The northeastern coast of White Sturgeon Island.

Rosen lolled on an undeveloped white-sand beach with a large, cold box of bitter ale beside him.

Bitter winter wheat is something that tastes terrible, but when used to make wine, it has a unique flavor that is unforgettable, especially when it is chilled, it is an excellent summer drink.

Rosen was holding a large glass of beer, accompanied by special side dishes such as smoked dried fish, fried beans, etc., feeling the moist and cool sea breeze, enjoying the beach and the blue sea, feeling very comfortable.

But he certainly wasn't here to enjoy himself.

Above the sea in front of him, two banshees were performing various difficult flying maneuvers.

Sometimes they dive at high speed, sometimes they turn at a large angle, and sometimes they climb at a large angle, showing extremely superb flying skills.

While the two women were concentrating on flying, Rosen carefully collected the two women's magic power fluctuations, the air flow fluctuations around them, and their sophisticated wind control techniques.

In short, he would collect all the data related to flying and transmit it to Lai Fu for training in flying skills of other world.

Of course, for a mechanical and tedious task like collecting data, as long as the parameters are set in advance, the rest can be left to Lai Fu.

Rosen's attention was actually on the Crescent Castle more than 30 kilometers away.

He was checking the intelligence from various sources collected by the Island Intelligence Bureau through the eyes of Puppet No. 2.

The first piece of key intelligence.

'Aaron supports Dawn City with a large number of weapons and equipment, including a batch of large-caliber rune artillery and various new types of individual flame staffs.'

'The Storm Fleet is urgently renovating its warships and training artillery mages. It is estimated that it will be able to form combat effectiveness in three months.'

The intelligence also specifically marked the parameters of the two new weapons.

'Rune Cannon, caliber 15 cm, maximum range 2.5 km, uses fragmentation bombs, and can complete a round of reloading in 10 minutes. The total number of aid exceeds 500.'

This is stronger than the strongest artillery currently on the island, and there are quite a lot of them.

'A single-soldier flaming staff, charged with flames, capable of releasing a chain of fireballs, with a maximum range of at least 300 meters and a quantity of at least 10,000.'

The performance is slightly worse than the Lightning Crossbow, but it is easier to charge and the quantity is also very large! And this is the support squeezed out from the gap under the dual pressure of Kao and the Glorious Empire.

This shows Aaron's enormous ability in creating magical objects.

Rosen secretly sighed: "What a huge creature."

If Aaron had not been a burden and fully supported Duke Chenxi, Rosen would not have dared to do this.

Look at the Rune Cannon again.

If it can form combat effectiveness in three months, even if it is equipped in a sailing ship, it will be enough to pose a certain threat to the Black Stone warship.

Of course, the Black Stone battleship can rely on its huge speed and maneuverability advantages to make most of the opponent's attacks fail.

But the enemy has a large number of warships and a considerable number of artillery pieces, so if they really use their fists, it is still possible to hit the warships.

Rosen sighed again: "As long as the gap in weapons generation is not big enough, scale can make up for quality."

What the White Sturgeon Island currently lacks most is scale, while the opponent’s greatest advantage is scale.

He continued to read the second piece of information, which was a war report from the North and the South.

"The Southern Coalition is gathering, the main force is the Dawn Legion, totaling 30,000. The fifteen counties have an average of 5,000 legions, and the combined military strength exceeds 100,000."

"At the current rate, the army will be ready to march north in three months."

"One hundred thousand troops, that's a lot."

The army was reorganized in three months and was obviously waiting for the navy to realize a joint attack by land and sea.

Also three months later, the second batch of warships from the White Sturgeon Island were launched. Although the dock was expanded with all efforts, only eight ships could be launched, for a total of 13 ships.

The number is still too small. If a naval artillery battle really occurs, there will probably be casualties.

The Northern County was of course also forming a coalition, and Rosen had detailed data on hand.

"The ten northern counties each sent out an average of 7,000 soldiers."

'In addition to traditional weapons, there are a total of 5,000 lightning crossbows of various types. There are 600 two-wheeled small-caliber rune cannons pulled by horses, and 3,000 shells.'

Naturally, all the new weapons were provided by the White Sturgeon Island, and they were also the basis for the Northern Army Earl to dare to fight against the Southern Coalition Forces.

But these weapons have already been provided by the White Sturgeon Island with great effort.

One reason is that the magic factory's assembly line is not yet complete, and there are too few skilled mages and workers.

Second, because the entire industrial chain is incomplete, the final production capacity will always be limited by one intermediate material or another.

With the opening of new routes, the situation will be greatly alleviated, but for the time being, we cannot compete with Aaron in terms of production capacity.

Comparing the data between the two sides and looking at Weilan's topographic map, Rosen fixed his eyes on the location where the southern and northern legions first exchanged fire.

