CH694 Technological Challenges

***

Sugud and Eleanore looked towards Alex as they entered his Rune Lab—which, by his own standards at least, was still rather makeshift.

Though both had brought issues stemming from their respective research projects for him to review, they carried a subconscious confidence that speaking with him would ultimately yield a solution.

In a way, one could say this was part of Alex’s charm.

He might not necessarily possess greater expertise than they did within their own specialised fields. However, what he did possess was a perspective that existed almost entirely outside the mould in which they had been trained.

More often than not, his viewpoints initially appeared bizarre—considering his primary bloodline, some might even describe them as slightly mad. Yet despite that, these same ’unique’ perspectives frequently produced astonishing results.

For instance, when Alex first told Sugud that he intended to create an infantry weapon modelled after a ballista—and boldly claimed that it would change the face of the battlefield—Sugud had dismissed the idea almost immediately.

It was only after seeing the prototype for himself—and witnessing its performance firsthand—that he had begun to believe.

Now, after Sugud himself had already upgraded it through two increasingly powerful iterations, he had become a firm believer in the Infantry Arms Project—a project aimed at creating a series of weapons that, at its ultimate goal, would allow an untrained commoner to kill a professional warrior or even a beast, up to Class 3.

Why Class 3, one might ask?

Because across many planes, Class 3 represented the standard benchmark of power. In weaker realms, Class 3 individuals often stood at the pinnacle. Meanwhile, in stronger realms such as Pangea—or even Verdantis—Class 3 formed the rank and file of elite military forces.

More importantly, however, the leap to Class 4 represented a dramatic qualitative increase in power, defence, survivability, and overall capability.

Attempting to scale a commoner-grade weapon to the point where it could reliably threaten a Class 4 existence would become prohibitively expensive, resource-intensive, and technically demanding to the extent that true mass production would no longer be feasible.

Besides, regardless of how powerful a plane might be, Class 3 represented a major threshold.

Practically speaking, so long as an individual possessed cultivation talent, reaching Class 3 was never considered impossible. The journey might require decades of effort depending on the quality of one’s talent, but for most who genuinely walked the Path of Power, Class 3 remained an achievable destination.

Class 4, however, was entirely different.

The bottleneck separating Class 3 from Class 4 was so immense that only a tiny fraction of all Class 3 cultivators ever managed to cross it successfully.

Taking all of those factors into consideration, the Class 3 benchmark became the most efficient and realistic target.

As for Eleanore, Alex’s pill-based alchemy method represented an equally fascinating shift in perspective.

The advantages of the pill system were actually quite intuitive once one truly thought about them. However, that was precisely the issue—IF one thought about them at all.

For centuries—perhaps even millennia—Pangea’s alchemical system had remained largely unchanged. No one had seriously questioned the long-established potion-based approach, nor attempted to pioneer an entirely new system. Only this silver-haired madman possessed a thought process disruptive enough to even consider such a possibility.

And because of that, he had ushered in a completely new—albeit still developing—branch of alchemy with enormous potential.

"You’re here," Alex greeted with a smile, exuding calm confidence.

It was almost as though the frustration and concern that had plagued him earlier had been nothing more than an illusion.

"Thanks for coming," he continued. "I called the two of you over because I wanted to know whether it would be possible for you to collaborate on creating something for me.

"But before that, it seems both of you have matters of your own to report—or request."

Alex gestured towards a few stools positioned around the room.

Eleanore and Sugud nodded. Each picked up a stool and brought it over to the worktable before taking their seats opposite Alex.

Alex motioned for Sugud to speak first.

Sugud nodded and began his report.

"Based on the most recent field tests, I have confirmed that the two new crossbow variants possess offensive power reaching Peak Tier II," Sugud stated.

In practical terms, this meant the crossbows posed a lethal threat to anyone below the Peak Intermediate Rank.

"They also remain dangerous even to Elite-ranked opponents. However, due to the target’s speed, defensive capabilities, endurance—or a combination of all three—it appears that killing such individuals requires sustained volleys from multiple users working together to pin the target down," he added.

"Why do you think that is?" Alex asked.

From his perspective, the crossbows already possessed sufficient peak offensive force to theoretically kill a Class 3 existence.

"During the field tests, I noticed that most Gold-ranked combatants faced with the weapon were capable of dodging incoming shots by exploiting the cycle time between each shot. A few others who were struck by the bolts were even able to continue fighting after taking one or two hits.

"Unless we intend to further increase the power behind each bolt—either through superior materials or by incorporating empowering runes—there is very little we can do regarding the latter issue."

"So your focus is on increasing the rate of fire even further?" Alex asked.

"Yes," Sugud replied with a nod.

"And how exactly do you propose we accomplish that?" Alex continued.

"By reducing the cycling time between shots. And if possible, by also decreasing the reload time between magazines," Sugud explained.

"The crossbow’s power comes from the energy stored within its limbs and the efficiency with which the string transfers that force into the bolt. I have already pushed both the limb materials and the string close to their practical limits while still keeping the weapon suitable for mass production. At this stage, much like the bolts themselves, any further increase in raw power would only produce marginal returns.

"To achieve the current level of power, I had to make trade-offs—trade-offs that now seem to be limiting the weapon’s reload speed between magazines and, more importantly, its cycle time between shots.

"Both the pump-action and bolt-action variants require a certain degree of physical strength to re-cock the string quickly enough to maintain sustained rapid fire. However, as fatigue accumulates, the user inevitably slows down—sometimes by mere milliseconds, and other times by entire seconds.

"In theory, those gaps in firing rate would allow Class 3 combatants to slip between shots... or grant them enough time to mitigate the damage inflicted by a previous bolt."

Sugud paused briefly before concluding,

"That is why I believe we need to incorporate runes directly into the weapon’s body in order to assist with the cycling mechanism."

Alex nodded thoughtfully in understanding.

One might wonder why Sugud had not also suggested using runes to further enhance the weapon’s overall power, or perhaps empower the bolts themselves.

The answer was simple... time.

At present, Alex was the only person in Verdantis capable of using runes.

If not for that obvious limitation, Sugud would never have bothered reporting the issue to Alex in the first place and would have instead sought a solution independently.

The idea of experimenting with sigils had crossed his mind. However, the foreign magical glyphs remained too unpredictable. There was no reliable way of knowing what effects they might produce—or how exactly they would function once integrated into the weapon system.

***