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Chapter 1257: A National Machine

“You need an expanded ammonia plant and a saltpeter facility,” Roland said, watching Kyle. “You’ve known that.”

Kyle inclined his head. Agatha and Paper had been managing both materials — workable, but their production rates plateaued against the hard ceiling of limited magic and limited hands. The methods they used were already better than the old acid-synthesis process that had run entirely on saltpeter, but better-than-before wasn’t the same as enough.

The breakthrough had been the periodic table. Once Roland had provided a complete copy, the chemistry laboratory had set about producing sample elements — and with Lucia’s ability, they had worked through the entire table, including rare metals like platinum and rhodium that served as industrial catalysts. The bottleneck wasn’t knowledge anymore. It was bodies.

“We’ve validated the theory and tested the process in a small reaction vessel,” Kyle said, with the measured delivery of a man who had been waiting to say this for months. “Sufficient manpower, and we can begin immediately.”

“You’ll have every literate immigrant I can assign you. Start after this meeting.” Roland picked up his tea. “I’m also adding a lead-acid battery production line.”

Kyle nodded once, the nod of someone who has already worked through the implications. Among the directors, perhaps only he and Anna understood what Roland was describing without needing it explained. Lead, lead dioxide, dilute sulfuric acid — materials the Alchemist Workshop could have produced years ago, and the Ministry of Chemical Industry could produce in volume. The experiment demonstrating electrolyte behavior with a lit bulb was standard teaching material. The reason it hadn’t been done yet was simpler than chemistry: they hadn’t needed storage batteries, and they hadn’t had the people.

Now they had both.

“How many per month?” Kyle produced his notebook.

“Around a hundred.”

The batteries would go to the biplanes — specifically to the electric starters on the piston engines. That a machine as advanced as the Aerial Knights’ aircraft still required a ground crew to physically spin the propeller to ignition was a friction that bothered Roland more as the fleet grew. With sufficient labor available, there was no reason to leave that problem unsolved.

“A small project,” Kyle noted, stroking his beard with the precision of a man who took satisfaction in accurate estimation. “Perhaps ten people, excluding the parts Queen Anna would need to fabricate — lead plates, casings.”

Anna nodded across the table. “Provide detailed drawings and the Ministry of Industry will have no issue.”

“Give me a few days to finalize, and I’ll have the drawings to you.”

Roland set down his cup. Three years ago he had stood in a Border Town that had one steam engine plant and no certainty it would survive the winter. Now his ministers managed multi-department projects from inception to production with minimal steering from him — a project initiated in this room would be running in a week. The infrastructure had grown into something that carried its own momentum.

“Now. The Ministry of Industry.”

What followed was the summary of months of thinking — conversations with Anna, notes reworked on late evenings, plans revised against the reality of every battle the First Army had fought.

First: infantry firepower. A lighter machine gun — the General Purpose Machine Gun, Roland called it internally. Mark I HMG frame, simplified structure, barrel and rack as separate components for portability. A magazine feed, so soldiers could return fire in the first seconds of a Senior Demon engagement without waiting for setup. Weight reduction through aluminum alloy and rubber worm plastic, both materials already entering biplane production and therefore available in limited but growing quantity. Elite units — scouts, cover teams, extraction specialists — would receive them first. Standard infantry in Everwinter and Wolfheart didn’t need the upgrade; the First Army’s existing equipment was sufficient for those theaters.

The Van’er Rifle was already moving into production: one semi-automatic per five soldiers, the linkage mechanism still imperfect, prone to jamming after heavy use, but the firepower increase was genuine. Roland had kept the bolt-action rifles rather than replacing them entirely — logistics demanded it.

Second: air dominance. The first-generation biplane, named the Fire of Heaven after four months of field testing, had entered service. Its structure wasn’t far from the Unicorn prototype; the challenge now was production. A biplane was still too complex for general factory workers to assemble. The engine was still Anna’s work to manufacture.

But Neverwinter’s industrial workforce had been growing since the first steam engine plant opened. Apprentices who had started as hammer-wielders were now machine tool operators with three years of accumulated skill. Roland intended to draw the best of them into the aircraft program and learn, through that effort, exactly how far Neverwinter’s industrialization had actually come.

The Devilbeasts owned the sky now. The Fire of Heaven was the opening move to reclaim it.

Third: anti-armor for the Spidery Monstrous Beasts. The mortars were too light; the Longsong Cannons were too heavy. Roland wanted something in between — 75mm caliber, horse-portable, operable without Hummingbird’s weight-reduction ability. Small enough that it didn’t require the cannon plant’s full production capacity; the first need was a prototype and a test.

He and Anna had talked through all of it before the meeting. They understood each other on this without needing to say much — the kind of understanding that comes from having designed things together in the dark, from having argued about metallurgy and ballistics until the arguments produced something neither had thought of alone.

The scale of what Roland was now describing was unprecedented for Neverwinter: ten facilities, a workforce of twenty to thirty thousand people, a convergence of chemical, industrial, and aerial production running simultaneously. The immigration campaign had made it possible. The currency reform had made it sustainable.

A machine titled nation was setting itself in motion — gear engaging gear, plant feeding plant, each worker performing one task that connected invisibly to every other task, the whole moving in a direction that no single person inside it could fully see.

It was the largest thing Roland had ever built.

He thought it might be enough.

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