my armed maid

Chapter 78 75: Energy Crisis

Time passes day by day, the village is rebuilt, production is restored, and the lives of the people in Linfeng City are returning to normal in an orderly manner.

As the general staff officer, Nolen is re-planning the army's armament to help Linfeng's army improve its combat effectiveness as soon as possible.

"It's time for the City Lord's Mansion to set up its own alchemy factory."

In the office, Nolen was telling his men, "Openly recruit alchemists and apprentices in the city. We need more manpower to make alchemy weapons for the army."

After the war, Linfeng City's army lost most of its combat power. Because of this, it was necessary to create more alchemical weapons to make up for the shortage of manpower.

For example, tanks equipped with new magic cannons are quite good strategic alchemy weapons. As long as they can be mass-produced, the combat effectiveness of the army can be strengthened in a short period of time to cope with various crises that may come at any time in the future.

He had already obtained the permission to set up an alchemy factory from the city lord Evelin. Perhaps this was why Evelin and Ryan hired him as their general staff.

The alchemical weapons he created always play a great role in war, and he has proven this with facts.

As the saying goes, don’t use doubters and never doubt others. Since she chose to believe in his abilities, Evelin would use the power of the city lord to support his plans and even reform the system.

"Lord Nolen, if you need to create a batch of new weapons, wouldn't it be enough to directly issue a commission to the Alchemy Society?"

Richard wondered, "Has the City Lord's Mansion always done this in the past, including during the war?"

He is an alchemist consultant hired by the City Lord's Palace. He is usually responsible for receiving commissions from the Alchemy Society on behalf of the City Lord's Palace. In terms of position, he is considered a subordinate of Nolen.

Of course, Nolen knew that the city lord's palace did not have its own alchemy team, just like how it used to maintain the city's defense magic cannon.

Whenever a problem arose, the government would always rely on temporary entrustment to the Alchemy Society to solve the problem.

"It's always been like this, right?"

Nolen raised his eyebrows and said, "From now on, Linfeng City will firmly pursue one policy——

"That is the "alchemy power". "

Of course, to be more precise, it should be "Alchemy Strong City". It doesn't matter if it's called more smoothly. Anyway, he doesn't need the subordinates in front of him to understand. He only needs to carry out his orders.

In fact, before the war began, Nolen discovered that because the development of contemporary alchemy was not very mature, Linfeng City, or the entire Roland Empire, did not pay special attention to talents such as alchemists.

They would rather hire extraordinary people to join the army with high salaries, but they are rarely willing to spend more money to recruit an alchemy team that will serve them regularly.

If something happens that has to rely on alchemists, just call them over temporarily. Are you afraid that those powerless scholars will disobey your orders?
  If you get paid for every day you work, why pay them a monthly salary and spend a lot of money to reimburse them for expensive experimental materials?

The superiors are not interested in waiting for some alchemical breakthroughs that alchemists can make by spending a lot of time, brain power and financial resources. Who can guarantee that these strange inventions will always be useful and can help them immediately?
  If you have extra financial resources, you might as well give more training resources to your extraordinary beings. This is the only way to truly strengthen your own power.

It is precisely due to the long-term influence of this short-sighted concept that alchemists have always been in the awkward position of being insufficient compared to the superiors and more than inferior to the inferiors in the Roland Empire.

Now, Nolen is going to change this concept.

He wants to use facts to prove that alchemists are not cheap goods that can come and go instantly. He can play a great role. A force must hold this precious talent resource in its hands.

Setting up an alchemy factory and recruiting alchemists and apprentices to work for him was the first step in his plan.

It is also important to give the alchemists a fixed organization to ensure that they regard completing the factory's commission as their first priority.

And it can also win people's hearts and increase their loyalty.

"It will probably be difficult to recruit them."

Richard said with some worry, "The Alchemy Guild manages the information and contact information of all alchemists in the city. If we want to recruit alchemists, we must cooperate with the society.

"But now is not a special period. The Society has no obligation to cooperate with our City Lord's Mansion. They may refuse to cooperate with us. After all... we are robbing them of people."

The Alchemy Society is in charge of local alchemist resources, and one of its profit points is to issue alchemy commissions to them and earn intermediary fees from them.

In layman's terms, they are a different kind of mercenary guild, except that the mercenaries under their command are alchemists.

