Chương 106: 105: Alchemy, Again

3rd of Merlotus I had trouble sleeping that night, and I woke up feeling tired but determined. I had been such an idiot. Coal worked perfectly fine to make diesel, in fact, it was better than some heavy crude that had a really high sulfur content. A lot of the issue was that I didn't particularly enjoy alchemy. I liked the game-like way it worked, but I didn't like that it didn't just have a big list of possible creations unless you had an ingredient in the still and had intent for possible uses of an ingredient.

I was sure that over the centuries, hundreds, if not thousands of Alchemists had put coal in the alchemy table, but since they had no concept of needing fuel, the System had never shown them the possibility. That was probably true for me now. If I bothered to read a book on alchemical processes, I'd no doubt end up with a bunch of options available to me for some ingredients.

I wondered if this strange quirk of how the System treated alchemy was part of why people found alchemy to be such a terrible profession to have. That, and how expensive it was. The ingredients the empire had been giving me for free to keep my tractor running had to have cost years' worth of an average person's wages just to make a few hundred gallons of diesel. Rupert insisted on breakfast before we went to the lab, and I needed to make sure everyone had assignments for the day.

It was the first day for several people after all. Seamus said he'd show Jac and Bryce around. Baddon said he'd begin teaching Zack. Stephen said he'd help Laeth with the hoeing and checking on the water situation, so I grabbed a bucket of coal and headed towards the alchemy lab with Rupert. When we arrived at the lab, I asked Rupert what we should do.

"Well, John," Rupert replied.

"Why don't we powder a couple lumps of coal, then mix it in with some water and run it through the still that way? We can make the rubber after we check this out." I nodded, then Rupert showed the utility of a tier 2 Earth Wizard, and crushed the lumps of coal with a simple application of an earth spell. He moved it into a bucket, and I took the bucket to the well to make the mixture into a filthy black slurry that was thin enough to easily pour into the top of the industrial-sized vat.

It was a tiny amount of liquid in that big tank, but the System didn't care.

Thanks to my intent, and the liquid coal mixture, I was rewarded with the following prompt in the lab's menu [Options for liquid coal] Refine into Crude Diesel Fuel (Note: Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refine into Gasoline (Note: Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refine into Kerosine (Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refine into Ammonia (Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refurbish Hydraulic Oil (Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refurbish Motor Oil (Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Note: There are industrial applications available for solid coal.

I'd have to look at that after I checked what I'd need to make diesel. I hadn't used the dry matter part of the alchemy lab at all so far. The kerosine would be handy too! I hated that we used whale oil for our lanterns. If I could let the empire know about the applications for making kerosine, then maybe fewer whales would be killed moving forward. First, I looked at the two refurbish options. I'd never seen that before.

[Ingredients needed to refurbish Motor Oil] - Used Motor Oil, Liquid Coal, Zinc, Silica Tincture, Quicklime I remembered that to make motor oil, I actually needed fewer ingredients. The quicklime must be to take some of the carbon out? The zinc and silica tincture both helped with lubrication. If I had access to more crude oil moving forward, it was definitely cheaper to use new oil every time I needed more. But, it would be helpful while I had a shortage of oil. It was also more environmentally friendly.

I didn't need to start dumping oil on pristine ground. Next I looked at diesel fuel: [Ingredients needed to make Crude Diesel Fuel] - 100lbs Coal, 50 gallons Water, 5lbs Limestone, 2lbs Iron Powder, 1lb Potassium Salt (Note: This will produce 50 gallons of Diesel (plus bonuses) that will require further refining to meet the specifications of your tractor. This knowledge is available due to your Mechanized Homesteader class) That was the first time I'd seen a note like that.

The system let me see what was needed for Refined Diesel. [Ingredients needed to make Refined Diesel Fuel] - 50 gallons of Crude Diesel, 1lb of Cobalt Dust. (Note: This will result in 50 gallons of usable Refined Diesel Fuel before any bonuses) You have new quests available (Note: You have 10/10 quests available for a level 5 Alchemist. Please abandon quests, or level up to level 10 where you will have 15 quest slots available.) Refine into Crude Diesel Fuel (Note: Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refine into Gasoline (Note: Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refine into Kerosine (Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refine into Ammonia (Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refurbish Hydraulic Oil (Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Refurbish Motor Oil (Unavailable, needs further ingredients) Create Crude Diesel from Coal - 1XP per gallon If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent.

Report it. Create Gasoline from Coal - 1XP per gallon Create Kerosine from Coal - 1XP per gallon Create Ammonia from Coal - 1XP per gallon Refurbish Hydraulic Oil - 1XP per gallon Refurbish Motor Oil - 1XP per gallon I dropped: Make Minor Pain Reliever Potion - Requires a medicinal vial, willow bark, and purified water. 5XP per dose Make minor stomach reliever potion - Requires a medicinal vial, mint extract, and purified water. 5XP per dose Extract essential oils from medicinal plants.

(See Alchemy Tab on UI) 5XP per medicinal vial Extract Corn Oil - 10XP per quart Extract pure urea (requires alchemy lab) - 10XP per solid pound The first two actually had been throttled, and really only gave me 1XP now that I'd hit level 5. The last two required more input than they were worth, and I hadn't seen any need for the essential oils or wood alcohol so far. Whatever it was needed for, it wasn't for my fuel or oil needs. I picked up all but the create gasoline quest.

