Garrett Nordmark devoted an entire afternoon to healing, expending 20% of his mental energy, before declaring the day’s treatments complete.
Thank heavens, the earth, and the well-known rules of this world. A caster’s spells are limited daily, and rest is required for their restoration. No one forces overtime on healers, nor would it be effective...
So, by dinner time, when Garrett packed up his stall and announced the end of the healing for the day, there were no complaints. After hastily consuming a couple of bites of his meal, he took his earnings for the day and knocked on Archmage Serrano’s door.
As Garrett pushed the door open, he immediately stepped back out and encased himself in a bubble spell—the room was filled with smoke, a mix of grey and white, with the chandelier’s Tyndall effect very pronounced. How many people had been meeting here, and how much had they smoked!
But he had to bear it. Stepping inside with the bubble spell still on, the room was indeed full of people, smoke swirling everywhere, and the light making everyone’s faces look ghostly. Archmage Serrano glanced at Garrett and casually pointed:
"Sit. — What brings you here?"
"Uh, should I come back later?" Garrett looked around. The tension was palpable, clearly indicating a difficult meeting, enough to make a group of old men smoke desperately. His minor issue seemed out of place now.
Just as he settled down, a bald mage slammed the table: "Those stubborn stones! Utterly inflexible, not willing to budge an inch! We’ve given them explosives, no need to dig with picks, just drag it out, and yet, they demand a high price!"
"Let them drink themselves to death!" complained another mage. "Every exchange, we have enough to buy food, but they insist on buying alcohol! And strong liquor at that! If each person drank one less sip, we could mine ten pounds less ore!"
"Can’t the mines be improved? Or, use something to make hauling easier? Magic golems?"
"Are you joking? That’s too expensive! Better to increase the purchase price!"
The mages bickered amongst themselves. Suddenly, Archmage Serrano remembered something and turned to ask:
"Harry, that thing you mentioned last time—"
He mimicked a back-and-forth motion. Harry, the mage, shook his head:
"That won’t work. Fun to make, but leaks too much for real work. I’ve tried tree gum, hemp rope, lacquer, either they don’t work or they break too quickly."
Garrett listened intently and suddenly felt inspired:
"What were you referring to?"
"You don’t know?" Harry turned to him with a strange look:
"I remember your mage tower also used this, Novak even published a paper—"
With a gesture, a phantom appeared, filling the entire coffee table. Garrett recognized it immediately:
Specifically, a reciprocating steam engine. He had set up one in the mage tower for electricity. Using it as a power source to pull mining carts up from the mines was indeed a good method. If it could be widely adopted, it would save the dwarves much labor, and they wouldn’t complain about working too much without an increase in income...
But the efficiency of steam engines was low. As Harry had said, most of the steam leaked out. The adhesion of hemp and lacquer was headache-inducing, almost like working and leaking simultaneously, requiring constant maintenance and sealing. To achieve proper sealing, only a transmutation mage could do it directly with their shaping ability. Ɍ
This method, while feasible for a mage to experiment with, was laughably expensive for industrial production.
Fortunately, that afternoon, he had made an unexpected discovery—
"Look at this!" Garrett presented something he had just purchased. A bunch of grey balls of various sizes, from as large as a fist to as small as a thumb, slightly elastic. Immediately, the mages’ attention was drawn:
"Oh, rubber balls. What about them?"
Seemingly useless. Fresh from the tree and not yet dried, they could be coated on cloth or the exterior of shoes to make raincoats and boots. Once dried, aside from being carved into balls for children’s play, they were pointless...
"Why not try mixing them with sulfur?"
"How should we try? Heat it?"
Poor Garrett knew nothing beyond "vulcanization." The ratio of rubber to sulfur, whether heating was necessary, the temperature needed, the requirement
for a catalyst, or if it needed to be in a solvent, he had no clue...
He wasn’t a chemical engineer!
Fortunately, among those present, aside from Archmage Serrano, there were two transmutation mages. The three of them each took a rubber ball, added sulfur, and experimented in various ways.
In the void, tiny specks constantly tumbled. Grey rubber and pale yellow sulfur were kneaded together by invisible hands, with flames, lightning, and various energies crisscrossing. Some produced black smoke, some flames, others turned into fine sand. Garrett watched, silently admiring:
Mages are indeed the prime movers of production, with a talent for hands-on chemical reactions he currently lacked...
The three mages tried over a dozen methods. If one didn’t work, they tried another, and then another. Sulfur was readily available, and the rubber balls were contributed by Garrett, ready to be squandered.
Soon, Harry exclaimed in surprise:
"It’s changed! It’s softened!"
He summoned a mage hand to knead the softened rubber within a force field. After feeling it for a while, he suddenly slapped his spatial bag, pouring out a steam engine half the height and length of a person.
The rubber freely changed shape, suddenly flying up and firmly adhering to the steam engine.
Garrett hadn’t even reacted when the sound of rushing water was followed by rising flames. The steam engine roared to life, steam rolling, and began operating!
The mages fell silent again. It was clear that the sulfur-added rubber balls, with their elasticity, density, and heat resistance, were quite suitable for use as sealing material for steam engines. The only question now was how long they would last.
"How much of this material do we have?"
Garrett tipped a corner of his spatial bag, pouring out numerous balls of various sizes, quickly piling up half a square meter on the coffee table. He shrugged:
"That’s all there is. I bought out the entire store."
Such seemingly useless items being brought to the dwarf capital was a coincidence...
Regardless, with suitable materials found, a plan was formed. After two days and nights of continuous testing, the mages could confirm:
Rubber as a sealing material was far superior to the previous combination of lacquer and hemp rope.
That settled it. Natural rubber could be imported in large quantities. While others were unaware of its use, it was time to stock up! Stock up!
Thus, when negotiations resumed, Archmage Serrano slammed the table, uncompromising:
"The price of ore cannot be lowered! — If necessary, we’ll provide a batch of power to help you haul the ore out!
Right, we’ll order a batch of machines ..."
Steam engines could now be imported in bulk! Perfect for placing orders! The craftsmanship of the dwarves was still trustworthy!