Er Mu - Release that Witch

Lastly, regarding the construction of the Kingdom Avenue, Lotus had already leveled out some of the Impassable Mountain Range’s extensions, so now the road could go straight through instead of going around which had thus significantly reduced the overall length of the journey.

“Your Highness, what do you want Lotus to construct next?” Karl asked after he reported on the progress.

Roland was able to tell that he was brimming with admiration for her ability to transform the terrain, because, not only had he proposed that she be integrated into the Ministry of Construction, he’d even put forth a request to appoint her as the vice minister.

“Well…” Roland was also already thinking about this question. There were three major construction projects he wanted to implement next.

The first was the sea port project: Looking for small openings in the southern mountain ridge before caving in a path to the beach was a task he would have to rely on Lotus to achieve. Once they completed the transformation, the Western Territory would gain access to a seaward harbor.

The second project was the residential expansion: Although City Hall had invested a lot of the workforce and financial resources to step up the construction of residential quarters, with winter soon to approach, by now there were nearly three thousand people who would be unable to live in a warm brick house. Nowadays, erecting wooden sheds and simple shelters simply couldn’t meet the requirements to resist the cold, so they needed a group of cave rooms with thick walls and kangs if they wanted to solve this problem.

The third point was to set up a dock: If he wanted to produce shallow water gunboats, he first had to arrange for a large dock, which at the same time would also affect the passage of the Redwater River. Roland intended to reduce the height of the riverbank on the western side of Border Town, to form a dry dock and install a lift gate at the side of the Redwater River so that they can control the water intake and runoff. The scale of the necessary earthwork was immense, and he would also have to rely on Lotus’ ability to complete it.

After considering for a moment, he finally decided to place the residential expansion as the first priority. Since they had invited the refugees from the Eastern Region to Border Town, they were going to have to take responsibility and provide them with the basic necessities of life. If they were to freeze or starved to death, then, not only would it be a loss for the Western Territory, but it would also reduce the people’s attachment toward this place.

“So where is the place we should build the temporary residences?” Karl asked.

“The best place would be at the place of the current serf shantytown,” Roland glanced at the map, “That place is far from the defense line of the city wall, they can also use the cover there to protect themselves from the wind coming from the Impassable Mountains.”

After the Minister of Construction left the room, Roland had just planned to take a short nap in his chair when Kyle Sichi arrived at the door.

“Your Highness, the large-scale acid production method you have requested, has been successfully developed.”

Hearing this sentence dispelled Roland’s weariness immediately. He showed a smiling expression on receiving such a pleasant surprise, Roland stood up and said: “Really? Take me to see it.”

When their group came to the laboratory at the Redwater River, he saw a few gray jars and a kiln set up beside laboratory No. five. Each jar was the height of two people and had a pipeline connected to the top, which had a smooth shape; which had clearly been cut out by Anna.

“I pay my respect to you, Your Highness,” a very young looking man said toward Roland and bowed.

“I presume you’re Chavez?” Although he had already learned about the several alchemist apprentices and outstanding alchemist that Kyle had brought from Redwater City, today was still the first time that he saw the other’s appearance.

“You even remember my name,” Chavez said astonished.

“Mr. Sichi has mentioned you plenty of times before,” Roland explained and patted his shoulder in encouragement, “Keep up the good work.” Then, looking over to the Chief Alchemist he asked, “How will this thing produce acid?”

Kyle stroked his beard and said with a smile, “The successful manufacture is entirely according to a derivation of an equation of the ‘Elementary Chemistry’. You see those kilns, the purified sulfur will burn in the kiln, and through further heating the gas produced will pass through the pipes and into a lead jar.”

“Are all those devices made of lead?”

“That’s right; only lead can resist acid’s corrosion.” Kyle nodded. “The nitro-sulpheric acid will unceasingly sprinkle down from the lead pipe at the top of the jar, and, together with the hot sulfur dioxide below, the heated nitric acid will decompose into nitrogen oxide. Finally, the water and sulfur dioxide together will generate a sulfuric acid solution. This solution will flow out of a hole at the bottom — the smart thing about this reaction is that nitrogen oxide only acts as oxygen carriers, but by itself it can’t be consumed. Therefore, the amount of nitric acids used is small, and once the reaction has started up, it can carry on working continuously!”

“How is the output?” Roland asked while agitatedly patting against a lead jar. Functioning large-scale acid production was the premise needed for mass production of smokeless gunpowder. As long as he could solve this problem, there was hope for the rise of a new generation of weapons and ammunition.

“This is the fourth device I’ve tested, the daily output may be as much as the weight of using the laboratory’s dry distillation method for an entire week.” the Chief Alchemist proudly said, “Because it is a testing device, the volume isn’t large. However, the capacity could be further improved, if you could build lead jars with a larger capacity.

“That’s good news,” Roland said laughingly, “Wait until Miss Anna comes back, and you can set up a larger acid plant right away. If the lead isn’t enough, you can use iron instead, Miss Soraya’s coating can make it resistant against the corrosion of the acid.

