"Why such a serious face?" Nightingale suddenly chuckled. "Actually, I'd believe anything you said. But you need to give others some time to accept it. After all, if you told them something the size of a palm could turn tens of millions of demons into ashes, no one could imagine it right away, especially after seeing the physical manifestation Lucia created."

"Really?" Roland touched his cheek, perhaps considering that humanity was facing a life-or-death race against time, which made him unconsciously feel a sense of crisis. "But you're right, after all, I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

He turned around, holding the unremarkable "stone chip" in his hand.

This was the beginning of the Path to Fire – refined metallic uranium.

Relying on just a few words, it was indeed difficult to associate it with the "object of splendor." The silver-white surface had become dull due to oxidation, and the cold touch seemed to have nothing to do with light and heat. But Roland knew that under the right conditions, nature would reveal its divine moment.

To collect it, Lucia and Speer had been working hard in the North Slope Mine for almost a week after the meeting, breaking down the surrounding granite around the mine. The Countess was quite resentful about this, feeling that having her rummage through piles of rocks was undignified. Using this as an excuse, she took five more apprentices from the City Hall.

The result was this small piece.

Compared to the original uranium block used as a sample, this thumb-sized piece of metallic uranium had a purity of over 99%, and under Lucia's adjustment, it was divided into two layers, with one side being Uranium-235 and the other being Uranium-238, with a ratio of 1:99, which was also the natural abundance of the two in nature.

In other words, the uranium element on the surface of the stone chip, less than the thickness of a hair, could already be called "weapons-grade."

As a nearly stable nuclide, whether it was 238, which accounted for the vast majority but was of little use, or 235, which could be used to make the ultimate weapon, its half-life was measured in billions of years. With such a long decay period, and the fact that it mainly released alpha particles during decay, with a range of only a few tens of micrometers in human tissue, even the epidermis couldn't be penetrated. Therefore, even holding it in your hand wouldn't cause fatal external radiation damage.

Of course, this didn't mean that direct contact with high-concentration uranium was absolutely safe.

After all, some of the alpha nuclides produced by decay might be highly toxic, and it would be troublesome if they stuck to your hands and were eaten.

Therefore, Roland had Soraya wrap a layer of transparent film around the "stone chip," both to prevent further oxidation and to avoid accidental chemical poisoning.

After all, most people in this world hadn't developed the habit of washing their hands frequently.

He looked at the object in his palm, feeling somewhat emotional. This piece of metallic uranium, containing immense energy, lay quietly in his palm. Before reaching criticality, it looked so peaceful and harmless, almost no different from ordinary iron. No wonder Pasha and the others found it hard to believe.

Now that he had taken this step, the primary task was to collect all the raw materials needed for the brilliant radiation.

Aqima could use high-concentration uranium coins to find samples with much lower purity, which at least proved that it was feasible to use them for prospecting. Although Lucia could decompose and aggregate in the mines day after day to obtain enough uranium-235, that would violate the original intention of multiple projects running in parallel.

In the field of high-end metal smelting, she still had an irreplaceable role.

Moreover, weapon-grade uranium alone couldn't be used to create truly usable ammunition—to prevent it from becoming a dirty bomb, Roland also needed a truly rare element. It was usually found alongside uranium ore, with a content of only one in ten million of the former. Even with Lucia's help, a large amount of raw ore would be needed to solve the problem.

In short, it was up to Aqima next.

Roland put the small piece of metallic uranium back in the box, relocked it in the drawer, and then pulled out an unfinished internal combustion engine design drawing from the side of the file and spread it out on the desk.

Although most Neverwinter residents would go to bed early on a cold, windy snowy night, he still had a lot of work to do.

"Are you going to stay up late again today?" Nightingale tilted her head.

He stretched his neck and picked up the quill pen. "Everyone has finally seen hope, so we can't let all our previous efforts be in vain because I'm lazy. For the sake of immortal fame, losing a little sleep is nothing."

"Is that so… but it sounds like at least half of it is insincere."

"Cough—aren't you supposed to believe everything I say?"

"But using my ability to confirm your true feelings is your own request," Nightingale stuck out her tongue.

"Okay, okay, I wanted to do it myself, okay?" he said helplessly. "I just don't want to lose to the demons, or that so-called divine will."

"Well, that's the truth this time. Then I'll go make you a cup of hot tea and get some snacks," Nightingale smiled slightly. "Spiced roasted meat, honey-glazed mushrooms, pepper-salt fried shrimp, and a refreshing Chaos drink, how about getting a serving of everything from the kitchen?"

Hey, you just want to eat it yourself, don't you!

Roland shook his head with a wry smile. "Whatever you like."

"As you wish, my Majesty," she said slyly.

…

The next day, Aqima embarked on a journey to find the source with that piece of high-purity uranium, and Roland also received another good news from the City Hall.

The crude oil fractionation tower project, jointly participated by the Construction Department and the Chemical Industry Department, had completed the construction of the No. 1 tower.

To show his importance, Roland personally attended the launch ceremony.

This tower was located on the bank of the Redwater River, in the Neverwinter Industrial Zone. The tower body was nearly twenty-five meters high, and it was another masterpiece that combined new technologies and new ideas—the iron tower itself was nothing special, just divided into multiple layers with compartments, using the different boiling points of oil vapor to separate different products. The specific temperature measurement and evaporation control had been completed in the laboratory, and with Anna's welding technology, it could fully meet the requirements of simple fractionation.

In fact… the quality of the fractionated products had very little to do with the tower itself, so little that some places could even build a boiler with bricks and still fractionate oil. This couldn't help but remind him of geography when he was a child, which wrote that the motherland was vast and rich in resources, having everything. However, he only realized after growing up that yes, it had everything… but the quality was generally not good, adding countless difficulties to the refiners.

He found that resources were just like appearances, inherently different. The gap between high-grade minerals and low-grade minerals was like a chasm, and could only be made up for through hard work. The same was true for petroleum. Crude oil rich in wax, sulfur, and inorganic salts was as viscous as mud and couldn't be ignited with fire. It couldn't be used at all without deep processing. However, some light oils, such as those from the Borneo oil fields, could be directly burned as fuel as soon as they were extracted.

The Black River, which covered half of the Southernmost Region, belonged to the latter.

After learning about the self-spraying phenomenon, Roland paid attention to this desert land. In fact, the oil collected from Endless Cape was indeed not bad, and the fractionated products could basically meet the current usage requirements. Although it was far from the refined products of later generations, he didn't need to pursue perfection in one step.

The real advantage of this project lay more in the supporting system and system design.