Entering the middle of March, the winter cold had completely faded. The frozen land outside Banta City had begun to warm up and countless patches of green appeared through the soil.
In this season, it was a good time for a walk. So whenever there was good weather, there would be countless noble young masters and young misses who would take their luxurious horse carriages to head out of Banta City, setting out for the verdant fields outside the city.
Although Banta City had many smooth roads outside the city, the western suburb was declared to be an industrial sector by the Lord City Lord, so there were no traces of green at all. But the southern suburb was declared to be a recreation area by the Lord City Lord, which not only kept the forest, but also had a canal that drew in water from the Sandy River. This patch of wilderness had been turned into beautiful scenery, which was an excellent destination for a fine spring day.
Today was a clear day. When the sun had just reached the middle of the sky, there were countless horse carriages of noble families that came out of the southern gate, heading to the patch of green to the south of the city.
Countless noble young masters and young misses were planning to take advantage of this fine weather to walk around in nature and hold a fun picnic outside.
But today, it was different from normal.
As countless horse carriages came out the door, there were two different things mixed in with them.
The young masters and young ladies in the horse carriages heard the calls outside and opened their curtains to see that on the road, there were two people riding a flat, strange thing that had an iron frame and two wheels that they had never seen before.
The two of them were stepping on pedals and as they moved their feet, it quickly rotated a gear underneath them.
As the gear turned, the two wheels on the iron frame turned and it kept moving the two of them forward.
What surprised everyone was that the thing the two of them were sitting on looked very fragile and other than two wheels, it was only a frame. But it could allow the two people on top to quickly move forward, even surpassing several horse carriages and running in front of many noble young masters and young misses.
Seeing the two quickly charge forward on those strange and unknown things, whether it was the noble young masters and young misses in the horse carriages or the people walking on the street, they were all stunned.
What was the thing under the butts of those two people? How could it be so fast?
But as the two of them disappeared into the distance, it made those people unable to get the answer for the questions in their hearts.
The next day was also a clear day.
Countless horse carriages went out the city gates like usual.
But at the same nine in the morning, those two strange looking things carried two people out of the city, passing countless horse carriages and disappearing into the distance.
The questions in people’s hearts deepened.
The third day was another clear day.
The same thing happened again.
The fourth day……
The fifth day…..
…..
For an entire week, every day was a rare clear day and every day countless noble young masters and young misses went out for a picnic. But every day, there were two people charing out of the city gates on strange things before quickly disappearing from everyone’s sights.
After the accumulation of seven days, this strange thing spread all over Banta City and attracted everyone’s curiosity.
Some people who had nothing to do waited at the southern gates and had drawn the strange appearance of those two things.
After analyzing it, everyone found that those two things had a very simple principle. Using two wheels to stand up and a frame to support it, they used a gear to power it and the person on the thing provided the power with the pedals.
However, even though the principle seemed simple, it really was unbelievable that this thing could move so fast just relying on manual power.
At first people didn’t know a thing about this thing or where it came from, but some people with sharp eyes guessed something after seeing the tires.
Tires were a thing that only the Frestech Chamber of Commerce could produce and adding in the fact that they made many strange things, these two strange things could be new magic machines from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce!
All their questions and guesses received their answers on the eighth day.
On the morning of the eighth day, the new issue of the «Banta Times» revealed the truth.
Everyone’s guesses weren’t wrong, these two things were the newest product from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, but unexpected to everyone, this thing wasn’t related to magic at all.
This thing called a bicycle was a machine that relied on manpower and it relied on manpower alone, it didn’t contain any magic.
But even though it was only powered by manpower, as long as the rider of the bicycle was strong enough, the bicycle could move very quickly.
According to inside information from the «Banta Times», it’s said that when the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was testing the bicycle, someone riding the bicycle could rush to the Falling Rain Valley before noon if they set out from Banta City in the morning at top speed.
It had to be known that the Falling Rain Valley was a full sixty kilometers away from Banta City, even the best horse carriage would take three hours to get there.
[TL Note: For those questioning this, the general speed of an inexperienced bike rider is around 12 mp/h and converting that, it’s around 20km/h.]
