Witch Troupe and the Undead

The crate had a word that no one quite understood written on it: "R·Livia". Unfortunately, due to language barriers, it was unlikely to be shortened to "Loli Nu". It was more likely to be an abbreviation like RL.

"Snap!" The officer used a crowbar to open the crate, revealing parts neatly wrapped in straw. "These are the weapons you will be using in the future. I will now teach you how to use them." The logistics officer next to him collected the weapons from the men one by one. The infantrymen standing below the platform looked at each other in confusion. What was going on?

They weren't very trusting of this strangely shaped weapon, which looked like some kind of tool, until the sergeant spent almost 30 seconds cranking the handle to charge a round, piercing through a piece of the Parliamentarian army's standard hard leather armor. Only then did the infantrymen's expressions calm down a little.

After the sergeant demonstrated the difference between rapid fire at 15 seconds, standard fire at 30 seconds, and powerful fire at one minute, the infantrymen's eyes gradually became burning with excitement. This was clearly some kind of magical weapon, and it was very easy to operate. It seemed that all you had to do was crank the handle to charge it, and then aim it at the enemy before the crystal turned yellow (half-life indicator) and pull down the dagger.

It looks a lot like a crossbow, but it requires less effort. Although it requires continuous cranking of the handle, it's less strenuous than drawing a string. The only downside is that its rate of fire is slower than a crossbow. I just don't know about its range and power.

Next, they were shown how to switch ammunition, and how to launch fireballs without lengthening the armor-piercing tubes. The explosive power has a threshold, roughly equivalent to the power of a maroon powder grenade on Earth.

"Each person will receive 20 standard rounds, 10 tearing rounds, and 1 crystal round." The crystal round was an improvement on the ammunition formula given by Roach, which was developed by an alchemist hired by Byrne. The green glass tip was replaced with a professional hot stone. Its power was only comparable to that of an armor-piercing grenade. If it hit, one shot could blow an unlucky knight and his horse away.

However, due to its heavier and less stable body, there is about a 25% chance that it will self-destruct within range. It also requires close-range shooting, and the projectile speed is relatively slow. If it hits, it can blow away the knight and his precious warhorse, but it is almost impossible to hit during a high-speed charge.

"Can this really work?" The veteran held a hexagonal bullet between his fingers, looking doubtful. These bullets were all produced by the princess's foundry. Their technology was not good, but they could manufacture these die-cast bullets that did not require any technical expertise. In essence, apart from the green glass bullet with wind element patterns engraved on it, the entire bullet body could be made of any metal.

After all, the acceleration process of this thing does not need to withstand high temperature and high pressure, and there is no need to consider things like projectile deformation or air leakage in the launch tube. In order to account for the error of these munitions, Roach designed the groove to be about 2 millimeters larger than the diameter of the munition, since there is no need to consider the problem of air leakage.

Therefore, after this weapon was assembled according to Roach's design drawings, with the crossbow arm removed, it looked exactly like a rifle on Earth, but its actual internal structure, firing principle, and ammunition feeding method were completely different.

"When loading, keep the barrel facing upwards, not downwards. Otherwise, the ammunition will slip on the ground and nothing will be fired, which is your bad luck." The sergeant demonstrated the complete loading, charging, and firing process to these men several times, as well as how to fix and demount the bayonet, and a series of common mistakes listed in Roach's "Instructions for the Use of Firearms".

Byrne didn't understand why he called this crossbow a "firearm," but that didn't stop him from copying it. After all, you can't argue with a designer about safety precautions; there are only safety issues that the designer hasn't thought of, not that he's overthinking.

"Don't put your fingers on the blade or the protective ring unnecessarily. Make sure the safety is in place. Don't point the firing port at your teammates or yourself, never," the sergeant said sternly.

Previously, when weapons were being distributed to another unit, some newbies were genuinely curious about how these things worked. They put their eyes close to their comrades' gun muzzles and then risked their lives to demonstrate what the consequences would be if they didn't follow Master Roach's instructions.

