Chapter 1007: Chapter 950: Secrets of the Alchemy Workshop and the Clockwork Disturbance

"What is this?" Standing behind Hilov, Horn’s single sentence scared the Wolf Woman’s tail into puffing up.

The Wolf Woman’s horrified expression was evidently a perfect match for Horn’s sneaky approach, causing him to burst into laughter.

After bidding farewell to Jeanne, Horn was invigorated and momentarily parted ways with his card design work.

Passing the work to Madlan, he took a carriage through Central Avenue and the Parra River, quietly arriving at the Mechanical Palace.

"You scared me, I almost released the coil spring." Hilov’s tone was full of complaint as she reattached the coil spring on her brass prosthetic leg, her face remaining calmly elegant.

It seemed that she wore such expressions often; although Hilov could already display various expressions, her most common one was emotionless just like this.

"Isn’t this to stimulate your emotions?" Horn maneuvered to sit next to Hilov, "The doctor said the more stimulation you have, the richer your expressions will be."

"I’ve said it before, I can walk and run, cry and laugh, I don’t need frightened expressions." The Wolf Woman was clearly quite startled by Horn.

"Who says that? Just now your frightened expression was very natural."

Hilov rolled her eyes at Horn.

Horn immediately praised, "Especially this eye roll, it’s your best expression yet... you still haven’t answered my question, what is this?"

"A design drawing for a mixer submitted by Leonardo for the latest alchemy potion workshop."

This alchemy potion workshop, as the name suggests, is specifically used for making alchemy potions.

In fact, if you talk about the daily necessities market, the things Imperial People use the most are potions.

They drink potions to cure diseases when ill and take them on the battlefield to boost morale.

They bathe with potions for cleaning and use them as fertilizers in farming.

They even consume them when thirsty or hungry.

Solid, paste, liquid—all kinds of forms.

But after testing by Sessi and various pharmacists across different places, many potions have been found ineffective.

In other words, they are merely comforters or even hallucinogens.

Currently, Sessi and others are compiling the "Holy Alliance Pharmacopoeia," selecting genuinely effective potions and identifying those most needed within the Holy Alliance and on the Imperial market.

These potions are still made in the form of workshops, and their production and efficiency far outweigh the single-person operations at a pharmacist’s hut.

For Horn, the future light and heavy industries will rely on potions.

In fact, The Imperial People’s definition of potions is exceptionally vague.

Besides the potions used for healing, there are those used for cleaning, bleaching, and coating rooftops.

According to Horn, they seem to classify anything requiring a mixing reaction as a potion or elixir.

For instance, the method to produce copper in this world starts by crushing the copper ore, removing impurities, soaking it in an elixir, and heating it.

After heating, copper metal slowly dissolves in the elixir, leaving only impurities, which are then filtered, with other elixirs added, eventually air-drying and precipitating spongy copper.

The same applies to iron smelting.

Even though this iron smelting method is enhanced by workshops, its efficiency remains incredibly low.

Moreover, only low-quality iron can be produced, requiring substantial hammering later.

That’s why Horn established the Black Snake Bay herb plantation, using it alongside the Holy Machinery Court’s alchemy potion workshops to mass-produce various elixirs.

Currently, this semi-mechanical workshop is still in its experimental stage, hence it’s managed by the Mechanical Palace in design and management.

"How’s it running?" Horn picked up the documents on the table to start reading.

"Currently, we plan to produce three kinds of potions: powder for treating colds, powder for treating dysentery, and a paste for cleaning."

"Encountered any difficulties?"

"Yes, but it’s unrelated to the potions themselves."

Horn stood up: "Today’s sunshine is splendid; let’s go for a walk. I brought you a new toy.

Tell me while we’re on the road, and I’ll see if I have a way to help you solve it."

Pushing Hilov’s wheelchair, they descended from the Mechanical Palace Main Hall and passed through corridors to reach outside.

The surrounding loyal followers all greeted them with salutes, and Horn nodded in acknowledgment.

"Due to the precise time requirements for potion making, we all have mountain copper clocks to control time.

But starting from last year, someone reported that the clocks were inaccurate."

"Inaccurate?" Horn repeated the word, "Then why not find someone to repair them?"

