Chess Mage of Faerûn

Chapter 387 Ice and Fire

"You old rogue, you mean Elminster?"

Bantley took a deep drag and then began cleaning his pipe.

The old master couldn't wait to pour out the burnt tobacco and cut the tobacco his apprentice had just offered into strips to fill the pipe.

"I didn't say that. There are plenty of monks who smoke."

Zhang Yuan didn't want to make his intentions too obvious.

"Come on, you've already called him an old scoundrel, so who else could it be?"

Banteli puffed on his cigarette with a smug look, glancing sideways at his cheap apprentice in front of him. The two then looked at each other and laughed, their laughter growing louder and louder, completely oblivious to the attention drawn to the guests not far away.

"You come with me."

Old Banter wiped away the tears of laughter, turned and walked towards the stairs, his tone filled with pride and anticipation, like someone who had accomplished something and wanted to show off to their friends.

Curiosity piqued, Zhang Yuan followed the other party to the top-floor magic research room. Upon returning, the layout and structure were the same as before, only much more disorganized.

After examining the various bolts and metal parts scattered around, especially the lenses and power lines, Zhang Yuan could roughly guess what the other party was messing with.

Sure enough, as soon as Old Banter entered the assembly workshop, he pointed to a very conspicuous device in the center of the room and excitedly exclaimed:
"Look, this is what I've accomplished these past few days. It's only been a short time since I succeeded, and I haven't even thought of a name yet."

Zhang Yuan remained silent, carefully observing the object before him. How to describe it? The overall shape of this device resembled a much larger car camera, with a significantly longer lens, like a cannon barrel.

Oh, no, this thing is a cannon barrel!

He learned from the rambling explanation of old Bentley that after developing or rather modifying a small laser gun, the old dwarf, not satisfied with that, decided to further explore the potential for improvement of this new weapon.

The effort that Old Bentley himself put into it goes without saying. In order to solve the technical and process problems encountered in the research and development, he even used his personal connections to invite and hire several dwarf craftsmen to help. It took him nearly a year to finally put together this precious thing, which he temporarily named the Large Energy Ray Generator.

The cannon-shaped component is naturally the laser beam launch rail, with several meticulously polished enchanted crystal lenses embedded in it, arranged in layers. Together with the spell circuits engraved on the barrel wall, it can focus and concentrate the generated beam of light and launch it along a stable path.

The main device is even more complex. Although the principle is still within the scope of laser guns, a series of components such as energy storage, conduction, energy focusing, and excitation have been significantly modified, and it is far more than just a simple scaling up.

With the introduction of spells such as enchanting and construct techniques, this thing has been truly modified in a magical way.

The main body of the device is like a miniature energy tower. Through the magic array circuits and magic gems drawn inside, it continuously draws free energy from the shallow layer of the magic network and gathers it into the storage component, ready for activation and release.

But that's not enough. The energy gathered through the magic circle can indeed be used for launching, and it is stable and continuous, but it lacks explosive power.

To solve the problem and enhance its power, Bantori chose to use elemental crystals as the core of the energy sublimation reaction device. When energy flows into it, it stimulates the elemental power contained within the crystal to enter an activated state and converges into the emission device. After numerous experiments, the old mage discovered that neither the overly active and unpredictable wind element nor the heavy and stable earth element were suitable choices. In comparison, water and fire elements not only performed well in terms of cohesion and manipulation, but also provided considerable power in terms of frost and burning damage.

"Through this device, under the premise of using high-quality, large fire or ice element crystal cores as high-energy energy, the energy beam generated is almost a weakened version of the eighth-circle spells Polar Ray and Sunfire Ray."

Old Bentley stroked the device beside him affectionately while proudly introducing this laser cannon-like weapon of mass destruction.

Zhang Yuan, however, had some doubts. Could the power of an eighth-ring spell really be so easily achieved? It seemed like underestimating high-level spells, especially since…

When the other person mentioned the word "weakened version," their expression and tone seemed rather unnatural!
Faced with his cheap apprentice's tactless questioning, Bantley blushed, stammered for a while, and then pretended to cough violently a few times because he was choked by the smoke. When he realized that he could no longer evade the question, he finally revealed his true identity.

"What? This power is only at the level of a sixth-circle Evocation spell. You didn't just imagine the amplification of spell effects, did you?"

After the test firing at the experimental range, Mr. Zhang pursed his lips.

"Cough, almost, almost. Besides, compared to spells, this device doesn't require chanting or casting. The charging preparation before launch takes less than three seconds, and the launch interval is also very short."

"But what about the cost? How much does it cost to build? How much energy is consumed during firing? Is it possible to mass-produce and equip it with this equipment?"

While the old master's words contained some embellishment, even if the actual power was only a fraction of what was described, it would still be a fairly powerful weapon, especially if it could be mass-produced...

"Forget it!"

Upon hearing Zhang Yuan's questions, Banteli shook his head repeatedly and truthfully recounted some matters that had been previously omitted:

"In order to pursue power without leaving shortcomings in other aspects such as stability, sacrifices in cost and expenditure are inevitable. Not to mention the cost of those spell gems and magic alloys, the time and effort invested are immeasurable."

“Even more crucial is the energy core,” Bantley said, a hint of resentment in his eyes.

“Ordinary spell gems are unsatisfactory as energy storage cores in terms of both energy level and energy storage capacity. But if we use a treasure like the Tears of the King as an energy core… I don’t have one available right now, so I have to find another way.”

“Elemental crystal cores are relatively cheaper, but as consumables, the cost hasn’t actually decreased that much, has it?”

"After nine launches, the crystal core needs to be replaced, and it has to be a large element to count... sigh!"

When the topic of energy consumption came up, Lao Ban Te Li could only manage a wry smile, while Zhang Yuan seemed lost in thought.

"That's the current situation. Don't think about mass production and deployment yet. This prototype doesn't even have a name yet. Since you're here, do you have any suggestions?"

Upon hearing this, Master Zhang scratched his chin, and after a moment's thought, an idea came to him:
"Since each elemental crystal core can only activate nine emission lines, and they are mainly composed of ice and fire elements, how about calling it the Nine Heavens of Ice and Fire?"

Thank you to Eric Jin, Fox's Fire, Time Flies with the Wind, All Streams Flow from the Same Source, and Waiting for Love and You for your monthly ticket support!


(End of this chapter)