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Even though the smithy was already under construction, it was still far from completion. According to Gawain’s plan, this wooden house was not actually the same thing as the “smithy” that people were familiar with in this world. It was just that he wanted to make it easy for everyone to understand that he called this place a smithy for the time being.

According to him, he was going to name the place “Cecil Steel Works”…

As the only blacksmith in the territory, old Hummel was also quite confused about the “smithy” that the Grand Duke ordered to construct. He thought that this building was taking up too much unnecessary space. Besides the unusually large area, it also included an open space with a length of a hundred meters and a wooden shed that was currently made up of a few frames. It seemed inappropriate to call such a large facility a “smithy”, but he did not dare to call out the pioneer Grand Duke as a layman acting as though he was an expert as he ordered people around. Even though that was really how he thought about him, he absolutely did not dare to speak up about it.

After all, he was just a commoner, and Gawain was a noble who could be on equal footing with the King.

As this “smithy” took up such a large area, it could only be located at the eastern edge of the camp, and its “large courtyard” extended all the way to the undeveloped land outside. It was as if a lump had protruded out of the neat wooden fences, looking very comical. In this giant smithy, the guys who had came from Tanzan Town seemed pathetic in numbers when they would only occupy a corner of the wooden house, and the only furnace for smelting iron was placed in the open space outside, covered with a simple wooden shed to be protected against the elements.

The reason that Gawain made the smithy’s reserved land so large and close to the edge of the territory was just because he was taking into account the production capacity requirements and the ease of expansion in the future. Those traditional smithies, with one master leading several apprentices to tinker with iron in a small shed with a furnace was absolutely far from what he needed.

But there was no way he would be able to explain everything to the old blacksmith and his dumb apprentices now.

In addition to the considerations of future capacity and ease of expansion, Gawain did not intend to simply build a bunch of earthen blast furnaces in this courtyard like a transmigrator he had read about in a novel. Although he did think of doing that, after seeing Herti use her magical power to shore up the rafts a few days ago and help the camp strengthen its foundation, he temporarily withheld this idea, and turned to Hummel, the only blacksmith in the territory, to build a traditional furnace in the courtyard.

He came to the smithy, where Rebecca was already waiting for him with Hummel and several of his apprentices. There were also several other people, stood in the courtyard and at their feet was a large basket containing the first batch of ores.

Gawain went straight to the traditional furnace.

It appeared to be quite an awkward furnace. It was about one meter in height, and it was divided into an upper and lower part. The lower part was an enlarged hemispherical structure, while the upper part quickly tapered into a cylindrical shape. On the bottom hemispherical structure, there were two openings. One was located at the bottom, which was obviously the place to add fuel, and the other was near the cylindrical structure, which was where the ores would probably be fed into.

There was nothing unusual with these parts. It was just an ordinary furnace, but the part that was special was at the side.

There were three runes lined up there.

All three runes were carved on a type of black stone slab, and the three slabs were apparently carefully polished and adjusted before being set on the furnace to ensure that they were equally spaced apart and the edges parallel. The lowest stone was engraved with a triangle symbol, and there was a wavy line within the symbol. According to the magic books, It was the starting character that represented the fire element. The stone in the middle was a square with a rhombus inside, which was the starting character of the earth element; the stone at the top had a swirling symbol, which was related to the wind element, but it was not the starting character.

In addition to these three stone slabs, there were also some fine, glittering dust which made up the furnace body. Gawain knew what it was. It was quartz sand. “This world’s” quartz sand.

Quartz sand was a material which could conduct magic. Although its effect was extremely weak, it was widely used because it was cheap enough to be used by ordinary people.

Gawain looked up at the old blacksmith. “You made this furnace?”

“Yes, yes Lord…” Hearing the Lord asking him a question, the old blacksmith immediately grasped the hat in his hand and hurriedly bowed down and answered, “Oh, I made half of it. I instructed my apprentices to make the other half…”

Gawain nodded, but he had no further questions.

Magic was an extraordinary power. It was not something that the lowly peasants could access, but in this world full of magical power, even civilians who could not cast spells lived their lives with magic.

Some basic uses of magical power did not require mastery of the knowledge and skill of casting spells. Everyone had magical power in them. By carving a specific symbol upon a specific material of a specific shape, anybody could draw out a little of that ubiquitous, fantastic power.

