Chapter 195: The Electrolysis of Water
The water splashed directly onto the capacitor, and the high-frequency current amplified through the coil short-circuited instantly. The water underwent electrolysis, producing hydrogen and oxygen, and the spark set off a small explosion. Evan jumped, startled, while Xiaoshuang fled back to her little house in a panic, peering out from hiding to watch, utterly baffled by how an explosion could have happened at all.
Evan genuinely hadn't expected this — Xiaoshuang had only meant it as a harmless prank, nothing malicious behind it, which was why his own spiritual sense hadn't flagged any warning. Startled as he was, he flipped the light back on and surveyed the mess, about to lose his temper — until, suddenly, he smiled.
Of course. This was the electrolysis of water. Why not simply turn this into a proper experiment on the subject?
He reset the apparatus. Materials ran short, but that posed no real trouble — he simply crafted what he needed on the spot. Xiaoshuang, watching from her hideaway, grew puzzled by the silence. Had the lich actually died from a splash of water? Impossible — the contract still held. He wasn't angry either, which struck her as strange. Slowly, she poked her head out.
Seeing the lab lit up brightly, her curiosity got the better of her, and she flew down to peer through the doorway. Evan was busy at work inside, two long glass tubes standing upright, connected to each other, metal wires reaching down into the water from above, with tubes drawing gas off into collection jars submerged mouth-down in water, each one filled entirely with liquid.
The moment she flew in, Evan pointed a finger, and she froze mid-air, unable even to open her mouth. He didn't spare her a glance, closing the switch. The water began bubbling, though slowly. Evan smacked his forehead, added a small amount of sulfuric acid, and the bubbling intensified sharply. After a good while, he'd collected the gas via water displacement.
He cut the power, then pointed again, releasing Xiaoshuang from her paralysis. The moment she could move, she huffed, "Rotten lich, stinking lich, freezing me in midair like that! What were you scheming?"
Evan smiled. "If I hadn't held you still, you'd have interfered with my experiment. This one carries some real risk — it was for your own good."
Xiaoshuang flew over the collection jars. "What gas is in these? And what was all that bubbling before?"
"This one holds an extremely light gas — I'm calling it hydrogen. The other jar holds oxygen. Water is made up of the elements composing these two gases," Evan explained.
"The volume in one jar looks like exactly half the other. Why's that?" Xiaoshuang spotted another puzzle at once.
"Water's composition runs at a two-to-one ratio of hydrogen to oxygen — nothing strange about that, though it's still only a hypothesis for now. I need to measure it precisely next," Evan said.
"Water's made of hydrogen gas and oxygen gas? That's genuinely hard to believe."
"Not quite — water's composed of the hydrogen element and the oxygen element, not the gases themselves," Evan said. If anyone else had overheard this exchange between him and Xiaoshuang, it might have raised some awkward questions — the existence of hydrogen and oxygen gas hadn't even been confirmed yet.
Xiaoshuang paid that no mind, pointing at the apparatus instead. "What's this device called?"
"An electrolysis setup. The electrode connected to the battery's positive terminal I call the anode — oxygen comes off that one. The electrode connected to the negative terminal is the cathode, and that's where the hydrogen comes from," Evan explained in detail.
As he talked, his hands stayed busy, weighing the gas collected along with its jar, recording the figures, then crafting two thin pouches from beast hide on the spot and filling each with one of the two gases. A small miracle followed — the pouch filled with hydrogen lifted right off the ground.
Xiaoshuang's eyes went wide. "What's happening now?"
"Hydrogen is extremely light — its relative atomic mass is only 1, a sixteenth of oxygen's, far lighter than ordinary air, and it doesn't dissolve in water, which is why water displacement works to collect it. Being this light is exactly why it floats," Evan said.
"So if you had a large enough amount of hydrogen, couldn't you build a huge balloon and hang people or cargo underneath it?" Xiaoshuang said, eyes bright with excitement.
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"Clever thinking, Xiaoshuang. That's exactly possible. A balloon like that would need no magic at all — anyone could use it, unlike proper spellcraft. Nature really does hold endless wonders. I suspect magic itself might just be one more facet of nature's own mysteries," Evan said, tugging the string to pull the little balloon back down.
"Give it to me! Give me the balloon!" Xiaoshuang cried.
"What do you want with it?" Evan handed it over anyway, though he'd need more hydrogen for further experiments — no matter, he could simply run the electrolysis again.
"I'm going to show my beast friends." She snatched the string. Evan remembered something. "Keep it away from fire — it'll ignite violently. Genuinely dangerous stuff."
Xiaoshuang, delighted with her balloon, skipped breakfast entirely, tugging it along as she flew off into the mountains just as dawn broke. Evan shook his head, his thoughts drifting to another gas — helium, rare back on Earth, though he had no idea how common it might be in this world. He didn't hold out much hope; helium was abundant in stars, at least, and if it existed here at all, balloons would be far safer for it.
