Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 279 Magic Power Cannon

Three days later, at the magic weapons factory next to the lord's castle.

In the center of an open workshop stood two thick gun barrels, completely black in color and engraved with countless tiny symbols and inscriptions on their surfaces.

According to the previous explosion test of the "Magic Energy Beam Explosive", Harvey asked Chris to repeat the test explosion experiment dozens of times, and finally found the appropriate explosion equivalent, and used it to calculate the precise size of the caliber of the cast cannon.

The liquid magic energy encapsulated in the enchanted iron can needs to be injected with mixed abnormal magic power before energy frenzy will occur. Therefore, Harvey used the artillery shell design principles he knew in his previous life to let Chris create a method of using a firing pin to impact, allowing a low-level elemental magic stone to roll into the liquid magic energy canister and detonate the structure of the magic shell.

This just happens to meet its shooting range of more than 500 meters, ensuring that the shell explodes the moment it hits the ground, causing maximum damage to ground targets.

As for the maximum distance and target positioning for elevated shooting, it will require repeated test firings after the cannons and shells are installed to develop an accurate table of shooting angles. We don't need to worry about it for now.

Considering that the extremely cold black iron is light in weight and has good ductility, Harvey made a bold decision at the beginning of the design and took the value of 1.6 meters for the barrel length. He also asked Chris to take the technical workers from the iron foundry to try to make two guns to see the effect.

The medieval flintlock cannons that Harvey had learned about in his previous life were made of a wood-filled inner core wrapped with curved iron plates on the outside. The entire cannon body needed to be reinforced by welding iron hoops, and finally the wood filling the barrel was burned to obtain a hollow spliced barrel. The process was just like that of a wooden barrel with iron hoops, except that the splicing gaps needed to be melted as much as possible using iron powder and iron bars. However, there was no way to avoid the risk of barrel explosion, and the scrap rate during use was extremely high.

Fortunately, the alchemists in this magical world had mastered the integral casting process of metal hundreds of years ago. They only needed to cast a heavy solid iron pillar, and then use an alchemical solution with a metal-corrosive effect to dissolve the center of the iron pillar to obtain a seamless hollow gun barrel.

In this regard, Harvey had to admire these magical scientists with extraordinary powers. They were able to accurately create the perfect prototype of the cannon in his mind just by relying on their simple design sketches and oral principles. Harvey personally used an iron caliper to measure the inner diameter of the barrel and found that the thickness of the tube wall was extremely uniform, without the uneven thickness and bumps as he had imagined.

Finally, the skilled workers carefully polished the surface of the barrel to facilitate Chris to engrave magic inscriptions on it later.

Looking at the two magic cannon barrels in front of him, which were dark black in appearance, covered with strange rune patterns, and exuded a heavy and simple atmosphere, Harvey felt very satisfied.

……

Soon they arrived at the test site outside the territory's city walls. The first light snow of early winter had begun to fall from the sky.

The rain and snow in early winter made the dirt roads outside the city extremely slippery and muddy, but the extremely cold black iron was lighter than ordinary refined iron. It only took an alchemical camel to easily pull it up and transport it quickly to the valley in the mountains and forests, which did not require much effort.

The transportation of magic energy shells requires much more caution. In order to avoid accidental explosion of the shells due to collision and falling during transportation, and causing the entire shell box to explode on the spot, Harvey also asked Chris to design a special safety device for the shells.

The principle of the safety device is actually very simple. It uses an inserted pin to penetrate the canned shell from the outside and firmly fix the firing pin for detonation. As long as the pin is not pulled out from the shell with special pliers, even if the shell is picked up and dropped directly to the ground, no accidental explosion will occur.

As usual, Vorndaf and other territorial officers were called in to watch the weapons experiment. They had become accustomed to the new gadgets that the lord would come up with from time to time. They wore thick winter training uniforms for officers, stood in a line with their sleeves rolled up, and whispered to the side.

"What new thing has the master come up with this time?" Duff nudged Vaughn, who was standing like a javelin. "It looks like a big iron pillar."

Tommy, the "smart guy," had vaguely heard rumors about the new weapon and said decisively, "What big iron pillar? It's a super magic gun! It requires two bloodline warriors to carry it and fire it. A single shot can blast a demonic beast as huge as a mountain into shreds."

"Huh?" Vaughn couldn't help but open his mouth in surprise, stunned. "So when we go out into battle in the future, we'll have to carry this huge iron pillar... a large magic gun? Isn't that too heavy?"

Dave chuckled, rubbed his hands, and said expectantly, "Hey, I'll go ask the Lord later to see if I can carry it alone. I don't think it's a big problem."

The daily training of bloodline warriors often involves carrying thick tree trunks weighing hundreds of pounds for long marches around the territory. Those who have awakened the talent of "huge strength" can even carry a tree trunk weighing over 100 pounds on each shoulder and still run at the front of the team.

