Perfikot didn’t intend to create the Philosopher’s Stone here; she certainly didn’t have that kind of power.
Even though she had earned the royal title of Alchemist at the age of fourteen, she was still far from making the Philosopher’s Stone.
Despite having her parents’ notes and a large amount of research material, so far all Perfikot has been able to do is turn substances yellow.
Moreover, she also needed the help of the Philosopher’s Stone to achieve this step; on her own, she could almost achieve perfect whitening and occasionally succeed in turning substances yellow.
At first glance, it may not seem like much, but if you compare it with most of the Empire’s alchemists who spend their lives pursuing the touch that turns stone to gold and cannot even achieve yellowing, it becomes clear just how much of a genius Perfikot really is.
In short, for Perfikot, if she just wanted to make herself an inflatable mattress, she wouldn’t need to go through the process of blackening, whitening, and yellowing.
But she isn’t merely trying to make herself an inflatable mattress; she hopes to create artificial rubber or plastic.
This could be considered a whim; she had tried doing this before, but unfortunately, she always ended up with something ambiguous.
Although she couldn’t say there was no progress, the results could only be described as barely satisfactory.
Either she herself couldn’t figure out what components the thing contained, or the product wasn’t viable for industrial mass production, and most disappointing of all, its performance didn’t satisfy Perfikot.
The so-called plastic was as hard as a stone. Although plastic can indeed be hard, after processing it should become soft.
However, what she made was really just a particularly unique stone.
This made Perfikot briefly wonder if her ideas were off track or if she made a mistake somewhere, contemplating starting her research all over.
On the artificial rubber front, Perfikot barely made some progress, achieving the performance she wanted, but the material’s durability was a major issue; it couldn’t withstand high temperatures or long-term use, typically aging, hardening, and becoming brittle within days.
This outcome was not really surprising to Perfikot.
Although before her crossing, plastic was something she often saw in daily life, plastic itself doesn’t refer to a single material; it’s the abbreviation for a whole category of plastic materials, with at least a dozen common types.
Simply put, plastic is a kind of synthetic or natural polymer compound that can be shaped into various forms and finally retains its shape as a material or products that are pliable.
Just from this definition, one can see how extensive the applications of this material are.
However, artificially synthesizing a compound is not a simple matter.
Even for an Alchemist, developing a new material requires time and investment.
What Perfikot lacked was time; she had too many things to solve and deal with, making it difficult for her to completely calm down and study one thing.
Moreover, plastic wasn’t a pressing need for Perfikot; she had many more urgent matters.
So it wasn’t until now that she tried to truly create a plastic product or a rubber product.
After all, if she couldn’t create plastic, making a latex mattress would be acceptable too.
This time, because she utilized two pieces of Philosopher’s Stone, Perfikot pushed the mass in front of her straight to the yellowing stage and stabilized it before starting to shape it into a brand new compound according to the memory from before she crossed.
If she recalled correctly, plastic was initially developed to replace natural resin, mainly to substitute shellac used as insulation material at the time.
Just today, she saw lumps of pine resin exuded from pine trees in the forest, giving her some new ideas, and the Eye of Omniscience offered her new knowledge.
Finally, with the powerful force of alchemy, Perfikot saw the inflatable mattress she remembered appearing before her.
"Plastic inflatable mattress" ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by novｅlfire.net
"Material: Superior (Poor)"
"Craftsmanship: Superior"
"Effect: Soft and comfortable, providing you a wonderful sleep experience"
"Evaluation: Congratulations, you’ve created the first artificial compound in this world, yet its birth leaves one speechless because you made it simply to sleep comfortably."
"Analysis: Gains theory related to synthetic resin, related to synthetic compounds"
Perfikot didn’t care about Jade Record’s evaluation. In her view, the birth of a new material itself comes from some human desire, only when demand arises will technology progress.
If something is developed and the market has no demand nor anyone needing such a thing, then it’s garbage.
No matter how cool it may be or possessing unimaginable power, if no one needs it, then it’s garbage, even less valuable than scrap iron.
Though plastic’s emergence was merely because Perfikot wanted to sleep more comfortably, the appearance of the synthetic compound-related theory indeed helped her greatly.
Not to mention, with synthetic resin, researching synthetic fibers becomes much easier.
And a freshly made inflatable mattress means Perfikot can have a comfortable sleep tonight.
This thing may not compare with an actual comfortable mattress, but is definitely much better than lying directly on the ground, incomparable to the likes of leaves.
After rearranging the moisture-proof mat and bear fur, then putting the sleeping bag on top, Perfikot crawled back into the sleeping bag, finally feeling comfortable.
Though the inflatable mattress itself wasn’t exceptionally comfortable, even a fully inflated one wasn’t particularly soft, having such a mattress in the wild could undoubtedly be described as very comfortable.
This made Perfikot stretch lazily, then curled up inside her sleeping bag, preparing to sleep.
Yet before sleeping, in her mind the new knowledge conveyed by Jade Record flashed by, making Perfikot mutter: "Seems next time I need to make a device that allows me to extract knowledge directly from my brain, otherwise every time new knowledge requires me to find a way to record and organize, which is way too cumbersome."