Chapter 48 48: smokeless powder

------------------------- If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know. Leave a comment; support is always appreciated. I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see. ------------------------------- Sommerzeit 10th ,2488 IC "Alright, mage... now pay close attention, because what we're about to do is extremely dangerous. It should be done under very controlled conditions, especially regarding temperature. So, we'll do part of it here and the other part in the castle dungeons. If the heat rises too much... they'll be finding pieces of us all the way in Morr's temple," I said, calmly tightening my gloves. "Heh, heh, heh... I like this... I haven't done anything this radical in a long time. My heart's pounding like it did in my youth," Hieronymus replied, a genuine smile of excitement on his face. "Alright, let's start by turning our cotton into cellulose. It's not too different from making paper. Linen would also work, but here we need to use the purest raw material to get the best possible result," I explained, tossing a bundle of cotton into a cauldron and pouring in a generous amount of lye. Hieronymus took a seat, opened a small notebook, and started writing, glancing up only to check that what he was recording matched each of my actions. "That's it. This needs to rest for a couple of hours. So we move on to the next step: sulfuric acid. You already know the whole process. In this case, it's our base acid to turn it into something much more useful," I said, holding up a sealed flask containing two liters of the liquid. "Now, two parts nitrate to one part sulfuric acid. We'll use four kilograms of nitrate. It goes into the still. We must keep the temperature consistently low so the vapors from the reaction condense along the pipes of the dwarven still. The dwarf did carve a rune to help stabilize the temperature, but we still need to be careful. We don't want this burning," I added, removing the still from the flame to avoid overheating. "And now... through the pipes, our liquid begins to condense. Voilà... nitric acid," I said with a smile, watching with satisfaction as the drops slowly fell into the flask. Hieronymus simply nodded in silence, clearly fascinated by the process. "Now we just have to wait for everything to condense... and for the cellulose to be ready," I added, stirring the contents of the cauldron with a wooden rod as the cotton began to dissolve. Several hours passed. While the still worked to produce as much nitric acid as possible, we washed the treated cellulose with hot water and laid it out to dry in the sun. I didn't have hydrogen peroxide for more thorough bleaching, but it would do for now. With a large amount of nitric acid and several kilograms of treated cellulose, we descended to the coldest part of the castle: the dungeons. Cold, damp, and isolated, they offered the optimal conditions to continue the experiment. By midday, we slipped past the guards, who paid little attention. No one questioned why their lord and his financial advisor were pushing a cart full of jars, tubes, and sealed containers into the lower levels. The air grew denser as we went down. The scent of moisture mixed with wet stone, and darkness engulfed everything. Only the metallic tapping of Hieronymus' cane and the squeaking wheels echoed on the stone floor. Suddenly, the sound of rattling chains echoed in the distance. Then, a guttural scream tore through the silence. "YOU! BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU! WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE!" bellowed a familiar voice. A chained man hurled himself at me with all the fury his bonds would allow. He didn't get far. He looked emaciated. He'd lost weight since arriving, and his eyes gleamed with a mix of rage, hunger, and desperation. "Friend of yours?" Hieronymus asked, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow. "Him?" I replied without even glancing. "No. Just an idiot who thought he could control my destiny. Funny, isn't it? Now his life depends on me." I smirked as one of the knight's men, also in chains, lowered his gaze in resignation. Hieronymus nodded silently, as if it were nothing more than a passing curiosity. "Let's move on. The human drama can wait. Ours cannot," I said, pushing the cart deeper into the dungeons, toward the castle's torture room, now chosen as our lab for its low, stable temperature. Once inside, I began the setup. I placed a large clay vessel in the center and carefully lined up the flasks containing the acids and treated cellulose. "Now... two parts sulfuric acid—preferably distilled a couple of times in a still—and one part nitric acid. We'll fill the container as much as we can; we need to produce as much as possible. We've invested a lot of time making these acids," I explained as I poured the mixture slowly, making sure not to spill a drop. "Don't you have an idea for processing more acid?" Hieronymus asked, rubbing his beard with his knuckles. "If it's just the two of us working, I doubt this can be produced on a large scale... unless very little is needed." "Indeed," I replied, not taking my eyes off the mixture. "I do have some ideas. A larger still to increase yield per batch, for one. But for now, we're limited by space and castle resources. Once I stop burning every damn crown on bribes, wages, and feeding Otto—who's like a leech draining me dry—then maybe I can think about a proper lab... someday." I looked up and asked, "Do you think your dwarf friend could build me a lab from scratch in the mountains?" "Yes, but he takes his time. And he charges a fortune. What you pay in bribes is pocket change compared to what he'd ask for what you're imagining," Hieronymus answered without hesitation. "Ugh... dwarves do good work, sure, but they never justify what they charge. Damn it," I grumbled, pouring in the last of the acids. Then I took one of the trays of dried cellulose. I looked at it for a moment. The air in the cell