Live Streaming: Great Adventure in the Wilderness

Chapter 498: Chapter 495 Earth Online: Iron Age

2Fe2O3 + 3C in a high-temperature environment will produce 4Fe + 3CO2.

This equation is the key to Bi Fang’s iron smelting; meanwhile, the sulfur content in the ash can accelerate the liquefaction of metal and lower the temperature required for iron smelting.

High heat and charcoal increase the temperature, while ash lowers the required temperature, combining these two tactics to successfully produce quality iron.

[WHAT THE **!]

[Why can’t I understand a thing?]

If domestic audiences can still grasp it, the international audience is completely baffled.

These things, how come they’ve never heard of them before?

Did they even go to school?

[Why do I feel like I’ve never learned this?]

[The education in Huaxia is terrifying!]

[I remember we also taught this, you guys must not have paid attention in class…]

[Went off to play basketball.]

[I might have been in a relationship then.]

Mixing all three kinds of ash together, Bi Fang added water, mixed it, and kneaded it into a flat, round shape.

Making a clay cake, Bi Fang said, “We are not conducting experiments, so there’s no need to get the proportions exactly right, just about one to one is fine, creating one piece from the combination of three.”

[This is Earth OL’s DLC, the Iron Age!]

[I’m so excited, we’re getting iron ingots soon, and small iron swords will quickly follow.]

[I bet fifty cents, after smelting, some tycoon is definitely going to buy them at a high price!]

The audience all fantasized that they were the lucky one, but upon consideration, they knew it was basically impossible.

Damn it, they really wanted one too!

[Lord Mu is rubbing his hands together in eagerness; this iron cake, I’m taking it!]

[What about President Lin, though, looking down on anyone? Let’s start a fight!]

[President Lin doesn’t seem to watch live streams much; President Yao has more free time.]

[I’ll offer ten million! If Master Fang accepts, pretend I didn’t say anything.]

Rolling and kneading, another black cylindrical object appeared.

This was already the third piece, and Bi Fang set it aside to dry, as noon arrived.

The weather today was hot and humid, and Bi Fang wiped the sweat from his forehead with his arm: “It’s time for lunch, but let’s finish making the pottery first.”

At this time, the small pot on the ground under the direct sunlight had also dried. Bi Fang moved the stone slab of the hearth away, placed the pot on the furnace bridge, surrounded it with wood, ignited the fire, poured in a large amount of black charcoal, and covered it with a lid.

[How long does this need to burn?]

[Should be quick, right?]

[No, I remember Zisha pots seem to need to be fired for a day, right?]

Bi Fang estimated that it would take a relatively long time, but definitely not as long as the Zisha pots.

What he made was low-temperature pottery, probably taking around three to four hours to complete. It would definitely be ready before dinner, and he could try making jar meat today.

“Now it seems, the two pits of charcoal are still not enough, we’ll need to burn another pit later.”

Bi Fang looked up at the sky; today’s weather was too hot. The tall trees of the rainforest shielded the sky, not providing a good indication of the weather conditions.

“Looks like it’s going to rain again?”

The drone camera panned upwards, and the audience saw the sky, which had been clear of clouds, once again begin to look overcast.

The audience was speechless; does the rain just come whenever it says it will?

[No way, it’s raining again?]

[Is this a joke, eleven days and it’s rained five or six of them? Half the time it’s raining?]

[Will this affect the pottery-making?]

Bi Fang nodded, then shook his head, saying, “It will have a bit of an impact, but not a significant one. After all, it is the rainy season, and I took this into account when I built the blast furnace. The entire shelter and blast furnace have been constructed at a higher elevation.”

The shelter had walls, and although the base of the blast furnace was below, the overall elevation was high. If the rain wasn’t too heavy, the impact of the rain falling in that one square meter area wouldn’t be great.

Since the clay pots were not ready, Bi Fang still ate fish and vegetables for lunch, along with two roasted chicken wings.

The taste of all wild animals is almost unavoidably tough and dry, and even though Bi Fang had brushed them with fish oil, in the wilderness, this hardly counted as a flaw. Even tough meat was still meat!

Especially for Bi Fang, who had been eating fish for ten consecutive days.

Delicious!

They just tend to get stuck in the teeth, and Bi Fang wondered if the System’s store had any coupons for dental care. If there were, he definitely wanted to get one.

Unless professionally corrected by a hospital, human teeth almost always have some issues, and many people don’t even know they have cavities.

Bi Fang had never taken care of his, and although his teeth were even, he had two cavities that weren’t obvious and didn’t really affect him much. Only when he had a cold drink immediately after a hot one did he feel a sharp pain, but other than that, there were no problems, so he had never dealt with it.

“Wild chicken has 2.5 times the protein of regular chicken and only one-fifth of the fat. Sounds good, but out here in the wild, I’d rather have it the other way around.”

Bi Fang chewed down the bones along with the meat, continuing to knead the cakes with soil-stained hands as the sound of thunder rumbled.

The sky started to rain.

It was a light rain, pattering down.@@novelbin@@

All the things drying in the sun were moved inside the walls, and the audience breathed a sigh of relief.

All work had paused due to a downpour, leaving behind a rare moment of leisure.

Bi Fang moved a stone to sit under the eaves. Water dripped down the lush green palm leaves, falling at his feet, mixing with the soil to form little beads. Not far off, the blast furnace emitted white smoke that mingled with the steam, drifting towards the gray sky.

