Although the blacksmith shop is already under construction, it is still too early to be completely completed - and in Gawain's plan, this wooden house is actually not the same thing as the "blacksmith shop" in this world's cognition, but for the convenience of everyone's understanding, he temporarily called this place a blacksmith shop.

According to his intentions, he intended to name the place "Cecil Iron Works......

As the only blacksmith in the realm at present, the elder Hammer was also quite puzzled by the "blacksmith shop" ordered by the Duke, in his opinion, this building really occupies an unnecessarily large area, in addition to a surprisingly large board house, it also includes a hundred meters long and wide open space and a wooden shed with only a few brackets erected at present, it seems nondescript to call such a large facility a "blacksmith shop". But he did not dare to say that the famous Founding Duke was a layman who did not know how to pretend to know how to command—although he did think so in his heart, he would never dare to say it.

After all, he was just a commoner, and the other party was a great nobleman who could be equal to His Majesty the King.

And because of the astonishing size of the "blacksmith's shop", it could only be placed on the eastern edge of the camp, and its "large courtyard" stretched out into the heath outside, as if a piece protruded from the neat wooden fence, and the fellows brought from Tanzania were pitiful in the giant blacksmith's shop: they occupied only a corner of the plank house when they were full, and the only iron-making furnace was placed in the open space outside, sheltered from the wind and rain by a simple wooden shed.

As for Gawain, he had arranged the blacksmith's shop so large and close to the edge of the territory because he had only taken into account the future production capacity needs and the convenience of expansion—the traditional blacksmith shops of this era, with a master with a few apprentices, a hut with a furnace, and clanging blacksmiths, were not what he needed at all.

But he couldn't explain it to the old blacksmith and his stupid apprentices now.

Aside from production capacity and future expansion considerations, Gawain didn't plan to erect a pile of earthen blast furnaces in this courtyard like the traverser predecessors in the novels he had read, although he did think so, but after seeing Hetty use the power of magic to help the raft dock and strengthen the foundation of the camp a few days ago, he temporarily suppressed this idea and instead let Hammer, the only blacksmith in the territory, build a traditional furnace in the courtyard.

He came to the blacksmith's shop, where Rebecca was waiting, and the gray-haired old blacksmith Hammer and several of his apprentices, and a few men in short shirts stood in the courtyard, and the first shipment of ore was in the large basket at their feet.

Gawain walked straight to the traditional furnace.

It was a rather rough benzene furnace, about a metre high, divided into two distinct parts, one underneath a large hemispherical structure that rapidly shrank into a single cylinder, and two openings visible on the lower hemispherical structure, one below, apparently where the fuel was added, and the other near the cylindrical structure, where ore should be poured.

None of these parts are unusual, just ordinary furnaces, but what makes it special is on the side.

There were three runes lined up there.

All three runes were carved into a pitch-black stone shard, and all three shards had apparently been carefully polished and carefully positioned before being mounted on the furnace to ensure that they were perfectly spaced apart and that the edges were parallel. The bottom stone tablet is carved with a triangular symbol with a wavy line within the symbol, which is the starting character of the magic book representing the fire element; The stone chip in the middle is a square with a diamond in it, which is the starting character of the earth element; The upper stone tablet is a swirling symbol, which is related to the wind elemental, but not the starting character.

In addition to these three stone flakes, there are also some subtle, glittering dust in the material that makes the furnace, and Gawain knows what it is: quartz sand, the quartz sand of "this world".

Quartz sand is a material with demonic properties, and although its effect is extremely weak, it is widely used because it is cheap enough to be used by ordinary people.

Gawain raised his head and glanced at the old blacksmith: "You made this furnace?" ”

"Yes, yes sir......" When the old blacksmith heard the lord ask himself, he immediately grabbed the hat in his hand nervously, and hurriedly bowed his head and replied, "Oh, half of it was made by me, and half of it was made by me commanding the apprentices......"

Gawain nodded, but no more questions.

Magic is a transcendent power, and it is not within the reach of "untouchables", but in this world full of magic everywhere, even civilians who can't cast spells actually have a shadow of magic in their lives.

Some basic uses of magic don't require knowledge and ability to cast spells - everyone has magic in them, and as long as a simple symbol is carved into a specific material and a certain shape of material, everyone can induce some of those wonderful powers that are ubiquitous.

This is not a spell at all, and its effect is almost ridiculously weak in the eyes of those who are truly "transcendental", this kind of borrowing is like picking up a stick on the ground to use as a crutch, and picking up a stone everywhere to smash a walnut is as untechnical, even illiterate civilians can remember how to draw a few symbols with weak effect, but it is this little bit of power that determines that this world is a completely different place from Gawain's familiar hometown.

