Success, Lavish Rewards

Octavia and the others stood at the front to lead the way. Victor followed them into a room, where he was hit by a pungent acidic smell.

Victor turned to look and saw six clay jars neatly arranged along the left side of the room. Their mouths were sealed with tree lacquer, and the zinc rods and copper plates protruding from the centers of the black seals had already grown green with verdigris.

The wires connecting the clay jars were copper wires coated with a layer of eucommia gum. Victor had previously bought this eucommia gum from a merchant guild in Blackwater City, and it was perfectly suited for use as an insulator.

That merchant guild had also delivered the large quantity of eucommia gum and eucommia saplings Victor had ordered in April. He had already arranged for the Agricultural Department's agricultural stations to transplant the saplings, while all the gum had been sent to the research institute for making underwater telegraph lines.

One of the most important tasks of this experiment was testing those telegraph lines, and the clay jars Victor saw were another part of the experiment: a batch of simple batteries.

Since they had no dilute sulfuric acid, the batteries could only use saltwater as their electrolyte. The current was weak, but fortunately, it was enough.

Victor shifted his gaze to the object placed on the wooden table in the middle of the room. It was a mahogany box with a slanted face, roughly the size of an open ledger.

Five white porcelain plates were set into the slanted surface of the box. A small hole had been drilled above each plate, with copper wires passing through them and their ends soldered to the bases of five steel needles.

A brass pillar stood upright on the right