Sword of Dawnbreaker

The project of getting iron-headed girl to create primitive cement had failed, but Gawain wasn’t planning on giving up this easily. Applying his experience from Earth mechanically might not have worked, yet this didn’t mean that all ideas from Earth were wrong. Perhaps the formulas of certain things were different; nevertheless, it didn’t mean they were without value. At the very least, an inexpensive, ample, solid, and easy-to-process construction material could be used anywhere.

It was the same even if it had to be renamed as Magic XX in this world.

He sent Rebecca to continue trying out new manufacturing processes and told his general ideas and anticipated goals to her. This was not a slipshod attempt. Although his own manufacturing method had failed, Gawain knew that there was once ‘cement’ in this world.

Deep in the remnants in the mountain, he and the people he led had seen such a material. The engineers of the ancient Gondor Empire had used this man-made material instead of stone to build the stronghold in the mountains. It made the stronghold sturdier and more durable than average stone forts. A thousand years had passed, and it still showed no signs of collapsing.

In Gawain Cecil’s memory, this material had been developed as far back as in the ‘Steel Era’ that came before the ‘Meteoric Era’ and continued to be used for as long as ten centuries. Through repeated modification and improvement, by the late Gondor period, it had become one of the most commonly used construction materials within the empire.

And this was what Gawain found most regretful. After the fall of the Gondor Empire, many skills were lost: some because the skill itself depended on the Well of Deep Blue; some because communities that had mastered the relevant skills suffered mass extinction and did not leave behind information; others because the raw materials (or environment) required had become polluted. The Gondor Empire’s ‘otherworldly cement’ was merely one of the many lost skills.

Due to the chaos in that period, Gawain could not be sure which reason of the three caused such a skill to be lost, but he assumed it wasn’t because of the magic well. Just like producing Earth cement, otherworldly cement also did not require equipment that was too complicated or energy that was too advanced. Thus, it was mostly like due to the extinction of people, loss of information, or problems with the raw materials. Regardless, this skill — which could be considered the most fundamental — should have been one of the cornerstones of civilization but was lost just like that.

Seven hundred years later, the Anzu people used rocks and timber to build houses. The aristocrats who had the means to would indulge in using all sorts of molding spells and alchemical potions from the mages to make their palaces and castles even more exquisite and sturdy. But of course, the latter did not meet Gawain’s request of ‘universality, inexpensiveness, and mass-production’.

However, though the skill had been lost, rediscovering it wasn’t completely hopeless. After all, it was one of the most commonly used fundamental skills in the Gondor Empire then. Even if Gawain Cecil had not made it personally, he had seen it before. At present, there were still segments of the related skill remaining in his mind. He gave them to Rebecca; as for how far the skill could be restored to… that would depend on the iron-headed fireball girl’s capabilities.

At this point, Gawain could not help but feel tempted to sigh. How great would it be if the Gawain Cecil from 700 years ago was an intellectual… Even it out by sparing some of his combat abilities to various other aspects, then the situation now would be much better. Forget about the others, but at least memorize the formula for cement!

With the spirit of ‘what does a tens-of-thousand-years-old satellite soul that descended from the sky need to fear’, Gawain recklessly nagged at the original owner of this body. Following that, he began to make a list of all the experiments that had to be carried out.

Then, in the next few days, Amber saw Gawain send for people to transport a huge pile of items into the tent. There were weird ore powder, metal containers connected together, crystal lenses of all sizes, and the magnets and metal wires that mages and seers often used. This clutter of items covered his entire desk. A small part of them had been urgently purchased from Tanzan Town, and the rest had been made with Gawain guiding Heidi and the craftsmen.

Looking at the table full of things, the half-elf girl looked stupefied. “What are you going to do?”

Gawain fiddled with the set of lenses in front of him and answered without looking up, “Experiment.”

“Aristocrats are difficult to understand.” Amber batted her eyes; they then lit up as if she’d finally grabbed Gawain’s little tail. “Oh, oh! I finally got you! You can no longer keep up the pretense. You’ve lost your aspirations and have started to trifle with playthings! I said it, how could an aristocrat in the right state of mind tolerate such a long period of hardship. You are finally starting to exploit the people and drain the treasur— Ow, ow, ow. Hey, it hurts!!”

Gawain released Amber’s ears after giving them a good twist. He looked at this fellow who asked for a beating daily with particular curiosity. “I cannot understand you. Do you not remember beatings or something? Can’t your personality be slightly cuter?”

“You’re spouting crap! I’m a great bandit being locked up by you here to be a bodyguard. Usually, I am either guarding those piles of ugly drawings of yours, or covering the hills and dales to carry out patrols, or standing sentry, or gathering intelligence for you. When I’m occasionally free, you even make me study the ugly drawings with you. Are you respecting my profession or not!”

The half-elf girl argued with reason; the conclusion of all her thoughts only boiled down to the words — ‘I’m idle’.

“You’re not even as motivated as Betty is.” Gawain held his forehead in helplessness. “She comes here to learn how to read every day after finishing her chores. Is getting you to learn simple mathematics that difficult?”

