Chapter 381 Magic Cannon

In the past two years, the Harland Territory Mage Association has developed very fast because of the large amount of precious resources it has obtained. This year, the number of formal magicians has increased to more than 150, and the number of mage apprentices is close to 450.

At the current development speed of Harland Territory, there are about 10,000 new students enrolled each year. Tens of thousands of new students can select nearly 100 apprentices with magic qualifications. This spring, an apprentice named Dean was found for the first time. This person has superior talent.

Since Harland Territory established the Riverbank Primary School to test the talents of new students, this is the first apprentice with superior talent found in the territory.

In the past ten years, the Harland Mage Association has tested more than 80,000 people before finding an apprentice with superior talent.

From this, it can be seen that apprentices with superior magic talent are rare. According to the existing statistics of Harland Territory, the proportion of people with superior magic talent is about one in 80,000.

Not only did the Harland Mage Association find apprentices with superior talent this year, but its own strength has also made great progress in the past two years.

Last summer, the old wizard Heath, who had stayed in the third-ring magician class for eight years, successfully advanced to become a mid-level magician.

Heath's talent was low. Although he worked very hard, he was promoted to the fourth-ring magician at the age of nearly fifty. His potential was estimated to be almost exhausted, and it would be difficult for him to make further progress in this life.

Once humans are over sixty years old, not only their physical strength but also their energy will decline. Whether it is a magician, a warrior, or a knight, except for those with extraordinary talents and abundant energy and physical strength, it is basically impossible to break through the bottleneck and continue to improve.

Shortly after Heath's breakthrough, Roentgen also succeeded in promotion. Roentgen has joined the Harland Mage Association for seven years. She is a middle-to-upper-level talent and has spent four years at the third-ring magician stage. Roentgen is three years older than Richard. It is estimated that it will be difficult for her to be promoted to a high level before the age of sixty. Although her future is better than Heath, she can only be promoted to the sixth ring at most.

This spring, Capeson and Bella succeeded in succession and became fourth-ring magicians.

Capeson was born as a wild mage, and was invited by Roentgen to enter Harland. He had a superior talent for magic, but unfortunately he was not lucky enough. He was lucky enough to find a complete meditation method, but unfortunately the meditation method was not compatible with the intimacy of magic elements, so he took a detour from the beginning of learning magic.

He was a few years older than Roentgen. He started to learn magic in his twenties and broke through the fourth level at the age of forty-three. Although he had a good innate talent, he could not realize his talent without a good environment for discovering talents. The probability of being promoted to a high-level magician in this life is very slim.

Bella, who advanced with Capeson, was favored by the goddess of luck. Although his innate talent was not as good as Capeson and was only of medium talent, Bella was a local of Harland, and his father was the first batch of contract slaves purchased by Richard.

When Harland opened the Riverbank Primary School, Bella was the third batch of freshmen to enroll. When she enrolled, she was tested for her magic talent and was considered the most talented among this batch of apprentices. In order to cultivate her, Richard compiled the Fire Attribute Meditation Method Book of Flame. There are many high-level meditation methods for reference. The deduction of the Book of Flame is very smooth. After the elf mages such as Wendy joined, it has been compiled to the tenth level, and can meditate to the seventh ring level.

With a meditation method tailored for herself, Bella passed the apprenticeship stage in just three years and eight months and was promoted to a professional at the age of seventeen. Then it took another eight years to be promoted three times, and was promoted to a fourth-ring magician at the age of twenty-five. Even if the talent is not as good as Capeson, because he has laid a good foundation in Harland Territory, he even has the opportunity to touch the legendary bottleneck, and his future is far beyond Capeson.

Now the Harland Mage Association has three high-level magicians, Richard, Sofia, and Wendy, Annie, Butler, Heath, Roentgen, Capeson, Bella, plus four mid-level elf mages, the number of mid-level magicians in the Mage Association has exceeded ten.

The total number of backbone mages at the third ring level has reached sixteen.

After more than ten years of development, as a mage organization, the structure of the Harland Mage Association has finally stabilized, presenting a standard pyramid structure.

The number and quality of magicians have improved, and various research groups have been expanded easily.

The research group managed by Sofia is now the largest, with about 60 people including magic apprentices.

The projects of Sofia's research group are very diverse, managing as many as five major projects. Standard magic crystal production is only one of the key projects. The most important project is the in-depth research on magic energy particles, but this research is very difficult and has not made much progress in the past seven or eight years.

