“What is this?” Nightingale asked, looking at the black, shiny stone on the table.

“Obsidian,” Roland replied without looking up, focused on drawing the blueprint in his hands.

“Ob… sidian what?”

“No, I was just talking nonsense.” He sighed. Just looking at the shape and color, who knows what kind of stone it is. He wasn't a geological prospector. He might not even be able to distinguish pure metal if it were placed in front of him, let alone ore. The little knowledge he had told him that most ores were complex compounds, and different impurities resulted in different colors. Take iron ore, for example: hematite, pyrite, and siderite looked completely different from each other. Pyrite, in particular, sometimes had a pale yellow metallic luster and was often mistaken for gold, hence the nickname "fool's gold."

As for high-temperature resistance... compounds themselves don't have a fixed melting point; it all depends on impurities and composition. Temperature alone cannot distinguish its variety. Moreover, metal elements exist in an ionic state. Without knowing the purification method, melting it would be useless.

"You also have things you don't know?" Nightingale asked in surprise.

"Plenty," Roland put down his quill and made himself a cup of black tea. "Do you want some?"

"No, thanks," she waved her hand. "By the way, beef jerky isn't as good as grilled fish slices. Please put fish slices in your drawer in the future."

"..." Roland was silent for a moment and decided to pretend he hadn't heard that. He also planned to give this stone to Chief Alchemist Kaimo Strale to handle. Minerals more or less have a certain amount of radioactivity, and it's not a good choice to put them in the office as decorations.

Recently, after Soraya's ability evolved, he discovered that she could create many more things.

First was the running water system, which could greatly improve residents' happiness. Imagine, after a busy day, returning home sweaty and wanting to wash off the stickiness, only to find that the water tank was empty and you had to go to a nearby well to draw water. That feeling must be terrible. Moreover, Roland was also annoyed by the process of scooping water from the tank to wash his face and hands. He always felt that parasites could grow in the water after a few days. What's more, the tank was rarely cleaned once a month. If you looked closely, you could see water stains like caterpillars floating at the bottom of the tank.

Using a water tower for water supply didn't pose any technical difficulty—using a steam engine to pump water from the Redwater River into the water tower, and then relying on the principle of siphoning to flow the water into each household through pipes, would form an automatic water supply system. The reason Roland hadn't implemented it was because of... materials.

Water pipes could either be made of iron or copper. Iron pipes would need to be replaced after a few years if they weren't rust-proofed. Copper pipes were perfect water pipes—corrosion-resistant, no scaling on the inner walls, non-toxic, and even copper ions had a bactericidal effect. But using the metal used to mint currency for water pipes? The output from the North Slope Mine was far from being so extravagant. Even in later generations, copper water pipes were something only high-end residences would consider.

Currently, Border Town not only couldn't export minerals, but it also had to import metal ingots. Therefore, Roland was reluctant to use either iron or copper pipes to build a water supply system that couldn't generate profit and was purely for enjoyment.

But now it was different. With Soraya's coating, it meant that he could get something for nothing and use magic to produce water pipes—for example, take an iron pipe as a mold, wrap paper around the outside, and then have Soraya cover it with the coating. After removing the mold, it would become a pipe. Even if such a water pipe wasn't pressure-resistant, it could be placed in a covered water pipe trench.

Secondly, there was the power supply system... This probably wouldn't be possible to popularize throughout the town in the short term, but Roland had always wanted to fill the castle with light. It was too painful to read by the faint candlelight, and it was extremely harmful to the eyes. Plus, summer was approaching, and what would it be like to light torches and candles on hot nights?

Now that there were generators and wires, it didn't seem so far-fetched to let the castle enter the electrical age ahead of time. As for the filaments of light bulbs... he vaguely remembered that before tungsten filaments were used, people generally used carbonized bamboo filaments to make incandescent lamps. Bamboo wasn't a rare thing; there was plenty in the woodlands south of the Redwater River.

However, what Border Town needed most at the moment was iron smelting facilities. Iron production was directly related to the scale of mechanical production and weapon manufacturing, and it was also the foundation of the town's survival.

"Is this... a tower that you are drawing?" Nightingale asked curiously, sitting at the table.

"More or less," Roland nodded. "But the inside is empty, used to fill fuel and ore. Its function is the same as a shaft furnace, able to melt iron ore into pig iron."

This was the blast furnace—an upgraded version of the ancient shaft furnace.

He had gone to the construction site to watch the shaft furnace designed and manufactured by Losia. To be honest, in addition to the small capacity and low furnace temperature, the structure of this furnace was already very close to that of a blast furnace. If Soraya's evolution hadn't given the town the ability to produce firebricks, he would have planned to build ten or so more of these shaft furnaces.

But with firebricks, it was natural to consider a blast furnace with a higher furnace temperature and a larger output.

The newly designed blast furnace was nearly meters high, four times the size of the shaft furnace. The furnace body was tower-shaped, with a maximum inner diameter of three meters. To prevent collapse, there were support frames at the bottom. The furnace wall was thinner at the top and thicker at the bottom, with the furnace belly being half a meter thick. The innermost layer was made of Soraya-branded coated firebricks, and there was also a ring of air inlets, with a steam engine drawing air into the furnace belly.

In order to make full use of the power of the steam engine, Roland also designed an automatic feeding device for the blast furnace, including a climbing rail and a special feeding car with a movable door at the bottom. After the car climbed to the top of the furnace under the traction of the steam engine, the buckle at the bottom of the car would be fitted into a hook, thereby opening the dumping port and pouring fuel or ore into the furnace. For this era, this system could be regarded as top-notch technology.

Unlike the open and low-heat shaft furnace, once the blast furnace was put into production, it would not stop operating for a long time and would have to continuously input fuel and ore. The output would also be much higher than that of the shaft furnace. As long as five or six such blast furnaces were built, the town's pig iron production would increase several times over.

...

After finishing all the drawings, Roland rubbed his sore wrists, took out a box from under the table, and pushed it in front of her.

Nightingale was stunned. "This is...?"

"Well... I originally planned to give it to you sooner, but it took a while to carve the patterns. After all, I'm not too familiar with those machines in the factory," Roland smiled. "Open it and take a look."

She reached out and opened the box, and couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

Inside, there were two revolver handguns placed crisscrossing each other—unlike the prototype gun used in the competition with Carter, these two sniper guns were silver and shiny, with a surface so bright that it could reflect a person's image. The grips and gun bodies were engraved with exquisite patterns, and the gun barrels were also imprinted with Nightingale's name: "To Veronica."

Roland had been brewing this plan in his head for a long time. Compared to the inconvenient and troublesome front-loading flintlock guns, the newly developed revolver handguns were quite complete, and both the safety and firing rate were maintained at a high level. With Nightingale, a witch with extremely high mobility, what kind of power could firearms exert in her hands? It was exciting just to think about it.

"Thank you," she smiled as she picked up the two sniper guns, jumped off the table, and struck a shooting pose. "Will you teach me how to use them?"

"Of course," Roland nodded. Her all-white assassin's uniform, coupled with a smile that was so radiant it was dazzling, made him instantly understand what it meant to be so cool that you have no friends. "It's not difficult. Just sneak up to the target, pull the trigger, and shout 'It's high noon'."