Chapter 691 — The Nodes of Survival

Those neat, crisp, and handsome dark blue cloth training uniforms had only recently been issued. Ordinary cloth could not provide the battlefield protection of enchanted metal, but the imperial insignia on the training uniforms and the sheer "uniformity" of so many identical garments were enough to give the soldiers a certain encouragement on the drill ground. And even setting those two points aside, for conscripts mostly from impoverished peasant households, being able to obtain a sturdy, handsome new set of clothes by joining the army was itself already a tremendous blessing—one had to remember that under normal circumstances, a poor peasant household might go an entire year without a new set of clothes.

Ma Qi had heard Philip say that these uniforms were quite cheap to produce; part of the cloth used to make them came from textile mills in the Southern March, and another part from Typhon. Driven by industrial production, cloth and its products, once so expensive, had long since become cheap, and within two years more textile mills and garment factories would open all across the Eastern March—for the Eastern March had vast stretches of cotton fields—and cheap ready-made clothing would soon become something everyone on this land could possess, just as had already happened in the Southern March.

"At least these recruits have acquired a certain 'bearing' now," Ma Qi said to the man beside him after passing the training ground. "This way, when they stand on the city walls they look like soldiers, not a bunch of farmers who have just swapped pitchforks for blades and guns."

"The new training manual really can give recruits a grasp of basic discipline in the shortest time, but bearing is still just bearing—whether it can frighten the Typhonites is another matter," the adjutant said beside him. "The earlier 'troop reinforcement' operation did produce some effect, but it may also have aroused the Typhonites' suspicion. Recently they have been sending spies frequently, operating around the fortress—it seems they want to probe further."

"No matter. Our plan has more than one link to it..."

Ma Qi shook his head with a smile, left the training ground with his trusted aide, and returned to a private room in the castle. After dismissing everyone but the adjutant, he switched on the arcane terminal reserved for his own use...

...

Xuan Yao City, the Mechanical Manufactory, on the central platform jokingly called the "Mechanical Throne," the round, roly-poly Chief Egg Nikxi floated at the center of his domain, manipulating a great mass of parts drifting around him, merrily assembling the structures required by the various blueprints. The sounds of all kinds of machine tools and arcane devices in operation surrounded him; what to ordinary ears was near noise sounded to him like music of some graceful rhythm, putting the sphere in excellent spirits.

The mechanical scholars and arcane technicians in the Manufactory had lately talked most often of the founding of the Empire and that impressive coronation ceremony, and the passersby in the city all discussed the recent market changes and the news on the broadcasts; but Chief Egg Nikxi plainly still had less interest in such matters than in machines and metal. He was more enamored of the new blueprints concerning flying craft that Minister Rebecca had recently sent him, and of the construction plan for the second armored train, "Iron Throne—Jörmungandr." To him, there was truly nothing more interesting than dealing with metal and machines.

But an unexpected communication interrupted his pleasant work plan for the day. A mechanical scholar in work uniform hurried to the Mechanical Throne and shouted loudly: "Director! Your arcane-net communication! From Longwind Fortress!!"

Chief Egg Nikxi grumbled a few words in some vexation; the metal parts floating around him slowly settled to the ground, and as he drifted down from the round platform, he instructed his assistant beside him: "Don't touch anything here. I'll be back to continue."

Leaving the bustling workshop, Chief Egg Nikxi came to the quiet communications room. The arcane-net terminal glimmered faintly at the center of the room, and the figure of Longwind Fortress Commander Ma Qi was surfacing on the holographic projection.

Seeing this commander who had been hounding him about his order, the Iron Sphere took the initiative to greet him: "Oh, Ma Qi, the Iron Throne is already repaired, but it must wait until the railway is laid before it can roll to your side."

"I know. I'm not here to hurry you about the Iron Throne," the fortress commander in the holographic projection said with a smile. "I'm here to place a new order with you."

"An order?" The massive metal sphere bobbed in midair. "What order?"

"An order for a batch of magitech armor and combat packs, along with matching meltcutter swords and magitech terminals. Delivery within five days."

"Oh, that doesn't sound like much trouble. How many do you need?"

"Seven or eight thousand sets, maybe. If possible, ten or twenty thousand wouldn't be out of the—"

Niguxi Dan's whole body shuddered, nearly dropping to the ground on the spot: "Mother of—this sphere could just do a vertical takeoff and drop right on your skull, you know! You got bored staring at the Typhons and decided to come mess with this ball, huh?!"

"I wasn't finished," Ma Qi hurriedly cut in. "I want them 'custom-made.'"

"Custom-made? Custom how?"

"From what I know, the most complicated and time-consuming steps in making magitech armor and its matching magitech armaments should be inscribing the runes and setting the crystals. That's correct, isn't it?"

"Hmm... more or less," Niguxi Dan said, calming down from his earlier fit of horror. Realizing that the fortress commander across from him was not joking, he too began to think it over seriously. "There's also the adjustment and testing of the calibration structure. And for magitech terminals, assembling the internal movable mechanical structures is another time-consuming step—that part is still done by hand."

"Then what if you only make the shells? No runes, no crystal settings, no internal mechanical structures at all..."

"Then it's just stamped metal plate!"

Ma Qi, a smile on his face, nodded vigorously. "It can even be simpler than that. Pressed sheet iron in one piece would do. Factory seconds with flaws that are due to be melted down would do. Even if the quality is so bad it can only be held together with wire, I'll take it."

"...What are you up to?" Niguxi Dan asked, utterly baffled—though the face on his surface remained as comical as ever. "Wait, has your superior approved this order?"

"I've already submitted the application up the chain. You should receive word before this evening. As for what I'm up to..." Ma Qi smiled faintly. "I intend to hold the mighty pass with a host of thousands upon thousands of troops..."