Almost everyone left after lunch, they had all pretty much worn themselves out trying to keep up with me. The alchemists offered to leave the enchanted stoves behind, but between Amelia and me, we didn't need them.
Melanie got Edsel to stay behind and coat the lab in a layer of stone, but I get the feeling he would be happy to do whatever she asked.
Apricot shifted back to human-size after delivering the last barrels. Our production far outstripped the army of sprayers, but the drop locations were already arranged ahead of time.
I continued producing Lemmy's Leavener while Amelia went back to her book. All she had to do was keep the water at a boil while I handled everything else. I wrote some more about chemistry and math until my headache came back.
"Time to shoot something." I say to myself and draw out Bowthorne after putting the notes away. I only get a couple shots off before getting interrupted again. "Hey, Ed. What's up?"
"Hey, sorry to bother you, but Mel said that you made an air-filled tire." He pulls a fully working bicycle from his storage. "I don't think you noticed, but we rode this here. Well, we did after Melanie quit trying to topple us every few seconds."
"Hey, I would have been fine with a proper saddle." She growls. "But, you had me on that tiny cushion over the rear wheel."
"Not adventurous enough to ride on the handlebars like Apricot?" My teasing earns a glare from the woman. "Alright, here's the tire and inner tube." I make a wooden wheel and quickly install the tire before pumping it up. Even on the soft, clover covered, field it still bounces when I test it.
"This... wow, this is so much better than that first one you gave me." He says while playing around with the wheel. "I need some for my bike."
"And, I need more lampblack." I reply. "How much did Bat manage to get for us? And, didn’t Adriana want some fire hoses, why did they leave after lunch?" He returned sometime when I was in the zone, but they didn't say anything and I kinda forgot about it.
"Her team talked her into giving you some space." Amelia says without looking up from her book. "Here's everything that Bat was able to collect." She retrieves several jars from her storage and sets them on the ground next to her, still without looking up from her book.
"Thanks, Amelia." I pull them into my storage from here. "This is enough for a good-sized hose after running a few tests, so we're still going to need that burn chamber to make our own."
I start playing around with an oil lamp and some water vapor to prevent complete combustion. It takes a bit of mental wrangling and another headache, but I manage to start drawing the particulates from the air. It's a messy group of molecules, but they all share the same basic structure. I just had to lock onto that as my image for the spell.
"Alright, let's keep it simple for now." I tell the earth mage after I work out the basic design. "Can you give us a burn tray with a bent chimney pipe over it that has a hollow double wall after the bend. That way I can run water through to cool down the smoke before it burns completely."
I create a wooden model to show him what I want. It's just an L shaped pipe over a shallow, tray. I already have ideas for a pump sprayed oil burner, but this should be more than good enough for now.
"Looks easy enough." Edsel whips up a stone version in just moments, his speed when working with stone has clearly improved since Apricot showed him that trick for molding quartz.
"That looks perfect." I compliment his fine work. "I'll work on the enchantments later, but for now, we need some oil. If I remember correctly, Sunflower seeds have a decent amount of stearic acid. Still less than five percent, but if I pull that out we can burn the oil afterward for all the carbon black we should need."
I quickly grow, hull, and then press the oil from a few kilos of sunflower seeds. Then I try drawing the fatty acid out while drawing hydrogen from the air into the oil instead of using lye. This works, but the amount of hydrogen in the atmosphere is so low that it's not worth the extra effort. 'Maybe after I learn some lightning magic.' I promise myself.
"I'd say just about four percent for this batch." I comment after mixing in just a pinch of lye to help break up the triglycerides. "I should be able to increase that with some selective breeding, but we mostly just need the carbonblack right now."
I ignite the burning tray filled with the leftover oil, after pumping the cooling neck full of ice water. Stopping work on the leavening agent to focus on this, a barrel set near the end of the chimney soon starts filling with soot.
"I'm starting to get a little jealous of how good you are with magic." Ed says with a laugh.
"If it helps." I reply with a smile. "I still don't know much earth magic, aside from the basic healing spells that is."
"And, I'm guessing that will only last until you have the free time to learn some." He shakes his head with a rueful smile.
"Mhm." I shrug since it is on my to-do list. "You can try adapting my draw matter spell to work with stone, if you want. I get the feeling that it's going to be more difficult for me than going from water to air."
