Let go of that monster girl!

Throw it into a small pot and boil for five hours, then remove the wood fibers. Throw it into a large pot, add slime acid, and pressure cook for eight hours.

The miraculous alchemy of turning wood into sugar was thus completed.

After sealing the last cauldron, the alchemical rats gathered around the first cauldron, which had already cooled down.

One by one, the copper clasps were opened, and a wisp of warm, slightly sweet steam escaped from the lid.

Lyme went over and put his little hand into the pot.

The pale green slime acid in the pot was absorbed back into the body through the fingertips.

Strong acids only act as catalysts in the hydrolysis of cellulose; they are not consumed or their properties change, so they can still be easily controlled by lime.

Once all the acid was recovered, only a small half-pot of somewhat cloudy liquid remained in the pot, but it smelled pleasant, with a faint sweet aroma.

The boldest alchemical rat scooped up a spoonful, blew on it, and took a big gulp.

"Sweet!"

"I don't need to teach you how to brew wine, do I?"

As soon as Morren finished speaking, the alchemical rats happily ran off to find the yeast.

The other alchemical rats that didn't go simply stayed behind, scooping up warm sugar water from wooden bowls and drinking it sip by sip until their little faces were round and their little bellies were bulging.

The situation was completely different at the other end of the experimental site.

"How much longer do we have to scrape? Why do they get to drink sugar water while we have to scrape our intestines?"

The alchemical rats responsible for creating the membranes were squatting miserably in front of the long wooden planks, their little hands gripping scrapers, scraping the chimeric beast intestines bit by bit.

The intestinal membrane was soaked in alkaline water to remove fat and residual tissue, but the smell was still unpleasant.

"It stinks."

"The Baron said it has to be scraped until it's transparent, thinner than paper, and it has to be used on the inner wall of the airbag."

"Squeak!"

Chapter 31 Airship

Molen lowered his head and looked at the blueprints in his hand.

The Zeppelin airship on the blueprints had a beautiful streamline, with a whale-like hull supported by dozens of longitudinal keels and transverse bulkheads that gave it a smooth outer shell.

The tail fin extends like an eagle's wings, the bottom pod is spacious and well-organized, and a pair of sleek engine stubs extend from each side.

Spectacular, powerful, and imbued with a violent aesthetic unique to the industrial age.

He looked up and saw the mouse-like thing floating in the sky.

Several giant balloons, covered in countless patches, were bound together with thick hemp rope and copper buckles.

It was bulging like a string of balloons in a vendor's hand, with uneven patches of fabric on the surface and messy stitching.

A half-emptied wooden boat was suspended below the balloon, with a long mast extending from each side of the boat, the ends of which were fixed with wooden propellers.

The two triangular sails, not yet unfurled, were folded up on the mast, with several conspicuous patches adorning the edges of the canvas.

Line 8.

Molen gave up thinking.

The world is broken and dilapidated, patched up by rats.

Considering that it only took less than two months in total, as long as it can fly, that's fine.

Although theoretically each air bladder here has a diameter of more than ten meters, and the inner wall is made of inlaid animal intestine membrane and slime to prevent air leakage, it should be considered a very spectacular project.

But when it rose into the air, it looked exactly like a kite in a precarious state.

It looks very dangerous, but it's actually more dangerous than it looks.

"Reporting to the Baron! No open flame was used during the inflation process, the rats were all wearing wooden shoes, and all parts were made of copper, not a single piece of iron!"

A foreman mouse stood upright, holding a wooden board covered with inspection items. He pointed to the items with his little finger and read them quickly, looking as serious as if he were reporting military intelligence.

“Well done.” Moran nodded.

Copper is less likely to spark than iron, which slightly improves the safety factor.

Electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen may seem simple, but it is also genuinely dangerous.

In his previous life, Moron had done this at home when he was bored. He caused a fire that filled the ceiling with water and almost got beaten to death by his own mother.

As an aerial behemoth, the most well-known feature of the hydrogen airship is its exceptionally loud explosions, and its main damage output relies entirely on its deathrattle effect.

To prevent cosplay of the Hindenburg or a certain mysterious black football star, the Rat Girl airship uses several independent spherical airbags.

If one of the balloons catches fire, the pilot can release it and separate it in time if he is quick enough, which is a kind of basic version of the separation air capsule.

If the balloon explodes and burns, uh...

The pressure inside the airbag is high, so oxygen cannot normally get in.

If it really explodes, Morren has also prepared parachutes for the flying mice, hoping the goddess will bless them.

Molen picked up the large copper megaphone, aimed it at the airship above, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Continue testing, Zhang Fan, head south!"

The distance was too far to see the specific actions of the rat girls above.

But one can imagine them screaming and frantically turning various gates, frantically rotating winches and control levers.

The electric propellers emitted a low hum, and the two woody blades began to spin, propelling the airship upwards.

Handmade lead-acid batteries are very heavy, so the airship can't store much power, and the propeller can only be used to adjust altitude.

The rest is left to the wind, sailing like a hot air balloon.