This was not spell casting at all. Its effect was ridiculously weak in the eyes of those who could use the real “supernatural” power. This type of power was like picking a stick on the ground to use as a crutch, or grabbing a stone from anywhere to smash walnuts. There was no skill involved. Even illiterate civilians could remember how to draw a few symbols with weak effects, but it was this weak power that made the difference between this world and the world that Gawain was familiar with.

It was just like the one degree Celsius that made the difference between water boiling and not boiling.

With these three runes, this “traditional furnace” only needed to use firewood as fuel. and it would be able to produce molten iron without using a bellow and without optimizing the structure of the combustion chamber.

If the fire elemental runes were engraved on a piece of Mithril, this furnace could even use straw as fuel!

However, because of the existence of these ancient runes, the humans in this world had not even considered how to improve the efficiency of the furnace by improving the efficiency of fuel combustion. They were only constantly improving the materials which the runes would be carved on and the rune formation.

So Gawain did not build any earthen blast furnaces, but he first came to observe this primitive and backward traditional furnace.

Hummel was becoming more and more nervous as he watched the noble in front of him. He had no idea why Gawain would suddenly ask him a question and then move on to examine the furnace. He did not know if he might have done something wrong. He only knew that the nobles were powerful and moody. Even though Lady Rebecca and the lords before her were kind and generous, this person before him was the legendary pioneer hero, an absolute warrior, and a Grand Duke. What kind of personality would such a great noble have?

Just when the old blacksmith was feeling uneasy, Gawain finally stood up and asked him a second question, “How much iron can you produce every day with such a furnace given a guaranteed sufficient supply of ores?”

Hummel immediately heaved a breath of relief. He finally asked a normal question.

“If you use those kind of ores, you can make fifty jins of iron a day,” The old blacksmith said proudly.

But Gawain could not help but frown when he heard the answer. “So little?”

With those runes, the output was only this much?

“That’s not enough?” Hummel could not help but say, and he added nervously, “I’m not questioning Lord’s judgment, but…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to feel nervous talking to me.” Gawain calmed the old master. “I’m your Lord and am tasked with protecting you, not a robber who wants to kill you.”

“Yes… Yes Lord,” Hummel wiped his sweat nervously and explained, “But this is really the limit. The furnace looks big outside, but the space inside is actually quite limited, and every time after smelting one batch, we must allow it to rest for an hour so that the runes outside the furnace can cool down. So the furnace must be cooled before it is reignited again… With that, making fifty jins per day is already the maximum limit! ”

“Let the runes cool?” Gawain frowned.

“Yes,” Hummel explained, “This is just a little trick that our people have carved on black stones. It’s nothing like those magic runes that the great mages use. It’s easy to spoil, especially the fire runes. If it comes into contact with fire elements for a long period of time, it will crack. Even if it is replaced with a more sturdy material, it still won’t be useful. Once the rune is cracked, the whole furnace will be useless. So the furnace must not be burned continuously when smelting iron…”

“What if you make the furnace bigger?” Gawain asked again.

“That won’t work either,” Hummel said worryingly, wondering how the Grand Duke kept asking these difficult questions. “The rune can only provide so much fire. If the furnace becomes larger, the fire would not be strong enough, and the molten iron would not be refined from the ores, and the earth runes will also fail. There will be more impurities in the refined iron ingot, which will make it completely unusable…”

Gawain held his chin. “So it is these runes that are limiting the production?”

The old blacksmith batted his eyes. Actually, he did not quite understand what limiting the production meant, but he still nodded quickly. “Yes, yes, it’s the runes.”

Gawain looked at Rebecca. “Do you think if you change the runes to… Um, I think you should just summon Herti…”

Rebecca’s face instantly flushed red. “Lord Ancestor, I know the theory of magic too! I just can’t make the spell moulds…”

“Your theoretical knowledge is still okay?” Gawain raised his eyebrow. “Then how do you think this problem should be solved?”

Rebecca thought hard for awhile. “Since you just said the runes are the weak point, we can replace the runes?”

“With what?”

Rebecca continued to use her brains. “Actually the way these runes function is very simple. They are just raising the temperature, controlling the air flow, impurities and the like. These are the types that are very weak. If you use real magic circles instead, the efficiency can be increased by several times. It can also dissipate the energy by itself, so even with continuous operation, it would not be damaged…”

Gawain raised his brow. “Carve a magic circle on each iron furnace?”

“But it won’t work in practice,” Rebecca stuck out her tongue. “Aunt Herti and I can help to carve a few magic circles, but… the blacksmith and his apprentices won’t be able to use them!”