Chapter 349 – Iron Demon Statue
Chapter 349: Iron and Steel Devil Statue
The special squadron is a brand new establishment, performing infiltration and assassination missions, divided into four squads, counting only fifty-two squadron commanders.
This army is an all-professional team, and the internal members are all handpicked, mainly composed of knights and magicians.
Each squad had a total of twelve people, consisting of ten knights and two magicians respectively.
The commanding authority, in addition to the fourth-ranked Langdon, also included three deputy lieutenants, the fourth-ranked knight Capello, the three-ringed magician Bonova, and Capeson.
When carrying out combat missions, the special squadron also needs to be reinforced with magical hot air balloons, magical beast warhorses, and so on, often depending on the situation.
Special squadron training is very complex, hard, not only need to learn infantry squad tactics, but also need to learn cavalry squad tactics, and to learn to manipulate the magic hot air balloon, each member of the tactical level, their own skills, all need to be very high level.
Although the number of special squadrons is small, it is the whole army carefully selected.
They were very well-equipped, all of them wearing fourth-order sub-dragon skin armor, and in their hands there were fifth- and sixth-order dragon claws, and dragon tooth daggers. The four raiders were equipped with fourth-order secret silver longswords, and six of them were equipped with third-order enchanted bows and crossbows, and carried third-order force field shields.
Armed to the teeth, the combat power of the special forces, relying on the strength of one squad alone, could already compete with a seventh-order Silver Knight.
In order to facilitate makeup scouting, when each special squad carried out a mission, the squadron commander had to accompany them, and on the commander’s body, he also carried a ten cubic meter space bag, which allowed him to hide his equipment in the space bag.
In addition to the training of combat skills, members of the special squadron also needed to learn a variety of skills, such as wilderness survival, make-up and hiding, and so on. In addition, they also need to spend a lot of time learning the languages of the nearby countries, especially the East Coast United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Delong, and become proficient in writing the official script of the Morning Glory Continent. In addition, they need to know some cryptography, so that they can write secret letters to the territory at important junctures.
Through several internal drills, the probability of success for a special squad to assassinate a Silver Knight by surprise has exceeded fifty to sixty percent.
To be able to form a special force is enough to show that Harland’s territory has accumulated a lot of heritage, and the excellent talents have mastered a large part of it.
After Richard’s promotion to Duke, every year the territory had some unpopular professionals defecting, especially the northern border nobles, many branch members entered Harland’s collar. Landon, Capello were such people, of the other two three-ringed magicians, Capeson was a friend of Lunqin and someone who had been recruited in the last few years, and only Bornova was a full-fledged lineage cultivated by the Harland Territory.
Now that it had grown and expanded, it had to have the breadth of mind to accept outsiders.
Even if some of these outsiders were nails planted by others, one should not choke on them and abandon them.
In addition to the Specialized Squadron, Richard also formed a bipedal flying dragon cavalry squad, with the squad leader appointed as a seventh-ranked warrior, Driffin.
Although the number of bipedal flying dragon cavalry squad was very small, with only four official members, the auxiliary soldiers who provided them with logistics already had half a squadron of soldiers.
Every Bipedal Flying Dragon Cavalryman was a mid-rank or above warrior, and the rank was too low to contract a Bipedal Flying Dragon at all.
Bipedal Flying Dragons were intelligent creatures, so the sub-dragon skin armor could not be used at all, and this squad, as well, could not get too close to the soldiers equipped with sub-dragon skin armor such as the 1st Squadron and Special Squadron.
In order to protect the Bipedal Flying Dragon, Richard and Wendy Nee after careful study, finally used secret silver, fine gold and other precious materials, teamed up to refine a fifth-order defensive armor for the Bipedal Flying Dragon to protect the Bipedal Flying Dragon and the cavalrymen on it.
After completing these tasks, the time had already reached the middle of August.
From the end of the Autumn Harvest Inspection, Richard spent a lot of his time making magic props, and alchemy items.
With the large amount of materials consumed, coupled with Wendy Nee’s guidance, Richard’s alchemy had skyrocketed during this time, advancing from the fourth rank to the fifth rank level.
After entering the month of August, a large number of magical props were refined and began to be equipped into the various units. For the next period of time, Richard worked with Wendy Nee to prepare for the production of the steel magic statues.
Magic statues were a type of refining creation, and during the Ancient Sorcerer Era, sorcerers had mastered a large number of magic statue refining methods, and were even able to refine legendary magic statues with artificial intelligence. Only the wizards were exceptionally cruel in making legendary magic statues, requiring the slaughter of a large number of intelligent creatures and refining soul crystals.
