indeed no different from something like rubber: light weight, high resilience, heat polymerization, and reversible deformation...

This also means that this pectin substance can be applied to the surface of an object after heating, and after cooling, it will form a special rubber-like coating. It can completely form a film on specific objects like protecting wounds to improve their durability.

It is also very simple to remove this coating. Just spray it with distilled liquor, which is a traditional alcohol, and it will melt away quickly.

Harvey immediately asked Reiner to conduct a series of test experiments.

It was eventually determined that the practicality of this substance is indeed extremely wide-ranging. Ordinary acids cannot easily corrode it. It will indeed become slightly harder after freezing, but it will not cause it to deform or break easily. It is just that its elasticity is slightly less than that at room temperature.

Compared with fresh fruit pulp, the heated pectin loses its strong adhesive effect, but has waterproof properties. When it is heated and kneaded into a container shape, it can be easily filled with water without any signs of penetration.

Its only drawback is that it is not resistant to high temperatures, just like rubber. Once it comes into contact with the high temperature of flames, it will immediately melt into a viscous liquid and need to wait for cooling and solidification again.

"When I have the chance, I can use my newly invented electromagnetic method to test whether this pectin substance has the same insulating properties as rubber..."

But even if there is no such thing, it doesn't matter. After all, I don't have the ability to rub the generator by hand now, so I don't really need insulating materials as a strong boost to technological development.

But the uses of this pectin coating... are so wide-ranging!
All alchemical instruments and metal energy pipelines that are prone to corrosion and rust, including those metal pipes buried in the territory's three-way project, can all be coated with this natural waterproof and rust-proof coating, greatly extending their service life.

There is also the vehicle invention that Harvey has always dreamed of but has never been able to realize - a magic-powered car with real rubber tires!
After all, the various alchemical beasts made by capturing living creatures and transferring their souls cannot truly replace conventional means of transportation.

Up to now, Harvey has only obtained a dozen expensive manned war beasts by accidentally capturing a group of wilderness mammoths. It is impossible to popularize it and apply it on a large scale.

Looking at the black piece of pectin in his hand, Harvey's mind was already impatiently popping up a bunch of brand-new inventions - bicycles that all civilians in the territory could ride, magical carriages or cars that could travel long distances within the territory, and even high-speed troop transports equipped with elastic rubber tracks that could travel through mountain forests as if on flat ground...

It can be said that only with rubber wheels can the historical wheel of technological development in the territory truly roll forward.

(End of this chapter)