With a loud crack, a perfectly healthy head exploded, so badly that there was no chance of saving it. If it had been a real crossbow bolt, it might have gotten stuck in the eye socket and wouldn't have been fatal on the spot (many people have survived being shot in the eye, like the one-eyed Xiahou). But this projectile, which had a shockwave tearing effect, went in through the eye socket, and there was really no hope of saving it.

"Next, practice using it in groups of three." The instructions for use were also included by Master Roach. Of course, the reason for practicing in groups of three was not because they wanted to practice three-stage shooting, but because the initial version of the "Loli Crossbow" was of very poor quality. It would break down after a couple of high-intensity practice sessions. Even if it was cheap and easy to repair, it would still require time and money.

So, during the process of practicing loading, charging, aiming and firing in groups of three, almost all the officers were grateful for Mr. Byrne's wisdom. Even with such a simple weapon, a whole host of strange and unusual problems arose during practice.

If we were to follow those old men's ideas and purchase those incredibly complex alchemical constructs and weapons, they don't know how long it would take for these guys, whose average level of education is practically nonexistent, to learn how to use them.

In just one week, this unit at least looks quite professional, at least in terms of shooting. As for whether they can respond in time to unpredictable situations on the battlefield, that remains to be seen.

After the second week ended, Byrne felt it was time to let these guys with new weapons try them out on the battlefield, especially now that the knights had gone home to harvest their crops, leaving behind a force composed of mercenaries and a small number of professional soldiers (similar to the city guard). Of course, even such a force was not something the previous council forces could handle.

At the governor's camp, "Hey, look! Those chicks are coming out. What did they eat?" If it weren't for the fortress, these people would have collapsed at the first touch. Now they actually dare to take the initiative to attack.

"Arm yourselves up, let's teach those little chicks a lesson. Don't think they're so powerful just because those knights are gone." The mercenary leader emerged from the tent, carrying an axe and sporting several hickeys on his face, clearly having had a good time earlier.

"Boss, are you going to get weak in the legs and not be able to chop up those chicks later?"

"Get lost! Want me to try and take your head?" The mercenary leader turned his axe and smashed it into the shoulder armor of his joking brother, making a dull thud.

Compared to the mercenaries who were full of fighting spirit, the parliamentary soldiers looked trembling with fear. They stopped within the range of the fortress's own fire support, then formed a somewhat loose formation, pointing their strange crossbow-like objects forward.

"Crossbowmen?" Crossbowmen without heavy armor? What kind of novel tactic is this? The mercenaries looked at each other in bewilderment. Crossbows were not cheap due to their arms and numerous movable parts, and they were also consumables. Therefore, in the era of cold weapons, only wealthy families like China could afford to use crossbowmen on a large scale.

Moreover, the crossbow also has its weaknesses. Although it is easier to aim, its rate of fire is slower than that of a bow and arrow, and because the crossbow bolts are shorter and lighter, their range is shorter than that of a bow and arrow.

However, this does not include the "Loli crossbow" they are using, because it fires a hexagonal steel bar that is at least 50 grams thick and about the thickness of a finger. Its initial velocity is much faster than that of a crossbow. After all, crossbow bolts rarely travel at supersonic speeds, and Roach has tested this thing. Its initial velocity is about 1.5 times the speed of sound. Of course, due to the shape of the projectile, the velocity decays very quickly.

Therefore, when the veterans at the front of the line drew their swords, in live-fire mode, they felt a unique backward force different from that of a crossbow, as well as a thunderous sound. It was not the crisp sound of gunpowder exploding, but the sound of the projectile breaking through the speed of sound.

However, he didn't know if he had hit the target, because the mercenaries began to charge, and naturally some people fell in the barrage of fire.

The veteran wasn't sure if he had hit the target, so he hurriedly pulled the slider at the rear, loaded a new bullet, pointed the crossbow upwards, and frantically cranked the handle while stepping on the triangular stock. Only when he saw the damned crystal finally light up did he quickly raise it and aim it at the barbarian mercenary who was grinning and swinging an axe at him.

