Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 672 Beatrice, the New Unit of Flow
The steam engine, which was not in a good mood to begin with, suddenly fell silent, eerily quiet.

It even forgot to spray water on Zoe, even though it had been furious with her not long ago and had been chasing after her and yelling at her.

This gave Zoe and her group a jolt of excitement, and a hint of surprise flashed in their eyes.

The ritual of this mechanical sanctuary is a bit outrageous, but it seems to actually work!

But before they could celebrate for long, after a moment of silence, the steam engine suddenly emitted a series of sounds!
Every part of the machine was colliding with each other, making a teeth-grinding sound, as if it had suddenly burst into laughter, pointing in this direction with the furnace door cover, trembling with the "laughter," as if it was laughing so hard it couldn't straighten up.

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw!
Zoe and the others had very interesting expressions. No communication with the machine spirit was needed, nor was a stoker needed to translate. Anyone could feel the machine spirit's will—if it weren't a steam engine, it would be laughing so hard it would be rolling on the ground.

Even with all the engine oil smeared on her face, Zoe's face was starting to turn red, and she wanted to disappear into the ground.

No, look closely, her face has become blank; she used her supernatural abilities to slip away!
Gaia sighed helplessly and was about to leave when she suddenly felt her clothes being tugged.

The technical priest, who was kneeling on one knee with pliers in one hand, pointed to Beatrice beside him and whispered, "Lady Gaia, look over there."

Gaia turned her head to look, and then her expression turned strange.

Beatrice had been vomiting the contaminants evenly and continuously. Although her physical condition was extremely bad, she had been vomiting for a long time and had become somewhat accustomed to it.

But now, as the steam engine trembled with laughter, she was like a water-filled balloon being squeezed out, with contaminants gushing from her mouth, at an average flow rate at least twice as high as before. With each tremor of the steam engine, she would spray out a large mouthful.

Beatrice rolled her eyes.

Seeing Gaia's pitying gaze, Beatrice spoke with difficulty: "Pfft, kill me. Pfft."

Gaia: "."

“This ritual seems to be effective, Lady Gaia,” said the tech priest beside her. “Although I suspect its main purpose is simply to amuse the steam engine, it certainly pleases the machine spirit.”

Gaia's eye twitched. Castel did indeed have a whole set of ways to please the machine spirit, which was even written in the maintenance manual.

However, most of these involve communicating with the machine spirit, carefully repairing the machine, and using better fuel, etc.

I never imagined I could dance and amuse the steam engine.
"Perhaps our thinking is too narrow. After all, we're only treating the Machine Soul as an extension of the machine, at most having the stoker try to appease it. The Mechanical Sanctuary's approach is like, like..."

"It's like when a steam engine is cursing, you curse back at it." Gaia looked at the steam engine, which had doubled in efficiency, with a complicated expression. The Mechanical Sanctuary's idea of ​​pleasing the machine spirit was peculiar, but it was actually quite useful.

"Should we give it a try?" the mechanical priest asked quietly.

Gaia glanced at Beatrice, who was vomiting and nearly fainting, and nodded.

"It's a good thing that we can save her. Let's bring a few more fuel cans over later."

Beatrice looked completely bewildered.

Honestly, her experience today was a bit too fantastical.

In the morning, she was still putting on makeup with the help of her maids, preparing to dress up for the banquet.

Now, people are flying in the sky, lying in the boilers of steam engines, spewing pollution out onto a row of fuel barrels. She did hope to bring more freedom and change to the lives of those imprisoned, but this change was a bit too extreme.
Moreover, just when she thought things had gotten really bad, she never imagined that her situation could still improve.
Beatrice is now surrounded by a group of people dancing and singing, watching her vomit pollutants.
That's fine, but since pleasing the machine's soul is not something that can be easily quantified, and engineers are the kind of people who like to be meticulous, they actually found a few metrics after studying for a long time.

That's the flow rate of pollutants sprayed by Beatrice.

The stoker brought out a row of fuel barrels and arranged them in a straight line in front of Beatrice, from far to near.

Then, when Beatrice successfully amuses the steam engine while dancing, she spews out even more pollution, which means it travels farther.

"I've vomited into the seventh bucket!"

Wow! It's so far?

"As expected, Miss Zoe is the most amazing. The moment she jumps in, the distance she throws up immediately increases by two and a half buckets!"

"I think Miss Gaia is the main force. Don't you think there's a lot of contrast in how calmly she dances?"

"Maybe the steam engine is susceptible to this."

"Eighth barrel! We've broken through the eighth barrel mark!!"

"Good heavens, how many buckets were originally supposed to be?"

"Based on peak flow rate, taking the initial spray volume as one standard Beatrice, the current highest value is 5.5 Beatrice, and even the average value is as high as 3 Beatrice, and this number is steadily increasing!"

"How many Beatrices did we calculate for an industrial zone before?"

"No, hey! Slow down, the Pope is about to faint again, quickly reduce the data usage!"

The dancing mechanics immediately slowed down, and Beatrice, who was about to faint and her vision was going black, immediately reduced her vomiting by several standard values. She raised her head in despair.

"You... Pfft... Castel, Pfft, all treat illnesses like this!?"

The technical priests looked away somewhat guiltily.

Gaia tapped her chin with her index finger, thought for a moment, and then slowly shook her head: "Our treatment methods are already quite gentle. You should go and see how Gwen treats the priests of the Silent Sanctuary."

Thinking about it carefully, Castells' treatment methods seem somewhat simplistic and crude. It's not surprising, as most of the friars were engineers by training, and they were clearly more adept at dealing with machines. Or rather, they were actually using the same approach they used to deal with machines to treat people.

At least that's how it is when the standard flow rate is defined by Beatrice's spray rate.
Perhaps it lacks humanistic care? Gaia doesn't quite understand this; she's always been in charge of factories, and subconsciously used Beatrice as a flow meter.

Surprisingly, it's quite accurate.

“And your current physical condition is actually worse than you think.” Gaia crouched down and came to Beatrice’s side.

Standing in front of him makes you vulnerable to being criticized.

"Although the contaminants will leave your body under the pressure of the steam engine, the steam engine cannot repair your body, and your body itself is already on the verge of collapse. We still need to find a way to restore your body."

(End of this chapter)