Electricity

Fuel was simple. Biomass was essentially plant matter such as sawdust, wood chips, and straw. There was plenty of vegetation around the Tower of White Bone: grass, shrubs, and even small trees. All of it could be used. It wasn't particularly dense, but there was still a fair amount across the whole hillside.

So the zombies took up sickles and got to work.

Water was a little more troublesome. Su Ming had White Bone assemble a ten-cubic-meter tank, then told her it needed to be filled with clean water.

"Pure water?" White Bone was astonished.

It was actually deionized water, and Su Ming explained the concept to White Bone.

"That's untainted water, then. The kind that doesn't leave scale when you boil it," White Bone said. Alchemy in the other world had evidently reached a considerable level. "But I can't make it. I could manage a little, but not that much."

"If there's no other way, could you desalinate seawater first?" Su Ming said. "I'll see if I can find some equipment for making deionized water."

"I can do that," White Bone replied.

Her method was simple and crude: freezing. As the seawater cooled, the solubility of its various salts decreased, causing them to crystallize and precipitate out. Once the seawater was frozen solid, the salt-free ice crystals could be separated out to obtain fresh water.

White Bone drew a magic circle to keep freezing the water. She then added a new set of control runes to several zombies so they could help with the process.

"Add a heat exchange step," Su Ming told White Bone.

The freshwater ice crystals that had already been separated could be put in metal containers and immersed in the next batch of seawater to cool it.

"Good idea." White Bone appreciated the technique. This method of circulating coolant saved a great deal of the magic power used for freezing.

A commotion came from outside. The hall was sealed, but Su Ming still sensed fluctuations from a fire spell.

"Someone from the other side has come to say hello. I'll go receive him," White Bone said.

"Psionic Vision!"

Su Ming cast the spell on himself. His gaze passed through the sealed bone walls, and he saw a dazzling humanoid figure floating in the air outside the tower, casting Rain of Fire from time to time.

Soon, an ethereal purple figure appeared before the Tower of White Bone. It was an incorporeal body White Bone had formed from the elements.

"I trust you've been well, Archbishop Stanton."

"Good day, Scholar Bay Owl." The archbishop actually gave her a formal bow, and White Bone nodded in return.

White Bone maintained a mental link with Su Ming, so their conversation was relayed to him as well. His gaze sharpened slightly. White Bone had addressed the visitor as archbishop, but he had addressed her only as scholar.

But that by no means implied that White Bone held a lower status!

Su Ming had learned enough about the other world to know that Stanton was using her title. White Bone's renown had made formal titles unnecessary. A simple profession paired with a codename was how the world addressed her with respect. Even an archbishop on the opposing side could only bow to this heretic.

Terrifying indeed!

Given the choice, Su Ming truly didn't want to get caught up in a high-level clash between such powerful figures as soon as he arrived in another world.

"Have you come to put me out of my misery?" White Bone asked him in midair. "My people shouldn't be here so soon, should they?"

"I wouldn't presume. The temple has no need to offend His Majesty Gezelie over such a trivial matter," Stanton said. "I saw you using zombies to gather firewood and grew curious, so I came to take a look."

"Oh, I'm about to die, so I'm clearing the weeds from my own grave." White Bone's tone was indifferent.

"Then let me help you." Stanton waved his hand and scattered down more rain of fire, setting the vegetation on the entire hill ablaze. Thick smoke immediately billowed into the air.

Amid the crackling of the flames came the faint thud of something hitting the ground.

Even Su Ming felt White Bone's sudden anger. But she held back. Her magic power had to be saved for more important matters; she couldn't waste it on a quarrel.

White Bone simply dispersed her incorporeal body. The archbishop didn't linger either, turning and flying away.

"What a nuisance," Su Ming remarked. "Stanton definitely doesn't know why we're gathering fuel, but all he has to do is stop us from doing it-he doesn't let a single detail slip."

"Standard practice on the battlefield," White Bone said. "Is what we've collected so far enough?"

Su Ming took a look. It wasn't much, but it wasn't too little either. The zombies worked quite efficiently.

"It's enough for testing and preparation," he told White Bone. "We'll deal with the rest later. Cut all the fuel into small pieces. The smaller the better."

Su Ming didn't need to show off his knowledge of chaff cutters. White Bone quickly set up a zombie-operated grass-chopping production line, which began working with a series of rasps.

On the seawater desalination line, White Bone made an adjustment as well. The ice crystals that had already been used for cooling had melted into water, but it could still be used to precool the next batch of seawater before fresh ice crystals were brought in to cool it further.

"As expected of Scholar Bay Owl," Su Ming said in heartfelt admiration. Given more time, she might well have come up with a heat exchange tube on her own.

"I don't actually like that title very much," White Bone said. "If we survive, these things of yours might help me get a different one."

"I see. Then I'll have to give some thought to what I can come up with when the time comes," Su Ming replied.

Su Ming began focusing on his own work. He soon discovered that although burning fuel in the boiler and using the steam engine to turn the propeller required no electricity, this was a modern product after all. The PLC and touchscreen that controlled them both needed power.

Moreover, the various switches and valves were all modern pneumatic components, so they also needed a supply of compressed air.

Su Ming found himself missing Earth, with its complete infrastructure. None of this would have been an issue there.

He had to set up a main circuit connected to the AC output of an inverter, which could supply about three kilowatts of power.

Although he had two inverters, they couldn't simply be connected in parallel. The battery banks, however, could be switched seamlessly. Su Ming connected the batteries from both vehicles to the inverter's DC side. By his calculations, they could store about one hundred kilowatt-hours of electricity.

That was enough to keep things running for quite a while, but according to the escape plan, the steam engine would certainly be needed for propulsion for more than a day or two. There was no telling how long the other side's frenzied search would last.

So Su Ming set the inverter to operate bidirectionally, connected the generator's belt to the power source through a gearbox, and added it to the main circuit.

That way, when the steam engine was running, it could drive the generator and charge the batteries. When the generator stopped or produced insufficient power, the batteries and inverter would supply the circuit.

With the circuit in place, Su Ming connected a few LED lights.

Once he had finished all that, an alarm reminded him that it was already evening on Earth.

Su Ming controlled Little Spiky Head, leaving the abandoned factory building and running to the roadside spot where he had hidden the motorcycle. He got on and rode off.

The shipyard was sure to have an air compressor, but he didn't dare go back there now. He wouldn't even go near that industrial district for a while.

It had just been robbed, so everyone there would surely be on high alert.