After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World novel Chapter 1022

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She nodded and took out a ceramic bottle from her space. "This is the only resource that we have," she said. "We call it black liquid. It cannot be consumed by humans, but it allows flame to last for a long time.

His eyebrows rose as he rubbed the liquid between his fingers. "This is…"

Oil?

Even if Alterra was set to become self-sustaining with regards to electricity and power, it didn’t mean petroleum wouldn’t be useful. Especially since mass production of the solar panel was still far away, their sources were water and wind, which could depend a lot on nature.

What about during extreme weather conditions wherein these things could not be tapped? Other than this, oil had a lot of other uses…

Sahara didn’t know he could recognize what it was and continued to explain what she knew. "Thanks to this, our fires could last throughout the night. It is cold in the desert at night, and it is our source of warmth."

"It’s not much, but… I know cities and rich territories liked their streets and walls lit up at night, I thought it’d be a useful thing to have."

It was to assist the forces when fighting with monsters and it would also help refugees find their place, which was the best alternative if they didn’t have the lighthouse. And, perhaps more prominently, it was a way for territories to show off their wealth.

Helios nodded. It so happened that he knew a bit about the subject as a mercenary back in Terran. "This is good. While our research center would need to study it further—if this thing is as I thought—then this can also create a waterproof layer so you can create big bowls to keep sparse rainwater in. It also helps slow or prevent the decay of wood."

"What?"

Helios blinked, realizing her knowledge about this was not that wide yet. "Did you just discover this?"

She nodded. "A few months before I left," she said. "Our people discovered it by accident. Rather, we had known of its existence for a while longer, but only began to explore its use recently."

Sahara was puzzled as she looked at him. "You know what this is?"

Helios nodded. "Alterra would love to have this. You can definitely use this as leverage."

Oil could still be used in various other things. For one, plastics and synthetic materials would need it. Modern Terrans also had the knowledge of how to make plastic sustainable, to a degree. He had no idea how this was done, but he knew the Research Center would figure it out.

They could also make asphalt roads which were markedly cheaper than concrete, assuming they managed to get enough oil.

Asphalt was also reusable and had better sound absorption than concrete did. If they someday used it to create paths outside the territory, then it’d reduce the monsters attracted by the noise of the road.

Hearing this, Sahara felt like much of the burden she had been carrying so far had disappeared.