Chapter 281

Chapter 281

"Change the formula?"

The old mage paused his spellcasting and looked down at Grett, frowning slightly:

"Are you dissatisfied with this wall?"

He was somewhat displeased. Turning fossils into mud and mud into stone, both spells were of the 5th rank of transformation, meaning any 9th-level mage could perform them. Yet, as a 14th-level grand mage and a member of the review committee personally undertaking the task, the hardness and fineness of the stone, as well as the precision of its shaping, were leagues beyond what those intermediate mages could achieve.

What, is the lad still finding faults?

But then he saw a head buried motionlessly and an open palm. Grett was squatting on the ground, his palm forward, holding the spellcasting materials for turning mud into stone—sand, lime, water—his voice filled with confusion, as if he was desperately trying to remember something:

"Not that... I mean, sand, lime, water, isn’t that just cement? Cement with broken stones and water makes concrete...

Different formulas have different functions, some dry quickly, some are wear-resistant, some are acid and alkali resistant, some can withstand high temperatures, some are especially frost-resistant, impermeable, crack-resistant...

Surely, we have to try them one by one!"

The old mage fell silent. He had cast the spell to turn mud into stone countless times over the decades, indeed noticing slight differences each time. Moreover, these differences seemed unrelated to his control over the spell. He couldn’t help but squat down to look into Grett’s eyes, pressing:

"Cement? Mix..."

He stopped there, pondering before awkwardly repeating the term he had heard for the first time:

"Concrete? What is that? Do you know the formula?"

"I don’t know!" Grett declared boldly:

"I’m just a healer! I know that sand, lime, water together make cement, ah no, it seems clay and lime can be burned to make cement, and cement with sand, water, broken stones, etc., makes concrete! No transcendent powers needed, ordinary people can make it!

But what formula produces what result, that... has to be tried one by one... I know there are several types of cement, some made with lime, some with sand, some with alumina... made with volcanic ash, fly ash, slag..."

As he spoke, his voice grew quieter, and he shrank down, almost curling up into a ball. He felt that this approach of "I know the direction, but you guys have to try the details" was somewhat irresponsible...

But he truly didn’t know!

He was a medical professional, not an architecture or materials science major! The differences between cement and concrete were something he picked up from chatting with workers on the construction site when the hospital was building a new wing!

You ask him for formulas, for different formulas and different properties of cement’s composition, he couldn’t do it even if his life depended on it!

The old mage really wanted to give Grett a piece of his mind. However, before he could speak, he already heard Old Sam muttering to someone nearby:

"Here he goes again..."

Ah, right, it was the same during the mithril refining. Giving a direction, a group of grand mages and their apprentices, over a hundred people, tried day and night. This little guy then turned to something else, after tinkering with disinfectant, even produced plague seeds in the laboratory...

So, after causing trouble for the energy manipulation school, was he here to cause trouble for their transformation school now?

The stone elemental crouched down, seemingly listening to the mages’ instructions and descriptions, before leaping out of the magic array into the foundation pit. Grett couldn’t help but exclaim:

"Ah—"

Such a large stone elemental, don’t damage my foundation

!

Miraculously, this three-person-tall, at least seven or eight-ton heavy stone elemental jumped down without making a sound, as if silently merging with the foundation. The four high-level mages chanted faster, and after a long spell, suddenly raised their arms:

"Rise—"

Smooth, dense, dark walls rose from the ground, growing taller and taller.

This tower was a standard mage tower design, an octagonal tower body, three floors underground, nine floors above ground—since it was a high-level mage tower, extra floors were added. The tower’s body was thicker at the bottom and tapered towards the top, with the outer walls slightly inclined inward. However, the inclination was not significant; the bottom floor of the mage tower was only 20% smaller in radius than the top floor.

The floors of the mage tower were quite high. Unlike the residential buildings Grett had seen in his previous life, with a cramped floor height of 2.8 meters and a living room’s net height of 2.4 meters, mages preferred open environments. Each floor of this mage tower was over 3.5 meters high, nearly reaching four meters including the ceiling thickness.

A nine-story tower rose straight from the ground, with Grett standing beside it, looking up as the tower grew taller and taller...

"Ouch!" Looking up too much, he almost lost his balance!

Each side of the octagonal tower had three windows. Of course, from the second to the fourth floor, which was the ground part of the P4 laboratory, the red zone had no windows. Not only were there no windows, but the entire wall was also tightly sealed, without a single gap to the outside.

As the outer wall reached its highest point, it tapered inward, forming a sharp sloped roof, with a few bells hanging under the eight eaves. Grett had once thought of creating open eaves for each floor, then wrapping a balcony and railings around the tower, but was sternly rejected by the mage in charge of the project:

"What kind of look is that! There has never been such a thing in a mage tower! Are you suggesting we make the mage tower too safe, providing places for thieves to climb?"

Uh... actually, I was imagining Chinese-style buildings like the Yellow Crane Tower and the Six Harmonies Pagoda...

Grett reluctantly held his tongue. Thinking again about the laboratory theft incidents, maybe if he had gone with that plan, he would have installed burglar-proof windows on every floor?

The visual effect of that is horrifying.

With professional mages jointly casting spells, the construction speed was unbelievably fast. A building with three underground floors and nine above-ground floors, from foundation completion to structural capping, would take at least three months in Grett’s previous world—each underground floor taking at least half a month, each above-ground floor taking five days after reaching ground level, and the top floor taking even longer, about ten days.

However, now, in just about two hours, the outer walls and roof of the mage tower were already formed. Grett waited another hour by the side, and the four mages stopped chanting, taking a deep breath. The walls of the mage tower, from being flat, began to protrude, revealing the outline of a stone elemental person, gradually separating and jumping out.

When it stood in front of everyone, it had shrunk to half its size from when it first appeared.

"That’s it, the inside is also done." By this time, most of the committee members had already dispersed, only the old mage from the transformation school still stood there, accompanying Grett to view the mage tower. Seeing the stone elemental appear, he pointed to the tower body and smiled at Grett:

"The rooms, floors, stairs, etc., are all done. The elemental pool, magical defenses, and so on, are the responsibility of the protection and curse schools, so it’ll take a few more days. How about it, want to go in and take a look? If you’re not satisfied, we can still make adjustments—"

Half a day’s work had accomplished what would have taken months in his previous world... Without considering production costs, mages truly are the primary productive force...

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