Lord Harland

In the past two years, due to the acquisition of a large amount of precious resources, the Harland Master Mage Association has developed very rapidly. This year, the number of official magicians has increased to more than 150, and the number of magician apprentices has reached nearly 450.

At the current development speed of Harland, there are about 10,000 freshmen enrolled every year. The tens of thousands of freshmen can select close to 100 apprentices with magic qualifications. This spring, for the first time, an apprentice named Dean was found. People have superior talents.

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

For more than ten years, the Harland Mage Association tested more than 80,000 people before finding a highly talented apprentice.

From this we can see that apprentices with superior magic talents are rare. According to the existing statistics of Harland Territory, the proportion of possessors of superior magic talents is approximately one in 80,000.

The Harland Mage Association has not only found highly talented apprentices this year, but its own strength has also improved greatly in the past two years.

Last summer, the old mage Heath, who had stayed in the three-ring magician class for eight years, successfully advanced and became an intermediate magician.

Heath's talent was low, and although he worked very hard, he was promoted to a fourth-ring mage at nearly fifty years old. His potential was probably almost exhausted, and it would be difficult to make further progress in this life.

Once a human being reaches the age of sixty, not only his physical strength but also his energy will also decline. Whether it is a magician, a warrior, or a knight, except for people with extraordinary talents and abundant energy and physical strength, it is basically impossible to break through the bottleneck. Continue Progress has been made.

Shortly after Heath's breakthrough, Röntgen was also promoted. Roentgen has been a member of the Harland Mage Association for seven years. She is an above-average talent and has spent four years in the third-ring magician stage. Roentgen is three years older than Richard. It is estimated that it will be difficult to be promoted to a high level before the age of sixty. Although his future is better than that of Heath, he can only be promoted to the sixth ring level at most.

This spring, Caperson and Bella advanced successfully and became four-ring magicians.

Capersen was born as a wild mage and was invited by Röntgen to join the Harland Territory. He has a high level of magic talent. Unfortunately, he was not lucky enough. He found a complete meditation method by chance. Unfortunately, the meditation method is not close to the magic elements. Adaptation, learning magic took a detour at the beginning.

He was a few years older than Roentgen. He only started to be exposed to magic when he was in his twenties, and he did not break through to the fourth level until he was forty-three. Although his innate talent was very good, without a good environment to discover talents, his talent could not be realized. The probability of being promoted to a high-level magician in this life is already very slim.

Bella, who advanced with Caperson, was favored by the goddess of luck. Although his innate talent was not as good as Caperson's and was only moderately talented, Bella was a native of Harland, and his father was Richard. The first batch of indentured servants purchased.

When Harland led the opening of Riverside Elementary School, Bella was among the third batch of new students to enroll. When she entered school, her talent for magic was detected, and she was considered the most talented among the apprentices. In order to train her, Richard wrote the Book of Fire Meditation, a method of meditating on fire attributes. There are many high-level meditation methods for reference. The deduction of the Book of Fire went very smoothly. After Undine and other elf mages joined in, it has been compiled to the tenth level and can meditate to the seventh level.

There is a meditation method tailor-made for herself. In just three years and eight months, Bella passed the apprenticeship stage and was promoted to a professional at the age of seventeen. Then it took another eight years to be promoted three times, and he was promoted to a fourth-ring magician at the age of twenty-five. Even if he is not as talented as Caperson, because he has laid a good foundation under Haaland, he may even have a chance to touch the legendary bottleneck, and his future is far beyond that of Caperson.

Now the Harland Mage Association has three high-level magicians: Richard, Sophia, and Undine, Wendy, Anne, Butler, Heath, Roentgen, Caperson, and Bella, plus four intermediate magicians. Elf mages, the number of intermediate magicians in the Mages Association has exceeded ten.

The total number of key 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, showing a standard pyramid structure.

The quantity and quality of magicians have increased, and various research groups have been easily expanded.

Nowadays, the research team managed by Sophia is the largest, with about 60 people including the mage apprentices.

