Chapter 279. Accident of luck (1)
‘Hmm?’
In the morning, I was preparing for the construction of the day.
Lloyd, who was the first to arrive at the scene and looked around, felt a strange feeling.
‘what. What’s wrong with my heart?’
It was strange.
My heart is beating for no reason.
I felt a slight chill in the 2nd atrium and 2nd ventricle.
It felt like someone had put a piece of ice cream in my heart.
‘what is this.’
It wasn’t bad.
It was such a faint sensation that even a little insensitive person might not feel it at all.
But Lloyd was different.
He possessed the mana heart of an intermediate level expert.
Thanks to this, he was sensitive to all the slightest changes or signs felt in his heart.
‘It’s strange. I’ve never been like this before.’
He closed his eyes for a moment and checked his heart.
focus on the senses.
Then it felt clearer.
‘It’s not the heart…Did the Mana Heart in my heart move arbitrarily?’
I didn’t even do it
Manaheart moved arbitrarily.
Turned the mana of cold energy.
Of course, it was only for a moment.
As I checked my heart in surprise, the cold aura that had been created was quickly disappearing.
‘What is it? Should I ask Xaviel later?’
As expected, Xaviel was much more expert in things related to Mana Hearts and Mana Circles.
I wanted to ask him after work today.
‘I feel like asking right now.’
It was a pity that I couldn’t.
Because Xaviel isn’t here right now.
They will be summoned by the king and will be training hard.
That’s how I’ll become the king’s sparring partner to improve my skills and stay at the gym all day.
‘While asking what this phenomenon is, I’ve been checking the mana circle status for the first time in a while.’
Lloyd promised.
Get A/S while asking.
Even so, I was a bit anxious these days.
I was afraid that my Mana Heart skill would go up to the advanced level.
I’m afraid I’ll develop Sword Master Syndrome and suffer from insomnia in hell.
It seemed that he needed to be checked to see if his Mana Heart was growing without his knowledge.
‘It’s insomnia. I hate that kind of thing.’
Lloyd’s shoulders trembled.
In the meantime, Manahat’s unexplained chill completely disappeared.
Workers also began to come to the site slowly.
“Everyone is late! You have to prepare work tools and come out so that you can participate in the inquiry in time for the work start time. Aren’t they?”
Workers on their way to work became busy with his criticism.
Soon, the scene was soaked with liveliness.
Lloyd and workers.
Everyone started moving vigorously.
The same was true of the Heart of Winter in a specially controlled box.
♣
Doo-kung…Doo-kung….
This is a device that supplies refrigerant to the pipe for the freezing method.
A space inside a special control box stored there.
Winter’s heart was beating.
Just like the heart of a person who meets an exciting lover.
Or like the pounding of a person who has met a lifelong relationship.
The orb, only two centimeters in diameter, was resonating like never before.
Because the mana heart of someone far away is so familiar.
Because I felt a unique sense of kinship in that mana heart that I couldn’t find in anyone else.
every time that person’s heart beats.
to the rhythm of the heart.
It caused a thrilling resonance.
I thought through my dim self.
distant past.
The time when the Magentano Kingdom was founded.
Bingryong Tyranus, who created him.
I wondered if the creator had foreseen this day.
So, I wondered if he made himself and gave it to Michael, the founding king.
pounding…pounding….
Perhaps.
This meeting is not a coincidence, but inevitable.
Because this is the first human with the characteristics of a dragon in Mana Heart.
The idea that something like that exists.
Even the anticipation of meeting like this.
Because I’ve never done it before.
Doo-kung…Doo-kung….
Space in a special control box.
There, the heart of winter trembled quietly.
It caused a shy resonance and sent a message to the Mana Hearts of humans far away.
♣
Ding-dong.
‘uh?’
Lloyd hesitated.
It was in the middle of the excavation construction.
Through a vertical shaft going down from the ground.
Break through the ground with triple blasting.
I sent Podongi to widen and trim the hole I dug.
A work team was put in to deal with the burr (earth or rock chunks from the tunnel excavation process) and pour temporary concrete on the wall.
