Otherworld Bone Dragon Operation Guide

Chapter 160 Gospel
"What are you planning now?" Violet asked curiously.

"I need to verify a hypothesis," Su Ming replied, then immediately asked, "Can you manufacture temperatures as low as -120 degrees Celsius?"

Zijin frowned, took out paper and pen and did some calculations, "Normally, at such a low temperature, a medium-sized magic circle needs to be constructed."

"So, the current situation is abnormal?" Su Ming understood the implication.

“Of course, this is the Arctic Circle in winter, where the ambient temperature is below -25 degrees Celsius!” Zi Jin put down her pen. “So all I need to do is set up a small magic circle to achieve this.”

"Is the cost high?" Su Ming asked.

"Not bad, most of the day was spent, and I gathered materials worth three thousand gold coins," Violet replied. "What are you planning to freeze that requires such a low temperature?"

"I need liquid oxygen."

"Oxygen liquefies to over -180 degrees Celsius! This isn't just a matter of adding numbers; it requires a super-large magic array!" Zi Jin exclaimed in surprise. "Did you misremember the boiling point?"

"Pressure can increase the oxygen liquefaction temperature," Su Ming explained. "If the pressure exceeds five megapascals, then only -120 degrees Celsius is needed."

"Five megapascals of pressure?" Zijin clearly noticed the key point; that's fifty times the atmospheric pressure. "Looks like you'll have to bring over some new equipment again."

"Absolutely."

That night, Miao Xin went to the supplier's warehouse to pick up the cryogenic gas cylinders, leaving behind a wad of cash. She found a landfill and had Su Ming transport them there, burying the debris as she did so.

****
The next day, Zijin cleared a patch of snow outside the work shed and began setting up a low-temperature magic array. She was fully armed, wrapped in thick winter clothing, wearing a hat that covered her entire face, and equipped with a scarf, gloves, elbow pads, and goggles.

Qi Luo ran over curiously, glanced at the runes on the magic circle, and shivered all over. "It's already so cold, and you're still using this stacking method to cool down!"

Su Ming transmitted the high-pressure air pump over and then injected 30 MPa of air into the gas cylinder. When he finished, he found that Zi Jin, who was drawing the magic circle outside, had frozen into a ball.

"Why don't you use the Flame Protection spell?" Su Ming walked over and asked.

“The dissipated magic will corrupt the magic circle,” the girl replied, trembling.

Su Ming dragged her back to the work shed, filled a hot water bottle and shoved it into her hand, saying, "You're so afraid of the cold, take a break after you've been working for a while!"

After a moment, Zijin began to answer, "Once I'm in a warm place, I don't dare to go out anymore, so I thought I'd do as much as I could in one trip." She looked utterly hopeless. "I've only done a quarter of it, and I'll have to come three more times!"

"I'll stay with you, and you can teach me about magic arrays while you're at it," Su Ming said.

"What I'm drawing now is a high-level ice magic circle, which is far from useful to you."

"It's okay, it can't hurt to learn about it."

After resting for thirty minutes, Su Ming followed Zi Jin, who had warmed up, outside. He glanced at the rune array on the ground, then turned to run back, saying, "I remember now, I have some equipment to adjust."

Zijin grabbed him by the back of the neck. "Too late!"

"No, you didn't say the runes in the array were reversed!"

Su Ming had only recently mastered positive magic runes, so he couldn't handle this.

“This is a mirror array,” the scholar explained. “One freezing rune array can lower the temperature by 10 degrees Celsius, and we need ten in total.”

The more layers of the magic array, the more complex it becomes; ten layers are simply too complicated.

"So you simplified the number of layers, engraving a set of runes on both sides of each layer?"

“Yes, this is a very new two-way overlay technology,” Violet replied. “The runes on the back are naturally reversed. So let’s do our best, we’ll each take half!”

Su Ming had no choice but to accept his fate and began to draw the reverse runes, albeit clumsily.

****
The two worked tirelessly until the afternoon before finally setting up the low-temperature magic array. Su Ming placed five gas cylinders filled with high-pressure air into the center of the array and activated it to cool and freeze the air.

Three hours later, the gas pressure inside the cylinder dropped to about half of its initial value and stabilized. Su Ming put on protective gloves, turned on the valve, and began to release the gas inside.

The gas pressure in the cylinder immediately dropped, and a low-temperature mist spread out. Su Ming also moved away to avoid frostbite. The ambient air humidity was extremely low, and the released ultra-cold air could only freeze into tiny ice crystals that drifted everywhere.

After a while, he came back, wiped the ice off the thermometer, and found that the temperature inside the gas cylinder had dropped to -140 degrees Celsius, and the pressure had dropped from 15 MPa to 0.3 MPa.

