Release that Witch

Chapter 174: The Industrial Park

After Ashes left two days later, Maggie unexpectedly returned to Border Town and appeared again in front of everyone.

After she had been asked about the reasons for coming back, they welcomed her warmly and there was a new member in the Witch Union.

What made her feel greatly moved was the welcome banquet, which was held in the backyard garden of the castle. In this banquet, there was a long, iron shelf, covered with all kinds of meats that could be casually taken to barbecue. Spices were also very abundant; there were salt, oil, pepper, chili, and barbecue sauce which was made by Roland—boiled forest-produced mushrooms and chicken together with the soup, then salt, sugar, and wheat flour were added, which could be used instead of MSG. Maggie did not stop until her stomach was full.

In the afternoon, Roland tested her ability.

According to Nightingale’s judgement, her total amount of magic power was at a moderate level among the witches. Her ability could be shown as she could change into a variety of birds—on the condition that she had seen that kind of bird before. The consumption of magic power was quite large when she was changing. She could continue to change 4-5 times in one day, and when she maintained the deformation, the consumption of magic power was very little. So, her ability belonged to the summoning type—it could be influenced by the God’s Stone of Retaliation. Her favorite birds were pigeons, but Roland noticed that no matter what kind of birds she changed into, the shape of her deformation was too large. For example, when she changed into a sparrow, in his view, the shape was as large as an ordinary pigeon, and if she transformed into a real pigeon, the shape would be as large as a sea eagle.

Maggie could not change into a Flying Beast like those in his fantasy—a Phoenix, a Griffin, or a Kunpeng, such as what Roland painted—which made him feel sorry.

In addition, Ashes’ plan was still worthy of his concern, that was, for the witches who were called up by Tilly, what kind of ability did they have? He would not mind using technology to exchange the assistant witches if they could dramatically improve farming efficiency.

For these reasons, Roland decided to write a long letter to Tilly. First, he showed the natural relationship of allies on both sides, and then warned her that the church’s intention was to unify the mainland, and finally handed out an olive branch to show the will of mutual cooperation and common progress. Next month, when Maggie went to the Fjords, he would ask her to take this letter incidentally.

The next day, the prince got another piece of good news.

The plant used to produce the steam engine was finally built. The plant was located on the other side of Redwater River, leaning to the west, and it was next to the Leaf experimental field. The whole site had been surrounded by a wooden fence, and they also paved a simple road leading to the pontoon. In Roland’s plan, this place would be the industrial park in the town afterward.

In order to expand the building space as much as possible, the plant was built of light wood, and covered an area of about 1,000 square meters. The machine tools, which were manufactured by Anna, had been transported in. They were two steam boring machines, two manual milling machines, a manual grinding machine, and a manual lathe. Although these machine tools were simple in principle, their workmanship was first class—except for the base or pedals that were made from wood, the other parts were cut from the wrought iron or rolled steel. It was true that under the existing level of materials, the products were of the highest quality.

At present, there were just about 10 workers in the factory, and they were originally blacksmiths and apprentices in the town. They were now recruited by Roland’s 50 silver royals to learn how to operate high-end machine tools. And their blacksmith tools and shop were also moved to a brick house outside of the plant. Except for creating some unimportant parts, the production of the steam engine would be completely finished.

Roland held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the door of the factory. In order to strengthen the momentum, he called up the officials of the City Hall, and they delivered brief speeches. In the Echo’s simulative of the gun salute, the Kingdom of Graycastle Industrial Company officially announced its establishment.

Over the next few days when he was free, Roland, as the head of the company, would go to the plant to demonstrate the operation of the machines as well as the manufacturing process of the steam engine. The best method he could think of to make the illiterate blacksmith grasp how to process and assemble a steam engine was to make a map. In this map, he showed the process by pictures, similar to the instructions for the assembly of models. It showed the names of parts, numbers, and their size one by one before illustrating the order in which they were installed and the methods of connection with pictures. Soraya helped him a lot in this matter.

As he had expected, in the initial days of production, almost no parts met the requirements, let alone a completely assembled steam engine. However, Roland did not care about the rate of rejections. In Anna’s hands, these defective products could be recast into a new plate in the blink of an eye. He believed that after repeated practice, these blacksmiths would master the production methods of the modern era sooner or later.

Apart from the industrial plant, Prince Roland transformed the North Slope Mine area and the backyard into an army factory, mainly for the production of revolving rifles and bullets. After ”Furnace Expert” Lesya arrived at Border Town, who Karl had recommended, the temperature of the airbag had been greatly improved. They could fire cement flour independently, and the firing room had no need for existence.

But limited by the technology, the production of revolving firearms and bullets was still completed by Anna. Roland was designing a steam punch for punching bullets, although the efficiency was less than Anna’s cutting molding, at least it could reduce her burden.

In order to thank Anna for the nearly half a month of busy work, he decided to present her a gift.

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”A gift?” Anna asked, and then put down the cutting parts in her hand, stroked her hair and slid it to her forehead, showing a bright smile. ”That’s good.”

”Don’t you ask what kind of gift?” Roland teased her.

”Well...” She thought for a moment and replied, ”I’ll like whatever you give me.”

After half a year of recuperating, Anna was not the girl that he first met in the dungeon. That thin and weak girl now became a slim beauty. Her blue eyes full of expression, she looked neat and pretty in a plain dress, and her whole body was filled with the vitality of youth.

This was how an 18-year-old girl should look.

Roland was pleased when he saw her smiling face.

The ”gift” was placed in the courtyard of the castle, and in order to give Anna a surprise, it was also covered by a layer of linen—when he was making Envoy Ashes, he had this idea in his mind. Since he was the prince, the gift must be special, for something like jewelry was not sincere. He thought for a long time to come up with this idea.

Roland opened the linen, and a rattan basket appeared in front of them. The top of the basket was connected to a lot of hemp rope, and at the other end of the hemp rope was a huge canvas.

”What, what’s this?” as Anna came forward and walked around it, she asked curiously.

”A hot air balloon,” he replied with a smile, ”It can take you up to the sky, like a bird overlooking the earth.”

”Flying in the sky?” She turned around, her eyes sparkling with excitement. ”Really?”

Soaring in the sky was the dream of mankind since ancient times. From gliding wings to hot air balloons, from airships to airplanes, people had made huge sacrifices in the exploration and challenge of flying in the sky, but people had never given up this kind of pursuit. There were witches in this world, but flying was still the right of few people. To see the scenery through the high-altitude perspective would certainly leave a deep impression on her.

”Of course, just fully fill the airbag with hot air.”

Roland let Nightingale ask Lightning and Maggie to be first-aiders. If there was an accident, Lightning and Maggie, who could change into a large sea eagle, would protect them to land safely. As for the other witches, he decided to not tell them, especially Wendy and Scroll, as they would certainly oppose any of his adventures—they would not allow anything dangerous happen to him.