Lord Highlander

   Chapter 512 511. Gunpowder

   Gravel everywhere...

   Horseshoes stepping on the ground will immediately bring up a cloud of dust.

  The dry wind blowing from the desert takes away the last bit of moisture on the Gobi Desert in the barren land, and the water element in the air is very thin.

The guide of Uta Village wrapped himself in a rough linen cloth, with only a pair of eyes exposed. He rode a Gubolai horse and walked in the front. He would only eat some food and water before dawn, and he would not eat throughout the day. , In this dry spring, many villagers do this in order to save food.

Recently, a gang of bandits came up from the Gobi. In the past, when there was a food shortage every spring, the bandits would venture across the desert and go to this area to loot their homes. You can't find anything, but the appearance of these bandits often makes life even harder for the villagers who are already struggling with food and clothing.

A week ago, a gang of bandits was chased and killed by Andrew and Samira on the Gobi for three days. Finally, they retreated to the desert in embarrassment. Dozens of vultures came and circled back and forth over the mountain pass.

  The reputation of the Badlands Vigilante beyond Pagros Pass has now spread throughout the villages.

The investigation team entered the depths of the barren land. In addition to Viscount Frank and two assistants, there were also two magicians, Karl and nine knights from the support squadron, Suldak's security team, and a team from Uta Village. name guide.

It was not the first time for Karl to enter the barren land. The guard battalion rode horses and looked at the knight collar of Suldak from the highest point of the stone slope. The pustule mountain was at least fifty or sixty kilometers away. The mountain of pustules hidden under the billowing smoke can only be seen on a clear day.

   But now, in the eyes of everyone, they can only see the gray clouds accumulated in the distant sky, like a majestic mountain.

   Only in windy weather can the volcanic ash from Pustule Mountain be blown here.

  During the dry season at the turn of spring and summer, there hasn’t been a drop of rain here for two consecutive months. Even if you dig three feet in the Gobi, it is difficult to dig out the moist water vapor.

   A group of people came to the scene where Suldak fought two rebels, and found some residual black blood on some gravel.

   The ogre saw the stone thrown by him from a hundred meters away, threw off his paws and ran over a few steps, picked up the stone, and told Viscount Frank about the fierce battle scene at that time.

   Viscount Frank squinted his eyes and looked at the barren land, as if replaying the battle scene in his mind.

The two magicians who hardly said anything along the way jumped off their horses, took out a few pieces of magic crystals from their magic pockets, and placed a magic pattern circle on the stone floor, and then put those six-prism magic crystals The crystal is placed in the center of the magic circle, and two magicians stand on both sides of the circle, input a little magic power into the circle, and the whole magic circle starts to work, and the magic crystals in the center of the circle are filled with magic elements of various colors .

  Although they don't know what the two magicians are doing, they can roughly guess that they are performing some kind of magic test.

The two assistants of Viscount Frank began to collect some **** stones at the scene, and surveyed the general area of ​​the fighting venue. The group stayed here for more than half a day before the two magicians completed the magic test with tired faces. , the two magicians told Viscount Frank with certainty that no abnormal state of magic elements was found here.

   Viscount Frank lowered his head and thought for a while, and everyone waited aside, no one disturbed his thinking.

When he raised his head again, Viscount Frank's expression softened a lot. At least when he looked at the security team, he no longer had the cold eyes. He said to the security team in Suldak: "Thank you for your hard work these two days. Cooperate!"

   Then he turned his head and said to Karl next to him: "Then Captain Karl, let's go to the next reconnaissance point!"

   "Okay, Viscount Frank!" Carl readily agreed.

  The investigation team then left this barren land without stopping.

Knowing that this group of people had crossed the Pagros Pass in the distance, Suldak breathed a sigh of relief. After all, there is not only an envoy of the Dark Goddess in the village, but also a succubus from the Flaming Hell. No matter who was exposed, it would be a disaster for Surdak.

