Lu Yao overlooking the world.
In Yao City, the Fire Steam Furnace directly led to the birth of two technologies, the dyeing and spinning machine, which revitalised the relatively stagnant economy of Yao City.
Merchants from all over the world once again flocked to this ancient holy city, and they lined up outside the printing and dyeing workshop and textile institute of the Temple Society, and the merchants who got the goods had smiling faces and ran happily to the place where they sold them with their camels.
The traders who were still waiting were impatient, with various thoughts floating around their heads, worrying that they wouldn’t be able to get their goods that day.
Even more intuitive were the streets of the city.
The residents of Yao City were no longer wearing the monotonous black, white and grey colours, they were finally wearing colourful red, yellow and green costumes, and the whole city became a lot brighter.
On the wharves, ships at anchor also raised flags of different colours to show the different organisations they belonged to, and identification became much easier.
The appearance of printing was an unexpected blessing.
Lu Yao checked the backstage and found that in fact, in the previous Era, Pill Spoon had already been making the Temple of God try to make books in bulk, which was also the prototype of printing.
Medicine Spoon repeatedly emphasised that if books could be mass-produced, this would play a huge role in the continuation and spread of knowledge throughout the city, and even throughout the Yao Clan.
But until her death, the development of printing was at the stage of pottery engraving, which was not only difficult to cast the characters, but also extremely fragile, and was still at the stage of failure.
Then came the change of the Era, and the ravages of the poisonous spotted mosquitoes and plague beasts, and the Temple Guild was again forced to tighten its manpower.
The new head of the Congregation, Chubiloar, did not forget about this matter, and he inherited the legacy of the Medicine Spoon, still continuing to invest manpower and resources in research. The appearance of the Fire Vapour Furnace allowed the scholars of the Temple Guild to add the last link of the printing art.
The Yao Cheng Printing Press used metal moulds, with smoke ink as the coating. The principle was similar to that of the Fire Vapour Furnace Textile Machine and the Fire Vapour Furnace Forge, which was driven by steam in a reciprocating motion, in order to complete the printing of words on paper.
The birth of the printing press turned books into everyday commodities like textiles. The monopoly of knowledge was ended when hand-copied books, which were rare and expensive, made it difficult to circulate knowledge outwards and were largely in the hands of scholars and the wealthy.
Classic books such as A Brief History of the Tribes, The Code of Tribal Transactions, The History of the Changes in Salt City, The Marvellous Adventures of Pava, and The Ladybird Chronicles, as well as the latest epic poem The Sinner of the Abyss, and the biography The Crystal Empire were shipped out of the Temple Guild’s printing house in Yaocheng, and sent all over the world, so that anyone could take them into his or her hands.
Regardless of the change of eras and times, Yao City remained firmly at the cultural centre of the entire world.
The sister city to the west was a different story.
What made Lu Yao notice at first glance was the paved land boat road outside of Salt City.
This kind of road was lined with simple stone piers and wooden poles, while the ground was paved with a large amount of fine gravel, the road wasn’t considered wide, but it was eye-catching enough. The boat road extended eastwards to the southern gate of Yao City, and southwards through the forest to the northern entrance of Saniro.
Earthbound boats travelled on the gravel road.
They were uplifted from the ground to the surface, a shuttle or strip-shaped groundwalking boat navigated on the boat road, they were much faster than the Crystal City Flower Boats, but they were only on par with the speed of a horse, winning in terms of being long-lasting and smooth.
The western continent had a stable environment and safety was guaranteed, so the ground rowing boats did not need to be fitted with rose turrets, which not only reduced their weight, but also made them lighter when travelling on the specially made boat paths.
The boat paths and ground travelling boats accelerated the exchange of commodities and communication between Salt City and the outside world, and this place had now turned into an important concentration and transit point for commodities.
Whether it was the earthworms from the Dragon’s Nest in the north, the ores from Uda City, the glass from Crystal City, the goods made by the elves in the southern continent, or even the specialities of the many islands in the vast ocean, they could all be found in Salt City.
Accompanying the earthbound boats were the steamboats of the sea.
Steamships are simple boats that are modelled on paddle sailing boats and fitted with a fireplace. When it was windy, it could use the sails to move forward, and when it was windy, it would use the stove to push the oars on both sides, which was still far from the level of a steamship.
But even so, it made mankind’s footsteps on the sea more rapid.
Yancheng was still the richest city, a weathervane of economic and trade activity or not.
Lu Yao clicked Transform Great Bath to give it a name.