The Sophia Research Group has a very complex project and manages as many as five large projects. The production of standard magic crystals is only one of the key projects. The most important one is the in-depth study of magic particles. However, this research is very difficult and has not made much progress for seven or eight years.

The research team managed by Wendy also has more than thirty people. This research team is mainly responsible for the research on 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 mage towers in Harland's territory are equipped with magic crystal charging arrays, which can charge six thousand empty magic crystals a year, which can already make up for the magic crystal consumption in Harland's territory.

The more than two thousand standard magic crystals mined every year can be accumulated and stored inside the energy room of the mage tower.

Now Harland has possessed magic crystal charging and abandoned magic crystal reshaping technology. The reserve of magic crystals is very sufficient. In addition to the seizures from the war, Harland's territory has 28,000 standard magic crystals and 12 abandoned magic crystals. About ten thousand yuan.

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 group 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 the R\u0026D personnel and 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\u0026D personnel, the total investment has been about 110,000 gold coins.

Excluding R\u0026D 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 making a heavy trebuchet requires more than a dozen carts of logs, which add 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 low.

However, Harland's territory is rich in wood and has sufficient raw materials. Richard only needs to pay some food to use indentured servants 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. Orcs are not fools and will not advance against the bombardment of artillery shells. But the emergence of weapons like magic cannons has actually changed the situation of the war.

Future wars will inevitably be dominated by artillery.

Compared with the alchemy bombs thrown by the trebuchet, the shells fired by the magic crystal cannon are more powerful. Because of the improved explosion runes, the charge amount is increased, the weight is increased by seven and a half times, and the damage area of ​​the magic crystal cannon shrapnel is increased by three times. , the power of the explosion also increased by about 80%.

A cannonball hits a critical point and can kill a mid-level professional. Its power is slightly more powerful than a fourth-level explosive arrow.

After listening to Bella's introduction, Richard weighed it up. Although it was impossible to replace all trebuchets with magic cannons, he would start building artillery units this year.

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

Richard is preparing to place the three newly built artillery squadrons on the northern defense line of the Eagle Mountains to strengthen the defenses of No. 10, No. 5, and No. 7 Military Stations.

Compared with the same period last year, Harland led an increase of 9,000 regular troops this year, an increase of 8,000 auxiliary troops, and strengthened three artillery squadrons. If the orcs dared to invade, they would definitely be beaten to death 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 to create seventeen magic cannons in just one and a half months.

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

The artillery units are all carefully selected from veterans. The officers have a high level of education. The three squadron captains are all middle school students who are rare in the army led by Harland. Some officers from the headquarters were even sent to work as artillerymen by Richard. Staff officer.

The squad leaders and non-commissioned officers in the artillery are also selected professional officers. Each magic cannon is also specially equipped with four pack-horse artillery carriages, four pack-horse horses, artillery shells and baggage. There are a total of sixteen people in one artillery crew including the grooms. .

An artillery squadron has a total of six artillery groups. The front-line artillery has a total of ninety-six people. Including the commander of the squadron headquarters, flag bearers, guards, and artillery observation hot-air balloon team, the total number of people is about one hundred and twenty.

Not counting the cost of training soldiers, it would take an investment of 3,400 gold coins to create a gun crew from scratch.

Based on Harland's leadership economic level and development speed, giving priority to the development of artillery, up to thirty or forty artillery groups can be established a year, and five or six magic cannon squadrons can be organized.

Although Harland's military expenditure is large, it is still far from enough when allocated. The number of infantry needs to be expanded, and the investment in cavalry must also be increased. Warcraft cavalry, lion knights, and bipedal dragon knights must be given priority in allocating military expenditures. In addition, it is necessary to increase the number of Warcraft Cavalry and Magic Hot Air Balloon teams.

Even if the current military expenditure of more than one million gold coins a year is divided, it is still far from enough. Moreover, if the territory cannot develop and there are no qualified officers and soldiers, even if there are gold coins in hand, it will still be of little use.