SCT-Novel #245 - The materials are finally ready
#245 - The materials are finally ready
As Lu Jing and the others walked into the mountain's belly, a wave of heat immediately washed over them, scorching their hair until it curled.
They saw in the open space not far away, a giant furnace as tall as four people was burning red-hot. Because the underground temperature was too high, the rock layer below the giant furnace had even melted, turning into a pool of magma, enveloping the giant furnace.
"Sorry, I'm helping the Sitianjian forge a batch of armor, and I've pushed the geothermal fire to its maximum, so it might be a little hot here, you may have to bear with it."
Chi, who was leading the way, turned her head and said, but looking at her own appearance, she seemed to be used to this temperature and didn't care much. She only told Lu Jing and the others not to get too close to the giant furnace, and then rode the Nietie to the front of the giant furnace.
She first looked inside to confirm that the materials she had thrown in were being refined, then walked to a small pool not far away, and grabbed a handful of shimmering silver objects from a row of stone boxes placed there.
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When Chi returned to the three, she spread out her palm and said proudly.
"This is a new material I discovered. Its hardness is unparalleled in the world, far exceeding ordinary refined iron. I plan to use it to forge the most durable weapon in the world. As long as I succeed, all the treasured weapons in the Jianghu will become worthless."
"Is this... silver?" Yang Tao curiously grabbed a small piece from Chi's hand, but after touching it, he found that although the two looked somewhat similar, this thing seemed to be about one-third lighter than silver of the same volume.
Then he tried to scratch the stone wall with this shiny silver piece, and sure enough, he easily scratched a mark on the stone wall.
So Yang Tao increased the force on his fingers, wanting to see how deep a mark this small silver piece could scratch, but he didn't expect that this small silver piece would snap in half with a snap before he had exerted much force.
Yang Tao couldn't help but look stunned.
But Chi seemed to have realized that this would happen, and said, "Although this thing is hard, it is very brittle, probably because the impurities inside have not been cleaned up yet. I estimate that Nietie will have to eat it at least a hundred more times before it can become purer."
However, before Chi could finish speaking, she heard Lu Jing shake his head and say, "I think it's quite pure already."
If it weren't for the fact that she didn't know what relationship this young man had with Ye Gongmei, Chi might have already told this arrogant and ignorant guy to leave.
But Chi's gaze towards Lu Jing was indeed becoming more and more unkind, "You better give me a solid reason."
Lu Jing didn't seem to be in a hurry when he heard this. He had just tried to scratch the stone wall with these small silver pieces, and even scratched a discarded treasured weapon that he had randomly picked up in the tunnel behind him, and left traces on it.
And looking closely at the small silver piece, the position of the head hardly changed, and it was indeed amazing in terms of hardness, but if you used force to break it from both sides, it would be easily broken, which also allowed Lu Jing to further determine what this thing was.
Chromium.
One of the hardest metals in the world. From this point of view, what Chi said earlier was correct.
However, chromium itself is also very brittle, regardless of purity. This is the material characteristic of chromium itself, so it is not realistic to use pure chromium to make weapons.
In fact, Chi's initial starting point was wrong. Pure metals have their own defects, and the purer the metal, the less suitable it is to be directly used to make weapons.
Of course, this cannot be blamed on Ye Gongmei's blind command. First, Ye Gongmei, a beastmaster, doesn't know much about materials science. Second, due to the limitations of the times, most blacksmiths and weapon refiners in this era are full of thoughts on how to extract from ore purification.
So, whether it was Ye Gongmei or Chi, they subconsciously thought that the purer the material, the better.
In Lu Jing's previous life, humans did not truly master alloy technology until the 20th century and were able to mass-produce steel. Before this, only a very small number of regions and a few sword-making masters were able to create excellent steel blades, and each successful forging also had a certain element of luck in it.
But from another point of view, Lu Jing couldn't help but admire Chi.
Because as far as he knew, although chromium is widely distributed in the earth's crust, it mostly exists in the form of chromite. With the current level of technology, it is almost impossible to directly extract chromium.
Of course, it was difficult for Lu Jing to directly tell Chi the reason for this. First, because he couldn't explain to Chi, Xia Huai, and Yang Tao where this knowledge came from, and second, even if he said it, Chi might not believe it.
Therefore, after thinking about it, Lu Jing directly asked Chi, "Do you have pure iron here?"
"Yes." Chi nodded, and then proudly said, "The batch of armor I refined for the Sitianjian was made of the purest iron. The armor is extremely strong. I still have some stock here, but... what do you want to use them for?"
Lu Jing thought to himself, sister, your armor is not pure iron either. It must contain carbon elements and become steel, the most common alloy used in his previous life, otherwise it would not be so strong. It's just because carbon elements are generally in the flame and cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Even the so-called weapon refining masters cannot understand atomic matters.
And steel is not so easy to refine, especially low-carbon steel, which is suitable for making weapons, is quite difficult to refine, and the proportion of carbon elements must be controlled at one percent.
This is why there are so few excellent sword makers. Their method of refining low-carbon steel has always been passed down through a single line.
From this point of view, Chi and her master's smelting technology is indeed very powerful.
However, what Lu Jing wants to refine at this moment is not ordinary steel. He still remembers a popular science book on materials science that he read as a leisure book in high school, which talked about an alloy made of three elements: iron, chromium, and carbon.
It just so happens that Lu Jing now has iron and chromium in his hand, plus carbon in the air. The materials are all ready, but Lu Jing has now forgotten the specific corresponding ratio of that thing.
Lu Jing simply divided the iron and chromium in his hand into several parts, with the amount of chromium decreasing equally, and then pushed this pile of things to Chi next to him, saying, "You refine it, just refine it according to the method you used to face the Sitianjian armor before."
Chi looked a little skeptical, but she still took the pile of things. She herself was extremely obsessed with refining weapons, and nothing could make her happier than refining weapons, especially when there were new directions to try.