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"Master Lin, what do you think?" Vittorio thought this plan was pretty good, as long as it could be guaranteed to be foolproof and not affect the outside world.
Lin En pondered for a long time and did not give a direct answer, but suddenly asked, "Chairman Vittorio, how far is this place from the oil production area?"
"If the information I received is correct, the straight-line distance is about ten kilometers," Vittorio replied.
"Bring the map to me!" Lynn stood up, took the parchment scroll handed over by a wizard, carefully examined the terrain of Mist Territory, and soon came up with an idea in his mind.
Chapter 412: Their hearts have been corrupted by money!
Bang...bang...bang!
In Mist Territory, in the Kerosene City, bursts of thunder-like explosions continued to echo on the training ground.
More than a dozen imperial soldiers lined up in a long row, pulling the triggers awkwardly. Lead bullets flew out from the flaming muzzles and hit the target fifty meters away. A big hole was instantly pierced through the sturdy armor, and the wooden block behind was also smashed to pieces.
"Nice power! No wonder the imperial expeditionary force led by Edwill suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of these people." Joshua spoke in a low voice as he looked at the muskets in the hands of these soldiers.
"Have you shown it to the craftsmen? Is there any way to imitate it?" Lucia said with interest.
"It's not a problem to copy the other parts of this kind of weapon, but this steel pipe is very special." Joshua took a musket, and with a flick of his wrist, he used magic to dismember it, leaving only the barrel.
Lucia reached out to take it, and examined it carefully for a while, but did not find anything wrong. It was just an ordinary steel object, with no traces of magic or divine arts.
"It has no cracks and no traces of joints!" Joshua reminded softly.
Lucia paused for a moment before she came to her senses.
If ordinary craftsmen want to turn iron ore into hard steel, they must use high temperatures to melt it and then hammer it through repeated processes.
The steel pipe in front of him is one meter long, but its diameter is only a few dozen millimeters. It looks like a whole, and there is even a threaded structure inside. It is indeed very magical.
"Could it be that magic was used?" Cardinal Silide on the side reminded.
"Not likely!" Lucia shook her head.
Only great wizards have the ability to control metal elements. There is no problem in making such a steel pipe, but as far as she knows, there are only thirty great wizards in the entire parliament, while there are tens of thousands of musketeers. How long will it take for dozens of great wizards to make it?
Then I don't have to do anything else every day, I just sit there and rub the steel pipe. Just think about it and you know it's impossible. It's really a waste of talent...
Lucia thought about it for a while and felt that there were two feasible solutions.
For example, find an extremely hard substance, place it in the middle of molten iron, and then forge it, or prepare a mold and pour the molten iron into it.
After Lucia finished speaking, Joshua tactfully told her that the craftsmen had already tried similar methods!
As a result, the steel pipes produced were completely unqualified. When they were reinstalled on the muskets, their accuracy became very poor. One of the muskets even exploded directly.
Lucia was quite surprised. It seemed that the wizards had really made something interesting. "What about the captured personnel? Don't they know about it?"
In addition to seizing a large number of muskets in this battle, hundreds of musketeers were also captured. The method of using the musket was also searched out from the minds of these people.
"They were all poor people who worked the land and fished before. They only knew how to use it, but they had no idea how to make this kind of weapon."
Joshua paused for a moment, then continued, "These people have been corrupted by the evil spirits. Unless we use coercive means, we won't be able to get any information out of them..."
"Are there no exceptions?" Lucia raised her eyebrows. Logically speaking, there should always be a few spineless people among these hundreds of people.
"No exceptions!" Joshua said solemnly.
He searched the memories of these people and roughly found the reason.
These musketeers were previously a group of poor people who suffered from hunger and cold, and most of them had families. Joining the Musketeers could only be described as a step towards success!
The price offered by the parliament was very high. As long as one joined the Musketeers, one could get fifteen to twenty silver coins every month and live a life of eating meat every meal.
