Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 435 Magical Steel
"The Ministry of Industry has 20 blast furnaces, and the steel they produce doesn't even meet your test standards?"

Harvey looked up from behind the desk and asked in disbelief.

When handing the submarine design drawings to Chris and Benoit, he did grant them special permission to freely use important strategic materials, and also required all production and manufacturing departments to unconditionally cooperate with the research and testing of the new ship.

But what no one expected was that the research and development was stuck in the most important material link just as it started.

In the past, when it was still a frontier territory, the traditional cast iron kilns that smelted pig iron day and night were enough to supply the daily consumption of the entire territory. After the emergence of blast furnaces, steel production reached an unprecedented peak.

The steel produced in the entire territory is directly divided into two aspects: military and civilian. The former supplies arsenals, shipyards, and railway transportation departments, while the latter mainly serves the Ministry of Construction's plumbing, lighting, and bicycle factories, as well as all kinds of civilian industrial and agricultural tool manufacturing.

At present, the busiest production and manufacturing department in the entire Xinghuo City is the steel smelting center, which occupies most of the area in the suburban industrial park. It can be said that production is almost non-stop day and night. Even the workers in the smelting center work in three shifts, and their salaries are among the best in the entire industrial park.

Chris and Benoit exchanged a glance, each expressing a bitter expression. "Sir, this is a key requirement in your design drawings... The steel used to manufacture the submarine's hull modules, after being die-cast into plates, must be able to withstand a hundred kilograms of pressure without significant deformation or cracking..."

Harvey sighed and held his forehead awkwardly. According to the physics common sense he learned in school in his previous life, due to the high density of seawater, the pressure would increase by one atmosphere for every ten meters of diving. When diving to a depth of one hundred meters, it would need to withstand nearly ten atmospheres of pressure. This pressure acts on the entire surface area of the vehicle. To put it simply, it would need to withstand a force of nearly one hundred kilograms.

However, most military submarines, which are products of modern technology, have a maximum diving depth of only about 300 meters. Therefore, Harvey expected that his Iron Turtle submersible, which was made by "primitive methods", could guarantee a diving depth of less than 100 meters, which was already very good.

After all, the main battlefield will definitely be set up on land, and the water can only serve as an early warning detection and surprise attack effect.

Steelmaking itself is a very complex production category. Whether it is modern smelting or traditional steelmaking, steel output has always been an important standard parameter for measuring the industrialization of a country or region. Harvey only knows that the world's smelting technology is very backward. The blast furnace steelmaking alone can easily leapfrog the times, but in fact, it is not as good as the private smelting workshops of some mining companies in later generations.

The large amount of pig iron ingots produced in his own territory are of different qualities. The blacksmiths responsible for identifying the quality can only simply divide and process them. The good quality ones are sent to military factories to be used to manufacture magical weapons and alchemical beasts, the poor quality ones are sent to blast furnaces for further smelting into steel, and the rest are quickly divided up by various civilian production departments that are eyeing them, and cast into various civilian tools through assembly lines and distributed throughout the territory.

How to produce steel with superior and controllable quality now seems to be the primary goal that Harvey needs to pay attention to.

"If our own steel doesn't meet the requirements, we can try adding some magical minerals... perhaps Phantom Copper, Frigid Black Iron... Mithril? Molten Gold? Anything you think can be incorporated into it is welcome to experiment."

There is no need to consider the construction cost for the time being. As long as the test model of the submarine is successfully launched, as for the material problem... Harvey believes that a way to make up for it can be found as soon as possible.

When it comes to the production of magical applications, no one is better than him at closely integrating the two.

...After Harvey got himself out of the tedious affairs of reality, he logged into the Spellcaster Forum after a long absence and found the chief of the Federation who had been trapped in a corner and "surfing" the forum for a long time.

[Scorching Overlord: Flesh Disintegration? Isn't this the flesh magic that undead spellcasters are best at? Why are you suddenly interested in it and even came to me for help?]

[Kel'Thuzad: As you know, Flesh Disintegration is a spell targeting living things. What I really want to ask about... is that Lord Shadow Knight is said to have re-improved and recast a new spell model based on this spell - Shadow Disintegration.]

This spell was once recorded in the magic library of the Alaye Sky Realm. Although it was not officially published in the gazette, it was successfully included in the magic encyclopedia of the spellcaster forum. After being discovered by Harvey by chance during a search, he has been paying close attention to and studying it.

This improved technique, which Chief Gallagher self-deprecatingly called "the useless Nine Rings" in his paper, was like a shot in the arm in Harvey's eyes - it had a completely different effect from the Flesh and Blood Disintegration Technique. It had a powerful separation ability that was completely targeted at inorganic matter, and could easily remove impurities from smelted metals. It allowed for precise control of elemental proportions in steel during the smelting stage, ensuring stable output while also improving the quality of the finished product.

It can be said that this nine-ring magic, which is regarded as useless by the legendary battle mage, is enough to instantly improve the steel smelting level of Spark City by several levels.

Now there is only one problem facing Harvey - Chief Shadow Knight Gallagher is currently leading the general attack on the demon front center in the Evil Moon Mountains, and has been out of contact with the Internet for several months.

Harvey had no choice but to find Mr. Burning Lord who was "quarantined at home" and ask him to come forward to coordinate so that he could successfully obtain the magic model and structural analysis of this "useless Nine Rings".

[Scorching Overlord: Shadow Splitting? That was Gallagher's random burst of research inspiration, but in the end, it was proven that a fellow born into a battle mage background didn't have much talent for academic research... Hehe, this thing isn't worth exchanging for anything. I can give it to you anytime.]

The Chief, who always strictly abided by the forum's principle of equal exchange, suddenly became so generous and casual that Harvey immediately became alert.

Kel'Thuzad: I'm afraid this is a bit against the rules. Although you are not short of money or rare magical materials, please make a request based on the value of the Disintegration... I can also give you some magic ammunition for the Lance of Oblivion. What do you think?

There was no information sent back on the crystal screen of the magic brain instrument for a long time. Just when Harvey thought that the other party was going to reject him directly with silence, the code name of the Burning Lord lit up again, and a line of text slowly appeared in front of Harvey.

[Scorching Overlord: Mr. Kel'Thuzad, the Federation's response to the war against the demons... and the conflict with the Church is entirely due to the dedicated assistance of the Spellcaster Forum and you. But please don't overthink it. We have not planted any intelligence agents in your territory, and we have no intention of spying on the situation in your territory...]

The Lord of Scorching Heat seemed to have a lot to say, and he sent out a long paragraph of content that could be described as "words from the heart".

[Scorching Overlord: We've heard... we've heard that you've already established a city in the northern wastelands where spellcasters and mortals work closely together and coexist on equal terms. You've also recently expanded a little. So... I have a suggestion. I wonder if you could consider allowing the Federation to establish a small northern branch in your new city.]

(End of this chapter)