CHAPTER 38: CHAPTER 38: LET’S TRY A ROUND FIRST

Mr. Zhou extended his hand and patted Brother Pi’s shoulder: "If the other players heard what you just said, it would be blatantly Versailles."

"You’d be chased down two streets."

Flatulence put his arm around Mr. Zhou’s shoulder, then nodded heavily: "Old Zhou, what you said makes a lot of sense. Considering your experience, it’s indeed true. I was too shallow."

Mr. Zhou subtly freed himself: "It’s good that you can realize it. That’s something many people can’t even ask for."

Sea Flip tugged at Flatulence: "Brother Pi, we should hurry to gather materials and level up."

"If we’re too slow, and Brother Zhou has already refined the pig iron, we won’t even have soup to drink."

Hearing Sea Flip’s words, Flatulence immediately snapped out of it, and with a yank on Sea Flip, started running into the distance: "Right, leveling up is essential."

Watching the two leave, Mr. Zhou slowly retracted his gaze: "Let’s continue with the previous topic and get started on building the high furnace."

Hand Rubbing Diamonds chimed in: "How about trying the block refining method?"

Mr. Zhou glanced at Hand Rubbing Diamonds in surprise: "You know the block refining method? But I don’t think it’s appropriate."

"Block refining is indeed straightforward, but it requires demolishing the furnace to extract the iron, constantly hammering the iron blocks to remove inclusions. The production efficiency is appallingly low, and fuel consumption is absurdly high."

"This game is not an ordinary game. Do you think Mage Fang Ka is easy to fool?"

"I think we shouldn’t resort to such methods just to complete the task. Besides, don’t forget the task requires pig iron."

"There’s a huge difference between block iron and pig iron. Do you think Mage Fang Ka can’t tell the difference?"

"Are you sure that Mage Fang Ka will finalize the task for us? Are you sure Mage Fang Ka won’t reduce our favorability to the lowest?"

"This game strives for realism. We should do things properly and not think of taking shortcuts."

Hand Rubbing Diamonds cleared his throat: "I was just saying it casually, don’t mind me."

Mr. Zhou withdrew his gaze from Hand Rubbing Diamonds and continued: "Let me talk about the structure of the high furnace."

"At the very bottom, above the furnace bottom, is called the hearth, where molten iron is collected. Above the hearth is the stack, and further up is the body."

"Above it is the throat. At the throat, we arrange a charging device to put ore, coke, and limestone into the furnace and set up a pipeline for smoke treatment."

"Then there’s the tuyere where air is blown into the furnace to aid coke combustion, and coal dust can be blown in as auxiliary fuel."

"On the blowing issue, I think we can make a manual blower since we skeletons don’t get tired."

"The hearth has an iron outlet and a slag outlet. Since slag is lighter than molten iron, it floats on top, so the slag outlet needs to be placed above the iron outlet."

"There are many tricky processes among these; we can refer to shaft furnace modifications, as the high furnace is an improvement from the shaft furnace."

"The bricks we fired can come in handy here. Alright, talking is less effective than trying it, so let’s first make one as a test."

After speaking, Mr. Zhou stood up and headed toward the lake where the bricks were originally fired.

Grandpa Qian of Bone-Touching and Hand Rubbing Diamonds quickly followed.

Upon reaching the vicinity of the lake, Mr. Zhou observed a bit and then chose a slightly more open and suitable location.

"Let’s start an experiment here first, then improve step by step. Mr. Qian, you two go get some yellow clay, and I’ll move the bricks to build the furnace."

Upon hearing Mr. Zhou’s words, Grandpa Qian of Bone-Touching and Hand Rubbing Diamonds quickly walked towards the side of the lake.

Before the construction of the brick kiln, Grandpa Qian of Bone-Touching had already mastered the experience with yellow clay, so doing it now wasn’t much of a challenge.

Meanwhile, Fang Ka was at the front of the ancient castle, continuously receiving materials delivered by the players one after another.

These players seemed to have gained experience, moving back and forth faster and more efficiently.

This made Fang Ka highly regard these players once again.

It seemed he had previously underestimated the potential of these players.

As long as there was sufficient motivation, there was nothing these players couldn’t accomplish; they were indeed very useful.

The first to reach level 2 were Iron Black Pot and Caged Parrot.

After the level 2 team tasks were released, just half a day later, both had reached level 2.

The two of them didn’t go to collect Magic Potion but were consistently transporting blood instead.

Evidently, the two had been hunting beasts the entire time, and their hunting skills were quite refined.

They gleefully accepted the level 2 team task from Fang Ka.

Caged Parrot looked at Iron Black Pot: "Shall we go find those players who reached level 2 before us?"

Iron Black Pot heard this and gently nodded: "Naturally, I don’t know about others, but Mr. Zhou was a player who directly leveled up from a level 1 team task."

"Previously, building houses and firing bricks and tiles were basically led by him. We need to hurry up and find him."

"If we go too late, I suspect he might already have completed the level 2 team task."

Caged Parrot nodded in agreement, then hesitated a bit before speaking: "But we don’t know where he is now? Where should we look for him?"

Iron Black Pot pondered for a moment before speaking slowly: "I know a bit about iron refining too. Old Zhou, that guy, will definitely need bricks, right?"

"Then he must be near that lake. Let’s go, let’s head directly to the lake. I believe it won’t take long to find them."

After speaking, Iron Black Pot began walking eagerly toward the lake.

The two of them reached the vicinity of the lake, and, sure enough, quickly found Mr. Zhou and the other two.

At this moment, Mr. Zhou and the others had already roughly brought out the prototype of the high furnace.

Seeing this, Iron Black Pot hurried over: "Hey, Old Zhou, is there anything I can help with?"

Seeing the approaching Iron Black Pot and Caged Parrot, Mr. Zhou said in surprise: "You two reached level 2?"

Iron Black Pot glanced at the high furnace prototype and nodded with a smile: "That’s right. We’ve already accepted the level 2 team task. Is there anything we can help with?"

Mr. Zhou pointed to the high furnace prototype in front: "This high furnace is far from complete. Why don’t you join in and help me with it?"

"Speaking of which, your leveling speed is really quite remarkable."