Chapter 841: The Application of Blackwater
The underground Styx’s River where Blackwater converged in the Southernmost Region was peculiar in ways that defied easy explanation. According to Iron Axe’s report, tracing the route from Choke Swamp to Endless Cape, the river grew less dense and the stagnant fog thinned. Several tributaries met at Blackwater Valley, and men standing at elevation could hear the roar of water striking rock far below.
Roland theorized that the water’s composition changed as it traveled. The stagnant fog Iron Axe described was likely a toxic gas given off by the Blackwater itself, or a reaction product of some subterranean mineral. That would explain why, across centuries of chance lightning strikes and man-made fires, Blackwater Valley had never burned — and why nothing survived in Choke Swamp. The fog that hung over the river not only kept the Sand Nation people at bay, it blocked fresh air and ensured the Blackwater flowed steadily southward. But as the underground river neared the Cape, it grew thinner and finally vanished, its remnants forced up through ground pressure — some catching fire, some pooling as shallow streams on the surface. The fog dispersed there, and in its absence, mining became possible.
He had no idea how many useful fractions could be separated from the crude oil, so he had asked the Chief Alchemist to run experiments first and work out a plan from there.
The results so far were encouraging.
“Blackwater can certainly be used to make terrible weapons,” Roland said, lifting the beaker and studying the layered liquid, “but it can do far more than that. Even its combustion heat alone could benefit us in ways I’ll explain in time.”
The best way to motivate a man like Kyle Sichi was to tantalize him with knowledge just beyond his reach.
Roland watched the old alchemist’s curiosity remain unsatisfied and hid his amusement. “As for the experiments — retorts and condenser pipes won’t be enough if we intend to put Blackwater into actual use. You’ll need to devise a system for mass production, the way we handle dioic acids.”
The principle behind oil separation was simple — basic chemistry, no more. Heat the raw oil, let it vaporize, run the vapor through a distillation tower, and the different components would condense at different levels according to their boiling points. Gasoline, kerosene, diesel, heavy oil — each could be collected in succession. It was a purely physical process, straightforward enough for the current lab conditions.
Scaling up was another matter. Kyle knew from long experience how many invisible complications lurked between a successful bench experiment and reliable industrial production.
The old alchemist stroked his beard. “I’ll need a few days to plan it. And I want assistance from the Witch Union.”
That he asked voluntarily was a good sign. Roland nodded. “Tell me what you need. I’ll see to it.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Kyle weighed his next words. “I have one further request. A small one.”
“Go on.”
“When the product is ready — might I have the honor of seeing what you make from it?” His voice carried undisguised curiosity.
Strictly speaking, the old alchemist had overstepped. The project was classified — rather like a uranium engineer petitioning to understand the full scope of his program. Roland considered it for a moment anyway, and agreed. Incentive sharpened passion, and he harbored no serious anxiety about Neverwinter’s technological advantage being leaked. There was no one in this era who could close that gap, even knowing it existed.
“Then work fast.” Roland pointed at the separated liquids. “The sooner you have the finished product, the sooner you get your answer.”
“Your Majesty…” Kyle blinked. “Do you mean all of them? They are combustible, yes, but the liquid that comes out of the lower tower is no better than snow powder — thick smoke, poor flame. It isn’t even good for lamps.”
Still fixated on the explosive, Roland thought. Anything less reactive looks like waste to him.
It was true that the light distillates from the upper tower burned with more vigor, but in practice their very volatility made them dangerous without additives — prone to ignite at the smallest miscalculation. He had little use for them under current conditions. What he wanted was what Kyle dismissed as dross.
Diesel was a different matter. The ideal fuel for an internal combustion engine — and even crude batches, laden with impurities, were serviceable enough. The thick black smoke was a real flaw, but not an urgent one. He could live with smoke.
Heavy oil’s destiny was larger than the land: navigation. The coal-fired vessels that managed adequately on inland rivers lacked the raw power for open water, and the voyage from the Fjords to Shallow Beach was already pushing those boats to their limit. He meant to build Festive Harbor at Endless Cape as a supply station — oil for steam-powered ships capable of crossing the Sealine, of entering the open ocean as naturally as a river barge entered a tributary. Heavy oil was also, of all the fractions, the easiest to produce. Rough distillation sufficed. Asphalt residue mixed in was still usable. What Kyle had dismissed as dross was, to Roland, almost exactly what he needed.