was thick, saturated with corrosive vapors floating like invisible ghosts. "Now we pour in the cellulose, little by little... and if you believe in anything, start praying. This is where we could end up as puddles of blood," I said quietly, feeling the tension rise as I approached the container. Hieronymus didn't reply. He just nodded with a wide grin on his face. I began pouring in the cellulose. "Sulfuric acid is here to trap water. Its role is to absorb the water released during nitration. That prevents the nitric acid from diluting, since it loses potency when mixed with water. We need each hydroxyl group in the cellulose to react with a nitrate group. Once the cellulose is nitrated... we'll have nitrocellulose, which is highly explosive," I said with a smile, watching as vapor began to rise from the container. "Some kind of throwable explosive...? Wow... do you feel it?" asked Hieronymus, narrowing his eyes. "Yes... they're all around us," I replied in a low voice, noticing how the winds of Chamon were starting to swirl around us. "That means it's working. You've created something that attracts the winds of Chamon," murmured Hieronymus, scribbling everything down frantically, wearing the expression of an alchemist on the verge of revelation. "Not yet... we need to wait a bit longer until everything is fully nitrated," I said, keeping my eyes on the mixture. Heat, pressure, and magic seemed to intertwine in the air. After about fifteen minutes, I started removing the cellulose using a clay tool. I pulled out white and yellowish fragments and took them to the wash basin, rinsing them over and over with distilled water. When that was done, I repeated the cycle: add more cellulose to the acid, wait, extract, wash. I kept going until all the material we brought had been nitrated. As I carefully cleaned the container, Hieronymus watched me in silence. Then he asked: "Is this still usable?" he said, pointing to the acid residue at the bottom of the container. "It can be reused. The acids have different boiling points, so we can separate them again in the still. They'll be ready to use again... though I wouldn't use them to nitrate cellulose anymore. Organic residues could alter their properties, so I'd reserve them for other purposes," I replied while pouring the contents into labeled flasks. "Like what?" Hieronymus asked, genuinely curious. "Red pigment, yellow pigment... I could make mirrors. Or fertilizers... yes, I could use it for that," I said aloud, as new ideas rushed through my mind. "Interesting. So many things you can do... I have so much to learn and so little time... Why couldn't I have met you sooner?" murmured Hieronymus, frustrated. Then he looked at me sideways. "So... what about the glycerol? The stuff you brought from your soap makers." "I'd rather not touch it for now. I wanted to make cordite, but that means nitrating glycerin... and the temperature needs to be even lower. It's a very powerful explosive. If we try it here, we could destroy half the castle if something goes wrong. So better not. When I've saved enough gold, I'll pay that dwarf to build me the perfect lab of my dreams. For now... I'll settle for this smokeless powder," I said while finishing storing the flasks. "That's what we made? Smokeless powder?" asked Hieronymus, surprised. "Yes. It's more powerful, but also more unstable. Cordite is more controllable, but it needs more specialized equipment and even colder temperatures. And honestly, I don't want to explode," I replied with a slight laugh. I took several clay trays and spread the nitrocellulose out to dry in the shade, in a nearby cell. With the rest of the equipment, we returned to my lab in the castle tower. I dedicated myself to slowly separating the acids, heating the mixture with care and collecting the fractions through condensation, then storing them again in clean, labeled flasks. The rest of the night was spent cleaning the liters of acid we had used. It was tedious and exhausting, but necessary to avoid any disaster when storing the leftovers. In the morning, we continued synthesizing more nitric acid. The idea of making fertilizer was tempting. If I could develop greenhouses, I could start growing cotton locally, without relying on expensive imports from Araby. I'd be the Empire's only producer of a vital raw material for cellulose, while also making use of the future looms I planned to build. Although I honestly have no idea how a greenhouse works—glass panels and irrigation is about as much as I understand. But I doubt it's that simple. Still, if I can make it work, it's a profitable business. Cotton sells for around a hundred crowns per ton unprocessed. But what matters to me is that it would provide a steady source of nitrocellulose. It could also be used to grow food in winter, which would sell very well among nobles eager for fresh vegetables. While I thought over what to do, I headed to the place where I left the nitrocellulose drying. I chuckled a bit at the knight, still as combative as the day before, and began grinding the dry nitrocellulose fragments with a mortar, avoiding any sharp blows and simply working them into a fine powder. I immediately sealed it in glass jars to avoid any unwanted reaction, since it was more powerful than black powder and more volatile if not stabilized with nitroglycerin. Once everything was finely ground and stored, I went to the training field, where many of the men-at-arms in my service were practicing. Today, I started testing my dwarven weapon again. This time, I used a smaller amount of powder and loaded the ammunition. With just a bit on the fuse, I triggered the mechanism and felt the weapon's kick—stronger than usual. The difference in smoke was immediate—only a small amount of gas, barely visible. ------------------------- If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know. Leave a comment; support is always appreciated. I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see. -------------------------------