Road To The Crown 147 It's Finally Working!

29th April 1574

"Start the fires!"

After learning from the previous accident, despite how simple the entire task seemed to be, I made sure to take all the precautions possible to prevent another engine failure from happening.

Starting with just enough fuel placed below the boiler to get the water to boil with a row of workers ready to pa.s.s new blocks of firewood if everything would go all right, all the way to the set of valves for the steam, capable of forcibly shutting the entire machine down from a simple bunker wall twenty meters away made with a thick layer of the earth laid on both sides with a set of hardwood logs.

Seeing that the fire was slowly starting to lick the belly of the boiler, I turned on the vision tool that I didn't bother to use the last time, making sure that no part would turn red this time. After the initial success with the atmospheric steam horse and due to how I derived the blueprint for the pressure steam horse from what system provided, I simply turned too careless and two entire lives were lost due to that fact.

"Okay boys, add some wood."

Seeing that all the parts of the engine still looked exactly the same with my tool implemented as they looked without it, I gestured for a moment to make sure enough wood would be stored within the flames to keep them going for a while.

Even though someone could think that this way of adding fuel was highly inefficient and simply stupid when considering the presence of several buckets filled to the brim with water and standing in wait for any emergency shutting down. But while they were placed nearby just for the described emergency, splas.h.i.+ng water on the burning wooden pieces would instantaneously release a huge cloud of steam with a relatively low temperature when compared to the belly of the boiler, easily leading to its deformation and even rupturing!

Considering how the entire steam horse was a closed system, the pressure inside the boiler was exactly the same as the pressure that was supposed to push this insanely huge flying wheel around its own axis, so if even a tinies hole appeared in the tank, not only would it lead to the explosion capable of tearing the entire machine apart, with all the steam that would be released in that very moment, everyone in the direct proximity would boil up in a flas.h.!.+

"The wheel is starting to move!"

Considering how much attention I put to making sure everyone would be safe even if the steam horse would malfunction again, rather than having people watch the entire process, the entire structure was surrounded by small bunkers, from where people only had small peepholes to observe their designated spots, forcing the entire crew to communicate with shouts only.

While I could make sure that nothing would happen with the use of this great tool gifted to me by the system, I still decided against it. Providing the manpower for building those simple safety measures didn't strain my manpower all that much, while everyone working on the project could see how much efforts I put in their own safety!

"The fire is stable!"

"The wheel is speeding up!"

With those two reports, the most dangerous part came. As long as the maximum power of the steam engine would be enough to spin the wheel at a reasonable speed, everything would finally work perfectly, allowing us to move to the other projects, from creating the iron form that would be used to quickly make new clay or even sand forms for the new power units of the steam horse, through the sawing plant all the way to those important improvements to the mines that I couldn't help but feel the urge to build!

Keeping a close tab on the state of the engine, I could see how the entire construction was slowly turning visible in my tool, entering the shade of grey and slowly moving towards light pink, dark pink all the way to the light orange…

But thanks to all the efforts we made to prevent all the possible problems, even going as far as to add another layer of iron on all the pipes and the boiler itself, once it reached the orange stage, the steam engine was simply unable to move the wheel even faster!

As the process was now stable, I instructed the workers to keep adding the fuel to keep the fire exactly as it was now, before moving away from the bunker wall and getting closer to the entire machine.

Using the two days that we wasted to make sure everything would be safe, I moved some of the manpower to add a simple roof to the entire construction, keeping the firemen responsible for keeping the engine hot, safe from the rain. As soon as the operation of this monstrosity would be confirmed to be completely safe, more structures would be added, from the walls encapsulating the entire thing all the way to the small barracks for the workers to keep the engine operating.

Yet no matter how long I kept my vision tool right in front of my sight, the colour of the most fragile parts of the engine remained light orange, even slowly turning back to the dark pink as the time went by!

"Everyone…"

Bringing up the attention of all the workers around with this simple shout, I waited for a moment to let the tension build up just a bit more, before raising my hands and allowing a smile to appear on my face.

"... WE DID IT!"

As my shout finally escaped my lips, everyone could stop themselves from cheering alongside me.

While most of the workers were away from the area, focusing on other tasks since I wanted to limit the number of people that would be subjected to the danger, when our cheers reached the rest of the nearby places, the entire area joined in, turning what was a b.l.o.o.d.y mess just two days ago, into a sea of joy once again!

"Sir, they spotted a s.h.i.+p approaching once again!"

Before the cheers could turn awkward and slowly die off as everyone would find it hard to be the last one to stop, one of the workers who seemed like he just ran the entire marathon approached me, completely disregarding his safety.

"Sure, I will go check it out."

Since the steam horse was now properly working, I couldn't wait to get my hands on all the materials that could be used to make proper use of this newfound power!