  …

  Suldak waited for nearly a month, and the White Elephant Firm finally sent the second batch of steel and a large bucket of saltpeter powder to Wall Village.

  The old village chief Brett directed a group of villagers to unload bundles of thumb-thick steel bars from the four-wheeled carriage. These steel materials will be used on the main dam of the secondary reservoir.

The foundation of the secondary reservoir dam has been formally poured a week ago. Steel bars protrude from the concrete foundation. A group of bricklayers use iron wire to weave a web of dams on these thumb-thick steel bars. The front and rear sides of the dam are The long planks were erected by the carpenters, and only after the foundation of the embankment became firmer, the embankment of the secondary reservoir would be further poured.

  Thirteen four-wheeled carriages were filled with this kind of steel and drove into the village. Only then did the old village chief know that Suldak had invested a large sum of money in this reservoir.

   "Dak, can the sulfur produced by the open-pit sulfur mine in your territory be exchanged for these steel products?"

   "Of course!" Suldak said to the old village chief confidently.

  The old village chief watched a group of villagers unload the steel in a hurry, and said with a sad face: "I heard from Charlie that the sulfur mines in the rocky area are almost exhausted..."

  As a large amount of sulfur ore was transported to Hailansa City for sale, no one knew better than the old village head Brett the value of this yellow crystal mixed in the rock.

Suldak smiled lightly, and said: "No problem, there is not only such a river of lava in the pustule mountain. When the sulfur mines in this rocky area are exhausted, I will take them to another place. The pustule mountain is as big as it is. , there will be no shortage of sulfur ore.”

What he is considering now is not the second-level water storage tank. Even in this transaction, Suldak has ordered the steel materials for the third-level water storage tank. What he has to consider is that the second-level water storage tank should be at least larger Twenty times the fourth-level cistern and the larger fifth-level cistern. Looking at the planning map of Suldak now, the entire cistern occupies almost a large area of ​​the upper reaches of the valley.

   Once the reservoir is completed, it will become a huge artificial lake hanging over the heads of the villagers.

"That's good. In fact, I want to say that the reservoir is already very good now. As long as the reservoir is filled with water in summer, it can definitely survive the dry season in the next spring. We don't need a bigger reservoir." Let me tell you! We leveled this piece of land, and we should build a rich knight manor. Now that you have become an official knight of the Grimm Empire, you should also pay attention to your own dignity." The old man The village chief Brett said to Suldak earnestly.

But Suldak shook his head and said: "This is not enough. By this time next year, there will be at least a few hundred acres of land on the river bay beach that need to be irrigated, and Wall Village will not always be full of water." With such poverty, the place will become richer little by little, and more people will be willing to move to Woer Village.”

  Seeing that he couldn’t say anything about Suldak, the old village head Brett could only shut up and stood on the embankment watching the lively scene of the construction site of the secondary reservoir.

"Knight Suldak, the batch of magic materials you specially ordered from Magician Dale has arrived." A person in charge of the White Elephant Firm who was in charge of delivering the goods came to Suldak and saluted him respectfully. and said.

Then he beckoned behind him, and two store clerks carried an oak barrel wrapped with straw ropes, carefully placed it in front of Suldak, and then pried open the cork on the barrel, from the A little white powder was picked up inside and handed to Suldak.

  The person in charge of the firm managed to squeeze out a smile, and continued:

   "Mage Dale asked me to tell you that you must use it with caution. This thing is not safe. It is very dangerous for those who are not familiar with it."

  Suldak nodded and replied mildly:

   "Understood, convey my thanks to Dale Magician for me!"

   After speaking, he took out two silver coins from his pocket and handed a silver coin to the person in charge of the business.

  The person in charge of the firm's eyes lit up, and he quickly took it in his hand, and humbly praised Suldak:

   "You are a generous knight!"

  …

   In the next few days, Suldak set up a marching tent at the foot of the mountain outside the village.

