Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord-Chapter 205: Airship Skin and Technological Lock

Flying airship?

As soon as this word was spoken, the room fell silent. Although they didn’t know exactly what it meant, based on the literal interpretation… a flying ship?

“Indeed, we currently have no way to approach the sea, nor can we build ships, but we can fly over it.”

Hughes spread out the blueprint.

“This is the flying airship I designed. It can travel through the air. Apart from being a little slow, everything else is pretty good—what’s with those looks?”

The people in the room had their eyes wide open in shock.

Ash was relatively calm. As a banshee, she was born in the sea and had little yearning for the sky.

But Chloe and Alexei—both of them were visibly trembling.

“The Empire doesn’t have anything like this?”

“Of course not.”

Chloe swallowed hard.

“Are you serious? Humans can actually fly in the sky?”

“Uh… is that so difficult to achieve?”

Hughes scratched his head in confusion.

Airships were indeed impressive technology, but simply getting into the air shouldn’t be that hard, right?

“You guys haven’t invented hot air balloons?”

“What’s that?”

“So, you have no technology at all that allows flight?”

Chloe and Alexei shook their heads without hesitation.

“Humans are creatures of the land. Forget ordinary people—even those with extraordinary abilities don’t have the power to fly in the sky.

Can this flying airship really take us up there?”

“Of course. The principle behind it is actually similar to floating and sinking in water.

As long as we find a gas lighter than air, it will lift us up.

You do know the composition of air, right?”

Chloe shook her head again.

Hughes sighed.

The fundamental physics in this world seemed a bit skewed.

After a detailed explanation, the group gathered around the blueprint, studying it carefully.

“So, that large oval-shaped structure on top is a balloon?

It will be filled with hydrogen to generate lift, while movement is controlled by the surrounding propellers?”

“Exactly.”

“Then wouldn’t the balloon be extremely vulnerable to punctures?”

“That’s the tricky part of designing an airship.”

Hughes had based his design on the structure of a Zeppelin.

Its interior contained a large number of rigid frameworks, making it quite strong.

Considering that the armies of this era lacked significant anti-air capabilities, this thing would be nearly invincible on the battlefield—a complete technological suppression.

Chloe examined the blueprint for a long time before suddenly asking, “How do you make the airship’s outer skin?”

Hughes froze for a moment.

As expected of Chloe, she immediately pinpointed the biggest problem.

In fact, the most challenging part of building an airship wasn’t producing hydrogen but finding a suitable material for the outer skin.

This was also why he hadn’t brought out this blueprint earlier.

Strictly speaking, airship skin wasn’t some kind of advanced technology.

A combination of canvas and rubber would suffice.

But the real issue was—Castel had no rubber.

Rubber trees simply didn’t exist here.

Back in the Cold War, even the Soviet Union had suffered from a severe lack of rubber.

This basic agricultural product could easily cripple an entire industrial nation, proving its irreplaceable importance.

Of course, there were ways to get around this.

If Hughes could obtain a complete petrochemical industry, along with all the necessary industrial workers, and locate a few oil wells, he could skip rubber entirely and use composite materials instead.

But at the moment, Hughes had no such resources.

He braced himself and said to the two of them, “Our technological research has been progressing well lately.

Chloe, see if you can find a substitute material.”

“Alexei, try to find rubber trees on the island.”

“…Do you think this is a wishing machine?”

Chloe sighed.

“I’ve thought about this already.

Our recent technological breakthroughs were likely due to the lifting of a ‘technology lock.’”

Hughes narrowed his eyes.

He had suspected something like this before.

Ever since he successfully produced nitroglycerin, Castel’s overall research progress had seemingly come to a halt.

There were many things he clearly understood in theory, yet he simply couldn’t manufacture them.

For example, smokeless gunpowder.

Industrial-scale production of this stuff was admittedly complex.

But making it by hand in a lab shouldn’t have been that difficult—especially since he already knew the precise ratios of the ingredients.

And yet, he simply couldn’t make it.

No matter how much he adjusted the ratios, the final product always turned out to be low-quality and wildly inconsistent in performance.

This could be attributed to the high levels of impurities in the materials of this era, which disrupted the original ratios.

But it wasn’t just smokeless gunpowder.

Mercury fulminate, diatomaceous earth—he had failed to produce these too.

Yet, the technologies related to Clamorer, Machine Soul, and Entity Pollution combustion had developed without any hindrance.

It was as if purely technological advancements were being blocked, while anything related to the supernatural was allowed to progress.

He had discussed this with Chloe before, and together they named this phenomenon the "Technology Lock."

Where exactly did this lock come from?

Hughes had some vague guesses.

Perhaps… it was a phenomenon similar to cognitive interference, where some kind of will was actively preventing technological breakthroughs.

This will had altered reality itself.

But now, the technology lock had been broken.

The various technologies he had understood all along were suddenly easy to create.

It was as if an invisible restriction had been lifted.

Although he didn’t know why this had happened, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. frёewebηovel.cѳm

Hughes had already launched multiple research projects at the same time.

Castel’s technology would soon experience another major leap forward.

Chloe furrowed her brows.

“I don’t think simply lifting the technology lock would result in an explosion of breakthroughs.

It only removed a suppression.

Every successful technology is something we were already on the verge of achieving.

Do you understand what I mean?”

Hughes nodded.

So, it was like being stuck at 99% progress, and once the lock was lifted, everything that had already been completed would be instantly successful.

But the rest of the research would still take time as usual.

He sighed helplessly.

It seemed that building the flying airship wouldn’t be so easy after all.

Finding a material that was both airtight and strong enough for the airship’s skin was indeed a major challenge.

Perhaps it was more realistic to rely on Alexei finding rubber trees.

Castel had a warm climate, which was suitable for rubber trees.

Maybe they really existed somewhere on the island.

“However, I do have some ideas about the airship’s skin.”

Chloe’s next words immediately pulled Hughes’ attention back.

“Do you remember those murlocs?”

A considerable number of murloc captives had already been taken.

The task of interrogating them had been assigned to the Moths Chasing Fire.

Had they uncovered something useful?

“Those murlocs seem incapable of communication.

After a series of tests, we found that they seem to act purely on instinct, without any rational thought.

We don’t know if they’ve always been like this or if something changed recently.”

“At the same time, another experiment revealed that their skin is extremely tough.”