Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 310 - 309: Orbital Rail Accelerator Cannon

Gawain always came up with some baffling sentences and words. Sometimes, even phrases that others could understand would be combined into an incomprehensible state when they came from his mouth. Amber had long since adapted to this, and her method of dealing with these obscure sentences was simple—just give up on thinking.

"Just tell me what this is," Amber rolled her eyes, "a new magical device? Alchemical equipment? Or is it the weapon you mentioned last time?"

"Reports on magic-conducting machinery and alchemical equipment won’t have the Military Engineering Institute’s logo," Gawain said with a smile, pointing to the top of the report, then stood up, "Come on, let’s go take a look at this brand-new weapon."

At the weapons testing ground on the south bank of the White River, the relevant preparations were already in place.

A report indicating that the finished product had been assembled and was awaiting the leader’s inspection was delivered to Gawain. At the same time, Aunt Heidi had already ordered personnel from the Mechanical Research Station and the weapons testing ground to prepare for the first test. By the time Gawain and Amber arrived at the testing ground, the area had already been sealed off by soldiers from the Cecil Combat Corps, and the residents of the city’s northeast district had been notified in advance about the weapons testing—new equipment at Cecil is often accompanied by loud explosions, so issuing prior notice is necessary under normal circumstances.

This was a weapon Gawain had high hopes for and was part of a "rush and heavy project" scheduled after the second Cecil defense war, naturally drawing significant attention. Essentially, anyone involved in the research or qualified to observe had arrived on site, including Sir Byron and Sir Philip, as well as technical leaders like Jenni Perot, Kamel, and Nicholas Egg. Aunt Heidi and Rebecca were naturally present too.

The early stage of entrepreneurship is like this: the top team consists of just a few people, and due to a lack of manpower, they often need to cross-help each other, hence whenever there’s a major achievement, everyone gathers to watch.

As soon as Gawain appeared, Rebecca ran over happily: "Ancestor! Ancestor! The ’Art Launcher’ you wanted is ready!"

Last time, during a chat with the silly Elk, Gawain inadvertently mentioned again "explosion is art," and it completely steered the young lady off track...

Gawain patted Rebecca’s head, his gaze landing on the war machine that had just walked off the mechanical assembly platform.

It was large, with an acceleration track three meters long and a total height of nearly two meters. Its form closely resembled the theoretical model Gawain had previously constructed in the "Simulation Experiment Field," yet in terms of details, it had significant differences.

It had four metal rails arranged in parallel, still fixed in a cross structure on the base: two acceleration rails, and two directional rails used to stabilize the trajectory and reduce friction of the projectile. However, unlike the tracks Gawain simulated in the virtual environment, the entire acceleration-direction structure in front of him had added reinforcements, with three "fixing rings" made of sturdy steel plates firmly combining these four rails, and from the glowing magic symbols on those fixing rings, they probably had the function of assisting the rails in releasing waste energy and reducing magical interference.

The entire acceleration structure was installed on a roughly triangular base covered with steel plates. Although it was still a prototype, Nicholas Egg’s powerful metal control capabilities still made this base appear exceptionally standard and precise. On its side, you could see lines formed by the faintly glowing magic-conducting materials, and in the rear, there were visible control levers and handles that could be swung. At the connection between the triangular base and the acceleration structure, Gawain noticed huge gears and shafts, which were evidently for adjusting the elevation angle of the rails.

"According to your blueprints and improvement suggestions, I’ve redesigned its adjustment mechanisms so it can adjust its elevation angle over a broader range, and the base has reserved a rotating platform for interface with the gun emplacement, which will ultimately allow the entire cannon apparatus to achieve free rotation," Nicholas Egg floated over, a voice with metallic vibrations emanating from within the sphere, "the upper positioning rail also added the ’artillery sight’ you mentioned. Besides, Kamel has redesigned the arrangement of magic symbols on the acceleration track, which can facilitate the release of waste energy, improving the overall lifespan of the tracks."

Gawain turned to give Kamel a glance, thinking to himself that this ancient Master Mage indeed had a bit of an obsession with "service life"...

"Here is the ’projectile’ it uses," Kamel seemed to have guessed what Gawain was thinking and broke the silence with a slightly awkward voice. He controlled The Sculpture Hand to deliver a certain metal magical device placed not far away to Gawain, "I prepared both test projectiles without explosives and fully functional live rounds—except replacing the explosives with an equivalent weight of sand, the test projectile is exactly the same as the live round in every aspect. This is the test projectile."

Gawain lowered his head to take a glance—the projectile based on magic technology was drastically different from the Earth projectiles in his memory.

It had no cylindrical body or conical warhead, and it more closely resembled a small, strange obelisk.

It had a rectangular body with indentations at the top and bottom to align with the directional rails in the acceleration track. The rear and front ends of the projectile, like small pyramids, were inscribed with symbols of the "Blessing of Wind." Those symbols were currently dim—clearly, it had not been charged.

Moreover, there was no visible magic-conducting structure connected inside the projectile.