It was also the middle of the day when I was distracted by direct shoveling and supervising the work team.
But suddenly, a message popped up in front of my eyes.
‘What’s this?’
He looked at the message with a puzzled look.
[Mana Heart skill option ④: Half-man, half-dragon has been activated.]
[Your mana, which has acquired the unique characteristics of Dragon Heart by chance, is attracting the attention of dragon-like beings in close range. The unknown dragon-like being is already very curious about you and will show explosive favor if given a small opportunity.]
‘What?’
Lloyd twitched one eyebrow.
‘Dragon-like existence? Is there such a thing nearby? Are you curious about me?’
He quickly looked around.
However, all I could see was the little boy-like fantasy species, the workers, and the royal wizards who managed and monitored the device containing the heart of winter.
‘Could there be a dragon among them?’
At first glance, I thought so.
But it didn’t seem like that.
‘In the message I just said, it’s not a dragon, but a dragon-type being.’
It’s not literally a dragon, but is it a dragon-like being?
I was confused and confused.
But I had no clue what that meant.
‘Tsk. It’s strange. From before.’
something out of the ordinary
It’s been that way since morning.
Doesn’t Mana Heart move out of nowhere and create chills?
Isn’t it said that he is suddenly receiving the attention of a dragon-like being?
All of these were things that weren’t usual.
‘Are you in the heart of winter? It’s not. It’s just a magical thing, so it probably has nothing to do with dragons. Tsk. I don’t know.’
I thought about it for a while, but I couldn’t find an answer.
In the end, Lloyd put the question into his arms.
Because work is important right now.
Vertical shaft construction should not be done carelessly.
I thought I should focus on the scene in front of me.
‘Because there is nothing more dangerous than distracting oneself at a work site.’
The field is such a place.
Even if it just looks normal and safe to look at.
No matter how many decades of skilled workers.
The moment you put your mind at rest.
A moment of distraction.
Accidents happened unexpectedly.
Lloyd had witnessed such an unfortunate scene several times before.
‘In a minor accident, it is enough to injure your back or shoulder. Or that the blade broke and bounced while cutting the wood with a grinder. The worst time was the wild goose father…Tsk. Let’s not think about it.’
Because it was a sad memory.
I hate to recall
In any case, there were enough dangerous elements in the scene now.
‘Because it’s vertical shaft digging.’
The depth of the hole dug into the ground next to the castle had already reached 10 meters.
The plasterers were hanging themselves on a rope.
It’s like painting the exterior walls of an apartment.
Or like cleaning the glass on the outer wall of a high-rise building.
Hanging in the air like that, I was diligently applying temporary concrete.
So, I had to keep a close eye on their work situation.
Because if you’re not careful, they can get hurt.
I had to keep my eyes wide open with a sense of responsibility and check the progress of the field from time to time.
That’s how Lloyd’s nerves were sharpened every day.
Concentrated.
Spent several days in that state.
Before I knew it, I forgot the message related to the half-human, half-dragon option.
In the meantime, the freezing method construction proceeded smoothly.
A shaft with a total depth of 45 meters was dug.
A number of long holes with a diameter of 30 cm were drilled in the direction of the castle on the side of the vertical shaft.
Xaviel did that.
Now it was his blasting that could adjust the length and diameter at will.
“Carefully. Aim well. The angle is as I indicated. If anything goes wrong, the blast will hit or pierce the foundation pillars of the castle at a point far away. You know you can’t do that, right?”
“of course.”
Throwing Chemistry!
With each flash of Xaviel’s sword, a hole hundreds of meters long passed horizontally under the castle’s foundations.
Dozens of such holes were drilled in a matter of days.
In some of the holes, separately manufactured metal pipes were inserted.
Connect one end of the pipe to the refrigerant supply pipe.
The refrigerant supply pipe was in contact with a special control box.
And the royal wizards manipulated the special control box.
tsussss…!
A special control box reacted to the wizard’s control.
The heart of winter contained in the control box was slowly opened.
Exactly as intended output.
started to radiate chills.
damn…! Great!
The chill created frost outside the special control box.
The same was true for the refrigerant supply pipe.
Damn it!
