Chapter 376: The Castle's new facilities
Translator: Meh/TransN Editor: - -
"What are they?" Andrea asked while chewing on the dried fish.
The prince of the Kingdom of Graycastle was tossing about something new again. He spliced sections of brass together, having Anna melt the joint and Soraya wrap a soft layer of magic coating around it. At first sight, they looked like the water pipes installed in the bathroom, but they were much larger in size and each of them was about the size of a human thigh. It was impossible for a man to move it without the help of Hummingbird, who reduced the weight.
Yet, the brass was not installed only in one or two rooms but horizontally throughout the whole castle and the Witches' House. It entered from the corner of the room, connecting with a strange metal louver along the bottom of the wall, crossed the next room and joined with the longitudinal pipe at the very end.
This large project attracted a lot of witches to surround and watch it, in which the witches from both the Sleeping Island and the Witch Union showed great interest.
"Any guesses?" Roland smiled mysteriously and said, "If you get it right, an extra ice cream bread for dinner."
Ice cream bread! This caught Andrea's attention. It was the most amazing food here, a layer of sweet ice cream stuffed in two slices of toasted bread. It had never been heard of before in the Kingdom of Dawn. She instantly fell in love with the delicacy the moment she tried it. Despite being teased by Ashes repeatedly, she would still eat it. Otherwise, watching it being left on the plate would still be nothing short of torture to her.
"Does this supply water to rooms?" Ashes frowned.
"Of course not." Andrea pouted to herself. Copper was not cheap. Since the small pipes in the bathroom could distribute water, why use such a huge one?
However, considering she was always teased by Ashes' jeers of "who was the one who said the food from the past was the most delicious", which she had indeed once said in front of Tilly and could not deny, Andrea could only pretend that she did not hear such superficial words.
"What a shallow opinion. Who needs such a big pipe for water supply?" someone said behind Andrea, "His Highness would never do such a pointless thing."
Incisive! That was exactly what Andrea was thinking. Her spirit was lifted right away. No one else would dare to use such a tone to talk to an Extraordinary other than herself and Miss Nightingale from the Witch Union. She turned around and saw a woman looking at Ashes in disdain, with her chin being lifted to just the right angle.
This is the expression the nobility should use!
Andrea secretly praised this mysterious woman who was the most cordial witch she had met since she came to Border Town. Nightingale showed her extraordinary skills during the rescue of the witch in the relic. She was also from a noble background, and even her hair color was similar to Andrea's. In the battles against the demonic hybrids on the city wall, Nightingale had recognized her ability and shared dried fish with her. She was just acting like a noble.
Most importantly, she didn't like Ashes at all.
Andrea didn't know how Ashes offended Nightingale when she first came to Border Town, but wasn't it true that the enemies my enemy was my friend? Not to mention that her character was very compatible with Andrea herself.
"You're talking as if you know the answer," Ashes shrugged and said.
"Of course, I know," Nightingale grinned and said, "I've been in the office when His Highness was drafting the design drawings. All of his plans were drafted in front of my very eyes."
"It's not fair!" Mystery Moon muttered.
"She doesn't take part in the examinations though," said the prince. The prince's words made Nightingale's proud expression stupefied right away. "A hint for you all, these pipes are only parts of the system and you may want to look elsewhere in order to better figure out the answer."
"Goo!" Maggie flew out of the room with Lightning immediately, the other witches were not far behind. Everyone had scattered away, trying to have a look at the pipe. Andrea fell behind everyone else on purpose. When everyone left, she winked at Nightingale and called her out to the door.
"What's that?" Andrea whispered, "I'll share half of the dinner bread with you if I got it right."
"I don't know either." Nightingale's reply shocked her.
"But you just said that you had gone through all the designs, didn't you?"
"Yeah, just like Natural Science Theoretical Foundation, even if you understand the individual words on it, can you understand them when they're put together? "
"Uh..." Andrea opened her mouth but she found that she was quite right. She had tried the book herself and found that it was just like hieroglyphics.
"I'm afraid only Anna has the ability to understand His Highness' intention by simply looking at his drawings," Nightingale said, "If you ask her, she'll definitely tell you the answer."
After Nightingale left, Andrea hesitated for a while and finally didn't call for Anna to come out from the room. It was not being reserved or embarrassed, but rather... out of respect. She was not afraid of the heinous criminals nor the cruel Verdict Army, but she was in awe of such a girl less than twenty.
She remembered when she passed by the prince's office once and overheard the conversation of Anna and His Highness. Their conversation still brought her goosebumps now. Those strange terms like the high angle calculation, orbit-trimming with drop-point parameters and the conversion from kinetic energy to potential energy in an ideal state, all made her rooted to the spot immediately. The were both witches, but why Anna could fluently speak such terms that Andrea didn't understand at all? From that moment onwards, Andrea had an extended admiration towards Anna. She thought that Anna was a totally different type of person from herself but at the same level with Lady Tilly instead.
Since she could not ask for the answer, she could only rely on herself. Andrea went around to explore each of the rooms according to His Highness' advice. She found that there was a rectangular metal railing separating the pipes in the room that had completed the installation as if it was to prevent anyone from touching the pipes. Upon seeing this, she thought, if it wasn't for the presence of barbarians like Ashes, even if someone touched them it probably wouldn't be a big deal. Thinking of what Nightingale said—"His Highness will never do such a pointless thing", Andrea thought that these metal railings should have their own functions.
She had a new discovery when she came to the first floor of the Witch House. There was a newly built bungalow between the castle and the Witch House and that was where the copper pipes leading to the two buildings extended.
There was a huge iron box in the house, it was hollow at the bottom half of the box and there was a huge chimney on the top... It looked almost like a cooking stove. And she saw a pipe connected directly to the well in the yard, which looked rather similar to the water supply system in the water tower.
Wait... Was it supposed to be used for boiling water?
If the pipes were used for hot water distribution, there was no need to be such humongous at all.
Andrea still couldn't understand what it was for after a long contemplation.
His Highness gathered all the witches in the hall before dinner. He smiled and said, "The heating system in the castle is officially launched from today."
"Heating system?" Ashes puzzled.
"Yes. Water will be boiled in the boiler, and the high-temperature steam will enter the rooms through the pipes and increase the temperature there, as long as the doors and windows are closed, the whole room can be warmed up pretty quickly," Prince explained, "comparing to fire barrels that are too heavy to move and require a good air flow to prevent anthracemia. The new heating system doesn't have such concerns at all. It'll make you feel as warm as in spring while sleeping." When the debug ends, the residential area will be gradually equipped with such heating system."
"Next, the ice cream bread winners are, in addition to Anna, Soraya and Hummingbird who were participating in the installation of the heating system, there was only one person who guessed it right. And, it was... Tilly!"
Andrea helplessly stared at Lady Tilly who was smiling while eating the delicious dinner, completely losing her reserved manner of a noble.