In fact, Martin had already arrived at the stairs when Leo and Jean Valjean were talking, but he did not go upstairs immediately. Instead, he stood at the stairs and listened quietly to their conversation for a while.
However, Martin didn't know that his whereabouts had already been noticed by Leo. Although he didn't know why Martin did this, he knew exactly how he should deal with it.
So when Jean Valjean expressed negative emotions such as dissatisfaction and disdain towards Martin, he deliberately shifted the topic to those machines without letting Jean Valjean's emotions be fully revealed.
However, what he didn't expect was that the relationship between Jean Valjean and Martin would be so bad. After they met, their first sentence was full of tension.
Martin doesn't like Jean Valjean's attitude towards him, and he doesn't like being questioned by his subordinates in front of outsiders, but he also knows very well that if Jean Valjean is missing from Cage City, I am afraid that the machine that maintains the normal operation of Cage City will
More than half of them are malfunctioning, which will definitely make Cage City extremely chaotic. So no matter how bad Jean Valjean's attitude towards him is, he can only endure it, at least until his plan succeeds.
"You can ask how much a lamp like this costs." Martin calmed down his emotions, looked at Jean Valjean coldly, and said.
"Is this thing expensive?" Leo was stunned for a moment. Lamps with the same function in the Earth Federation are very cheap. Even a beggar from the Barren Star can afford it. The same was true in the old Earth era, so this made him
I always think that all lamps are cheap.
Hearing Ao's inquiry, Jean Valjean showed a bit of embarrassment on his face, curled his lips and said, "Only twenty."
Leo still judged the currency unit behind the number based on the idea that lamps are cheap, and said: "Twenty pia? It is a bit expensive for ordinary people."
"If it's only twenty ya, even if I can't fill the entire Cage City with these lamps, several important places in the Cage City, such as Kaina's clinic, will at least be replaced with these brighter lamps." Martin said coldly.
He snorted and said angrily: "The cost of this kind of lamp is twenty gold sa."
Hearing this number, Leo couldn't help but take a breath.
After several days of study, he had a certain understanding of the currency exchange rate at this time and the value of the currency itself. He also knew several of the most famous currencies. Although the Jinsa is not as good as the Golden Flan and the Golden Shield in terms of circulation,
But this currency is recognized as the most valuable gold coin, and each gold coin can be exchanged for twenty-five gold shields.
If this exchange rate calculation is followed, then the cost of a lamp is equivalent to five hundred gold shields and thousands of gold flanges. Such an expensive price is not to mention a place like Cage City. Even the palace of the Fran royal family may not be able to install it.
No more expensive items like this.
Hearing such a sky-high price, Jason couldn't help but stare at this small lamp in stunned silence.
"Why is it so expensive?" Leo couldn't help but asked curiously.
"Other parts of this lamp are not very expensive. It is mainly expensive in two places." Jean Valjean explained: "One place is the filament of the light bulb. This filament requires a rare ore produced in the Moissanite continent to be refined.
This kind of precious metal is very rare, with a maximum output of less than 500 grams per year. Another place is that the steam generator needs to be equipped with a current stabilizer. That stabilizer also needs to use a precious metal and two kinds of additives.
If it gets up, the price will be expensive.”
Leo didn't know what materials this kind of light bulb could be made of or what kind of device it needed, because in his Earth Federation era, light particle lamps that didn't require energy consumption had already begun to be used, but he still felt that this lamp should be able to have other better uses.
Cheap replacement materials. But he didn't speak rashly because he didn't know how to do it. He could only act as a quiet observer.
Martin seemed unwilling to stay here any longer, and urged impatiently: "Jean Valjean, where are your weapons? Now take them out and let Mr. Dodd choose."
"Those weapons of mine?" Jean Valjean showed a surprised expression, as if he had heard something incredible, and asked in confirmation: "Are those weapons?"
"It's those weapons." Martin knew exactly what Jean Valjean was talking about.
