Chapter 152 — The Shooting Test
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
But no matter what, it seemed the fighting methods of the Cecil combat corps were truly about to be turned upside down; he just did not know whether the two knights, Byron and Philip, could adapt quickly to such a change...
Yet a weapon could not be made practical on prototype validation alone—especially something like the thermal ray gun, which was utterly new even to Gao Yang; he had merely succeeded in firing the first shot, and to guarantee it could perform reliably on the battlefield, it would need far more than one shot.
Gao Yang put away the prototype armguard and looked at those present: "It needs more testing. We start first thing tomorrow morning, at the proving ground northeast of here."
The proving ground to the northeast was the great stretch of wasteland near the riverbank; ever since Rebecca's crystal had been tested for explosions there, that area had been designated an official military testing zone, and the crystal grenades had likewise been tested there afterward. In truth, Gao Yang could barely contain the urge to find someplace right now and blaze away at random, but night was really no good time for such testing—the territory could not yet build a large indoor weapons-testing facility that operated at night, so all tests had to wait until the next day.
Early the next morning, Gao Yang rose bright and early.
Compared with the previous night, when only a scant few had been present for the first shot, today's formal test seemed especially proper and solemn. Rebecca had told Hedy about the thermal ray gun, and Hedy had promptly summoned Byron and Philip, the two military commanders, while also selecting twenty steady, reliable soldiers from the combat corps to stand guard nearby and keep unauthorized people away. She had also ordered targets set up at varying distances on the proving ground to test the weapon's range, accuracy, and other parameters; finally, she had called in the druid Piyun to handle emergency medical care in case the weapon accidentally injured someone.
From this arrangement, Gao Yang could determine one thing quite clearly:
This grandniece of his was little by little learning the "scientific and institutionalized" thinking he had taught her...
Gao Cen began preparing to operate it himself again, but after Amber babbled in his ear for ten minutes, he decided to give the opportunity to her.
Of course, this decision was not entirely because Amber's babbling was truly maddening—the more important reason was that this fellow, as a stalker, had actually used a sleeve crossbow, and used it rather well; she had some experience with this sort of ranged weapon fixed to the arm, so the operator simply had to be her.
Watching Amber strap the thermal ray gun to her arm while adjusting the bindings with apparent professionalism to ensure stability, Rebecca, who had lost out on the chance to operate it, could not help but mutter sourly: "You be careful—don't shoot yourself. This thing's heavier than a sleeve crossbow!"
"No need for your concern," Amber bared her teeth at Rebecca. "Back when I trained with the sleeve crossbow, I had to hang an iron weight from my wrist—that thing was heavier than this!"
Having finished showing off, the half-elf thief completed her adjustments to the equipment. She nodded to Hedy, who was standing by to record the results, then raised her hand and aimed at the first target in the distance.
The metal wire pulled the rune trigger; in an instant the magic power in the mana capacitor was converted into energy for the scorching ray array. With a soft report, a searing beam of light instantly struck target number one dozens of meters away.
The wooden target, clad in leather armor, was punched straight through.
Hedy hurriedly recorded the figures, and then Amber began aiming at the second target...