Chapter 272 - 121: Shipping Container_2
"And again, worst-case scenario, I'll just take it back to the modern world and sell it cheap. It's all free stuff anyway, so there's no way I can lose out."
...
Chen Zhou casually picked up a wooden box and only then realized that this thing was quite heavy. It's unlikely there are wooden chopsticks inside.
Weighing it, there was no sound, but it felt even heavier in his hand.
"Wow, this box has to weigh at least two pounds. It's probably a metal product."
"Could it be that the Space-Time Administration Bureau had a bout of conscience and gave me a whole container of gold bars?"
Examining the plastic wrap around the wooden box, he shook his head, dismissing his wild imagination, and directly opened the packaging to see the true contents of the box.
Including the container and the plastic wrap, each item inside the boxes was protected by three layers of different materials.
Chen Zhou initially thought that under such rigorous protection, the box should contain a fragile or easily damaged item. But upon opening the wooden box, he was nearly stunned.
It was a Damascus Steel Billet, covered with patterns all over, resembling a steel ruler. It's about 25cm in length, 8cm in width, and about 4mm thick.
The patterns on the surface of this specially stacked and forged billet look like a series of interconnected eyes, or a chain of closely linked locks, reflecting a bright, icy sheen under the sunlight, making one's heart race.
"Woah, is this whole container filled with Damascus Steel Billets!
Did I accidentally hit the motherlode of Damascus Steel Billets? Why did they give me so much of this stuff? Is the production team hoping to see me make armor with Damascus patterns?
Or do they want to see me make a gun out of Damascus?
Makes sense to make a gun, but you should send me a few seamless steel tubes. What good is a pile of billets? Can I melt them down and forge them again?
Even if you brought me ten tons of coal, I still couldn't do the heat treatment for this steel!"
Damascus Steel Billets are already finished materials—the best way to process them is by cutting.
Hastily heating them could cause the steel to anneal at around 300°, affecting the quality. Chen Zhou understands these basic principles.
While grumbling, he wondered what he could do with these steel billets, closed the wooden box he was holding, and took out a new wooden box—
With so many boxes, there might be steel tubes or billets of different shapes, so it's best to check them early to have an idea.
The item in the new wooden box was also a Damascus Steel Billet, identical in size to the previous one but with different surface patterns.
If the patterns on the previous steel were like chains, then the patterns on this one resembled buttons.
Diamond shapes lined up closely from start to finish, with four circles arranged neatly inside each diamond.
From his knowledge of Damascus Steel Billets, Chen Zhou knew that beautifully and regularly patterned billets like these are often custom-ordered by cold weapon enthusiasts from modern blacksmiths, and they're quite expensive.
After all, this kind of steel is a finished product, having gone through complex folding and forging processes and even incorporating different grades of steel in sandwich layers.
After forging, the billet undergoes quenching, flat grinding, and acid cleaning before its unique patterns emerge.
Such finished steel merely requires shape planning before it can be cut into high-quality cold weapons.
For instance, the set of knives from a mysterious reward last time was made from Damascus Steel Billets, directly cut into shape.
Of course, in terms of steel quality, Chen Zhou believed that all the steel in this container should be superior to the material of that knife set.
In the Damascus Steel circle, the more regular and aesthetically pleasing the pattern, the more layers it generally indicates, meaning better material quality and superior heat treatment.
The steel used for that knife set, although patterned, had patterns too spaced out and irregular.
Considering the labor cost, brand value, and so forth, the price of a knife set might be equivalent to just two or three Damascus Steel Billets.
...
In terms of reward value, this time's reward is undoubtedly quite generous.
Unfortunately, Chen Zhou had no tools to process this kind of steel, nor could he weld them together. He could only rely on the Super Space-Time Cutter to shape the steel to his desired form every 15 days at an incredibly low efficiency.
...
That day, after dismantling the wooden and stone walls, Chen Zhou took all the wooden boxes out and first transported them to the campsite below the mountain for temporary storage.
Then he cut down trees and stripped the bark to make simple rolling logs, which he stuffed under the container, gradually moving the heavy container off the beach.
The empty container was still incredibly heavy, and manually transporting it as before was out of the question.
Chen Zhou planned to slowly move the container later, but now he still needed to continue building the wooden and stone walls to prepare for the next cut.
...
Time flew by.
After receiving the Damascus Steel Billets, Chen Zhou was forced to temporarily set aside other tasks, like a diligent little ant, gradually transporting the billets up the mountain.
The storage space became scarce, and he reluctantly took all the billets out of their wooden boxes, wrapped them in plastic, and placed them directly on high shelves to avoid wasting space.
He initially wanted to bring the container up the mountain in one go as well.
However, going uphill had a slope, and moving it inch by inch with rolling logs was too inefficient.
After two days of labor, he abandoned the idea and decided to wait until the bending wood technique matured to craft a cart for the container and then pull it up the mountain.
With pottery techniques broken through, steam-bending wood could officially be put on the agenda.
He believed that with his efforts, he would soon have his first "private car" to tackle challenges.
...
The slowly-moving container was left on the north side of the camp, where Chen Zhou built a simple rain shelter for it.
Of course, this was somewhat redundant—the container was painted, and without chipping, even if left there for three to five years it wouldn't rust into scrap iron.
...
Now having ample and excellent materials, Chen Zhou hadn't yet figured out how to use them.
He didn't want his plans disrupted by the unexpected steel, so he decided to stick to his schedule, focusing first on the thriving pottery business before considering other things.
After the first success, subsequent failures became fewer and fewer.
Gradually, Chen Zhou also developed his understanding of how to make suitable clay bodies and judge the kiln temperature by experience.
If not for the lack of a charcoal kiln, he would've even tried firing porcelain.
...
Once the techniques matured, he first made two ceramic basins for himself—one for washing his face and the other for washing his feet.
Then he made enough water storage containers to hold half a month's drinking supply stored in the cave.
During dry seasons, crops needed frequent watering, and having a sufficient water reserve allowed him to focus on work with peace of mind.
Lastly, he delved into developing bending wood techniques.
Like pottery, it was a skill that would mature through constant practice and summary.
However, Chen Zhou didn't have guidance from the online forums for this skill, only knowing one phrase:
"Straight wood must be bent to become round; its curve is regular because it is bent so."
Although this phrase summarizes forming round wood through bending, it misses out on truly important details, causing Chen Zhou to take countless detours, even resurrecting the outdated heat-bending method.
So busy and bustling, time flew to December 8th.
Before the twenty-ninth reward arrived, Chen Zhou set aside the frustrating bending wood task and went back to digging the caves he'd grown tired of.
When research stagnates, doing mindless work can be relaxing now and then.
Moreover, he paused the bending wood task because it significantly differs from pottery.
Bending wood not only involves steaming and softening the wood but also requires waiting to see if they will warp or crack later.
Unlike pottery, which you can immediately see if it turned out good or bad after firing in the kiln.
Using the newly built "Steam Steaming and Bending Wood Platform," softening the wood and shaping it into half-circles by pressing it onto iron tins was no longer a problem.
What troubled Chen Zhou was that whether air-dried, flame-dried, or sun-dried, these moist half-rounded wooden strips would always deform in just a few days.
Based on his statistics, it took over fifty pieces of bent wood to get one that didn't deform. Such a low pass rate was unacceptable.
Now, his biggest concern was solving the wood pass rate issue.
For this, he scoured through the entire bamboo weaving book, hoping to find proper methods or inspiration from traditional craftsmen's experiences.
But thinking day and night about bending wood had left Chen Zhou's once nimble mind as rusty as an old nail. After reading the book, he still couldn't come up with any good ideas.