Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

Rishabh Ghosh was sleeping soundly in his laboratory. He was already very tired from the experimentation he had done the whole day. He was planning on taking a break, but suddenly he was disturbed when he caught a whiff of a foul stench that made him almost wretch out everything he had in his stomach. Fortunately, he had not eaten anything yet, or else he would have already contaminated the laboratory.

Looking up to see which animal had broken in, he was taken aback when he saw the familiar face of Tarun Chawla.

"Damn you guy, how long has it been since you took a shower? You stink."

Tarun suddenly paused in his steps, curiously took a whiff of himself, but he did not smell anything bad.

Rishabh got annoyed, "Of course, pigs can't tell that they smell like pigs, you idiot."

"Quickly tell me, why have you come to my laboratory to attack my senses?"

He covered his nose and took several steps back.

Tarun was embarrassed because he had really not showered for the last four to five days. He had spent most of his time cooped up inside the laboratory. But thinking about his achievement, he immediately became excited and waved the fabric he held in his hand like a flag.

"I finally succeeded."

"I made a fabric which has a tensile strength of 1580 Khanda/Metre, it perfectly suits our needs."

As soon as he heard the reason, Rishabh's eyes widened, and his mouth was agape.

"Y-You're… y-you're t-telling th-the t-truth?" he asked, unable to control the excitement.

"Of course, old man, why would I lie to you?"

Rishabh came forward in large strides, completely forgetting the foul smell, and snatched the piece of fabric from the hands of Tarun. Tarun did not take any offence at the action; he knew how much this old guy had worked in order to make human flight through a hot air balloon possible.

Rishabh soon started to laugh.

"Hahahah"

"HAHAHA"

The laughter turned more maniacal as time went by, almost acting as a vent to his emotions.

"Finally, the last piece of the puzzle is ready. We can start the build, haha."

Tarun was caught off guard, "The last piece of the puzzle is completed? Is the burner completed?" He had a look of incredulity on his face. He knew that although the invention of a burner was not as hard as the invention of a high tensile strength fabric, it was still nothing to scoff at.

"Of course, old Neelesh has already completed the design, built the prototype, and gave it to me a week ago."

"How could this be? Didn't he say he had no idea about how to make a breakthrough a few months ago?"

"That he did, but apparently, he got involved in some research project where he had to work with steam. Evidently, he found some inspiration there, and as soon as he returned, he completed the design."

Shrugging with helplessness, Rishabh Ghosh looked at Tarun, his gaze curious and probing.

"Forget about Neelesh, he wouldn't tell me how he came up with the design or what project he was on. Said it was some top-secret S-level project of the empire. But tell me about you, how did you suddenly figure it out? I was almost certain it would take you a few more years to complete the research."

As soon as the question was raised, Tarun smiled happily, "Hahah, in fact, you could say that I am very lucky by the discovery."

"At the beginning of the year, a research paper was published from the Raya Research Institute about a distillation method called the fractional distillation method. Apparently, this method is about to be used in both of the refineries in the empire. Anyway, using the fractional distillation methods mentioned in the research paper, I was able to get byproducts which were more pure than the byproduct produced by the Raya refining process, and not only that, three new byproducts which were not producible by the Raya refining process were also obtained."

"The byproducts are already named by the researchers who came up with the fractional distillation method, and they called them petrol, diesel, and liquid petroleum gas."

"By emulating the distillation process, I got a similar result as well, albeit at a lower quality and lower purity."

"At first, I did not think much of it, and I was going to return to the research of a stronger fabric, since trying out the distillation method was only done in my free time in order to stay updated with the discoveries in the empire. But who would have thought I would mistakenly drop the composite fabric I was working on into the byproduct solution?"

"I was sad that the fabric was ruined. I was about to throw it away and start anew, but maybe it was Krishna who held my hand. I unconsciously went on to test the tensile strength of the composite material. I dropped in the crude oil byproducts."

"What do you think the result was?" Tarun asked, his expression mysterious.

"Judging from the current fabric in my hands, does it increase the tensile strength?"

"Correct, and the increase was not small either, it increased by a whole 50 Khanda/Metre's."

"Although eventually I eliminated the composite material since it hit a bottleneck and it couldn't be strengthened any further, I still used other materials which were more perceptible to the byproducts of the crude oil."

"And with months of continuous research, I was finally able to manufacture the fabric in your hand."

"It is a double-layered silk fabric coated with tar and naphtha blend."

"And not just any naphtha and tar, it must be the naphtha and tar from light crude oil that is currently only produced in one of the overseas territories."

By the excitement with which Tarun explained it alone, Rishabh understood how proud he was of his invention.

He was a little jealous, since even though he had a brilliant mind, he could not compare with other researchers and scientists in the Bharatiya Academy of Civilian Sciences. He was known more for his ideas, but most of the time, even those were considered useless, since his area of interest was in aerodynamics, and in his field of interest, apart from forming a theoretical model for further research, it was of no practical use to anyone.

However, if the hot air balloon idea is really successful, then he no longer has to be embarrassed. He can proudly walk around in the research institute like one of those big bosses.

Coming back to his senses, the foul smell once again hit his nostrils.

"Go take a shower. Being so close with you, I will have to take one as well."

All the excitement on Tarun's face immediately died down, and he looked disgusted at Rishabh for ruining the moment.

---

For the next few days, both Rishabh and Tarun used up their laboratory merits they had been saving up for a long time to obtain help from over 40 interns to produce large layers of the new fabric produced by Tarun, which was now code named Chawla Silk, and stitch it into the shape Rishabh required.

The work was difficult because the fibre couldn't be manufactured in any regular factory. The raw silk required for it was extremely rare and could only be produced in small quantities at select silk farms in Mysore. On top of that, the technology for fractional distillation, needed to produce high-quality naphtha and tar blended with petroleum, was still in its early stages of development.

In such a way, several days passed.

When the balloon was almost complete, with its production and stitching nearing the final stages, an unexpected guest suddenly walked into the laboratory.

It was none other than Neelesh, their old partner, who had been away for quite some time after joining a top-secret research project. The moment they saw him, both Rishabh and Tarun burst into laughter, unable to hide their surprise and joy.

Even after Neelesh had returned from that assignment, he hadn't been able to rejoin their work. With his newly granted S-level security clearance, he was quickly pulled into several other high-priority projects by academicians across the empire. His demand kept rising, and with Tarun and Rishabh still stuck at A-level clearance, they hadn't even been able to meet him, let alone work together again. But now, after all that time, Neelesh had come back on his own.

"I heard there has been a breakthrough in the production of the fabric..." Neelesh said as his voice trailed off at the end, as he looked at the interns who were working on the hot air balloon. There was no need for confirmation, since the balloon was already being built, the news must be true.

The three researchers reminisced for a while, talking about their experiences over the last few months with their reunion, and once again started to work with each other just like two years ago when Rishabh Ghosh first brought up the idea.

To be continued...

P.S. Thank you, Abhi, for your fractional distillation idea