These tribal mercenaries from the scorching desert are the governor's top henchmen. They are fearless and extremely ruthless, but they are also very loyal to their promises. Once they have taken the money, they will not go back on their word, even if it means they all die in battle. After all, the scorching desert is not a good place to live, and it would be better to die than to flee back. It would also be a disgrace to the tribe.

"Bang!" The bullet fired almost against the opponent's chest. In standard firing mode, the bullet only reached the speed of sound, but it was enough to penetrate the opponent's thick scales and leave a tiny hole.

The fierce barbarian stared blankly at his opponent, touching the small wound on his chest in disbelief, as if all his strength was flowing out through this tiny hole that was nothing more than a superficial injury to him.

His comrades behind him could see clearly that a mass of red, green, and white debris—fragments of ribs, shards of internal organs, and bits of flesh—splattered all over the face of the soldier in front of him.

The wind-patterned green glass on the front of the magic version of the ammunition is designed to artificially create a compressed air mass in the projectile when the speed is insufficient, acting as a shock cone or shock shield. When this mass of compressed air is obstructed, it will suddenly explode forward, stretching the muscle and crushing the internal organs, causing the projectile to instantly become unstable and change from a spiral penetration to a tumbling mode.

The hollow injection molding used by the princess's stewards to save money exacerbated the lethality. To save steel, they made a hollow shell similar to a steamed bun, with a piece of iron slag used to seal the bottom of the bullet. This "inferior ammunition" produced a more terrifying lethality than high-quality ammunition after penetrating "lightly protected" armor.

The bun was deformed by the exploding wind shield, with the tip concave inward and the edges flipping forward. The iron block that was stuck to the bottom of the projectile separated from the projectile, creating more cavities.

Even if you're lucky enough not to hit the torso, the instantaneous water hammer effect caused by the wind shield explosion will knock the hit person unconscious on the spot. On the contrary, the fastest charging warrior like this one didn't faint on the spot because of the huge cavity running through the front and back. Of course, it would have been better if he had fainted—because it's obvious at a glance that he doesn't need to be saved.

"Whoosh~" The veteran didn't have time to reload the third shot. He directly swung the heavy crossbow with the bayonet attached at the mercenary behind him who was stunned. The bayonet was blocked.

At this moment, he remembered that there was an emergency firing mode. He decisively flipped a small switch on the side, and "bang!" A weak flame shot out. It was fired using the residual energy and had almost no power, but it could interfere with the enemy in close combat.

The mercenary instinctively closed his eyes and turned his head to avoid the oncoming sparks, but the veteran then drew his short sword and stabbed him in the neck, killing him instantly.

At this moment, the crossbowmen on the fortress finally came to their senses and aimed their crossbows, which had been cranked for a minute or more, at the slightly disorganized mercenary ranks. "Bang!"

A sharp and terrifying whistling sound rang out from overhead, and both sides felt as if they were in the summer night breeze, with goosebumps rising all over their bodies.

The barbarian mercenaries instinctively raised their shields, but this time the sturdy shields not only failed to protect them, but the bullets that pierced through the shields and broke off balance caused them to tumble backward on the spot. Many of them kept spitting out pink foamy blood, which meant that their ribs had been broken and pierced into their lungs.

However, the advanced magic and heavy armor of this other world meant that these shield-bearing mercenaries were not killed outright. But at this distance on the battlefield, the difference between losing combat ability and being killed on the spot was almost the same.

Ammunition capable of penetrating shields is insufficient to penetrate heavy armor. However, it remains to be seen whether, once the funds are in place and Roach upgrades the crank and energy storage device, it will lead to the elimination of all armor and shields below super-heavy armor—or force alchemists to develop new composite material armor, thus entering a vicious cycle of magical armor-based combat.

