Farming in the Magical World

"The flame is abnormal?"

Melissa frowned. "No, it seems perfectly normal."

"Don't you think the candlelight is too weak? Even in my small study, it's still incredibly dim with ten or so candles lit?"

"Have you ever seen a regular blacksmith forging iron? Even if they've played the organ with all their might, the iron ingots in the furnace are still only half-red. The blacksmith can only use a hammer to forcefully hammer these iron ingots into the shape he wants. But the ironware made this way is too brittle; it will break if you use even a little too much force!"

“Even the gunpowder I made… ” Lanny was halfway through his sentence when he realized that this gunpowder experiment was not something he could easily talk about. At the last moment, he forced himself to shut his mouth, paused, and then looked at Melissa and asked, “Don’t you think all of this is abnormal?”

Looking at Lanny with confusion, and after listening to him finish speaking, Melissa thought for a moment before spreading her hands and saying, "Isn't all of this pretty normal?"

Seeing Melissa's serious expression, which didn't seem like she was joking, Lanny was stunned!

Oh, I see--- After a long while, Lanny finally realized where the problem lay!

Melissa was a native of this world, and she had never seen what normal flames should look like. So how could she determine whether what she was seeing was normal or abnormal?

The ridiculous thing is that I even wanted to try to verify it with her. How could I verify it? She has lived in such an environment since she was a child and has never seen what a normal flame looks like!

If you force her to say it, she'll just think she's crazy!

This is just like that very famous theory... ...the brain in a vat!

If there were a device that could provide all the inputs a person could have, including hearing, smell, and sight, how would this brain, which has always lived in such an environment, determine whether it is actually in a vat?

The same problem is that Melissa keeps seeing abnormal flame behavior. How can she be sure whether it is normal or abnormal?

Unfortunately, Lenny couldn't prove any of this to her!

After a long pause, Lanny waved his hand and said, "Then tell me in detail, what exactly is the situation with this fire element?"

Since she couldn't prove it, Lanny stopped worrying about it and turned to ask about her previous explanation of the fire element!

"All right!"

Melissa glanced at the strange-looking Lanny again before explaining in detail, "In the eyes of a magician, the world is made up of many elements, and the operation of the world is closely related to these various elements."

"The most basic and magical element, yet without any attributes, is the magical element. It is the foundation of all elements and a universal element that can be transformed into any element!"

"Secondly, there are the most common elements, which are ubiquitous in daily life: fire, water, wind, and metal..."

No one knows for sure how many elements there are in the world, not even magicians. Apart from the most basic elements, each magician may possess their own unique understanding and magic regarding the elements!

Their method of understanding these elements is similar to that of traditional Chinese medicine, which is a kind of empirical science. They record each new element they discover and determine its various properties and functions through continuous observation. Then they use magic to try and simulate these elements, which is how they gradually developed the various kinds of magic they have today.

Of course, the initial understanding of elements and methods of using elements almost all came from the "holy objects" mentioned by magicians. It was only later that as more and more people mastered these methods and mastered more elements that some unique magic, different from that sensed from "holy objects," was developed!

The most common elements in daily life are fire, wind, water, and metal, and there are also some magic spells that simulate and utilize these elements, such as fireball, wind blade, and ice spike.

These basic elements are mastered by the most people, and the corresponding basic magic is also the most widely spread!

As a genius mage and the youngest grand mage on the continent, Melissa naturally mastered these basic elements as well.

"I've discovered that fire element is vastly different from other elements in terms of both conversion efficiency and difficulty of control. If I had to make an analogy, it's roughly the same as how one part of magic can convert 90% of wind and water elements with minimal fluctuations, but fire element is different!"

"Using roughly the same amount of magic to convert fire element, only about 60% can be converted, and it's extremely difficult to control!"

Melissa was clearly puzzled by this phenomenon. She tilted her head and thought for a moment before slowly saying, "I suspect that the activity of the fire element is much lower than that of the other elements!"

"Besides this explanation, I can't think of any other possibility for the time being!"

Lanny listened quietly to Melissa's story, but his mind was in turmoil!

How low?

Is it because the molecules are less active? Or are the ubiquitous magical elements suppressing molecular movement?

