Ice Vapor Goddess

Chapter 34 The Vanishing Electricity
After seeing Aldridge off, Celen went to Saint Culx, returned with a basket of things, and rummaged around the house looking for a lot of odds and ends.

—He's going to do something big.

As Raine unleashed a deafening thunderclap outside the city walls, and as Aldridge recounted the story of the red mercury, he suddenly realized that something was missing from this world.

electricity!
Coal is an energy source, mercury is a working medium and also an energy source, but the most revolutionary energy source in human history—electricity—is surprisingly absent from this world!

Electricity, as the energy source that drove the Second Industrial Revolution, has unparalleled cleanliness and convenience.

It can be easily converted into light energy, mechanical energy, thermal energy, chemical energy, etc., and can be stored and transmitted over long distances. It also produces little noise and even unifies signals and energy, laying the foundation for modern communication technology.

But in this world, even the streetlights are all gas pressure lamps or acetylene lamps. If an extremely strong searchlight source is needed, magic or rune lamps are generally used.

Theoretically, given the technological level of this world, we should have electricity by now, but for some reason, it seems that no one has even mentioned it.

Xilun searched through all his memories but found nothing related to electricity.

He found a blanket, put it over his curly black hair, and ruffled it haphazardly.

Amidst the crackling static electricity, he successfully acquired a head full of static-filled hair.

"Good, there's static electricity." Xilun breathed a sigh of relief.

Next, he placed a small piece of gold leaf on the table and then rubbed the amber comb with silk.

After rubbing it for a full five minutes, he confidently placed it on the gold leaf.

Then, the gold leaf remained motionless.

Xilun thought he was seeing things, so he tried a few different positions, but the gold leaf lay slumped on the table like a dead dog, completely unwilling to move.

It was a thin sheet that could be blown away by the slightest breeze, so theoretically it should have been attracted by static electricity.

Xilun got a little impatient and rubbed it for a while longer, but it still didn't work.

"No?" He lay on the table, completely baffled. "How could that be?"

The Latin word for "amber" was "electric." William Gilbert discovered the static electricity phenomenon that occurs when amber is rubbed, and invented the new word "Electricus"—like amber.

Electricity was eventually formed in the 17th century.

If rubbing amber doesn't generate static electricity, then the origin of electricity in this world might be changed.

But I clearly felt static electricity when I rubbed my head against the blanket. Could it be that the combination of amber and silk doesn't work in this world?
He rubbed his hair with the blanket again, then placed the blanket next to the gold foil.

Still no response.

"Could it be a problem with the gold leaf?" Xilun scratched his head.

So he switched to aluminum foil again, but there was still no reaction.

He took a deep breath and began to think about the high school physics knowledge he had forgotten for a long time.

"If I had known I would be transported to this world, I would have paid more attention in my electricity class..." He scratched his head in anguish, curling his medium-length black hair into clumps.

In the end, he managed to unearth a memory from the junkyard of rarely used knowledge in his mind.

He rummaged through the basket and pulled out a few copper pennies, then banged them wildly against the drainpipe outside, knocking off a large piece of zinc plate.

Find some salt in the kitchen and soak a cloth in the salt water.

Copper, zinc, salt cloth. Looking at them, Xilun prayed with unparalleled devotion for the first time.

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name... May this pile of stuff in front of me generate electricity!!"

He stacked the three materials in sequence to form a voltaic pile connected in series.

Then he carefully touched the pylon with his hand, while gripping the cross tightly and slowly chanting a prayer, preparing to treat himself immediately should things go wrong.

He only remembered that the fuel cell he touched during his high school experiment had a tingling sensation, but he forgot that there were several connected in series. Moreover, the situation in another world might be different, and he might accidentally electrocute himself.

Then, his right hand touched the fuel cell.

no feelings.

Xilun touched the bottom again, but still felt nothing. He pinched the top and bottom at the same time—still no feeling.

Undeterred, he added five more original batteries, but still couldn't feel anything when he touched them.

Finally, he used up all the materials and stacked twenty-one batteries, without feeling anything at all.

Even when brought close to the gold leaf, there was still no reaction.

Xilun slumped weakly in his chair.

There might be other ways to measure electricity, but he had exhausted his remaining knowledge of physics, and he had a premonition that it was impossible to generate electricity no matter what.

The steam technology in this world has reached an unprecedented level, even surpassing the world before my transmigration. This indicates that people's intelligence is normal. In that case, even if they hadn't developed electricity, they must have discovered its existence, yet no one has ever mentioned it.

Even static electricity has been explained as a kind of "magical interference phenomenon".

But Siren's memories clearly record that there is natural lightning in this world. Once, during a heavy rain, he was lost in thought on the rooftop of Florence when a huge bolt of lightning struck the cast iron cross next to him, almost killing him.

And why is Raine able to use the power of lightning?
Chaotic information filled Xiren's mind, like a huge black hole, or some ghost, wandering on the edge of electricity, inexplicably devouring the important things.

Xilun tapped on the table, trying to organize his thoughts and the information he already knew.

“First of all, electricity cannot be nonexistent,” he muttered to himself.

"If electricity did not exist, one of the four fundamental forces would be missing, and static electricity and natural lightning do exist."

"But on the application side, it seems to have simply disappeared."

"No... wait, isn't the lightning that Raine uses also considered electricity? Why is he able to use it?"

Xilun grabbed his hair in frustration, his train of thought seemingly going astray again.

If we rule out Raine, then we can temporarily explain it as follows: electricity mysteriously disappears at the point of human use; as soon as humans have the idea of ​​using electrical energy, it simply becomes ineffective.

However, the fact that Raine's every strike and punch was imbued with the power of lightning rendered Siren's assumption invalid.

"Could it be because I used it wrong?" Xiren frowned, thinking, "But that's all the experiment I remember... I should have chosen science in high school..."

He slumped helplessly onto the table, casually sweeping the voltaic pile aside. His hair, which had been frizzy from static electricity, landed quietly on the table, but out of his sight, the gold leaf subtly moved.

But when Xilun sat up, propping his chin on his hand, the gold leaf returned to its calm state in his eyes, as if it had always been there.

(End of this chapter)