"We won!" Even the most foolish officer could come to this conclusion. The mercenaries retreated, leaving behind more than a dozen corpses, which showed that the accuracy of the Lori crossbow was still very problematic.

The 2mm inner diameter tolerance means that the bullet dispersion will be suffocatingly high—of course, if this world still features troop charges, then the dispersion difference won't be a problem—someone will always catch it with their head.

Chapter 128 The Cause of the Magic Revolution

The second batch of funds arrived faster than Roach had anticipated. However, this time there were fewer than 500 gold coins; the rest were silver coins of equal value and gemstone materials. This forced Roach to spend a high price to acquire a batch of gold artifacts and gold dust to smelt gold.

Why is buying gold more expensive than melting down gold coins? Of course, it's because there's a hard currency deflation now. It's the same situation in ancient times when there wasn't enough copper coins, so a large amount of copper was needed to mint coins, causing the price of copper to skyrocket. Landlords and gentry would melt down copper coins and copperware, which further reduced the quantity of copperware and copper coins, making the official purchase price even higher.

As the empire and various nobles frantically minted gold coins to cope with bank runs and the redemption of various vouchers, the price of gold mines naturally began to rise, and the prices of goldware and gold bullion also rose, even becoming more expensive than gold coins.

So, can you pay with gold bars directly? No, for one reason, the cost of counterfeiting is far lower than the profit, so merchants who buy gold bars would have to bear extremely high risks. The other reason is quite normal: they can't make change.

If the total amount you owe is several kilograms of gold, that's fine. But if it's just a few grams or a dozen grams, given the density of gold... just the task of precisely cutting off such a small piece is a real test of skill. If you cut it crookedly, there will be losses when remelting it.

This loss naturally adds to the bill, which is the counterintuitive economic situation of the classical precious metal currency era: sometimes, the material used to mint coins is more expensive than currency, but when you pay with precious metals, you find that the amount you can offset with precious metals is less than that with currency. [A typical example of an economic crisis in the classical era: the Great Song Dynasty's currency shortage was a prime example of this awkward situation.]

Besides the funds, the magical materials that the little witch attached to the bill have also been delivered. These materials are not large in size and were all delivered by Swift Eagle from the capital in packages, including three kinds of expensive magical gems, a kind of magical metal and more than a dozen kinds of magical materials.

The long-stalled magic pump assembly could resume. Livia waved her cane gently, and dozens of materials swirled around her, her long golden hair danced in the wind, and a rare look of tension appeared on her delicate and beautiful face.

The molten gold coiled around and melted together with other materials, turning into several silver-gray regular octahedrons. Together with the four she had made before, there were a total of eight such octahedrons, which fell one by one onto her workbench.

Guided by the little witch, the mithril threads that had been prepared beforehand quickly inscribed patterns representing the four elements onto the octahedral cores.

The newly delivered "Star Iron" transformed into a circular base plate on the floor. Powder made from the claws of a two-legged wyvern, the fangs of a multi-headed serpent, the bones of a lava giant lizard, and the scales of a siren fell into the grooves that automatically formed on the Star Iron.

Then, Luo Qi carefully took a dropper-like tool and soaked the prepared "Brilliant Elemental Essence" into the powder in the order of wind element for wyvern, earth element for hydra fangs, fire element for giant lizard, and water element for siren, so that they could stick precisely to the base.

This forms an extremely complex octagonal star structure, divided into inner and outer layers, composed of two overlapping squares. [See cover]

The little witch placed the eight octahedrons she had made into the rings at the apex of the eight-pointed star, thus completing the base installation. All that remained was to use the remaining gold to outline the magic circle's patterns. This only completed the base of the magic circle; the actual main body of the magic pump had not yet begun construction.

The next step is to outline the inner structure representing the three primordial magical powers of the sun, stars, and moon in the center of the magic circle. This structure requires the use of very expensive "sunstones," "silver crystals," and "star gems" for inlay.