He would keep all of this to himself. Before the refinery existed, it was speculation — and speculation would corrode the reputation for omniscience that he had spent considerable effort cultivating.
He shrugged. “Every component — residues and scraps included — is to be collected and sorted. All of it will be useful.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Kyle pressed his hand to his chest.
“One more thing.” Roland had already reached the lab doorway when he stopped and turned back. “Set up a tutorial program.”
Kyle blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I thought I made myself clear at the last agriculture meeting. We’re adding a chemistry track to the secondary curriculum — the same logic that applies to agriculture education. Golden Twos will spread across the entire kingdom; chemistry plants will follow. We need trained workers before both arrive.” Roland spread his hands. “A number of students completing their general education are already interested in chemistry. Better to start their training now, before they arrive at a plant with no knowledge and cause an accident.”
“But wasn’t Lady Scroll supposed to handle—”
“Scroll handles recruitment, class composition, grading, and payroll. The teacher must come from the Ministry of Chemical Industry. That falls to you.”
The relief that broke across Kyle’s face was visible. His miserable memory of personally training alchemy apprentices — the ordeal he had endured to earn his copy of Intermediate Chemistry — was apparently still fresh enough to make any task short of classroom teaching sound like a gift. “I understand, Your Majesty.”
“The alchemists from the royal city who have a talent for public speaking should make fine instructors. What do you think?”
Chapter 841: The Application of Blackwater
Translator: TransN Editor: Meh
However, the “underground Styx’s River” that where Blackwater converged in the Southernmost Region was very unusual. According to Iron Axe’s report, along the way from Choke Swamp to Endless Cape, Styx’s River became less thick and the stagnant fog turned thin. Several Styx’ s Rivers intersected at Blackwater Valley where men could even hear the roar of the water splattering onto the rocks beneath them when they were standing at a higher spot.
Roland speculated that the composition of the Styx’s River water changed as it flowed. For example, the stagnant fog Iron Axe had described in his report might be a kind of toxic gas emitted by Blackwater, or a product of the reaction between some subterranean materials. That might explain the reason why during centuries of evolution, the natural lightning or man-made fire did not set the Blackwater Valley ablaze, and why no one could survive in Choke Swamp.
The stagnant fog shrouding the Styx’s River not only stopped the Sand Nation people but also blocked fresh air, and thus guaranteed a steady flow of Blackwater toward the south. But as the underground river drew close to the Cape, it became thinner and finally disappeared. Only some part of the underground river would escape from the ground under pressure. Among them, some would set aflame, while some would turn into tiny streams and shallow puddles on the ground. Additionally, the stagnant fog dispersed at that point, providing a perfect environment for them to develop mines.
Roland had no idea about how many components could be separated out of that unique crude oil, so he just asked the Chief Alchemist to have some experiments first before making a further plan.
Luckily, the distilled components so far showed a very inspiring prospect.
“No doubt that Blackwater can be used to make dreadful weapons, but it can do far more than that,” Roland answered as he picked up the beaker and studied it carefully. “There’s much we can benefit from it, even only from its high combustion heat. I’ll let you know one day.”
The best way to motivate a straightforward man like the Chief Alchemist would be raising his interest with new knowledge.
Roland laughed in silence as he saw the old man’s desire was apparently not satisfied. He continued, “As to the experiment, it’s not enough to just use several retorts and condenser pipes if we mean to put Blackwater into use. You have to figure out some plans, like the way we produce dioic acids, that will enable mass production”
The principle of oil separation was very simple, which could be regarded as the most basic chemical knowledge. Upon being heated, the raw oil would turn into steam that would later enter the connected distillation tower, where the steam of different components would successively condense due to their different boiling points. During this procedure, the finished oils such as gasoline, kerosene, diesel, heavy oil, etc. could be collected. The process was a complete physical transformation, so it would be very easy to achieve those materials under the current experiment condition.
Although the utilization rate of the raw oil of the modern world had been significantly improved as the technology of refinement was diversifying, the traditional distillation was still useful. As such, distillation was still the first choice when they did not take the cost factor into account.
Kyle Sichi was too well aware of the difficulty they would face if they wanted to upscale any lab experiments to a more complicated mass industrial production. He had to take lots of details into account if they were going to put the distillation into practical production.
