Cthulhu Gonfalon

Chapter 307: Chapter 17

As the saying went, “Gentlemen can wait for a long time until they can take revenge, even for ten years.”

Frost was not necessarily a gentleman, but he was a type of “even for ten years.”

In order to take revenge of that time, Gerald had quietly endured for a long time while secretly planning and building a good relations.h.i.+p with several legendary strongmen under the Church of the Void Mask. For that, he had even lowered himself to help the knights train as a vivid textbook.

In the end, he had finally gotten the opportunity while waiting.

At the end of last year, Gerald had finally mastered his own strength. He had been able to control this power freely. Not only had he been able to change his size at will, but he had also gained many extraordinary abilities as well.

In addition to the human figure, he had essentially been a powerful legendary creature, even stronger than many dragons.

Frost had noticed the opportunity, so he had immediately launched his plan, encouraging Gerald to find himself a powerful mount.

According to Gerald’s original intention, he had wanted to find something like a Heavenly Warhorse. After all, this big man was honest, not greedy. However, Frost couldn’t let him just find a Heavenly Warhorse. Therefore, he had persuaded him again and again with something like, “The real strongman must ride a dragon to swagger through the street,” or “A hero must own a matched mount. The Heavenly Warhorse was not worthy of your ident.i.ty as the head of the knights under the Void Mask’s Majesty,” or “First of all, a good mount must be able to help the master exert full strength. With your strength, only a dragon is suitable.” Frost had said countless sentences like those.

Although Gerald’s strength had greatly improved, his brain had not become smarter. On the contrary, his way of thinking had been more direct, or more straightforward because of his greatly improved power. If placed in some Xian Xia novels, it perhaps was equivalent to the innocent heart, or a “spotless conscience” in the legends.

He had originally wanted a powerful mount. After being encouraged by Frost, he had put down the scruples and taken his subordinates to the Mount Buried Stone deep in the Graystone Mountains. He had set up a huge boundary with humans as nodes to surround the entire Mount Buried Stone and then had gone to negotiate with Talay Stone.

The negotiation between the two sides had not been pleasant at all. It could be proven by “Buried Stone Hills,” which was directly converted from the former Mount Buried Stone after the negotiation. In the end, Talay Stone, who had been beaten black and blue, had bowed his head with a grievance in the principle of “a wise man who knows when to retreat,” and had become Gerald’s mount.

This result had made Frost very dissatisfied. He had originally thought that as an overlord of the Mount Buried Stone, Talay Stone should have a temperament of breaking rather than bending. He must fight to the end, and would rather die than submit. However, it had been unexpected that this dragon could take temporary setbacks, bowing down and willing to let a person ride him like a horse. The revenge that Frost had planned for many years hadn’t been taken completely, and that had made him really confused and secretly angry. Because of that, people who had come to the warehouse to get the goods had been frightened countless times.

Today, Leon had ridden the Green Dragon, Galstoby, to visit, and that finally had made his repressed anger to burst out. Therefore, Frost had run out and abused Talay Stone severely, ruining the old dragon’s fragile heart to pieces, and making him lose face in front of the same race. That had made him release his grievances that had been acc.u.mulated for many years. So he had suddenly felt that the sky and the ground grew, the clouds were whiter, the flowers were more vibrant, and the guys who came to receive supplies had all looked gentle, honest and kind.

Therefore, that night, a rumor had appeared in the Land.

“Did you know? Our warehouse keeper seems to be in a good mood today.”

“I am not blind! He actually smiled at me today!”

“Right! When I went to him to get things, usually his eyes could scare me to death. Today, he smiled… It’s creepy!”

“Not just a smile! When I normally get things from him, he would check again and again, even picky about something small like a needle and a thread. He was more serious than a housekeeper! But today, he actually only looked at the receiving list, then simply gave me the goods without a single word. It was incredible!”

“Guys, is it possible that he is in love?”

“It is possible! Look at his smirk. He really seems to be in love…”

“G.o.d! That cold-faced a.s.s can also fall in love? What girl is so great that she can accept this guy?”

“She is infinitely merciful, saving people from sorrows and sufferings!”

“Let’s make a toast to the great lady!”

“Okay, cheers!”

Therefore, these words had spread just like this. As a saying went, “Truths can only walk, but rumors can fly.” Just in a few days, the rumors about Warehouse Keeper Frost having fallen in love had been flying around in the Land. There had also been several versions, even including an anti-ethical version that the lady had been his sister, Miss Graupel, and their sister Miss Snowflake had been acting as a villain role to break up them. Another female-oriented version said that the love interest was a bearded brawny man, and that Lord Frost was the bottom one… That one was hardcore…

Later, Frost heard those rumors, and he was incredibly angry. He searched like a mad dog to find out which b.a.s.t.a.r.d was fond of spreading all that gibberish. His investigation caused great turmoil, but all those things would have happened sooner or later.