A floating city made by a legendary sorcerer would definitely have a legendary statue with artificial intelligence, as well as a special alchemy artifact tower spirit of legendary rank.
Grant Kingdom also had a magic statue refining heritage, and the royal family had mastered a flying magic statue refining method that required the use of a special super magic ore, which was considered a type of stone magic statue.
Restricted by the ore and other materials, the Grant royal family had only succeeded in refining eighty flying magic statues, which was already a very important heritage of the royal family.
Relying on the flying statue troop, the royal family unexpectedly suppressed the Hawkmen, and achieved the victory of the Dragon Canyon duel, expelling the orcs from the three northern provinces.
However, this was already a hundred and twenty years ago, and after this battle, the flying magic statue troops never appeared on the battlefield again, and according to some rumors, the flying magic statues consumed magic crystals very seriously.
The Grant royal family would not use it easily until it was crucial.
Harland collar controlled the floating city relics, Richard also mastered the ancient sorcerer’s text, and organized quite a few magic techniques from the relics, the manufacturing method of energy absorbing stone is one, the steel magic statue manufacturing method is another.
Only the Floating City has a long history, thousands of years of wind and sun, through the vicissitudes of the sea, leaving behind the technical information is very fragmented, sorted out the complete technology is only three kinds.
In addition to the energy absorbing stone and the steel statue, the last technology was even more important, and was the core technology of the Floating City, the manufacturing method of the Elemental Furnace.
Manufacturing an Elemental Furnace required the consumption of a large amount of magical materials, the first of which was the need to artificially create Elemental Hearts.
There were two types of Elemental Cores, one was a natural Elemental Core, which was almost exclusively generated in the four major Elemental Places.
The Ancient Sorcerer Era had all but destroyed the passageway between the Morning Glory Plane and the four major elemental planes, and now it was impossible to enter the four major elemental planes in search of elemental cores.
It was also possible to hunt legendary Elemental Lords to create artificial Elemental Cores.
Generally speaking to build a floating city, one would need to create at least four elemental hearts of earth, fire, wind and water in order for the floating city to absorb different elements and adapt to different environments.
To allow the floating city to lift off, not only did it need to have enough energy, but it also needed to create gravity wells, mega protective force fields, magic energy conversion centers, and so on, requiring the support of a well-developed magic civilization.
Even if Richard had the chance to create an elemental furnace, it would still be difficult to make the floating city fly into the sky.
To create a steel magic statue, it needed to use a large amount of blood steel, although blood steel was a relatively cheap super magic metal, but to refine a steel magic statue, it needed eighteen tons of blood steel.
The price of blood steel was very stable, the market price had been six silver coins a kilogram for many years, refining a steel magic statue would require nine thousand gold coins just to purchase blood steel.
Refining an iron and steel magic statue also required the use of secret silver and fine gold. Normally, a steel devil statue would need to use twenty kilograms of secret silver, one kilogram of secret silver is three hundred gold coins, twenty kilograms is a cost of six thousand.
A high level steel demon statue needs to be equipped with a fine weapon, which also needs to be fused with fine gold.
The price of fine gold was two thousand gold coins a kilogram, even incorporating two or three kilograms of fine gold was a large cost.
In addition, the steel magic statue also needed a high level magic core to act as the core, the market price of a high level magic core above the seventh order was around twelve thousand gold coins, plus the cost of high level magic potions, the refining cost was more than thirty-five thousand gold coins. This didn’t even count the cost of inviting a high level alchemist.
Counting Wendy Nee, there were only two High Alchemists in the Grant Kingdom, and wanting to invite a High Alchemist was not an easy task. Inviting a High Alchemist often required a large hidden fee.
Normally, refining a steel magic statue might cost forty thousand gold coins.
If it wasn’t for the fact that there were several iron mines in the Harland Territory, which had accumulated a large amount of blood steel over the years, as well as two dozen Higher Magic Cores, and that it was only necessary to pay out more than a hundred thousand gold coins to purchase a batch of secret silver and fine gold, Richard wouldn’t have been able to afford the cost of refining a Higher Magic Statue.
Because of the lack of soul crystals, the iron and steel magic statues do not have any intelligence, and need to be covertly manipulated by magicians when fighting.
Normally, a first ring magician could control a steel magic statue and play a major role.
In fact, Richard had mastered the technique of refining soul crystals from the relics of the Floating City, except that this technique required the slaughter of blood sacrifices of a large number of intelligent beings.