"And, it's not like you'll be unwelcome around here even after Sorrel learns some earth spells." Melanie adds with a teasing look.
"Heheh. Alright, show me your spell." I walk him through both variants, emphasizing the part I changed to go from water to air. "Hmm?" He materializes a bowl full of stone marbles, each looking to be made from a different type of stone.
"Imagery is the most important part." I offer. "Try something with a high percentage of whatever mineral you're most familiar with."
"Thanks to Apricot that has to be quartz now." He picks out a smoky quartz marble and starts rolling it around in his fingers.
"You're getting a little bunched up here." I draw his attention to one part of his mana flow that just doesn't feel right to me.
"Trying to steal my job now?" Apricot trills out a laugh.
"I thought you didn't want to work." I counter with a teasing smile. "He's close though, right?"
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"Yes, it's likely just his visualization." She answers with glowing eyes.
"Think of glass." I prompt. "The soft white sand that makes for the most perfectly clear glass."
This seems to do the trick for him as small granules start flaking off of the sphere in his hand. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster until he's soon left with two separate piles. The large white pile reforms into a flawlessly clear quartz marble, while the smaller one becomes a shiny metallic bead.
"How odd." Edsel muses while playing with the bead. "This feels almost like quartz."
"It looks like pure silicon." I say with an impressed look. "That must be what gives the smoky quartz its color."
"That's one of the elements you said was used in steel." He peers at the bead even closer.
"Yes, plain quartz is a mix of silicon and oxygen." I nod. "I think you can smelt it at very high temperatures, but I was more concerned with what grows in the soil rather than the soil itself. So, I’m not entirely sure."
I will the plants to clear a small circle near my foot and scoop up a handful of the soft soil. Silica is almost literally everywhere in the soil, so I should be able to draw it out of this as easily as he did from the quartz.
"Come on..." I hold up a hand to stop Apricot from helping me. "Almost..." I close my eyes and sink my senses into the palmful of soil just like a plant sinks its roots into the earth. "Yes!" I grin as that bit of imagery helped me connect properly and pull the pure silica into a separate pile.
"Okay, now I am jealous." Edsel chuckles.
"Let me make it up to you." My grin becomes just slightly wicked as I reach into his bowl of marbles and grab a small granite one. "Do you have a crucible?" I ask after pulling a different white powder from the rock.
"Here." He hands a small one over with a suspicious look.
"I've never actually done this before, but it should be a lot easier with the pure stuff rather than whatever ores you guys use." Focusing my fire spell onto just the powder, I crank up the heat, and then again, and again until a shiny, grey metal soon melts together.
"..." His mouth drops open when he recognizes what it is.
"I may not know much about geology." I say with a smug smile. "But, I do remember that granite is composed of ten or fifteen percent aluminum. Congratulations, you're rich."
"Hahahah." Apricot cracks up laughing at the expression on their faces. "I love watching when you do that to people."
"This... but... nng." The man whimpers a little while staring at the crucible now in his hands.
"Give me some more granite and I'll make enough powder for you to get a good grasp on it." I tell him.
While this has been going on, the oil has burned itself out netting us more than enough carbon to work with. I'll need to experiment with different designs to get different sized particles, but for just starting out in rubber production, this is good enough.
Edsel hands me a large chunk of granite and I hand it back slightly smaller, along with a bowl of pure alumina. While he's playing around with the powder, I restart the leavener production. Amelia has been so caught up in her book that she didn't even notice I stopped and has kept the water boiling.
I top the large pot back up and begin pushing co2 in and pulling khco3 out. Once that's up and running again, I take the newly made lampblack and start making some tires with it. And, then while those are curing, I take the stuff Bat bought and make a few test hoses.
I'd like to play around with adding the silica to rubber, but it’s not useable as it is and will need a bit of alchemy before we can add it to rubber. Even so, what we have now should be more than good enough to make some hoses for Adriana.
"What are you doing?" Melanie asks when she sees that I'm not just trying different formulas, but different ways of making the hoses.
"Looking for the best way to make hoses." I answer while vulcanizing the latest of several tests using methods that I think might be reproducible without relying on magic.
