Chapter 84: Water Supply System

Besides the roads, Su Lun started to work on building a water supply system for the territory. He had been in this world for over ten years, but Su Lun still was not used to life without running water.

In this era, most cities relied on well water for their supply. Well water had to be bought, so owning a good water well in the city meant a steady source of income. Of course, some poor families chose to carry water from the river, while nobles preferred spring water from nearby mountains.

Because getting water was not easy, people in this era rarely took baths. For commoners, bathing once a month was already considered good hygiene. Su Lun could not stand his Barbarian Warriors going a whole month without bathing.

These strong, energetic men patrolled and scoured the Wasteland every day. It was inevitable that they would get dusty and sweaty. So Su Lun forced them to bathe every day. Of course, this rule was strongly supported by the Barbarian women. Now, even if Su Lun did not check, the Barbarian women would make sure their husbands bathed.

If a man did not bathe, he had to sleep outside that night.

When Su Lun went to the river to inspect, he saw a group of naked men and children splashing into the Red Sand River to bathe.

The weather was not too cold at that time, so bathing there was still fine. But once it started to snow, it would not be possible. Along with the water supply facilities, Su Lun planned to build some public baths.

Magic in this world could do many things that technology in his previous life could not. But the number of Wizards made it hard to spread magic widely. The water supply system Su Lun wanted to build was based on the large Lanzhou waterwheels from ancient times in his past life.

With his Mechanical Control skill, Su Lun was very familiar with the principles and construction of various machines. He planned to build three or four large Lanzhou waterwheels on the Red Sand River. The waterwheels would lift water from the river, and then channels would carry the water to a reservoir in the city.

The reservoir had to be built on high ground; otherwise, the water would not flow there. For the channels outside the city, he used the Aqueduct design from ancient Rome in his past life. To make these Aqueducts strong and durable, Su Lun used the Turn Mud to Stone spell to reinforce them.

The Aqueducts stretched from the river all the way to outside the city. Su Lun thought about it and decided to build the reservoir outside the town. The main reason was future expansion. Northguard Keep was not very big at the time, only five hundred meters across and wide, and it was not crowded with a thousand people living there. But as the territory’s population grew, the current size would not be enough.

So Su Lun already planned to expand the town. This time, he wanted to double the length and width of the town in all directions. That would make the area four times larger, upgrading the town into a large settlement that could hold five thousand people.

Bringing water from the Red Sand River into the town required Aqueducts over five kilometers long. Because the town was much higher than the river, these Aqueducts had to be built as elevated structures.

Building elevated Aqueducts was very difficult. There were no architects in the territory who could handle such a big project. Su Lun had to step in himself. After all, he had been in this world for ten years and had received a proper Noble education, even if he was just an auditor. Education for Nobles in this world was strict, covering etiquette, geography, horsemanship, literature, architecture, history, martial skills, and more.

Back then, Su Lun had studied all these subjects seriously. Although he had not spent too much effort on architecture, combining that knowledge with theories from his past life gave him some confidence to build an Aqueduct.

The Aqueducts were about sixty centimeters wide, with channels fifty centimeters deep. The highest point of the Aqueducts was thirty meters above the ground. The waterwheels had a diameter of thirty-five meters. To build such large waterwheels, Su Lun personally led a team to the Lotas Mountains to cut down Iron Oak trees that had been growing for hundreds of years.

Iron Oak trees grew in cold environments. Their wood was hard, did not warp easily, was resistant to decay, hard to burn, and grew very slowly. It took at least two to three hundred years for them to reach forty or fifty meters in height. Waterwheels made from this wood were both lightweight and durable.

It took several days to cut down eight Iron Oak trees in the Lotas Mountains. Then Su Lun led the team back, along with various slaves captured there. To cut these trees, Su Lun and his men had to wipe out two Gnolls tribes.

Su Lun had seen the large Lanzhou waterwheel in a waterwheel park in his past life. The first time he saw such a huge waterwheel up close, he was very impressed. A waterwheel twenty to thirty meters tall turned with the flow of the river. Without steam or electricity, it lifted water from the river up twenty to thirty meters.

The structure of this waterwheel was not very complicated. Based on his past memories and his Mechanical Control skill, Su Lun finally built the first large Lanzhou waterwheel.

The giant waterwheel stood tall on the Red Sand River. The rushing water pushed the wheel to turn. Buckets on the outer rim filled with water, then rose to a height of thirty meters as the wheel turned, before pouring the water into the Aqueduct. As long as the waterwheel was not destroyed and the Red Sand River did not dry up, it would continuously transport water.

[Large Waterwheel: A giant waterwheel made from Iron Oak. Cleverly designed, sturdy, and durable, it is an excellent tool for lifting water. Sturdiness +10, Wear Resistance +10, Water Lifting +10, Power +15]

The Aqueducts were built from stone blocks. Because they reached a height of thirty meters, deep foundations were dug below. Su Lun also had to personally supervise the construction of the elevated channels. In this era, there were few types of mortar for binding walls together. Most used sticky rice soup or volcanic ash cement.

Sticky rice soup required a lot of grain, and Su Lun did not want to waste food. Transporting volcanic ash cement here would be too expensive for Su Lun. So he had to work hard himself. After building each section, he cast the Turn Mud to Stone spell on that part of the Aqueduct.

After the Turn Mud to Stone spell was used, the stones merged completely, leaving no seams. This was even better than using sticky rice soup or cement. The effect was good, but it was very expensive. In Karlt City, hiring a Wizard skilled in the Turn Mud to Stone spell cost at least three hundred Gold Nar per day.

Even Nobles could not afford that price. If Su Lun ever ran out of money in the future, he could consider working as an architect himself. Each use of Turn Mud to Stone could convert ten meters of the elevated channel into stone. Su Lun had to cast the spell over ten times a day. He put a lot of effort into this water supply system.