Exploring Technology in a Wizard World
Chapter 358 - Chapter 358 Chapter 357 Burden

Chapter 358: Chapter 357: Burden Chapter 358: Chapter 357: Burden Richard walked into the courtyard and opened the gate.

He saw outside the gate, Alex, as squat as a winter melon, standing there with a smile plastered across his face. Behind Alex were several horse-drawn carriages, all loaded with goods, and a number of laborers waiting for orders.

Seeing Richard, the light in Alex’s eyes brightened, and then he rubbed his hands together and said, “My dearest friend–Lord Richard, I’ve obtained all the goods for you this time. However, I must say, some parts were quite difficult to procure. I really exerted myself. I…”

“I’ll add ten percent to your price,” Richard said simply.

“Great!” Alex’s dense eyes widened, and he laughed like a two-hundred-pound child, “Great, I knew Lord Richard would never let me down!”

With that, Alex turned his head, waved his hand quickly at the laborers behind him, and shouted, “Hurry up, don’t dawdle, quickly move the goods into Lord Richard’s place.”

“Yes!”

The laborers didn’t dare to slack off and hurried into action, carrying boxes down from the carriages and into the courtyard. Knowing the boxes contained glassware, they were exceptionally careful, gently placing them on the ground.

After the boxes were moved, the laborers began to carry in one iron barrel after another, each incredibly thick and sturdy. The barrels were cylindrical, about eighty to ninety centimeters tall, with a diameter of more than twenty centimeters. The mouths of the barrels had been specially treated so that once sealed, nothing inside them would leak. Furthermore, to meet Richard’s need for durability, the walls of the barrels were remarkably thick. Each iron barrel was like a cannonball, requiring several men to lift. With great difficulty, they carried it into the courtyard, and upon releasing their grip, the barrels immediately smashed into the ground, creating a deep pit.

Drenched in sweat, the laborers carried the iron barrels into the courtyard one by one. Alex looked at Richard, puzzled as to why he would spend such a high price on barrels that seemed useless. His small, dense eyes, now back to normal, flickered and he asked, “Lord Richard, what do you need so many iron barrels for?”

“For water,” Richard calmly replied.

“Uh…” Alex didn’t know how to respond.

He truly didn’t know how to respond. Richard’s answer made him involuntarily doubt whether his understanding of ‘water’ and Richard’s ‘water’ were somewhat different. Otherwise, why would one need such peculiar iron barrels for water?

By this time, the laborers had finally finished moving the iron barrels, but they didn’t stop. They began carrying heavy bags into the courtyard, piling them on the ground. In no time, the bags had accumulated into a small mountain, still growing in volume. Occasionally, a bag would split open, and white powder would flow out like snow.

Alex knew it wasn’t snow, but salt.

Yes, salt.

Salt wasn’t particularly expensive in the White Stone Tower, and actually, it wasn’t that expensive along the entire East Coast, since it was close to the sea, where salt seemed inexhaustible.

But while salt wasn’t expensive, that didn’t mean it was cheap. Ordinary farmers, to save money, would only use a lot of salt when pickling some easily spoiled foods, and they usually preferred dishes with a very light taste. No one stockpiled salt as frantically as Richard did.

Watching the “Salt Mountain” grow higher and higher, Alex couldn’t help but wince, thinking to himself how heavy Richard’s taste must be to need so much salt. An ordinary person could probably not finish it in ten lifetimes, right?

Then looking at Richard’s decidedly unhealthy complexion, Alex silently warned himself that it might be because of excessive salt consumption that he looked like this. It seemed that when he asked Lady Amanda to cook in the future, he should use less salt.

Half a day later, the salt was also all moved, followed by some miscellaneous items.

When the carriages outside were finally empty, the laborers were so tired they could barely stand.

Richard glanced over and, seeing that everything listed was accounted for, made the final payment to Alex.

Holding the payment of Crystal Coins, Alex’s smile nearly split his face as he stepped out the door, then he made an effort to contain his laughter and approached the laborers, fishing out a silver coin.

“Here, this is your hard-earned money,” Alex said.

A few workers gratefully took the pitiful silver coin and drove away in the carriage, while Alex hummed a tune and headed towards the end of the street.

Watching all this from the courtyard, Richard shook his head slightly, then with a “creak,” he closed the door.

The moment he closed the door, Richard sensed something was amiss. He spun around and saw a purple figure stealthily rummaging through a box in the yard.

“Pandora!” Richard called out sternly.

“Yikes–” Holding a test tube she’d found in the box, Pandora pouted heavily, “I just wanted to help you.”

“Yeah, right,” Richard said irritably, “I think you just wanted to hear the ‘crash’ of breaking glass and like collecting shiny glass shards. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen several boxes full of your glass shards.”

Pandora retorted, “That helps you too, okay? Besides, once the glass tubes are broken, they’re useless anyway, so it’s no big deal for me to pick them up.”

“Even so, you must complete today’s task for generating electricity before you’re allowed to clean the test tubes,” Richard was resolute.

“I… alright…” Pandora conceded, her head hanging low, as she walked somewhat disheartened towards the house.

“The glass tube in your hand,” Richard saw through to the smallest detail.

Pandora turned around, resignedly placed the glass tube she was holding down, and went into the house to work earnestly.

…

Night fell in the blink of an eye.

In the laboratory, under the illumination of candlelight, Pandora dragged out two huge boxes from under her wooden bed and opened them carefully to reveal a heap of shiny shards–glass shards.

Seeing the glass shards made Pandora’s eyes light up too, shining bright as stars.

Pandora indulged in admiring her “wealth” without any disturbances–for Richard was busy dealing with multiple Petri dishes at the time.

Now, Richard’s work with the Petri dishes had significantly increased. On one hand, he continued to refine and culture the “Divine Blood” bacterial colonies.

Besides Divine Blood, he was culturing and researching the Mushroom Pneumonia Spores. He wanted to understand what exactly the pathogen was and to explore possible uses–after all, one shouldn’t suffer from pneumonia for nothing.

Next, he was conducting experimental cultures of antibiotics like Penicillin, a reminder from the Mushroom Pneumonia Spores incident. He’d survived the recent bout of pneumonia thanks to Bacitracin, but who knew when he might be infected by other pathogens. Since Bacitracin is limited in supply and has significant side effects, it seemed a better idea to produce stronger antibiotics like Penicillin.

He was familiar with the process of culturing and purifying Penicillin and could use the Drifting Bottle to improve and increase the yield of Penicillin–all he needed now was to obtain and screen for superior strains. With Alex’s help, he’d obtained different molds and was continuously culturing and testing them, hoping for positive results.

So far, everything was proceeding smoothly with no issues. However, after a while, a larger biological laboratory might be needed to meet the growing needs.

That gave him a headache.

Simply setting up a biological laboratory wasn’t difficult–after all, there were still plenty of vacant rooms in the institute, and room for a biology lab had been reserved from the start.

But now, circumstances had changed. The emergence of Mysterious Organization members such as Suo Men and Mu Konni made him maintain vigilance. He didn’t believe that after killing Suo Men, the organization would let it slide. From a security standpoint, he had to deal with the secrets of White Stone Tower and the Black Spirit King and be ready to leave White Stone City at a moment’s notice if anything went awry.

Under these circumstances, expanding the biological laboratory would surely be a burden.