Chapter 456: A Few Rough Calculations
Now, obviously that wasn’t the case.
According to Braxton, who for some strange reason had actually decided a while ago to spend a full day just staring at the pond, constantly monitoring it with his Soul Sense, the average World Qi density at the water’s surface over a 24-hours period had been roughly 20% higher than normal.
This meant that the mirrors had transferred an average of 0.6 units of World Qi to the pool per hour, which meant the actual efficiency of his Solar World Qi collector was 15%.
Once again, Lucas was making a bunch of logical leaps and assumptions here, but since no one was there to check his math or reasoning, he was sticking with it!
All this went to say was that if he wanted to create a 30,000 square metres space, which was pretty close to a circle with a 100 metres radius, where the World Qi density reached 1,000% of normal, he would, ideally, need enough mirrors to deliver 270,000 units of reflected World Qi.
With high-quality 1 square metre mirrors working at 15% efficiency, that translated to...
"I’d need about 2 square kilometres worth of mirrors," Lucas replied.
The boy had rounded up a bit from the actual answer of 1.8 million as he assumed that on a larger scale, he would see additional losses in efficiency from both the collection and transmission steps of the process.
It took all of Pauline’s willpower to not go into another coughing fit when she heard this absurd number.
2 square kilometres of high-quality mirrors.
That was 2 million square metres.
The 4 square metres of mirror Lucas was currently using had cost him 48,000 Gold.
24 billion Gold.
That was what it would cost just to manufacture enough mirrors at their current price, and that was assuming there was even a company or chamber of commerce capable of producing so many mirrors in the first place.
Let’s just say, Pauline was doubtful, a fact she didn’t even try to hide as she flatly declared, "Your new method of making glass and mirrors better be at least 100 times cheaper than the current ones, otherwise there’s no way you’ll ever be able to accomplish this."
Even a 10,000% reduction in production cost would still mean having to spend 240 million Gold on the mirrors Lucas required for reach the ’starting point’ of his plan. That was an astronomical sum of money, no doubt, but if his solar collection array really could do what he claimed, Pauline actually thought it would be worth it at that cost.
That, however, was a consideration for later.
Clearly, like the steam engine, this Solar World Qi Collection Array was a long-term project, one that wouldn’t be knocking on the Great Elder’s door for an unlimited budget in the near future.
Or at least, that’s what Pauline hoped.
After what she’d seen today, and all the fantastical things Lucas had introduced to her, she was starting to lose her grip on what exactly was ’reasonable’ and what wasn’t.
And, of course, the day wasn’t over yet!
As she looked around, Pauline noticed that there were actually 5 separate areas in this isolated courtyard Lucas called The Lab, which meant that there were quite possibly 3 more classified projects this brat was working on!
Thankfully, when Pauline hesitantly asked him about this, Lucas replied to her that currently there was only 1 other ongoing project here in The Lab, and that one was actually only half-ongoing as it had hit a big hurdle that didn’t seem surmountable in the short term.
Just as Pauline was breathing a quiet sigh of relief, however, Lucas informed her that there were actually 3 other ongoing classified projects.
Project Maple had been started before The Lab had been built, so it had set up shop elsewhere in Misty City at the time.
Now, the bulk of Project Maple had actually been shifted to Falcon’s Bend, along with Victoria and Laura, so if Pauline really wanted to see the results of her family’s latest agricultural pursuit, she would have to take a day trip out there, something Lucas explained to her briefly.
"Alright, this ’Project Maple’ is very important to the family’s finances, so I’ll find a day to do that," Pauline nodded before asking, "Will you be accompanying me?"
Lucas thought about it for a moment before shaking his head, "No need, I’ve left Victoria completely in charge of this matter. She probably knows more about it than I do now, so you can just talk to her."
One down, two to go, Pauline mused to herself as Lucas began explaining what ’yeast’ was.
The miraculous ingredient involved in creating Christina’s light and fluffy Redwood-Style Bread was also considered classified, as was the cream-of-tartar Lucas used in his sponge cakes.
Both of these ingredients, their production methods, and their procurement channels were secrets known only to a few trusted people.
Now, that would probably change at some point in the near future.
Given how public-facing Princess Bakery was, there was a good chance that information about yeast would leak out sooner or later, and once that happened, it would surely spread like wildfire.
Knowing this, Christina actually planned on revealing the secret herself, once she had opened enough of her bakeries that she no longer feared competition and had found better ways to mass-produce yeast, of course.
However, for the moment, research on these leavening agents was a sensitive enough topic that the princess had partnered with her Senior Brother to properly secure them and create a workspace where they could be studied and produced without fear of prying eyes.
The kitchen in the Balfour Family’s Misty City Manor now exclusively made Redwood-Style Bread, so Pauline had naturally tasted it already and agreed with everyone else that it was a dramatic improvement over their old bread; however, she had been ignorant of how exactly it was made until just now.
"Fascinating," she muttered, "do you have some fancy code-name for this as well?"
"Er..." Lucas’ brow twitched and his voice dropped somewhat, "Tina likes calling it Project Puffy, but..."
"Ah, en, understood," Pauline nodded, also finding the princess’ naming sense a bit... odd.
Wanting to move on as quickly as possible, Pauline cleared her throat and asked, "Ahem, and the last of your classified projects?"
Lucas’ expression immediately became serious when this topic was brought up, even releasing his Soul Sense into his surroundings to check for other people before he whispered cryptically, "You’ll see it tonight."