Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 286: Ship Building II

When Lia came back to her workplace from the Steel Chick tavern, she plunged into the sofa in the hall. She was surprised to see Amaryll prepared a surprise party in the tavern to welcome her into their little girl's group.

Except for Arrora, all the girls drank the freshly brewed ale until they couldn't as Amaryll also made her chug down a bunch of mugs. Arrora had to carry over drunk Amaryll to the castle and dropped Lia in her room a couple of hours before.

With a hangover cure made by Amaryll's assistants, the two goblins, Lia was able to come to work.

After lifting herself up, she walked to her table and started working. Lia spread out a piece of paper and wrote down the specifications she needed and drew a rough design of the fishing ships.

The book of ark had designs for not only warships but also all types of ships, such as fishing boats and cargo ships. Coupled with her grandfather's notes, she could build any one of the ships in the book given the required materials. 

"What do I know about the water?"

Lia talked to herself and grabbed the map of Agoria and the detailed map of the Avelon continent. And after studying both the map and the book of ark, she painted a clear picture in her mind about what type of ship is best suited for them.

"Each ship would need to carry two to three cannons as well as about twenty people"

Even though it's a fishing ship, Knight instructed her to design the boat to fit two to three cannons for protection against the hostile sea folks and the pirates.

"What's an Accelerator? Looks like some kind of device"

While she was searching for how to build the mast for the ships, she saw 

a long tubular shape drawing on the book and found out that all the ancients ships used a device called Accelerator to move instead of sails and masts.

"Powder Suede, Grave Erithium, Grim Dust, Impulsevelour, Fluke Weave"

She didn't know any of the required materials to build an Accelerator as she marked down to ask Lord Ken or Lord Benedict or Lady Reghys.

"What's the next thing? Oh, right the ship needs to sail on inland rivers and sea. It would need to be stable and reliable and also it would need to be easy to operate so that the people could handle it quickly after minimal training"

Considering all these points and with her knowledge of the book of ark, she found a perfect ship.

"Spirit"

It's what the ancients called this ship. On the paper, the ship appeared to be a strangely carved and painted vessel. Her hull required a material called Celenium to build. The book of the ark had the formula to produce Celenium and according to her grandfather's notes, this material is strong but lightweight, a perfect material to build a ship. This ship also seemed to be outfitted with lower-deck viewing windows, powerful hull lights powered by life stones, and retractable spy glasses.

"Let's add a cannon space and sails as an alternative way to sail the ship"

Lia quickly made a few changes to the original design and came up with a design of her own.

After the ship type was determined, the next key point was to determine 

how fast she could build the ships and fortunately the Accelerator could be fitted inside the ship after building it, so she didn't have to take the Accelerator into consideration.

The construction of the boat using Celenium was much easier than that of a wooden boat. She only needed to make a wooden template reinforced with strong metal bars, and then fill it with the Celenium. 

"Casting method huh?"

The ancients called this method casting and gave Lia a whole new perspective of building ships. Until now, she didn't know such methods existed as it took months and even years to build a ship depending on its function and size with the traditional method. Back home, they would first choose suitable wood and materials for a different part of the ship, then they would bring all the materials to fix them together and this may sound easy, but she knew it was extremely difficult and required professional builders.

Yet, with the casting method, she guessed it would take a week or less to build the Spirit. The wooden ship would need regular cleaning and coating, while the Spirit type ships would not require much maintenance. It could be built at a low cost considering all the materials needed to produce Celenium was rather cheap, but still, the ship would be strong and durable. 

Lia knew it might not be as easy as this to build a warship but for now, she could build the fishing boats quickly, if someone helped her with building the Accelerator.

"Let's finalize the design"

As she said, she picked up a quill and carefully drew the final version of the spirit ship.

...

(After three days)

A shed with walls was put up along the Turtle River of Agoria. The river was located near the Agoria castle and ran through the kingdom to the outerlands. Normally the river would run with a terrifying force and speed as the locals avoided putting their legs into the river unless they wished fast traveling to death. However, now the terrifying river seemed unmoving as the cold slowly froze the water.

In order to facilitate the launching of the ships, Lia chose the shipbuilding site as close as possible to the river bank.

"Lady Lia, come inside, you'll catch cold if you stand outside"

Lia turned her head to see a black armored girl asking her to come inside the temporary shed they made to build ships before building an actual shipyard.

"Yes"

She nodded as she followed the girl inside and brushed away the snow on her head. Sheds could keep out the wind and snow. At the same time, two pots of charcoal were put in the room to avoid the impact that low-temperature had on the hardening effect of the Celenium.

When Ken came carrying a bag of white powder, she first thought that it was flour. 

But he mixed the white powder with seawater and heated the mixture in high heat. That was when she saw the Celenium, a white goo like substance that would become extremely strong, durable, and light when cooled off.

With the help of Stodemar and the dwarves, Lia created the cast of the hull. The arched bow would reduce the forward resistance, and the square stern would increase the loading area to accommodate cannons and sailors. In the center, they set up two masts. The masts were inserted into the bottom of the ship and connected to the metal beams passing through the centerline of the ship. At the stern, they set up a stake reserved for the rudder. The lower decks had enough space to put thirty to forty beds for the sailors and had a separate room for the captain which interior was designed by Amber.

Once the cast and Celenium were ready, Lia ordered the workers to start the pouring operation.

They poured the bubbling hot white goo into a cast. The middle of the cast was hollow, and the walls were delicately curved, forming the cabin walls. At first sight, it looked like a strange floating house.

Everyone involved in the construction, including Lia, had never thought that this strange thing made out of a new type of substance would become a ship. Lia stared at the casting process without batting an eye and prayed for the success of her project.

If this was regular shipbuilding, she wouldn't have felt the pressure as that would have been like a walk in the park for her but this was the first time she built an ancient ship out of the book of ark. She had zero experience and never worked with Celenium or the casting method ever before.

"Lady Lia, please be calm"

The girl who asked her to come inside came to her side and consoled her while she was biting her nails in tension.

"You think it will float?"

Lia asked while still looking at the casting process.

"It is a strange-looking ship and I've never heard of a ship that wasn't built using wood but I've seen many miracles happen in Everlight, Lady Lia, this will be another one"

Considering the girl was wearing the helmet to cover her face, Lia couldn't see her expression, yet she could tell the girl was speaking sincerely.

"Lady Lia, how long will it take the white goo to cool down?"

After staring at the casting process for a few more hours, the girl asked.

"Four days"

**********************

Four days after they placed the ship in the casting room, the day to launch the vessel finally arrived. She wished Knight was here to see this, but he was busy planning the security for the coronation ceremony. She was grateful for Lady Reghys who came here to melt the frozen river so they could test sail the boat.

All the workers were left stunned when Lia ordered them to put the boat made of a strange substance that had taken them a lot of work into the water, making everyone wonder whether they had misheard him. Even the dwarves looked bewildered under their helmets.

However, that was indeed Lia's order.

She had people temporarily dismantle the shed and had them dug a slope below the boat, leading into the river. This part had to be handled with great caution because even though the cooled off Celenium was strong, she didn't want to take any chances as even a small hole could sink the entire boat.

 The ship was placed on top of metal bars and ropes would control the speed at which it slid. When everything was prepared, the workers let the wrist-thick rope slowly slide through their hands, making sure that it would always point in a straight line. While the workers were shouting their slogan in sync, the vessel slowly slid over the logs, creating an intense sound of friction.