The explosion from the western district woke half of Elarion.

The other half had apparently already been awake watching the dwarves cause it.

Spring festival music still echoed faintly through the settlement while workers stumbled through the streets carrying mugs and laughing loudly, but near the industrial quarter the atmosphere had become... significantly more dangerous.

Mostly because something inside the powder workshop had turned green briefly.

Lucas arrived first.

Unfortunately.

"Why," he asked while staring at the damaged workshop doors, "is there fire coming out of the windows?"

Cedric walked beside him calmly.

"That usually means something exploded."

"I KNOW WHAT FIRE MEANS."

Another blast echoed from inside the building.

Not massive.

But concerning.

A worker immediately sprinted out through the smoke coughing violently while carrying a metal bucket.

"MORE SAND!"

Lucas pointed toward the building in disbelief.

"WHY WOULD YOU NEED MORE THAN THE ORIGINAL SAND?!"

The worker ignored him entirely and kept running.

By the time Lucien arrived, nearly twenty soldiers had formed a perimeter around the workshop while several dwarves argued loudly beside overturned barrels near the entrance.

"...I said reduce the pressure!"

"I reduced it!"

"You reduced it emotionally!"

"That still counts!"

One dwarf suddenly noticed Lucien approaching.

"Oh good."

The man pointed directly toward the building.

"We may have improved gunpowder."

Lucas looked horrified.

"...That sentence should not begin with ’may.’"

Inside the workshop, smoke drifted across the ceiling while several furnaces continued burning beneath rows of experimental powder mixtures spread across reinforced stone tables.

The room smelled strange.

Not normal black powder.

Sharper somehow.

Cleaner.

Lucien’s eyes moved immediately toward the center workbench where Gandalf stood proudly beside several glass jars filled with dark gray powder.

The old man looked deeply pleased with himself.

"We discovered something."

Cedric crossed his arms.

"You say that like it’s good news."

"It IS good news."

Behind Gandalf, one exhausted engineer muttered quietly:

"We almost died three times."

"Progress requires sacrifice."

"You were hiding under the table!"

"Strategic observation position."

Lucas walked toward the nearest experiment table cautiously while eyeing the powder samples.

"What exactly did you idiots do?"

One dwarf instantly became defensive.

"We were refining combustion efficiency."

"You were drunk."

"That is unrelated."

"It absolutely is related!"

Lucien picked up one of the powder containers carefully afterward.

The grains looked finer than traditional black powder.

Darker too.

Almost metallic.

"What changed?" he asked calmly.

The workshop quieted slightly afterward.

Because despite the chaos—

Everyone here respected one thing.

Lucien understood these technologies better than anyone alive.

One older dwarf engineer stepped forward while wiping soot from his beard.

"We started experimenting with the sulfur replacement compounds from the northern crystal mines."

Lucien’s attention sharpened immediately.

The strange blue mineral deposits discovered months earlier near the frozen caverns.

At the time they seemed mostly useless outside industrial heating.

Apparently not.

The dwarf continued:

"Regular powder burns too dirty."

He pointed toward the rifles resting across the testing table nearby.

"After repeated firing, residue blocks the barrel grooves. Accuracy drops."

That was true.

One of the biggest limitations of early firearms.

The dwarf grabbed another powder sample afterward.

"So we mixed refined crystal ash with processed nitrate compounds."

Lucas looked deeply concerned already.

"And then?"

A pause.

"...Then the wall exploded."

"Of course it did."

"But AFTER the explosion," the dwarf added proudly, "we noticed almost no smoke residue."

Silence followed briefly.

Lucien’s gaze sharpened further.

"...Show me."

The testing range behind the workshop had already been partially destroyed earlier in the night.

One wooden target still burned quietly near the far wall while several soldiers carefully avoided looking at the large black crater beside it.

Cedric pointed toward the crater.

"I assume this is where the progress happened."

"Yes."

"That hole is taller than me."

"Yes."

Lucas rubbed his forehead slowly.

"I hate innovation."

The dwarves ignored him completely.

A rifle was brought forward afterward.

One of the newer flintlock models.

The testing engineer loaded the experimental powder carefully before handing the weapon toward Lucien.

"Pressure remains stable now."

"Now?" Lucas repeated weakly.

The engineer avoided eye contact.

Lucien examined the rifle briefly before aiming toward the remaining target downrange.

The workshop crews watched nervously.

Even Aurethar had landed nearby out of curiosity.

The dragon sniffed once toward the powder barrel.

"...It smells aggressive."

Then Lucien fired.

CRACK.

The shot sounded wrong immediately.

Sharper.

Cleaner.

Not the deep explosive boom of normal black powder.

And more importantly—

Almost no smoke emerged from the barrel.

The target shattered apart instantly.

Several dwarves froze.

Then started yelling over each other.

"IT WORKED!"

"THE BARREL DIDN’T BURST!"

"WE ARE GENIUSES!"

Lucas looked toward the nearly smokeless firing line in disbelief.