"Well, if a war really breaks out, Shire County will be the first to become a battlefield."

The terrain of Veran is high in the northwest and low in the southeast. The transition point between the mountains and the plains is the Shire.

If the Southern Allied Forces captured Shire County and controlled the outlet of the Broken Gold River, it would be equivalent to strangling the throat of the Northern Alliance.

Not only would it cut off the main trade routes between Northern County and the outside world, it could also rely on them to move northward step by step and drive the entire Northern County into the sea.

The Northern County certainly understood this, so they had to kill Charles.

"If a war breaks out between the north and the south, the most crucial battle will probably take place in the Dragon's Song Valley in the south of Shire County."

Rosen had once been to Longyin Valley and made a detailed record of the valley's topography, which was now stored in Lai Fu's database.

He brought up the terrain, observed it carefully, and came to a conclusion.

"If a war breaks out here, it will definitely be an extremely brutal battle. With the current weapons and equipment of both sides, I'm afraid that tens of thousands of casualties will be inflicted on the first day."

"If this battle ends like this, Weilan will be seriously injured, so we must not fight."

How to stop it?

Rosen has three trump cards ready.

One of them is already prepared, and it's just a matter of time before it's played.

The other two are still trying to come together, but three months is enough.

"Clatter~~Clatter~~"

The girls were tired of flying and their magic power was almost exhausted. They flapped their wings and slowly landed beside Rosen, regaining their human form.

It was Neferoniya and Laertris, mother and daughter.

In order to fly better, the two women did not wear any clothes, and after they regained their human form, they were too lazy to put on any clothes.

Anyway, it's summer now, and this is an empty beach. Apart from Rosen, the true king of the banshees, there are no other men present.

The two girls walked up to Rosen, who had already filled two glasses of iced beer: "Girls, you've worked hard~~"

'Putong~Putong~'

The two women sat on the beach next to Rosen, one on the left and one on the right. The crystal fine sand was stuck to their body sweat and evenly adhered to their plump and crystal white jade skin, just like glutinous rice balls with white sesame seeds.

"Rosen, we've been flying every day for almost three months. Do you understand?"

Neferoniya took a big sip of beer, breathed a sigh of satisfaction, then picked up the dried fish and ate it.

Rosen smiled and said, "The girls' flying skills are too exquisite, and their control of the wind is simply flawless. Of course, I am a slow learner."

Ever since he brought Neferoniya back to Sturgeon Island, he has let the two women fly for more than an hour every day for nearly three months, and has collected a huge amount of flight data.

Lai Fu's flying-related abilities have been trained to an extremely high level.

Naturally, his mastery of wind magic has reached a near-perfect level.

She might be a little worse than Neferoniya, but she is much stronger than Laertris.

After Laertris drank the beer in one gulp, she snuggled into Rosen's arms and drew circles on his chest with her fingers.

"Rosen, are you sure you can really create a flying magic weapon?"

"Of course, I already have a very mature idea, and the two ladies have taught me so much. Lily, stop making trouble."

Pushing aside Laltris's hand that was reaching down, he grabbed a handful of white sand and used Transfiguration to transform it into the shape of a fixed-wing aircraft.

Of course, it was not a jet plane or a propeller plane, but a rune plane that directly controlled the strong wind.

"I plan to design the flying device so that it can carry two people. One person will be responsible for flying, and the other will operate the weapon."

"It looks weird. It should be able to fly, but it must be very clumsy."

Neferoniya used her pearly toes to fiddle with Rosen's calves, and even tried to pluck her leg hair, causing Rosen to dodge continuously. When he couldn't dodge anymore, he simply clamped her feet tightly.

"It's indeed not flexible, but because of its fixed shape, it can reach a very high speed."

"Because there are high-strength transparent materials outside, including the wizard's cabin, it can also fly very high without worrying about the impact of high-speed violent airflow."

"Finally, I added a combustion chamber that burns a special fuel. It can convert a large amount of fire power into gale power through a conversion array, thereby greatly increasing endurance."

This final step requires great skill in transforming and controlling the strong winds.

It was an ability that Rosen did not have before, but now, he has it.

Neferoniya still didn't quite understand: "It takes a very long time to control the wind. You built the Rune Plane, so I'm afraid it will take a long time to practice before you have a mage who can control it skillfully, right?"

Rosen smiled and said, "Not really. Any intermediate wizard can control it. If any sister is willing to drive it, I would welcome it."

As he said this, he quickly reminded Laertris in front of him: "Don't get the sand in there, it will hurt."

One time I accidentally got it in there and it made me feel uncomfortable for a while.

Laltris giggled, condensed a pure water spell to carefully wash away the sand stuck on her body, and then questioned.

