"How is it?"
As the charcoal burned out inside the earthen high furnace, the entire furnace was more than half empty. However, with the wood ash covering it, it was impossible to see the condition at the bottom.
At this mont, the charcoal had just burned out, and it was still very hot around the earthen high furnace. So, even though the Dragon Nest Beastn were a bit anxious, they had to stand aside and wait for the furnace to cool down.
Fortunately, the cold winter had its advantages. The very hot earthen high furnace soon cooled down.
Quik touched the wall of the earthen high furnace and, seeing that it wasn’t too hot, reached into the vent below and pulled aside the tiles, revealing a sizable opening at the base of the furnace.
Reaching in through that opening, he took out one of the block-like objects beneath the wood ash, blew on it, and cleaned off the ash, revealing the yellow surface of the copper.
However, looking at this "copper block," Austin was not very pleased and instead frowned.
"Take out all the copper ore inside."
Following Austin’s order, the Fox-faced Man Quik reached into the furnace and took out several pieces of ore from the bottom.
It failed!
Looking at these half-copper, half-iron ores, Austin clearly understood that his first attempt at refining copper had failed.
He took one of the semi-finished products and squeezed it hard with his claw. It imdiately crumbled like dirt, revealing the stone inside the thin layer of copper.
The copper inside the copper ore was only half-lted and did not separate from the impurities within, resulting in these semi-finished products.
"The temperature wasn’t high enough."
The temperature inside the earthen high furnace only caused the tal copper in the ore to beco semi-fluid without lting into liquid, which failed to separate it from the stone and other impurities.
"No, could it be that too much copper ore was added?"
Looking at the failed copper ore in his hand, Austin was puzzled. The furnace design and thod of refining copper ore were basically copied from a thod he saw in his past life where an expert refined iron with bare hands. Since that expert could refine iron this way, and copper lts at a lower point than iron, why couldn’t this earthen furnace refine copper?
"Or, is it because of the different conditions in the Otherworld?"
Many ideas arose in his mind.
The heavy snow was still pouring down from the sky, and the shelter the Dragon Nest Beastn built to shield the earthen high furnace from rain and snow wasn’t large, thus Austin’s body was exposed outside.
The snow was so heavy that Austin’s back was soon covered in snow. With a shake of his shoulders, the snow on top fell off with a rustle.
Watching the snowflakes falling around him, Austin suddenly had a sudden inspiration.
Snow,
Yes, it’s the snow!
In that video, the expert refined iron by sourcing materials in the forest during hot sumr days. However, Austin was currently in the bone-chilling winter!
Austin’s eyes suddenly brightened as he guessed the reason why the first batch of copper failed.
It was the temperature!
The vent at the furnace’s base was ant to allow continuous airflow, bringing in a large amount of oxygen with the air to promote the burning of charcoal inside the furnace, thereby significantly increasing the temperature inside the earthen furnace.
However, Austin neglected that when the air entered the furnace, it also took away the heat generated by the burning charcoal.
Under normal conditions, the heat carried away by the wind is much less than the heat released by rapid oxidation and combustion of charcoal, resulting in a significant increase in furnace temperature due to the air blast.
But now, it’s not normal, but a frigid winter with temperatures dropping to minus twenty or even thirty degrees. Such icy air being blown into the furnace, even though the large amount of oxygen brought by the wind makes the charcoal burn more vigorously and generate more heat, the cold wind also carries away a large amount of heat, causing the furnace to be cooler, and thus unable to refine copper from copper ore.
"This is problematic..."
The current situation made Austin scratch his head, not realizing how much the cold winter would impact copper slting.
However, having discovered the issue, the solution was clear.
It’s best to preheat the air before blowing it in, although it sounds simple, doing it is much trickier.
The original primitive blower was connected to the vent, and to preheat, Austin had to return to the Dragon Nest Tribe to get a ceramic pipe from the Goblins’ Manufacturing Workshop. This ceramic pipe was sothing the Goblins made after mastering porcelain making, only to find it useless and left it idle. Various other miscellaneous "artworks" were also left in a corner, and it took so effort from Austin to find it.
Using this ceramic pipe to connect the vent and the blower as a passageway between the two, anwhile, Austin instructed the Beastn to pile charcoal and firewood outside the ceramic pipe as fuel to heat it. This way, by the ti the air flows through the ceramic pipe to the furnace vent, it would naturally get heated to so extent.
Although the constant airflow would prevent this thod from heating the inflow air to any significant temperature, it would still fare better than air at minus twenty or thirty degrees.
After a round of redesigning and modifying the setup, by the ti the earthen high furnace was filled with charcoal again, it was already nightfall.
Although eager to see the results of the modifications, with temperature dropping further at night and the strong external winds, it wasn’t a good ti for copper slting. Such ti was bearable, so Austin ordered the Beastn to have their als and rest.
A night without words, and the copper refining continued the next day.
Igniting, heating the ceramic pipe, blowing air... step by step, the Beastn waited quietly nearby, and the heat from the furnace made the surrounding air less icy.
With the Beastn’s diligent cooperation, two hours later, the charcoal inside the furnace was almost burnt out, leaving only a small portion.
Austin and the Beastn waited nearby. Before long, the charcoal inside the furnace was reduced to ashes, and half an hour later, the extrely hot furnace cooled down.
Then, a Beastman voluntarily opened the furnace base, took out what was inside.
"Success!"
With a strong blow, a rugged, irregular, dull yellow copper block appeared in front of them.
Looking at the copper block in the Beastman’s hands, after overcoming nurous challenges, they finally succeeded. A sense of satisfaction welled up within Austin.
However, he quickly thought of another problem.
The copper was now refined, but how could they make weapons?
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