Castle of Black Iron

Hundreds of sets of experimental installations such as vials and glassware, large or small were orderly placed in a room of the palace tree which covered over 2,000 square meters. Some vials and glasswares contained various colorful liquids, which were still bubbling...

Complete organs of demon knights and specimens of demon fighters were immersed in some vials and glassware.

Some colorful weird ptomaine miasmas were floating in some sealed professional laboratory vessels and gradually corroding pieces of bloody flesh...

This room looked a bit grim and terrifying; however, a voodoo pharmacist or a researcher in microorganisms would definitely flicker their eyes and feel that they'd come to the paradise if they came here.

This was the microorganisms evolution lab of Castle of Black Iron. The equipment in this lab might be nothing different than similar labs in the outside world; however, due to the special abilities of Castle of Black Iron, this microorganisms evolution lab must be one of the greatest labs among humans.

After creating Heller, Zhang Tie had transferred the management of the evolution of various living beings and species in Castle of Black Iron to Heller. He only waited for the results instead of caring about the processes.

It was Zhang Tie's first time to come to this microorganisms evolution lab.

When Zhang Tie was cultivating in the private room of his airboat, he received Heller's information. Heller said that he wanted to show something important to Zhang Tie; therefore, Zhang Tie entered Castle of Black Iron.

Even when the full-moons demon miasma completed its mutation, Heller had not used the word "important".

Therefore, Zhang Tie wondered what made Heller meticulous.

"Heller, what do you want to show me?"

Standing in front of so many glasswares, Zhang Tie glanced over the dozens of triangular flasks on the lab table as he wondered what Heller was going to show him.

Being silent, Heller just took one of the triangular flasks and gave it to Zhang Tie, "Here's the latest variant of essential-energy aura yeast. It's very special; I think Castle Lord should take a look at it!"

"Over these years, haven't we got dozens of variants of essential-energy aura yeast? Is there anything special with it?"

Over so many years, the essential-energy aura yeast that helped Zhang Tie to establish his undertaking already had dozens of variants. However, all those variants had various shortcomings. Not all the variants were perfect or available; therefore, those variants were not that valuable practically.

"Castle Lord will understand once you take a look at it."

Zhang Tie took that flask which was filled with faint yellow liquid. Watching the beer-like liquid, he shook it and found that the liquid was very clear and didn't have any impurity.

"Is this thing fermented by the latest variant?"

"Yes!"

After hearing Heller's answer, Zhang Tie opened the glass cork of the triangular flask and moved its mouth close to his nose.

In a split second, an extremely strong smell of alcohol escaped out of the triangular flask.

Zhang Tie had smelt alcohol; however, the alcohol inside the flask smelt more spicy than common alcohol.

"Alcohol?"

"Almost like that!" Heller replied as he gave another triangular flask to Zhang Tie, "Here's the common alcohol, Castle Lord can make a comparison by yourself!"

'Almost like that?' Heller' words faintly startled Zhang Tie. He took another triangular flask and smelt the liquor inside it. Zhang Tie felt that the liquid in this flask smelt like normal alcohol, which was not spicy and looked transparent.

Zhang Tie tasted a bit of the faint yellow alcohol. Only after touching a bit of it, Zhang Tie had felt his tongue numb. That flask of special alcohol smelt too stimulative and was not drinkable at all.

"Given the taste, this flask of faint yellow alcohol was spicier than common alcohol. Is there anything else special?"

Watching Zhang Tie tasting it, Heller revealed a smile, "Castle Lord, have you forgotten about the fuel that you added to your Faerie-dragon T9?"

After being reminded by Heller, Zhang Tie's heart raced. He watched the two flasks of alcohol in his hands and directly poured some in two burning crucibles respectively. After that, he shot out a sparkle from his fingers which split into two sparkles in the air before falling into two burning crucibles respectively like two fireflies.

A cyan flame flared up as high as 16 cm in front of Zhang Tie at once from the burning crucible which held the faint yellow alcohol...

By contrast, the common alcohol was burning calmly and steadily in another crucible, the flame of which was only about 7 cm in height.

The flame of the faint yellow alcohol was much fiercer, hotter and higher than that of the common alcohol.

From the effect, the flame of the faint yellow alcohol didn't remind people of alcohol.

Standing in front of the two burning crucibles, Zhang Tie's face looked cyan and kept flickering.

After quite a while, the flames in the two crucibles almost died out at the same time. Zhang Tie stretched out his fingers and touched the bottoms of the crucibles. He found the bottoms of the crucibles were still very clean, leaving no dust or remnants as if nothing had been burned inside yet.

Besides water and carbon dioxide, burning alcohol would leave nothing at all.

After swallowing his saliva, Zhang Tie asked Heller, "What's the fuel value of this new alcohol?"

"The fuel value of this new alcohol could reach 11,000-12,000 kilocalories per kg!" Heller replied, "Our latest variant of essential-energy aura yeast is featured by very single and powerful fermentation properties. Products being fermented by this variant would almost not contain any aura, namely, being inedible. However, this variant could extract the maximal energy and fuel value of the substance being fermented. When we ferment something with this variant, we would gain such a new alcohol which has an extremely high fuel value!"

After hearing Heller's words, Zhang Tie rushed out of the microorganisms evolution lab and came to the library of the palace tree almost at the fastest speed.

Watching Zhang Tie's back, Heller revealed a faint smile as if he had understood Zhang Tie's intention...

Zhang Tie had collected over 1 million books from Waii Subcontinent in the library of the palace tree. These books were inclusive and covered all aspects. Many of them were publications from before the Catastrophe.

Zhang Tie remembered that he had read something useful from a delicate publication before the Catastrophe.

