The Defeated Dragon Chapter 116

116 – Demolished His House

Tabdakdak.

The sound of horse hooves hitting the gravel road reverberated. Its head raised, Blackdragon's black mane waved in the wind.

The main road had been already under construction for over two months. Each day, one hundred and eighty commoners worked on it, with each person being paid one copper coin per day. In other words, this road cost the castle one hundred and eighty copper coins a day. For the over two months of work, a total of over ten thousand copper coins, or about one gold coin, were spent.

At times, manpower was amazingly inexpensive.

The stones transported from all over the fief were broken into fingernail-sized gravel, laid flat on the ground, and then mixed with the East Coast's sand, making the entire road look very clean and tidy.

Without cement, treading on gravel and sand would always lead to some of it unwittingly enter the shoes.

“Unfortunately, the Thorns Ridge is just a stone-covered mound, with the stones being so small that there is no way to cut them into flagstones. Otherwise, the main road would be built as a flagstone road instead, making it look much nicer.” Mused Liszt regretfully. The town was indeed quite poor, and the surrounding resources were extremely scarce.

He had sold black pearls twice until now. Therefore, his coin pouch was currently bulging. It was filled with more than five hundred gold coins.

However, they could not be immediately converted into resources – no more livestock could be bought because of the limited pasture; no more construction projects could be carried out because of the lack in manpower; the roads could not be repaired regularly because of the lack of stone; no more uncultivated land could be cultivated because of the scarcity of tools.

Today, the entire town started to repair the wooden houses, leaving no workers to work on the road.

Under the supervision of the patrol team and some clerks, the commoners started to check whether their houses were sturdy. Cracked beams and pillars had to be reported to be replaced, roof damage had to be reported to patch the holes, loose windows had to be reported to be reinforced, rotten corners of walls had to be reported to be repaired.

The commoners were quite enthusiastic as the sir lord was the one providing the repair materials, making them feel that it was a bargain, not taking advantage of which would be akin to taking a big loss!

“Perhaps I should start baking bricks as there are not enough stones.” Thought Liszt as he saw wooden houses being repaired in the vigorous major project assembly.

Stonemasons and carpenters were construction workers from different worlds; commoners lived in wooden houses while aristocrats lived in stone castles.

In the Flower Town, the only castle belonged to Liszt. It was built from stone, with sticky rice used as the binding agent. Sticky rice was very precious and the sprite it borned was known as the ‘wall sprite'. Its value lied not in it being edible but in its strong cohesive properties.

Without cement, either mud or sticky rice was used as binder.

Fortunately, the Tulip Family had a sticky rice lesser sprite. Therefore, the castle built by the count was extravagantly built using sticky rice as binder.

Such a castle was much firmer than a castle built using mud as binder. Additionally, it could be built much taller.

Liszt's castle, for instance, could have the spire roof dismantled and then a few more stories added to it.

“There is not much technique to baking bricks. With suitable clay, appropriate bricks can be backed… However, to bake bricks, a kiln has to be built and coal or, at the very least, charcoal has to be used. Without figuring things out, I might not be able to burn appropriate bricks.”

Liszt, who liked to read, to think about things in his free time, knew quite a lot of stuff.

He knew about saltpeter-produced ice, clay-backed bricks, handmade paper, gunpowder recipe, soil cement, distilled spirit, pancreas soap recipe, telescope, fused glass, and so on. With gunpowder figured out, even grenades could be made. In addition, he also knew the general principle behind waterwheels, plows, and windmills.

But it was by no means a simple matter to turn knowledge into a physical reality, with the biggest constraints being materials and labor.

Saltpeter-produced ice required saltpeter. If the extremely small saltpeter mine hadn't been discovered, then producing ice would be a pipe dream. Fused glass was the same, requiring quartz sand and sodium ash. To get quartz sand, a quartz mine probably had to be found. According to his memories, quartz looked like a slightly transparent stone.

But what about soda ash?

He remembered that when making congee, a bit of alkaline water had to be added. Plant ash contained traces amounts of alkali. However, where could he get soda ash?

In addition to saltpeter, gunpowder also required sulfur.

Cement required limestone.

“Strictly speaking, it doesn't seem like I know what sulfur and limestone look like.” Liszt suddenly remembered a very serious problem.

He merely knew that saltpeter could produce ice, quartz could be fused into glass, limestone could be made into cement, sulfur could be mixed into explosives.

However, what did limestone and sulfur look like?

Previously, he only knew that saltpeter was white and that, according to many books, it appeared at toilets, in the corners. Later, the prompt of a smoke mission indicated that there was an extremely small saltpeter mine. Only then was saltpeter discovered.

If he were to search for saltpeter on his own, chances were that his search would be fruitless.

“The name limestone is fairly vulgar, probably because it's just some commonly seen stone. Is it related to marble or granite? As for sulfur, is it found near volcanic craters? Reportedly, it smells like sulfur near volcanic craters.” [1]

Liszt felt that he was more ignorant than he had thought: “This is a bit embarrassing… But I definitely know about soil used in baking bricks!”

In theory, clay was necessary to bake bricks. Clay was a type of soil that could be baked into red bricks.

However, if high quality was not imperative, then most types of soil could be used to bake bricks. ASlightly sticky soil was a good material.

Such soil was abundant in the Flower Town.

“After this mission is completed, I'll gather a group of serfs to bake bricks for me. I will build houses using bricks.” He wanted to build big Flame Mushroom sheds, toilets, barns, industrial buildings. He also fantasized about building a football field, a basketball court, raising a group of professional players, and having matches when there was nothing to do.

“Although cement and glass have a very wide range of utility, but looking for quartz, limestone, and soda ash will take time.”

Next, he suddenly thought: “In fact, I am an aristocrat, I should be enjoying life. Why am I thinking about inventions and research all the time?”

He used to be a humanities student, not a STEM student. He studied information management in the university.

“Life is so beautiful, why should I live it as a wizard?”

While on horseback, his mind drifted away.

On the street, not far away, a house collapsed along with a cacophony of noise.

Liszt raised his hand to cover his eyes from the sun and looked over, seeing a group of people at the scene. He instructed a retainer knight: “Find out what happened.”

The retainer knight quickly brought a supervising patrolman over.

The patrolman knelt on the ground and answered Liszt's question: “Sir Lord, the one to make this ruckus was Hent, who demolished his house.”

“Demolished his house?”

“That's right. We saw Hent, while holding a rod, pound at his house. He broke several of the supporting pillars before the house fell and buried him below. However, he was not crushed, he just broke an arm.”

“Why did he demolish his house?”

“Well, Hent heard that the castle was going to provide the materials necessary for the repair of the houses and therefore, wanted to exchange his old house for a brand new one…”

Chapter end