White frost passed the refrigerant supply pipe and spread to the metal pipe.
The chill from the heart of winter was piped into it.
soon rapidly.
Moisture in the soil around the pipe began to condense.
‘good. It’s going well as I thought.’
Using surveying skills, watching the frozen underground situation.
Lloyd clenched his fists.
‘Heart of Winter. It’s a national level sacred thing, so it’s incredibly cold.’
It was on a different level from just a cold freezer.
It seemed to be tens of degrees below zero.
Even with only a fraction of the power of the Heart of Winter.
‘This is enough to freeze the entire ground below the capital in a few days. Well, as a rule of thumb, the land shouldn’t freeze so quickly.’
Originally, the freezing method was a construction method that required as much time as possible.
This is because of the property of water that expands when it freezes.
If you freeze the ground too quickly, the moisture in the soil expands rapidly.
Then, the ground itself, which was supposed to be stabilized, would rise upward.
It is a catastrophe that causes serious damage to the structure above it.
‘So the freezing method has to freeze the ground slowly over several months while suppressing ground uplift as much as possible. Because of these requirements, it can only be used on large-scale projects with a sufficient construction period.’
But he didn’t have time for that.
There was no room for wasting months.
So I took a bit of an extreme stopgap.
Dozens of holes under the royal castle that Xaviel had blasted before.
Only some of them had pipes for freezing.
‘I left the rest of the holes empty. That space will prevent the rapidly freezing ground from rising. The remaining holes will cover the expanding volume.’
The volume of land to be rapidly frozen and raised.
Securing surplus space to cover the volume.
Lloyd had already calculated all that.
Thanks to this, it was possible to completely freeze the ground beneath the castle in just a few days.
Nevertheless, of course, there was little elevation of the ground.
Having confirmed that far, Lloyd embarked on the next stage of construction.
“ruler! If Belle digs it up, Podongi follows it while trimming it! Organize the general work squad and bring it out! blacksmith class? What did you say the bell will make when it releases the rebar?”
“Rebar support!”
“you’re right. I believe that everyone is well acquainted with the dimensions of each part shown in the blueprint.”
The bottom of the 45-meter-deep shaft dug earlier.
From there, they started digging a horizontal tunnel in the direction of Wangseong.
As for the construction method, the bubble shield method used when digging the bituminous coal mine in the Prontera estate was applied in the past.
developed and applied on a larger scale.
all mixed together.
uh uh uh
As one, they excavated a horizontal tunnel with a diameter of 6 meters under the castle.
In the process, reinforcing bar supports were widely used to support the tunnel itself and prevent it from collapsing. After making the reinforcing bar supports, rock bolts were installed on all sides of the tunnel like needles, and concrete was poured.
The concrete played the same role as shotcrete, which is considered the core of the modern NATM (New Austrian Tunneling Method) method.
Literally, the inside of the tunnel was coated with a thick layer of concrete.
In addition, the ground around the tunnel was extremely stable.
It was thanks to the freezing method of freezing the ground under the foundation of the castle.
As the tunnel was excavated under the frozen ground, the hardened ice and soil around it shared the load on its own.
This was also one of the core principles of NATM, a modern tunnel excavation method.
All of Lloyd’s ideas and applied design showed synergy.
Tunnel excavation proceeded in perfect stability.
The tunnel got longer and longer.
Five days, ten days and fifteen days.
As time passed, the tunnel finally reached the point 5 meters below the foundation column where the target, ‘Tauranga’, was located.
There, Lloyd changed the digging direction once again.
‘This time up.’
At the end of the tunnel, bottom-up shaft excavation has begun.
An independent column visible from 5 meters above.
To pluck the Tauranga out of its flank.
All worked together to tunnel upwards, lift dirt and rock, and trim and reinforce the shaft.
It was a tunnel going up side by side along the independence pillar.
So everyone believed that the construction would proceed without incident.
No matter who sees it, the construction has been extremely stable.
However, on the morning of the start of bottom-up shaft excavation.
It was an ordeal that no one expected, and at the same time, a lucky (?) accident occurred that would serve as the basis for Lloyd’s great growth.
