Chapter 1073: Gelled Fuel
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
After leaving the rubber worm farm, Roland came to the lab.
He felt as if he had come into a wizard's lab. In this 30-square-meter room, many places were smeared with milky white solidified rubber liquid. Along the wall, stood a row of buckets filled with fresh worm liquid. Some rubber blocks seemed to have got burnt in a big pot, emitting a strong pungent smell. Like a wizard, Kyle also used long-handled spoons and stirring sticks in this lab.
Seeing that, Roland could not help thinking, "If there're some toads and bats in this lab, it'll look exactly like a wizard's lab."
"Your Majesty," Kyle Sichi simply nodded to greet Roland. "I think I've found what you wanted."
The alchemist looked very pale, and one of his fingers was wrapped in gauze. Seeing that, Roland became a little worried and asked, "Are you injured?"
"Don't worry. It's just a minor injury," Kyle waved his hand and said. He picked up a cup filled with light red rubber liquid and continued, "Your Majesty, look."
The next moment, he turned the cup upside down, but the liquid did not spill out at all. Instead, it just slowly slid down and then formed a soft hemisphere clinging to the rim of the cup.
Roland was intrigued. He stretched out his hand, wanting to touch the jelly-like substance, but the Chief Alchemist immediately stopped him.
"No, Your Majesty!" He took back the cup and explained, "This gel is corrosive."
"I remember that the worms' rubber liquid is non-toxic and harmless," Roland said with one eyebrow cocked. He had already used the liquid to manufacture food bags and straws.
"But it changed after mixing with blood."
"Blood?" Roland was startled and looked at Kyle's wounded finger again. "Did you hurt yourself for experiments..."
"Of course not, it was just an accident," Kyle said smilingly while stroking his beard. "Yeah, I'm crazy for chemistry, but I can't as yet go so far as to deliberately hurt myself for an experiment. There're lots of things waiting for me to explore in the chemistry world. I need to take good care of myself."
After that, Kyle explained to Roland how he had found this gel.
Something secreted by the rubber worms' glands could make their mucus become sticky. That was how the worms produced the rubber liquid. Due to the difference in the proportion of the secretion in the liquid, it could solidify into biological rubber blocks with different hardness. Once it solidified, it could not be melted back into liquid.
Given that, the Chief Alchemist had used lots of materials and had done lots of experiments, trying to find a way to solidify the rubber liquid into a gel. In the beginning, he tried to add various types of elementary substances, pure acids and alkali liquids to the rubber liquid, but none of these mixtures could achieve the desired effect.
Afterwards, he had tried many inorganic salts and even organic matters, and had discovered quite a few interesting gels during this process. However, none of them were what the king wanted.
Things had begun to change when an accident had happened to Kyle.
One day, when he had been cutting a rubber strip, he had inadvertently cut his own finger. His blood happened to drop into a cup of rubber liquid and reacted violently with the liquid. Instantly, a large amount of white smoke rose from the cup and the Bird Beak Mushroom in the liquid quickly melted into yellow water.
In the end, the liquid in the cup had somehow turned into a light red gel.
"This gel's biggest feature is that it can keep the chemical structure of the things added to it," Kyle said and then threw the light red gel into the furnace. Suddenly, the fire burnt much more violently. The flames roared high into the air, and the gel was swiftly burnt into ashes. "I only added a spoonful of oil to it. Burning the gel alone can't achieve this effect. I can say that it's even better than the gel you asked for!"
The alchemist looked tired, but he sounded excited. Seeing the reflection of the raging fire in his eyes, Roland somehow felt his bursting feelings and guessed that he must have been thinking about how powerful this thing would be in the forthcoming war.
Roland needed this jelly-like substance to make napalm bombs.