"Rosen, flying is difficult. The faster you fly, the harder it is."

Rosen nodded in agreement: "It is indeed difficult. Hmm~"

However, Laertris blocked his mouth, so he used group whispering to his mind instead.

"But I am also proficient in puppetry. I will create a flying puppet to assist the mage in completing most flight control actions."

"Flying puppet? What a great idea!"

Neferoniya was immediately very curious, and seeing her daughter pestering Rosen, she couldn't help but scold her.

"Lily~ take the bun out of Rosen's mouth and make him talk properly!"

"Okay, Mom." Laertris did as she was told with a look of grievance on her face.

Neferoniya said: "Puppetry is an ancestral skill of the Iron Dragon Clan, so your puppetry must be very powerful."

Rosen smiled and said, "If Niya wants to learn, I can teach you."

Neferoniya's eyes lit up: "Of course I want to learn it, but I heard that puppetry consumes a lot of mana. If I create a flying puppet, wouldn't that increase the mana consumption?"

This goes against the original intention of saving mana.

Rosen nodded: "It will increase a little, but not much. In addition, I have built two flying instruments in total."

"One with a flying puppet, for powerful mages to use. The advantage is that it is easy to control, can perform various difficult flying movements, and has a high maximum speed."

"The other one doesn't have it, and the power source is changed to a propeller similar to the Blackstone warship. The top speed is much slower, and the flight is clumsy. The advantage is that it does not require much mana, and low-level mages can control it for a long time."

The first one is a magical aircraft unique to the alien world, which is considered an advanced second-generation aircraft.

The second type is a fixed-wing propeller aircraft that is very close to the earth and is the basic generation aircraft.

In terms of aerial combat capabilities, the former naturally crushes the latter.

"This magical weapon should be difficult to make, right? And it must be very expensive, right?"

Neferoniya has recently been studying the knowledge of the human race on land at the magic center. She has studied very seriously and has already understood considerations such as cost and manufacturing difficulty.

Rosen shook his head: "It depends on the situation. Those who know the trick of flying can fly no matter how they build it. Those who don't know the trick will fall to the ground no matter how they build it."

"Just like when the Banshees first learned to fly."

This involves the precise control of aerodynamics and wind power, which is a huge threshold.

Rosen didn't know how to do it before, but now he has learned it from the two Banshee Queens.

Because the threshold is so huge and the three major kingdoms of the Witt Continent have not heard of related research for the time being, once he builds the aircraft, he will be able to maintain his equipment lead for a long time.

"As for the cost, it's not that high, far less than the Black Stone Battleship. After all, the size of a flying instrument is much smaller than a battleship, and it consumes much less materials."

Neferoniya understood and nodded in agreement.

"You're right. Children have to fall dozens or even hundreds of times before they can learn to fly. But once they learn, they will never forget it and will never fall again."

Seeing that her daughter kept pestering Rosen, she also felt like she was getting mad, but there was only one spot, so she could only wait there.

Rosen naturally felt it, laughed, and performed the transformation spell.

There was a sudden thunder on the beach, which lasted for more than half an hour before it stopped.

Why only half an hour? Because Rosen had switched to a high-speed heavy gun with a larger caliber and faster firing rate, and the artillery fire became even more intense.

By the time everything calmed down, it was already past three in the afternoon.

There is still some time, so Rosen plans to go to the Aircraft Research Bureau hidden in the mountains.

The absolute power of an airplane is actually very limited if it is not accompanied by powerful weapons, but it can have a huge psychological deterrent effect on ground troops.

Because in this era, airplanes are assassins that come and go freely and can easily carry out decapitation strikes!

Therefore, once the island builds rune planes, it doesn't take many, just a small team, to gain a huge strategic advantage.

This is his second trump card to stop the war.

However, there were no relevant talents on the island, so even though Rosen had the idea of ​​building an airplane very early and had secretly established a research bureau very early, the investment was not high, and for a long time he was only making progress day by day.

But after more than half a year of hard work, we have achieved a lot of results.

Currently, he also serves as the director of the Aircraft Research Bureau, and has about 100 refiners and 200 manufacturing craftsmen in various fields under him.

This group of people can utilize the existing resources on the island and cooperate with Rosen to turn his ideas into actual products as quickly as possible.

I thought I would be able to be busy for a while after arriving at the research bureau, but as soon as I arrived at the secret cave in the mountains, I received a coded intelligence.

The message was forwarded to Rosen's lightning bracelet through a secret channel by the Island Intelligence Bureau. Only Rosen knew how to decrypt the message. The message read: "Are you the Baron of Sturgeon Island?"

When Rosen saw the secret message, he sighed inwardly, "Ah~ As expected, once you show up, you can't hide your identity."

(End of this chapter)