xymnovel Chapter 55 Experiment
Chapter 55 Experiment
King Baldwin's army returned to Jerusalem from Transjordan. He wanted to speak with Lyon about his experiences at Caleb Castle, but learned from the anxious Queen Mary that Lyon had not spent the night at the palace for several days. He sent Balian to find him, and he eventually found him in a makeshift stone chamber in the workshop area reserved for royal craftsmen to forge armor and weapons.
Inside the stone chamber, the air was scorching and viscous, filled with a strange stench of sand, ash, and sweat. It was less a workshop and more a battlefield recently ravaged. The walls were blackened by smoke, and the floor was littered with shattered crucible fragments and colorful, distorted pieces of glass, bearing witness to repeated, devastating failures.
When Balian entered, Lyon was staring intently at a new type of kiln that had been painstakingly built by craftsmen based on his rough blueprints. The fire was emitting a dull rumble, the "higher temperature" he had insisted on achieving. He was drenched in sweat, his linen shirt clinging to his body, stained and soaked with dirt.
Jacob was lounging lazily against a wooden table piled high with tools. He was still wearing the Knights' robes, but the collar was open, revealing his muscular chest, which was stained with either wine or shards of glass from the last experiment. He even held a wine flask in his hand, taking sips every now and then.
Balian waved his hand, trying to brush away the coarse dust that hit him. He approached the cabin and asked in a low voice, "What are you doing?"
Jacob glanced at Lyon, a helpless look on his face, and said with a wry smile, "Who knows? Ever since we returned a week ago after dealing with the pirates who were harassing that bearded merchant ship, he's been complaining to me about how slow the scouts on the mast were at detecting enemy activity. He said that if we hadn't been so overwhelmingly powerful, we would have been caught off guard long ago. Then he kept clamoring to build something that would allow for better enemy observation, and here he is, causing trouble for these poor craftsmen..."
The device Lyon mentioned for observing enemy positions was none other than the monocular telescope, a common tool during the Age of Exploration. Manufacturing such a telescope required high-precision glass. As an ordinary person, he could only vaguely recall materials like silicon dioxide, soda ash, limestone, and the crucial manganese dioxide, as well as the optical principles from his junior high school physics.
However, between knowing and doing lies a chasm called "craftsmanship," a chasm that requires countless failures, countless dinars, and wavering confidence to fill.
"Keep it heated!" Lyon shouted to the old craftsman in charge of controlling the heat.
Marcus, the old craftsman who had been a glassmaker since the time of King Amaury, had a face full of reluctance and fear. "Your Highness! No more! This furnace... this furnace has never been this hot before! God above, it will explode! The contents... are already a pot of green, bubbling demonic broth!" The "demonic broth" he was referring to was the molten glass, which had turned a cloudy green due to iron impurities.
"That's not devil's soup, Marcus, that's money! That's the future!" Leon retorted, but his heart was pounding. He remembered the textbook saying that manganese dioxide could decolorize, but what was the exact ratio? How long did it need to be heated? Damn it, why didn't he read more online time-travel novels back then, instead of staying in his dorm playing games every day!
The fear of failure, like the heatwave in the room, relentlessly assaulted his seemingly confident facade. He was afraid—afraid that all the hard-earned dinars he had invested would ultimately amount to nothing more than a pile of useless, colorful trash.
"Hey! Marcus, just heat it up!" Accord's voice rang out leisurely. "If it explodes, it explodes. At least we'll hear a bang! It's better than seeing you create these green stones that look like they've been pulled from a swamp." He winked at Leon. "Kid, don't give me that coffin face. Even if we fail, at least we'll know which method doesn't work, right?"
Accord, far from rejecting Lyon's whimsical ideas, approached them with a keen interest akin to watching a circus performance. The little guy had been full of ingenious ideas since childhood, and Accord eagerly anticipated Lyon's results. Even if he failed, it wouldn't matter; it was merely a necessary step towards an interesting outcome.
Noticing Balian's entrance, Leon turned around and casually asked, "Your Majesty has returned?"
"Yes, Your Highness, it is indeed as you predicted, but let's leave that aside for now," Balian looked at everything suspiciously, then hesitated before asking, "Your Highness, please forgive my bluntness. You've recently invested a great deal of dinars, manpower, and time, all for this... this pile of aesthetically unappealing glass? What's needed to defeat Saladin is sturdy armor, sharp swords, and reliable allies, not this childish game of playing with sand..."
Balian was straightforward. While the craftsmen dared not question him as directly as Balian, their eyes were mostly filled with confusion and a hint of barely perceptible contempt. Their generations-old craftsmanship seemed utterly inadequate in the face of the young crown prince's strange orders.
“This isn’t a game, Balian.” Leon forced himself to turn around, meeting the skeptical gaze. He had to appear confident, even if he was terribly nervous inside. “This is a weapon. A weapon that allows us to see Saladin’s cavalry formation before they even charge. A weapon that allows us to spot the pirates when their sails are just a tiny dot on the horizon.”
"With glass?" Barian was filled with doubt. "Could it really be that magical?"
Leon didn't answer directly. He took a deep breath of the scorching air, turned to Marcus, and said in an unquestionable tone, "Pour in the 'anti-fans'! The proportions I said, now!"
Marcus glanced at Leon, then gritted his teeth and, with a trembling motion, used a specially made long-handled iron spoon to throw a certain amount of pyrolusite powder into the bubbling green "devil's soup."
What followed was a long wait. Only the roar of the flames and the heavy breathing of the workers filled the workshop. Lyon's mind raced, calculating every possible mistake. Was the proportion wrong? Was the temperature right? Were all the impurities removed? Each question that flashed through his mind made his heart beat faster.
After an unknown amount of time, Lyon suddenly shouted, "Cease fire! Prepare for annealing!"
The flames in the kiln were gradually controlled and reduced. As the crucible was carefully removed from the embers with huge iron tongs, all eyes were on it.
The molten glass in the crucible was no longer that unsettling turbid green, but instead displayed a faint, almost colorless amber halo. Although it was far from being as clear as water, it was a world of difference compared to the previous failed products that were either dark green or full of bubbles.