Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 802: Six Months Development Frenzy I

CH802 Six Months Development Frenzy I

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The Frontier March became a thriving hive of activity in the months following the arrival of the Stronghold’s representative.

Although the Stronghold eventually sent a letter accepting the proposal put forward by Fabien Ingram, the domain administration paid it little attention.

Both the Ministry of Trade & Commerce and the Interior Ministry, which would ordinarily have handled the matter, were preoccupied with more pressing affairs.

During the six months that followed the Domain Council meeting, the Frontier March underwent a remarkable transformation beneath a veil that remained largely imperceptible to outsiders.

Three massive industrial districts were established across the domain, each serving as an extension of one of the Frontier March’s three major settlements: Fonterra, Castin, and Ashwell.

The first industrial extension district was built in Castin.

It rapidly expanded, becoming the primary source of the construction materials that would support the wave of development sweeping across the domain.

Drawing most of its raw materials from the nearby quarry, the district quickly grew into a major producer of cut stone, crushed gravel, granite, glass, and, most importantly, Magic Cement.

Following the discovery of Magic Cement, Alex made no attempt to hide his excitement and immediately ordered that all cement produced within the domain be manufactured as the magical variant.

This initially reduced production by nearly a fifth due to the need to source Manasilica—the key ingredient required to transform ordinary cement into Magic Cement.

Fortunately, fortune continued to smile upon the Frontier March. The Survey Corps soon discovered a vast deposit of Manasilica intermingled with other types of sand.

As it turned out, the mountains bordering the valley where Manasilica had first been discovered were actually lithified sand formations composed of Manasilica mixed with various other sand types, some of which were later found to possess useful and unique properties of their own.

Once Eleanore developed an alchemical process capable of efficiently separating the Manasilica from the rest of the lithified sand, large-scale production of Magic Cement finally began—at least by the standards of the people of the Frontier March.

This so-called large-scale production could not compare to the output of the enormous cement factories from Alex’s previous life, but it was more than sufficient to meet the domain’s growing needs over time.

Furthermore, plans were already in place to massively expand the factory’s production capacity once the opportunity arose, positioning Magic Cement—or cement in general—as one of the Frontier March’s future major exports, whether to Verdantis, Pangea, or elsewhere.

Thanks to the large-scale production of Magic Cement, massive construction projects began springing up across the domain.

However, it soon became apparent that cement wasn’t the only material to benefit from the fortuitous discovery of the Manasilica-bearing mountains.

With the ever-increasing demand for cement and other construction materials, raw resources such as limestone and other quarry products became extremely valuable in their own right.

As a result, it became increasingly difficult to allocate them for their other uses, most notably as flux and furnace additives in the many metalworking factories and workshops in Ashwell Town.

The R&D Bureau therefore commissioned several experienced metalworkers to search for less valuable, more readily available alternatives.

When these craftsmen arrived at Castin Town’s quarry district, their attention was quickly drawn to the waste products generated during the extraction of Manasilica.

Broadly speaking, the lithified material quarried from the Manasilica-bearing mountains consisted of Manasilica, ordinary rock, clay, and an unknown, dense, heavy-grained mineral.

The ordinary rock and clay were readily incorporated into the domain’s various construction projects. However, the unknown dense grains, which settled to the bottom during the washing and separation process, were simply discarded.

Since even the smallest pieces of sandstone from the quarry found a use somewhere in the domain’s construction efforts, one of the metalworkers decided to take a chance and test the mysterious grains as a potential replacement for conventional flux—or at least as a supplementary material that could reduce the furnaces’ reliance on the increasingly precious flux resources.

After acquiring a batch, the smith returned to Ashwell to conduct his experiments.

When the material was added to the smelting furnace, they immediately noticed that the resulting metal differed from ordinary iron.

They repeated the process several more times, confirming that the iron produced was consistently different from normal.

The only variable in every experiment was the mysterious waste material they had added to the furnace.

Recalling the serendipitous discovery of Mana Cement that had taken the domain by storm—and the prestige its discoverer had gained from it—the smith decided to test the unknown grains not merely as a flux or furnace additive, but as a deliberate constituent of the alloy itself.

The resulting product was an improved iron alloy that was noticeably different from both the pig iron and the steel with which the smith was familiar.

The smith immediately reported his findings to the R&D Bureau.

After submitting an ingot of the new alloy, the Bureau’s experts confirmed that it was indeed a form of pig iron, but one that possessed noticeably superior properties to any other pig iron produced within the domain.

More importantly, much like the newly discovered Mana Cement, this new pig iron alloy exhibited active mana reactivity.

The unknown grains were immediately tested further by the R&D Bureau at the steelworks. They confirmed that steel produced using the material not only possessed greater toughness, outstanding fatigue resistance, and excellent resilience, but also exceptional mana conductivity.

When Alex was informed about the new steel alloy, tentatively named Mana Steel, he couldn’t help but feel that its physical properties resembled those of spring steel or chromoly steel from his previous life.

For a brief moment, he wondered whether the dense, heavy grains were somehow analogous to one of the constituent elements used in those steel alloys.

Alas, he couldn’t be certain, so he set the thought aside and focused instead on the practical applications of Mana Steel.

Sugud was particularly excited about the discovery because he believed the new alloy would prove invaluable in the construction of magical machinery.

Alex was inclined to agree.

Mana Steel possessed high mana conductivity and low mana capacitance, making it an almost perfect complement to Manasilica—the primary active component of Mana Cement—with its high mana capacitance and low mana conductivity.

One stored mana, while the other transmitted it. Together, they formed excellent materials for constructing mana circuitry, if Alex had ever seen any. More importantly, they were relatively cheap.

With the two materials used together, not only Sugud’s magical mechanical engineering but even Alex’s Rune Mastery stood to benefit greatly.

With the domain seemingly experiencing an R&D boom, construction across the Frontier March only intensified.

It was as though a construction fever had swept through the domain, with almost everyone now playing a part.

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