The airship slowly and wobbled as it rose, swaying left and right in the air like a drunkard.

As altitude changes, the airflow at different levels blows the airship in different directions, sometimes veering eastward, and sometimes being pulled back to the west.

Finally, at a suitable altitude, the airship slowly turned south, and the rat girls could be seen in the distance unfurling the triangular sails on both sides of the airship.

The canvas was suddenly filled with wind, stretching into two bulging arcs.

The airship's motion quickly stabilized, and it drifted steadily southward with the wind, its speed visibly increasing.

Morren raised the megaphone again.

"No problem, let's land!"

Finding the wind layer in the opposite direction didn't take too long, since we had already tested it when we first gained altitude.

The rat girl airship drifted slowly back to the low mountain with the wind, getting closer and lower, and it looked like it was about to crash into the rock wall at the top of the mountain.

"Quickly, throw off the weights, or they'll squeak when they hit the ground!"

"Throw it! Throw it all down!"

Various sandbags and boxes fell from the ship's hold with a clattering sound, crashing onto the gravel ground on the mountaintop and exploding into clouds of dust. Along with them, many thick hemp ropes hung down, their ends swinging back and forth in the air.

The rat girls below dodged falling debris from above while screaming and chasing after the dangling ropes.

Grab one and pull it tightly backward, then tie it to a nearby fixed object.

Dragged along by the swarm of ground rats, the airship finally slowed down, wobbled and steadied itself, and slid along for a short distance, its hull scraping against the stones on the ground, before finally coming to a stop.

Four or five flying mice emerged from the cabin and crawled over the ship's side one after another. Their legs were so weak that they couldn't stand up and collapsed onto the ground.

"Squeak, am I still alive?"

"He should still be alive."

Moren walked over, squatted down, and looked at the flying mice that were lined up in a row.

"We'll be taking this to the new market in a couple of days. The test flights have been very stable so far. We'll rest for a bit and then continue practicing later."

"No!"

“Pay the processing fee,” Morren said.

"Great!"

Several flying mice instantly sprang to their feet, their legs no longer weak and their backs no longer sore.

The cook had somehow appeared behind Morren, her eyes behind her round-framed glasses filled with worry.

"Young Master, are you going on another long trip this time?"

“That’s right,” Morren replied.

"Winter is coming soon, and there are only two months left before the disaster season. Although we have mushrooms, we don't have cloth, so we need to stock up on enough supplies."

"Moreover, I have a feeling that those foxes are plotting something behind the scenes, so I have to go and take a look."

The cook pursed her lips and lowered her head.

Molen knew she was going to cry again.

In the cook's little mind, a journey that normally takes a month to complete would take at least half a month, even with a new invention.

For more than half a month, she had to endure wind and rain, and was surrounded by monsters. What was she to do with her poor, weak young master?

She is underestimating the power of "dimensional reduction attack".

Molen cupped the cook's face in his hands and rubbed it vigorously, making her round-framed glasses askew.

"This round trip will take at least half a day, and I will try to be back the next day."

"Big, big, half a day?!"

The cook's face was distorted from being rubbed, and her eyes were filled with shock.

Hydrogen airships were invented in the 19th century; countless military officers and businessmen risked being blown up like fireworks, so they certainly didn't come here on a whim.

For ordinary caravans, traveling three kilometers in an hour was already considered a remarkable and smooth journey. The land route was not only winding, but also required resting for half the day.

However, for an airship that flies in a straight line in the sky, fifteen kilometers per hour is only considered to be moving at a snail's pace in calm weather.

If the wind direction is perfect, the world record could be 3700 kilometers in 24 hours!

Chapter 32 Revisiting the Slave Traders' Camp

Molen stood at the bow of the airship, the night wind making his collar flutter.

Lyme and the flying mice stood neatly behind him, heads held high, full of confidence.

The open space on the mountaintop was crowded with round ears.

The cook was carried by two rat girls to the front of the boat, holding a bottle of freshly brewed mushroom wine and tied with a red ribbon to bless the new ship's departure.

She took a deep breath, raised the bottle high, and slammed it down hard on the wooden plank at the bow of the boat.

"Have a safe journey, young master!"

"Remember to bring back some good food!"

"If you see any nice fabrics, please buy us a few!"

Morren drew his rune-inscribed longsword from his waist and pointed it once more at the endless black night sky.

"set off!"

One by one, the mooring ropes were untied, and the airship, now free, slowly drifted away from the ground.

The flying mice flipped the valves, the propellers hummed and spun, and the patched airbags slowly rose.

The mouse girl on the ground grew smaller and smaller, and the fluorite lantern turned into a blurry patch of light.

Lyme stood on the ship's railing, waving his little hand to say goodbye to the mice below.

Molen looked at Lyme with satisfaction.

It's clear she's learned from Moren's previous advice: no matter how flustered she is inside, she must appear calm.

Lem tilted his head back, a corner of his bangs blowing open in the wind, revealing his light green eyes, which curiously examined the round air sacs on his head.

Well, okay, she does seem unfazed.

Morend had to admit that he was the one who was panicking the most.