The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

After everything was arranged, Lind, Lena, and Laurie began their final debriefing.

"The range of grenades is still too short. If we encounter a regular demon army, we might suffer losses."

Laurie handed Lind a somewhat damaged set of chainmail breastplates.

Linde weighed it in his hand and, sure enough, there were obvious scratches and damage on the breastplate. The demons were still able to inflict damage on the well-equipped soldiers even when they were at a disadvantage. Their physical strength was indeed better than that of humans. No wonder the Lars family had such a hard time fighting against the demons.

"Unless all our soldiers are properly trained and fight to the death, it's hard to find a chance to wait until the enemy gets close before throwing grenades. If they are just militiamen who only participate in daily training, they might not be able to resist throwing grenades first when the demons charge."

Although he won a great victory, Lind had to admit that luck played a big part; his opponent was too complacent and gave the gray-collar workers many opportunities.

Lind agreed with Laurie's point of view and nodded, saying, "I never intended to use grenades as a primary weapon from the beginning. Remember the artillery in the lab? That should be the main force on the battlefield in the future."

"It would be even better if the mobility issue could be resolved."

Laurie shrugged, but it was just a casual remark. Laurie was practically numb to the power of artillery. It was just a pity that there were still some minor problems. It might be okay for defense, but it was a bit cumbersome to use in open battle.

At the same time, the cannons at the nearby testing grounds opened fire, and the black shells flew in graceful arcs towards the pure white knights.

Of course, this wasn't a real attack on Lena's knights; Lind wanted to test how much damage the artillery in his territory could inflict on the world's elite soldiers.

The results of the experiment made Linde somewhat worried. According to the knights' descriptions, if they were hit head-on by a cannon shot, no one would dare to say that they could withstand it, no matter how well they were prepared. It would depend on the skill differences between the knights.

However, if it's just the aftershock of an explosion, it's unlikely to affect the knights' charge.

The first time they saw the explosive power of the cannons was terrifying, but after getting used to it, the knights even dozed off in the blast radius.

This is also one of the drawbacks of artillery. It hits by chance, which may be very effective against ordinary troops, but against elite professionals, it is difficult to have a significant effect after the initial kill.

Although Lena told Lind that very few armies could charge under artillery fire, and not every army was made up of professionals with luxurious equipment, once the artillery was brought out, it could rout more than 80% of the nobles.

However, Linde suffered from a fear of insufficient firepower; the current level of artillery simply could not provide Linde with a sense of security.

The only thing that could comfort Linde was that the production and development of artillery were progressing rapidly.

After all, unlike other transmigrators, Linde didn't have to smelt steel before building cannons and find ways to increase the furnace temperature. Even without using arcane magic arrays, using the old methods of this world, relying on ordinary rune arrays, the furnace temperature provided by the powerful bricks allowed Linde to directly cast wrought iron.

The main problem at present is the poor yield rate, and there is still room for improvement in weight, but it is more than enough for defense.

In contrast, the development of handguns has stalled. Even though Linde provided the basic ideas and a usable handgun already existed, the key to modern firearms lies in granular smokeless powder.

Although Linde had come across videos on the ancient method of granulating gunpowder, he wasn't very interested at the time. More importantly, he had no idea how to make smokeless gunpowder. Of course, if he did know how, this book would probably be banned.

The difference between hand-made gunpowder and modern gunpowder is still too great.

Unlike artillery, muskets can't be launched with great force. If you can't solve the gunpowder problem, you can only slowly try and fail. In fact, the gunpowder problem has affected the development progress of artillery, so much so that the current artillery is still very primitive - at least that's what Linde thinks.

"boom!"

Lena test-fired a flintlock gun that the rune artisans had concocted using alchemy based on Lind's description. It was somewhat like a 19th-century percussion gun, skipping the flintlock stage entirely, but it was not yet ready for mass production.

The bullet hit the chainmail. Judging from the straw behind the armor, the person who was hit probably didn't feel well, but it wasn't fatal.

Laurie picked up the chainmail that Lena had shot and fell silent. She knew that the chainmail worn by the Gray Collars was now all basic enchanted. Even enchanted armor couldn't completely block the damage from firearms. This was no longer ordinary craftsmanship, but the level of a magical artifact.

"Boss, are you trying to rebel?"

Laurie crept up to Lind and jokingly confirmed with him.

"not enough."

Linde shook his head and simply said three words.

Laurie was at a loss for words. Was this power still insufficient? Did his lord really intend to rebel? A fierce internal struggle began to rage within Laurie.

After firing a few more shots, Lena seemed to have thought of something and began to disassemble the gun and think about it.

