Chapter 219: Chapter 215: Optimized Design
After sending off two reluctant generals, Perfikot immediately ordered the Flying Airship to set sail, and boarded the Behemoth for a return to the Northern Territory.
The affairs on the side of New Shaker City have all been settled, and when the ice and snow melt in spring, the construction materials and engineering team she has ordered will travel along the coastline northward to begin building the new city in the area she has designated.
This time, Perfikot’s order includes the construction of three cities and a main railway line, meant to complete the industrial base, transportation hub, and administrative center of the Northern Territory, linking the three through the railway line.
As for the other shelters, Perfikot plans to draw up the overall blueprint for the shelters in the coming days, and then provide a copy directly to the pioneering team once they arrive, letting them build it themselves.
This way, not only can the efficiency and progress of the construction be improved, but it also saves her energy and time, sparing her from handling each one personally.
"The most critical issue right now is the heating in the shelters, other aspects are minor," Perfikot said, touching her nose. She then recalled a new ability acquired by her Eye of Omniscience and decided to try this so-called "Optimization."
She took out a blueprint she had drawn herself, depicting a town similar to concentric circles, with all buildings arranged around a large steam boiler at the town center, including schools, hospitals, factories, and related facilities, as well as residential areas.
This was designed by Perfikot with reference to a game setup she played before her journey; although she couldn’t build that ridiculous steam Energy Tower, she could manage to design a town similar to it.
For Perfikot, other things were easy enough, even if she couldn’t construct them, she could mostly create something functionally similar as a substitute.
The one thing that seemed a bit far-fetched to Perfikot was the steam Energy Tower in the game, which relied on coal alone to maintain a heat field enveloping an entire city.
She had calculated the thermal value; creating a device that could maintain open-air heating for a town solely by burning coal was impossible, and she couldn’t even manage a small energy hub capable of covering a block.
Because it was somewhat unrealistic, and even if she managed to create it, she couldn’t control the dissipation of heat, unable to keep it within a confined area and prevent it from being affected by the natural environment.
Initially, Perfikot considered seeking help from mages in this world, who could construct a palace that maintained a year-round Spring temperature, presumably possessing the related technology.
Perfikot’s proposal was to apply this technology to the construction of shelters, by establishing a magic barrier to limit heat dissipation, and then using a large steam boiler to generate heat, ensuring the town’s temperature.
But later she reconsidered, finding this approach too wasteful.
Instead of creating some constant-temperature magic barrier, it would be better to place the entire town underground, with a closed design, and lay heating pipelines inside to heat each building.
This not only effectively reduces the heating demand but also ensures that the town remains unaffected by extreme weather conditions.
After all, open town designs must account for blizzards and other extreme weather impacts, and with further temperature drops, gale-force winds combined with heavy snowfall could be lethal.
Holding this idea, Perfikot drafted an initial design and then made several modifications before arriving at the concentric design in front of her.
According to Perfikot’s design concept, the town’s center would have a geothermal pump driven by steam, employing drilling and water injection underground to utilize subterranean heat, then pumping hot water up for town heating, while the recycling cold water would be reinjected underground through pipelines.
As long as this system continues to run, the geothermal resources from the depths would provide a steady stream of heat.
This method benefits by effectively conserving fuel, as during the ice-age winter, the warmest temperature still hit below negative forty degrees, and coal mining would become incredibly difficult, making fuel precious and cherished.
In this situation, Perfikot clearly couldn’t rely solely on coal for heating; utilizing geothermal energy presented a cost-effective option.
Of course, achieving this requires some breakthroughs in geology and drilling technology, but this is evidently much simpler than creating a constant-temperature magic barrier over a city.
"Let me try, optimize, optimize..." Perfikot covered her left eye with one hand, focusing only her right eye on the design blueprint on the table, chanting under her breath to aid concentration, then her right eye lit up, emitting a green light onto the blueprint: "There’s a response, so this is how this thing works?"
Through Perfikot’s right eye perspective, the lines on the blueprint began to change, as if someone was modifying them.
Next to the blueprint, some explanatory text made from green light appeared in the blank areas, as if an invisible hand was writing on it.
Perfikot watched the changes on the blueprint, anticipating the final outcome.
The changes on the blueprint only lasted for a while; once the modifications were complete, Perfikot’s right eye ceased glowing, and the lines and text on the blueprint turned an emerald green, even the paper Perfikot used to draw turned into a pale green paper.
Perfikot pinched the paper, feeling its texture, which seemed more like the plastic texture from her previous world, flexible and hard to tear.
Perfikot didn’t mind this; with her current status, she had access to any paper she wanted, and as an Alchemist, she could make special paper if she needed to.
What truly concerned her was how the design on this blueprint turned out after optimization.
"Is this some sort of upgrade perk?" Perfikot fiddled with the blueprint, noticing that the illustrations could change.
As in science fiction works from her previous world before her journey, the illustrations could be enlarged or reduced, display different viewpoints, or even switch to appearance, sectional, and three-view diagrams in different display modes.
Evidently, this blueprint has now transformed into something that could be called either a magical artifact or an alchemical item.
"This is indeed nice, it saves me a lot of effort." Perfikot, quite satisfied, after fiddling with it briefly, focused on examining the explanatory text and the design itself.