"Why has the temperature dropped so much?" Qi Luo, who had been watching the two of them struggle, was very puzzled. "Isn't this magic circle supposed to only reach -120 degrees Celsius?"

"Liquid oxygen evaporates and absorbs heat," Su Ming explained. "The released gas carries away the heat."

Qi Luo's face was clear. Zi Jin took out paper and pen and drew a diagram for her. "The capacity of one jar is 50 liters. Su Ming filled each bottle with 300 times atmospheric pressure, which is 16 kilograms of air. This includes 3.5 kilograms of oxygen and other gases, mainly nitrogen."

"I do know a little about this," Qi Luo said, counting on her fingers, her words not entirely sincere.

“Then comes the first step: freezing.” Zijin continued drawing, “Under this pressure, it is frozen to -120 degrees Celsius. The water vapor and carbon dioxide in the jar will freeze, and the oxygen will turn into liquid.”

"The water vapor and carbon dioxide content is less than 10g, which can be ignored. The nitrogen gas cannot be liquefied due to insufficient temperature. It will escape immediately after Su Ming opens the valve, so there is no need to consider it further."

“What’s left is liquefied oxygen. Because of the pressure loss, the liquid oxygen will start to boil.” She wrote down the numbers. “Every 1 gram of liquid oxygen evaporates and takes away 213 joules of heat, which can lower the temperature of 11g of liquid oxygen by about 20 degrees. So the liquid oxygen continues to decrease, and the temperature inside the cylinder continues to drop. This process will continue until the temperature of the liquid oxygen is lower than its boiling point at normal pressure, which is -183 degrees Celsius.”

The unicorn had already covered its ears, but Hanster nodded, "I don't understand numbers very well, but I can understand the general principles."

"Oh, by the way, bring over that statue you use to press the pickled vegetables," Su Ming said.

Qiluo fled like the wind, then returned a while later, carrying the statue. She planted the statue in the snow, then sat down on a small stool and took out a bag of melon seeds. She didn't understand academics, but her intuition for eating melon seeds was second to none.

Su Ming went to the back of the statue, unscrewed a plug there, and sure enough, a small hole was revealed, leading all the way to the innermost cavity of the statue.

"Pour liquid oxygen into it?" Violet didn't understand Su Ming's purpose, but she could guess that he intended to do so. "Yes, let White Skull do this?" Su Ming suggested.

“Yes, that’s fine, so we don’t get frostbite,” Violet said.

****
When the gas cylinder pressure dropped to 0.11 MPa, close to atmospheric pressure, Su Ming ordered the white skeleton to step forward. At this level of low temperature, even the skeleton's bones would become hard and brittle. If it were accidentally poured on someone, it would definitely shatter.

But it was still better than them doing it themselves. Even with protective spells, the temperature was too low and they would still get their skin peeled off. So the three humans and one beast watched as the valiant white skeleton risked being pulverized to pieces to carry out the task.

Fortunately, the white skull lived up to expectations, pouring the liquid oxygen from the five bottles into the statue one by one. Each bottle had two kilograms of liquid oxygen remaining, and even after adding them all, it only filled about one-third of the statue's internal container. Then, the stoppers were screwed on, and a faint white mist immediately escaped from the vents on the statue.

A thin vertical line on the outside indicates the liquid oxygen level. As the liquid oxygen continues to evaporate, the temperature inside the statue is also cooling. Su Ming had placed a sensor inside beforehand to read the temperature; currently, the temperature inside the statue has dropped to -60 degrees Celsius.

“Its external material has excellent heat insulation properties.” Zijin took off her gloves and tested it; the external temperature of the statue was still around -25 degrees Celsius, and hadn’t dropped much. “How did you discover that?”

“There is no magic, but there is a continuous supply of water,” Su Ming replied. “The first thing that came to my mind was condensate.”

"What about the Holy Mist?" Qi Luo asked. "My mother said that taking a breath of the Holy Mist can indeed invigorate one's spirit."

"It's oxygen," Su Ming said. "Oxygen is heavier than air and cooler, so it evaporates and settles below the statue. During events, that area is the most crowded. Squeezing through the crowds and taking a breath of oxygen is, of course, refreshing."

The end of metaphysics is science, and the otherworld is no exception.

Zi Jin suddenly realized, "Then there's only one question left: why does the Church of Light cool the inside of the statue to -183 degrees Celsius?"

“It’s not necessarily -183 degrees Celsius,” Su Ming said. He watched as the sensor reading dropped to -110 degrees Celsius, and a sense of unease began to rise within him as he stared at a small black object placed on the statue.

