Unknown Knight

It was the speculation of the reasons for the formation of this mound that made Aix finally decide to choose this place as his base.

This highly sticky texture is resistant to wind and sand erosion. Once the surface layer is knocked off with an iron pickaxe, the soil inside can be easily dug out with iron tools, and a habitable cave can be quickly dug out.

The shape of the mound also intrigued Axe, so he decided to use the terrain of the mound to build a large house that could be lived in the desert.

The two men returned to the shaded area under the cliff and talked to the craftsmen and laborers about their requirements. They decided to wait until after noon, around 3 or 4 in the afternoon when the sunlight was not so strong and the temperature was not too hot, and then start work on time.

By the afternoon, when it was almost three o'clock and the weather was still very hot, the craftsmen and laborers were eager to start work. It was the first time today that they received generous wages from Aix, but they did not get much work done. Everyone was uneasy and could only work hard to reassure themselves.

With their hard digging, by the time it was completely dark, they had dug out a cave about three meters wide, two meters high, and more than ten meters deep.

Axel was very satisfied with this progress. At least everyone would not suffer from the cold in the tent in the wild tonight. He immediately asked everyone to stop and eat and rest by the campfire outside the cave.

In the evening, the supplies purchased by Niza and his group arrived. Aix immediately organized people to cut the linen in the supplies into shapes about two meters wide and five meters long, and then tied long reed poles on both sides and inserted them in the sand like a curtain, facing the sea not far below the cliff.

At the bottom of the linen cloth hung a reed stem split in the middle. This thick reed was a bit similar to bamboo, with a diameter of four centimeters. The middle was also like bamboo, with sections. The partitions in the middle of each section of the reed were shaved off with a knife. The reed tube was slightly inclined a few degrees from the horizontal ground, and a pottery jar with a capacity of more than 20 liters was placed under the inclined end.

Many knowledgeable friends have already figured it out. Yes, this is the water collection net made by Aix, which is used to provide drinking water to the team.

They came out to establish their own stronghold, and the biggest obstacle here was the lack of water. The most scarce and precious thing in the desert is water. It is said that within hundreds of miles around here, there is only a water source near the seasonal river next to the city of Zion. As a last resort, Aix designed this water collection network based on what he had learned and known.

The principle is very simple. This place is very close to the sea and the heat is sufficient. The strong sunlight evaporates a large amount of gaseous water from the sea into the air. Aix has tested it with Nana and found that the humidity nearby has reached an astonishing 80%. What Aix has to do is to collect the water vapor in the air.

At night, due to the low specific heat of the desert Gobi, the temperature drops rapidly. Under the influence of the thermal entropy effect, the sea surface air with higher temperature and humidity will flow into the desert with relatively lower temperature. When these high-humidity air encounters something with relatively lower temperature, it will produce a condensation effect, and the water molecules in the air will gather together to form liquid water droplets.

The water collection net in Aix is ​​designed to collect these water droplets. The burlap on it is woven from coarse linen. The fibers of coarse linen have natural capillaries and good adsorption properties. They can capture and gather gaseous water in the air to form condensed water droplets. When they gather to a certain extent, the liquid water will flow down along the burlap into the reed tube, and then flow from the reed tube to the pottery jar at one end.

In fact, Aix had no idea whether this water collection network could work. He saw it on a travel program. The South American country Chile used a similar device to solve the water problem.

He had theoretical basis and TV programs for reference. Although he did not work in isolation, he did not have the high-quality mesh cloth with good water condensation effect used by Chile. He had to use burlap instead. Burlap certainly has water absorption effect, but he did not know how good the condensation effect is. He could only wait and see the results tomorrow.

After the commander showed the way to setting up more than a dozen water-collecting nets, dinner was ready, so Axe led everyone back to the cave to have dinner.

After dinner, everyone rested in the newly dug cave. A bonfire was burning in the dry and windless cave, and with the extra layer of warmth from the tent, everyone felt that living in the cave was much better. It was much more comfortable than the shivering cold environment in Zion City at night, and everyone admired this novel way of living.

The next day, just after daybreak, Aix got up excitedly and went to the place where the water collection net was placed to see the effect of the water collection net in collecting dew.

The result was disappointing. All the pottery jars had collected only one liter of water at most. Some of them only wet the bottom of the jar. More than ten pottery jars together only collected half a jar, about ten liters of water.

It turns out that the burlap is good at absorbing water, but its water condensation effect is very poor. Moreover, when the water absorption reaches saturation, the burlap will no longer absorb water. It is like a large rag soaked in water, containing a lot of water but not dripping down. Several water-collecting nets were so sunken that they bent the reeds on both sides.

Aix had no choice but to have someone take down the burlap, and wrung it out on both sides like a rag, and he actually collected two full jars of water. However, the water was like mud, and he didn't know how long it would take to clarify before it could be drunk.

This caused a sensation. In everyone's opinion, just a dozen nets collected fifty or sixty liters of water, which was enough for everyone to use for a day. If used sparingly, it would be enough for two days. Wouldn't that mean people here would never have to worry about water in the future?

This made old people like Niza and James, who had followed Aix for some time, admire him very much. After all, they had followed their master for some time and had seen many of Aix's shocking deeds.

However, people like Bolcha, Old Mike, Zeb, and the craftsmen and coolies who were not familiar with him had already reached the highest level of respect for Aix in their hearts, to the point of being astonishing.

Suffering from hunger and thirst, they even considered joining the army, just for Aix's promise of enough food and water.

However, Axe did not notice the psychological changes of others. He was currently thinking hard about the water collection network. Although he had collected two and a half cans of fresh water, it was still far from his expectations.

Obviously, the coarse flax has a good water absorption effect, but the water condensation effect is obviously not good. However, he does not have the high-tech materials in the original world that can absorb and condense water. When he was worrying about it, he caught a glimpse of a drop of dew sliding down from the reed supporting the water-collecting net in front of him.

When he got closer and took a closer look, he found that the reed stalks were covered with a layer of dewdrops of varying sizes, sparkling in the morning light. He couldn't help but feel overjoyed. Isn't this the best water-condensing material?