The research group managed by Wendy also has more than 30 people, and this research group is mainly responsible for the research of magic crystal charging.

This year, they have increased the magic crystal charging conversion efficiency to 8%, the efficiency has increased by 3%, and the number of magic crystals that can be charged has increased by about 60%.

Now the three magic towers in Harland Territory have installed magic crystal charging arrays, which can charge 6,000 empty magic crystals a year, which can make up for the magic crystal consumption in Harland Territory.

The more than 2,000 standard magic crystals mined each year can be accumulated and stored in the energy room of the magic tower.

Now that Harland has mastered the technology of magic crystal charging and discarded magic crystal reshaping, the reserves of magic crystals are very sufficient. Together with the spoils of war, the territory of Harland has 28,000 standard magic crystals and about 120,000 discarded magic crystals.

Seeing that Sophia, Wendy and other magicians are constantly producing results, even Undine, who joined Harland's leadership in recent years, established a research group headed by herself.

Undine's research team has not been established for a long time. It is mainly composed of elven magicians. In the past two years, it has recruited more than ten new people to help. They have a very great goal and decided to conduct research on soul particles.

Because Richard was busy organizing and managing the army, the research team belonging to him has never expanded its manpower. It still has sixteen people, including ten magicians and six apprentices.

Richard's research team is currently mainly engaged in research on magic weapons. After this group was established, the magic cannon was a key research project.

Ever since Lord Harland mastered the explosive runes, he has begun research on magic cannons. At first, Richard wanted to use flames to launch alchemical bombs, but unfortunately this was an obvious detour.

The core of the alchemy bomb is the explosive rune. The explosive rune is very unstable and will explode immediately once it is struck hard.

A small gunpowder-launching device made of gunpowder and explosive runes will inevitably explode every time it is fired. It took two years and a lot of resources were consumed, but in the end, a lot of chicken feathers were left.

The research could not be successful, denying the gunpowder launch method.

Afterwards, Richard made the arrangements himself and decided to use magic crystals to provide energy to stimulate the flight rune route. This route was a new one with few physical references.

The magicians in Harland's territory spent more than ten years creating a new emission rune from scratch by referring to magic such as flight, wind, earth, and levitation.

New runes are engraved on the super magic alloy cannon, using magic crystal as energy source to throw alchemical bombs five kilometers away. In order to cooperate with the magic cannon, Harland's magicians also improved the explosive runes, increased the charge, and changed the weight and shape of the alchemy bomb.

Now this new weapon has finally matured after years of testing.

After hearing the news that the magic cannon was successfully manufactured, Richard went directly to the magic cannon research team.

In addition to Richard, who leads the research direction, the two deputies of Richard's magic research team, Bella and Greta, are responsible for the specific work.

After meeting Richard, Bella introduced the performance of the magic cannon in a carefree manner.

Although Bella is young, her appearance is very ordinary. She is neither beautiful nor too ugly. She wears thick crystal glasses, her hair is unkempt, a bit messy, and she looks untidy.

But her eyes were full of luster, with strong confidence in their deep sockets. There is a special brilliance in her expression, her temperament is completely different from that of people in the outside world, and her voice does not show much respect for lords and nobles.

Only an ivory tower like the Harland Research Institute can cultivate a person with such a special temperament.

Richard socialized with Bella and Greta for a few words, and personally observed the test firing of the magic cannon. The cannon was fired at the test site. The shell flew over a distance of five kilometers, accurately hit the target area, and exploded. dust.

When Richard saw this scene, he was very satisfied with the power of the cannon and asked the experimental team to remove a cannonball. He picked it up and weighed it and found that the weight was estimated to be about fifteen kilograms.

"How much does it cost to make a magic crystal cannon?"

Hearing Richard's inquiry, Bella did some calculations and replied: "Judging from the experimental records, this research has lasted for fifteen years. Not counting the salaries of R&D personnel, the cost of materials over the past ten years More than 96,000 gold coins were invested, which is considered a major investment in various research projects in the territory.

Including the salaries of R&D personnel, the total investment is about 110,000 gold coins.

Excluding R&D investment, to make a magic crystal cannon, it is necessary to smelt 3,600 kilograms of bronze and 280 kilograms of orichalcum to make a super magic alloy. The cost of the super magic alloy is 1,900 gold coins. In addition, craftsmen are required to cast the barrel and drill out the rifling, and magicians are also required to prepare potions and engrave launch runes. The overall cost is about 2,600 gold coins. "

When he heard that it cost 2,600 gold coins to cast a magic cannon, Richard shook his head secretly.