In the past, the City Lord's Palace issued a commission to the Alchemy Society. The Alchemy Society could more or less make some profits from it, so it was naturally willing to cooperate.

But if the city lord decided to recruit alchemists on its own, it would be tantamount to competing with the Alchemy Society for people. It would be equivalent to disturbing their base, which would inevitably arouse their resentment.

Even if they are frightened by the prestige and force of the City Lord's Mansion and will not openly oppose it, they will definitely not actively cooperate. They may also contact the society headquarters to put pressure on the City Lord's Mansion in Linfeng City.

"All in all, this is the decision of the City Lord's Palace."

Nolen did not waver and insisted on giving the death order, "You can go to the city to recruit people. If the Alchemy Society refuses to cooperate, just come and tell me and I will help you solve all the problems."

"Yes, yes...sir." Richard wiped his sweat and went out.

As soon as he left, another person came to the office. Nolen recognized him. He was an officer in charge of logistics in the city.

"Master General Staff."

The officer handed him a stack of documents, "The military department has just counted the post-war supplies. This is the list."

"Let me see."

Nolen flipped through the document, then frowned at one of the pages.

"There are less than [-] Mel left of the orange-yellow quality magic crystal?"

Magic crystal can be cut, and its size is usually calculated based on the total amount of magic it contains, and the unit of measurement is "mel".

1 Mel's magic crystal contains the magic power required to cast a standard first-level spell.

The magic power consumed to cast a standard sixth-level spell is about 200 Mel.

At the same time, magic crystals of different qualities possess different amounts of magic power within the same volume.

For example, based on the volume of the magic source of Valkyrie's main backpack, if the orange-yellow magic crystal mainstream used in the army is put in, it will have a magic reserve of 240 mel, which is just enough to cast a sixth-level spell.

If it is a lower-quality dark green level, it will not reach the passing line of 200 mel, and it will not be possible to perform sixth-level spells.

And now the total amount of magic crystals in Linfeng City is only [-] Mel, which is only enough for the entire army to use thirty or so sixth-level spells.

Aren’t we almost running out of ammunition and food?

"Yes, sir." The officer replied, "Too many magic crystals were consumed in the war before. This is one of the strategic materials that our logistics department is preparing to replenish."

Originally, the city's magic crystal reserves were sufficient, but in the final battle, the five magic chariots used all their firepower to clear away the remaining combat power of the prairie people. The results were impressive but also led to a terrifying consumption of magic crystals. Magic crystal is processed from magic crystal ore, which is produced from magic crystal veins and is a relatively rare non-renewable resource.

There are no magic crystal veins around Linfeng City, so the replenishment of this resource depends entirely on external imports.

The largest magic crystal vein in the west of the Roland Empire is the Loki Magic Crystal vein located in "Flamel City". It is responsible for supplying magic crystal resources to many western cities in the empire, including Linfeng City.

Generally speaking, the orange-yellow quality magic crystals stored in Linfeng City are required to be kept at least 2 Mel.

These magic crystals are mainly used to maintain the operation of large-scale strategic city defense weapons, such as city defense magic cannons and barrier arrays on city walls.

2 mel is the magic reserve that is enough for a strategic-level magic weapon to cast 100 sixth-level spells. This is basically enough to determine the outcome of a war.

But this is only for ordinary cities.

If Linfeng City takes the route of "alchemy power" in the future, the demand for magic crystals will inevitably increase greatly in the future.

The mere 2w Mel's magic crystal storage may only be enough for them to fight a small-scale battle in the future.

Therefore, it is not only necessary to replenish magic crystals, but also to increase the permanent reserve of magic crystals in the city on a large scale.

"The Logistics Department must prioritize ensuring the supply of magic crystals."

Nolen quickly issued an order, "At the end of the year, the magic crystal order placed with Flamel City will be increased from 1 Mel to 3 Mel."

"This..." The logistics officer suspected that he heard wrongly.

After confirming that Nolen was right, he couldn't help but wonder, "Sir, if you place such a large order in one go, it may seriously affect the city's financial situation, and Flamel City may not agree."

The empire has regulations that stipulate that normal resource procurement between cities is protected by the empire, and Flamel City cannot refuse the magic crystal purchase order placed by Linfeng City.

Of course, this premise is that the purchase limit prescribed by the empire is not exceeded.