He lifted his head to look at the sky, feeling hemmed in by the towering trees around him—like a frog in a well.

The drone flew out from beneath the eaves, climbing higher until it was above the trees. Suddenly, the world opened up, and all his cares seemed to vanish.

The vast mist enshrouded the endless green forest. Birds braved the rain in rapid flight, creating a curtain of raindrops. The last line of black ants marched into their nest, squirrels shielded by their fluffy tails transported nuts to their warm tree hollows amidst the downpour, and big fish in the burrows emerged to blow bubbles at the surface.

As a bubble burst, a bird swiftly descended, alighting on the fence, shaking off the rain from its feathers.

Bi Fang was pleasantly surprised by this unexpected guest, taking joy in this brief harmony with nature.

On the hill behind the shelter, a water monitor looked up at sky, puzzled at what was so interesting, then glanced at the bird on the fence.

Birds on the ground were an uncommon sight…

The water monitor licked the corner of its mouth, but observing the silhouette by the door, ultimately abandoned the thought running through its mind. Instead, it turned and entered the cave to tend to its eggs, its massive tail sweeping a bit of dust at the entrance.

After a short rest, the bird fluttered a few times and then took to the sky once more.

Bi Fang watched it take flight into the distance until it was out of sight.

“Perhaps it’s also in a hurry to get home, much like the water monitor, with its young waiting,” he mused.

A faint smile graced Bi Fang’s lips.

In the rainforest, there was a small cabin to take shelter from wind and rain, and food was plentiful—this is perhaps the most basic happiness for humans.

“Fly with all your might. Then, when you’re old and listening to the rain under the eaves, those fleeting moments will race through your mind, and you’ll have no regrets.”

You’d traveled far and wide, heading to a place without a clear destination, but you had to believe it would be beautiful.

Fetching a slate, Bi Fang went back to making clay cakes.

On rainy days, one revels in silkiness.

…

In the afternoon, more than twenty mud cakes of various sizes lay on the ground, with nearly half of the iron bacteria used up. According to the estimate, these twenty cakes should be sufficient.

Braving the rain, he came to the furnace. This time, Bi Fang didn’t add coal; he shifted the stone slab to reveal the barely alive flames, belching hot air.

He took a stick and poked through the ashes—of the five pottery pieces, one was completely shattered into fragments and another badly cracked on the surface, leaving only three intact.

“A sixty percent success rate, we’re quite lucky.”

Using two branches, Bi Fang extracted the pottery from the furnace. The rain fell on it, quickly evaporating into steam. Touching it, he could still feel the high temperature within.

Carrying the three clay pots, Bi Fang immediately brought them into the shelter to prevent them from being shattered by the heavy rain and thermal shock.

“Early pottery fired by bonfires was mostly round-bottomed to avoid the likelihood of sharp edges leading to breakage.”

“The earliest purpose-built kilns were pit or trench kilns, essentially a hole dug in the ground covered with fuel, where the earth itself provided optimal insulation, allowing for better control during the firing process.”

“Additionally, the fishbone powder and stone powder I added create a more porous body, making it easier for water and other volatile components to exit the clay.”

“The coarser particles also reduce internal shrinkage during cooling, slowing the entire process and lessening the thermal stress and the likelihood of breakage.”

“These are the reasons for the extra materials I added, but even so, I originally estimated only one or two might succeed. Having three is quite a surprise.”

Inside the hut, the three pottery pieces were neatly arranged on the ground.

The drone flew close by, its camera capturing every angle without blind spots.

The appearance of the clay pots had not changed, but the glaze was different from before they had been fired, the surfaces now clearly smoother and gleaming faintly, making a crisp sound when tapped with a branch.

After natural cooling, Bi Fang picked up one of the pots, his finger circling inside, detecting no obvious cracks.

He poured water and let it sit, noting no signs of leakage.

A resounding success!

The crowd was joyful.

Bi Fang lit a bonfire, washed the pots, and set them over the flames. He then chopped the parboiled pheasant into small pieces and put them into the pots.

Having removed more blood foam from the pheasant through parboiling, Bi Fang felt a boost of confidence and pulled out all the stops to prepare this chicken soup.

These days, he had collected quite a few good things nearby, even wild ginger!

Ginger, the magic deodorizer!

He sliced the ginger and placed it at the bottom, then added the chicken pieces, sprinkled lemongrass on top, and finally covered the pots with lids, three necks all stewing one whole chicken.

“Wild pheasant meat is tough and fibrous, so we’ll need to simmer it for at least half an hour before we add other ingredients,” said Bi Fang while peeling a newly found bamboo shoot and pulling out another peculiar plant covered in a dense array of green granules.

This is…

[Holy shit, is that Sichuan pepper?]

[Wori, there’s Sichuan pepper in the mountains? Am I seeing things?]

[Did you find it in the wild?]

[Old Fang found it earlier, how come I don’t remember?]

[Indeed it’s from the mountains, just yesterday morning, Old Fang brought back many strange things after his stroll, that’s not Sichuan pepper but Litsea.]

“Yes, Litsea, also known as mountain pepper, is a kind of wild produce, usually found in midsummer. But we’re lucky to have come across an early ripening plant,” replied Bi Fang.

The Litsea fruits looked like smooth, rounded green peppercorns strung along slender stems, with a flavor entirely different—a mix of lemon, lemongrass, and menthol…

Perhaps it was a blend of these scents.