Entering the middle of March, the cold of winter had completely disappeared. The ground outside Banta City that had been frozen by the cold had become warm and moist, as countless pieces of green grass had sprouted from the ground.
At this time, it was a good time to go out for a walk. So when the weather was good, there would be countless noble young masters and young misses sitting in their family's luxurious horse carriages as they left Banta City, heading to the green fields outside the city.
Although the current Banta City was surrounded by several straight roads and the western suburbs were filled with various factories because the Lord City Lord had designated it as an industrial area, there weren't many green fields left. However, the southern suburbs had been designated as a recreational area by the Lord City Lord, so not only did they keep the greenery, they even opened a canal that brought in the water from the Sandy River. The southern suburbs that had been a desolate place had become a beautiful place with green mountains and clear waters, as well as a beautiful place filled with birds and flowers.
Today was another good day and the sun had just risen into the sky. There were countless noble horse carriages heading out of Banta City's southern gates, heading towards the green fields in the southern part of the city.
Countless noble young masters and young misses were planning on taking advantage of this good weather to go out and play, as well as holding a relaxing banquet in the wild.
However, today was a bit different from normal.
Among the countless horse carriages that charged out of the city gates, there were two things that weren't the same.
The young masters and young misses in the horse carriages heard the cries of surprise outside and opened the curtains of the horse carriages. They saw that on the road to the southern suburbs, there were two people sitting on something that was made of two wheels and an iron frame. It was completely flat and looked very strange.
The two of them were stepping on two pedals that didn't stop moving, as they quickly moved around a disc.
With this disc, the two wheels on the iron frame kept moving forward, moving the two of them along the road.
What surprised everyone was that the strange thing that the two of them were sitting on was clearly very thin. Apart from two wheels, everything else was just a frame. However, it was able to carry the two of them forward at high speed. In the blink of an eye, it had surpassed several carriages and ran in front of many noble young masters and young ladies.
Seeing the two people riding on this strange unknown object and speeding along the road, whether it was the noble young masters and young ladies in the carriage or the pedestrians on the road, they couldn't help but be stunned.
'What are those two people sitting on?'
How could he carry them and run so fast?
However, the two of them just disappeared into the distance, leaving the question in everyone's heart unanswered.
The next day was another sunny day.
As usual, countless carriages drove out of the city gates and rushed out of the city.
But at the same time, at nine o 'clock in the morning, the two strange-looking things once again rushed out of the city gate with two people on them. Once again, they overtook countless carriages and disappeared at the end of the road.
The doubts in people's hearts deepened.
On the third day, it was sunny again.
The same thing happened again.
The fourth day …
The fifth day …
…
For an entire week, every day was a rare sunny day. Every day, countless noble young masters and young ladies wanted to go out for an outing, but every day, those two strange things would carry two people out of the city gate and quickly disappear from everyone's sight.
After seven days of accumulation, this mysterious strange thing had spread through Banta City and aroused the curiosity in everyone's hearts.
There were some busybodies who had been waiting outside the southern gate for the next few days and had drawn up the appearance of those two strange things.
After analyzing it, everyone found that the principle behind these two strange things was actually very simple. They were just two flat tires on the ground and there was an iron frame on top of them to support them. There were two gears connected to each other to drive them, and finally the people on top of them used their feet to move them.
However, the principle seemed very simple, but these two strange things could actually move this fast with people moving them, which really was a bit unbelievable.
In the beginning, people didn't know what these things were or where they came from, but there were some careful people who guessed a bit from the two tires.
Tires were something that only the Frestech Chamber of Commerce produced. Adding in the fact that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce could produce all kinds of strange things, these two strange things were most likely the Frestech Chamber of Commerce's newly developed magic machines!
All the doubts and guesses were finally answered on the eighth day.
On the morning of the eighth day, the new « Banta Times » finally revealed the mystery.
People's guesses weren't wrong, these two strange things were indeed newly developed products from New Flyer. But it was different from what people imagined, this thing was not related to magic at all.
This thing called a bicycle was a human powered machine that was completely powered by human power and didn't contain any magic.
But even if it was powered by human power, as long as the person riding the bicycle was strong enough, they could still make the bicycle move very quickly.
According to the news the « Banta Times » received, it was said that when New Flyer was testing the bicycle, they could set off from Banta City in the morning and arrive at the Falling Rain Valley before noon.
It had to be known that the Falling Rain Valley was sixty kilometers away from Banta City, so it would take three hours to make a trip with the best horse carriages.