If they died on the battlefield, they would receive a generous pension, and their families would be properly taken care of and arranged to work in workshops.
This treatment is higher than that of the most elite guards in the empire, and is almost catching up with the God's Punishment Army, so most of the musketeers are in a state of fanaticism similar to faith, and their hearts are corrupted by money.
It can only be said that those wizards spent a lot of money to deal with the empire's attack.
While the two men were talking, the imperial soldiers demonstrating the muskets loaded the bullets with great difficulty and fired another round of volleys, smashing the target in front of them directly.
"It takes more than a minute to load the bullets. In my opinion, the weapons of these wizards are just so-so... not as useful as an archer on the battlefield." Seeing that the two adults were so concerned about this evil creation called a musket, Silide could not help but speak out.
As a conservative bishop, Silide has always been extremely wary of these witchcraft weapons. According to the church's constitution, the most important thing to do is to destroy them once they are discovered.
Moreover, it takes more than a minute to fire one bullet. This shortcoming is fatal. If the shot misses, the attacker will have no ability to resist afterwards.
Sirid believed that even if he encountered a whole team of musketeers, he had a hundred ways to kill them or even play with them in his hands.
Joshua was naturally well aware of the shortcomings of this thing, but this still could not cover up the advantages of the musket. "Do you know how long it takes to train a qualified imperial archer?"
"About... half a year?" Silide said hesitantly.
"Three to five years!" Joshua corrected. "The requirements for personnel are also very strict, and they need to be selected from strong and healthy soldiers."
"And it only took them two or three hours to learn how to operate the muskets!" Joshua pointed to the imperial soldiers who were testing their weapons.
The most important thing is that the musket has a strong armor-piercing ability, which is unmatched by bows and crossbows.
In previous battles, a knight in fine armor could charge and kill at will on the battlefield, and a few stray arrows would not be able to penetrate his defense.
The situation is different now. I'm afraid a shot from a musket will kill him!
This improvement is undoubtedly terrifying!
That is to say, those wizards only need to grab a poor man from the street and train him for a few hours, and then he may be able to kill a knight who has practiced his skills for decades on the battlefield!
"According to reports from several knights of the God's Punishment Army, the wizards have loaded a special musket on a moving iron box that can fire dozens of bullets in one second. Even a bishop will be torn to pieces on the spot." Joshua said solemnly.
Apparently the wizards had found a way to overcome the shortcomings of the musket, but they simply hadn't put it into service on a large scale.
Chapter 413: The roar of the fire dragon, how to deal with the airship.
After Joshua's explanation, Sirid finally realized the horror of this new weapon. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he quickly spoke out.
"We can't wait any longer, we must send all these evil minions to hell immediately!"
Silide couldn't imagine how powerful witchcraft weapons they would be able to create if they allowed these wizards to continue to develop.
"If we had known earlier, we should have continued the pursuit." Silide said with regret. They had finally won a great victory in a surprise attack, but failed to take the opportunity to annihilate the enemy.
If we launch another powerful attack now, it will obviously result in extremely heavy casualties.
"Don't worry, Silide. Under the power of the Lord, all resistance is in vain!" Joshua said comfortingly.
They allowed the wizard legions to flee, on the one hand because the expeditionary army suffered heavy casualties and their morale was low, and on the other hand they did it deliberately, using this legion as bait to lure the main force of the wizards over.
He knew very well that once Her Majesty the Saint used her full strength, those so-called new weapons would be as ridiculous as toys.
However, after the battle, this incarnation could no longer be used and the body had to be replaced, and it took several years to restore the strength.
"Your Highness Lucia, the divine arts you requested have been arranged!"
A nun walked in from outside the training ground and whispered respectfully in the saint's ear.
Lucia nodded, and with a thought, the seamless steel pipe in her hand was broken down into basic elements. As long as she could wipe out the Wizard Council, she would naturally be able to obtain the manufacturing and usage techniques of all new weapons.