It's like the Celsius difference when water boils.

With those three runes, this "traditional furnace" can produce molten iron without the help of a blower or the optimization of the combustion chamber structure, using only firewood as fuel.

If the runes of the fire elemental are engraved on a piece of mythril, this stove can even use straw as fuel!

However, it is precisely because of the existence of these ancient runes that the humans of this world have not thought about how to improve the efficiency of the furnace in terms of improving the efficiency of fuel combustion - what they are constantly improving is the material used to engrave the runes, and the format of the runes themselves.

Therefore, Gawain did not build any earthen blast furnace, but first observed this primitive and backward traditional furnace.

The old blacksmith Hammer looked at the great nobleman in front of him more and more nervously, he didn't know what the other party was trying to do when he suddenly asked a question and then studied the furnace, and he didn't know if he had done anything wrong, he only knew that the nobleman was powerful and moody—although the lord Miss Rebecca and the lord before him were both benevolent and generous, but the one in front of him was the legendary pioneer hero, a thorough warrior, or a duke, what would be the character of such a great nobleman?

And just when the old blacksmith was worried, Gawain finally straightened up again and asked him a second question: "How much iron can you smelt every day in such a furnace while ensuring a sufficient supply of ore?" ”

Hammer breathed a sigh of relief: he had finally asked a normal question.

"If you use the kind of ore over there, you can smelt fifty catties of iron every day." The old blacksmith said with some pride.

However, Gawain couldn't help frowning when he heard this answer: "So little? ”

With the help of those runes, the yield is so much?

"That's less, isn't it?" Hammer couldn't help but say something, and then nervously remedied, "I'm not questioning your judgment, sir, but ......"

"It's okay, don't be nervous talking to me," Gawain soothed the old master, "I'm the lord who protects you, not the robbers who came to kill you." ”

"Yes...... Yes, sir," Hammer nervously wiped his sweat and then explained, "but this is really the limit, the outside of the furnace looks big, but the space inside is actually limited, and after each furnace, you have to rest for an hour to let the runes on the outside of the furnace cool down, so that the furnace must be completely cooled down, and then the fire will be restarted...... With such a back-and-forth, being able to refine fifty catties of iron every day is really the limit! ”

"Let the runes cool down?" Gawain frowned.

"Yes," Hammer explained, "it's just a little trick carved into the black stone by our common people, and it can't be compared to the real magic runes of those mages, it is very easy to break, especially the fire runes, which will crack directly after a long time of contact with the fire element, even if they are replaced with stronger materials, it will not work." Once the rune cracks, the entire furnace will be wasted, so you must not burn continuously when making iron......"

"What if you make the stove bigger?" Gawain asked again.

"That can't be helped," Hammer said worriedly, wondering how the Duke could ask this kind of problem, "Runes can only provide such a large amount of firepower, and if the furnace becomes bigger, the firepower will not be enough, and the ore will not be able to smelt molten iron, and the earth runes will also fail, and there will be more impurities in the refined iron ingots smelted, so it will be completely unusable......"

Gao Wen pinched his chin: "So it's all because of these runes that restrict production?" ”

The old blacksmith blinked, he didn't really understand what it meant to restrain production, but he still nodded quickly: "Yes, yes, it's runes." ”

Gawain looked at Rebecca: "Do you think if you replace the runes with ...... Well, why don't you call Hetty over......"

Rebecca blushed suddenly: "Ancestor, I also understand magic theory!" It's just that you can't build a spell model......"

"Theoretical knowledge is okay?" Gawain raised his eyebrows, "Then what do you think should be done to solve this problem?" ”

Rebecca thought for a moment, "Since you just said that the rune is a shortcoming, then replace the rune?" ”

"Swap it for what?"

Rebecca continued to use her brain: "In fact, the functions of these runes are very simple, nothing more than raising the temperature, controlling the airflow, controlling impurities, etc., and the effect is extremely weak, if it is replaced by a real magic array, the efficiency can be increased by many times - and the magic array can self-channel energy, and there will be no such thing as self-destruction when it runs continuously......"

Gawain raised his eyebrows: "Engrave a set of magic arrays on each iron-making furnace?" ”

"But not really," Rebecca stuck out her tongue, "Aunt Hertie and I can help carve a few magic circles, but ...... Blacksmiths and blacksmith apprentices can't use them! ”