A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 350 The Real Beginning

The more stern the words and the more ambitious the goals of the Valois Kingdom when it declared war, the more ridiculous and laughable its current rout becomes. While the north of the empire rejoices, the south is far from happy.

Not only is trade between the various states and the Holy Kingdom almost completely disrupted, but the Kingdom of Marin is also using the railway to project its power to the front lines at an unprecedented speed.

Furthermore, some must be held responsible for the enemy's rapid advance in the early stages of the war. Although originally, "the lord holding the fortress against a large enemy force" was the most correct option.

Some noble commanders were demoted or even executed, and even some garrison mages were not spared. Richard was one of those executed. Many seasoned veterans underestimated this young man; they never imagined that Richard, who had just been promoted to intermediate mage, would be defeated in a magical duel.

After the military tribunal eliminated the original local powers and incompetent officials, the military's chain of command was smoother than ever before. In addition, with the Duma River Alliance becoming a mere shell, the empire had transformed from a confederation based on gentlemen's agreements and parliament into an entity with the emperor as the absolute authority.

"The Empire has achieved unprecedented unity in its victory!" Newspapers from the capital celebrated, but the Byrnes who read the papers were not happy.

Originally, Byrne was a part of the Marin Kingdom that was neither entirely close nor distant. Now that its underlings have all submitted to the capital, the Byrne Kingdom has become a delicate entity in the "unprecedentedly unified" empire, seemingly a discordant note that could disrupt unity.

Under pressure, Bain's two legions were fully incorporated into the Southern Army's First and Second Legions. However, the royal family played a trick—they drew one-third of the core members from the two legions and recruited a new reserve legion and garrison force.

Although the old legions are now supported by the Empire's unified logistics system, Bain still has to solve the problem of recruiting new troops and new soldiers, which means there is a shortage of new equipment.

Someone accepted the military supply order in the name of the Baldorom Chamber of Commerce. Of course, he wouldn't keep it all to himself; he would subcontract it out.

At this moment, this person is leading a large tour group to inspect his own business.

"This is the currently operating demonstration unit, which can produce about two hundred kilograms of ammonia per hour," Rorschach explained, introducing the pilot plant he had previously overseen with Andrei. Someone did a rough calculation and exclaimed in amazement, "If it runs day and night, that's...that's over seventeen hundred tons!"

"Not even 10,000 tons, what's there to be surprised about?" Luo Xia explained to the people who were expressing their amazement, "But excluding maintenance time, it can operate for 300 days a year, which means an annual output of more than 14,000 tons. However, this is only an experimental unit. Our goal is to produce 10,000 tons annually in the first phase of the project. As supporting facilities, we will also need a 5,000-ton-level urea production line, a 10,000-ton-level nitric acid production line, and a 1,000-ton-level high explosives production line."

"Wow, amazing, amazing!" Although many listeners couldn't understand what Rorschach was saying, they were impressed just by the numbers.

As an industrial park, this is probably the limit that Luo Xia can currently achieve. Even so, it means that the Metallurgical Guild will receive an unprecedented order, and the coal mining volume of the Kingdom of Bain will need to be quadrupled to meet the raw material demand.

Using it as an energy source is out of the question. Aside from using the waste heat from coking coal to heat steam for temperatures up to 150 degrees Celsius, higher temperatures require a heating device developed by Rorschach based on the [Burning Hand] and [Melting Rays]. He also considered adding a boiler heated from the fire elemental plane, but abandoned the idea for fear of fire elemental creatures escaping.

Today, those visiting the large construction site are representatives from various industry associations, each representing a leading industry in Bain. These normally very busy people have been brought to the small town of Lanster by carriages bearing royal insignia.

Now they see the factory under construction. The original food factory needed to be expanded to produce military rations, so they acquired a new plot of land to move the equipment there. Without Rorschach's puppets and the experimental nitroglycerin explosives, just clearing the site would have been a huge undertaking, but the relocation is now nearing completion.

On the entire construction site, the delegates saw an architectural style they had never seen before. Everywhere there was gray steel, directly exposed, only painted with a layer of tung oil paint. Apart from the reaction vessel that could hold the delegates' entire families, the rest were hollow steel supports and pipes.

Amidst these eerie steel forests, shimmering magical light flickered. To most ordinary people, it was like plunging headlong into R'lyeh—incomprehensible, unimaginable, and something they could only watch helplessly. Even as Rorschach and his companion Andrei painstakingly explained, they could only nod in response.

Tall, clay puppets carried supplies through the area, their footsteps creating a rumbling tremor on the ground, causing the hearts of all visitors to pound in unison.

"Excuse me, what is this tower?" The representative of the Mining and Metallurgy Association was curious about the tower in the center of the site, because its entire body was made of stacked and riveted triangular beam steel frames, and its height was comparable to that of the resident monk's tower.

He and the entire metallurgical association were both familiar and unfamiliar with what they were seeing, because some of these steel products were smelted, hydraulically forged or stamped by them, but they never expected them to be used here to build a somewhat ugly complex of buildings.

Rorschach looked at this miniature replica of a certain iron tower from his previous life. In fact, it served as a "signal tower," similar in concept to the Starlight Torch Tower, but Rorschach couldn't afford the mithril pillars that were tens of meters tall. It was these towers that amplified the signals from the intelligent core, allowing the paging of the "air cavalry" to cover the entire size of the Kingdom of Bain.

And he hasn't given up on radio.

However, he wouldn't say any of the above to these representatives. He gave a gentle smile and said, "I'm sorry, I can't answer that question. Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive my rudeness, but I must emphasize again that everything you've seen and heard today is confidential. Please do not publicize what you've seen and heard." He pulled out a glittering, gaudy pocket watch that didn't suit his style. "Oh dear, it's already this late. Please move to the conference hall."

"As you all should have heard, the Valois army that invaded the Empire has been successfully repelled." Rorschach, the youngest, was still seated at the head of the table to speak:

"But this is not the end of the war. Without a doubt, the Empire will send troops to the Holy Kingdom. Some may still think that the upcoming battles are just like in the old days, merely a game between lords, but those with insight can see that the Empire is going to war with the aim of destroying the kingdom's system, population, and production capacity. Destroy everything about it, and that is exactly what the Empire is prepared for. Accordingly, it will mobilize everything across its vast territory."

"As part of the Empire, Byrne will be drawn into this war whether we like it or not. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing for everyone. In fact, our kingdom has placed huge orders, and every one of us here has a responsibility to ensure that the lads on the front lines are well-fed, clothed, and armed."

Responsibility, not obligation; military supplies can be a profitable business.

The delegates showed eager expressions, especially the Wool Guild, the Dyeing and Textile Guild, the Mineral and Metallurgical Guild, and their affiliated Forging Association.

However, Rorschach's next words caught everyone off guard: "Data from the Logistics Guild shows that both the Kingdom of Valuva and the industrial cities in the north of the Empire have the capacity to produce 100,000 guns annually. Can you all do that?"

I've requested permission from the editor to edit previous VIP content. If any readers have found any bugs that I haven't corrected yet, please leave a message here, indicating the chapter number plus the incorrect word in the original text (just two words are fine, and I will search and correct them). I don't know how long the permission granted by the editor will last, so I need to provide feedback as soon as possible. Sorry for the trouble!

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(End of this chapter)