Jean Valjean questioned: "Didn't you say those weapons were substandard?"
"I paid you to research weapons in order to equip the union guards. We need weapons that can be mass-produced but cost less." Martin almost gritted his teeth and said to Jean Valjean: "You spent thirteen years on me.
Wanjin Flan made those things, do you think I should consider those weapons qualified?"
Martin almost yelled out the last question, as if he wanted to vent all the frustration he had suffered in front of the factory owner these days to Jean Valjean.
To use a sad word to describe the relationship between Martin and Jean Valjean, the relationship between Martin and Jean Valjean is the most suitable. It is obvious that the union's reserve funds are insufficient, so he just squeezed out 130,000 gold flanges to find Jean Valjean, the best mechanical technician in Cage City.
Developing weapons, he hopes to develop a weapon that is suitable for Cage City and can be equipped in large quantities. In this case, he will have more confidence when negotiating with those factory owners.
But after the 130,000 gold flanges were spent, Jean Valjean took out his work and almost killed Jean Valjean on the spot. In the end, he endured it rationally and put Jean Valjean under house arrest.
When I repaid my debt of 130,000 gold flanges in my own machine shop, I will be free.
"Is there something wrong with those weapons?" Leo asked Martin.
"There is nothing wrong with the weapon itself, and it is the best weapon I have ever seen. Even the great technicians at Murphy Arsenal cannot make such a good weapon." Martin took a deep breath, suppressed the anger in his heart, and explained to Leo
He said: "It's just that those weapons are not only very expensive to make, but also can't be used by ordinary people. No matter how you explain it, you can't explain it clearly. You will understand it when you see the real thing." After that, he shouted to Jean Valjean: "Return to it.
What are you doing standing here? Get your things quickly."
"There are too many things, let's go up and take a look!" As Jean Valjean spoke, he walked to one side of the wall and moved the lamp hanging on the wall with force. Then he heard bursts of mechanical friction and gears.
The sound of collision came from the iron plate overhead.
"Gah~" A harsh noise sounded in the room, and then a piece of ceiling was seen slowly falling, and as the mechanical gears rotated, the entire iron plate gradually deformed and turned into an upward staircase.
After the stairs came down, Jean Valjean took down the hanging lamp on the wall, led the way up, and Leo and the others followed.
At the end of the stairs, there was not a room, but an elevator shaft. Jean Valjean stood by the shaft and motioned for everyone to wait. Not long after, he heard creaking sounds coming from above the shaft, and then he saw
An elevator staggered down from overhead and stopped in front of Jean Valjean.
"When did you build the new elevator in the building?" Martin asked with a somewhat annoyed tone: "Don't you know that any construction in the building requires approval by the building committee?"
"I'm not in the building, so I don't need to get approval from the committee." Jean Valjean said, pointing to the deep well under the elevator.
If you look down the deep well, you can vaguely see the street scene at the bottom if you have good eyesight.
It turns out that this is supposed to be the space above a road between buildings, but the top of the street has been covered by a connecting passage constructed of steel frames and iron plates. In addition, some people have simply built houses on the connecting brackets, so it can only be seen.
There is no shadow of the street anymore. But as Jean Valjean said, this is not a space inside the building, and building things here does not need to be approved by the architectural committee.
Seeing that Martin was speechless, Jean Valjean also showed a smile, opened the elevator door, motioned for everyone to come up, and then moved the control lever next to him. The elevator slowly rose, reaching a height of four to five meters.
Finally, the four corners of the elevator were stuck by the gear guide rails composed of four steel frames. Instead of relying on ropes to climb, it became relying on gears to move.
After about a minute, the elevator climbed up to about twenty floors. After Jean Valjean moved the control lever, he slowly stopped and stopped in front of a dark passage.
Jean Valjean picked up the hanging lamp and walked into the passage. After passing three doors, he handed the lamp in his hand to Leo. He took out two keys and inserted them into two different-shaped locks on the door at the same time.
