Cheap Steel

"You're not pulling my leg, are you? This can make steel?!"

Aumert stared at the blazing molten steel in the crucible before him, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Current ordinary iron furnaces stood a little over a person's height and measured around a meter across. They had once only been able to produce bloom iron, but after new-style furnaces began using waterwheel-powered bellows and coke as fuel over a decade ago, they could produce pig iron. Both iron quality and output had improved dramatically.

Aumert considered himself at the forefront of the age and had studied all sorts of smelting techniques, yet the Stir-Frying Steel Process still left him dumbfounded. Could steel really be cooked like batter?

"Who came up with this?" he asked excitedly. "Can it really turn directly into steel?!"

Frederick handed him a large roll of parchment and said, "A Wandering Scholar told me about this. He said the difference between wrought iron, steel, and pig iron is caused by their carbon content, and that sparks can be used to judge the carbon content of molten iron."

After his father had gone off to war last year, his mother spent every day praying in church. With no one looking after him, the child ran all over the place and came to cause trouble at the blacksmith's shop.

Whenever anyone asked, he could just say that a Wandering Scholar he had met before had told him. Believe it or not.

Frederick gave Alfred, the blacksmith stirring the molten iron, a meaningful look. Alfred picked out a little molten iron and dripped it onto a stone slab beside him, where it burst into several fireballs the size of ping-pong balls.

Each fireball was made up of sparks splitting from one into two, two into four, and four into eight, bouncing several times after they hit the ground.

Aumert found the section on Steel Spark Carbon Estimation on the parchment and immediately said, "Quick, add some rust!"

Frederick nodded. Alfred immediately scooped some rust from a Wooden Barrel beside him and poured it in, while calling for his son, who was helping nearby, to open the air valve on the bellows pipe to its maximum.

The lower the carbon content of molten steel, the higher its melting point. To obtain carbon-free wrought iron, the furnace temperature had to be raised, or it would solidify.

This was one reason the Stir-Frying Steel Process had not appeared until now. Pig iron had a melting point roughly 300°C lower than wrought iron, and since blacksmiths did not understand the principles involved, they would not waste extra fuel raising the furnace temperature.

Things were different with Frederick. Simply preheating the bellows air before it entered the iron furnace could raise the furnace temperature by around 200°C.

After stirring for a while longer, Alfred's son skimmed away the floating slag, and Alfred dripped another bit of molten steel onto the stone slab.

"It really got smaller!" Aumert exclaimed. "What a pity the crucible is a little too small."

The mouth of the current crucible was only a little over twenty centimeters wide, and it was about that deep as well.

Frederick said helplessly, "There's no helping it. It's a problem with the crucible material. If it's made too large, it becomes too heavy to lift and will break. We can only stop the furnace, let the steel solidify, and then move it away."

"There was an accident once. Fortunately, it fell back into the furnace, or someone would have died."

Aumert thought for a moment and said, "I have an idea. When the time comes, I'll make a crucible shell as large as a water tank from heat-resistant Fire Steel, then coat the inside with a layer of crucible material. We'll be able to make a great deal at once."

"We could even buy pig iron, process it into Steel Ingots, and sell them. The blacksmiths will probably hate us to death."

After hearing that, Frederick pointed to a spot near the end of the parchment. "You can take a look here."

Aumert immediately looked over. When he saw the Converter Steelmaking Method, his expression turned especially grave.

"What a pity," he said after reading it. "The bellows can't provide enough air pressure."

Frederick nodded.

The theory behind primitive ironmaking and primitive converter steelmaking was not a problem for him. In his previous life, while browsing A Station, he had seen a content creator called One-Ninety-Five Wins by Virtue share an apocalypse survival folder containing all kinds of primitive techniques, including but not limited to ironmaking and steelmaking, bearings and machine tools, canned food and salted fish, incubating eggs, treating pig diseases, and more.

Having the theory was one thing; putting it into practice was another. The issue of crucible materials alone had nearly gotten him killed again.

The converter was the same. Although a primitive converter could be made, there was currently no sign of a blower. Without sufficient air pressure, the molten iron would clog the air outlet or even flow backward.

Aumert watched as the molten iron was poured into molds. Then, while studying the contents of the parchment, he waited for the iron ingots to cool. Only then did he believe that the Batter-Stirring Method could rapidly produce wrought iron and steel.

Holding a piece of wrought iron ingot, he mused, "Wrought iron is relatively soft, so it's easier to process, but when used for bearings, its hardness is far inferior to steel. Won't we still need to coat it with paste and heat it?"

"Since iron and steel differ in performance because of their different carbon contents, turning wrought iron into steel means the carbon in the carbon paste enters the iron at high temperatures."

Frederick nodded. What he called "coating it with paste and heating it" was the Carburization Process. The "carbon paste" was made by mixing charcoal powder, grease, and other materials. After coating it onto the workpiece, it would be wrapped in heat-resistant clay or something similar and heated in a fire. It was a little like making beggar's chicken.

"Generally speaking, quenching and Tempering come next," Frederick added.

Aumert considered it. "The Magic Enhancement step can be placed before quenching. The material issue is settled; next, we can discuss specifications."

Frederick thought for a moment. "I suggest we first fit bearings onto the workshop's waterwheels and lathes. First, to get some practice, and second, sharpening the axe does not delay chopping firewood."

"That will work," Aumert said.

The two left the blacksmith's shop and headed toward the carpenter's shop nearby.

With their current limited tools, they could only run back and forth between the two places.

It was already afternoon tea time, and the weather was nice. In the Wheat Field not far away, farmers used draft horses to pull wheeled plows, turning straw and stubble into the soil before drenching it with diluted compost.

The microorganisms in this world were quite impressive. With summer temperatures so high, the microorganisms in the compost could quickly break down part of the straw and stubble, leaving plenty of time to plant beans afterward. Once the beans were harvested in late autumn, this plot would be planted with pasture grass the following year.

Looking at the farmland, Frederick said, "I recently had some inspiration and am designing a machine powered by magic crystals that can plow fields quickly."

Aumert gave a bitter smile. "I've actually considered using Golem Puppets to plow fields too, but magic crystals are too expensive. The cost is simply too high."

Frederick smiled. "Your understanding of Golem Puppets is too narrow. Their uses are actually quite broad."

"You can teach a control core arithmetic, can't you? Then make a Golem Puppet specifically for calculating numbers. And don't limit yourself to humanoid forms."

"For example, numbers could be entered with keys and displayed with rotating rings driven by gears."

"A machine that only needs numbers entered and never makes calculation mistakes—I think many merchants would like that."

"Also, many steps in making bearings are repetitive labor, especially those done on machine tools."

"If you can make a Golem Puppet specifically to perform those steps, production efficiency will increase greatly."

"I'll give just one example: axles. Could there be a Golem Puppet that can turn a rough blank placed on it into the proper size by itself?"

Aumert was stunned. At first, he had merely thought this little fellow was indulging in wild fantasies, but upon careful consideration, it all seemed to make a great deal of sense.

"Let's make the bearings first," Aumert said. "We need money before we can research new Golem Puppets."

Frederick nodded. There was no rushing this. To create an Automated Machine Tool, they first had to solve the power problem, which meant waiting until the Steam Engine was developed.

At that moment, he did not know that, because of one oversight of his own, he would nearly fail to produce the bearings.