Chapter 347: Chapter 344: A Great Leap for Alchemy

It was a very strange explosion.

The shockwave died out halfway through, lacking any follow-through. It was more like people heard a short, sudden clap of thunder.

Andre, who felt like his soul had nearly been blasted out of his body, and the Dwarves at the construction site didn’t dare to move a muscle. The scattered fragments were right in front of them, but they were also motionless.

The entire explosion site was frozen in time.

"Don’t move," Rorschach’s voice rang out. Everyone, along with the scattered pieces of the device, was enveloped in a pale blue field. As if time were reversing, the fragments followed the trajectories they had been propelled along by the expanding gas and returned to their original positions.

At the same time, the fire at the center of the explosion cooled and extinguished, leaving behind only the gas mixture.

As all the pieces knit themselves back together, they emitted a grating sound.

Andre felt like he was suffocating. He and Rorschach were closest to the point of the explosion. First, an overwhelming shockwave had forced its way into his lungs, followed by an unstoppable process of withdrawal. Not only that, but he could also feel all the Magic Power in the field being mobilized, fully participating in this miraculous repair.

Rorschach had directly taken control of the entire output of the Transmutation Dust Collection and Transformation Device, then activated the protective Mapping Reversal Spell he had prepared in advance.

He was now the final and strongest safeguard for the entire experiment.

’The teacher is so strong...’ Andre held his breath, his focus absolute, as Rorschach was casting. He had never seen Rorschach display such power back in Valuva. Even in the Alchemy Department, he had never seen a Mage who could compare to Rorschach at this moment.

After Rorschach finished, he raised his Magic Staff again. A gentle blue light radiated out from the head of his staff, enveloping himself, Andre, and all the Dwarves at the scene. Their ears suddenly rang, and only then did they realize their eardrums had been ruptured by the explosion. Rorschach was healing them.

Rorschach sent a message to the foreman, Jansen. "Find Mr. Hasse and report that the situation here is normal. Then go check the glass in the nearby workshops and give appropriate compensation to anyone injured by the explosion. And..." He glanced at his Pocket Watch. "Have them line up this evening to receive healing from me."

"I was so focused on explaining things to you that I didn’t check the purity properly... Let’s drain it." Rorschach sighed. He twisted open the drain valve at the bottom of the tower, and a jet of steam gushed out—the product of the Lightweight Flammable Element and the Flammable Element colliding during the explosion.

What pained Rorschach the most was the catalyst. Andre jumped in fright when he saw a pile of black slag fall out. "Did the explosion destroy something?"

"No, the catalyst packing is supposed to look like this." Rorschach picked up some of the slag. It had become damp, which meant the catalytic sites were no longer effective. ’I wonder how much can be regenerated by baking it...’ Rorschach weighed it in his hand.

The black part of the catalyst was iron oxide, but its porous substrate was aluminum oxide—which, to ensure purity, was produced by calcining aluminum salt made from pure aluminum ingots.

"Besides hydrogen, I also need to bring down the price of aluminum." Rorschach gritted his teeth again. He strongly suspected that the Dwarves, with their love of playing with electricity, had already mastered the process of electrolytic aluminum production. But they were taking advantage of the fact that Humans and Elves didn’t know about it, still selling it bit by bit as a precious metal.

The surviving Dwarves had no idea that besides their brethren at the gas stations losing their jobs, a batch of their smelting brothers would also face pay cuts and layoffs in the future due to the sharp decline in profits in the electrolytic aluminum industry, delivering a second shock to the construction job market. Right now, all they knew was that they needed a beer to calm their nerves.

After the first explosion, the device was treated to a large enclosure. Rorschach had originally insisted on keeping it outdoors, but to avoid alarming the local residents, he had a temporary canvas workshop set up. For the past few days, Rorschach and Andre had practically been living inside it.

After the on-site instruction, Andre could now understand the blueprints and the process, especially after realizing that careless operation could get him blown sky-high—and Rorschach wouldn’t always be around. Thus, he too channeled the "Gao Pei learning spirit," which is to say, the fear of death motivated his studies.

After confirming that all indicators had stabilized, Andre saw the pressure gauge on the final pipe show a positive reading. "So we have the finished product."

"Yes." Rorschach kept his eyes on the device’s operation, ever-ready.

