"This is the beaker, this is the test tube, this is the stirring rod, this is the thermometer, the scale, the weights, the naphtha blowtorch..."
A batch of experimental equipment was transferred from Huang Mingshan overnight, and Zhang Hao explained it to Zhou Xueyao. At first, Zhou Xueyao was curious, but gradually she became serious. She could see that these things were of great use.
Zhang Hao introduced it for a while, then smiled and said: "Come on, let's start the experiment. Take one portion of ordinary water, low-level spiritual spring, intermediate spiritual spring, and high-level spiritual spring, 100 ml.
Grind the dragon blood stone and mix it evenly. Put 10 grams of powder into each beaker and stir gently and evenly..."
Stir, keep adding, reheat…
A whole new world slowly opened in front of Zhou Xueyao.
As for Zhang Hao, as the experiment progressed, he was also a little surprised: it seemed that this dragon's blood stone should be a 'mutated' saltpeter.
There were a few stone chips at the bottom of the beaker, but the solution in which the dragon's blood stone was dissolved showed a magnificent red color.
At the end of the experiment, Zhang Hao discovered that the high-grade spiritual spring dissolved the most saltpeter. When heated to 90 degrees, 100 ml of liquid actually dissolved more than 300 grams of dragon blood stone powder.
Then, the liquid is filtered, condensed and crystallized. More translucent blood-red crystals gradually precipitate under the beaker; the color of the solution gradually becomes lighter.
"Look, it's purified." Zhang Hao pointed to the crystals at the bottom of the beaker and said to Zhou Xueyao with some pride.
"Let me try..." Zhou Xueyao excitedly took the tools and got busy.
Zhang Hao sat next to him and looked at Zhou Xueyao who was working hard; time passed by and it was already a night before he knew it.
As the faint crowing of roosters came from the distance, Zhou Xueyao had already refined about 40 kilograms of pure crystals from the fifty kilograms brought by Zhang Hao.
In one night, Zhou Xueyao has mastered the concept of dissolution curve, and knows about precipitation and crystallization. Compared with the traditional alchemy method, the new chemical method is unique and has demonstrated some advantages from the beginning:
Simple, transparent and easier.
With the pure 'Dragon Blood Stone Powder', Zhang Hao rushed out of the courtyard excitedly, preparing to find some charcoal and sulfur. He didn't want to see a guard captain next to his father looking at him with strange eyes just after he came out.
"Wei Qiang, what's going on?"
"Master, I asked you to go to the smelting base and tell me if it was successful."
"Oh...ok." Zhang Hao said and left.
Behind him, Wei Qiang winked at his subordinates: "Young Master spent the night here, one night..."
"The lights were turned on all night." The guards began to comment enthusiastically.
…………
Zhang Hao quickly arrived at the smelting base and saw his father and Cheng Tao chatting and laughing, with Huang Mingshan and others beside them looking attentive and listening.
"Xiao Hao, come here." Zhang Shengde was very excited, "Thank you, Master Cheng. I found the solution in one night."
So fast? Zhang Hao was a little surprised, but he expressed his thanks first, and then looked at his father, Cheng Tao, Huang Mingshan and others with suspicion: Who can explain it?
Huang Mingshan was still agitating, so I immediately took Zhang Hao to check.
It turns out that the solution... is too simple! According to the hidden meaning in Huang Ming's words: In fact, this method was not discovered by Cheng Tao at all, but proposed by Huang Mingshan and others:
This method was also used by the Zhang family when producing the 'new arrows', that is - molten coating.
Just dip the arrowhead in the melted black iron water.
But now it is just a matter of taking a bath in ordinary dark iron water and covering the surface with a layer of ordinary dark iron. In this way, the formation can be carved on the ordinary dark iron layer.
This is equivalent to adding a soft shell to hard steel.
As for the method Zhang Hao proposed at the beginning, which is similar to "burning porcelain", it doesn't work. The flame is nothing, the Zhang family has oil; but after calcining again, it will destroy the performance of the steel, and heating at high temperatures will cause softening, deformation, and condensation.
Deformation etc.
After hearing this, Zhang Hao asked Huang Mingshan in a low voice: "Then Cheng Tao has nothing to contribute?"
"No, there are quite a few. The thickness of the plating, and even the thickness, weight, format, etc. of the weapons and armor were all determined or modified by Master Cheng. In addition, Master Cheng provided several simple but powerful ones.
Formations. Including armor-breaking, defense, reinforcement and other very practical formations."
Zhang Hao nodded and looked at the freshly made steel armor, steel swords, etc. The weapons and armor modified by Cheng Tao had an indescribable charm and seemed to have murderous intent.
Zhang Hao suddenly realized that the past designs by Huang Mingshan and others were at best rigid industrial designs, but Cheng Tao's design probably had a little bit of art in it.
However, art is also a kind of technology. We know that there is a word called - the art of killing!
And Cheng Tao integrated this "art of killing" into weapons and armor.
The armor has spikes on its elbows, and ribs on its arm guards - which not only ensures a low enough weight, but also increases its protective capabilities. The array patterns just pass through the depressions of the cold ribs, and these ribs pass by.
It also ensures the safety of the array pattern and increases the life of weapons and armor.
The sword body has a waist-cinching design. This waist-cinching design makes the long sword even more chilly.
The long knife is more slender, the thickness of the back of the knife is increased, and the blood groove is deepened, which greatly reduces the weight of the blade and increases the lethality of the knife.
In particular, there is a layer of soft dark iron attached to the surface, which can greatly absorb impact force and increase the strength of the sword. And this layer of dark iron covering it can also be used to carve formations. It can be said to kill two birds with one stone.
Zhang Hao nodded with satisfaction, encouraged Huang Mingshan a few words, thanked Cheng Tao again, spoke to his father, took some charcoal, sulfur, and some ordinary saltpeter powder extracted before and left.
"Charcoal", Zhang Hao chose three types: charcoal, bamboo charcoal, and coke from petroleum smelting.
There is only one kind of sulfur for the time being, just ordinary sulfur; Zhang Hao has not yet found sulfur with 'spiritual material properties'.
When they returned to Zhou Xueyao's small courtyard, Zhou Xueyao was eating breakfast; there was an extra portion prepared next to her. When she saw Zhang Hao coming back, she immediately lowered her head and turned red with shame.
"What's going on?" You were so generous before, why have you become a shy beauty now?
Looking at the suppressed smiles on the faces of the maids next to him, Zhang Hao was a little confused, but he didn't take it too seriously.
After having a hasty breakfast, Zhou Xueyao took the materials brought by Zhang Hao and began to mix "gunpowder" in different proportions.
Zhang Hao vaguely remembered that the formula of ordinary black gunpowder was: 7.5:1.5:1; he had tested it with ordinary saltpeter before and found that this ratio was indeed the most powerful. But he didn’t know what would happen to dragon blood stone?
It was just that Zhang Hao had this ratio when he opened his mouth, which made Zhou Xueyao very suspicious.
"We have done a lot of research before. But the power of ordinary black powder is really limited, so we haven't used it yet."
"Oh..." Zhou Xueyao looked at Zhang Hao with suspicion for a while before starting to equip herself with brand new gunpowder.