The speed of this bicycle wasn’t much slower than the best horse carriages!
Seeing the report in the «Banta Times», everyone was filled with joy.
With this good thing, it would be much easier traveling in the future!
Although horse carriages were good, normal families couldn’t afford horses at all.
Although the Banta City public transport system was slowly being developed and they could take horse carriages to most places they wanted to go, it cost money to take the horse carriages and they didn’t go to many places.
Compared to this simple and light bicycle, horse carriages were without a doubt more troublesome.
After confirming that this bicycle was a product from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, countless people came to the doors of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s service center. Many people asked when this bicycle would be sold and everyone couldn’t wait to buy one.
“It seems like there’s no need to worry about the sales of the bicycle.” Xu Yi laughed as he put down the «Banta Times» in his hand. He turned to look at the bicycle that had its wheels being powered by a Wind Magic Engine.
Strictly speaking, this bicycle was just a supplementary piece of research that Xu Yi came up with while developing the engine.
Although the bicycle wasn’t an important product in an industrial system, the bicycle had many important pieces of technology hidden within.
For example, the power transfer system, the bearings, the gear casting, and different kinds of technology, they were all used in the production of the bicycle.
Other than giving the Frestech Chamber of Commerce a new product, Xu Yi had Camby and the others study the bicycle to let them learn a bit about this technology through experimenting.
This was completely different from on earth.
The mechanical engineers on earth learned theory first before conducting practical research.
As for the Magic Mechanical Engineers represented by Camby, they first conducted practical research first under Xu Yi’s guidance before gaining theoretical knowledge.
There was no choice here, Xu Yi wanted to speed up the development of the industrial system, so he could only forcefully instill his knowledge into them.
It was a good thing that dwarves like Camby had a strong talent for this. If Xu Yi just explained something for them, they could easily understand it and even extrapolate other pieces of knowledge from it.
Through researching the bicycle, Camby and the others became mechanical engineers that had a deep understanding of converting power.
The next step was for Xu Yi to let them combine the Wind Magic Engine with the bicycle to a certain extent.
If they could create a Magic Bicycle that was powered by the Wind Magic Engine, it meant that the Wind Magic Engine research would have practical applications.
The experiment that Camby’s group was doing right now was to test the stable output of the Wind Magic Engine and how strong the bearings were.
This experiment had already lasted ten days and the results were something that Xu Yi wasn’t satisfied with.
First, the Wind Magic Engine couldn’t maintain a stable output. Rather it would frequently stop without any warning and sometimes the efficiency would either get better or worse.
After Xu Yi and the other magic researchers carefully looked it over, they found that when the wind of the Wind Magic Array inside the engine increased its speed, it would create chaotic wind currents. This would affect the Magic Array to a certain extent and affect its output.
If this influence reached a certain point, the Magic Array would lose its ability temporarily and the engine would lose power.
There was also an important issue, which was the materials.
The bicycle’s gears and bearings were fine at low speeds, but when it maintained high speeds for a long time, it would be worn down.
According to their estimates, if it maintained the Wind Magic Engine’s highest speed, whether it was the gears or the bearings itself, it would be greatly worn down in just ten hours and could even break.
Xu Yi didn’t have a way to solve this right now.
Because this was a materials problem which was the hardest problem to solve.
Although the industrial system on earth was close to perfect, it kept falling behind in terms of material.
Xu Yi was a Chinese mechanical engineer, so he didn’t excel in the field of materials. Adding in the limits of the country, it was impossible for them to obtain the most advanced material production technology.
On this problem, he could only hope that the material research facility led by chief Siluka had results.
Before this, the material research facility led by chief Siluka had already given Xu Yi many pleasant surprises.
Xu Yi was giving this problem to them now and once the non-ferrous smelting plant on the Black Rice Wasteland began operating, Xu Yi was confident that chief Siluka would give him a satisfying answer.
But before that, he could only patiently wait.
Even if Xu Yi was anxious to develop the engine, this kind of technology didn’t allow for a single bit of negligence.
As a talented mechanical engineer from earth, Xu Yi had this belief and this patience.