This is the fastest way!
Several people walked out of the training ground together and soon stepped into the cathedral of Mist County.
The Grand Duke who was in charge of the territory had made a fortune in recent years by mining kerosene. In order to show his piety to the Lord, this church was naturally built very tall and large, and was very solemn and dignified.
In the square in front of the church, hundreds of bishops gathered here, holding the Bible and reciting prayers.
Thick golden pillars stood all around, and under their feet was a huge magical formation with intricate patterns carved on it.
Lucia stepped forward and stood in the center of the magic circle.
"Praise my Lord, the great and eternal God..." "Your glory shines across the entire continent, and all the stars are dimmed by it!"
Amid the devout hymns of the bishops, the statue of God in the church emitted a soft golden light, and then the same light appeared on Lucia's body.
Immediately afterwards, a strong wave of divine magic began to spread in all directions, and the divine magic array engraved on the ground seemed to come alive. The space on the ground began to distort, and the neatly arranged bricks and stones completely disappeared from everyone's sight.
The interior of the entire magic formation was soon drenched in darkness, surging like water waves.
The next moment, a huge and terrifying sharp claw emerged from the dark and bottomless abyss, followed by a red body that seemed to be made of lava. The powerful force made everyone present hold their breath.
When the monster crawled out completely, Silide could see clearly that it was a lava dragon!
At the same time, magical chains rolled over from the surrounding pillars and locked the huge dragon body tightly.
"Roar~" The lava fire dragon struggled violently, and the divine chains clanked as they were pulled, but the more it struggled, the tighter the chains that bound it would shrink.
After trying a few times, the lava dragon gave up this plan. Its ferocious fist-sized pupils stared at Lucia hanging above the black curtain, and then it opened its mouth and exhaled a scorching breath...
This breath was so strong that the space seemed to be burning. The rolling heat wave even reminded Silide of the scorching beam of light that fell from the sky on the battlefield!
"Your Highness Lucia!" Silide shouted in horror, but then he found that his worries were unnecessary. The strong dragon breath began to weaken rapidly before it touched the saint.
"Sub-dragon species, it turns out they still don't have any brains." Lucia raised her hand, and the flames stopped instantly. The whole lava fire dragon roared in pain as if someone had pinched its throat.
The magic chains bound to the dragon's body began to dissolve and sank into the red dragon scales...
Seeing Lucia easily subdue the lava dragon that was summoned from across the border, Silide couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. At the same time, his opinion of Her Majesty the Saint chosen by the Holy See changed greatly. He no longer obeyed her out of status, but felt awe and envy from the bottom of his heart.
The other party must have received God's blessing to have such strength!
The nuns around them also had admiring expressions, fantasizing that one day they would be chosen by the Lord and ascend to become saints of the Vatican.
After severely beating up the violent lava dragon, Lucia condensed a dragon-shaped gem and handed it to Silide beside her.
"You are the one who controls it!"
This gem was created by her power and connected to the divine spell that bound the Lava Fire Dragon, and can then give it commands.
"Thank you for your trust, Your Majesty Lucia!" Silide took it flattered.
Of course he understood that Her Majesty the Saint had gone to such great lengths to capture a lava dragon across the border, and the obvious purpose was naturally to deal with those airships!
Silide had heard before that this huge alchemical creation was highly maneuverable, with a speed of over 100 kilometers per hour. It could also emit a powerful light beam that destroyed hundreds of griffin knights. It was the most important air force in the hands of wizards.
If no method is found to contain them, more than a hundred airships will be enough to defeat the entire expeditionary force.
The situation is different now with the help of this lava fire dragon. This superior dragon is not only faster than the airship, but its dragon breath and innate magic can also make it easy to deal with in air combat.
Those large aerospace airships with slow turning and evasive speeds are just living targets in front of the lava dragon.