Currently, Haaland's long-range strikes are mainly based on counterweight trebuchets. The manufacturing cost of this trebuchet is very low, and the raw materials are mainly wood.

Although it takes more than a dozen carts of logs to make a heavy trebuchet, which adds up to about forty cubic meters, including leather ropes and nails, the raw material price is four gold coins, so the cost is not particularly cheap.

However, Harland's territory is rich in wood and has sufficient raw materials. Richard only needs to pay some food to use indentured slaves to manufacture heavy trebuchets in large quantities.

Because the process of manufacturing heavy trebuchets is also very simple, mainly carpentry.

However, making a magic cannon requires an investment of 2,600 gold coins, and training also consumes a large amount of magic crystals. The annual training consumption also requires high investment.

Although the economic level of Harland's territory has improved rapidly, it is difficult for magic cannons to replace trebuchets in a short time. According to Richard's estimation, this process may take more than ten years.

Although the manufacturing cost of magic cannons is high, there are many advantages of magic cannons. The first is its long range.

The magic cannon has a range of more than five kilometers and can hit opponents from five thousand meters away.

Take Lord Harland's main enemy, the Orc Legion, as an example. It takes about an hour for the Orcs to march five kilometers in armor.

In one hour, the magic cannon can fire thirty rounds. Assuming the enemy charges, one cannon can defeat two orc corps.

Of course, the battlefield is very complicated in reality. The orcs are not fools and will not advance under the bombardment of artillery shells. However, the emergence of weapons such as magic cannons has actually changed the situation of war.

Future wars will inevitably be dominated by artillery.

Compared with the alchemical bombs thrown by catapults, the shells fired by magic crystal cannons are more powerful. Because of the improved explosive runes, the amount of charge is increased, the weight has increased by 7.5 times, the killing area of ​​magic crystal cannon fragments has increased by three times, and the power of the explosion has also increased by about 80%.

A cannonball hits the vital point and can kill a mid-level professional. The power is slightly higher than that of the fourth-level explosive arrow.

After listening to Bella's introduction, Richard weighed the pros and cons. Although it is impossible to replace all catapults with magic cannons, he will start building artillery units from this year.

This year is the first year of the establishment of artillery. Richard decided to establish three artillery squadrons and cast 18 magic crystal cannons. In addition to the investment in personnel and equipment, the cost is about 60,000 gold coins.

Richard planned to deploy three newly built artillery squadrons on the northern defense line of the Eagle Mountains to strengthen the defense of the No. 10, No. 5, and No. 7 military stations.

Compared with the same period last year, this year Harland's regular army increased by 9,000 people and the auxiliary troops increased by 8,000 people. If the orcs dared to invade, they would be beaten again.

After making up his mind, Richard immediately ordered Rogge to invest resources in the magic cannon research team.

The magic cannon research team cooperated with the magic alloy manufacturing team and produced 17 magic cannons in just one and a half months.

After the magic cannon was manufactured, Richard had already formed an artillery team.

The artillery troops were carefully selected from veterans, and the officers had a high level of education. The three squadron leaders were all rare middle school students in Harland's army. Some officers at the headquarters were also sent by Richard to serve as artillery staff.

The squad leader and sergeant in the artillery are also selected professional officers. Each magic cannon is also equipped with four pack horses to pull the artillery cart, four pack horses to pull the artillery shells and baggage, and a gun crew has a total of 16 people including the groom.

An artillery squadron has a total of six gun crews, and the front-line artillery has a total of 96 people, plus the commander of the squadron, flag bearer, guards, and artillery observation balloon team, the total number of people is about 120.

Not counting the cost of training soldiers, it takes 3,400 gold coins to invest in a gun crew from scratch.

With the economic level and development speed of Harland Territory, the priority is to develop artillery. At most, 30 to 40 gun crews can be established in a year, and five or six magic cannon squadrons can be organized.

Although Harland Territory has a lot of military expenses, it is still far from enough to distribute. The number of infantry needs to be expanded, and the investment in cavalry also needs to be increased. Warcraft cavalry, lion knights, and wyvern knights should be given priority in the allocation of military expenses. In addition, the number of Warcraft cavalry and magic balloon teams needs to be increased.

Even if the military expenditure is more than one million gold coins a year, it is still far from enough. Moreover, the territory cannot be developed, and there are no qualified officers and soldiers. Even if there are gold coins in hand, it is still useless.