Magic may be common, but to put it in simple terms; The average person has a double-A to power their magics, stronger mages like Ed have a car battery, and I have a deep cycle marine battery hooked up to solar panels. Amelia and Apricot, on the other hand, are running some crazy zero-point collector that draws in power from the world around them.
Wrapping long strips together like a cardboard tube being the first method that came to mind. Then there are several attempts at extrusion and molding, varying whether I cure the first layer separately or not. Along with testing whether wrapping the first layer with the reinforcing fabric works better before or after heat treatment.
In the end, I have over a few dozen two-meter lengths of hose, each with a written list of the steps I followed to produce them.
"Want to go see which ones burst when trying to hold back water from a great height?" I chuckle at the disparity between the looks on hers and Apricot's faces. "How's it going Ed, want to join us?" The man has a manic look on his face as he fills a large stone bowl with alumina powder.
"Hehehe. Sorrel, I could kiss you." He looks up from the bowl with a smile practically splitting his face.
"While I'm sure a certain blonde might enjoy watching that." I reply with a snort. "I'm not so certain how Melanie would react." This causes both her and Edsel to look at each other and blush. "Now, come on. You can extract metals later, we've got some destructive testing to perform."
"Blowing stuff up?" He recovers quickly. "I can get behind that."
The four of us troop over to the water tower I erected earlier. I mold the water pipe at the bottom to connect to each hose, the ends of which are all sealed with wooden plugs. All except one, the one pointing directly at the river I gave a nozzle.
"I always wanted to know what it's like to hold on to one of these when it's fully open." I know that there's little more pressure than a garden hose right now, but I still grab onto the five-centimeter hose with both hands, just to be safe before willing the pipe to open up. "Hahahahahah!" My laughter rings out over the river along with hundreds of liters of water.
"Me next, me next." Apricot begs.
Sealing the pipe, I pull Apricot forward and brace myself against her, wrapping my vines around her middle. "I'll start it out slow, but be careful, it's got a kick to it."
"Ahhhh!" I have to grab hold and help her keep it steady before it's even half-open. "That was insane." The pixie says before breaking into hysterical giggles.
"You guys want a shot?" I ask Ed and Melanie after shutting off the water again.
"Uhh..." They look at each other and shake their heads at the same time. "I think we'll pass."
"Alright, let's step back a bit and see if we spring any leaks." I seal up the hose we used and slowly let them all fill up with water. "Nng. Make a note that curing the layers separately doesn't work as well. Adding the reinforcement after curing helps give the second layer get a better grip, but they're still not as good."
Everything held fine, but I could feel that the ones I mentioned wouldn't be able to take as much abuse before failing. So, I disconnect the problematic hoses and start feeding the tower some wood.
"You're making it taller?" Melanie seems nervous.
"I did say destructive testing, and we didn't even get a leak from the first round." I explain while bringing it up to fifty meters. "Hmm, it looks like we can rule out batch seven. It's a little too elastic and is just starting to bulge." None of this is visible, but I can easily feel it through my magic.
I remove all the hoses made from that batch of rubber and raise the tower another ten meters. We don't see another issue until after the hundred-meter mark, then two more batches start giving out, one of the hoses even sprung a leak and would have torn itself apart if I hadn't shut down the water.
"Apricot, can you fill the tank while I raise it up again, it's getting to be a bit difficult for me." I plead with a sweet smile.
"I can do it." Amelia says in a smug tone. "And, it's good to see that you do have some limits. But, why didn't you let me know you were playing with water?"
"Baby." I pull her into a hug. "You were so wrapped up in your book that I didn't want to disturb you."
"Like the giant water tower and Apricot's manic laughter wasn't going to disturb me." She laughs at the chagrined look that crosses my face. "So, just how high are you planning to raise this thing?"
"I won't be happy until it's at least three-hundred meters." Ed and Melanie's jaws drop when I say that, but the girls just take it in stride. "But, I'll probably quit around two, depending on the wind, or just whenever the hoses stop working. Do you want to give it a shot? Apricot couldn't even handle half pressure at forty meters."
She nods and I brace her just like I did Apricot. The tower is three times taller, meaning three times the pressure, but it's still less than half what a modern fire hydrant can push out.
"Hey, you cheater." Apricot complains when Amelia uses her magic to keep the water in the hose under control.
"You're just mad you didn't think of it yourself." The blonde sticks her tongue out at her lover.