In Mist Territory, in the Kerosene City, bursts of thunder-like explosions continued to echo on the training ground.

More than a dozen imperial soldiers lined up in a long row, pulling the triggers awkwardly. Lead bullets flew out from the flaming muzzles and hit the target fifty meters away. A big hole was instantly pierced through the sturdy armor, and the wooden block behind was also smashed to pieces.

"Nice power! No wonder the imperial expeditionary force led by Edwill suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of these people." Joshua spoke in a low voice as he looked at the muskets in the hands of these soldiers.

"Have you shown it to the craftsmen? Is there any way to imitate it?" Lucia said with interest.

"It's not a problem to copy the other parts of this kind of weapon, but this steel pipe is very special." Joshua took a musket, and with a flick of his wrist, he used magic to dismember it, leaving only the barrel.

Lucia reached out to take it, and examined it carefully for a while, but did not find anything wrong. It was just an ordinary steel object, with no traces of magic or divine arts.

"It has no cracks and no traces of joints!" Joshua reminded softly.

Lucia paused for a moment before she came to her senses.

If ordinary craftsmen want to turn iron ore into hard steel, they must use high temperatures to melt it and then hammer it through repeated processes.

The steel pipe in front of him is one meter long, but its diameter is only a few dozen millimeters. It looks like a whole, and there is even a threaded structure inside. It is indeed very magical.

"Could it be that magic was used?" Cardinal Silide on the side reminded.

"Not likely!" Lucia shook her head.

Only great wizards have the ability to manipulate metal elements. Although there is no problem in making such a steel pipe, as far as she knows, there are only thirty great wizards in the entire parliament, and there are tens of thousands of musketeers. How long will it take for dozens of great wizards to make it? They don't have to do anything else every day, just rubbing the steel pipe. Just think about it and you know it's impossible. It's really a waste of talent...

Lucia thought about it for a while and felt that there were two feasible solutions.

For example, find an extremely hard substance, place it in the middle of molten iron, and then forge it, or prepare a mold and pour the molten iron into it.

After Lucia finished speaking, Joshua tactfully told her that similar methods had been tried by those craftsmen! As a result, the steel pipes produced were not up to standard at all. When they were reinstalled on the muskets, the accuracy would become very poor. One of the muskets even exploded directly.

Lucia was quite surprised. It seemed that the wizards had really made something interesting. "What about the captured personnel? Don't they know about it?"

In addition to seizing a large number of muskets in this battle, hundreds of musketeers were also captured. The method of using the musket was also searched out from the minds of these people.

"They were all poor people who worked the land and fished before. They only knew how to use it, but they had no idea how to make this kind of weapon."

Joshua paused for a moment, then continued, "These people have been corrupted by the evil spirits. Unless we use coercive means, we won't be able to get any information out of them..."

"Are there no exceptions?" Lucia raised her eyebrows. Logically speaking, there should always be a few spineless people among these hundreds of people.

"No exceptions!" Joshua said solemnly.

These musketeers were previously a group of poor people who suffered from hunger and cold, and most of them had families. Joining the Musketeers could only be described as a step towards success!

The price offered by the parliament was very high. As long as one joined the Musketeers, one could get fifteen to twenty silver coins every month and live a life of eating meat every meal.

If they died on the battlefield, they would receive a generous pension, and their families would be properly taken care of and arranged to work in workshops.

This treatment is higher than that of the most elite guards in the empire, and is almost catching up with the God's Punishment Army, so most of the musketeers are in a state of fanaticism similar to faith, and their hearts are corrupted by money.

It can only be said that those wizards spent a lot of money to deal with the empire's attack.

While the two men were talking, the imperial soldiers demonstrating the muskets loaded the bullets with great difficulty and fired another round of volleys, smashing the target in front of them directly.

"It takes more than a minute to load the bullets. In my opinion, the weapons of these wizards are just so-so... not as useful as an archer on the battlefield." Seeing that the two adults were so concerned about this evil creation called a musket, Silide could not help but speak out.

As a conservative bishop, Silide has always been extremely wary of these witchcraft weapons. According to the church's constitution, the most important thing to do is to destroy them once they are discovered.

Moreover, it takes more than a minute to fire one bullet. This shortcoming is fatal. If the shot misses, the attacker will have no ability to resist afterwards.

Sirid believed that even if he encountered a whole team of musketeers, he had a hundred ways to kill them or even play with them in his hands.

Joshua was naturally well aware of the shortcomings of this thing, but this still could not cover up the advantages of the musket. "Do you know how long it takes to train a qualified imperial archer?"

"About... half a year?" Silide said hesitantly.

"Three to five years!" Joshua corrected. "The requirements for personnel are also very strict, and they need to be selected from strong and healthy soldiers."

"And it only took them two or three hours to learn how to operate the muskets!" Joshua pointed to the imperial soldiers who were testing their weapons.

The most important thing is that the musket has a strong armor-piercing ability, which is unmatched by bows and crossbows.

In previous battles, a knight in fine armor could charge and kill at will on the battlefield, and a few stray arrows would not be able to penetrate his defense.

The situation is different now. I am afraid that a shot from a musket will kill him! This improvement is undoubtedly terrifying!

That is to say, those wizards only need to grab a poor person from the street and train him for a few hours, and then they can kill a knight who has practiced his skills for decades on the battlefield! "According to the reports of several knights of the God's Punishment Army, the wizards have loaded a special musket on a running iron box, which can fire dozens of projectiles in one second. Even a bishop will be torn to pieces on the spot." Joshua said solemnly.

Apparently the wizards had found a way to overcome the shortcomings of the musket, but they simply hadn't put it into service on a large scale.

(PS: The second chapter will be around 2 or 3 o'clock. I have a lot of work to do this week, so it's a little unstable. Please forgive me.) (End of this chapter)