The old alchemist stroked his beard and said, “Um… I need a few days to plan it out, and I want the Witch Union’s assistance.”
That was a good sign that he asked for assistance from the witch voluntarily. Roland nodded. “Just let me know if you want anything. I’ll see to it.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Kyle said, weighing his words. “Apart from this, I have one more small request.”
“Oh? Go ahead.”
“May I have the honor to see the new invention made from them when it’s ready?” His voice was full of curiosity.
Theoretically speaking, the old alchemist had gone a little overboard since the project was meant to remain confidential. It was just like an engineer responsible for extracting uranium ore wanted to know the entire Manhattan plan. But Roland agreed after a short contemplation. After all, a little incentive could raise his passion for work, and Roland was confident that there was nobody who could compete with Neverwinter in terms of science and technology level in this era.
“You have to work hard.” Roland pointed at the separated liquids and said, “The sooner you get the finished product, the earlier you will know the answer to your question.”
“Pardon me, Your Majesty… Do you mean all of them?” Kyle asked in amazement. “They were indeed all combustible, but the liquid distilled in the lower tower was no better than snow powder. It produces thick smokes and doesn’t burn well, not even good for lights. ”
“This guy, whose mind was still clinging to the explosive, takes any products that are less active as wastes,” Roland thought. It was true that the light distillates in the upper tower were more inflammable and its flame was more vigorous, but their usages were unexpectedly limited in practice. Without additives, even the slightest mistake would set them off, so they were barely helpful under the current condition. Instead, he favored the diesel and heavy oil distilled in the lower tower.
No doubt diesel would be a perfect fuel for the internal combustion engine. Even those mixed with impurities resulting from the inferior process were
usable in practice. Their only problem was creating thick black smoke and thereby caused pollution when they burned, but that barely troubled Roland at this moment.
Heavy oil would play an essential role in navigation and was the optimal fuel for steam-powered boats. The current coal-powered boat might work well in inland rivers, but it was not powerful enough to sail on the sea, where the boat required huge power that coal failed to provide. To be honest, it had already been a laborious task for the boat to travel form Fjords to Shallow Beach of the Western Region. Therefore, Roland wanted to build Festive Harbor at the Endless Cape where he could supply oil to the steampowered boat that was planning to cross the Sealine and enter the open ocean.
Furthermore, the requirement of producing heavy oil was the lowest. The roughly distilled heavy oil, even those mixed with asphaltic residue, was usable, so it might be one that could be most easily obtained in the oil family.
Of course, Roland would not tell Kyle about that. He could not guarantee anything before he got the finished oil. If the final result ran countered to his original deduction, it would taint his reputation for being omniscient. So he just shrugged and said, “All the oil components, including the residues and scraps, must be collected and categorized. They’ll be useful for me.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the Chief Alchemist said with his hand across his chest.
“By the way.” As Roland walked out of the room, he suddenly stopped at the lab doorway. He turned to look at Kyle and added, “Set up a tutorial session.”
That took Kyle by surprise. He blurted out, “What?”
“I thought I’ve made my idea clear in the last agriculture meeting. We need to add an agriculture class to our secondary education curriculum. That will help us to train enough qualified men to handle the situation even if when we are going to spread Golden Twos to the entire kingdom,” Roland elaborated. “And new plants will require more skilled people. As far as I can see, there’re many people who intend to join the chemistry industry after finishing
their universal education. You’d better have them trained before using them in case they mess everything up in the plant due to the lack of experience.”
Letting people choose courses they were interested in was the same as college students select their own majors. Here in Neverwinter, the process took place earlier in middle school. Roland had thought on this matter for a long time, and he believed that since there was no time to train people with various skills currently, he had better start with training professional workers as soon as possible.
“Your Majesty, wasn’t Lady Scroll supposed to… be responsible for that?”
“She handles the sections of recruitment, class composition, evaluation, and payroll, but the teacher must be from Ministry of Chemical Industry, so you have to see to it.”
Kyle let out a sigh of relief as if he would have obeyed everything as long as Roland did not push him to teach students. His miserable memory was as fresh as yesterday. He had suffered enough during the process of recruiting and training some alchemy apprentices in order to earn “Intermediate Chemistry” from Roland. Kyle replied, “I see, Your Majesty.” “I think the alchemists from the king’s city, who were adept at public speaking and advertising, are quite qualified for the teaching position. Do you think so?”