Roland exhaled slightly; once more starting to learn how tiring it was to deal with the chief alchemist, “As long as you pick out several talented apprentices and demonstrate the process one time in front of them, it will already be enough. I will recruit some of my subjects to carry out the production process, however, in the end, none of them even understands a word about chemistry, so there have to be some people to check on every segment.
After pausing for a moment, the Prince continued to say, “You can also treat it as a never before practiced chemical test — if placed in the alchemic workshop, this process may mean the discovery of some new alchemic formulas, enough to earn an apprentice the title of an alchemist.”
Those lasts few words were probably what persuaded Kyle in the end, “If you say it like this, I’ll need an entire afternoon to teach the apprentice what they require.”
“Excellent,” Roland smiled. “You should also know that the most important thing about the process is ensuring that enough caustic soda is produced.” He wrote down the reaction formula on a piece of paper.
Before the invention of the syntactic alkali production, natural soda was the most important alkali raw material. The latter was mainly composed of sodium bicarbonate, which when heated would break down into sodium carbonate, carbon dioxide, and water. Because it was accessible in great amount and also quite simple to process, it was still in use even in modern times. “By decomposing the washing stones with heat, followed by dissolving them in water and afterward filtering the water, you can obtain a relatively pure solution of sodium carbonate solution.
“Followed by heating it together with milk of lime, you can get a sodium hydroxide solution, for which you should easily be able to come up with a purifying method for yourself,” Roland explained. ” To clarify, first distil, then mix, repeating these steps until the concentration is high enough. Then after it has cooled down, the concentrated solution will have formed a huge amount of crystals.”
These were the details written in the “Elementary Chemistry”. Since those two alkalis had several nicknames (such as caustic soda, lye, soda ash, sodium hyposulfite, sodium thiosulfate, soda crystals, etc.), it was incredibly easy to get them mixed up; which made it an important subject of a knowledge test. The reason why he could still clearly remember it to this day was because he was initially required to know the textbook’s related content by heart.
“I understand,” the chief alchemist said, looking over the equation of the chemical reaction from start to finish. “But Your Highness, what’s to be done in regards with the fat?”
“I will arrange people who will send it to you.” Animal fat was an expensive resource during this era, however, during the previous seed collecting mission, his personal guard had brought back the seeds for olive trees from Fallen Dragon Ridge, which now gave Border Town a reliable source for vegetable oil. Even though there was currently only a small plantation at the castle backyard, but since Leaves had the ability to hasten ripening, harvesting a pile of fruits each day was no problem at all.
The extraction of olive oil was also very simple. When the fruit became ripe, they simply used physical strength to squeeze the oil out and afterward sieved it so as to filter out the flesh and seeds.
Finally, after a brief description of the requirements and necessary preparation for the soap and glycerol production, Roland permitted Kyle Sichi to leave the office.
From now on, when the soap factory started its production, Roland would obtain a steady stream of glycerol.
And with glycerin, he had finally made a big step towards getting real smoke-free gunpowder and powerful explosives.
Chapter 288 Teacher and Disciple
Kyle Sichi passed through Border Town into the direction of the Redwater River.
By now, Border Town had become a flourishing place; it was hard to imagine that this place had started out as nothing more than an outpost used to detect the movements of the demonic beasts. The ground beneath his feet was grayish black and solid. Both sides of the street were lined with neatly arranged single-story houses, different to the residential building in the other district. These houses weren’t used for a living; their interior was much more spacious than the other residences, and were somewhat similar to a small warehouse.
According to His Highness, these houses would be used as stores.
In front of the single-story houses was one deep gutter, which was covered with stone slates, it was like the boundary line for the black street. In addition to this, at intervals of one segment they had also planted a big tree at the roadside, sandwiched between two houses, the branches grew close to the center of the road. Not only did it offer protection from the sun and rain, but it also warmed the people’s hearts and delighted their eyes.
Kyle had no choice but to say, that in the end, it was the regularity that gave him the greatest impression.
No matter if it were the buildings, roads, sewers or trees, they were all located at the right place according to a previous plan, each was carefully selected for quality at a level not inferior to that of a Lord’s flower garden. The experience of wandering through the streets of Border Town, was equal to wandering through the Duke’s district of Redwater City — although the latter’s buildings was more concentrated and were even larger than these, the harmonious arrangement of these ordinary and mediocre houses exude their own unique sense of beauty. This kind of feeling surpassed that of individual greatness, showing a higher level of grandeur since it was part of a whole.
Just like those chemistry formulas that are adjusted to a uniform system, he thought, this is a beauty brought forth by order.
Nowadays, Kyle had a lot of reputation in Border Town. The passersby who were coming and going all greeted him with a nod and respectfully addressed him as Sage. However, compared with the title of a Sage, he still preferred the title of the Master of Chemistry. It was just a pity that His Highness had made it clear, that he had to understand “Intermediate Chemistry”, before he could receive this special glory.
Walking away from the central district, Kyle could see the Redwater River flowing along the western edge of Border Town. The laboratory that were situated at the riverside had already increased to four buildings, however because of their lack of workforce, the last two were temporarily idle.
Kyle was prepared to immediately call for his apprentice to complete His Highness’ mission but was stopped by a soldier wearing the uniform of the First Army.
“Your Excellency Sichi, a sailboat arrived at the docks with more than fifty… civilians,” the soldiers said after giving a salute, “Due to the number of people being too large and because they also aren’t merchants, a squadron of the garrison decided to stop them at the docks. Among them there was one who said that he wanted to see you, he claimed to be an alchemist from Redwater City, named — ”
“Chavez!” Kyle shouted, simultaneously grabbing the soldier’s shoulder, “Take me to see him!”
…
Together with the soldier he went over to the dock district, there he saw a familiar silhouette come into his view — Chavez had indeed arrived.
“Honored Mentor!” The moment the other side saw Kyle, Chavez immediately waved his hand to get his attention.
“These are the alchemists and the alchemy apprentices I have invited,” Kyle turned toward the garrison captain and explained the situation, “Have every person you’re holding come over, I will take them to the City Hall so that they can register.”
“Yes, Your esteemed Self. But please allow me to send a squad to escort them.”
“No harm.”
In reality, the so-called escort was dispatched to control and keep a close watch over them, to avoid someone separating from the group and sneaking into Border Town’s central district. But this was also an established rule set in place by His Highness the Prince. Therefore, Kyle also didn’t have any intention of interfering with it.