With a crisp sound of "whoosh," the high-quality charcoal was fed into the furnace, and the air passed through the tunnel, sneaking in through the ash holes. Soon, a fiery orange glow ignited.
With mixed emotions, Han Cheng personally poured two jars of crushed mineral powder into the large vat, about thirty pounds in total.
Thus, the great endeavor of copper slting in the Green Sparrow Tribe began.
The thermal conductivity of ceramics is far worse than that of tals. Still, Han Cheng couldn’t create a steel furnace or any other more heat-resistant and thermally conductive tal furnace, so he had to make do with a ceramic vat.
"Add more charcoal and bring the bellows over," Han Cheng ordered after waiting for a while, seeing that the mineral powder in the ceramic vat hadn’t lted much.
"Whoosh~ whoosh~"
The "hand pump" was pressed up and down, turning the fan back and forth, forcing air through the ceramic tube and into the furnace.
Before long, the furnace blazed with intense flas, much fiercer than before, with the central charcoal glowing a whitish red.
These efforts paid off. After about thirty minutes, Han Cheng noticed that the mineral powder in the ceramic vat had lowered slightly.
As ti passed, this feeling grew stronger, and eventually, thick, reddish tal liquid appeared before their eyes, slowly consuming the powdered ore.
Sweating from the heat, Han Cheng couldn’t help but show a delighted expression. He hadn’t expected such a gratifying result on his first attempt at slting copper ore.
Shaman also leaned over, stretching his neck to peer inside. His face also broke into a smile. Although he couldn’t discern much, it didn’t stop him from sharing Han Cheng's joy.
The senior eldest brother and the others building the shelter around the furnace also ca over to watch. They were amazed at the transformation of stone into liquid.
Imagining a future with an abundance of tal tools in the tribe, they were filled with renewed energy. After watching for a while, they returned to building the shelter even more enthusiastically.
As ti passed, more and more mineral powder lted, eventually turning into a thick, dark red tallic liquid.
Emboldened by the sight, Han Cheng suddenly stopped feeling happy. At this mont, he realized that he had overlooked sothing very important.
That was, how to extract the molten tal from the large vat.
Usually, it would be best to open a hole at the bottom of the ceramic vat so the molten tal could flow out by itself, but that wasn’t possible right now.
Han Cheng tried to scoop so with a wooden-handled ceramic ladle, but seeing the tal beads drip unevenly, he abandoned using the ladle.
After thinking for a mont, he ordered the fire to be stopped, and no more charcoal should be added to the furnace, nor should the bellows be pumped.
As the furnace temperature dropped, the bright red molten tal started turning dark red and eventually solidified back into a solid form.
Shaman, who had co over to look, grinned widely, and the senior brother and others also smiled broadly.
Because the ceramic vat now contained a large chunk of tal, which appeared sowhat black, resembling iron.
After so long in the tribe’s search for iron bacteria, the amount of iron they had obtained was minimal. But this tal vat appeared to contain more than all the iron tools the tribe had combined, making them incredibly happy.
They were excited, but Han Cheng couldn’t share their joy because, in his mory, copper didn’t look like this.
No matter how he looked at it, the tal before his eyes seed to resemble slag.
Han Cheng couldn’t help but sniffle. He realized he had made another serious mistake—he hadn’t separated the copper liquid from the slag.
The two could not be separated, so extracting pure copper beca difficult.
"Smash it."
After waiting longer for the temperature to drop further, Han Cheng instructed them to lift the large vat off the furnace.
They turned it upside down and struck it a few tis, but seeing that the solidified mixture of copper and slag inside hadn’t fallen out, Han Cheng ordered them to smash the vat. ????????????S
The tribe didn’t have a Sima Guang (a historical figure famous for smashing a vat to stop a flood), but they were just as efficient and decisive when it ca to smashing vats.
The people, invigorated by the tallic success, followed Han Cheng’s orders, and in no ti, they smashed the sturdy vat into pieces.
Then, the contents inside were freed.
The contents resembled the bottom of a vat—cylindrical, with purple tal at the bottom and black, loosely textured slag at the top.
The purplish tal was the refined pure copper.
Han Cheng found a stone and smashed it for a while. While he managed to break so of the slag off, it was impossible to completely separate the slag from the copper using this thod.
He would have to act while they were still liquid to separate the two properly.
After looking at it for a while with so regret, Han Cheng didn’t dwell on this failed attempt too much because he hadn’t expected to succeed on the first try.
Moreover, the copper slting wasn’t without its gains. Han Cheng learned two important things: that the large vat needed a hole at the bottom and that slag was lighter than copper and would float on the molten copper once lted.
Separating the slag from the copper would be much easier with these discoveries.
"Divine Child, here!"
The third discovery ca soon after, and it was still a shortcoming.
Hei Wa pointed at the furnace and spoke to Han Cheng.
As the charcoal fire died down, the furnace gradually cooled.
Han Cheng followed Hei Wa's direction and looked inside the furnace. He saw that many of the bricks had fused, the surface smooth, and when touched, they felt like porcelain tiles.
This was caused by the high temperature inside, which caused the bricks to slowly lt and then harden again as they cooled.
"Take this furnace apart!"
As Han Cheng touched the smooth bricks, his face suddenly paled because a terrifying scenario ca to mind—
With the charcoal continuously burning, the bricks that made up the furnace gradually lted, becoming softer and softer, until they couldn’t withstand the weight above and crumbled.
If the large vat containing molten tal were to tilt and fall, the molten tal, still at terrifyingly high temperatures, would spill out and land on soone...
Just imagining such a horrifying scene sent shivers down his spine, especially after he had stood beside the furnace for a long ti.
The people around Hei Wa didn’t understand why the Divine Child wanted to dismantle this perfectly good furnace. The situation seed incredible to them, as not only did it look better, but the whole furnace seed sturdier.
However, their confusion lasted only a short ti. After hearing Han Cheng describe the terrifying scene, they no longer considered it a good thing.
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