Evan skipped breakfast himself and kept working. With Xiaoshuang gone, no one interrupted him. Though he already knew the results in advance, he still carried the experiment through meticulously — dipping a glowing splinter into the oxygen jar, watching it flare to life; burning hydrogen in oxygen to produce water; testing various concentrations of hydrogen mixed with air. The lab rang with small explosions until he'd worked out a safe range: hydrogen concentrations between 4.0% and 75.6% by volume in air would ignite explosively near an open flame, while concentrations below 4.0% or above 75.6% wouldn't ignite even with a flame present.
The repeated blasts drew Jessica's attention. She came alone to Evan's quarters, found the door open, and let herself in, discovering Evan mid-explosion-test, sacks bursting one after another. Puzzled, she asked, "Morning. What are you experimenting with?"
"Testing hydrogen's combustion properties."
"What's hydrogen?" Jessica asked.
"A gas produced when acid meets metal — alchemists call it flammable air. I call it hydrogen, for how light it is. Last night, while running an electrical experiment, Xiaoshuang spilled water on my equipment, and I discovered that electricity could split water apart. I'm calling the phenomenon electrolysis. The products are hydrogen and oxygen. I'm confirming hydrogen's properties now," Evan said, not bothering to offer her a seat — Jessica was used to that by now.
They stood there together, discussing the results, until Evan finally wrapped up the experiment. Seeing Jessica still standing, he said, a little sheepish, "Sorry — come sit inside properly."
"Haven't had breakfast yet, have you?" Jessica said with a smile.
Evan gave an embarrassed laugh. "No, I haven't. Give me a moment, I'll fix something."
"Never mind, I'll do it. Why haven't you married yet? That Tina who visited last time seemed lovely," Jessica said, already toasting bread and boiling oats before he could object.
"I've no plans to marry. I'm fully devoted to magic. Besides, I'm over forty now, and Tina's barely sixteen — I won't stand in the way of her own life," Evan said.
"A mage's age hardly matters much. And once you reach legendary rank, you'll have a very long life ahead of you," Jessica said.
"Let's not talk about this. Tomorrow we're heading to the floating city — been a while since I've been out there. Curious to see how construction's coming along," Evan said, changing the subject.
Seeing him shift the topic, Jessica understood he didn't wish to discuss it further and let it go with a smile, bringing over the toast and porridge. "Want some?" Evan asked.
"No need, I've already eaten. If your place hadn't been rattling with explosions all morning, I wouldn't have come to look at all. Who'd have guessed you'd turn an accident into an actual discovery," Jessica said. Just then, a voice called out from some distance away — Jenny's voice, and both of them, sharp-eared as they were, caught it clearly.
"Teacher Jessica, are you there?"
Evan smiled. "Your precious student's arrived."
Jessica laughed as well. "Right, I told her yesterday to come help me with my experiment. She's early. I should get going too. Hope to see your paper published soon. I won't keep you from your work any longer — I'll come by tomorrow morning to fetch you."
Jessica left. Evan finished his breakfast, tossed the dishes into the sink, murmured an incantation, and the faucet turned on by itself, plates and utensils scrubbing themselves clean before leaping back into the cupboard, everything settling into place, the cupboard doors swinging shut on their own.
Evan organized his data, noting a few gaps still to fill, and was about to run another experiment when Jenny arrived, someone else trailing behind her — a face Evan recognized. Reinhardt von Rosenkram.
"Professor Wang, this is my brother, Reinhardt," Jenny said.
"I know him. An auditing student last term. You're already a mage — why start with the lower years?" Evan asked.
"Honored Professor Wang, I studied under a freelance mage as a boy, but he passed away not long after, and I found real gaps in my own education. I happened to be traveling through Hollingburton, heard that you practice dual cultivation of magic and swordsmanship, and since my sister had already come here, I asked her, somewhat shamelessly, to bring me along to meet you. I attended your lectures last term — excellent teaching, genuinely inspiring to me," Reinhardt said, all courtesy.
"Sit, please, no need for formality. I've simply had a head start — you're both still young, and the world of magic is vast. Starting the effort now is hardly too late," Evan said with a smile.
They sat, and Evan gave a small gesture, a cup of coffee appearing before each of them. Both took a sip. Evan noticed a faint flicker in Reinhardt's eyes, something close to a wince, though he covered it with hearty praise. "Fine coffee!" Jenny showed no particular reaction either way.
Evan smiled faintly. He knew his own coffee wasn't especially good — never had much cared about that particular refinement — while Reinhardt clearly did, though he couldn't say so outright and settled for insincere praise instead. In matters of magic, at least, sincerity mattered more.