Doing Work Reversibly Under Ideal Conditions

Looking at the parts spread across the table, Rorschach could not help thinking that if he had studied mechanics in his previous life, he would have dominated everyone. No, it seemed he could still put some of what he had learned in his previous life to use.

"Do you have the Power Furnace's operating parameters? Boiler temperature, pressure, power, and so on."

"Yes. I'll have them copy out a set for you."

The old hands were all hard at work, so Snow and Rorschach could not disturb them. They spoke quietly after entering the room. Snow now led Rorschach to the nearest old hand working on blueprints.

"He's in Master Kano's group. Copy a set of the data for him."

The young man who had been called raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot. He stared fixedly at Rorschach for a while, then suddenly grabbed his hand. "Don't come here. Run! Run, you foolish child!"

"Have you gone stupid from drawing blueprints?" Snow separated their four hands. "Didn't I tell you? He's a member of Master Kano's group, not here to apply for a job!"

"Oh, oh. Sorry, sorry."

"Haha, everyone in our Magic Engineering Department is talented. They're just a little unhinged." With that, Snow opened another bottle of purple potion and tipped it back in one gulp.

You people were all terrifying. After getting the data, Rorschach hurried up to the fourth floor.

Kano saw that Rorschach had returned. "How did it go?"

"I think the Alchemy Department needs to control their consumption of Energy Potions while ensuring they get enough rest."

"They all arrange their working hours voluntarily," Kano said with a shrug. "Of course, based on their assignments."

Rorschach sat down, picked up a sheet of draft paper and a quill, and began writing and sketching.

Pascal was sorting through documents for Professor Kano when he asked Rorschach, "What are you planning to do?"

"Figure out how the dwarven Power Furnace works."

"Why waste the effort? If you can't figure it out, the Alchemy Department guys will just humiliate you."

"What if I do figure it out?"

"Hmm... then they might think you're humiliating them."

A long time passed. Kano and his senior sister Paulina went off to conduct an experiment. "Today's experiment is very complicated. Beginners should stay away. Read the literature first."

Thus, Rorschach received a stack of papers from his mentor.

"How is it?"

Phew... Rorschach tried to organize the data and made a table. "I haven't figured it out. I only have a rough understanding."

"I knew it... Rorschach, hurry up and pack your things. It's almost time to leave."

"So early?" Kano was having brunch that morning. They had started the group meeting in the afternoon, then toured the Alchemy Department, and it was only around eight in the evening now.

"Our mentor, Archmage Kano, has social engagements. At night, the ladies wear their necklines low, and gentlemen powder their faces. A whole crowd fills their stomachs with delicacies like truffle chicken and roasted turbot, while wine is drunk barrel after barrel..."

Compared to other Archmages, Kano was not so withdrawn. On the contrary, as a native-born young gentleman of Valuana, he was witty and eloquent. He had already become a prominent figure representing the Tower of Stars in Valuana's high-society circles.

He attended banquets at nine in the evening, then played Taloch, a card game from the southern end of the continent, with the prominent figures of the royal capital until late at night. Then he woke at nine in the morning for brunch. This was the daily cycle of the accomplished and famous Archmage Kano: dull and flavorless.

"Can I take these materials back to my dormitory?"

"Of course! But lad, you have your best years ahead of you. Don't bury yourself in books and miss all the beautiful things in life!" Kano had returned from the laboratory and earnestly advised the boy.

No, I have yet to find anything beautiful about Valuana late at night. The pure young man rejected the corrupt temptations of the dazzling world.

Back in his Tower of Stars dormitory, Rorschach took out a fresh sheet of draft paper and wrote a title at the top: "Investigating Thermo-mechanical Conversion and the Efficiency Limit of Heat Engines."

It could not be helped. Who told his mentor to be named "Kano"?

Simply put, heat engines—any machine that converted heat into mechanical work, naturally including Steam Engines—could have their operating cycles simplified into four processes.

The working medium, water in the case of a Steam Engine, could cool down in two ways: by expanding or by releasing heat to a low-temperature environment. It could heat up in two ways: by being compressed or by absorbing heat from a high-temperature heat source.

In other words, when the working medium gained or lost a certain amount of heat from the environment, either its volume changed or its temperature changed. When its volume expanded, it could push pistons or turbines to produce power.

Since the amount of heat was fixed, the less that was consumed in changing temperature, the more work could be produced through changes in volume.

During an ideal Reversible Process, the heat consumed by temperature changes could be reduced to the minimum. This entire process was named after its inventor from Rorschach's previous life and called the Carnot Cycle.

As for why, Rorschach still had to explain in his paper what a Reversible Process was to the Mages of this world... In short, heat engines had an upper limit on efficiency, determined by the temperature difference between the heat source and the heat-releasing environment.

It had one major premise: Conservation of Energy. Ignoring the existence of chemical energy and mana, he would extend the Alchemy Equivalent Exchange Principle into thermodynamics and tell the old hands in the Alchemy Department: energy was conserved! Well, they would definitely understand!

Fortunately, this world had developed calculus. Otherwise, even copying things down would exhaust him to death. My advanced mathematics was not very good either... Rorschach silently thought as he wrote furiously.

To better depict Magic Circuits, to build better houses, to fire cannonballs more accurately at the enemy... besides studying gods and magic, the intelligent people of this world had still set aside precious time to tinker with mathematical and physical logic.

Mathematics, you could thrive even in a world with magic. You really were powerful!

If Rorschach walked the entire path of Kano, Kelvin, Clausius, and Maxwell, he could write a massive tome and become the foremost authority on thermodynamics in another world, and then... there would be no then.

Mages focused on alchemy would all sneer at him: What kind of Mage studies things like a dwarf? Do you even know magic?

Before he knew it, the night had grown deep. Rorschach stopped writing and renewed his Light Spell for illumination. He would not pass up any opportunity to grind proficiency.

"Feels like I've been tinkering with theoretical knowledge lately. I need to learn spells... Can Learning Scrolls be reimbursed?"

Before sleeping, Rorschach reviewed the unfinished draft. On a new page, he wrote down his own thoughts:

Did the law of Conservation of Energy still hold when mana was included?

Did mana and other elements have an efficiency limit when converting energy as well?

He also needed to test the effects of Oscillating Crystals... and determine the threshold at which input mana caused the Shielding Effect...

Finally, Rorschach checked his panel. His highest-proficiency entry, "Mana Condensation (Purple)," had already reached 836, leaving only several dozen experience points before the next level.

Would there be another level? What came after purple? What new effects would it unlock? Thinking about these things, Rorschach gradually drifted off, and his Light Spell went out.

For the past few days, Paulina had been wrangling with the Alchemy Department. During the day, Rorschach read literature or assisted Kano in the laboratory. At night, he worked on his own paper.

On the breakfast of the second-to-last day of the Ten Days, the final workday, Rorschach read the newspaper while eating in the cafeteria as usual.

Achoo!

It was getting colder. Rorschach was still wearing a cotton shirt beneath his Mage robe. Looking around, he saw apprentices in open robes wearing cashmere or leather vests, while noble young ladies who could not stand the cold draped fur shawls over their robes.

The holiday was coming soon. He needed to buy clothes.