What's wrong with building a steel torrent in a dungeon?

With the quality of their current muskets, the success rate of ignition is less than 50%. Pulling the trigger often results in nothing happening, which is very embarrassing on the battlefield.

After improvements made by Balam and other craftsmen, the ignition rate has now reached 70%. Although it is not 100%, it is much better than before.

Compared with muskets, there have been many improvements in artillery.

The biggest problem with artillery before was that it could not turn. It could only attack where it was installed.

After repeated experiments during this period, they added a bogie specifically for the gun, which could not only rotate left and right, but also up and down, greatly improving its shooting flexibility.

At the same time, they also designed a small artillery specially prepared for field battles. Its power was not as good as those big iron lumps pressed on the city walls, but it was more flexible and could be pulled all over the battlefield by a horse.

These three types of firearms have been put into practice a lot. If there are no problems, they can be mass-produced and delivered to the army next door. Fran can't wait to start training specialized artillerymen.

However, in addition to the achievements, Balam also pointed out a hidden danger to Fran - the ore supply was a bit out of stock.

In order to produce enough firearms in the shortest possible time, Fran had previously purchased all the raw materials from the city of Orila.

But this method obviously cannot last long. You have to know that most of the raw ore and blacksmith shops come from the nine big families. This time, I can still play the pig and eat the tiger. The nine big families will let down their guard and supply me with unlimited raw ore.

But next time, the two sides are likely to tear each other apart. In this case, it is a foregone conclusion that the other party will cut off the iron ore supply. We must have our own supply of raw ore.

Originally, Fran also obtained a mine during the Tulip Storm, but that place was too far from the city of Aurora. The cost of transporting it all the way here was not as good as purchasing it locally! Moreover, after the battle started, this supply route would most likely be blocked.

The stable source of minerals still has to come from within the city of Orila.

In the battle with the nine major families, Fran took this issue into full consideration. So when she asked for the land around Thermopylae, she also included a mine. Not to mention that there was a habitat of gray dwarves on the mine. If she could get the support of this tribe, the efficiency of the workshop would definitely be doubled with half the effort.

However, things did not go as smoothly as Fran had imagined.

The so-called mine was located in the third area of ​​the underground world. One had to go through a downward passage to enter. However, the entrance to this passage was located in the tribe of the gray dwarves. If one wanted to go in and mine, one had to get the approval of the gray dwarves.

Unfortunately, the Gray Dwarf tribe was very xenophobic and unwilling to communicate with the outside world. In addition, their fighting power was not bad, so even the Yellow Wolf Chamber of Commerce did not completely subdue them. They only signed a series of agreements with them. The Gray Dwarfs could only sell ore to the Yellow Wolf Chamber of Commerce every year, and the Yellow Wolf Chamber of Commerce had to give them a large amount of

of supplies.

Although Huang Silang has given this place to Fran, he obviously will not hand it over so easily and will definitely disgust Fran.

So before Fran took over, he directly broke off relations with the gray dwarves and unilaterally breached the contract, which made the gray dwarves furious and said they no longer trusted any other race.

Chapter 52: Doing this kind of thing in the dwarf camp

The raw ore is the starting point of firearms. If this problem is not solved, it means that our combat effectiveness will be controlled by others.

Therefore, Fran could only go to the gray dwarf camp in the name of the city lord to "comfort" and see if she could explain the misunderstanding. If she could bring them under her command, that would be the best. If not, she could just continue according to the agreement made by Huang Silang.

Intimidated by the city lord's reputation, these gray dwarves did not directly refuse Fran entry, but judging from the words in their reply, these gray dwarves obviously did not welcome Fran.

Led by a group of guards, Fran quickly arrived at the gray dwarf camp from Thermopylae.

There were more than a dozen fully armed dwarf warriors standing at the entrance of the camp, looking at Fran with displeasure.

At first glance, these dwarves are different from ordinary dwarves, except that their skin is a little lighter than normal dwarves.

Catherine told Fran that the predecessors of the gray dwarves were dwarves! Because they tried to spy on the equipment given to them by the dwarf god Volsas and imitated it, they were demoted to an exiled race and expelled from the Dwarf Empire. After a long exile, these gray dwarves lived in various remote places. One of them came to

Orila City.

"Will the Dwarf God also give the dwarves various equipment?" Fran asked curiously.

"Yes." Catherine said, "The dwarves' skills, including a large number of machines, were all given to them by the god Volsas. This made the dwarves the best craftsmen in the entire continent. Therefore, the dwarves regard these god-given items as sacred objects and do not allow anyone to peek at them."

"But if you don't spy, you can't understand. How can they hone their skills? They can't continue to improve and optimize these machines."

"No need. With Volsas here, he will continuously provide the dwarves with the latest machines. As for technology... there is no point in improving the technology. They are already the best in the world anyway." Fran said.

"What a lazy nation they are." Fura thought of Kreltz, who invented the steam engine, and said, "They are even worse than the goblins."