At the same time, he twisted the key in different twisting ways, and after hearing a mechanical sound, the door slowly opened, and a sultry, turbid air spurted out from behind the door, blowing up the clothes and hair of the four people.
"Your place is well built," Martin said with a hint of caution.
Jean Valjean was not worried at all about Martin settling the scores, and said somewhat frivolously: "I can't help it, I have too many valuables, and I have to find a few places to put them."
As the turbid air in the house completely dissipated, and the temperature inside and outside the house returned to the same level, Jean Valjean signaled everyone to wait, and then he walked into the room carrying the hanging lamp. Although the room was pitch dark and nothing could be seen, he heard
The echo in the room is enough to make people feel that this room is probably not small.
Just as the people outside the room were guessing the size of the room, the various lamps hung at the top of the room and embedded around the room seemed to be under the influence of some kind of magic. They were ignited almost simultaneously, completely driving away the darkness in the room.
.
As everyone had guessed just now, this room is very large. If measured by Catherine's clinic, it is roughly equivalent to the area of ​​six clinics arranged neatly.
Although the room is large, there are not many things in the room, at least much less than the things in the mechanical workshop below, and except for a huge clock, Leo can understand its function, there are no other machines in it.
Unknown effect.
Among them, the huge machine that occupied half of the room made Leo curious the most. This machine looked like rows of spinning machines connected together. However, these machines did not have yarn, and inside the machine besides a large number of
In addition to the gears, there are also some square steel bars of different lengths.
By inferring the trajectory of the gear movement, Leo was able to estimate how the machine would look like when it moved. The steel bars should show a certain regular movement, which would pass through the gears and drive other steel bars to make irregular movements. As for what such movement would bring
What effect and use it has is beyond Leo's ability to figure out.
Perhaps sensing Leo's gaze, Jean Valjean seemed to have met a close friend. He smiled at Leo and said, "I knew you would notice her immediately after you came in. She is a great beauty, right?"
Hearing that Jean Valjean used personification or female to refer to a machine that occupied half of a huge room, Leo didn't know how to answer the other person's question for a while. He could only follow the other person's words and change the topic.
, pointing to the machine, and said: "Can you tell me what this is?"
Jean Valjean excitedly stroked the machine and said, "It's called the array machine, and it's my invention for many years."
Even Jason couldn't help but shudder and turned his head away from him, while Martin looked like he had a headache and didn't know what to say.
"What does the array machine do?" Leo asked again.
"She is an enlarged calculator." Jean Valjean explained: "Didn't you say that the calculator I made has flaws? She will not have any flaws, and she can also predict future events by calculating various data.
what happen?"
"Isn't that just like the goddess of fate in mythology?" Jason was also attracted. After hearing Jean Valjean's introduction, he couldn't help but interjected: "This thing is also shaped like a loom. Legend has it that the fate of the people of Beirut
The goddess will use a loom to weave the future destiny of the world, maybe the loom in the goddess's hand is this thing."
Jason's words instantly made Jean Valjean regard him as a confidant, even more than Leo, because he also viewed this machine in this way, so he called her a female title.
It's just that this kind of confidant feeling didn't last for thirty seconds before it was broken up by Jason's next words. Jason said: "Can this thing work?"
Jean Valjean rolled his eyes at Jason angrily, and then said with some lack of confidence: "This machine still has some minor problems and needs further adjustments before it can be used."
"Okay! No one will appreciate this machine except you." Martin hit Jean Valjean at every opportunity, and then brought the topic that had strayed back to the right direction, saying: "Take out the weapons! Our
Time is very tight, don’t waste it on such unnecessary things.”
Hearing Martin's words, Jean Valjean did not refute, but just snorted coldly, walked to a corner of the room, pushed out a box with a large cart used for transporting goods at the dock, and delivered it to the three of them. Then he packed the box completely.
Open it and spread it on the ground so that the three of you can see every weapon contained in the box.
Chapter completed!