The base of the entire device is very simple. The four elemental patterns on the octahedron are paired up, one pair representing absorption and the other representing release. The magic circle is the same, with one pair representing outward release and the other representing absorption and conversion.

This creates a dynamic energy absorption and transmission structure, converting the original magic into the four elemental magic and releasing it to a designated location, thus forming a magic vortex that draws in the surrounding sin magic into its range. At the same time, it also mixes the four elemental magic and transmits it along a specific path.

After the base is completed, the next step is the central part, which is the part that absorbs the power of the Great Sin and converts it into primal magic.

There was only one Dragonstone, and Livia had to handle the material with extreme care. After extracting conceptual magic, the Dragonstone revealed a strange, chaotic, and undefined color. It was spherical and translucent. The little witch placed this crystal ball-like object on the enchanting table, gently hovering her hands over it, her eyes slightly closed, like a witch performing divination.

As the little hand slowly moved, the magic inside the crystal ball began to rotate, forming a chaotic nebula. Complex runes intertwined on the surface of the ball before everything finally fell silent.

"Phew~" Livia opened her eyes and wiped the sweat from her forehead. This was a bit tiring for her, and for other arcane mages, it was an almost impossible task.

The entire device was completed in four parts: base, core, inner ring, and outer ring. Now that the base and core are complete, the inner and outer rings are much simpler. The inner ring is a flat ring made of two intersecting star iron rings, engraved with runes representing the original concept.

The outer ring is a large, ring-like structure composed of seven curved metal plates made of mithril. The seven original sin emblems are inlaid in the center of each curved metal plate, with dense, vine-like runes extending outwards to both sides.

This task couldn't be done entirely by the Little Witch. The outer ring was done by Roach, and the inner ring was done by the Little Witch. It took them more than a month to finish this thing.

While Roach and his group were working on the magic pump, the Thunderbird Knights of the Imperial Survey Corps successfully cleared the cemetery area. However, the slums were still covered by sinful demons. If the main goal was to explore the commercial district, then at least there was an ancient road to use in the cemetery area.

If you go through the slums, you'll have to deal with those buildings that are stacked up haphazardly as if space is distorted, which is not easy to walk through, especially when you need to transport a lot of supplies, tools and research equipment.

“Done!” Livia stood on the stool, hands on her hips, her cheeks rosy, looking very proud and smug. In front of her was the magic pump, which had been disassembled into four parts.

As for the "booster pump" for transmission and the "line" for conduction, Roach's side has basically completed it. This system will absorb the Great Sin Magic and convert it into primal magic, then break the primal magic into the four elemental magic, then combine the four elemental magic into one and transmit it, finally arriving at the camp, where it will be injected into the charging device or the large rune disk.

Of course, considering that rune disks can only be used by arcane sorcerers, and that a large rune disk would require Roach to act as a human transformer, he chose the former. Fortunately, the work previously commissioned by Byrne allowed him to refine some of the tests on dynamic elements, including testing the large-capacity mana storage material with the longest half-life.

Frankly speaking, in this world, due to the problem of magic energy depletion and the dependence of recharging on environmental magic energy, there is little market demand for large-capacity magic storage materials. This is mainly because most commonly used magical items are simply not needed. Whether it is recharging with essence or having a sorcerer manually recharge, the costs of manpower and materials must be taken into account.

This is similar to how, in the early stages of electricity development, there was no need for ultra-large capacity lithium batteries, at least not before generators were invented. In another world, it would be similar to how there was no need for "magic generators" before they appeared.

Now it seems that two disguised "magic-generating machines" have appeared. One is a hand-cranked one based on dynamic elements, but if you think about it carefully, if you make a steam turbine for it, isn't that just a "firepower-generating magic machine"?

As for the Little Witch, which relies on the environmental system, it is more like a tidal generator. It mainly relies on artificially creating positive and negative magic vortexes to pull environmental magic and form artificial local magic tides to obtain a huge amount of magic power.