"But even so, the Dwarf Empire can still stand proudly on the continent thanks to the machinery bestowed by Volsas, and no one dares to provoke it." Catherine said.

Fran nodded and said nothing more, but she had a little more respect for the gray dwarves in front of her.

"Please come in, City Lord!" the dwarf captain said in a muffled voice, but his tone was nothing but perfunctory.

The dwarves did not give Fran a good look, and the guards welcomed them in with stern faces.

As soon as she entered the dwarf camp, Fran couldn't help but look around.

This camp was extremely simple, with the ground full of mineral waste and various sundries. In the distance, Fran saw several large chimneys, with bursts of black smoke constantly wafting out of them.

After walking a few more steps, Fran saw many weapons and armor. Judging from their quality, these things were of high quality and should be able to be sold at a good price.

They came to a place similar to a square, and Fran found that there were many dwarves sitting on the ground, scratching their heads at papers, racking their brains to think about something.

What are you doing? Designing machinery?

Fran was very curious, but after all, she was in a camp of a race that was not very friendly to her, so she did not dare to act rashly and could only suppress her curiosity.

But at this moment, a dwarf warrior came over and whispered something to the dwarf captain.

"What! The chieftain is drunk again! Didn't I tell her that there are guests coming today?" The dwarf captain was furious after hearing this, but he suddenly remembered that there were other guests around, so he hurriedly said, "Please wait here. Our chieftain is in some trouble! I'll be back soon."

After saying this, without waiting for Fran's response, he hurriedly left with his men.

Hey! You said you were drunk! There's no need to hide it anymore. And with a drunk chief, it sounds like this dwarf camp is not reliable.

But since there was nothing else to do, Fran came behind the scratching dwarves to see what they were doing.

Fran didn't know the result until she saw it. She was very surprised - they were actually doing math problems.

The dwarf felt someone standing behind him and was startled when he turned around.

"Humans...Humans! Oh my god! Humans are attacking!!"

"Ah this..." Fula couldn't help but hold her forehead: "I'm not here to attack, I'm the guest of your clan leader."

"The chief's guest?" The dwarf looked at Fran with doubt. But if he was really an enemy, he wouldn't have stayed behind him for so long and would have chopped him down with a knife.

"What are you doing?"

"Humph! I'm calculating the most ingenious things in the world!" The dwarf said proudly after hearing this: "You still wouldn't understand even if I told you, you're just a human."

"Let me see? Isn't this the Pythagorean theorem?" Fran took a look at what the dwarf had written on the paper, and blurted out.

"The Pythagorean theorem, what is that?" the dwarf said, "I'm looking for right angles! Do you know what right angles are? Just find three numbers, two relatively small numbers whose squares add up to the third, and they can form a right angle! Sorry, what's the point of telling you this? You humans probably don't even know what a right angle is.

I don’t even know the angle.”

Fran scratched her head and said, "For example, three, four, five, five, twelve, thirteen?"

"Fuck! How did you know?" Now it was the dwarf's turn to be surprised.

"Isn't this common sense?" Fran said.

"Human... Has human technology reached this point?" The dwarf immediately showed resentment on his face, and then said: "Let me ask you! There are thirty heads and forty feet in a cage! How many two-headed ogres and succubi are locked in the cage?"

What kind of otherworldly version of chickens and rabbits in the same cage is this? Fran looked helpless.

"Hahaha! You don't understand, human?" The dwarf seemed to have regained some ground, so he immediately laughed.

"Ten succubi and ten two-headed ogres." Fran blurted out.

"This!! Impossible!!" said the dwarf.

"That's not difficult. An ogre's head and feet are the same, so the difference between the head and feet is caused by succubi. There are as many succubi as there are differences."

After that, Fran took the paper and pen from the dwarf and wrote down a long list of formulas: "According to this idea, we can easily get the general solution. All the problems of the same type of ogres and succubi in the same cage can be solved with this formula. Just substitute the numbers in the question and you can get the result immediately.

. Of course, the premise is that the question itself must be correct. "

At this time, the dwarf was completely standing there, unable to speak.

Universal solution! She killed the problem directly! Is this the power of human beings?

The other dwarves around immediately came over to ask questions. Each of them held a piece of paper with various math problems listed on it.

Chapter 53: No matter how hard you try, you still can't find it

"This is a pursuit problem! Just subtract the speed difference between the two sides, and then divide the distance difference."

"Just substitute Vieta's theorem for the quadratic problem. Eh? You don't know the equation? This is it... that is it..."

"Factoring is to extract the common terms. No, no, no! You don't need to calculate first. This will increase the amount of calculation."

"Now that we have the equation for the change in speed, we can integrate it over time to get the distance. Conversely, the derivative is the acceleration."

"Comparing the order of infinitesimals? The simplest method is L'Hôpital's rule, which is to keep taking derivatives or integrating them up and down! Simultaneously increase the order of infinitesimals. Of course, you can also replace them with equivalent infinitesimals."

