Struggle in the Steam Age

"Sounds really powerful." After listening to Lawrence's translation of the content related to the airship in the book, Safir showed a look of surprise on his face. "But listening to the name of this airship, I always thought it was an airship from the Federation or some other country."

"The name does have a strong western style, but it is really an airship of the Republic of New Island." Lawrence smiled and pointed to a promotional board belonging to the airship company standing at the entrance of the lounge. "However, its designer is a citizen of the Republic of Frans origin. After he designed this airship, he couldn't find anyone willing to invest in the country. In the end, he almost traveled around the world before arriving in the New World. Westmost fulfilled his dream."

"That is to say, Xinzhou Republic has made a great investment with its eyes and talents?" Safiel said with wide-eyed eyes, and at the same time used a Cathay proverb just learned.

"Then which aspect do you have to look at." Lawrence said after looking at the briefings related to the airship on the display boards hanging on the wall, "If it is really rewarding from a technical point of view, what do you want to do?" Knowing that building such a large piece of mega-vehicle that's a fusion of industrial and otherworldly would definitely lead to the development of a whole bunch of technology."

"For example, when we got off the car, we saw so many airships, many of which used the technology on this airship. According to what was written in the manual just now, these new technologies have greatly increased the cost of using the airship. The degree of safety has been greatly improved. In this way, airship travel has gradually changed from a luxury item to a popular one.”

"Popularization? Do you call an airship trip of 120 yuan a ticket popular?" Safiel couldn't help complaining after hearing what Lawrence said, "The annual salary of a shop assistant is about this figure. It's just a lot of money. For a long time, you don't care about so much money?"

"Of course not. The popular travel mentioned here refers to other routes operated by ordinary airships that do not need to pass through dangerous places such as large mountains. I just checked and found that the price for the same distance from north to south is the same as our previous one. The price of the train ticket I bought is about the same." Lawrence quickly shook his hand to express that he was not drifting at all, "And the airship we are going to take should actually be regarded as an extraordinary means of transportation, so naturally the price of the ticket cannot be cheap."

"Understood." Safiel nodded. After all, it is a means of transportation that needs to directly cross the sky over the mountains. Naturally, an airship that can do this cannot have low operating costs like ordinary airships.

"However, from an economic point of view, this thing is completely losing money, because it uses too many high-tech technologies that are basically unable to be mass-produced, and the money earned from transporting guests and some goods can at most maintain the operation. .That's why it only built one." Lawrence continued the topic just now after watching Safir figure out the airship ticket price issue.

"In this case, why is this airship still in operation?" Safiel said a little puzzled, because in her impression that the thing that has been losing money should be stopped early, instead of making this thing like a Money is swallowed like a bottomless pit.

"You have to know that many things can't just be calculated economically." Lawrence raised his right index finger and shook it gently. "I guess they let the airship operate non-stop on the one hand to find the problems in the previous design through operation to facilitate continuous improvement, and on the other hand to use it as a display of national power."

Speaking of this, Lawrence thought of the Blue Ribbon Award prepared for fast cruise ships across the Atlantic in his previous life. In fact, the time that those large passenger ships can save by adding a few knots or even a few tenths of a knot is completely worthless compared with the large cost to be paid.

But at that time, various countries were still eager for this award, and built one after another faster high-speed cruise ships: King, Mauritania, United States, Deutschland, and Normandy. In the peaceful age, this speed competition was used as the best stage for each country to show its strength.

And now this airship called the Prydwin should be a means for the New Island Republic to demonstrate its national strength, and Lawrence thinks this is an important reason why this ship is running on international routes.

After talking for a while, Lawrence stood up and went to the telegraph station in the airship station to tell his adoptive father the flight and take-off time of the airship he was going to take, and then returned to the terminal hall to taste the food just served by the waiter with Safir. The fruit platter that came in went.

A few hours later, the time came to 12:30 midnight. At this time, Safir had fallen asleep holding the suitcase containing Nora. And Lawrence sat beside her with his eyes closed and began to think about the knowledge he gained this time.

"——If this basic rune technology is applied to the paper doll magic, then the next time you make a spare paper doll, you don't have to limit the image of the paper doll to a human image, so the room for maneuvering will be much larger—— —” Just as Lawrence was thinking about a certain question, he suddenly heard a bell ringing outside the window.

"Look, our airship is here." Lawrence turned his head and glanced out the window after hearing the bell, and then gently woke up Safir who was sleeping drowsily next to him.

"Ah? What?" Safiel, who had just been awakened from sleep, rubbed his eyes in confusion, then subconsciously looked in the direction of Lawrence's finger. In just a few seconds, she suddenly opened her big blue eyes wide.

"Is this the airship we're going to take? It looks like a whale made of metal." Safir said in a surprised tone, because what appeared in the sky now was a behemoth more than 300 meters long. Moreover, compared with the few airships seen before, the metal armor covered on the airbag of this airship is extraordinarily strong under the light of the magic arrays drawn on the armor.

"Yes, if everything goes well, we will be home in three days." Lawrence nodded. In fact, he was very sad because his adoptive father sent him such an endless letter but asked him to go back as quickly as possible. Anxious, but it's useless to be anxious at this time, he can only keep calm and find a way to get him back as quickly as possible.

It's a pity that there are too few cross-border space teleportation arrays, and the teleportation arrays on the New Island Republic are not qualified to use by Lawrence now, otherwise he would rather spend more to use the teleportation arrays to go back.

Twenty minutes after the airship arrived, the Prydwin airship landed and was fixed at a height of about ten meters above the ground. Then a waiter walked into the terminal hall and took them through the exit and boarding procedures. After that, another staff member on the airship led them to board the airship through a three-story gangway.

While standing on the gangway, Lawrence looked curiously at the magic lift engine closest to them. But it's different from the fast-rotating propeller engine or the more complicated jet engine he thought before. The shape of this engine looks like a simple silver-white ring, without any noise or high-speed airflow.

"Could it be a variant of the repulsive ring?" Lawrence suddenly thought of a certain technology needed to build the floating magic tower. "This is simply too exaggerated, and it's no wonder that only one airship of this type has been built."

You must know that the technical status of the repulsion ring in this world is equivalent to the heavy-duty rocket engine technology in Lawrence's previous life. One can imagine how complicated the technology is and how expensive it is. The fact that this technology can be used on an airship also made Lawrence express his extreme admiration for the degree to which the designer's imagination was wide open and the New Island Republic's generous investment.