After Leon’s visit, Sui Xiong had dealt with the events of the church roughly; then he had started to plan a major project—industrial revolution!

He had read a lot of online novels before time traveling, in which the travelers would often engage greatly in the industrial revolution. They would burn gla.s.s, produce guns, execute shooting lines, use cannons to attack cities, make steel in blast furnaces and synthesize fertilizers which were just like magic. The products of the modern industry would be invented and quickly promoted. The levels of productivity of the territories would rise rapidly. In a few years, they would catch up with the world’s advanced levels and even be able to smash the whole world with such a tiny territory.

Sui Xiong thought that he was not only a time traveler, but he also had such powerful abilities. On the basis of his abilities, he was confident that even when those travelers who had traveled through the history gathered together, he would be able to defeat all of them on his own. As everyone knew, most of the people who liked to climb the technology tree were from the novels of traveling through the history, so the protagonists were basically normal people with mortal physical bodies—since those mortals could do it, there was no reason that he, such a powerful being, couldn’t do it.

Therefore, he had been determined to retreat for a period of time, to bring out the industrial revolution first!

Well… what should he start with?

He had made a decision after pondering for a little while to start with blast furnace steel-making!

What was the basis of modern industry?

Steel!

To launch the industrial revolution, of course, he had to start increasing steel production!

To increase steel production, certainly, he had to work on legendary “blast furnace steel-making” technology!

Therefore, Sui Xiong had found an inaccessible place deep in the Ashes Woods, the same place where he had engaged in paper-making experiments. He had built a blast furnace, got a lot of iron ore and coal, and had thrown them in to burn.

There had naturally been some problems. For example, he hadn’t known what shape a blast furnace was. After thinking about it again and again, he made a long, big chimney with a big ball underneath it. He probably had thought that the so-called “blast furnace” would be like this.

He also hadn’t known what kind of iron ore and coal he should use. Therefore, in the concept of “using the simplest materials to produce an industrial revolution in order to create advanced results,” Sui Xiong had used yellow iron ore. It was unconsolidated like soil and very common type of peat with a low calorific value.

In another instance, Sui Xiong hadn’t known what structure should be in a blast furnace, so he mixed the yellow iron ore and the peat evenly and then stuffed them into it.

He was distressed to find that this thing was very hard to burn; the fire had not been strong at all and even had extinguished while burning.

Why was this happening?

Sui Xiong tried hard to think again and again, and finally, he thought that perhaps the coal in this world was not good enough because the worlds were different.

After time traveling, I must develop blast furnace steel-making technology. However, the coal is not good enough, what should I do? Waiting online, urgent.

But there was no network…

Fortunately, he was not the same type as Gerald, who had a one-track mind. As was said, poverty meant changes, and changes meant success. He had come up with a solution after thinking for a while.

To burn, right? Just to keep it at high temperatures. There are other ways!

For example, something like fire element creatures…

After casting spells to catch a powerful fire element creature from the fire element plane, which was comparable to advanced adventurers under a conservative estimation, he had put this fire element into the self-made blast furnace. Sui Xiong was trying to use this guy’s flames to melt the mixture of iron ore and peat into boiling, molten iron.

The idea had been a very good one.

The flame temperature of the fire element was not low, so the peat dried up quickly, and then… it burned up violently.

Question: A violent burning occurred in a small s.p.a.ce. What was this phenomenon called generally?

Answer: Explosion.

Accompanied by an earth-shattering loud noise, the unfortunate fire element had immediately blown up into a pile of ash, and the blast furnace made by Sui Xiong had become a mess of red-hot stones. As for the iron ore and the peat… they had splashed around. Some iron slags that had fallen on Sui Xiong’s body had been their final products.

Luckily, Sui Xiong was a powerful G.o.d comparable to the legendary, unbreakable King Kong. After being smashed by the fierce explosion at almost point-blank range and being splashed by countless molten iron and slags, he only screamed out in pain a few times, soaked himself in water and took a break. Then he rebuilt the blast furnace, put in the materials, and began the improvements.

It hadn’t taken long before another loud noise occurred.

Sui Xiong once again soaked in some water, rested for a while and then ran out. He had rebuilt the blast furnace, adjusted the proportion of the materials, modified the structure, and then experimented again.

Then, not long after, there had been another loud noise.

Therefore, with explosion after explosion, again and again, the forest soon became a white land—no, it had been a black land, because the ground was full of the mixtures of iron slags and ashes. Countless unfortunate fire elements had died with everlasting regrets, turning into black ashes and scattering in every corner of the land.

If the predecessor Marx had seen this scene, he would sigh and say, “The blast furnace came to the world, from head to toe, with blood and dirty things dripping out of every pore…”

Well, if that had happened in the novels of traveling through history, the protagonist would have died countless times.