The first trial flight of the Flying Airship's technology verification model was not particularly grand. Perfikot didn't even invite anyone to witness it. Once everything was ready, she filled the airship's balloon with inert helium gas, allowing it to float in the air.
Perfikot obviously couldn't use the hot air balloon method to make the Flying Airship fly; it was fuel-intensive and unsafe.
After all, hot air balloons use heated air to gain lift, which requires a continuous supply of heat to warm the air.
Coal's heat value was clearly not sufficient for the task; only high-calorie kerosene or other fuels could be used.
But this brought safety hazards, as kerosene burns much faster than coal, especially when there might be an explosion.
Moreover, knowledge from the previous world had made Perfikot well aware that hot air balloons couldn't cross oceans or conduct long-distance flights.
In the original world, airships initially used hydrogen, a low-density gas, to fill the balloons and provide lift.
However, the overly reactive physical nature of hydrogen made it an easily ignitable gas, potentially leading to severe consequences.
When airships were in full vogue in the original world, there had been a catastrophic Zeppelin accident caused by hydrogen ignition, resulting in massive casualties.
Therefore, knowing this, Perfikot could not neglect related safety issues or let any "Perfikot Flying Airship accident" happen in the future.
Later in the original world, airships used the much safer helium, an inert gas, which was less reactive and generally safer.
Of course, helium also had a major disadvantage: it was a rare gas. The first discovery of helium in the original world was from spectral analysis of the sun, and it was long considered non-existent on Earth.
Until later, scientists researching uranium mines discovered the same spectrum, confirming the presence of helium on Earth.
As for refining helium, that was only after the first industrial revolution.
But in this world, none of this is a problem.
For an Alchemist, the challenge has never been creating a substance but how to discover it.
Alchemy is not a thing from nothing; it must follow the most basic principles.
Moreover, if an Alchemist doesn't even know what they want, how could they create it?
But for Perfikot, it was simple because she knew about the existence of helium and understood what kind of substance it was. Obtaining helium was not difficult.
She only needed to design an alchemical ritual based on helium's characteristics and could then use alchemy to produce large quantities of helium.
For her, holding the Philosopher's Stone, there wasn't even a need to prepare raw materials; she could directly use the Philosopher's Stone as a substitute.
Of course, even if raw materials were necessary, the air itself is a substance, and it is heavier than helium, so it could be used to prepare helium without any issues.
This is one of the reasons why technological development in this world is superior to the original world in some respects. The existence of alchemy allows things that would have required more scientific development and technological accumulation to appear ahead of time, objectively promoting the advancement of technology.
However, since alchemy cannot achieve large-scale industrial production, there are still constraints, allowing some things to appear ahead of time but not enabling them to play their due role.
It's similar to how, when humanity in the original world first discovered aluminum, it was more valuable than gold because, at that time, large-scale refining was impossible.
Thus, alchemy can indeed create things that transcend eras, but their cost is astonishingly high.
And the only one who could break this limitation was Perfikot, because she possessed the wondrous Philosopher's Stone, the pinnacle of alchemical miracles, which could break the rules of alchemy and make the impossible possible.
It was precisely because of this that Perfikot could create such an outrageous thing as a maid automaton in the era of the first industrial revolution!
This was something akin to an intelligent robot in the original world, something impossible to create in the first industrial revolution era.
But with the help of the Philosopher's Stone, Perfikot broke through the constraints in many fields such as materials, intelligence, and structure, forcibly creating this miraculous creation, achieving small-scale mass production, and even reducing the manufacturing cost to a relatively low level.
It's worth noting that the reason maid automatons could appear lifelike was not magic but because their bodies housed a purely mechanical computer—a miniature differential engine to store and execute commands.
With the experience from originally developing maid automatons, preparing helium became very easy for Perfikot.
The only obstacle for her was the storage issue of helium, but even that was not a particularly difficult problem to solve.
In the end, after Perfikot successfully created a huge helium storage tank, all the preliminary preparations for the Flying Airship technology verification model were complete, ready for flight at any time.
When the coal-shoveling automaton, specially designed by Perfikot, filled the prepared high-quality coal into the furnace of the miniature steam engine, driving the transmission shaft and gearbox to rotate the airship's tail propeller to generate thrust and propel the Flying Airship forward, even Perfikot herself found it hard to control her excitement.
Even in the original world, such a flying experience was hard to come by, let alone that this airship was something she built by herself. The satisfaction brought by this sense of achievement filled Perfikot with pride.
Looking at the earth below, gliding past, Perfikot couldn't help but stand at the prow of the Flying Airship, spreading her arms wide open, letting the airflow caress her body, wishing to shout out loud.
"Miss, please be careful!" Foster, a bit of a killjoy, attempted to reach out to pull Perfikot back but felt he shouldn't disturb his lady's enthusiasm, so he finally just gave a lukewarm reminder.
In response to Foster's reminder, Perfikot took a step back, then asked the loyal old steward, "Grandpa Fu, how far are you from being a Knight of the Order? I am about to head to the New Continent, and I need your strength to protect me."
"Don't worry, Miss. I've already taken the Life Elixir you gave me, and now I'm just one last breakthrough away." Though he appeared to be an old man, Foster's physical condition had already returned to its peak, giving him ample confidence to protect his young mistress.