148: Weapons R&D Department Progress

"Baron Daniel actually dared to do such a thing!"

After hearing Lister's account, Philemon was instantly filled with indignation, his expression looking as if he wanted to skin Daniel alive right then and there.

Lister and the other two were somewhat puzzled by this. Although colluding with foreign races was an extremely shameful and despicable act, Philemon, who had no direct connection to the matter, shouldn't have been so emotional.

Perhaps sensing their thoughts, Philemon calmed his agitated emotions and explained, "Apologies, I lost my composure. My father died due to a conspiracy involving traitors colluding with Orc Race, but unfortunately, the person caught back then was only a pawn."

"I see." Lister and the others nodded in realization. After Lister offered a word of comfort, he continued, "Unfortunately, Daniel resisted fiercely when we tried to arrest him and was executed on the spot. However, I suspect there must be someone else behind him pulling the strings..."

"However, we did capture the Black Dog Orc Sub-leader on the spot. My intention is to hand him directly over to you, Philemon."

"Then you can take him back to the Tulip Territory and hand him over to Earl Fland for a rigorous interrogation. We might be able to extract some crucial information."

"Then I must thank you, Sir Lister," Philemon thanked him with a sincere expression.

After chatting for a few more moments, Lister and the other two took Philemon and Bruel to inspect the production at the Brewery.

The Brewery had recently undergone a recruitment drive and had now expanded to over a hundred people.

This not only greatly improved the production efficiency of the Brewery but also created many new jobs for the Ironthorn Territory.

Other factories and departments had also undergone reasonable recruitment, more or less strengthening their work efficiency.

It could be said that during this period, the overall development of the Ironthorn Territory was accelerating. While moving fast, both efficiency and quality were guaranteed.

After lingering at the Brewery for quite a while, Philemon and Bruel, who had tasted many of the newly produced fine wines, finally left with Lister, albeit reluctantly.

During their time there, Philemon had asked Lister if he had any thoughts about opening a Brewery in Aetheria.

Lister had already considered this. The current scale of the Brewery was not yet suitable for opening branch factories, and the number of brewers who knew how to brew ironthorn whiskey and other spirits was limited.

Of course, the most important reason was that Lister placed extreme importance on the Brewery; he wouldn't feel at ease if it wasn't on his own turf.

So, in the end, Lister neither directly refused Philemon nor agreed, simply stating that he needed to consider it.

Philemon was a smart man; hearing Lister say this, he didn't ask any further.

After arranging for Philemon and Bruel to rest, Lister went to the Weapon Development Department.

As soon as he stepped through the doors of the Weapon Development Department, Lister felt a wave of heat hit him, making it feel like a different world compared to the howling cold wind outside.

Currently, the entire Weapon Development Department had entered a high-intensity work state. All personnel were working overtime to produce knight armor and conduct in-depth research and development on firearms.

Yesterday, after obtaining that Cold Iron and vibrating iron, Lister had Red arrange for Soldiers to transport it all to the Weapon Development Department overnight.

Since Gimel was not yet married and had no relatives, he usually lived inside the Weapon Development Department.

Actually, there were newly built staff quarters next to the Weapon Development Department factory, but Gimel found them uncomfortable and preferred to stay in the factory.

Consequently, when Gimel saw Soldiers transporting a large number of crates in the middle of the night, he thought something major had happened and was quite startled.

It wasn't until the Soldiers informed him and opened the crates that he breathed a sigh of relief. At the same time, he felt incredibly excited about the arrival of these precious resources.

One must know that vibrating iron and Cold Iron were far superior to fine iron in every aspect. Using them to manufacture weapons and armor was simply a dream come true for a Forgemaster or Artisan.

While feeling gratitude and admiration for Lister, Gimel issued a notice early that morning for all employees to work overtime.

Upon hearing this, the employees didn't complain; instead, they became even more excited.

Ever since they joined the Weapon Development Department, they had often felt very uneasy due to the high wages and short working hours.

It would be one thing if they had developed some outstanding results on their own, but the reality was that most of the things they developed were based on design blueprints provided by Lister.

This led them to feel like useless people who were taking money for doing nothing. Therefore, they were constantly thinking of ways to prove they were useful to Lister.

This also caused them to work as if they were on stimulants, frantically pushing their physical limits.

Fortunately, the Weapon Development Department had received special approval from Lister to work overtime for research and production during important periods.