The discussion among them was a little louder, which immediately attracted the attention of Pierce who was standing next to Harvey. He turned around and scolded with a stern face: "Idiot! Shut up and look. This is the magic cannon designed by Lord Harvey. It is many times more powerful than those hemp stalk magic guns in your hands." Harvey smiled and shook his head when he heard this. In a sense, the principles of the magic cannon and the magic gun are similar. It is not wrong to say that it is an enlarged version of the super magic gun.

Based on his past experience of playing medieval war games, he designed a metal gun carriage with wheels for this magic cannon, which not only facilitates transportation but also allows it to be fixed at any time for firing operations. Since the magic cannon has no recoil at all, there is no need to consider those complicated anti-recoil devices.

Chris is also in charge of the test shooting, but Pierce needs to assist him.

According to his memories from his previous life and the characteristics of the magic cannon, Harvey specially compiled a modified version of the operation and shooting process, and let the two of them familiarize themselves with it in advance. Now they can just see the effect.

Chris excitedly lifted the tarpaulin covering the gun body, then pulled out a long mop from the slot under the gun mount and poked it into the muzzle with a smile - in fact, ammunition made of liquid magic energy would not leave any residue in the barrel like gunpowder. Harvey stubbornly added this link just to satisfy his unique sense of ritual and commemorative significance for the long-range weapons that changed the course of the war in his previous life.

Chris fiddled with it vigorously for a few times, then pulled out the clean mop again, and the memorial ceremony that satisfied Harvey was finally completed.

Pierce turned around and addressed the territorial officers lined up behind him, "Do you understand? Remember the operating procedures and don't slack off."

Everyone stared at the two people's actions with wide eyes and nodded subconsciously.

Next, Chris took out a cylindrical canned shell from the box at the rear of the gun carriage and stuffed it into the muzzle at the front. With a slight thud, the shell slid to the bottom of the barrel. Pierce immediately walked to the rear end of the cannon, opened a small hole with a cover at the tail of the gun body, picked up a pair of pliers with a hook and inserted it in. He hooked the safety pin on the shell and gently twisted it to pull it out.

Then he closed the cover of the small hole and nodded to Chris, indicating that the preliminary firing process of the cannon had been completed.

To prevent accidents, everyone retreated thirty meters away and stood behind a metal protective plate that was one person tall and two fingers thick, leaving only Chris and Pierce standing there.

After receiving the firing signal from Harvey, Chris pulled a metal joystick at the rear end of the cannon, and the inscriptions engraved on the entire cannon body immediately lit up slowly.

Then a low humming sound...

A stream of air with rich magical fluctuations spurted out from the muzzle at high speed, which rolled up the surrounding air and drifting snowflakes, forming a shooting trajectory that flew away at lightning speed. This magic cannon was manufactured according to the design principle of the flint cannon. Theoretically, the projectile distance can reach more than a thousand meters, but if it is fired horizontally, the distance will be halved.

The shooting trajectory of the magic cannonball could no longer be observed with the naked eye, but a giant spliced iron plate placed 500 meters away immediately made a loud sound of metal tearing, and exploded into pieces in an instant, stirring up a cloud of dirt around it.

Harvey led everyone to the target position immediately. They saw that except for a short section of the iron plate that was deeply embedded in the ground, the rest of the iron plate had all shattered and flew away. The farthest piece of metal fragment was even deeply embedded in a tree trunk and needed a lot of force to pull it out.

The ground and trees within a radius of more than ten meters around the target were covered with holes caused by turbulent energy beams shooting out, indicating that the magic shells had unleashed the full energy impact effect when they exploded.

"Wow...what a terrible power!" Vaughn murmured in disbelief, approaching a thick tree trunk that had been shot into a sieve and observing the holes on it. He could already imagine the spectacular scene when the shell fell into the crowd of enemies when they gathered together and charged towards them.

Chris, who had participated in the firing and manufacturing of the magic cannon, was particularly excited. He directed his apprentices to busily begin recording various data. He then walked over to Harvey and said ecstatically, "Sir, this is simply a genius idea and creation! If we make the cannon caliber larger and produce magic cannonballs with a higher yield, even if we were to confront the ancient dragon head-on, I'm afraid those divine creatures wouldn't be able to withstand the power of our shot!"

Harvey rolled his eyes speechlessly. It turned out that all alchemists who practiced fire magic were fanatics of caliber and equivalent. They were just getting started and they were already imagining using magic weapons to fight against the ancient dragons.

But he was right. Although the cannon before him was a modified long-range weapon, it still adhered to an absolutely classic theory: caliber is justice, range is truth, and equivalent is dignity...

(End of this chapter)