Wrecking Fantasy with Technology

Country of Eruchea:-

With the holiday the previous day, Harry had a lot of work to do today.

He needed to visit the alchemy guild yesterday.

But because of the holiday, not only could he not go there, he also had a lot more work piled up for today.

Unfortunately, this was something that Harry couldn’t keep ignoring.

So, he started going through the various documents kept on his desks.

It was the usual boring stuff.

Harry called his butler and told him to set an appointment with the alchemists to meet them after a few hours.

This way, he got some amount of motivation to finish his current work quickly.

He felt that he wouldn’t be slaving away sitting on his desk and looking at papers all day.

And this helped Harry go through a much larger portion of the pile of papers on his desk than his daily usual.

He kept going at it until it was time for lunch.

Harry ran into the dining hall and quickly stuffed food into his mouth.

The meeting with the alchemists had been set up for after lunch.

So, he had to eat up quickly and rush over to his carriage.

But as usual, Harry regretted not being able to run at his usual speeds, since the carriage rides always made his bottom beg him for death.

But running at that speed would be very destructive in a place like a human settlement.

Just the winds generated at half his preferred speed would be enough to knock down several houses.

As usual, it took him about half an hour to reach the Alchemy Guild.

And as usual, the three elders were waiting for his arrival.

“Ah, your majesty! You’re finally here!”, exclaimed Martin Stevens as Harry got off the carriage.

“Your majesty! You need to help us!”, added Wang Cheng.

“Yes, your majesty! The rubber and the plastic thing that you wrote about are extremely difficult to make!

The ones we have managed to make so far don’t look a bit like how you described in the letter.”, Wilbur Smith added.

It seemed like they had been so desperately waiting for him that they started finishing each other’s sentences.

“Well, gentlemen, shall we first step into the actual Alchemy Guild before discussing these topics?”, Harry asked politely.

“Sure, as you wish, your majesty!

Oh, and we are planning to change the name of our institution...”

“Yes, your majesty.

It is as elder Stevens said.

After reading through the books you provided us, we have decided that alchemy is too primitive compared to chemistry.

And we have decided to rename ‘Alchemy Guild’ to ‘Chemistry Guild’!”

From Wilbur Smith’s words, it seemed like Harry’s idea of making the alchemists take up chemistry instead of alchemy was working smoothly.

But he felt that their naming sense was still a bit too basic.

“Oh!

That’s a great idea. But I feel that the new name is a little too basic and similar to the old one if compared to the large difference between alchemy and chemistry.

I was thinking about something fancy, like ‘Eruchean Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry’ or ‘EUPAC’ for short.

What do you think?”

“‘Pure and Applied’ Chemistry? What do you mean by that?

We fail to understand, your majesty.”, asked Wang Cheng looked very confused by the fancy-sounding name.

“Ah, it’s just that chemistry contains two major parts, pure chemistry that deals with the research part of chemistry and applied chemistry, which deals with the application of chemistry in practical life.

The actual naming thing is mainly for show.

I just thought that using the names of both fields makes it feel more advanced and mature than a simple change from alchemy to chemistry.

But it’s up to you guys.”, said Harry as he made up excuses to cover up his blatant plagiarism.

“No, no, your majesty!

The name you chose sounds very advanced and much better than the one we decided on!

From today onwards, we shall call our Alchemy Guild the Eruchean Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry or EUPAC, just as you decided.”

Harry could easily tell that Wilbur was just trying to butter up to him with his words.

But he didn’t care.

At least the name he forced upon them didn’t sound something that I child would use, like “Chemistry Guild”.

Harry felt like he’d die of cringe if he had to use that name for an organisation that he had major plans for. Plans that would allow it to stand among the top rankers of Etheldor.

Stepping inside, he saw a much better setup than the last time he came. 

The people working were using somewhat proper equipment. 

They had figured out the way to make glass by themselves using the information in the chemistry books. 

That's why more glass equipment could be seen being used by the researchers. 

Even the things being done seemed more organised than the witchcraft that they used to do earlier. 

It seemed that everyone had taken the changes quite positively. 

Harry followed the trio over to one of their workstations. 

There were pieces of "something" lying there. 

"Say, what're these things?", Harry asked, curious about what looked like half-burnt pieces of coal. 

"Your majesty, these two pieces are what we managed to make while attempting to make the 'artificial' rubber and this is the only remaining sample of the 'plastic'. 

After several unsuccessful attempts, this was the best that we could do…" 

Wang Cheng looked quite depressed as he told Harry about the result of their efforts. 

But nothing could be done about the failed attempts. 

" Guys, don't get so depressed about such small failures! 

This is normal in this line of work. I'm pretty sure that alchemy had much worse failures, right? 

You guys managed to not get affected by that but are having a breakdown about this?", said Harry, as he tried to boost their morale. 

" But, your majesty, alchemy was like shooting arrows in the dark. 

We didn't know what to do in the first place. 

But this time, we had proper instructions. 

Yet we failed!"

"Don't worry! 

Such things keep happening. 

You're new to this stuff. So, you're bound to make some mistakes… 

But now, I'm here to help, aren't I? 

So, stop looking like you have waterfalls in your eyes and start working!

This will turn out just fine!"

Saying this, Harry pulled out his handkerchief to wipe their faces. 

This sight pulled them back to their senses and they began wiping their faces. 

How could they make the king wipe their faces?

That would be like insulting their king!

After about 30 seconds, all three calmed themselves down. 

Finally, the main work could begin. 

The four of them travelled to the area where some people were still attempting to make rubber. 