"...That’s impossible."

Lucien slowly lowered the rifle while examining the barrel afterward.

Minimal fouling.

Higher pressure velocity.

Cleaner ignition.

Not true modern smokeless powder.

But close enough to completely change battlefield doctrine.

And the terrifying part?

They discovered it accidentally.

Gandalf looked unbearably proud.

"Science."

Cedric stared at him.

"You almost detonated the district."

"Scientific district."

One exhausted worker sat against the wall nearby.

"I watched my life flash before my eyes."

Another nodded sympathetically.

"I watched YOUR life flash before my eyes."

Lucien meanwhile had gone quiet again.

Dangerously quiet.

Lucas noticed instantly.

"...No."

Lucien glanced toward him.

"What?"

"You’re thinking."

"Yes."

"That’s the problem."

Because this changed everything.

Black powder weapons revealed positions instantly after firing.

Smoke clouds covered battlefields.

Visibility collapsed during extended engagements.

But this—

This allowed sustained rifle fire without obscuring the shooters.

Higher pressure also meant improved range and penetration.

Combined with rifled barrels?

The Mauser designs suddenly became far more viable far earlier than expected.

Aurethar watched Lucien carefully from the side.

"The human is redesigning warfare again."

Cedric sighed heavily.

"That’s becoming a weekly event."

The dragon looked toward the experimental rifle.

"These weapons already kill efficiently."

Lucien nodded once.

"Yes."

"Now they will kill efficiently without announcing where the killing came from."

A pause.

"...I dislike how practical humans are."

By morning, the entire industrial district had descended into organized chaos.

Again.

Powder mills restarted operations immediately while engineers and chemists worked nonstop attempting to stabilize the new compound mixture.

The dwarves had named it before breakfast.

Naturally.

"Grayfire Powder."

Lucas looked offended.

"That sounds like tavern alcohol."

"It sounds glorious."

"It sounds flammable."

"THAT IS ITS PURPOSE!"

Inside the main testing hall, rifle crews began conducting repeated live-fire experiments using the new powder mixture while scribes recorded everything obsessively.

Accuracy.

Pressure.

Range.

Residue buildup.

Barrel wear.

One marksman fired six consecutive shots before blinking in surprise.

"...I can still see the target."

Another soldier lowered his rifle slowly.

"That feels unnatural."

A nearby dwarf became offended.

"It feels advanced."

Malen observed the firing line silently beside Lucien.

The Peak Knight rarely reacted strongly to technology.

But even he noticed the difference.

"No smoke."

"No."

"That means hidden firing positions become viable."

Lucien nodded.

"Ambushes too."

The knight remained silent afterward.

Thinking.

That alone spoke volumes.

Because Malen understood battlefields instinctively.

And he immediately realized how dangerous this innovation truly was.

The First Rifle Regiment certainly realized it faster.

By midday, the soldiers had become almost frighteningly enthusiastic.

One rifleman fired another experimental round before grinning widely.

"I can actually see what I’m shooting now!"

Another laughed.

"We’re becoming spoiled."

A third man cleaned his rifle barrel afterward and looked shocked.

"There’s barely any residue."

The dwarves nearby looked unbearably smug.

"As expected."

"You discovered it by accident."

"THE BEST DISCOVERIES ARE ACCIDENTS!"

Fair point(Author agrees too)

Later that evening, Lucien gathered the senior engineers, dwarven smiths, and military officers inside the upper strategy hall overlooking the industrial district below.

The atmosphere felt different tonight.

Not celebratory.

Focused.

Because everyone understood they had crossed another threshold.

Lucien stood beside the central war table while several samples of Grayfire Powder rested sealed inside reinforced containers nearby.

"We proceed carefully."

Several dwarves immediately looked disappointed.

Cedric noticed.

"They were hoping for larger explosions."

"Correct," one admitted openly.

Lucien ignored that entirely.

"This powder changes weapon performance significantly."

He looked toward the rifle schematics spread across the table.

"Which means current barrel tolerances may no longer remain stable under prolonged stress."

One engineer nodded immediately.

"We already observed increased velocity pressure."

"Exactly."

Lucas folded his arms afterward.

"So what now?"

Lucien’s gaze shifted toward the Mauser blueprint resting separately near the edge of the table.

The room gradually quieted.

Because everyone had noticed those papers earlier.

Nobody knew exactly what they were.

Only that Lucien became deeply dangerous whenever looking at them.

"Now," Lucien said calmly, "we modernize production"

Silence followed.

Heavy silence.

Because Elarion had already advanced faster than anyone thought possible.

Yet somehow—

Lucien still sounded unsatisfied.

Aurethar slowly lifted his massive head from beside the balcony entrance.

"...What exactly counts as modern by your standards?"

Lucien looked toward the glowing factories beyond the fortress windows.

Then toward the rifles.

The powder.

The growing industrial city hidden within the north.

Finally he answered quietly:

"We’re not there yet."

And somehow—

That sentence frightened everyone in the room more than the explosions had.