Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 569 Beam Weapons
"The Winged Demon Lizardmen of Floating Island No. 2 have warned us that in the upcoming war between the two races, control of the sky will become the biggest loophole in the Divine Spine Mountain Range's defenses."

It might even be the only vulnerability.

Harvey led the Shield team into the magic arsenal and introduced the new "anti-aircraft weapon" that was in the research and development stage to the allies from the Federation.

A few days ago, Fadun also watched the video recordings of several battles between the Northern Army and the Demon Lizardmen, and was extremely concerned about these winged creatures that suddenly appeared. In the past, when fighting the demons in the Evil Moon Mountains for a long time, spellcasters had fought against alien enemies who also controlled the ability to fly... But the promoted demons were, after all, an extremely rare minority of high-level combat forces, and could not be compared with the Demon Lizardmen, a group that could easily mobilize hundreds or even thousands of aerial combat units.

It is very likely that their control over the sky will be weaker than that of their opponents.

A floating airship battle cluster composed of spellcasters can achieve the result of annihilating the enemy in a reinforcement battle. In essence, it still relies on surprise attack... The super long-range and precise positioning of the magic energy Barrett caused those winged creatures who actively chose to fly at low altitude or land directly on the ground to lose a lot of maneuverability, which led to their devastating blow.

But the Barrett's disadvantages are also obvious - as the only firepower fulcrum of the airship, it is quite useful for assisting reconnaissance and long-range sniping, but the feature that it can only be controlled by spellcasters also makes it impossible to popularize the equipment among the large group of mortal soldiers. Even if mid- and low-level spellcasters are proficient in it, they are often exhausted after firing a few shots in a battle due to the limitations of their own magic reserves.

The inability to form effective fire coverage is a huge disadvantage in Harvey's eyes.

This is a fact that cannot be compensated or improved no matter how many spellcasters the Federation and the Seven Wizarding Nations send. Only by developing newer ground-based air defense weapons can the blind spots and defects caused by insufficient firepower be compensated.

"Initially, we also considered a modified version of the magic machine gun." Chris followed closely behind Harvey and began to introduce it to his allies with a certain smugness. "But no matter how we adjusted it, we couldn't reduce its weight to maintain its high-speed firing characteristics."

To move a gun body and base weighing two hundred kilograms onto the airship, and also to carry the equally heavy ammunition belt... the airship, which already has a limited carrying capacity, would greatly reduce its originally flexible and efficient maneuvering capabilities.

The sentry war that broke out at the Ice Sea Base a few days ago was a bloody lesson - the two airships were about to run out of magic power because their cruise reconnaissance route was lengthened. Finally, they were suddenly pursued by Winged Creatures on the way back. They could not escape at all due to the slow speed and could only land on the ground and fight to the last moment.

Therefore, the idea of moving the magic machine gun into the sky was ultimately declared a complete failure.

Air combat forces need a targeted combat weapon that is easy to install on airships and has extremely high firepower coverage.

"Beam weapons are our best option right now," Harvey shrugged.

Beam weapons? Fadun was bewildered. He couldn't imagine the new weapon Harvey was talking about. Even the obviously newly coined word "beam" sounded unfamiliar to him... What did this have to do with the use of magic?
Harvey brought his best friend on a visit, not to show off or to make the other person laugh in embarrassment. He immediately led them into the underground weapons test workshop of the military factory and showed them the factory prototype of the "beam weapon".

On the weapons rack sat a thick, long barrel, about a meter long and slightly larger in caliber than a magic gun. Its surface was covered in fine, intricate inscriptions that channeled magic energy. A flexible metal tube connected to the end of the barrel, which then terminated in the upper portion of a strange square box. Fadun approached for a closer inspection and discovered that the barrel wasn't completely hollow. Instead, it contained an extremely fine and delicate honeycomb structure. However, judging by the size of the honeycomb's slits, it was impossible for an ordinary magic bullet to penetrate, let alone eject ammunition from the barrel.

Harvey clapped his hands, and the captain of the guard, Tommy, stepped forward. With the help of two soldiers, he put on the square box with a belt and buckle and carried it on his back... Then he grasped the tail handle of the honeycomb gun barrel, picked it up directly and assumed a standard standing shooting posture.

"Is this a magic gun?" Fadun was completely confused. He had just tried to analyze the magic runes on the surface of the weapon, but most of the runes expressed the meaning of gathering and guiding. However, the runes of the Annihilation Gun that they were most familiar with, which dominated the flow of energy... were centered on amplification.

Harvey explained with a smile, "The weapon canisters carried on his back, the metal pipes used for connection, and the honeycomb-shaped main structure of the gun body...Mr. Fadun, do you see any shadow of a similar existence in them?"

A familiar image suddenly flashed through Fadun's mind. He snapped back to reality and suddenly realized, "The Blackwater Weapon Tank of the Lizardmen!"

"You successfully cracked their use of Blackwater weapons?"

When Harvey sent the lizardmen captives to Alayeh, he also brought a number of captured blackwater weapon tanks, some of which even still contained unused strange blackwater... But to this day, the Federation's research department has not yet completely cracked the composition of the blackwater itself, let alone figure out how the blackwater carrier works.

Their use of this liquid weapon is completely different from humans' understanding and research of magic. Even if they have rich experience in the past, those traditional researchers and spellcasters are helpless.

"The secret of the Black Water is the very core of this tribe's survival. How could it be so easily cracked?" Chris said bitterly. "We simply borrowed inspiration from their weaponry and created a similarly pure energy weapon. In some respects, the two weapons are similar in nature."

Fadun was stunned for a few seconds, then asked dryly, "Pure energy weapon...you mean pure magical energy?"

Pure magic energy is indeed ubiquitous in the magic network as the basis of the entire alien space plane. The direct application of pure magic energy also frequently appears in Harvey's research results... More than a year ago, Harvey had secretly conveyed the theory of the three forms of magic to most of the members who had close ties with him in the spellcaster forum, either through guidance or communication.

But from the beginning to the end, most high-level members held the same attitude - pure magic energy that has not undergone form transformation cannot be directly controlled and used by the caster... Whether it is the Annihilation Gun or the Magic Energy Gun, in essence, it is to extract gaseous magic energy from the magic network, convert it into liquid through the energy gathering array, and finally condense it into solid magic stone ammunition.

In other words, Harvey simply solidified the process of using magic power to attack and cast spells onto an external object called a magic weapon, and used the runes attached to the weapon and the construction model to replace the spellcaster's own magic patterns, allowing mortals to have the authority to control the extraordinary.

A pure energy weapon... Even though Harvey, the genius freak, was standing right next to him, Fadun still found it hard to believe.

(End of this chapter)