Mage? Magic Engineer!-Chapter 49 - 46: A Bargaining Chip for the New Minister of Finance

"Valon, I knew your father." The casino heavy stopped what he was doing. Nekker flashed a professional smile. "What’s a nobleman like you doing playing in a low-class casino like this? They’re sore losers, utterly devoid of credibility."

"I... I, *cough, cough*, my father passed away some time ago..."

"My apologies, my apologies, kid..." Pulling Valon to his feet, Nekker noticed the pitiful young man was still clutching a crumpled piece of donkey hide.

"I know your boss, and he still owes money to Furong Bank! Go get your boss or your manager and tell them to bring some money to apologize to Valon—to apologize to the son of a Baron!" After exchanging glances, two of the heavies silently went inside, while the other two subtly closed in on Nekker and Valon. In response, Nekker’s bodyguards stepped forward to face them.

"You poor kid! I heard you had a real lucky streak for a while?"

At the mention of this, Valon’s eyes lit up. "Sir, you can’t imagine it! It was the first time I felt so exhilarated, so invincible! Good heavens, I was like the greatest general before the roulette wheel today..."

Nekker listened, a plan forming in his mind. ’Valon’s father was only a Baron, and on Prairie Avenue in Valuva, you could throw a stone and be likely to hit one. However, he was close to the Guard Captain, making him well-known and widely connected among the nobility, especially those from the outer provinces...’

’What’s the point of this little casino? I, Nekker, plan to use His Majesty’s backing to play for high stakes against the Holy Kingdom. And as it happens, I’ve just picked up a new chip today...’ He sized up the dust-covered Valon. ’...though this one’s a bit dirty. It’ll need to be wiped clean before I can see its true value.’ 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

...

A new tenday began, and Rorschach was constantly revising his paper. He traveled back and forth between the Alchemy Department and the Magic Tower, gathering large amounts of data.

Although the core of his paper was the "Kano Cycle," a conceptual, idealized model, he still needed to conduct some experiments to establish a suitable temperature scale in order to clearly explain the principles involved.

Thankfully, the common temperature scale in this world was still defined by dividing the range between the freezing and boiling points of water into 100 equal parts. This had been jointly standardized by the Alchemy Association, under the Magic Guild, and the Order Church during the era of the Old Empire.

That’s right. During the Old Empire, the Church of Light and Order had standardized many physical dimensions and units of measurement, and even unified the common human language across the continent. They were practically a beacon for humanity—"In the name of God, this is all part of the great Order."

But in the domain of thermodynamics, this wasn’t enough. Rorschach needed a temperature scale that could describe absolute zero. Thus, a new set of experiments began. Rorschach found Pascal sleeping in the Library.

"I’m about to start. Make sure you watch the readings." A magnesium strip, polished to a bright shine, was carefully placed against the inner wall of a glass test tube containing oil of vitriol. Rorschach had taken these teaching instruments from the Alchemy Classroom and assembled them into a simple apparatus for determining the ideal gas constant.

As for the oil of vitriol—sulfuric acid—Rorschach had no idea how concentrated it was. The Alchemy Department didn’t have any on hand, so Rorschach found an Apprentice who knew [Acid Splash] and had him conjure a large cup of acid. He then extracted the thick, greenish liquid with water before distilling it, obtaining a relatively clear and transparent acid. Whether it was actually sulfuric acid was another matter, but at least it could produce hydrogen gas.

’Rorschach Mage knows Alchemy?’ This thought was followed by another: ’But this doesn’t seem like the Alchemy I know.’ This was what had crossed Pascal’s mind when Rorschach first asked for his help.

At first, Pascal had been fooled by Rorschach. He couldn’t refuse the enthusiastic invitation from his "junior," the Mage, and came to the Alchemy Classroom. Once they were alone in the classroom, Rorschach revealed his true colors.

"Pascal, my dear senior, how could you back out now? Didn’t Teacher Kano tell you to help out your junior? And speaking of Teacher Kano, he gave me the authority to deduct disciplinary points. You’re in a bit of a dangerous position, you know..." He meant nothing by it, of course—just a junior kindly reminding his senior to avoid getting expelled.

