Chapter 259: The Witch From the Sleeping Island (Part 2)

The fourth is Sylvie. ????Hunting Wen?????

When facing this witch, Roland always felt a little uncomfortable. It was not because Nightingale said she lied too much. In modern society, except for relatives and close friends, few people would speak out. He has long been used to flattery and rumors.

He just felt that he had nowhere to hide in front of her. What's worse, he knew that this was not an illusion, but the other party's ability. Regardless of the impaired vision, as long as she wants to, the clothes on her body are the same. While sighing secretly why he didn't have such ability, Roland involuntarily changed his sitting position and raised his legs.

In terms of appearance, she can be regarded as the most unique among these five witches: her long green hair falls straight to her shoulders, her eyebrows are slender, and she is faintly visible under her bangs. Especially her pair of amber pupils, which are so transparent that there is almost no depth, reflecting all the light like a mirror. After watching it for a long time, Roland always felt that a red mark would suddenly appear inside.

Sylvie's ability is very easy to understand, she can see all the scenes around her body - the back is no exception, and her vision can penetrate obstacles, the specific depth of penetration depends on her thoughts. In addition, she also has a branch ability similar to Nightingale: she can see the gathering and dissipation of magic power.

This made Roland a little surprised. If the branch ability can be so close, what about the main ability? He asked this question to Sylvie, but the latter hesitated, saying that among the hundreds of witches on Sleeping Island, there was no one with the same ability. Nightingale's light pinch on the left side verified that this sentence was true.

Probably because of too few samples, Roland thought.

The last witch to appear is Candlelight.

Like Anna, she ushered in her coming of age during the Moon of Demons last year. When she was a minor, her ability could only act on lighting objects such as candles, lamp oil, and torches. After she became an adult, her magic power was stabilized and the effect was greatly enhanced. She could maintain the original characteristics of the objects she touched for a period of time—for example, After the ice cube is cast, it will not melt when placed in the sun, and it still emits bursts of cold air.

This ability seems incredible at first glance, and it can achieve many things that cannot be achieved by conventional means, but after several rounds of testing, Roland found that it is not as perfect as imagined. First of all, it is a kind of enchanting ability, which requires direct contact with the target. This limitation makes it difficult for candles to solidify some high-temperature objects.

So his vain attempt to obtain a drop of molten steel that would remain incandescent forever, which could continuously provide a source of heat for the blast furnace, went bankrupt. Except for Anna, no one dared to touch things with a thousand degrees of temperature with their hands. And if it becomes a length of thin wire, the candle can hold the other end for enchanting, but this leads to another problem.

That is, the farther the solidified state of the object is from the normal state, the greater the consumption of mana, and the shorter the lasting effect.

Roland verified this with ice cubes—after ice cubes of the same size were solidified, one was placed on the hot ground and the other was thrown into the water basin. Even when it is cold, it still maintains its original shape.

This means that it would only be less effective if replaced with red hot wire or steel rods.

Finally, size is also a factor that restricts the ability of candlelight. Like Hummingbird and Mystery Moon, the larger the target, the more mana it will consume. According to Nightingale's observations, her own magic power is at the middle to lower level, like a cloud of golden mist that has not yet formed a dense cyclone.

But even so, this introverted girl is still Roland's biggest achievement - in the field of industrial production, the state of solidified objects is completely invaluable, and the key lies in the word "normality". Affected by various factors such as heating and cooling, friction, and force, the metal will fatigue and the structure will deform. He does not need a drill bit that becomes hot due to friction, nor does he need a gear that is seriously worn out day by day. If the key parts of a machine can always remain normal, it means that it can always maintain maximum efficiency and highest precision operation.

In other words, searing can effectively improve the mechanical strength of inferior metals.

...

Back at the castle office, Roland reviewed the recorded abilities again, and then began to plan their future work.

"How about it?" Nightingale poked her head out of the mist, "Among the five witches, do you particularly like it?"

"It's all good," Roland replied casually.

"What! Do you like them all?"

He glared at the other party, who stuck out his tongue and walked away with a piece of dried fish in his mouth.

Obviously, from the current point of view, the most useful ones are lotus and candlelight.

With the ability to transform the terrain, he can easily build a new earth wall outside the city wall. In order to save materials and speed up the construction period, the original rough stone cement wall chose the pass at the foot of the north slope and the Chishui River that is the closest. Although it can be completed before the arrival of the Demon Moon, it also limits the scope of the town's westward expansion. As the population continues to increase, it will be a matter of time before this field and the hidden forest are opened.

The new earthen wall will extend to the outer edge of the Misty Forest and at the same time include a forest, so that the town will nearly double in size. As for the elongated defense line, it can be solved by expanding the source of troops and artificially guiding the evil beasts to attack. In any case, compared with last year's wooden spears and front-loading flintlocks, the firepower projection ability of the First Army has undergone earth-shaking changes, and defensive measures such as forts and bastions can also be used together with the new city walls. and done.

In addition, he also planned to let Lian open a passage in the southern mountain, so that Border Town could directly reach the shallows. In this way, the town can obtain a natural harbor and trade with the fjords is more convenient. Considering the mana consumption of transforming rock formations is enormous, this project may take several months.

Candle's job is to cooperate with Anna and Lucia to manufacture a new generation of machine tools for the production of firearms and other mechanical equipment. If it goes well, Anna can also be freed from the boring processing and production.

Sylvie's task is very clear, mainly to explore the mines on the north slope and the hidden forest. According to those miners, there are more than a hundred natural caves in the mine on the north slope, and no one knows where they eventually lead. Now there are only twenty or so passages that have been mined and cleared, and several kinds of ores have been found. Roland is very curious about how credible the rumors of the so-called ancient monster's lair are. Now that he has a witch with perspective ability, he wants to explore the north slope mining area completely, draw a detailed map, and let Lian cooperate to adjust the terrain to improve the mining efficiency.

As for honey, Roland didn't have too many ideas, just to strengthen his information transmission ability in the era without radio. He needs a large number of well-trained birds to be used as carrier pigeons. He does not require them to be as smart as Maggie, as long as they can pass the information to him as soon as possible. (To be continued.)