In his previous world, napalm usually referred to a mixture of a gelling agent and either petrol or a similar liquid fuel. Compared to inflammable liquid fuel, which had a low flash point and high volatility, gelled fuel was more convenient and safer to use. Meanwhile, they could also be very destructive. A napalm bomb was able to set a large area on fire. No one within this burning area could get rid of the thick, sticky fuel quickly, and at the same time, they would be suffocated, as the burning would consume a great amount of oxygen.
Since the moment he had heard about the worms' rubber liquid, he had been thinking about using it to develop a gelling agent, which could be used to make napalm bombs.
He planned to use these bombs to destroy demons' outposts, which had given the Union lots of headaches in the past.
Back in the Taquila age, the Union's Blessed Army had not been able to move freely around an outpost without being protected by witches who had been able to block off or clean out the Red Mist. Given that, the army consisting of the common people had been responsible for demolishing the demons' mist storage towers. Every time the Union had launched an attack on an outpost, the Blessed Army would have suffered a heavy loss, and all the common soldiers would have been killed in the battle.
The Union could not have afforded to launch lots of such attacks which would have quickly consumed its strength and resources. Once they had been surrounded by lots of outposts, they would have abandoned their land and run for their lives.
With napalm bombs, the demons' outpost would no longer be a major threat to the city. The fire could not only destroy their facilities but also dispel their Red Mist.
Hearing that rubber worms could provide raw materials for making napalm bombs, which could easily burn down a demons' outpost and clean out the Red Mist around it, Pasha had immediately agreed to raise these worms in the Third Border City. Alethea, who had complained a lot about these strange worms in the beginning, showed great enthusiasm in them after knowing their use.
In fact, Roland already had enough weapons for long range attacks by now. Even without napalm bombs, he could also let his army shoot down all the moving things in an outpost with those firearms before sending them there. However, he still hoped that the alchemists could successfully produce some napalm bombs. If they did, he would not have to prepare that much gunpowder for the battle, which could significantly reduce the burden on the chemical plants.
He was really delighted to see the light red gel, but he still had some concerns about it.
"Does it have to be a human being's blood?"
"No, Your Majesty," replied the alchemist. "Please rest assured. An animal's blood also works. I've tested it. The only requisite for the blood is that it has to be fresh."
Roland felt much relieved hearing that, but soon he thought of another question. "Why does it have to be blood?"
"Well..." Kyle was speechless.
"I think the reason lies in the worms' origin," said Pasha. "The Multi-Eyed Monster used them to capture and store its preys. Blood may be one of the triggering conditions causing them to react. Although they were left behind by the monster, their instinct still exists."
"That's a reasonable explanation," Roland thought. "The monster apparently didn't store its preys as food. It's more likely that it was collecting information about the other species. Given that, it's possible that it would let the worms store them as jelly."
'No matter what, let's start to develop the new weapon as soon as possible," said Roland. "Now that we have the ideal gelling agent, the remaining work will be easy. You can let the alchemists from the old king's city take care of it. After all, you need to take a good rest now for your future exploration into the chemistry world."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Kyle said with a hand on his chest.
"I've an idea," Pasha said suddenly.
"Oh, what's it?" Roland looked at her and asked.
"We can bring a special guest to the weapon test," she replied while swaying her main tentacle cheerfully.
Roland immediately realized who she was talking about and asked. "Is that demon still alive?"
They had transferred Kabradhabi's soul into a crippled body to confuse its mind and had taken the chance to interrogate it and get much useful information. Unfortunately, since it had gotten used to the human body, it had remained silent. Apparently, it would not give them any more information. Roland had left it to the Taquila witches, thinking that it would either kill itself or get tortured to death by the vengeful witches. Surprisingly, it was still alive.
"Yes, it's alive and well. It eats up all the food we bring to him every day." Pasha said.
It seems that it doesn't want to die at all.
It refuses to surrender or confess.
It's confidently waiting for the complete failure of humanity, believing that it'll be free sooner or later.
It's so ambitious and determined.
Is it because it thinks being killed by some bugs is a huge humiliation?
Roland thought and smirked mockingly. "That's a good idea. Let's take it to the weapon test."