Once the standard line of 2 Mel magic crystal reserves per city is exceeded, Flamel City not only has the power to reject excess purchase requests, but is also allowed to increase the purchase price of each unit of magic crystal.

That is to say, if the purchase quantity exceeds the standard line, there is a possibility that they will charge an exorbitant price.

"It's okay, you go talk to them first."

Nolen said slowly, "To them, magic crystal is just a commodity. If you talk slowly, you can always negotiate."

In the Roland Empire, magic crystal is not a very precious material, at least not yet.

The magic component in the magic crystal contains impurities and is not pure, and cannot be directly absorbed by extraordinary beings. Therefore, its main function is to provide magic power to the magic device.

Due to the limitations of alchemy in this era, as long as there is no qualitative theoretical progress in the science of magic circles, the role of magic tools will always be limited.

Correspondingly, the magic crystal that can only power the magic guide is not so important.

Mining Loki veins and selling magic crystals are Flamel City's main source of income, and it is not enough to hide magic crystals as treasures.

"Yes, yes..." The logistics officer also wiped his sweat and went out.

After ordering these two things, Nolen leaned back in his chair, still frowning, thinking, and slowly tapping his fingertips on the table.

It is said that if you are not a family member, you do not know that firewood, rice, oil and salt are expensive. Now that you have become the General Staff Officer, you have discovered that there are still many difficulties that need to be solved urgently on the road to becoming a powerful country through alchemy.

Things like recruiting alchemists are trivial matters. If Linfeng City's future energy problem is not solved, there will be no way to become a powerful alchemical nation.

Therefore, the top priority is to reach a long-term cooperation with Flamel City and find opportunities to complete the self-sufficiency of magic sources.

"Flamel City..."

Reciting its name silently in his mind, Nolen quickly recalled information about the city.

Flamel City, also known as the "Alchemy City", is located on the other side of the Linfeng Mountains, not too far away from Linfeng City.

As the nickname "Alchemy City" says, the headquarters of the Alchemy Society is located there. It is also the city with the largest concentration of alchemists in the Roland Empire and the place where alchemy is the most developed.

The name "Flamel" comes from the legendary alchemist Edward Flamel hundreds of years ago. He is considered the founder of alchemy and single-handedly laid the theoretical foundation of alchemy. .

He was the first to propose the concept of "magic guide", draw the first high-level magic circle, formulate "mel" as the unit of measurement for magic crystals, and produce the first bottle that can improve the cultivation qualifications of ordinary people. The alchemical potion...

His achievements in the history of alchemy are numerous.

This city is the hometown of Flamel, and in memory of him, the city is named after it.

And it is this alchemy city that happens to have the largest magic crystal vein in the empire, the "Loki Magic Crystal Mine". Perhaps it is also inevitable by accident.

The first batch of alchemists born there at that time may have relied on studying how to use these magical ores to create the magic rune system, and invented the magic rune system driven by magic crystals and with the magic circle as the core. Magical device.

Because of their worship of Flamel, a large number of alchemists gathered there, and the academic atmosphere was quite strong.

It is said that the status and treatment of the alchemists living there are the highest among all cities in the empire.

It can be said that Flamel City is the holy city in the hearts of all imperial alchemists.

"It's really interesting..." Nolen raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

As an alchemist, this city naturally piqued his interest.

If he had the chance, he really wanted to go there and have a look. He didn't know how many surprises the alchemists there and the most advanced alchemy in the empire could bring to him?

It is also a city that attaches great importance to the cultivation of alchemists. It is hoped that using alchemy as an opportunity, Linfeng City and Flamel City can become the best allies and form a long-term friendship with each other.

With this expectation, Nolen waited for a few more days, and then received two bad news one after another.

The first bad news is: Fast, the president of the Alchemy Society of Linfeng City, rejected his request to hire a large number of long-term alchemists.

He believed that this was inconsistent with the empire's tradition of entrusting alchemists. The city lord's palace in Linfeng City was suspected of squeezing alchemists and forcing them to work for them.

If the city government enforces this policy, the Society does not rule out the possibility of reporting to the Flamel City headquarters and complaining to the Imperial Capital about its violations.

The second piece of bad news is: Flamel City rejected Linfeng City's large order to import 4 Mel magic crystals.

　Thanks to Original Attack Jiegang and Xianghequ for the tip

　　
  　
  (End of this chapter)