……
[Yancheng Bath]: a large bathhouse built in Yancheng based on a fire steam furnace, with a capacity of 800 people. Inside are baths of hot water, warm water, cold water, steam, and salt water.
The baths are a way for people in Yancheng to negotiate cooperation, ease conflicts, and relax and feast.
The city where Yancheng baths are located has a slightly reduced pressure on city residents, a slightly higher success rate in transactions, and a higher external appeal.
……
The spectacle was born, making the people of Yancheng smile one by one. They surrounded the baths, holding white holy flowers and chanting the name of the Yao God.
“Yao God loves our bath!”
“We have the best bath in the world, everyone needs to bathe, this is Salt City!”
“The gods approve of bathing!”
“There’s more to life than making money, there’s also bathing!”
Lu Yao clicked on the bathhouse.
It was located in the south of Salt City, near the city gates. It was a large square building, comparable in scale to the Colosseum of yesteryear.
The largest area within the bathhouse was a public bath, while many small cubicles were separated around it.
Most people soaked and chatted in the public bath, while those who talked about business were in the separate baths, so far, the bath culture gradually turned into a local speciality custom of Salt City.
With the Twin Cities at the forefront, the cities were revitalised by new technology, but the new era was more like a strange banquet for individuals that could not be denied.
The age of fire and steam is upon us.
It was the scholars, artisans and merchants who were the quickest to accept and adapt to their new surroundings.
The birth of the Fire Vapour Furnace had the most immediate impact on all of their fields. Many immediately saw the opportunity in it and took advantage of it by opening up the Fire Vapour Furnace to a variety of uses.
This device was used in an extremely wide range of applications, including smelting, forging, tool making, textiles, ships, and so on, covering most of the hand-made industries.
Of course, there were some who could not accept it.
Some scholars called it the “dangerous copper monster”, arguing that the fire steam furnace itself was extremely risky. If they were used in large numbers, the explosion of one of the many furnaces could surround an entire city with flames and steam.
They called for a ban on the use of the furnaces by the people.
The old-school craftsmen insisted that only skilled artisans could give a piece of equipment its unique texture and feel if it was made by hand.
Among the merchants, there are also those who have been preaching the dangers of the vapour furnace and calling for the preservation of the artisan’s traditions.
But these are just symptoms.
What some of these merchants want to say is that this dangerous and threatening device has to be expensive in order to fulfil its status and position.
The fire-vapour stove must increase in price! And preferably with a centralised limit!
The ultimate goal, of course, is to increase business profits.
But more than these people, the ones who were essentially hit the hardest were the martial practitioners, or rather, the practitioners who took the path of pushing their personal limits.
The Fire Steam Furnace accelerated almost all crafting industries, coupled with the constant flow of Crystal City’s Omnipotent Stones into the market, allowing the number of refined equipment to skyrocket, the price to continue to decrease, and the popularity to increase dramatically.
The group of armour-bearers grew crazily, every city was filled with patrolling armour-bearers, and Transcendents were subjected to strict order in the cities.
The Golden Wilderness backstage data showed that the Salt City Martial Cultivator Association was very dismal. The number of Martial Cultivator registrations was steadily declining, representing a number of people who had given up on this profession and route, and the council’s appropriations had been slashed again and again.
And it was against this backdrop that a Yao Clan member in tattered spectral armour arrived outside the association.
“I want to apply to become a Martial Cultivator.”
Lu Yao took a look.
It turned out to be Ghost Warrior Nongbei.
He didn’t work as a Locust Killer outside Crystal City and came here to become a Martial Cultivator?
Under Lu Yao’s inspection, he found that Nong Base had actually levelled up to LV22, and could be called the Crystal City Ten Mile Slope Sword God.
“Anyone? I want to apply to become a Martial Cultivator.”
Nongbase called out once again.
The door of the association was closed, with only a watchdog lying at the door.
A passing hunter told him, “The association’s receptionist is in the foster hospital today because of diarrhoea. You can come back another day.”
The other person said, “Many martial cultivators have quit the association and switched to armour-enforcing soldiers. Right now, martial cultivators have no future and no money …… Why are you so desperate to apply to join? You look like you’re also an Armour Cloaker.”
Nongbase replied, “I’ve been aiming for Shiohisa-san since I was a child, and I’ve always wanted to become a martial arts practitioner.”
“Shiohisa is indeed remarkable, but he has disappeared for many years. Times have changed, this is no longer the time for martial cultivators.”
The passersby shook their heads and left when they saw that they couldn’t be persuaded.
Nongbei was still waiting outside the door.