Linde then gestured to Lena's knight, Susan, to be his target, as he wanted to see how firearms would perform against the elite troops of this era.

Susan was initially reluctant, but in the end she put on the helmet and stood a short distance away.

Bang bang bang!

Linde didn't have the same shooting talent as Lena. It took him quite a while to get used to the feel of the gun before he finally managed to fire a bullet into Susan's fully enchanted armor, but Susan didn't react at all.

In her own words, it felt like being hit with a pebble.

The musket was actually ahead of its time, completely capable of taking on chainmail and plate armor, but it seems that the unique enchanting mechanism of this world greatly reduced the power of the bullets.

Originally, these enchantments were intended to prevent knights from being easily stunned by armor-piercing weapons such as hammers and flails during close combat. Therefore, the enchantments were mainly specialized in eliminating impact. However, they unexpectedly protected against firearms that had not yet been invented.

The higher the level of enchantment, the less damage the gun can deal. In this world where high-ranking knights are all tough, ordinary kinetic weapons have limited effect on fully armed knights. Guns that have not yet reached the level of modern weapons have difficulty breaking through the front-line knights, but they can be used as a special attack against fragile mages.

After all, mages are classic examples of high attack but low defense. Their defensive magic is mainly for defense against magic. Gunpowder doesn't have a magical reaction, so it's easy for them to escape the detection of mages. If you get close, they might actually be able to take down a fragile mage in one go.

However, all of this was told to me by Lena. The most famous thing about the Lars family is that they produce a lot of knights, but no mages, and they even look down on spellcasters.

If Laurie knew what Lind was thinking, she would definitely think Lind was crazy. Elite professionals aren't cabbages; how could they be broken through so easily?

But it's too early to say all that. After all, most firearms are made using alchemy, which involves many steps and is time-consuming and laborious, so they can basically only be used as test subjects.

The level of technology in this territory can only be described as futile.

The normal research and development sequence should be to first build a magic steam engine or magic capacitor, then an industrial lathe, then develop weapons, and finally mass-produce and manufacture them. However, Gray Collar does not yet have a lathe.

Although Linde has a standardized approach, such as being able to directly replace damaged parts in chainmail, there's really no way to do that with more delicate items like firearms. They can only be made by hand by experienced craftsmen. Linde can only give the craftsmen the dimensions and let them do their best.

Linde certainly knew that the lathe was the mother of industry, but he had only ever seen CNC machine tools, so he could only study the most primitive treadle lathes on his territory first.

Why use a foot pedal? Because Linde had no clue how to use an arcane magic circle as a stable power source, or rather, which arcane magic circle to use as a power source. Linde wasn't originally an engineering student, so he could only scratch his head at the idea of ​​converting a steam engine into a magic-powered one, or directly producing a magic engine in one step.

Fortunately, Linde knew the principles, and he might be able to manufacture similar things on his territory in the future. However, he was short-handed at the moment, so he could only focus his energy on weapons production.

Lena, who had somehow disassembled the firing pistol, looked at Lind with her bright green eyes and asked, "Brother, do you think we can use this device to fire magic?"

Everyone present fell silent. Lin De was suddenly enlightened. Yes, he seemed to have been bound by his past experiences, always thinking of using his past life's experience to solve any difficulties. In comparison, Lena's unconventional thinking was more like that of a time traveler.

"Yes! If you install a magic trigger on a musket and activate the arcane magic circle inside, wouldn't that be a magical version of a musket? Lena, are you a genius?"

Ordinary muskets and magical muskets can even be used interchangeably. Against tough hound knights, you can directly use magic, while against mages who like to use magic shields, you can directly use ordinary muskets. Ordinary muskets can also be used in conjunction with magic for firepower suppression.

Linde praised Lena without reservation, making Lena scratch the back of her head a little embarrassed. She said awkwardly, "But brother, this would require simplifying the arcane magic circle to the extreme. I'm afraid it would be difficult for me to do this by myself. Moreover, the angle and force of the spell's launch would need to be readjusted."

This is practically equivalent to inventing a new magic.

Linde nodded and added, "Not only that, charging is also a problem. This is a weapon, and it can't be adjusted as it's used, like those production lines."

In conclusion, while this project has a promising future, it requires a significant investment, especially from professionals who have formally studied the magic system.

Lena's knights are somewhat unreliable, since most of them, like Lena, use ancient spellcasting methods—spellcasting is entirely based on intuition.

Moreover, compared to Lena, he has had less systematic learning, mostly learning through combat. He is also unfamiliar with spells other than knight magic, and his computational ability is questionable.

Linde thought for a moment, were there any professionals in the territory who could be captured to work as laborers? Preferably the academic type.