How could Pascal let himself be threatened by a sixteen-year-old? He stuck his neck out stubbornly. "Do I need a junior to remind me of my own situation?"

And so, that led to the present: "Set thirteen, water bath temperature thirty-six degrees, volume of gas produced..." Pascal’s voice was completely devoid of energy as he listlessly read and recorded the data.

At an hour when the other Apprentices were likely already in bed, Rorschach’s experiment was finally complete.

He did a quick review of the data and said happily, "Thanks so much! Today’s experiment is done. I appreciate all your hard work, senior!"

"As expected of the young Mage, so dedicated to your research at such a young age... Wait, what do you mean, ’today’s’ experiment?" Pascal’s drowsy eyes suddenly shot wide open and stared at Rorschach.

"Don’t be alarmed. I have to organize the data now... so we won’t need to do any more experiments for the next few days. Thanks for your help, senior!"

"Oh... okay, then. See you later, junior." Pascal walked out of the Alchemy Classroom with a weary expression, yawning nonstop.

’I’ll measure Avogadro’s constant later... and when I do, it’ll be the Rorschach Constant.’ It was fine to hold off on introducing the concept of moles for now. Rorschach could still derive an approximate value for the ideal gas constant that incorporated mass. He divided the volume of hydrogen by its mass, obtaining the relationship between different temperatures and the reciprocal of hydrogen’s density.

The data points formed a rough line. After calculating the regression equation, Rorschach extrapolated the line to the point where the volume of hydrogen at standard pressure would be approximately zero. The intercept of this hypothetical point was "absolute zero," the zero point of the thermodynamic temperature scale.

’Around negative two hundred and eighty degrees... that’s very close to the data from Blue Star.’ He had simply copied a verification experiment from his past life; the design was crude, and the margin of error should have been large. It was like shooting an arrow and then drawing the target around it. Still, the fact that the value was so close to the one from his past life sent an involuntary shiver down his spine.

’I’ll copy this into the paper... This is the starting point for the Kel—no, here, it’s the starting point for the Rorschach Temperature Scale!’ If his paper was successfully published, it was very likely that future alchemists in this world studying thermodynamics would have to learn the First Law of Rorschach, the Second Law of Rorschach... using the Rorschach Constant to calculate Rorschach Quantities on the Rorschach Scale... ’No, on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t name everything after myself.’

...

One month after arriving at the Tower of Stars, Rorschach took the first draft of his paper to find Master Kano.

"You wrote this?" Kano asked, a strange expression on his face as he looked at the paper, which was as thick as a pamphlet.

"Yes. I’ve been researching the problem of the steam engine these past few days, looking through the Alchemy Department’s records and conducting some small experiments to verify my ideas."

Kano had been about to say he would look at it later, but as he casually flipped through the pages, a conclusion inside caught his eye. "The efficiency limit of an idealized model?"

"It’s the limit of a steam engine’s efficiency. I don’t understand mechanics and all that stuff the Dwarves are into, so I decided to approach it from the perspective of energy. After all, back at the Magic Academy in the Empire, my best subject was the [Fireball Skill]."

’What does the Fireball Skill have to do with this huge pile of equations?’ Kano’s eyebrows nearly shot to the top of his head. He looked it over and sighed. "This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with magic."

"The Ether is too profound and variable, so I started with the laws of nature first. Later, I’ll conduct more in-depth research on situations where magic is involved."

Kano nodded, accepting this explanation. He flipped through the pages again and again, sometimes turning back to reread a section. Finally, the portly Master sank into his large leather chair and rubbed the corners of his eyes. "Your novel ideas are brilliant. Many of your methods of argumentation remind me of the great Philosophers from before the Old Empire..."

"But! Right in your introduction, you’ve made the same kind of mistake those old Philosophers used to make—heat is a form of energy? Is that what they taught you at the Empire’s Magic Academy?"