infodatos Chapter 412: They've All Been Corrupted by Money!
Chapter 412: They've All Been Corrupted by Money!
Boom... boom... boom!
In the Misty Sea, within the city of Fire Oil, echoes of thunderous explosions reverberated continuously across the training ground.
Dozens of imperial soldiers formed a long line, awkwardly manipulating triggers. Bullets shot out from the tongues of flaming barrels, hitting the target fifty meters away directly. The sturdy armor was pierced through instantly, and the wooden dummies behind shattered.
"Good power. No wonder the Empire's expeditionary force led by Edweil suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of these people," Joshua commented, watching the soldiers with rifles in their hands, his tone low.
"Have you shown these to the craftsmen? Is there a way to replicate them?" Lucia asked with interest.
"Replicating other parts of this weapon is not a problem, except for this particular steel pipe." Joshua took a rifle, and with a flick of his wrist, he used magic to disassemble it, leaving only the barrel.
Lucia took it, carefully examining it. There were no traces of magic or divine arts; it was just an ordinary steel creation.
"No cracks or joint marks!" Joshua reminded in a hushed tone.
Lucia paused for a moment before realizing.
Ordinary craftsmen needed to melt iron ore at high temperatures to turn it into sturdy steel, followed by rigorous forging. The steel pipe in front of them, a meter long with a diameter of only a few tens of millimeters, looked seamless, with even a thread-like structure inside. It was indeed quite miraculous.
"Could it be magic at play?" Archbishop Sireid suggested from the side.
"Not very likely!" Lucia shook her head.
Only grand wizards had the ability to manipulate metal elements. While it was not a problem for them to create such a steel pipe, as far as she knew, the entire council of grand wizards numbered only thirty. The rifle team, on the other hand, counted in the thousands. It would take too long for just a few dozen grand wizards to produce them.
Thinking about it, they would spend all day just making steel pipes. It seemed impractical.
After pondering for a while, Lucia thought of two possible solutions.
"It takes more than a minute to load the bullets. In my opinion, these wizard weapons are not as useful on the battlefield as an archer." Sireid couldn't help but comment as he saw the two lords paying so much attention to these demonic creations called rifles.
As a conservative bishop, Sireid had always been wary of these magical weapons. According to the church's regulations, destroying them once discovered was the most appropriate thing to do.
Moreover, it took more than a minute to load a bullet, a fatal flaw. If a shot missed, there would be no resistance capability.
Sireid believed that even if he encountered a whole team of riflemen, he had a hundred ways to bring them to death, even toying with them in the palm of his hand.
Joshua was well aware of the shortcomings of this thing, but it couldn't conceal the advantages of the rifle. "Do you know how long it takes to train a qualified imperial archer?"
"Probably... half a year?" Sireid hesitated.
"It's three to five years!" Joshua corrected. "The requirements for personnel are also very strict, needing to select from strong soldiers."
"And they learned to operate rifles in just two or three hours!" Joshua pointed to the imperial soldiers experimenting with the weapons.
The key was that the rifle had strong armor-piercing capabilities, something a bow and crossbow couldn't compare with.
In previous battles, a knight wearing well-crafted armor could charge on the battlefield without fearing stray arrows.
Now the situation was different. A single rifle shot would probably end their lives!
This kind of improvement was undoubtedly terrifying!
In other words, those wizards only needed to randomly grab a peasant from the street, train them for a few hours, and they might have the potential to kill a knight who had practiced for decades on the battlefield!
"According to the reports of several knights of the Punishment Legion, the wizards loaded a special rifle on a running iron box, which can shoot dozens of bullets in one second. Even a bishop may be torn apart on the spot," Joshua said with a solemn expression.
Obviously, the wizards had found a way to overcome the flaws of the rifles, but they hadn't been mass-produced yet.