Chapter 394: Chapter 393 A Letter from Afar

Alex finally left, his face grimacing in tears, looking terribly upset.

Richard knew that his displeasure wasn’t because of him leaving but because he could no longer make money off of him in the future.

Shaking his head, Richard, carrying the materials, walked into the Inner Box World.

Inner Box World.

After some discussions with Pandora, Richard had a more detailed understanding of Pandora’s abilities and was prepared to try using them in practice.

Holding an iron ingot in his hand, he handed it to Pandora, instructing her to grasp it while guiding her to use her abilities to shape it.

“Hit the energy, turn this iron ingot into this shape,” Richard said, opening a Papyrus Scroll and showing Pandora a 3D pattern, asking, “Can you do it?”

Pandora held the iron ingot, her large eyes twinkling as she looked at the scroll for a long time, first nodding her head, then shaking it, “No…I don’t know.”

“Just give it a try.”

“Uh.” Pandora began moving her hands, gripping the ingot tightly, and exerting her ability.

The iron ingot visibly reddened, softened, melted into a liquid, then began to deform, striving to match the shape on the Papyrus Scroll.

Bit by bit, bit by bit…

Richard watched Pandora intently, his mind racing as he contemplated the principles behind her abilities. It seemed related to Shaping Energy Fire Magic, but more likely it resembled an innate ability of the Dragon Clan, akin to the instincts of some demonized creatures.

Considering that Gregory, as a Fire-breathing Dragon before his death, could emit high-temperature flames and incinerate much of the Palace in the Blue Lion Kingdom. Although Pandora’s abilities weren’t incredibly powerful, they were indeed very useful.

Such abilities turned Pandora into a 3D printing princess…printer, which facilitated many research projects.

Given the premise that the overall industrial technology level of this world was lagging, constructing many items was quite challenging.

For example, items like reaction vessels and high-pressure containers were hard to manufacture. Even relying on craftsmen, who could only scarcely produce high-pressure tanks suitable for storing chlorine or oxygen, it was a struggle. Pushing the craftsmen further would be impossible, practically driving them to death.

With Pandora, however, everything was much simpler. Once she was well-trained and the necessary raw materials were prepared, she could rapidly “print” the required items herself.

From this perspective, Pandora’s role far exceeded her representation as a juvenile giant dragon.

As Richard reflected on this, Pandora, utilizing her abilities, had already produced the item that Richard requested.

Having it quickly cooled, Pandora, holding it up, asked Richard, “Richard, is this okay?”

Richard took it, looked it over, pointed out a few flaws without much ado, and instructed Pandora to make improvements. Soon, they had an almost perfect…steel pipe.

Well, a steel pipe.

Considering it wasn’t pure iron and contained a certain level of carbon, it could also be called a seamless steel pipe.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Richard wasn’t planning to challenge Pandora with very high difficulties from the start, so he decided to start with seamless steel pipes.

Technologically, although seamless steel pipes weren’t considered advanced or precision high-tech, they still weren’t easy to manufacture casually.

Not to mention, even on Earth, in the New China, it was only managed in 1953–four years after the establishment of the state.

Besides, seamless steel pipes have significant applications.

“Seamless steel pipes may look just like any other tube with nothing special about them, yet they play an irreplaceable role in numerous aspects such as machinery manufacturing, transportation, and geological exploration, earning them the reputation as the ‘blood vessels’ of industry. Without the production of seamless steel pipes, the development of many industrial fields such as petroleum, chemical, steel, machinery, military, and aerospace would not even be possible.

In the world, often, what restricts development is not the high-level technologies held by a select few but rather the most basic component, material, or screw.

Developing high-end precision technologies is the goal, but before that, developing fundamental technologies is key.

Richard had prepared himself to continuously develop Pandora’s ‘shaping’ abilities, progressively illuminating the industrial technologies missing from the current world. Eventually, he would be able to conduct any research he desired freely.

Of course, what he wanted now was to build several large and useful experimental instruments.

…

In the blink of an eye, several days later.

One by one, huge iron equipment appeared in various functional zones of the Inner Box World.

Distillation columns, fractionating towers, high-pressure reactors, liquid yeast fermentation tanks, melting furnaces…

Richard looked at these items, nodded in satisfaction, and said to himself, ‘Although on the whole they look quite rudimentary and their functions are not so perfect, at least the framework has been set up. It’s really like having a qualified portable laboratory. From now on, this place will be called… Eden, yes, Eden.’

“Furthermore…” Richard scanned “Eden” and slowly voiced, “It’s about time to really leave White Stone City.”

“But the question is, where to go after leaving White Stone City?”

…

Ground experimental lab, main laboratory.

It was evening now, candles were lit, emitting an orange glow, giving the entire room a somewhat mysterious air.

Richard sat at the sparsely furnished experiment table, and by the light, he opened a letter.

The letter had come from a far place in the north of the East Coast, passed through many hands, and arrived with difficulty. It was written by someone who had left many days ago–Heidi, the Great Scholar Socrates’s granddaughter, the cat slave girl.

Honestly, Richard had thought that although she had said she would write to him when she initially left, he really didn’t expect the letter to arrive given the great distance. This wasn’t modern Earth–distance was a significant barrier to communication, insurmountable even for wizards, let alone an ordinary girl.

Yet, the letter had arrived.

Was it luck, or some serendipitous coincidence?

Narrowing his eyes, Richard opened the letter.

His eyes fell on the paper and after reading just one line, his eyebrows raised: “Dear Mr. Richard, hello, this is the 21st letter I’ve written to you.”

“Tap.”

Richard’s finger tapped lightly on the table as he continued to read.

“I remember you once said that due to the great distance to my place, it would be hard for my letters to reach you, so I wrote many letters. I don’t know which one you will receive, so I wrote each one as though it were the only one you’d get.

If you receive multiple letters at once and find some contradictions in them, it might be because I was initially misunderstood, but later got it right. In short… please don’t be surprised, just consider the later dated letters as more accurate.

Uh, I’ve talked too much nonsense, let’s get back to the main topic.

I don’t know if you still remember, before sending me away, you said you would also leave White Stone City, but you didn’t know where to go. I suggested that you could come to this place called Wooden Island. But at that time, you were not sure as you didn’t know much about Wooden Island. For that reason, I came here and have learned a lot about it. Now I am telling you, hoping it might help with your decision.

…”