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“Nothing happened, really,” the old man said, still confused. “It was a nitric acid storage warehouse, and the nitric acid inside was stored in large barrels—according to His Majesty’s previous orders, no flint or anything like that was allowed in or out of such places. That student followed the rules! He just carried a bag of cotton, saying the other warehouse didn’t have enough space, so he left it here for a while!”
Cotton?
Hedy paused, a sudden realization dawning on her.
Could it be that when nitric acid meets cotton, it directly becomes an explosive?
“Half of Florence Academy is gone!” The old man was almost in tears. “It’s been completely blown to pieces!”
——
The restoration work at the Florence Academy was progressing very slowly.
It was said that on the day of the explosion, a few instructors had taken their students to the countryside for experiments and collection. When they returned, they found the school had been blown up, and they rushed back in tears to recover the materials.
The explosion itself wasn’t very large in terms of smoke, with more of the damage coming from the burning curtains and wooden furniture.
No one yet understood the cause of the explosion, but after tallying the death toll, there were about six casualties.
At the time of the explosion, people thought it was an attack from enemy forces, and many rushed home to grab weapons.
But when they returned, spears and pickaxes in hand, they found that several nearby streets were unchanged, with only the area around the academy being in disarray.
The student who had been carrying the cotton was completely obliterated in the blast, leaving no remains. Although there was some damage to the documents and materials, the losses weren’t particularly large.
The academy’s old buildings and the nearby experimental fields suffered varying degrees of damage, and what remained was precarious, clearly uninhabitable.
Hedy immediately allocated funds and summoned workers to begin constructing a larger academy to the north of the city, while also sending people to visit the families of the deceased, offering them sufficient compensation and comfort.
She temporarily lent a house from the Medici family, which had been vacant, to the frightened students and teachers, allowing them to continue their studies there until the new academy was completed—but no indoor experiments were allowed.
In the meantime, the students and teachers were still busy salvaging other documents from the ruins.
Leonardo instructed his men to bring lifting equipment to help, and many concerned citizens and workers followed to assist in clearing the site.
Hedy didn’t fully understand the composition of the explosives, but she could sense the connection between the two elements.
What that student had done with cotton and nitric acid solution was now something irretrievable.
For safety reasons, she couldn’t let Leonardo take that risk—convicts and war criminals might come in handy for such tasks.
With these considerations in mind, another question arose—where should they conduct their experiments?
Normally, electrical or biological experiments were carried out indoors, and outdoor experiments were done either in the countryside or in the academy’s courtyard.
But explosives required secret formulas and raw materials.
If others bought or mixed the ingredients, even the Old Palace could turn to dust in one night.
When the Italian Empire was first established, Hedy took over the Medici family’s intelligence network, expanding and merging it.
Lorenzo had managed it very well, with mature and reliable action signals, meeting protocols, and a self-checking and reporting system to prevent external conspirators.
After careful thought, Hedy entrusted Leonardo to establish a new covert organization on her behalf.
It needed to have a sufficiently discreet name and appearance—such as an inconspicuous vineyard that looked no different from the other farms in the area.
At the same time, there should be no idle bystanders nearby—any property within five miles should ideally be purchased and checked, ensuring the organization’s security at a centrallocation.
