Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 404 Jeremiah's Painting

A grinning pirate captain, a grand and imposing pirate ship, slightly decaying wooden planks, scimitars and muskets, all frozen in time on the Banshee's canvas, accompanied by the evening breeze and the splashing waves at the dock.

Finelle paints extremely fast, holding several paintbrushes in each of her six hands, her painting speed comparable to that of a printer.

Soon, she took down the wooden board that held the canvas up, looked at it, nodded in satisfaction, and handed it to Jeremiah.

"Take a look, what do you think?"

Jeremiah craned his neck, grinning from ear to ear: "Good, good, so good, so good!"

"If you want to make a record next time, you can go find Nini. I heard she's researching a device called a phonograph, which can freeze a scene in an instant."

“Is that so?” Jeremiah carefully held the drawing board. “But I probably won’t modify the Black Pearl anymore. This time it’s just adding a few steam engines. She’s already perfect and doesn’t need any more decorations.”

Finelle smiled softly and said nothing.

"Men, get to work!" Jeremiah turned around and shouted at the workers, "Tonight it's my treat! You can drink and read the Holy Scriptures together!"

"oh oh!"

"Great!"

The workers cheered and enthusiastically headed towards the pirate ship with their tools.

Meanwhile, Hughes led his men to Richard's testing ground.

Castells had no shortage of researchers, but he was currently undertaking far too many projects.

Therefore, Hughes couldn't find a suitable person to conduct the artillery project research for a while, and finally handed it over to Richard.

This fire-chasing moth, originally a doctor, is now in charge of artillery development.
However, this is also based on tradition. It is said that the Gatling gun was invented by a doctor, so it seems reasonable to let Richard work on artillery.

And to be honest, he's quite motivated.

Hughes found him in the laboratory.

"My lord, you've come at just the right time! The cannon I've been researching is going to be test-fired today!"

"What a coincidence? It's already been developed as soon as I arrived?" Hughes scratched his head with a strange expression.

"Not really. We have already produced several prototypes of the artillery, but due to their weight and size, they are too difficult to transport to the battlefield. Today we are going to test fire a smaller version."

“It’s okay, the larger version can also be used on ships, where size isn’t a big concern.”

"Will it work?" Richard was somewhat surprised. "Our cannons have a lot of recoil. We've tested it on Mr. Jeremiah's ship before. Even firing on calm seas would cause violent shaking. The new ship at the shipyard needs to be big enough."

Worried the boat isn't big enough?
Hughes's eye twitched.

"Didn't the island shake when you fired last time?"

"Huh? No, I don't think so."

"As long as it doesn't wobble, that's fine. Let's install it and try it out. Their boats are almost as good as island ships when they're sailing."

Richard took off his hat, scratched his thinning hair, and was unsure if it was a joke.

He knew Tata; they were colleagues at Moth Chaser before. It wasn't impossible for the shipyard he led to produce any design.
"Let's go to the testing ground first. I've made some improvements to this cannon according to my research direction. It will surprise you."

Hughes nodded and followed, not paying attention to Richard's words until later when he remembered that Richard's research focused on human modification.

Upon arriving at the testing grounds, the two put on earmuffs. Hughes was somewhat surprised to see several banshees there, laughing and joking in the waiting area. "My lord."

The two bowed together.

"What are you doing here?"

“Mr. Richard’s cannons, let’s test them.”

Cannons that need to be test-fired by a banshee?

Richard quickly stepped forward to explain: "It's like this, with those Gatling guns you had before, the soldiers could only pull them up to the position and fix them on the ground to fire, but the Banshee can hold them directly in her hand and fire them."

"I was thinking, could artillery be done the same way? For heavy artillery that soldiers need to carry, the Banshee troops could use it by hand."

Hand-held cannons? It sounds strange, but it seems to make some sense.

"If there are no problems, we can begin the test firing, my lord."

Hughes nodded and began to look around—where were the cannons? Wasn't this a testing ground? Where were the cannons?
After receiving the command, the two banshees raised their hands and pointed them at the target in front of them.

It was only then that Hughes noticed that they were all wearing thick black tubes on their hands. The tubes were several sizes thicker than their hands and looked very heavy, but the banshees picked them up with no effort at all.

"What is that? A hand cannon? What's going on?"

boom! ! !
The explosion produced a burst of light that surged forward like a waterfall, the crimson flames momentarily outshining the sunlight. The two banshees were propelled backward a few steps by the recoil, and smoke slowly billowed from the hand cannons hanging at their sides.

A long, fiery dragon shot across the ground in an instant, rushing towards the target and burning it to ashes, leaving behind a long, shallow trench.

A dark red, magma-like substance flowed slowly from the ditch.

Hughes stood to the side, completely dumbfounded.

"How is it, my lord?"

"This is a cannon? This is a cannon?!"

Richard scratched his thinning hair, looking somewhat bewildered. "As you requested, heavy weapons, fired like firearms, capable of destroying fortifications that machine guns struggle to penetrate, and also effective against large monsters."

Hughes was speechless for a moment.

This thing doesn't look like the cannons he remembers at all; cannons don't have such exaggerated special effects!
Don't tell me, it's really pretty.

After a while, Hughes realized something was wrong: "How exactly did you change the formula? No matter which way you mess with the nitroglycerin, it wouldn't have this effect, right? What did you add? White phosphorus? Magnesium powder?"

Richard adjusted his monocle: "I added contamination."

"what?"

"It was Gaia who first discovered it. The storage of nitroglycerin has always been a problem. No matter what method is used to deal with it, it is difficult to solve the problem of its explosiveness. We tried to make several safer explosives before, but they were difficult to keep stable for a long time. They would become highly active again after a long time."

This is why Castells has only been able to produce explosive charges until now; he has not been able to find suitable explosives for artillery shells.

To be honest, Hughes had long suspected that this was caused by the technological lock, but he had no good solution and could only let the researchers figure it out themselves.

The result was that what we figured out was indeed useful, but it was quite unexpected.

"In the end, it was Monica who gave us the idea. If she can put pollutants in the stove to burn, then frying them shouldn't be a big problem, right?"

(End of this chapter)