I didn't have anything I needed gasoline for. I got out of the menu and asked Rupert about Cobalt. Rupert winced, "Yes, but not in the colony. Cobalt has been found in a few places where humans control territory on the continent. It's toxic though. The blue pigment is used to make blue glass and ceramics. You have to have a healing Wizard on hand to heal the workers who make the stuff if you don't have a Tier 2 Earth Wizard who can crush and mix the ingredients in a controlled manner.

That's part of why anything blue is so expensive." That didn't sound good.

"So, is the Cobalt itself expensive? Or just their products?" I asked.

"I think just their products," Rupert answered.

"But there isn't any in the colonies. It'll have to be brought over. At least the other ingredients are easily obtained without suspicion." I nodded.

"Honestly, this is the way we should go for now. We can even produce all the crude diesel if we get the go ahead that the cobalt will be brought in." Rupert seemed to be in agreement with me. He said, "I'll head in with Laeth in the next few days when we take that wagon back and ask for everything we need. I can drive an extra wagon so we can bring back more coal and the other items we need."

"Thanks, I appreciate it," I said. I was incredibly lucky Rupert was the Wizard who made his way out here. There was no way most other Wizards would have deigned to do something so mundane.

"Well," I said.

"Let's make the Synthetic Rubber, we have everything we need for it." Rupert grinned and wrung his hands together in anticipation.

"I'm excited to see this process. How will the rubber come out, I wonder?" That was a good question. To begin with, we poured enough water in the still part of the lab to cover any residual coal dust, then I purified the water to clean out the still. This was an incredibly handy function, even if most people felt like it was useless since there was clean water thanks to runes. It made cleanup easy for messy things like coal and crude oil though.

Once that was done, we poured twenty gallons of crude into the tank, and I opened up the menu for making Synthetic Rubber. [Ingredients needed to make Synthetic Rubber]: 5 gallons of Crude Oil, 1 gallon of Naphtha I groaned, then opened up the Naptha tab. [Ingredients needed to make Naptha] - 5 gallons of Crude Oil, 1lb Pitch, 1lb Sulfur, 1lb Quicklime We had all of those ingredients. The pitch was a bit of a pain in the rear. It was super sticky and was a pain to deal with.

I needed 4 lbs of pitch for the 20 gallons of crude. Luckily, we had a set of magical scales with the lab, so I weighed my enchanted knife before cutting into the ball of pitch I had. When I was happy with the amount, I had to use a second knife to scrape the pitch off the first knife. After that, I weighed the sulfur and quicklime, then put them in the tank as well.

I got a System notification that I needed to heat the mixture up until the pitch was fully melted, so I activated the heating runes on the sides of the tank and slowly began stirring the mixture with my enchanted paddle. It took over an hour before the mixture was finally in a state that the System let me create the Naptha. I poured the Naptha into a pitch-lined barrel to let it cool. I knew from past reading that the naphtha would end up almost gel-like when it cooled to room temperature.

After it was all poured out, I received a notification that I'd successfully made 21 gallons of Naptha. You now have 153/477XP needed to reach level 9. We poured the rest of the Crude Oil from our barrel into the tank after a quick purification process to be safe, then poured 4 gallons of Naptha into the tank. This time, for the first time, I received a notification that I needed to stir the mixture for twenty minutes, then use the side valve to move the mixture to the secondary tank in the alchemy lab.

This new still part of the industrial alchemy lab had a massive 500-gallon main tank. It also had two smaller, 100-gallon tanks that the larger tank could drain into using valves. They each had different openings that came off of them as well. They both had their own heating elements, and then you could drain those two 100-gallon tanks into a third tank that was 200 gallons in case you wanted to make separate mixtures then combine them at the end.

The front tank, at least the front for how we'd situated ours, also had an additional piece that would let you drain things like rosins, and now rubber, into sheets. It had a spout that you could make up to four feet wide. Zach had painstakingly made a wooden mould that had the tread pattern and depth we wanted to make the piece of tread My tractor treads were three feet wide, so we set the width we wanted. I was extremely thankful that the inside of the tanks was enchanted so that nothing stuck in them.

With only twenty-four gallons of the heated mixture that would cool into rubber, we didn't want to lose a bunch due to it sticking in one of the two tanks. The pour went smoothly, and after an hour of cooling, I received another notification of success. Refine Oil into Synthetic Rubber - 1XP per pound You now have 345/477XP needed to reach level 9. At 1XP per pound, we've made a piece that weighed 192lbs.

Once it was cooled down, Rupert and I drug it out to the piece of tread we'd taken off the tractor after trimming out the burnt pieces. This was the tricky part. Getting the new pieces to adhere to the old pieces seamlessly, then getting the track back on. We decided that the easiest way would be to melt one end, then Rupert would move the dirt under the rollers to put the tread in place.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to melt it in a way that I found satisfactory out on the ground, so I decided we were going to have to do things the "proper" way. We took the pieces to Seamus' smithy and melted the ends together so we had a solid track. Then, I had to release the tension in the tension cylinder by draining the oil in it. I had Seamus make a wrench with the right size sockets, then I removed the idlers that held the track steady.

At least with my prodigious strength, it proved easy to pull the tension cylinder in to allow room for the track to go back on. All-in-all, it went a lot smoother than it had any right to, and by dinnertime, we had a tractor that was back in business. With the prospect of coal-based diesel, we didn't even need those snobbish gnomes who charged ridiculous amounts for their oil. I still wasn't level 10, and couldn't see about analyzing the soil samples, but I wasn't in too much of a rush yet.

I'd make sure to hit level 10 this fall once I could take soil samples from the depleted soil.