From a physics perspective, heat is a manifestation of the intensity of molecular motion, and flames or combustion require a certain temperature. If the molecular motion in this world were too low, it wouldn't be impossible for such consequences to occur.

But then Lanny shook his head, feeling that it didn't quite seem right.

If the change is in the activity of molecules, it would not simply lower the temperature of the flame; the entire world would likely become lifeless, and humanity would be unable to exist. After all, this would lead to a drastic drop in the world's temperature, causing a major collapse of the food chain.

If all living things are gone, how can humans survive on their own?

But the reality is that apart from the flames being somewhat unusual, Lanny hasn't found any major differences between this world and his previous life—well, except for being a bit behind!

On the contrary, he felt that it was more like magical elements, which magicians considered omnipotent, were having some unknown and inexplicable influence on the world.

It seems that this thing adds a threshold to the molecular motion of this world. Everything is normal as long as it does not exceed this threshold, but it becomes extremely difficult to continue to increase the temperature beyond this threshold.

This also explains why he was able to improve the furnace to a level close to that of his previous life by using purely physical methods such as increasing ventilation, increasing heat preservation and temperature control, and increasing the mixing of combustion materials (coal powder), thus obtaining a dark-patterned sword that was harder than that of this world!

After all, there is a big difference between a threshold and a lockout. A threshold only increases the difficulty of improvement, but it does not mean that it is impossible to break through. If it were a lockout, then his methods would be completely ineffective!

In terms of magic, this phenomenon could indeed be explained as the low conversion efficiency and high difficulty in controlling fire element, which seems to align with Melissa's feelings!

Well, you could also say that the lack of fire element makes it difficult to condense and transform fire element, and it is easy for it to dissipate!

The more Lanny thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense, and the more excited he became. This was the biggest puzzle he had ever had since his transmigration!

Lanny stood quietly without saying a word, his expression constantly changing, leaving Melissa completely bewildered. She shook her head and ignored him, continuing to work on the array with her head down!

Having figured out the problem and found a possible answer, Lanny felt much better, but he soon realized it was useless...

This will neither solve his current predicament nor guarantee his safety; the magic gun still needs to be obtained!

Just as Lenny's mood had improved, he thought of this and sighed inwardly. He lost all interest in watching Melissa's experiment. He greeted her and returned to his study, spread out a new sheet of paper, and continued to miserably work on his magic pistol.

The formation was showing promise, and he couldn't afford to falter on his end. After all, time was running out, and if any part of the process was delayed, he wasn't sure if he could even make it to the expedition!

When the time comes, the array will be sealed into a jar with both ends closed. All that's needed is to export the converted fire element, which will solve the most difficult problem of launching power. Lanny plans to call it the array chamber!

As for the energy supply, his idea was to have Melissa adjust the shape of the current Rubik's Cube and make it into a glass jar the same size and thickness as the array, and then use the same method to channel the magic power inside into the array chamber!

Since the Rubik's Cube itself is just a square glass box, there are almost no requirements for its shape. A square one is fine, and a round one is also fine!

This part is naturally called the energy storage compartment!

These two things, plus a tube for the reaction chamber to fire the bullets and the bullets inside, and that's it!

It might be a bit rough around the edges, but as long as it's powerful enough, that's not a problem at all. We can fix it when we get back from Grumman. The immediate issue is to solve the safety problem on the way up the mountain!

Because the idea was to make shotguns, and to use magic to propel the projectiles, the bullets naturally did not need primers, which made the bullet design infinitely simpler.

All you need to do is carve out the shell base from cork, fill it with iron shot, wrap it in bark paper, and then launch the shell and iron shot together!

On the contrary, he needs to think carefully about this pipe!

It needs to withstand high temperatures and pressures, be airtight, and be made using current castle technology. There are many factors to consider.

Even in the past, there were very few people who could produce seamless steel pipes on a large scale, let alone in Lanny's current society where there is almost no industry. It is not impossible to make them entirely by hand, but there still needs to be a method!

However, after thinking for a long time, he still had no clue. With the idea of ​​making his servants run themselves ragged, Lanny simply pushed the blueprints aside... ...Alright, Cody, you can handle the rest of the minor issues!

Yes, that's very lordly, that's very noble, haha!

Speaking of Cody, he's a bit upset today!