At one moment, the small black piece was suddenly bounced away, and Qi Luo exclaimed in surprise. Su Ming quickly checked the reading: -132 degrees Celsius.

At atmospheric pressure, 141K?!
Su Ming covered his mouth in disbelief. He didn't care about answering the questions of the others. He took off his gloves, took out a magnet, and placed it above the statue with trembling hands until the magnet was steadily suspended above the statue's head!
Su Ming suddenly jumped up and started running wildly in the snow, making strange cheers and even rolling around in the snowdrifts.

"What's wrong with him?" Qi Luo used her mental powers to investigate. "Strange, he hasn't been affected."

"God said, 'Do not be mad!'" a voice rang out, and everyone turned sharply. The statue, silent for twenty-seven years, lit up with blue eyes; the spirit of the gospel had been activated!
Noticing the astonished expressions on the three faces, the statue continued to speak, "You should always rejoice."

"Who are you?" Violet asked.

"I am the Gospel, a servant of the Father."

Upon hearing this famous signature response, the former saintess jumped up, all her pent-up frustration vanishing. "Aha, it's actually the real deal!"

Those old bastards think they can swindle back a few hundred thousand gold coins? Dream on! She happily ran towards Su Ming, pounced on him, and jumped around on the snow with him.

"Wow!" Qi Luo exclaimed in shock, her mouth agape. Then her face fell. "My premium pickled vegetable stone is gone!"

Hanster took off his gloves, touched the statue, and showed a satisfied expression. "So, I've finally touched something like this!"

"This trip was totally worth it!" Hans thought to himself. The enormous, rattling monster train, as fast as a flying skeletal ship, was being driven by him personally!

Now that we have the Gospel Father, dying right now would be worthwhile.

He composed himself, turned to the unicorn, and said in a serious tone, "I've heard rumors that the Gospel Father is sweet, even more delicious than the finest honey!"

****
"That's fantastic!" Zi Jin exclaimed to Su Ming with a loud laugh.

“No, you have no idea how amazing it is!” Su Ming gasped. He paused, calmed his breathing slightly, then put his arm around Zi Jin’s shoulder and pulled her closer. “That’s not a statue, that’s a true blessing, a superconductor at atmospheric pressure with a temperature of 141K!”

Zijin turned to look at him, her mind racing through the geophysical data she had browsed, recalling the terms Su Ming had mentioned. She was also slightly out of breath, their breaths mingling.

"The diamagnetism of superconductors?" She finally realized the connection. "So the secret to the levitation of the statues is that... effect in physics?"

She hadn't read many textbooks from Earth, as understanding them was extremely difficult given the different civilization systems. She often had to rely on Su Ming for guidance, and neither of them had much free time.

But the concept of superconductivity was so well-known that she had at least seen some of it.

“It’s the Meissner effect,” Su Ming said, then explained the basic process.

Zijin then realized that the Gospel Father statue she had stolen was genuine all along. Only by injecting liquid oxygen and cooling it to a certain temperature, allowing a certain internal component to enter a superconducting state, could levitation be achieved with the help of the large magnets placed on the church dome.

Therefore, it naturally needs to be suspended by ropes when it is not being cooled by injecting liquid oxygen.

This plan, which relies entirely on neither magic nor runes, is beyond the scholar's comprehension, which is why she failed to discover the problem.

"A brilliant design," Violet exclaimed. "It's a pity that the Gospel Father needs to rely on a large magnet to levitate and then be cooled to over a hundred degrees below zero. Apart from missionary work and showy displays at celebrations, this technology has no practical application."

Su Ming was speechless.

For Earth, the material on the statue is the highest-temperature atmospheric pressure superconductor ever discovered. While -132 degrees Celsius might not sufficiently reduce the difficulty of application, as a revolutionary material from another dimension, it undoubtedly represents a completely new process and approach. Particularly remarkable is its ability to levitate such a massive statue, demonstrating both mass production potential and a certain degree of machinability.

It can definitely lay a solid foundation for breakthroughs in this field!

These things were difficult to explain to Violet, including the profound significance of superconductors for Earth. After all, she was an otherworldly scholar who lacked sufficient knowledge of Earth's technological system.

"Could the sentiments embodied on the Forward locomotive be poured into this statue?" He changed the subject.

Now is not the time to dismantle and study the gospel materials. Advancing the progress of our affairs in the other world and constructing the dimensional teleportation array are the key tasks; otherwise, everything will be in vain.

“Theoretically, there’s no problem,” Violet replied. “Let me first analyze the core circuitry of the Gospel Father.”

“Alright, let’s continue!” Su Ming said, clenching his fist with one hand.

(End of this chapter)