The speed of these bicycles wasn't that much slower than the best horse carriages!
Seeing the report in the « Banta Times », people instantly boiled over.
With such a good thing, it would be much more convenient for them to travel in the future!
Although horse carriages were good, raising horses was not something a normal family could afford.
Although Banta City's public transport system was gradually being established, allowing people to go to most places by horse carriage, it cost money to ride a horse carriage. Not to mention that there were many places that horse carriages couldn't go.
Compared to this simple and light bicycle, horse carriages were without a doubt much more cumbersome.
So after confirming that this bicycle was a product of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the gate of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce's service center in the city was filled with countless people. Countless people immediately came to ask when this bicycle would be sold and everyone couldn't wait to buy one.
"It seems like I don't need to worry about the sales of this bicycle."
Xu Yi laughed and put down the « Banta Times » in his hand. He turned to look at the Wind Magic Engine in the magic machine development workshop, quickly turning the bicycle's tires.
Strictly speaking, this bicycle was something that Xu Yi developed to develop the Wind Magic Engine.
Although the bicycle was not a very important commercial product in the light industrial system, the bicycle product contained a lot of extremely important engineering technology.
For example, the power structure, the bearing drive, the gear casting, and many other kinds of technologies that could be used in the production of the bicycle.
Xu Yi had Camby and the others develop the bicycle. Other than adding a new product to the New Flyer, it was also to let Camby and the others gain more experience and theoretical knowledge in the development process.
This was very different from earth.
Mechanical engineers on Earth would first learn theoretical knowledge, and then begin practical production.
As for the mechanical engineers represented by Camby in the New Flyer, they first experimented with production under Xu Yi's guidance before learning theoretical knowledge.
This was something that couldn't be helped. Xu Yi wanted to speed up the development of the industrial system, so he could only force his theoretical knowledge into them.
It was a good thing that Camby and the other dwarves were very talented in this aspect. Xu Yi only needed to mention a bit and they could deeply understand it, even being able to draw inferences from it.
Through developing the bicycle, Camby and the others had already become mechanical engineers with a deep understanding of the power theory.
The next step was for Xu Yi to have them combine the Wind Magic Engine that they had already developed with the bicycle.
If they could make a Magic Bicycle with the Wind Magic Engine as the driving force, it meant that the development of the Magic Engine could be put into practice.
The experiment that Camby and the others were doing right now was to test the stability of the Wind Magic Engine's output and the strength of the bearings.
This test had already been going on for ten days, but the results were something that Xu Yi wasn't satisfied with.
First the output of the Wind Magic Engine couldn't be maintained, but it would often stop without any warning. Moreover, the output would sometimes be fast and sometimes slow.
After Xu Yi and the other researchers from the Academy of Magic had carefully examined it, they found that this was because the Wind Magic Array inside the engine was spinning at a high speed, causing the air flow inside the engine to become chaotic. This affected the Magic Array to a certain extent, which affected the output.
If this effect accumulated to a certain degree, the Magic Array would temporarily lose its effect and the engine would lose its driving force.
There was another important problem, which was the problem of the materials.
The bicycle's gears and bearings weren't that big of a problem at low speeds, but if it was maintained at high speeds for a long time, the wear and tear would greatly increase.
According to the estimates, if the Wind Magic Engine was maintained at its highest speed, whether it was the bicycle's bearings or the engine's bearings, they would wear out in less than ten hours and might even break.
This was something that Xu Yi couldn't do anything about for now.
This was because this was a problem of the materials and the problem of the materials was the hardest problem to solve in the industrial system.
Although the Chinese Empire on earth had a complete industrial system, they had always been behind in terms of materials technology.
Xu Yi was a mechanical engineer of the Chinese Empire, so he wasn't that good at materials. Adding in the restrictions of the country, he couldn't grasp the most advanced materials technology.
For this problem, he could only place his hopes in the material research facility led by chief Siluka.
Before this, the material research facility led by chief Siluka had already given Xu Yi many pleasant surprises.
Now that Xu Yi had given this problem to him, when the non-ferrous metal veins on the Black Rice Wasteland were extracted, he believed that chief Siluka would give Xu Yi a satisfactory answer.
Before this, he could only patiently wait.
Even if Xu Yi was anxious to develop the engine, he couldn't be careless at all when it came to mechanical technology.
As a genius mechanical engineer from earth, Xu Yi was aware of this and had the patience to do so.