111 – Gems, Crystal, and Magic Jade
The last two chests didn’t hold books.
What surprised Liszt was that one chest held jade and the other held crystal: “Jade and crystal, these two chests are definitely not as valuable as the chest with mithril!”
Once he picked up a piece of milky white jade, the regret he felt for the books dissipated somewhat.
Although jade and crystal could be roughly classified as kinds of gems, but they had entirely different origins. Jade originated from the earth, it was a mineral naturally occurring in the earth alike saltpeter and sulfur. Crystal, on the other hand, originated from dragons, it was a mineral produced alongside gems.
Although dragons could produce gems and the gems were very rich in magic power, but gem mines were rare. Crystal mines produced in the vicinity of gem mines, on the other hand, were much more common. There was citrine in the vicinity of topaz and rubasse in the vicinity of rubies among others.
Crystals also contained magic power, yet their magic power was much weaker than that of gems.
Aristocrats were fond of using crystal to sculpt wine glasses. In his castle, Liszt had such a set of crystal goblets to entertain distinguished guests. Crystal was also commonly used to manufacture magic lamps, which could give off light day and night until their magic power was depleted. Named castles usually had such crystal lamps.
Crystal was also a great beloved by the aristocratic gentlewomen as an accessory. A crystal necklace could add a great deal of elegance to a gentlewoman.
Jade originated from the earth was also known as magic jade and possessed magic power. However, the magic power jade contained was greatly integrated with jade itself, which made it very difficult to be used. It could not be forged into a magic item.
However, jade was the best food for sprites.
When transplanting their worm stalks, sprites had to rely on jade to maintain their lives; when forming a contracted with sprite worms, jade had to be used as bait; and, using containers forged from jade for sprites to dwell in increased their probability at evolution.
Therefore, jade was not any less valuable than crystal.
Liszt opened the gem’s space and put the chest worth of jade and crystal away. Next, he rang the bell to call his battler: “Mr. Carter, I’ve already put away the treasure inside the chests. For the most part, it was seriously damaged, only leaving a bit of residue behind. Call someone to throw these away.”
He had carefully rummaged through the two chests with book, yet the books were all rotten, not leaving anything that could be identified as text behind.
One of the drawbacks of thick bast paper was that it could not be preserved for too long. Liszt thought that there should be a connection between thick bast paper and the lack of recorded history in this world. During its production, thick bast paper would undergo ‘acidification’ so that it could be smoothly written on. However, things treated with acid were prone to chemical reactions, which was the reason why thick bast paper could not be preserved for too long. He understood this much.
“Despite some regrets, this treasure shipwreck was a windfall overall! Excellent!” Mused Liszt. He was gradually feeling more and more pleased. Therefore, for the banquet, he let the kitchen hold a barbecue.
Gort, Marcus, and others came to participate. They knew that Liszt's harvest was bountiful. Hover, they didn’t ask about the details of the treasure.
……
For the last three days, Liszt had been paying attention to the black nightshade.
The wild black nightshades had adapted to the new soil and environment, and had began to revitalize – the green leaves were roused, the blossoms continued to bloom, and the fruit continued to be born. Only the black nightshade gestating the sprite worm was still at deaths doors, with its magic power flickering on and off. It gave off the impression that it would die and any time.
Nevertheless, it didn’t die. It continued to persevere.
There was also no changes in the smoke mission, which meant that the mission was yet to be completed.
“The magic power of the black pearl should be sufficient. I can see signs of magic power below the soil… I can’t do much more than this. Now, whether you keep on living or not depends on your desire to survive, black nightshade.”
He could only wait, wait for the black nightshade to die and the mission to fail, or to live on and the mission to be completed.
Liszt stood up and looked towards the castle. A yellow-gray horse was galloping towards the castle.
“Marcus is back.” He mounted Blackdragon and rode back to the castle, meeting Marcus at the gate, “Teacher Marcus, how was your trip?”
“Everything went smooth, Sir. Tomorrow, along with the Flower Caravan’s transport team, the crystal craftsman Brad will come to the Flower Town to serve you for a month.”
“Thanks for your trouble, Teacher Marcus.” Nodded Liszt. After he got the large amount of crystal, he came up with the idea of making a telescope. Although glass was the most suitable material for making telescopes, but glass production was fairly complicated and Liszt was temporarily incapable of producing it. Thus, he could only use crystal to make the telescope.
It would be quite simple to make a telescope from transparent rock crystal with polished smooth surface.
The Coral City had craftsmen who specialized in making crystal ornaments. Perhaps these craftsmen could not make crystal into crystal lamps, but polishing crystal into convex and concave lenses would certainly not pose them a problem.
“Were the telescope’s two lenses concave or a convex?” Liszt no longer recalled some knowledge regarding physics. However, he still remembered that a telescope was formed from two lenses and that the range of the telescope would vary along with the distance between the two lenses. Hiring a crystal craftsman for a month should be enough to produce a good telescope.
The crystal craftsman Brad arrived as scheduled the next day.
He was a bald, middle-aged man with with quite the impressive mustache. He said in a muffled voice: “Respected Baron of the Flower Town, I, Brad, give you my regards.”
“Brad, do you know why I hired you?”
“According to Mr. Marcus, you want me to create a few crystal articles for you.”
“I want you to create several lenses for me.” Liszt handed him several pieces of rock crystal, which was produced alongside white sapphire. Liszt didn’t know what kind of gem white sapphire was. Although there was a lot of information pertaining to dragons in circulation, but most of it was vague. States kept a wail of mystery around their dragons.
“Is this rock crystal? I can sense magic power from it.” Brad was a freelance craftsman as well as an Apprentice Knight who possessed qi. In order to craft gems and crystal, one had to possess qi.
Liszt revealed a sheet of thick bast paper: “I need you to create several of such lenses from rock crystal. They must have polished surfaces, identical thickness, and round shapes. The lenses are to be of two specific sizes with varied thickness.”
The structures of concave and convex lenses were drawn on the sheet of thick bast paper.
As he was unclear regarding the focal length of concave and convex lenses as well as how to combine them into a telescope, Liszt decided to have the crystal craftsman make several lenses and then later test the combinations one by one.
“As you wish, Sir Baron.”
“In that case, you will stay in the Flower Town. The sooner you finish with polishing the lenses, the sooner you can leave. The salary will still be one gold coin, as promised.”
Crystal craftsmen were fairly high-end craftsmen. Usually, their income was quite good, with twenty to thirty silver coins a month being the norm. In order to hire one such craftsman and have the other party come to him, Liszt had to provide a higher remuneration.
From here one, Brad began to carefully polish the concave and convex lenses.