After darting into the library as fast as a lightning bolt, Zhang Tie circled around the bookshelves which were higher than 10 m in the library for a short while before he found his target. He sprung up and rapidly took a book from the last layer of the bookshelf.

This book was a publication in Hebrew before the Catastrophe. Although it had been over 800 years old, it was still well preserved.

The book had a delicate hardcover, on which there were a propeller-driven airplane, a bus and some engine models before the Catastrophe. Beside these patterns were a lot of dense sugarcane field. It was a professional magazine targeted at engineers and professional readers. Its name was "New Energy".

In the middle of this magazine, Zhang Tie saw the topic of this magazine "Bacelia the big country in planting sugarcane starts the alcohol energy plan after the petroleum crisis"

There were two subtitles below the topic "Bacelia's first ethanol-fueled airplane made a maiden flight successfully on October 5th after ethanol service station and bushes were spread across the country".

Under this subtitle, there was another line of eye-catching scarlet letters "Three petroleum groups strictly condemn that Bacelia government for destroying local energy supply structure and quota plan"

Zhang Tie rapidly turned to the page about the introduction of an alcohol-driven airplane——

"The first alcohol-driven airplane successfully accomplished its maiden show in Salaburg City, Bacelia Country on October 5. Before this, this airplane called "Hope" had completed 300 hours' trial flight being driven by alcohol. The pilots claimed that the "Hope" was in very good condition..."

Zhang Tie skimmed over this passage so as to gain the key information that he wanted.

"[Hope] is jointly developed by Bacelia Airplane Manufacturing Company and Bacelia University. Being renovated from a mustang propeller airplane which was fueled by petroleum, this plane adopts a Lycoming 320 horsepower 6-cylinder engine. It could hold 2 people..."

"Engineers declared that ethanol-driven airplane is more durable than petroleum-driven airplanes; additionally, its driving efficiency was 7% higher than that of petroleum-driven airplanes..."

"It was Bacelia government's another major measure after modifying 1/3 of the buses across the country into dual-purpose buses..."

"On the very day the "Hope" accomplished its trial flight successfully, Bacelia Airplane Manufacturing Company had received the orders of 150 ethanol-driven airplanes from the farmers and sugarcane producers in this country. Farmers and sugarcane producers in Bacelia Country had not imagined that what they planted could be used to produce alcohol and could help airplanes fly in the sky. Therefore, farmers and sugarcane producers were very spirited. What counted most, the cost of this sort of airplane was only 1/3 of that of traditional petroleum airplane. Additionally, this new-energy airplane would not cause any pollution in flight. By contrast, petroleum-driven airplanes would produce a lot of harmful gases and pollute the air..."

"Coolio, a sugarcane producer said that he would save a lot of money by using this new sort of airplane to spray pesticide. Additionally, it was more convenient for him to do short-distance travel..."

"An official of Bacelia Airplane Manufacturing Company expressed that alcohol-driven mini aircraft were in research and development..."

"If the alcohol energy plan could be implemented smoothly, Bacelia, as the biggest alcohol producer in this region would become an energy output country..."

After skimming over the content, Zhang Tie flew off once again and took out another magazine called "New Energy" from the bookshelf. Compared to the earlier one, this magazine's cover was black which felt especially depressive. Given the date of publication, Zhang Tie knew that it was published half a year later after the earlier one.

There were two titles under the cover.

"A coup broke out in Bacelia Country, the ex-president of Bacelia was killed by guns in the coup"

"The new Bacelia Parliament has passed the energy use act and will forbid the production and sales of all the alcohol-driven airplanes; additionally, the alcohol fuel of buses will be strictly mixed with petroleum according to certain proportion"

"The three top petroleum groups provided a loan of 120 billion gold coins for Bacelia government so as to recover the domestic orders"

...

After putting back the two publications before the Catastrophe, Zhang Tie was in deep meditation. According to the introduction of one of the magazines, in the age of humans before the Catastrophe when the petroleum would dry up, as a major energy in that age, the fuel value of gasoline was 10,450-11,250 kilocalories per kg; however, the fuel value of alcohol before the Catastrophe varied from 6,000-7,000 kilocalories per kg. In that age, humans had already developed a complete set of means to replace gasoline with alcohol. All the internal combustion engines being driven by gasoline could be driven by alcohol only after minor modifications.

Before the Catastrophe, alcohol didn't become a popular fuel because of political reason instead of technical reason. It was the profits of petroleum groups that killed the possibilities.

In the Black Iron Age, the reason that alcohol was not a popular energy source lay in the marvelous changes that happened after the Catastrophe, causing the fuel value of alcohol to decrease a lot. As a result, alcohol couldn't meet the demand for internal combustion engines anymore. Sports cars like Faerie-dragon T9 had to use external combustion engines instead of internal combustion engines.

'The latest mutated essential-energy aura yeast could produce an alcohol whose fuel value varies from 11,000 to 12,000 kilocalories per kg through fermentation. This figure is much greater than that of alcohol before the Catastrophe; it even surpasses that of gasoline. Doesn't it mean that I could produce many machines and equipment which were driven by gasoline before the Catastrophe and run them, such as propeller airplanes which moved faster than airships, high-performance buses and armored vehicles which had greater assaulting capability on the battlefield?'

Zhang Tie was startled by the wholly new possibilities and prospects brought by the mutated essential-energy aura yeast.

'This alcohol might bring an energy and industrial revolution in the Black Iron Age.'

...

Two days later, when Zhang Tie had recovered his composure and was cultivating with crossed legs in the cultivation room of the airboat, the doorbell rang. Zhang Tie then opened his eyes.

Liu Xing's voice drifted from outside, "Hermit, we've arrived at Fire Dragon Bounty Territory!"