However, Roach also discovered that the elemental magic provided by the hand-cranked system was not only singular, but also had a serious problem: it was not very related to the rotation speed of the rotor and had a threshold, since it was not actually caused by cutting magnetic field lines.

Instead, it increases the contact between the local gem patch and the environmental magic in this way—more like the reverse application of fluid heat dissipation. Of course, it also includes the conversion of some mechanical energy into "kinetic magic" and then into other elemental forms.

Therefore, developing firepower or water-powered magic generators may not be realistic, but developing miniaturized products to provide a stable supply of magic seems entirely feasible.

Therefore, theoretically speaking, if a complete system is built, he can directly upgrade the "Rocky Livia Infantry Crossbow" again, from a single-shot rocking machine to a multi-shot rocking machine.

In the future, if we find materials with better stability and the ability to accurately store "dynamic elemental magic" and related arcane patterns—we might be able to upgrade it further: embrace the integration of electric bullets, oh, here it's the integration of magic bullets!

Using magazines to supply ammunition and provide firing magic, and providing mass charging through "field magic generators"! However, this idea can only remain an idea for now, because the materials are extremely expensive.

The cost of the Little Witch's tidal magic generator is over 25000 gold coins, and the environment must be suitable. Among the materials and solutions that Roach is currently testing, the utilization rate of the most powerful charging device is less than 12%, and it can charge 4 to 6 energy storage modules at the same time, with a charging time of 2 hours to fully charge.

So how much does such a "demon-making device" cost? It costs 2000 gold coins, and includes materials that may be priceless: its core sensing component is a bull's horn plucked from a bull's head. As for where someone will get a hellish demon to pluck the materials, that's not Roach's problem.

Then Roach took another step forward in his achievement, as he seemed to have summarized a preliminary "empirical formula for the magic capacity, resistance and half-life of magical materials": the greater the energy storage of a material, the longer its half-life, and conversely, the shorter the half-life of a material, the lower its magic resistance.

This leads to a very awkward situation: the material with the largest capacity is nothing more than ordinary granite and other rocks and ordinary steel, but its magic resistance is almost infinite, which means that the time required to inject magic into it and let it store magic to become enchanted is astronomical.

This is also the reason for the formation of those magical minerals. Under the influence of the earth's veins and the magic of the environment, it takes thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years to gradually change into them. Mithril has almost zero magic resistance, but its half-life is also almost zero, which means that the magic power injected into it will dissipate at an alarming rate. This is also why mithril cannot be used alone as a material for magic arrays. At the same time, mithril's energy storage capacity is very weak.

Gems and crystals, for example, have a variation curve depending on their type, composition, and degree of enchantment. Roach can only come up with an empirical formula for common materials at the moment, and it's hard to say how accurate it is.

After discovering this pattern, it became much easier to find a material that met the requirements in terms of reserves, magic resistance, and half-life. In the end, Roach selected three materials as the main materials for the next step.

One type is the "long-grained gray crystal," which has relatively low magic resistance but a huge reserve and a long half-life. It is a long, gray crystal similar to charcoal, formed by the demon tree injecting a large amount of magic power into it under the effect of isolating it from air.

Considering the combat power of the demon tree, it's basically the kind that's extremely expensive, so don't expect to use it to improve that infantry crossbow. The second type is a rock, which is very heavy, has an extremely large capacity, a very long half-life, but also has high magic resistance. The material itself is also very heavy, so it can only be used for this purpose to store the massive amount of magic power output by Livia's magic pump.

The third type is an artificially synthesized crystal, commonly known as a magical glass material. It is fragile, has low magic resistance, and a short half-life, but its reserves are relatively large. Due to its low magic resistance, its charging rate is improved. Because of its larger reserves, its emission energy level increases by about 8% when fully charged.

“Is this some kind of totem pole, Master Roch?” When Ogros woke up, he found a row of pillar-like objects on the edge of the camp. The top and bottom of the pillars were made of a gray, crystalline substance, while the middle was made of locally sourced building stone, which he was quite familiar with.