  Then immediately drove everyone away, and even he blessed himself with a divinely blessed body.

Charcoal and sulfur are the most indispensable things in Wall Village. After preparing the toner and sulfur powder, Suldak began to prepare black powder outside the marching tent. He seemed to be alone, but he was not. With the magic notebook by her side, Celia Cooper stayed by Suldak's side the whole time, introducing him to the uses of various glassware and the basics of potions.

  Suldak began to pour some charcoal into the cup, and filled it with sulfur while stirring. When the last step was done, a certain proportion of nitrous powder was still filled.

  Suldak has done this modulation process no less than dozens of times.

In fact, even if you know a little about the formula of black gunpowder, it is only when you start making it that you realize that it is not as simple as you imagined. The gunpowder is debugged, and it is more like a group of fireworks that can burst into intense flames. Tightly bundle it into a cylinder with parchment paper, and block the ends with yellow mud, but this large firecracker still has no power.

   "Are you sure you still want to match like this?" Celia Cooper saw that Suldak was repeating what he did before, so she couldn't help standing on the page and complaining to him.

  Suldak wiped his hands on the apron, and said to Celia Cooper seriously:

   "I don't know what's wrong, but I know that doing so should almost succeed. This thing is not magic. This thing is more like Hex technology. If it is really classified academically, it should be physics and chemistry."

  He still has a good impression of Celia Cooper.

  No matter what aspect of knowledge, as long as Suldak asks, he can always hear some suggestions from Celia Cooper.

  Celia Cooper had a strange look in her eyes, propped her chin on one hand, and muttered behind the black fence of the book page: "I find that I can't understand you more and more."

Suldak stopped what he was doing, and said to Celia Cooper: "What's wrong? I know how to make black powder because... I got the recipe for making black powder! I just don't know a tiny detail of it. , it just failed to bring out the maximum power of this thing.”

Celia Cooper curled her lips and said to Suldak: "I don't mean this, I have seen many great potion masters, I am not interested in potion science, I mean some of your practices, you are The construction of such a large reservoir in Wall Village, without the land here being classified as a knight's territory, is not as simple as building a house, with such a large investment, what exactly do you want?"

  Surdak lowered his head again, and while stirring the gunpowder in his hands, he said, "I'm just fulfilling my promise..."

  By the evening, when Rita delivered food to Suldak, Suldak could already discover a small flaw and make some improvements.

   Just outside the tent, Surdak puts on a gorgeous fireworks display for Rita.

   Rita was so shocked that she couldn't speak for a while, but kept regretting in her mouth: "It's a pity that Natasha and little Peter are not here..."

  …

   ‘Boom’

  With a loud bang, the limestone blocking the river channel was blown apart.

A group of kobolds stood on the embankment of the artificial canal, looking in horror at the cracked limestone in the river. The huge limestone was not blown apart, but a huge bulge from the grave, covered with dense cracks.

   It is also the amount of black powder that Suldak tested after dozens of experiments.

After the explosion ended, a group of kobold slaves tremblingly walked down the river bed. They picked up their picks to dig up the loose stones. The two kobolds worked together to lift the rocks to the embankment on the bank with a wooden stick. Several bricklayers were Use these stones to build a low flood control dam, and fill the gaps in the stone wall with volcanic ash mud.

   With gunpowder to open the way, the two biggest obstacles on the river were finally wiped out by explosives.

Eight hundred kobold slaves rushed down the river bank at the same time, and the footsteps sounded like silent drums on this land. After nearly a month of captivity, these kobold slaves could eat two full meals a day, Although the labor intensity at the artificial canal construction site was a bit high, it did not affect the recovery of the kobold slaves' bodies, and they all became very strong.

  A large amount of gravel was brought up from the bottom of the river. The kobold slaves didn't need to rest, and they cleaned up this section of the river in one go.

  They are just a little afraid of the loud noise, but they are almost familiar with it these days...

  (end of this chapter)