Chapter 201: Ceramic Pipeline Network

As for the water supply pipeline network for residential houses, Ace learned from the lessons of ancient Rome in his past life. He decided not to use metals like lead for water pipes. Instead, he planned to fire ceramic pipes and then use the Mud-to-Stone spell for secondary hardening.

The pottery-making technique had a long history in this world; what was missing was the glazing technique. The key to firing ceramics lies in glazing, and the key to glazing lies in the glaze.

The glaze is applied to the ceramic body and melts at high temperatures to form a vitreous layer.

This vitreous layer is the key to ceramics. With it, ceramics become smooth, hygienic, waterproof, and aesthetically pleasing, and their strength increases. They can then safely and hygienically supply water from the distribution towers to every household.

Although Ace had seen quartz and limestone in this world, no quartz or limestone mines were found near the valley. Therefore, he decided to use an ancient glaze substitute.

This glaze is the ubiquitous wood ash—the residue of burning plants. It is light, alkaline, commonly used for composting, and can also be used to fire porcelain.

The method of making ceramics is not complicated, mainly involving four steps: forming the body, drying the body, glazing, and firing. After teaching Betty the general method, Ace assigned several hundred ordinary residents and over 30 Wizard Apprentices to her and stopped worrying about it.

Ace returned to his tower and began researching the interesting topic of magically hand-crafting flintlock muskets and bronze cannons. He already had a preliminary idea of how to arm the mortals.

Initially, he would arm mortals with mature gunpowder weapons from his past life. Later, he could use methods similar to Virtue Runes to enhance the strength of mortals without magical talent.

Let the armed and enhanced mortals be responsible for basic defense, offense, and public security, liberating the Wizards from these tasks to better study and research.

Betty took the task very seriously. After multiple discussions with Daina, they confirmed that the aqueduct project would stop near the west wall of Nightlight City. They would build four huge water towers outside the wall and then surround them with a barbican.

The project inside the city involved using a stone pipeline network to divert water from the four water towers to 40 distribution towers within the city, and then transporting it to every household through the ceramic pipeline tap water system.

Under Betty’s leadership, all the Wizard Apprentices in the city began using Lesser Mud-to-Stone to build stone water supply and drainage canals. As days passed, Nightlight City’s water supply and drainage network gradually improved.

In the clearing northeast of Nightlight City, a group of mortals was firing ceramic pipes. Lucilu and several other Wizard Apprentices were casting spells nearby, performing secondary reinforcement and hardening on the ceramic pipes.

After a while, they finished reinforcing and hardening the fired ceramic pipes and chatted together.

“How many Social Practice Points do you have?” a young apprentice asked Lucilu.

“About 500,” Lucilu replied.

“I envy you. I only have 300 Social Practice Points, just enough for advancement. Since we have nothing to do, why don’t we review the Lesser Runology course together? Let’s quiz each other on tracing runes!” another apprentice said.

“Okay, I’ll ask first. How many types of Lesser Projection Runes are there? Please write them down from memory.”

Several Wizard Apprentices traced in the air together. Some drew quickly, while others scratched their heads. The first-year Lesser Runology course focused on rote memorization. Only by knowing them by heart could they use them proficiently in the future, and even improve or modify Lesser Runes.

While the Wizard Apprentices were constructing and studying, the number of reinforced and hardened ceramic pipes also increased rapidly. The water supply pipeline network covering the entire city was about to take shape.

While Betty and Daina led the Wizard Apprentices in building the water supply and drainage system, Ace’s research on magically hand-crafting flintlock muskets was also advancing rapidly.

Ace had once made magical glycerin, which is an unstable magical material version of powerful nitroglycerin. This magical glycerin was more potent than glycerin made from ordinary materials. Ace speculated that Mana played a role in it.

For gunpowder used by mortals, he believed there must be a certain technological gap. Wizards must master more advanced explosives, so he did not plan to use nitroglycerin.

Ace planned to use classic black powder. Mixing saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur in a ratio of 7:1.5:1, followed by soaking, compacting, drying, crushing, and sieving, yields the optimal granular black powder.

The power of black powder is sufficient to fight ordinary low-level Monsters, making it perfect for mortal soldiers.

In fact, it’s more than that. For many Wizard Apprentices, using black powder directly as a Casting Material to enhance the explosive power of Fire Element spells is also a good choice.

Flintlock muskets use the impact of flint on the hammer to produce sparks, igniting the gunpowder. This requires making springs, which is not difficult for Wizards. Making elastic bronze spring leaves is not difficult for Ace, who is proficient in Fire Element spells and has memories of his past life.

Spiral spring leaves were quickly produced. The difficulty in making flintlock muskets lies in the barrel—rapidly producing high-quality steel barrels.

For Wizard Apprentices who use Magic, this is almost no problem. Ace easily created flames with temperatures exceeding 1,500 degrees, melting iron into liquid. He then stirred the liquid iron with pig iron blocks, allowing the carbon within to combine with the air, producing high-quality steel.

After magically refining 300 steel rods, Ace chanted an incantation, fixing the steel rods to the ground.

Next was the most crucial step: drilling the barrels with Magic in one go.

He used the Mana Crystal Shaping spell to create a large number of Mana Crystal drills, infusing them with his own Inherent Mana to make the drills extremely sharp and hard.

Accompanied by the pulse of Mana, the Mana Crystal drills pierced directly through the steel rods, forming the famous spiral rifling, also known as windmill lines. Most flintlock muskets in his past life were smoothbore guns, meaning they had no rifling.

Rifling appeared very early in history, but rifled guns were difficult to load and had an extremely slow rate of fire, so they were not valued by armies.

However, the function of rifling is excellent. Although smoothbore guns without rifling fire faster, they have poor accuracy and short range.

Rifling can be said to be the soul of the barrel. Its function is to impart spin to the bullet, allowing it to maintain a set direction after leaving the barrel.

With rifling, the penetration, accuracy, and range of firearms are greatly improved. It can be said that every rifled flintlock musket has the potential to become a sniper rifle.

In his past life, it wasn’t until the invention of the Minié ball that the practicality issue of rifled guns was solved in one go, and a large number of old smoothbore flintlock muskets were converted into rifled flintlock muskets.

Ace naturally would not repeat this process. He skipped the smoothbore gun stage directly, using Magic to create steel pipes with spiral windmill lines in a single molding.

Overtaking on a curve with Magic, creating gunpowder weapons with materials and craftsmanship far surpassing the mundane—this is very magical, and very scientific!

As for the Minié ball production process, it is more of an creative idea. The main problem with rifled guns is that due to the rifling, muzzle-loaded bullets are difficult to keep airtight in the chamber, greatly reducing their power.

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