On that desolate winter day, they completed the entire startup procedure, a nerve-wracking process that thankfully concluded without another explosion. Since Rorschach couldn’t be bothered to set up a cryogenic liquefaction and separation process for the ammonia, he simply had the produced gas absorbed directly into water.

"The liquid level hasn’t changed. How do we know if what’s coming out is the product?" Andre was filled with a mix of excitement and curiosity. He and his teacher had gone through hell and back to finally get this production line running! More than celebratory sparkling wine, he wanted to know what this huge, complex device had actually produced.

Since Rorschach had handled all the catalyst testing and design himself, when Andre asked his teacher, Rorschach had only told him the product was "a gas at room temperature, highly soluble in water, and has a peculiar smell."

’Just how peculiar could it be?’

"Hmm... you can open the sampling port here and collect a little of the product’s aqueous solution." Rorschach knew the best way to satisfy Andre’s curiosity was to let him try it for himself, so he took a few steps back as he spoke.

Andre, who had not yet "experienced" the finished product, curiously twisted the valve open just a crack. A trickle of ammonia water, clear and transparent just like normal water, immediately flowed out.

"This is just water... UGH, UGH... UUUUGGH—"

Just as Rorschach had expected, Andre threw up, tears and snot streaming down his face. He had been working his tail off with his teacher for a month, only to produce... piss! A super-concentrated version!

Rorschach, protected by an [Air Filter Bubble], used a [Mage’s Hand] to close the valve from a distance, then kindly cast one on his Apprentice as well.

"Don’t look down on it just because of the smell. Ammonia is a vital raw material for many of our upcoming products. You see how farmers collect human and cattle manure and urine for compost? We will be able to produce far more effective fertilizer at hundreds, even thousands of times the efficiency.

"Furthermore, nitrogen is indispensable for the high-performance explosives and gunpowder of the future.

"In short, this may be one unremarkable vomit for you, but it’s one giant leap for alchemy! We have fixed nitrogen from the air and put it to use for all people! We will produce many times more grain and feed the entire world!"

Mastering the high-pressure synthesis process not only meant that ammonia could be produced at an industrial scale, but it also paved the way and set the technical standards for other high-pressure, high-temperature production processes in the future. It was the first milestone for large-scale industrial alchemy in this world. At the same time, its advent meant that global food production would reach a new level, and the alchemy industry would, for the first time, benefit all intelligent life...

’Perfect,’ Rorschach thought. ’I’ll write the textbooks exactly like that in the future!’

Andre wiped his mouth and pointed to his undigested breakfast on the ground. "In that case, Teacher, should we collect this... ’footprint on the history of alchemy’?"

"Get lost..."

After his stomach and mood had settled, Andre reviewed the blueprints again. He suddenly noticed something. "Teacher, you designed a flare stack and an absorption tower for the tail gas here. And this section... for recycling waste gas and discharging wastewater... why haven’t I seen any of it?"

"We’re just in the experimental phase right now, no need to make things so complicated..." Rorschach laughed it off. Andre thought that if the finished product smelled this memorable, the waste gas must be even worse.

He was worried the wastewater and waste gas would pollute the surrounding environment and upset the residents and employees. However, the Apprentice walked round and round the site but saw no smoke leaking out, nor any toxic wastewater overflowing.

Of course, Rorschach was just employing a traditional skill he had learned in the Alchemy Department: venting everything directly into the Air Elemental Plane. The residents of the Air Elemental Plane should also get to enjoy the fruits of industrialized alchemy, after all. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

’I can be an environmentalist, too,’ Rorschach mused. ’It’s just that ’the environment’ specifically refers to the Prime Material Plane. Or, more precisely, the place where I eat and sleep.’

"Next, learn the shutdown procedure. After I finish writing the Technical Manual and a safety manual, you’ll need to start training the new recruits. I need to free up the processing power of the Wisdom Core as soon as possible..." Rorschach instructed Andre as they walked, feeling a great sense of accomplishment.

When they reached the old factory area, they found it in an uproar, with people gathered around discussing something.

"War has broken out!"

’So it’s finally started, huh?’ Rorschach sighed. He calculated his production timeline, estimating that he could start supplying the army of the Bayern Kingdom by the midpoint of the war.

"The Valois Kingdom has brazenly invaded the southern Empire!" a junior manager was loudly reading the newspaper headline to the employees.

’Huh? Did I hear that right? The Kingdom struck first?’ The situation had escalated far beyond Rorschach’s expectations.