"Curvature is a very useful thing. By taking the partial derivative of the slope, we can get its gradient."

"The Hamiltonian operator can transform a scalar field into a vector field. This allows us to understand fluid throughput more vividly."

"If you have the Reynolds number, you can substitute it in and calculate the force on the pipe wall caused by the fluid erosion."

"Prove that any even number greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two prime numbers. Sorry, I really can't do this!"

"Twin primes? Well... I only have a basic understanding of number theory. Please don't ask related questions."

Soon, Fran was overwhelmed by a series of math problems, to the point that she wondered whether she was here to trade ore or to teach them math.

However, just when the dwarves were still immersed in the ocean of mathematics, a loud shout interrupted everyone.

The dwarves were silent as a mouse, and hurriedly took the paper back to their original places.

Fran turned her head and saw a loli who was about the same height as her (but with bigger breasts than hers) walking towards her angrily with her hands on her hips.

The sight of someone pretending to be aggressive even though he clearly didn't have a good figure instantly reminded Fran of Tom Cat, and she couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"Hey! What are you laughing at, you human? Believe it or not, I will smash you to death!" After hearing this, the loli's face became even angrier.

"Sorry, sorry! I just remembered something happy." Fran said.

"Humph!" the little girl said, "Don't think you're great just because you're the city lord. I'm telling you! You're in big trouble. This is the temple of mathematics for our tribe, and the hope for our tribe's future! Every minute wasted is a huge loss! And you've caused such a big commotion here, I don't know how much time has been wasted!"

"That... Just then, a dwarf next to her whispered to her: "This human's mathematical ability is somewhat amazing. He also taught us a lot of useful methods."

"What? How is it possible! How can a mere human understand noble mathematics?" said the little girl.

"What are you saying? How can humans not understand mathematics?" Fran retorted, "Besides, it's not a good idea to describe mathematics as noble. Although this subject is obscure and difficult to understand, it is also very important. But as long as you are willing, everyone can learn it. As long as you study hard and have talent, no matter how high or low you are, you can achieve something. Isn't it?"

"Uh...this!" The loli was speechless for a moment.

Humph! When it comes to talking skills, who in this world can compare to me, Fran!

The other dwarves also nodded repeatedly. Fran's words were much more far-reaching than those of the loli in front of them.

"Can't you see? You, the city lord, are quite capable." The little girl said, "Let me introduce myself. My name is Gorronil, and I'm the chief of this clan."

"Hello...what? Are you the chief here?" Fran was surprised.

"Why? Don't I look like the patriarch?"

"Rather than saying he doesn't look like her, I'd say he doesn't look like her at all..." Fran widened her eyes and said, "How did you become the chieftain at such a young age? Did the chieftain of the dwarf tribe get chosen by drawing lots?"

"What are you saying? Aren't you young too?" Gorronil said unhappily, "And unlike you humans who choose lords based on bloodline, we dwarves rely on ability. Every chieftain is the strongest person in the tribe in terms of combat power, forging power, engineering power, etc. Of course, in recent years, mathematics has also been added.

In recent years?

It seems that the gray dwarves have suddenly started to learn mathematics recently. No wonder what they learn is not systematic and all kinds of things. Many people even memorize formulas by rote and ignore the reasoning process behind them. What makes Fran a little confused is why they suddenly start to pursue mathematics?

With this question in mind, Fran asked, "Why did you suddenly start studying mathematics?"

"Ah, isn't it because mathematics is important?" said Goronil.

"That's true," Fran said, "but you don't use math in your daily life. I've also visited other dwarf camps. They rely on experience and lessons to forge!"

"That's because they've taken the wrong path!" Gorronil said, "We were like that too! Until one day a great sage came to our village. He not only taught us a lot of mathematics, but also taught us many forging techniques."

Great Sage? It sounds like a wandering traveler. But this traveler can teach the dwarves forging skills, so his strength is really extraordinary.

"Oh, by the way, what are you carrying behind you? New weapons?" Just when Fran was still thinking, Goronil suddenly pointed at the musket behind one of the guards.

"This is a long-range weapon we developed." Fran did not hide it. Anyway, this weapon has been circulated, and it is impossible to keep it secret: "The clan leader is very interested in this."

"Yes." Gorronil said, "Because the great sage once drew a very similar blueprint for us. He also asked us to try to make it, but unfortunately our technology was not enough, and we ultimately failed to make his idea."

"I see... Hmm? Wait a minute!! Your great sage has drawn the same blueprint before!" Fran was surprised, and then asked quickly: "Is the great sage you are talking about beautiful?"

"pretty?"

"Sorry, sorry! I was a little excited! I said the wrong thing! Your great sage, is he a goblin? Is his name Kreltz?"

"Huh? I didn't expect you to know the great sage?" Goronil said.

Fran and Catherine looked at each other with disbelief in their eyes.