Back in his office, Roland immediately started drawing the new machinery.

During the days when the First Army and the witches went to King's City, he was not idle. On the contrary, Roland felt even busier than usual. Even without Nightingale by his side, the time he spent alone with Anna was minimal. In addition to settling the boatloads of refugees, he also had Anna and Lucia test the composition of the smelted products and build new smelting furnaces.

Previously, whether it was ironmaking or steelmaking, it was done purely based on experience and feeling, and no one knew what ingredients the smelted products contained. Now, with Lucia's help, Roland finally had a method to accurately measure the composition of metal ingots. With the help of material decomposition ability, he could obtain detailed data needed for smelting through repeated comparisons, such as stirring time after melting, the specific amount of charcoal added, and whether to add additives such as limestone to remove sulfur and phosphorus, or add other metal raw materials to obtain alloys, etc.

Based on these data, Roland could summarize the standardized process of the smelting industry, obtain iron ingots or steel of the same quality in multiple productions, and gradually dispel the mysteries of material science.

And the new type of smelting furnace was built for this purpose.

It was a rectangular furnace four meters long, four meters wide, and two meters high, with the bottom sloping towards one end. The thick shell was cast iron, and the inner layer was covered with clay bricks and Soraya's "Soil" coating, which had excellent heat resistance. The lowest end was equipped with a movable gate, which was pulled by a steam engine. Considering that none of the high-end heating methods such as oxygen blowing and electric arc had the conditions for implementation, the furnace simply did not set up any combustion device—it completely relied on Anna's Blackfire to smelt molten steel. After adding raw materials according to the tested ratio and smelting, the molten steel was directly discharged from the tail gate.

The furnace could produce about fifty tons of molten steel at a time, and Anna only needed a quarter of an hour to complete the smelting. Including the loading and tapping time, it only took about half an hour. The output can basically meet the current gun and artillery production. Now the town's smelting mode is that the blast furnaces and shaft furnaces in the furnace group are responsible for producing a large amount of pig iron, which can be used for the manufacture of daily ironware and steam engines, and can also be used as raw materials for further smelting by iron furnaces to produce wrought iron or steel.

……

The design drawing that Roland was currently drawing was a set of production equipment for bullet stamping—with a stable and reliable source of steel, the processing and assembly of stamping machinery no longer had hardware difficulties, and the successful trial production of mercury fulminate made the mass production of new bullets imminent. Although Anna's Blackfire cutting was efficient and accurate, it still took a long time for one person to complete the entire process. If the stamping machine assembly line was put into production, more than 30 ordinary people could operate it after training, and at least tens of thousands of bullets could be produced in one day, so soldiers no longer needed to manually reload ammunition.

After eating dinner, he drew for a long time again, until the midnight bell rang outside the window, and the complete set of sketches was finally in sight. Of course, this was only the initial conceptual design, and he didn't know whether some details were feasible, and he needed to test it before he could finally determine it.

If it were usual times, Roland would have been yawning again and again, but today he was in high spirits and not sleepy at all.

After putting away the dozen or so draft papers, he took out the parchment attached to the Fifth Princess's letter from the drawer, spread it out on the table, and he finally waited for the long-awaited link—picking the visiting witches.

The list listed the abilities of about sixty auxiliary witches. According to Macy, the total number of witches on Sleeping Island should be around two to three hundred. Obviously, Tilly did not list the abilities of all auxiliary witches on the table. This also fits the approach of a leader - actively extend the hand of friendship, rather than reveal all the cards. The other party was able to do this, which was enough to express their willingness to form an alliance. Roland replaced the new candles and focused on checking the witches' abilities in the appendix.

It must be said that this was a very difficult decision to make. After many comparisons, he selected the list of five visitors.

Then Roland spread out a piece of parchment and began to write a reply.

"Dear sister, I am very happy to see your letter."

"I am very excited and gratified by your decision. With your help, I am more confident in stopping the Church's attack."

"I can gain the trust and support of the witches, also because of this—in the entire Graycastle continent, only Border Town has completely eliminated the influence of the Church. The natives not only accept the witches, but also fight side by side with them, from resisting the demonic beasts to fighting against the Church. My people and the witches have formed an inseparable whole. Now, you can see them participating in construction everywhere in the town. The steam engine that makes you curious was also realized with the help of the witches. This is a good start, and what I have to do is to promote this situation to the entire Western Region, and even the entire kingdom."

"For this reason, I must destroy the entire Church, turn the statement that witches are evil into dust, and liberate all people from foolishness and ignorance. This is a long process, and I need more of your help."

"As for what made me make this decision, and what made me no longer indifferent to everything like in the past, these trivial matters can be discussed slowly when there is a chance. The content of the letter is limited, so I won’t go into details."

"Regarding the witches' visit next month, I am very much looking forward to it. Please don't worry about safety issues. I have planned a route directly to Border Town for them, which can completely avoid the Church's eyes and ears, and does not need to rely on any port. The only risk is navigation, but I think with Macy leading the way, the possibility of the ship getting lost is minimal. I will attach a map with the specific route and send it to Sleeping Island with Macy."

"After these witches arrive in Border Town, they can naturally participate in the teaching of basic knowledge - the so-called knowledge promotes the evolution of witches' abilities, I am more inclined to believe that a deeper understanding of the world has led to their transformation, including the understanding of nature, magic, and themselves. There is no doubt that for every witch whose ability evolves, we have one more chance of winning against the Church. My opinion on this is exactly the same as yours."

"Finally, I have listed the list of five selected witches here, and I hope to see them soon."

"Shape Terrain - Lian."

"Maintain State - Candlelight."

"Brewer - Evelyn."

"Tamer - Honey."

"And Eye of Truth - Sylvie."

"Well then, wish you all the best. Your brother, Roland Wimbledon."(。)