A Bargaining Chip for the New Minister of Finance

"Valan, I knew your late father." The burly man from the gambling house stopped. Necker put on his professional smile. "How can a noble like you gamble in such a shabby casino? They can't afford to lose, and they have no credibility whatsoever."

"I-I... cough, cough... my father passed away long ago."

"My apologies, my apologies, child." Necker helped Valan up and saw that the pitiful young man was still clutching a crumpled piece of Donkey Skin.

"I know your boss. He still owes Furong Bank money! Have the boss and manager bring the money out and apologize to Valan—to the baron's son!" After exchanging looks, two of the burly men silently went inside, while the remaining two subtly boxed the pair in. Necker's bodyguards stepped forward to confront them as well.

"Poor child! I heard you had quite a streak of luck?"

At that, Valan's eyes lit up. "Sir, you cannot imagine it! I had never felt so exhilarated, so invincible! God, before the roulette wheel today, I was the greatest general in the world."

As he listened, Necker calculated. Though Valan's father had only been a baron—and on Pastoral Street in Valuana, throwing a stone at random could very well hit a baron—he had been close to the Captain of the Guard. He was quite well-known among the nobility, especially the provincial nobles, and had extensive connections.

What was the point of this tiny casino? Necker intended to use His Majesty's guarantee to play for high stakes with the Holy Kingdom. By chance, he had picked up a new bargaining chip today. He examined Valan, who was covered in dust. Though this chip was dirty, its value would become clear after a little polishing.

A new Ten Days began. Rorschach continued revising and rewriting his paper while traveling back and forth between the Alchemy Department and the Magic Tower, gathering a great deal of data.

Although the core of his paper was the conceptual ideal model known as the "Carnot Cycle," he still needed to conduct experiments to establish a suitable temperature scale in order to explain the principles involved.

Thank goodness, this world's commonly used temperature scale was still defined by dividing the interval between water's freezing point and boiling point into one hundred equal parts. It had been jointly established during the Old Empire by the Alchemy Association under the Mage Guild and the Order Church.

That was right. During the Old Empire, the Church of Light and Order had established many dimensions, units, and standards of measurement, and unified the human languages of the continent into the Common Tongue. It was practically the light of humanity—"In the name of God, all this is part of the great order."

But in thermodynamics, that was not enough. Rorschach needed a temperature scale that could describe absolute zero. Thus, a new set of experiments began. Rorschach found Pascal asleep in the library.

"I'm starting. Keep a close eye on the readings." A magnesium strip had been polished to a brilliant shine and carefully pressed against the wall of a glass test tube containing Green Vitriol Oil. Rorschach had assembled the teaching equipment from these alchemy classrooms into a simple apparatus for determining the ideal gas constant.

As for the Green Vitriol Oil—sulfuric acid—Rorschach had no idea how concentrated it was. The Alchemy Department did not have any for the moment, so Rorschach found an apprentice who knew Acid Splash and had him procure a large cup of acid. He extracted the thick greenish liquid with water, then distilled it, obtaining a relatively clear and transparent acidic solution. Whether it was actually sulfuric acid was another matter, but at least it could produce hydrogen.

"Mage Rorschach knows alchemy too?" But it did not seem quite like the alchemy I know. That had been Pascal's thought when Rorschach first asked for his help.

At first, Pascal had been deceived by Rorschach. Unable to refuse the mage "junior brother's" earnest invitation, he came to the alchemy classroom. Once they were alone, Rorschach revealed his true colors.

"Senior Brother Pascal, how can you start backing out now? Didn't Master Kano tell you to look after your junior brother? Speaking of Master Kano, he gave me the authority to deduct disciplinary points. Senior Brother, you're in a bit of danger." He meant nothing by it; his junior brother was simply kindly reminding his senior brother not to get expelled.

How could Pascal let a sixteen-year-old threaten him? He stiffened his neck. "Do I need my junior brother to remind me what kind of situation I'm in?"

And so came the present moment. "Group Thirteen. Water bath temperature: thirty-six degrees. Volume of gas produced..." Pascal's voice had completely lost its vitality as he weakly read out the measurements and recorded the data.

By the time the other apprentices were likely already in bed preparing to sleep, Rorschach's experiment was finally complete.

He made a rough estimate of the data and smiled with some satisfaction. "Thank you, thank you. Today's experiment is complete. You've worked hard, Senior Brother!"

"As expected of a young mage—so dedicated to research at such a young age. Wait, what do you mean, today's experiment?" Pascal's previously bleary eyes suddenly flew wide open as he stared at Rorschach.

"Don't be scared. I need to organize the data afterward. There won't be any experiments for the next few days. Thank you for your help, Senior Brother!"

"O-okay. Goodbye, Junior Brother." Pascal walked out of the alchemy classroom looking exhausted, yawning repeatedly.

The Avogadro Constant could wait to be measured later. Once I finish measuring this, it will be the Rorschach Constant. There was no need to introduce the concept of molar quantity for now; Rorschach could obtain an approximate value for the ideal gas constant with mass as a dimension. He divided the volume of hydrogen by its mass, obtaining the relationship between different temperatures and the reciprocal of hydrogen density.

The data points were approximately distributed along a straight line. After finding it with a regression equation, Rorschach extended the line to the point where the volume of hydrogen at normal pressure was approximately zero. The intercept of that hypothetical point was "absolute zero," the zero point of thermodynamic temperature.

"About negative two hundred and eighty degrees. That's very close to the data from Blue Star." He had copied a verification experiment from his past life. The design was crude and the errors were probably substantial—like drawing the target after shooting the arrow—but the value's similarity to that of his past life still made Rorschach shudder for no reason.

"Copy this into the paper. This is the Kelvin scale. No, here, it will be the starting point of the Rorschach Scale!" If the paper were successfully published, the alchemists studying thermodynamics in this world would likely have to learn Rorschach's First Law and Rorschach's Second Law in the future. Use the Rorschach Constant to calculate the Rorschach Quantity under the Rorschach Scale... No, better not name everything after myself.

One month after arriving at the Tower of Stars, Rorschach brought the first draft of his paper to Master Kano.

"You wrote this?" Kano looked at the paper, which was about as thick as a small booklet, with a strange expression.

"Yes. These past few days, I have been studying the Steam Engine, reviewing the Alchemy Department's materials, and conducting a few small experiments to verify my ideas."

Kano had intended to say that he would read it later, but a casual glance immediately drew him in with its conclusions. "The efficiency limit under an ideal model?"

"The limit of a Steam Engine's efficiency. I do not understand those mechanical contraptions of the dwarves, so I started from the perspective of energy. After all, when I attended the Empire's academy, Fireball was what I was best at."

What did Fireball have to do with this pile of equations? Kano's eyebrows nearly shot to the top of his head. He looked it over and sighed. "It doesn't seem to have much to do with magic."

"Aether is too profound and ever-changing. I will begin with the laws of nature, then later study situations involving magic in greater depth."

Kano nodded, accepting that explanation. He flipped through the paper again and again, sometimes even going back to reread earlier sections. At last, the slightly plump master sank into his broad leather chair and rubbed the corners of his eyes. "Your imaginative ideas are truly remarkable. Many of your methods of argument remind me of the great philosophers from before the Old Empire."

"But! Right at the beginning, you made an error that only philosophers from before the Old Empire would make—heat is a form of energy? Is that what the Empire's Magic Academy taught you?"

Sorry for the wait. Thank you to reader "A Name Must Be Excessively Flashy" for the 11 recommendation votes, and thank you to reader "Adorn These Mountains and Rivers" for the monthly vote and recommendation vote.