“Oh? So that little maidservant is learning how to write?” Amber batted her eyes and became animated. “No wonder she was always muttering comments to herself when alone these days. And when she has the time, she would scribble on the ground with a tree branch…”

“Alright, alright, alright. Anyway I’m washing my hands of you. If you’re really awfully idle, head out and play on your own.” Gawain waved a hand at Amber. “In any case, you cannot do three things — no stealing, no creating trouble where people are working, and no fighting with other people. Of course, fighting with geese is okay.”

Having gotten Gawain’s permission, Amber immediately dashed back into the shadows in glee, and as her figure was gradually concealed, she muttered, “You’re really weird. Why are you always emphasizing geese in front of me…”

After Amber left, Gawain finally had the chance to focus his attention on the pile of items.

He had already experimented with a part of them, while the others were still in the middle of testing.

Before sitting back into the chair, he took a glance at the basket by the side and sighed.

In the basket was the indescribable substance that Rebecca had achieved when she attempted to create cement previously. Originally, Rebecca had wanted to throw them away but Gawain kept them. And he specially put them in an exposed spot near him where they would be in his sight at all times.

He had taken them as a form of vigilance, a symbol, a mark to remind him at every moment that ‘this world’ was ‘this world’.

Retracting his gaze from them, he then looked briefly at a certain container on the desk before bowing his head and writing a new record on the paper in Chinese:

“Year 735 of the Anzu calendar, day 46 of Frost Month, 23rd day since the camp was pioneered. Production of gunpowder failed. A classic formula from my knowledge on Earth, as well as various formulas adjusted for magic, turned out ineffective. There is no end product that can create an instant flame and release large amounts of heat in a short period of time or any similar results. The completed product of the classic formula cannot be ignited at all, whereas the end product of the Magic Web 1 formula can burn quietly in the air. However, the flame is dark and weak; burning straw would be better than this. The end product of formula number two also burns quietly, but there is a bright and stable flame. We initially planned to use it for illumination, but it emitted a pungent smell…”

“If we continue experimenting, we may discover a usable formula of otherworldly gunpowder, but I’ve vaguely realized that this route might not be the best choice. The ‘magical power’ of this world is more relevant, and we could probably make more progress with it. Its might is not exactly awe-inspiring to the people here. Researching an explosive rune that could be industrialized and mass-produced might be more dependable than gunpowder.

And besides this new record, there were many others on the paper. Gawain’s gaze swept past them:

“Year 735 of the Anzu calendar, day 45 of Frost Month, 22nd day since the camp was pioneered. Confirmed that electromagnetic induction is ineffective, or at least the process of ‘getting a magnetic field to produce electricity’ was. There was no electric current produced in the coil. It has been verified that magnets exist in the north and south poles, and their properties match those of Earth’s magnets. The wind element runes that Heidi provided could also sense the weakest of electric stimuli. Though the coils were coarse, they still fit the requirements, so the problem could only be with the electromagnetic induction itself. Now, it still cannot be verified that the magnetic-field producing electricity process has also failed, because Heidi’s Lightning Arrow magic is unable to provide a sustained and stable secure electric flow. Her Lightning Palm had almost struck Amber’s hair…”

“It seems like the plan of using an electric generator to provide energy for the wind element array has to be shelved, or we wait till we’ve grasped skills such as thermo-electricity or the likes of it.”

“…prepare to give up on the steam engine. The results of this experiment are too confusing. The process of boiling water in this world appears to be similar to that on Earth, but the impulsion produced by the vapor is terribly weak. Perhaps, the factor of expansion in the process when the water became water vapor is much smaller than that on Earth. I suspect the ‘water’ here isn’t even water. It could also be the pervasive ‘water element’ in this world that’s playing tricks. Such an illogical thing has changed the explicit condition of water when it is changing between the three states.”

“… Though I’ve been drinking it regularly, using it to wash my hands and face, and watering the ground and flowers, this cannot prove anything. My body is composed of the elements of this world; my senses are also working according to the rules of this world. Except for a consciousness in my head that is from another world, I have absolutely nothing that can step out this world’s ‘world view’ to carry out observations… Is the blue sky that I’m seeing really a ‘blue’ sky?”

“…regardless, the routes must be adjusted. The part that Earth’s human civilization was the proudest of has suffered a heavy blow. I have no way of ‘boiling water’ here. Without the ‘boiler’, how am I supposed to bring in all of the most-fundamental machinery?”

“Year 735 of the Anzu calendar… Heidi has never heard of ‘coal’; neither has the druid, Pittman Lauren. In reality, it seems there is also nothing of the sort even in Gawain Cecil’s memories… the good news is charcoal can still be produced by burning…”

“… The Typhon Empire produced a kind of ‘burnable stone’. It is not coal but a white ‘flammable stone’; it seems to be a type of seawater sediment. It is more flame resistant than wood and is very difficult to ignite. Moreover, I heard that the burning is extremely unstable, and the smell produced is also unpleasant. Only the poor use it for warmth, take note.”

“… Damn it, gold is actually a semiconductor, and pure silver does not conduct electricity… what the hell?!”

“I believe I need an entire team of the best to come up with a periodic table for me… or at least, tidy up the properties of all common materials.”

“However, I do not have one.”

“Let’s wash up and go to bed.”