Harry wasn't allowed to do everything since everyone felt that it was too disrespectful of them to stand by as their king did the work for them. 

So, Harry reluctantly agreed to just guide them verbally. 

Under Harry's expert guidance and after making a few more mistakes, they were finally able to make proper artificial rubber. 

And then it took some time more to repeat the process for practising. 

Plastic making was a similar process. 

But it took longer, considering the ginormous number of hydrocarbons that exist. 

So, even though they did not have to make too many types of plastics, it still took a comparatively long time. 

Harry had also tasked them with finding petroleum, which they had succeeded at. 

So, the plastic and rubber making wasn't as hard as if they tried making everything from scratch. 

Harry even saw that some of the researchers had at least successfully managed to separate the major components of petroleum. 

Now, he had the material and the fuel to make trucks a reality. 

All that was left was the actual body and the assembly. 

After making sure that the researchers were able to recreate everything by themselves without causing any accidents, Harry rushed out of the building and jumped into his carriage. 

One painful ride later, he arrived at the smithy that was mainly responsible for the forging of the truck's metal parts. 

These guys seemed to be stuck while making the little components for the engine. 

Blacksmiths of this world were more used to taking chunks of hot metal and beating it into shape.

They mostly made cold weapons like swords and shields and these could be easily made by beating a red hot chunk of metal that had been cut into a similar shape and size.

Even with the steam engine, Harry had modified it so that it didn’t involve anything that couldn’t be made in their usual way.

But the truck’s parts were much more complicated.

This stuff required very tiny and precisely made components like screws and watertight pistons.

These things could be made by simply beating metal into shape.

The simplest small screw would take a year or something to make considering its equally spaced grooves.

That’s why Harry had decided to step in before the blacksmiths wasted any more time.

Stepping inside, Harry noticed a huge pile of small misshapen metal pieces which, he figured, either used to be screws or were supposed to be screws.

But they looked bad enough to be called metal nuggets kept there to be melted instead of something useful like a screw.

Harry now started helping the blacksmiths who gathered around him.

He also asked some of them to get the steam engines from the nearby smithies. 

Harry had given different tasks to different smithies. The biggest one got the job of making the truck parts while the others were tasked with making steam engines.

After about half an hour, Harry spotted about 10 steam engines being brought in on carts.

Once they were kept on the ground, Harry began working on modifying all of them.

Screws had to be made in bulk and even if someone could make it fast enough, Harry would rather have the guy working on something more productive.

So, Harry started making a proto screw-making machine using all the steam engines.

The machines were made of better quality steel than what the screws were supposed to be made of.

So, Harry modified the pistons attached to steam engines to turn chunks of metal into thin wires, convert the wires into screw blanks (screws without any grooves), one to punch the screw head and finally the last few to cut out the grooves.

Due to the poor quality of the materials and parts used, this setup would only be able to make about 10 screws a minute unlike the 60-2000 screws per minute that machines could make on Earth.

He also made some other attachments for making other similar items and explained the method of operation to everyone in the smithy.

These blacksmiths might feel threatened by the new machine that could do a much better job at making screws than they could, but Harry’s work would never be done on time without it.

That’s why Harry was willing to risk it.

All this took a few hours and Harry only returned home by dinner time.

After that, Harry could only do very little work in his office before his body forced him to go to sleep.

But thanks to Harry’s efforts, all the components were ready after just a few more days.

Harry then proceeded to guide everyone to assemble the truck.

Thankfully they had a lot of spares for the smaller components because a lot of the parts got broken while the assembly was going on.

Unfortunately, even after all this, the truck looked like a chunk of grey metal.

This was because paints and dyes were too expensive currently and Harry gave more importance to building houses than making paint.

Unlike the reveal of the steam engine, the reveal of this truck was done in public only.

The truck wasn’t anything too special by modern standards.

It was a simple large vehicle with a bit box attached at the back for storing construction material.

There weren’t even hydraulic pistons attached to dump the load and everything from loading to unloading had to be done by hand.

That stuff would be included in later models and the current truck was just the bare minimum Harry needed.

The truck had been assembled in a large field near the area where the farmers lived.

A large crowd had also gathered there.

As usual, Harry gave a short speech to the people.

He hadn’t specified the reason for the gathering and just said that a revolutionary thing had been built by the alchemists and the blacksmiths together. (Most people didn’t know that the name of the alchemists had changed, so Harry decided to announce it after this event only.)

Harry knew that even after seeing the steam engine work, most people would not able to understand anything about the truck since the two looked nothing alike.

That’s why, even in his speech, Harry just mentioned that they would be seeing something similar to the steam engine.

That was a nice reference point for the people to make sense out of what was to come.

After this, a few large buckets filled with some unknown were brought.

These were the buckets of fuel that were then poured into the truck’s fuel tank.

Harry did the ceremonious deed of pouring one bucket himself and the rest were poured in by the blacksmiths.

But since no one knew how to drive, it was decided that Harry would be the one to operate the truck.

Everyone’s reactions were amazing when the truck started moving.

Even the blacksmiths were quite shocked on seeing their creation suddenly come to life.

The only reason that no one fled was that their king was inside the “metal beast”.

So, they probably wouldn’t be harmed.

Harry drove the truck for about half an hour before going and parking it in the spot designated for keeping future construction vehicles. (Decided by Harry a few days prior.)

It wasn’t the smoothest ride he had ever had but it was good enough for now.

The entire exhibition was successful also.

People were looking excited.

Harry also planned on teaching people from the masonry guild how to drive once more and better vehicles were made.