Roland stood in the backyard of the firing room waiting for the first batch of cement to come out.

This brick house is specially designed for cement production, about 15 meters long and four meters wide.There is a door before and after, the difference is that the front door is as spacious as possible for people to carry materials.The back door is only one person wide, allowing Anna to sneak into the firing room.

To this end, he also built a circle of walls at half-waund of the house, surrounded the second half of the firing room, and the import and export arrangements were guarded by knights - they were all Carter's subordinates, and their loyalty was indisputable.

The production process of cement is very simple to say, after the limestone is crushed into powder and mixed with clay and iron powder, and the mature material is smelted with dry or wet, and then finely ground with the plaster.Raw materials are very ordinary, iron powder is difficult to make a large number of can not be put, the key is the calcining temperature of clinker.

Roland does not remember the specific temperature required to burn cement, and even if he did not remember, he could not measure and control the temperature - whether it was an infrared thermometer or a thermocouple thermometer, it was countless times more complicated than cement.He only knows that this temperature is almost close to the melting point of iron, and the calcining process is also a difficult point for the production of cement.

In the era of underdeveloped smelting technology, maintaining the temperature of the blast furnace has always been a problem for everyone.The heat loss of ordinary open furnace is extremely large, and it is difficult to keep the furnace temperature above 1200 degrees.The reflective furnace needs to withstand high temperature inner courage, and he will not think of how to make refractory bricks for a while.The traditional iron-making blast furnace is even more impossible, the temperature may be up to standard, but rely on the narrow furnace cavity to cook the cement, just because the demonic moon has passed and can not burn enough.

Therefore, Roland designed the firing room without any heating measures at all, and he relied on Anna.

The artificially broken small granular limestone is mixed with the clay and mixed with water into a slurry, and spread evenly in the firing chamber.Then the knight locked the door and cleared the handyman.Anna entered through the back door and let the flames bake the slurry on the ground until the iron rods that were placed in the room melted.

Roland was a little restless, which was the first step in his presence in the border town.If cement cannot be built, the plan to build a wall in three months is just talk.There is no wall to block, I am afraid that no one will stay in this damn place.Whether it is real history or fiction, a stable base area is essential if you want to cultivate a good field.

“Your Highness, can you really stick the stones together?”Carter Lannis, who was beside the four princes, asked.Although the prince told him that this is the latest research result of the Ashburg alchemy workshop, he will still doubt it.After all, the gang did not make any truly reliable alchemy products.

“Who knows?“They say that anyway,” Roland said.

The world of alchemy and astrology together, known as the art of the wise, is very popular in mainland countries.The royal family generally cultivates its own alchemists and astrologers for the refining of medicine and predicting the fate.For the average person, these studies are too high to produce a psychology of blind faith.With this in mind, Roland naturally brought the source of the cement formula to the head of the alchemy.As for the chief knight, it doesn’t matter at all.

The flames in the window were gradually extinguished and appeared to be burned.

Roland stood up, drove Carter out of the yard, and waited alone in front of the back door of the brick house.

The iron door was pushed away, and Anna walked out in her own body.Roland put the robe on her for the first time, and brought her a glass of water, "How?"

The witch's face is ash, although the wet cement is low in dust, the hot air will still bring dust when it is calcined.For her, who can't wear a mask, it is obviously not too comfortable to stay in it for ten minutes.She coughed twice and nodded, "The mud has turned into ash powder."

Roland could not wait for the temperature to drop low enough in the firing room, and wrapped the wet towel around his head and grabbed the shovel into the back door.

The hot air surrounded him for an instant, and he felt a little difficulty breathing for a while, and the skin on his hands was roasted to ache.It is good to shovel a handful of ash not take too much time, otherwise, it will take a few minutes in this environment for a few minutes, but it will cause high temperature shock.

“Is that what you want?”Anna put the witch suit on and asked.

"It looks very similar," Roland flattened the powder, and felt its residual warmth with his fingers, "and whether he could do it or not, he would have to try it."

“What is it useful for?”

“Building houses, building bridges, building roads, there are too many places to use.If it succeeds, the people's homes will not be afraid of the cold, and the rainstorms and snow will not be destroyed.”He patted the little girl on the head with his other hand, "It's up to you."

Anna bowed her head.I don't know if it was an illusion, he felt that the girl's breathing had become faster.

According to the theory, the cooked clinker should be ground with plaster to adjust its hardening time.But at this time did not need to consider so much, Roland took a little rest and then shovelled out two, and then called to stand outside the yard Carter, let him according to the proportion of three parts of the ash powder mixed with the sand to prepare cement mortar.

The chief knight also did not mind doing rough work, for it was much better for him to do such a thing than to fight for his Highness or to hook up with the lady of the nobles at the Grey Fort.

Since the raw material is not added to the iron powder, the cement slurry is light and grayish-white.Roland poured their heads on one stone brick and clawed the other.The cement solidification time is about four hours, considering the instability of the trial products, he intends to wait until tomorrow to see the results.

Early the next morning, Roland hurried with Carter and Anna to the Burning Room Backyard.Pushing the door open, he noticed that the appearance of the cement was frozen and was tightly joined by two stone bricks.The surface of the solidification looks uneven, and part of the position is white frost.

Roland squatted down, scraped the white frost produced by alkaline reaction, pressed the hardened cement with his fingers, and the touch made him happy - the cement surface was strong and the touch was completely different from the touch after the soil tamed, that is, the use of nails to buckle hard, and could not leave a trace on it.

Carter was signaled by the four princes, and first tried to lift the stone bricks, but was unsuccessful.He kicked his feet from the side until the cement was disconnected from the junction of the ground, and the two stone bricks were still firmly bonded together.At last he waved the hilt of the sword and struck them hard, and could only knock down a small piece of edge angle.

“Is that the effect of ‘cement,’” Carter immediately realized what it was, “it’s incredible.”Yesterday it was like a molten candle, and it was as strong as a rock after one night.With this kind of thing, the wall can be built as fast as it wants to be built.As long as there are enough stones, we can even build a wall around the border in five years!”

“What’s the use?”Roland said, "No tall wall can stop the enemy from the inside."I would rather turn the dilapidated wooden houses in the border town into solid cement houses so that my people no longer have to worry about being homeless after a natural disaster.”

"..." The chief knight froze, and he did not expect that the four princes, who had gathered all kinds of noble customs, would say such a thing.

“You’ll see later,” Roland once again affirmed for his way to go — that technology is the primary productive force for many passers-by.Witches are the first productive.