The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

The resolution to build public toilets on the territory was immediately agreed to by Lena and quickly passed as soon as Lin Degang proposed it.

Lena even raised the priority of this task by one level, and even paid out of her own pocket as an extra reward.

Unfortunately, while the capital city in the game is glamorous, the level of civilization in the border areas is, to put it mildly, a perfect recreation of the Middle Ages.

Even during the Age of Exploration, most Western cities, especially port cities, were littered with excrement. People even had to wear round-brimmed hats to avoid being splashed with the previous night's filth from upstairs and wear high heels to avoid the fresh excrement of the morning.

Let alone composting feces, some ordinary people don't even have the concept of a toilet and just relieve themselves wherever they are.

Lena, who had always lived a noble life, hadn't considered this problem from the beginning, and Lind, who had been on the run, hadn't noticed it either. As a result, the territory now reeks, especially after the people have eaten their fill. If toilets aren't built soon, Lind feels like he'll be pickled.

"My lord, the water has boiled."

Lila entered the tent, holding a stack of lab reports, and reported to Lind.

"Just like before, although the boiling water produces steam, it still doesn't generate enough propulsion as you said."

Listening to Lila's report, Linde took the experimental report and scratched his head in frustration.

Boiling water doesn't actually work in this world.

Although the process of boiling water is exactly the same as in my previous life, the steam generates much less power, only enough to make the water boil a couple of times.

Linde also suspected that the water in this world might not be water at all, but apart from the fact that steam could not generate power, all the physical reactions were almost exactly the same as the water in his previous life.

Something is preventing or diluting the power generated by the steam, and most likely it is magic.

The experimental report also verified Linde's conjecture. More precisely, the water element in this world diluted the power generated by the steam, but under the current conditions, this is all that can be tested.

As for what the driving force of water dilution becomes, and whether water itself can become a new driving force, we don't know at all.

In conclusion, relying on boiling water to achieve superpowers is definitely not going to work. If we want to start industrialization, we must find other ways to generate stable power.

What worried Linde most was that if the power of steam could be diluted, wouldn't the power generated by gunpowder be diluted by the fire element? What exactly is the microscopic system of this world like? Could the behavior of microorganisms be different from that of his previous life?

In that case, even the manure composting that has already begun on the territory might not be successful.

Although Linde always believed that the greatest advantage of time travelers was not just modern technologies like gunpowder and steam engines, but rather their standardized industrial mindset and far-sighted knowledge, he still felt a little uncomfortable when he couldn't actually boil water.

However, Linde quickly adjusted his mindset. After all, this was a world of magic. Being obsessed with boiling water to create a power source was a bit of a roundabout way. Wasn't there a convenient energy source like magic?

Having inherited the female lead's skills and attributes, and now able to unleash holy light with his bare hands, his clinging to the physics of his past life seems rather idealistic.

Moreover, the physics he learned in his previous life wasn't entirely useless. At least it wasn't a case of "physics no longer existing." Whether it was pulleys or levers, they could still be used. Gravity and the like were the same as in his previous life, so Linde didn't have to worry about becoming a hydrogen person.

Having adjusted his mindset, Linde put down the report and asked, "Has the sugar production team successfully replicated the previous results?"

"Although the quality is not very good, the first batch was a success, but..."

Lila hesitated for a moment before saying, "We still can't mass-produce it."

“I understand. No need to rush. Take a batch of finished products with you and help me arrange my trip to Xiafasen Town.”

"As ordered."

Lila gracefully lifted her skirt, but instead of retreating, she stared intently at Lind, her eyes gleaming with dark circles.

Left with no other choice, Lind had to say what Lila had told Lena: "Head Maid Lila, there are still many problems in the territory that have not been solved. You can't rest yet."

Although Lila looked exhausted, Lind had no choice. Lena's knights were unwilling to work under him, so he could only refer to the standard of using Ying, who was useful, to the extreme in his previous life.

Although the attempt to boil water failed, the sugar production was successful.

The territory had beets that could be made into white sugar. After washing, shredding, leaching, heating, settling, steaming, and finally cooling naturally, Linde was finally able to improve his diet a little after repeated experiments.

However, due to the lack of professional equipment, the whole process was very primitive. Even the sugar separator could only use the simplest crank and wooden barrel, and they could not produce much white sugar in a day.

Even though Linde adopted assembly line operations, it could not make up for the shortcomings in equipment, and the output was still very low.

But that was enough; the female workers on the territory trembled with excitement as they saw the separated sugar crystals.

Linde had learned from Lena that almost all the white sugar in this era was made by alchemists, and the process was extremely complicated, with very abstract materials, including bat tears and frog urine. A whole bunch of strange things were needed to refine some crystallized white sugar.

Even now, those people still believe that Linde secretly used some kind of magic along the way, rather than relying on his own strength to refine these crystal-white sugars.

This is also related to the assembly line operation, where these workers cannot know the entire sugar-making process, but Linde does not intend to correct it.

The complex sugar-making process was probably born out of market demand. After all, the more complicated and mysterious the production process was, the more the nobles liked it.

The sugar brought by the Lars family was more acceptable to Nerlind in terms of raw materials than the ones mentioned above; at least it used bee droppings, so the raw materials were sweet.

Well, it seems like I can't really accept that either.

It can only be said that because of the existence of magic, the technology tree of this world is ridiculously abstract. Even though the beets by the roadside are sweet, because the nobles discard this kind of food that only the common people eat, no one considers using it to make sugar. Instead, they are all pursuing things that are completely incomprehensible and made with magic.

As for the yellow mud water method, it's no different from alchemy to Lind now. The yellow mud water is not ordinary mud. Some people speculate that it is a kind of alkaline clay, but no one has been able to reproduce how this alkaline clay is made.

This is not a record error; it has simply been lost.

In his previous life, Lin De disliked those who dismissed the entire "Tiangong Kaiwu" (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature) simply because one place couldn't replicate it. At least the dragon bone waterwheel described in it was still in use in Lin De's hometown in his previous life, and Lin De had even stepped on it when he was a child.

Linde has just finished drawing up the blueprints for the Dragonbone Waterwheel and is preparing to promote it across his territory.

What troubles Lind most in his territory right now is not the knights like Lena who occasionally cause him trouble, nor the occasional conflicts between Lind's original subjects and the subjects brought by the Lars family.

The biggest problem with the territory is the lack of labor.

In reality, the territory currently has a population of seven or eight hundred. After removing Lena's knights and the veterans who were assigned as clerks by Lind, there are still too few people who can do the work.

Building toilets requires manpower, constructing houses requires manpower, reclaiming wasteland requires manpower, and Linde's experiments also require manpower. Even though Lena helps Linde go into the mountains to look for minerals every day (actually, she goes to the mountains to play), there is still a serious shortage of manpower.

Although experiments involving cement and gunpowder cannot be conducted at present due to material issues, it is clear that a large amount of manpower is required, and these manpower cannot be ignorant serfs.

Lena's letter to Grand Duke Lars has been sent. Lind can only pray that Grand Duke Lars will send more artisans to the territory and stop sending luxury goods, especially sugar made from bee droppings.

As for the matter of someone replacing the female lead, Linde has already asked Lena to find someone, although it's a bit strange to ask the villainous heiress in the game to find the original female lead.

Of course, due to the time lag in information dissemination in this era, Linde was unaware that Lena had not yet rebelled, while the original female protagonist had already rebelled.