Yes, it's a type of sandstone used to build those rock towers. It has an orange-red color, a smooth surface, and is engraved with a large number of complex circuits. Inside, there are pale purple alchemical glass pieces that connect the upper and lower crystal plates together.

“No, this is the magic pool I prepared,” Roach said seriously. To be precise, it is a “magic storage pool” that uses gray crystals as a two-pronged buffer for storage, and then uses alchemical glass with a very fast release speed to accelerate the transfer of magic power, thereby speeding up the infusion of magic power into the sandstone pillar and reducing its magic resistance.

Because it was unclear which structure was better, some had two poles made of gray crystals, while others had crystals, sandstone, and glass stacked together, with inscriptions and guiding circuits on the surface.

So it really looks like a totem pole with varying heights. All you need to do is add a beast's head or something on top. Even Alessina complained that it looked exactly like the tribal totems of the Orc Highlands.

“A magic pool? It looks like this?” Of course, Augros had heard of magic pools. After all, arcane mages would take on apprentices for research and inheritance purposes, and some schools would even conduct research and discussions together. However, the power of arcane mages comes from environmental magic. When a group of arcane mages are together, they will compete with each other for limited magic power—compared to a group of people competing for limited wireless bandwidth.

Therefore, the magic pool, a device that stores a large amount of magic power, is an essential building for various schools and societies. It uses underground transmission systems or extracts magic power directly from the ley lines to upgrade wireless traffic to WIFI (large-scale ritual venues) or even fiber optic direct connection (ley lines) to meet the needs of a large number of apprentices and sorcerers of all levels.

However, Augros had never seen this core device of the Arcane Society, only heard of it. After all, this thing was a closely guarded secret for each society, and each one had a different structure and source of magic.

"But it has no magic at all?" One of the arcane mages in the investigation team couldn't hold back any longer. What kind of magic pool is this?! It has no magic at all. Not only is its shape bizarre, but he can't sense any magic inside it at all.

"Because it hasn't been started or installed yet," Roach instructed Alessina to assemble the sections of black pine wood carved into the track. Each section was joined by a square crystal piece, which were stacked in pairs, forming rows of regular octagons when viewed from one end.

At the end is a rhombus-shaped mithril frame, with four corners inlaid with red, yellow, green and blue gemstones, and the hollow center is aimed at the location of the lower city of the royal city in the distance.

Roach filled the grooves with a large number of octahedral modules made of gemstone fragments and essence gel, and then carved strings of runes. The project was completed in just two days. After all, the size was increased, but the number of runes did not. Carving on a piece of wood the size of a palm is a completely different matter from carving on something the size of a log!

"Don't touch this, Alessina. You're in charge of protecting these devices. Anyone who touches them, kill them," Roach instructed. This was necessary because if the magic pump were activated and this end were damaged, the magic that couldn't be transmitted would flow back, and he and the little witch would be blown away—that was much more dangerous than the electrical system.

The power of a short circuit in the power system is nothing compared to this. He and Livia had tested it with a simple model before, and the conclusion was that if a magic ball of this size exploded, her hut and the rock below it would be blown to dust.

Chapter 129 Magic Pump Activated

With all components ready, they began moving towards the city gate. The heavy magic pump and the relay pumps along the way were carried by Old Ma. In addition, Minotaur was also brought out to pull a dilapidated wooden cart, which was piled with processed and manufactured transmission devices that resembled telephone poles but had a forked, antler-like structure at the top.

Thanks to the Imperial Survey Team and the adventurers' effective elimination of the Greed Demons in the cemetery area, the first half of the journey was relatively smooth. Occasionally, a small number of newly appeared Greed Demons would still appear, but they were no longer enough to threaten Roach and his team.

In fact, the adventurers were also considering entering the Sloth Zone to search. The Wrathful Demons in the slums were not only strong in combat, but also yielded little loot. Of course, the slums were connected to the capital's water gate.