Chapter 199: Grandiose Granulars

Rino did not hesitate to collect the completed daily quest reward. It might just be a testing grindstone to decide on the best pattern but the gods were very lenient and counted that towards a proper grindstone fixture.

Ping!

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Daily Quest #23 (complete)

Objective: Build a Grindstone

Time Limit: 5 Days

Tutorial here.

Reward: Ore Appraisal Skill

Claim your reward here.

Penalty: Deduct 24 hours of sleep upon failure and [Curse of Overtime] until quest is forcefully completed.

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Without any quests from the system to bother him for a while, Rino focused on testing all the shortlisted grindstone designs. Ubel worked hard and came up with carving designs using the spare stone pairs that the earth gnomes prepared. Rino could not be more thankful for their initiatives.

The experimental phase took almost three days to confirm the effectiveness of grindstone designs and the sizes. Eventually, Rino brought together the council of engineers and builders to discuss the most efficient engravings.

"I think the twelve partitioned design for the two-ton stone plates in the windmill is best. The land might look small on this prototype wheel, but something of that size might need more grooves to grind the dust finer," Aiden spoke up, and Griffith agreed, proving their take on the complex crafting using a big and small model fashioned from spare wood.

The pygmy dwarves made a valid point, but Rino was still unsure about maintaining such a difficult design in the windmill. Although Rina helped add many enchantments to the structure and Rino enforced a spatial barrier to prevent explosions and fire from spreading, they could not be sure that having more furrows and less land space in a big wheel would minimise grinding risk.

Deezer and Bink, who confirmed the scale and risk of dust explosion on a smaller scale, were traumatised. The model they tested was made out of stone that was barely the size of Rino's palm. However, the ratio of damage caused compared to the size of their model was too terrifying to imagine.

"We cannot agree to it despite the precautions taken," Bink spoke out as the voice of opposition to the complex design. "Even if there is damage containment, the explosion range is five times the size of the grindstone. There's no saying that it wouldn't be bigger with a two-ton stone model. I suggest reducing the number of sections to eight."

From twelve sections to eight… that was about a thirty person decrease. Rino and Ubel tested many variations of this popular land and furrow design and found the quality of grounded granules varied.

"I understand the concerns of both sides," Rino finally spoke up after ten minutes of heated debates between his engineers. "Let's look at the testing results, shall we?"

Sheila presented Rino's datasheet, and everyone blinked. Not all of them were literate, so Rino explained what the table with many numbers meant.

"This is the number of rotations performed in the length of how fast it takes for a firewood chip to burn. This is the number that represents the number of sections of a similar design in the grindstone. The grindstone pairs are all about the size of my forearms when Ubel and I tested this out. In this column, we recorded the sachets of powder that each grindstone pattern produced."

The sachets were placed in order at the side of the huge datasheet. There were a total of ten sachets. The least number of sections started at three and the most was twelve. The sachets were opened, and Rino told everyone to look at the rice granules' quality.

For the sake of fairness in his experiment, Rino used the same batch of rice harvested. The results for this pattern of grindstone was only for the windmill grindstones. He already had his decision when it came to the pattern for soybean milk grinding and seed oil. Squeezing liquid and crushing seeds needed a different pattern from the cutting action used to turn grains into powder.

The team of engineers and builders took turns examining the fineness of powder crushed by the grindstones with different patterns. It was obvious now that the more furrows and sections a grindstone has, the finer the powder it became. However, the numbers at the side of the section were slightly disturbing.

"My lord, why does the number of rotations stop at 1,125 rounds per woodchip?"

Turning his head slowly over to the pygmy dwarves, Rino almost smiled eerily. Then, he nudged his head towards the earth gnomes for an explanation.

"That was the speed that caused an explosion. We couldn't go any faster without risking a new explosion."

The answer silenced the curious pygmy dwarves, and nobody questioned if a grindstone could be turned faster. However, someone noticed that the different grindstones were turned at different speeds recorded in a side column in the datasheet.

"What are those numbers for?" Sheila asked. 

Glad that someone asked, Rino explained how he experimented with turning the grindstone at different speeds to see if there was a difference in the product. At the same time, most of these experiments were not fully conducted because Rino wanted to know if there was a difference between the speed, pattern and type of grains. As the difference wasn't very significant, Rino skipped the tedious process of finding out for now.

"Milling is a more complicated skill than I initially thought," Rino admitted. "There is still a lot that I do not know, but for now, we should settle on one design. If the design and speed need adjustments, we can make arrangements for it later. The most important thing is deciding the best pattern for grinding all grains."

His pizza was on the line, and Rino did not tolerate funny business. He wanted a more fine powder with the least risk of explosion. Unlike the water wheels, the windmill's speed could not be directly controlled because the wind wasn't something easily diverted. They could increase its speed using gears or slow it down to some extent by removing certain gear ratios, but if there was no wind, the mill would not work.

Solutions were discussed as everyone cast their anonymous votes, writing the number they thought was best and folding their voting slips that Sheila collected. Rino tallied the results as the pygmy dwarves, and earth gnomes tossed ideas about creating a semi-automated windmill that can still mill grains without wind.

The votes between five key personnel leaned towards more sections and Rino was glad that he did not need to interfere as a tie-breaker because Ubel was wise.

The earth gnomes decided on a ten section grindstone design after seeing how the eight section grindstone design wasn't too good at making fine powder. Likewise, the pygmy dwarves decided to back off from their demand for twelve sections as they initially demanded. The ten section grindstone design and twelve section grindstone design produced almost the same consistency of flour. If they could increase the speed a little, it might be possible to make up for the quality.

Ubel solidified the ten section design vote and stated how he could create modifications to reduce or increase the furrows if required. Ten was the number everyone agreed on after hashing out their differences, and Rino was pleased that everyone proposed solutions to the issues they thought would be a problem despite their initial disagreement.

"Sheila, read the votes out and the comments."

The drow compiled, and Rino schooled his expression as he observed the faces of his subordinates. The pygmy dwarves who thought that the earth gnomes would reduce their section numbers were surprised that they increased it. The earth gnomes who thought that the pygmy dwarves would stick to their guns were satisfied that their point was successfully made. 

However, the person who was declared the MVP of this meeting was Ubel, who had been silent throughout. The wraith king who listened attentively throughout understood the concerns of both parties and created solutions to suit their needs.

"I don't think anyone has any objections about creating a ten-section design for our windmill now. These grains will speak for themselves, and I trust that the experts here tonight can work together to overcome any other trials. Ubel is very capable, so please put his skills to good use. We have all the resources we need, material and talent-wise. I expect great things in the coming weeks."

Sheila stood at a corner with pride in her eyes as her master talked about grand plans for more innovative and complicated inventions such as a furnace for baking food. The powder they made from the windmill could be turned into biscuits, dough, and desserts that even the gods might envy.

Nobody questioned the usefulness of grindstones after Rino shared with them how they could get oil from seeds and soy milk from soybeans that could be used to make different cold dishes. Nobody knew what tofu was, but Rino claimed that it was plant-grown meat for those who could not eat meat. 

Eager to start on the grand project, the meeting adjourned quickly as the engineers called a private meeting of their own in two hours to discuss the possible ways to semi-automate the windmill.