This kind of cruel technology did not fit with Richard’s three views, and Richard was not willing to use it easily. Even the magic library of Harland Territory did not include this technology, and the technical information was only hidden in Richard’s mind.
Anyway, there was no shortage of magicians in Harland’s Territory, and a magician could possess a steel statue through the power of spells, and manipulate the statue with his own spiritual power, and didn’t need to let the statue have a simple intelligence.
Using a magician to manipulate a magic statue, despite the shorter duration, was smarter than a lower intelligent magic statue, and could also be more useful in the battlefield.
Iron magical statues were very resistant to spells, and despite their slower speed and bulky size, they were incredibly effective in fighting on a frontal battlefield.
Dozens of steel magic statues launching a charge at the same time could easily break through a large group of infantry.
The only constraint on the combat power of the steel golem was actually the cost of refining it.
The cost on the materials alone would require 35,000 gold coins, and there was also the need to invite high level alchemists to do the job, which was also a large cost, and if it wasn’t for Wendy Nee joining the Harland Territory, Richard wouldn’t have been able to afford to pay the cost of inviting the high level alchemists.
Moreover, Richard was not willing to hand over the refining method of the Iron Demon Statue to outsiders easily.
Last year, Harland Collar had a balance of 600,000 gold coins, but participating in the Transnational Chamber of Commerce’s auction had consumed close to 300,000 funds. Harland Collar’s treasury still needed to leave 200,000 gold coins in reserve, and the remaining gold coins were not enough to purchase secret silver, fine gold and other precious materials.
Hunting and killing the bipedal flying dragon, the terrain dragon, despite obtaining more than a million gold coins, it was a pity that this resource was not exchanged for cash, but was turned into potions, weapons, and enchanted armor to strengthen the territory’s underpinnings.
In the end, after the summer grain was put into storage, a portion of the grain was sold before enough gold coins were gathered to purchase a batch of fine gold, secret silver.
Refining steel magic statues required proficiency in magic formations.
Many magicians are heavily biased, only mastering the spell model, not proficient in the principles of magic, magic array, in fact, among the Harland collar, the number of magicians who can do research is only about one fifth of the number of mages, counting the mage apprentices add up to sixty or seventy people.
Most of the magicians can only act as tools and screws in the magic civilization.
Harland collar mage association extreme importance of magic research, magic research atmosphere is far beyond other magic organization, normal magic organization, only three percent of the mage can do research, the rest are combat mages, magic tool man.
Richard, despite not being able to independently refine a high level magic statue, had a very solid foundation in magic, and was proficient in a variety of magic formations, and was able to help Wendy Nee quite a bit, playing a supporting role in the refining process.
In fact, several low-ranked alchemists could also help a little, such as smelting materials, making models, formulating magic potions, and so on.
There were many ancient wizard relics and fallen floating cities in the middle of the Morning Glory Plane, and the magicians even found quite a few magic statues left over from the past.
The Markholm Magic Kingdom and other southwestern coastal countries along with the Sacred Radiance Empire had mastered some of the magic statue refining methods and established magic statue armies.
Especially the Holy Radiance Empire’s silver magic statue army was well known in the Morning Glory Plane.
It was said that this kind of magic statue used several hundred kilograms of secret silver, and it cost more than a hundred thousand gold coins to refine one, and even the rich and powerful Holy Radiant Empire only possessed three hundred silver magic statues.
This statue army, like the Bipedal Flying Dragon Knights, is the ace troop of the Sacred Glory Empire, and is an important part of the national defense force.
Occasionally, there would be a high level magic statue that was eliminated from the silver magic statue legion, and this kind of high level magic statue with severe wear and tear was often sold for more than 200,000 gold coins, and once it appeared, it would cause the lords and noblemen to scramble and coax it.
After all, to the nobles, transcendent power was the basis for maintaining their rule.
A high magic statue could be used for many years and passed on to family descendants.
A normal steel statue is divided into six parts: head, body, arms and legs, and needs to be carved by hand by a beginner alchemist.
Harland collar has developed steel smelting and casting process, do not need to use manual method of production, this step takes a relatively short time and very easy, the next step is to draw a magic array on the body of the statue.
Richard and Wendy mainly do this part, the magic statue control, operation system is very complex, an arm to draw thousands of magic runes, these runes can not have the slightest error.
Once drawn incorrectly, the material could not be used, so drawing the runes needed to be carefully thought out and cautious.
Each rune also needed to be pre-stored with a different amount of magic power, and the process also needed to be carefully calculated and extraordinarily careful.
Richard teamed up with Wendy Nee and took half a month to successfully refine the first steel magic statue.
(End of Chapter)