The Lord Of Blood Hill

Chapter 548: The Steam Engine Appears

The Heart-Piercing Lotus is extremely useful as a weapon, but the same problem remains: it costs too much.It can only serve as a temporary combat tool. It cannot be issued on a large scale.

Compared with the currently usable Level Two and Level Three Heart-Piercing Lotuses, Henwell actually cares more about the lowest-grade Level One Heart-Piercing Lotus.

It costs only a little over one thousand gold coins. As long as the spearhead uses extraordinary alloy, wires made from extraordinary alloy can activate the Heart-Piercing Lotus's armor-piercing effect.

In Henwell's plan, he will purchase several thousand of them and equip the First Cavalry Legion with them.

During a frontal charge, they will directly tear open the enemy knight order's protection and inflict a devastating blow.

Several million gold coins exchanged for the destruction of one knight order is a profitable deal no matter how one looks at it.

But there is one problem now: the Heart-Piercing Lotus is essentially an extraordinary item.

That means it must be activated by professionals.

In that case, it becomes awkward for Henwell.

If he had that many extraordinary knights and could form a knight order with them, why would he need to think about such crooked methods?

It is precisely because he does not have a knight order, and because he will need a countermeasure against enemy knight orders in the future, that he has to consider this.

His field legions can indeed block a knight order's charge, but only block it.

Against such a high-end mobile combat force, Henwell cannot be satisfied with merely blocking. He needs equivalent deterrence.

Otherwise, passively taking hits will lead to failure in both campaign and strategic terms. That is clearly unacceptable.

As for forming his own knight order, that is definitely necessary.

But the knight orders formed by various countries all require elites to be drawn from many sides, and they cannot be built in a short time.

The establishment of a knight order is often measured in decades.

Henwell does not have that much time, so he can only take another route.

The Heart-Piercing Lotus gives Henwell a very good option.

The current difficulty is the extraordinary activation of the Heart-Piercing Lotus. Most members of his Cavalry Legion are not at knight level.

Therefore, Henwell needs the Technical Research Institute to create a Heart-Piercing Lotus that can be activated without a knight's Fighting Spirit.

In fact, Gallagher, Peace Haven's spellcasting adviser and an Arcanist, has already proposed a method.

That method is to borrow rune effects and use blood energy to trigger the Heart-Piercing Lotus's extraordinary properties.

But the problem comes back around. It is still a matter of cost.

Do not underestimate a single small blood-energy activation rune. Its price exceeds seven hundred gold coins.

That does not even include the cost of the work of imprinting it onto the Heart-Piercing Lotus, which only spellcasters can do.

Peace Haven does not have that many spellcasters. It can only obtain them from the Western Federation.

In that case, the cost of the Heart-Piercing Lotus will double, and the Western Federation will notice the weapon as well.

When the Heart-Piercing Lotus is used on the battlefield, surprise is essential.

No matter who the opponent is in the future, Henwell needs to annihilate an entire enemy knight order with overwhelming momentum.

That is something that has almost never appeared in continental warfare.

Knights are professionals. They are the reserve nobility at the base level of every continental power, and some of them are already nobles themselves.

Thousands upon thousands of noble professionals dying in one battle, in one charge, would create an impact like a nuclear bomb from his past life.

For a period of time afterward, every knight order would have to avoid his Cavalry Legion.

Even if his cavalry were only carrying ordinary wooden poles, that would still be enough to make them fearful.

So the war-mode Heart-Piercing Lotus must appear suddenly, and it must produce a savage battle result.

Henwell can be certain that when the time comes, it will change the outcome of a campaign, or even an entire war.

Henwell is willing to spend money.

But he lacks people, and he lacks the craftsmanship for large-scale production.

This thing must be controlled in his own hands. Otherwise, it is only a one-time tool.

Once the rune imprinting channel is cut off, that will mean his Cavalry Legion loses the ability to strangle knight orders.

At present, the Technical Research Institute already has several research directions.

What comes next is a massive investment of manpower and resources.

Henwell even raises this project to the first tier, placing it in the same sequence as explosives, extraordinary alloy, and extraordinary potions.

However, Henwell also knows this matter cannot be rushed. It requires gradual accumulation through experiments.

But Henwell must show enough importance so the people below him understand how important it is.

The steam engine has now produced quite a few improved models. Henwell selects several of the most efficient and prepares to begin using them in several key projects across the territory.

Mining, metallurgy, forging, and construction supervision will receive priority allocation.

The steam engine named Blood Hill Type I is terrifyingly expensive.

A single unit costs nearly one hundred thousand gold coins, mainly because of the materials.

Extraordinary alloy and extraordinary materials make up a very large proportion of it. From the outside, one might think the entire thing is forged from extraordinary alloy.

Henwell wants to send that exact signal to the outside world: his steam engine is very useful, but its cost is too high.

He needs outsiders to understand the steam engine as an extraordinary device.

In that case, every side will only curse him for having too much money and nowhere to spend it, instead of realizing that this thing has the ability to change the world.

Those who can realize the value of the steam engine are all front-line producers and operators, but they are not the ones in power.

Those who do not control production can only accept technological reform after it arrives.

The reason Henwell brings out the steam engine now is to let the engineers begin adapting to it and relying on it ahead of time.

At the same time, it can gradually be improved through application.

By the time Henwell truly begins popularizing it, it will already be a very mature steam engine.

Even if his opponents start imitating it then, they will encounter enormous technical barriers.

At that point, the steam engine's parts and structure will be quite complex, and its manufacturing process will have risen to a very high level.

Peace Haven will remain ahead the entire time, and the others will find it difficult even to catch up.

The current steam power is not necessarily easier to use than large amounts of human labor, but its advantage is stable output.

That alone can bring enormous change to several industries. It is foreseeable that in the near future, those industries will improve greatly.

Only after that will Henwell gradually popularize it in other fields.

Unfortunately, this world's laws impose restrictions. Henwell cannot create stable electricity, at least not with his current research level and extraordinary understanding.

Otherwise, Henwell would have been using light bulbs long ago. He would not still have to use oil lamps now.

After Henwell passes his twenty-fifth birthday, he receives a piece of good news.

He is about to become a father.

After Melissa becomes pregnant, Peace Haven sends gifts, and so does everyone connected to Henwell.

Grace, the Duchess of Phoenix, even brings her youngest daughter and moves directly into Blood Hill Castle to take care of Melissa.