"Where does the energy for the wind system magic circle come from?" Gawain curiously asked.

"It charges during the acceleration process within the track," Kamel explained, "Projectiles are expendables, so we need to find ways to cut costs. Since the wind system symbols here need to keep the projectile airborne for just a few dozen seconds after activation, there’s absolutely no need to consider giving it independent energy sources. For basic spell effects requiring only grade one, by simply adding some crystal dust to the materials while forming the magic array, so they have basic energy storage characteristics, the energy stored in the array is then enough to power the magic for about one minute."

Gawain was slightly surprised: "That’s an excellent idea—did you come up with it?"

"I wish I had, but it was Rebecca’s idea," Kamel turned a humble grey-blue and slightly stepped aside to let Rebecca forward, "I have to admit, your descendant possesses an enviable talent for invention and creation."

Rebecca immediately walked up with an expression of "I’m super awesome," almost raising her face to the sky in front of Gawain: "I got the inspiration from your Magic Capacitor—just by adding some extra magic-conducting structures on the acceleration track, siphoning off some energy from the cannon base, and treating the magic symbols containing crystal dust on the shell as weak storage crystals, the entire acceleration track becomes an open Magic Capacitor. Although the shell stays in the acceleration track for a short time, coupled with the contact phase between the shell and the track during loading, this charging process is completely sufficient!"

Gawain understood immediately and felt it should be so—only Rebecca, who came from a poor life, could always put his taught concept of "compressing costs to achieve mass production" first; how could Kamel, who lived in the era of luxury, have this concept of racking his brains to reduce costs—if it were the Gondor Empire back then, using entire blocks of blue crystals to sculpt a shell would be considered frugal style...

Gawain praised Rebecca a few times, and after making the girl smile foolishly, he turned to look at several soldiers waiting beside the Rail Cannon: "We’ll discuss the technical details later, I can’t wait to see its actual performance. Shall we start with the test shell?"

"That’s the most process-oriented way." Kamel said while controlling The Sculpture Hand to deliver the test shell to those soldiers.

According to the operation procedures they had just learned recently, the soldiers immediately began loading this gigantic war machine.

They opened the loading port on the side of the cannon base, pushed the shell inside, used a push rod to clamp the shell into the track, then closed the loading port, adjusted the angle of the acceleration track, activated the charging structure for overload (officially named the Rebecca Enhancement Module)...

The magic lines on the cannon base gradually brightened, followed by the magic circle on the entire acceleration guide rail, and an unusual, low humming sound began to echo.

Another soldier operating the cannon already stood on the rear side of the cannon base, placing his hand on the firing handle.

Sir Byron gave the command: "Fire!"

The soldier then pulled the handle.

The shell was pushed into the acceleration section by the Repulsion mechanisms, and then quickly accelerated under the effect of a series of repulsion magic symbols, all sounds converged into a sharp explosive sound, accompanied by the violent retreat of the entire acceleration track within the base, a shiny metal device, enveloped in a pale blue vortex, rushed out of the track, flying into the clear sky with a sharp whistle.

Compared to the "cannons" that rely on gunpowder explosions to propel the projectile, the sound of this acceleration Rail Cannon was much quieter, though the sudden explosive sound still startled Rebecca and Aunt Heidi—Jenni even gasped softly and belatedly covered her ears.

And a few seconds later, on the distant hillside serving as the target, Gawain finally saw a plume of smoke suddenly rise.

He smiled: "If the cannon’s okay, let’s use live ammunition then—it’ll be more intuitive that way."

Several technical personnel from the mechanical research station immediately stepped forward to inspect the Rail Cannon, and soon a report came through: "Rail status good! Charging structure and overload structure good! All active parts connected securely!"

"Load live ammunition!"

The soldiers repeated the process of the first firing, but this time, what was pushed into the acceleration track was a live shell filled with dozens of kilograms of Rebecca Crystals.

Knowing full well how much commotion her crystals could cause, Rebecca immediately ducked behind Aunt Heidi, who subconsciously hid behind Gawain, Amber watched their reactions, carefully considered, calmly analyzed, and her whole body became ethereal—if things went awry later, she’d jump straight into the shadow realm.

Then, the Rail Cannon fired.

Still a sudden explosive sound, a metal device, like a small obelisk, wrapped in pale blue air streams, rushed out of the track, even Gawain and Kamel could barely follow its flight path—the shell did not immediately explode upon leaving the "barrel"; its body and fuse safety mechanism withstood the test, the entire shell flew through the air in a long arc, and after several dozen seconds, it heavily slammed onto the distant hillside.

With a thunderous boom, like lightning splitting apart, countless earth and rocks soared into the sky in the explosion, fireballs from the magic burst rose into the air.

Amber, who was prepared to dive into the shadow realm, was stunned in place.

She stared dumbfoundedly at the hillside, already shrouded in smoke and earth, with a huge fireball soaring, and suddenly understood what Gawain meant earlier by "negotiation tactics."

No one in any circumstance would use this thing to negotiate with her, she’d definitely cooperate...