Chapter 152: Chapter 151: It’s Wet
In the blink of an eye, many days had passed.
The wooden ship from White Stone Tower sailed along the Jade River, docking at two larger cities for several days, until eventually, the number of people on board exceeded fifty.
Afterward, the wooden ship reached the mouth of the river and entered the boundless sea.
After sailing on the ocean for half a day, a Black Shadow appeared on the surface of the water.
As they drew nearer, it was possible to see that it was an overwhelmingly large vessel.
If the wooden ship was like a small hill, then this vast ship was akin to a sea island. Richard estimated that its displacement was at least a few thousand tons.
This was an exaggerated scale.
The bigger the ship, the more difficult it is to build, and in fact, shipbuilding in the Medieval era was not advanced, with most sea vessels having a displacement of tens or hundreds of tons.
After the Medieval era, during the Age of Exploration, shipbuilding made dramatic strides, yet it remained difficult to achieve a displacement of a thousand tons.
It wasn’t until the modern era that ships of a few thousand tons became relatively common, and only ocean freighters, large warships, or aircraft carriers could reach tens of thousands of tons.
Approaching the giant vessel, Richard also noticed more details and finally, his gaze settled on a part of the ship near the waterline. His eyebrows raised, he discovered something unusual.
It was a structure half-submerged in water, closely integrated with the ship’s hull, but projected significantly forward—like a large nose growing on the smooth surface of the vessel.
This was a bulbous bow.
Richard thought to himself.
This was completely out of place in the Medieval era.
If one could argue that a ship’s size and displacement could be built up forcibly, the bulbous bow was different; it was purely a creation of technology.
When a ship travels on the sea surface, the wave-making resistance caused by the waves generated opposes the direction of the ship’s progress. The energy of the waves’ rise and fall is supplied by the ship’s hull, and the existence of wave-making resistance, in a sense, consumes a portion of the power propelling the ship forward.
With a bulbous bow installed, the wave generated by the bulb starts at the trough, while the bow wave system formed by the ship hull starts at the crest. After some adjustments, so that the trough of the bulbous bow’s wave coincides exactly with the crest of the main hull’s wave system, this achieves a wave-cancelling effect, reducing the vessel’s resistance while sailing, reducing power consumption, by about 10%.
A 10% reduction may not be noticeable on regular voyages, but on long-distance journeys, especially for large displacement vessels on extended routes, it is crucial.
Even so, despite the importance of the bulbous bow, it is not something that can be manufactured just because one wants to; it is an extremely complex system. It was only researched in the 20th century on modern Earth and mainly used on warships. Some data must be calculated precisely; otherwise, instead of reducing resistance, it could potentially increase it.
This meant that this was a creation far beyond its time, yet now it appeared right before his eyes.
It seemed that, due to the influence of wizards or other factors, the current world, although similar to the Medieval era, was not exactly the same. Certain things had changed, including certain levels of technological expertise.
The secrets of this world seemed to be multiplying.
Richard thought as the wooden ship stopped beside the large vessel.
Everyone stood on deck, craning their necks to look up at the towering ship, when suddenly a series of footsteps were heard, and a person emerged from the cabin.
It was the wizard Siv.
Throughout the many days aboard the ship, everyone had come to recognize the wizard who didn’t talk much and had witnessed him punishing offenders with thunderous ruthlessness. As soon as Siv appeared, people immediately made way.
Siv said little, and without any noticeable movement, he stepped and floated up onto the ship. The crowd on the wooden deck gasped, mostly in awe of the magic and the wizard’s might.
Having boarded the large ship, Siv was likely communicating with the people onboard. Soon enough, a number of figures appeared at the edge of the deck, lowering ladders for everyone to climb aboard.
After ascending onto the large ship, the passengers truly experienced the immensity of the vessel, and couldn’t help but burst into exclamations of amazement, even Gro’s eyes widened. Richard, however, didn’t react much; after all, modern Earth had even larger ships, while Pandora didn’t open her eyes at all, gently nodding and following closely behind Richard with measured steps.
Then came the allocation of cabins, a time when rank and status finally showed their significance.
The large ship had three layers of cabins beneath the deck.
The top layer, nearest to the deck, was reserved for students with high-level wizard talent.
The second layer, slightly further from the deck, housed students with intermediate talent.
As for the bottom third layer, close to the ship’s hull, it was for those with low-level talent or no talent at all, those who boarded with an examination exemption certificate.
Descending to the third layer, one could distinctly feel its cramped, moist, and gloomy conditions. The overall environment was downright filthy, and it also housed the sailors, truly challenging many people’s limits of endurance.
But there was no choice; faced with a wizard’s command, no one dared to disobey.
Richard wasn’t too bothered by this. To him, living conditions could be made very simple; as long as it didn’t affect his normal activities, he could cope.
To avoid disturbance, Richard chose a cabin at the end of the hallway on the third layer and went in with Pandora.
After entering the cabin and shutting the door, Pandora set down the luggage and wobbly made her way to find a bed.
Once she found it, she plopped down, ready to sleep.
But then she suddenly lifted her head, opened her eyes, furrowed her brow, and touching the bedding, she said to Richard, “Wet!”
It was indeed very wet.
Because the cabin was underwater, the air was very damp. Due to the less advanced shipbuilding techniques, water seeped continuously through the gaps, making the whole cabin damp. The walls were covered in moss, and there were even creatures like snails and shells, with a green-shelled crab crawling around in the corner.
The bedding was so wet it could almost be wrung out. Just staying in the cabin for a while made one feel sticky, caused by sweat unable to evaporate due to the high humidity; no wonder even the sleepy Pandora couldn’t fall asleep.
But this was no issue for Richard.
A simple spell would do the trick.
His lips parted slightly, and the free energy elements within his body surged as the “Water Droplet Condensation” spell was rapidly cast.
The moisture in the air quickly converged towards Richard’s fingertips, forming into droplets which, under his control, fell into a wooden bucket inside the cabin.
By the time the bucket was nearly full, the cabin had become exceptionally dry, as if scorched under the sun. The moss turned from jade green to withered yellow, and the snails and shells clinging to the walls fell off in droves.
Pandora tentatively touched the bedding again, nodded in satisfaction, and then lay down to sleep.
Richard gathered up the snails, shells, and green-shelled crab, tossing them all into the bucket, just about to breathe a sigh of relief when a knock sounded at the cabin door.