"It’s not so simple. We sent people to check, and there was nothing wrong." Hilov shook her head, her soft wolf ears flopping.

This gave Horn the urge to reach out and pinch them.

And he indeed went ahead and did so.

The furry, soft sensation, under the fine fur, you could feel the soft cartilage and the ear hairs within the ear.

"What are you doing?" With a slap, the Wolf Woman swatted Horn’s hand, her face reddened, "I’m not a dog; don’t touch my ears randomly."

The current Wolf Woman is the president of the Holy Council of theological and technical matters; naturally, she must maintain elegance and dignity in front of outsiders.

Besides, are a wolf’s ears something just anyone can mess with?

"It’s for stimulating your emotions; that doctor said so."

"Honestly, did you instruct that doctor’s diagnosis method?" The Wolf Woman squinted at Horn, clenching her tail.

Horn, however, turned his head aside, pretending to look at other scenic places. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Seeing the Wolf Woman still glaring at him, he sheepishly remarked, "All right, go on, next time I promise not to do that."

Only then did Hilov continue speaking: "...Later, I personally went to inspect, but still found no issues.

But I noticed not just the workshop clocks, even my own clock showed errors, just too small for me to have noticed.

Then I ordered an investigation, guess what I discovered?"

"What did you discover?"

"No issues with small clocks; across the whole Holy Machinery Court, any large clock had errors."

Upon hearing this, Horn’s expression finally grew serious, the city’s clock errors weren’t a trivial matter.

"As for the reason," Hilov spoke this problem with the same puzzled look on her face, "most of the mantel clocks are made of mountain copper coil springs, small clocks use normal springs, our initial judgment is the mountain copper coil spring has issues."

"Mountain copper coil spring has issues? What problem?"

"Unknown." The Wolf Woman shook her head, her tail wiggling in tandem, "But I’ve sent people to investigate; perhaps too many Mages living in one place caused excessive mana leakage, even affecting the springs."

"You can’t be saying that mana can transmit over a distance?" After a few seconds of pondering, Horn was pleasantly surprised.

This would be groundbreaking news!

The Holy Machinery Court University, Dragon Language Alchemy Academy, along with various wizard scholars, have been researching mana conductivity.

Researching for four or five years, apart from a fake low-temperature mana superconductor proven false a few years ago, nothing has come out of it.

If mana could transmit over a distance, why bother with mana transmission pipelines?

"In your dreams." Hilov rolled her eyes, "If mana could transmit over a conductor like air with minimal loss, any mage could conjure fireballs in an enemy’s eye.

But reality dictates that a mage can only conjure spells within an elbow or two-elbow distance.

Even ray-type spells need to condense at the palm or fingertip before launching.

This could be mana causing an abnormal disturbance to the coil spring, not adding mana into it."

"I’m just imagining." Horn affectionately patted Hilov’s head, like a soothing fashion with a playful puppy.

At this point, the two were already in the flower field, surrounded by grass, with few people around, naturally letting Hilov enjoy the head sensation with closed eyes.

"Alright, promised to play with you, let’s exercise." Horn pulled out a yellow frisbee from his backpack, "This is the rising trend in frisbee, where people throw and catch it amongst each other. Want to give it a try?"

The two had prearranged this; Hilov specifically asked Horn to accompany her outdoors at least thrice a week this year.

After all, the current situation with the Holy Alliance had settled down, and the Saint’s Grandson’s lifelong affair should also be sorted.

Other Saintesses were out there, but she had been by Horn’s side in the Holy Machinery Court all along.

She had ulterior motives.

But at the instant she saw the frisbee, she felt a strange impulse arise internally.

Her tail instantly spun faster than the coil key of her prosthetic leg, propelling her to stand upright from the wheelchair.

"Are you ready?"

Hilov rapidly nodded.

Horn whooshed the frisbee out: "Fetch it back!"

As if activated within her body, Hilov instantly dashed towards the frisbee.

She abruptly halted halfway.

Horn was clapping and shouting behind: "It’s about to land, Hilov, quick catch it! Come on, quick quick quick!"

Hilov didn’t continue chasing the frisbee; instead, she pivoted and charged at Horn with large strides.

"Ho——rn——"

"Boom——"

The Saintess delivered a locomotive headbutt right into the Saint’s Grandson’s chest.