Kyle nodded in agreement, but his next sentence made the bright smile on the Prince’s face turn stiff.

“Now, that I accomplished the large-scale acid production and all the five laboratories are also filled with apprentices, Your Highness, can you reward me with the ‘Intermediate Chemistry’ like you’ve promised?”

Scroll stood behind His Highness Roland, attentively watching as he wrote out the manuscript. Autumn sunshine was falling in through the window onto her back, which made it feel like her whole body was being bathed in warmth.

“Ah, in addition to electronic gains and losses, what further content ah… online class, very urgent.” From time to time the Prince would write something onto the paper and then began to lean his forehead on his hands while he pondered and said some difficult to understand nonsense. At first, Scroll was a little worried about the Prince’s health, but later on she discovered, that this was His Highness’ normal state when he was trying to recall his ‘knowledge’.

Merely that today’s symptoms seemed to be much more severe than ever before.

Unfortunately, I cannot help him… Scroll lightly sighed, if there was a witch who could help him in this regard, I am afraid there is only one, Anna. She had already noted down all the content of the previous books His Highness had written in her brain — but it was merely noted down, nothing more. The past knowledge about those math and natural principles was something much deeper, just reading it is already enough to make people’s head turn muddle-headed, no wonder His Royal Highness feels so embarrassed.

“How about, ending it here for today?” Scroll couldn’t stand it any longer and so she opened her mouth.

Roland decided to give up and put down his pen, leaning his back against the chair then said, “I really envy you for your highly retentive memory. If I could be like you, why would I ever need to worry about exams? I would have been admitted to a famous school and walked to the pinnacle of life.”

She automatically ignored the other’s later half of words as nonsense, “Your Royal Highness did they also demand you take those exams at the palace?”

“Yes ah, or how to separate which prince is more outstanding than the others,” he mumbled to himself.

“In fact, sometimes it is not good to remember everything,” Scroll said with a smile. “For example, bad experiences, or the times when you felt deeply hurt or sad, or when you are unable to forget when your life was still happy.”

At the time when she lived in the Seawind Region, due to her identity of being poor, she had to suffer bullying and beatings countless times already. Until today, she could clearly remember the location of every hit, the faces of the perpetrators twisted in anger, and the pain of each kick. Only after finding shelter by the old captain with the broken leg did her life become slightly better. In fact, living in slums like places, with each of them pillaging, fighting, and killing each other, was not much different from freezing or starving to death.

For a long time, she had hated herself very much, why were all her suffering still vivid in her mind. Because the memory of those scenes was still so clear, the nightmares she suffered during the nights, were repetitions of her unbearable past. Later on, during her day of adulthood, when she awakened her branch ability “Magic Book”, she finally understood that her extraordinary memory was actually something that came along with her identity as a witch.

Probably Roland could guess what she wanted to say, so he revealed an apologizing smile and said, “You might be right.”

Scroll suddenly felt warmth flowing through her heart.

There were only very few people who cared about a witch’s thoughts, not to mention, this person was even an illustrious member of the royal family.

“It doesn’t matter, those times have already passed, Your Highness.”

Roland Wimbledon, compared with other nobles she had seen… no, he was very different compared to all of the people she had met. He possessed a lot of learned knowledge, but all day long he only thought about how he could teach it to other people; his identity was that of a noble, however he didn’t reject people that were below his rank; he enjoyed the praise of the crowd, he could act recklessly, but this was not everything to him, instead, he also took care of other people’s feelings.

A desolate and impoverished town had undergone earth-shaking changes within one year. The freedom and peace that witches had longed for, was actually granted to them by His Highness Roland. If she hadn’t personally experienced it, she would never have believed that there could exist such a ruler in the world.

Nowadays, Scroll had discovered that her own way of thinking had undergone some changes. Before this she hadn’t approved of His Highness wanting to take a witch as his wife at all, but now she felt that regardless of who His Royal Highness married, he would take over the throne of Graycastle. He wasn’t like the others who kept with the routine of favoring those power-hungry and corrupt nobles, rather, he preferred to make a better life for his people.

She faintly felt that this surge of strength seemed to be stronger than any previous force..

“Ah, let it be,” all of a sudden Roland said while rubbing his head, “This is the last page.”

“Will you continue to record tomorrow?”

“No, just give it to him like this. Together with the physics teaching material, it should be enough for him to study for a while.” His Royal Highness took a new paper and quickly wrote down a few characters on it before he continued, “After all, it is a copy of a book from ‘ancient times’, so it should be normal to be missing most of it, right?”

Scroll took the paper and saw the name of the book — “Intermediate Chemistry (Remnant)”.

…

After finishing her memorizing task, Scroll left the office and was preparing to go back to the City Hall when the magnificent scenery of the back garden attracted her attention.

After the completion of the castle wall expansion, the castle’s backyard had almost reached the size of the town square. And now, less than a week after, it was already covered by all kinds of plants. There was no doubt that this must be a masterpiece of Leaves.