134 Cheat Codes (1/2)
Lined up along the walls of the room were several large tanks of metal and glass, connected through various pipes and tubes. Interspersed between the machinery were fire places as well as tables and shelves lade with bottles and bowls of glass and ceramic. Some were filled with liquids or powders, while others still awaited their purpose. Most people would have considered the room bizarre. However, the two figures in its center were absolutely not within that group. To them, this was the greatest room in the world.
”Are we sure this is the best way to handle things, master Corco?” Ronnie said with a look towards the shiny new copper still before them. When they had set sail for Medala, they had loaded up a good number of still from the Arcavian mainland, but they had underestimated just how much distillation they would need to do beyond alcohol production. This one was part of the first new batch, handcrafted by masters in Arguna and transported south.
”Sure it is. What could be a better use of our time than this?” Corco asked with a look at the still's spout. Out of the opening dribbled a colorless liquid. Even through their heavy cloth masks, it still filled the room with the smell of gasoline. Rather, it should be the smell of toluene, or so the king hoped. For now, they had no way of knowing until they tried.
”...well, for one, there would be the fertilizer I will need to have prepared in a few months. You have made a lot of promises to a lot of people and somehow, I do not believe the lords will keep to the alliance if they cannot get their hands on their miracle wheat-growth substrate.”
”Don't you have apprentices to deal with that?” Corco looked over to the chemist. Even beyond the mask and the beard, his eyes were enough to prove his annoyance.
”Of course I do, but they are still young, and they have come almost wholly unprepared. So far, they cannot even read or write. How will I use them if I have to explain every single label every single time? This should be the most important place in the entire kingdom right now. Could you not have sent anyone more qualified?”
”Like who?” Corco shrugged his shoulder. ”The only people who can read our writing were educated by me. That's no more than a hundred people so far, and they all have important work to do themselves. No matter how ground breaking this sort of work is, we'll need most of the literate working on administration. That's where they will need those writing skills the most.”
”Medalan letters, was it?” Ronnie raised an eyebrow to coincide with his voice. In response, the king put up his hands in defense of his lie.
”Well, okay. In that one instance, I might have embellished the truth just a little bit. But now you've seen the orthographic nightmare that is actual Medalan writing, right? I had to modernize it. I mean, how would we ever print something in a language with thousands of individual letters?”
And what better way to further distinguish commoners from nobles than with a separate set of books? he thought
Rather than acknowledge the king's genius foresight, the world's first chemist looked back into the laboratory, over to all the work he had been forced to abandon over the past few days.
”Either way, there is plenty of work beyond the fertilizer... and most of it could never be handled by a fresh apprentice. I was already swamped with work before you burst into the room.”
”Like what?” Corco asked with his attempt at an innocent face. His attempt at appeasement was foiled, either by his mask or Ronnie's indifference.
”Well, beyond the batch production of lye and the new ammunition for your soldiers, I still need to finish Saniya's other 'first original product.' How many first original products can we possibly have all at once? Do you understand how much time I have already sunk into that?” Ronnie's arms flailed around as he looked over to a large metal box
”Aaah, don't care about the vanillin. You weren't really getting anywhere anyways, were you?” A slap on the back was Corco's best attempt at consolation.
”But I am convinced that we are only one step away from oxidizing the lignin. If I get a few more days with the procedures, I can fine-tune the instruments and we can get our first test batch done right away.”
Although Ronnie sounded sincere, Corco had heard him give similar impressions before. From his own experience with chemistry, there would always be 'one more complication', so he was a lot less optimistic.
”Maybe. Maybe not. Still, for now the banquet is over, so new flavors are a low priority. Plus,” he looked at a capped bottle to the side, a liquid produced from the first substance distilled out of the original BTX. ”the benzene will help with that. Once we produce enough benzene, we can use it to make the vanillin without a complicated oxidation process.”
”Wait, so all that work was useless? Do you understand how long I've worked on this?” Ronnie's eyes grew large in panic.
”Ahaha, don't worry about it. You'll need oxidation often enough in the future, so it's good to get some practice in either way. Plus, the temperature control helped with the other products too, right?”
With small nods, Ronnie did his best to convince both of them that his time hadn't been wasted.
”Indeed. Without the work so far, creating the aniline or the potassium dichromate would have been impossible. Still, our work could have been much more efficient.”
”Yeah, I know,” the king sighed. ”This is my fault, really. I screwed up some of the ordering.”
”In truth, all of our steps have taken much longer than we thought they would,” Ronnie said, while he checked the amount of liquid they had extracted from the still so far.
”It always looks so much easier on paper... anyways, this isn't an exact science. At least not yet.”
”And on that note: This should suffice.”
With his gloved hand, Ronnie closed the spout which had dripped out the toluene before. He took one last look at the thermometer built into the still, before he moved the glass off its plate.
”You sure that's enough?” Corco asked.
”Considering the amounts of aniline we could prepare, this should be fairly accurate, yes.”
Careful not to spill any of the valuable substance, Ronnie transferred the toluene over to a scale, to measure its weight.
”Weight without the glass should be... seventeen point five,” he said, and Corco promptly began to write down notes on the paper besides the construction. For now they were all still amateurs, so exact documentation would be all the more important.
”In that case, we'll need almost all of the toluene, huh?”
Although Ronnie nodded, he seemed more concerned with all the advanced chemicals lined up on the table before them.