So during this time, the unease in the employees' hearts finally began to fade slightly; otherwise, they might have driven themselves into depression.

Following the Cement road, Lister walked toward the forge area of the Weapon Development Department. Every employee he met along the way was moving at a fast pace, racing against time.

However, upon seeing him, they all still stopped to offer respectful greetings.

Once Lister responded and moved on, they immediately returned to their previous "hurried" state.

Although there were more or less traces of fatigue on the employees' faces, their eyes were filled with passion for their work and life.

At the same time, there was also a strong sense of urgency. The Weapon Development Department was a Level 5 department in the Ironthorn Territory, and internal competition was very high.

These employees, who had worked hard to get in, were naturally unwilling to lose this dream job due to their own laziness, so they were all working as hard as they could.

Just as he entered the boundaries of the forge area, Lister felt an even stronger wave of heat than before.

If it felt like being under the hot wind of an air conditioner earlier, Lister now felt as if he were inside a giant furnace.

If he hadn't learned the Cooling Spell from Wizardry, he estimated he would be dripping with sweat and his clothes would be soaked within seconds.

The Forgemasters and Chief Artisans in the forge area were not as comfortable as Lister at the moment.

Under Gimel's leadership, they gripped their hammers tightly, rhythmically and incessantly striking the metal in the furnaces.

Every one of them was bare-chested, revealing lean and solid muscles, their entire bodies completely drenched in sweat.

The towels hanging around their necks constantly dripped water onto the ground. To prevent sweat from sliding into their eyes, everyone had cut their hair short into buzz cuts.

Since forging mostly used the arms and hands, and these parts were closest to the furnace, they easily became hot, even reaching a scorching level.

Therefore, whenever they felt the temperature was too high, they would submerge their entire arms into buckets of ice water placed beside them.

These ice water buckets were constantly brought in from an outdoor pool that was kept full by the forge Apprentices.

As soon as the water in a bucket became warm, an Apprentice standing by would immediately replace it so the Forgemasters wouldn't be distracted.

Every time Lister saw this scene, he felt deeply moved. He had always been thinking about how to improve this situation, but unfortunately, there was no air conditioning in this world; otherwise, everything would be simple.

Seeing Lister appear, the Forgemasters, Artisans, and Apprentices all immediately stopped their work and offered respectful greetings.

He responded with a smile and a few words, telling them not to mind him and to continue their work, before he began to look around the forge area.

Gimel, who followed beside him with an excited expression, respectfully reported information about the Weapon Development Department to Lister.

According to him, the number of Forgemasters in the department had increased quite a bit. This was all due to Lister's previous willingness to allow the Artisans to experiment without fear of waste.

While those Artisans might not have had much natural talent, the fact that they were Artisans proved they weren't bad. Combined with the hands-on practice using materials as if they cost nothing, the number of people becoming Forgemasters naturally increased.

Consequently, with a sufficient number of Forgemasters, the efficiency of forging knightly weapons and armor had reached a very high level. Under Gimel's supervision and inspection, the quality was also well-guaranteed.

After the dozens of crates of forging resources arrived, the work enthusiasm of the Forgemasters and Artisans soared even higher than before.

Therefore, Gimel estimated that in less than twenty days, one hundred full sets of knightly weapons and armor could be completely forged.

Lister couldn't help but feel surprised by such forging speed, but he knew Gimel was not one to boast.

Since he dared to state this timeframe, he would definitely be able to forge them.

Thus, the surprise on Lister's face quickly turned into anticipation and joy for the new weapons and armor.

Although the knights wouldn't get this batch of equipment before departing for the Western Frontier Territory, achieving such forging efficiency was already no easy feat.

In addition to the knights' new equipment, Gimel gave Lister an even bigger surprise.

There had been a new technical breakthrough in firearm research. The Forgemasters had made improvements to the original firearms, greatly increasing their range, power, and stability.

At the same time, based on Lister's brief design blueprints, the Forgemasters had successfully developed a Single-shot Long-barreled Flintlock Rifle.

Compared to the short Flintlock Pistols, the flintlock rifle was greatly improved in all aspects, allowing Lister to fully assemble a firearm army capable of "line infantry" tactics.

However, none of that was the most important part. The important part was what Gimel said next.

The Forgemasters were currently attempting to integrate crystals containing special energy into the gun barrels.

If the integration was successful, the firearms would not only respond faster when triggered but their power and range would also become even more terrifying.

In that case, the firearms—no, they should be called Energy Guns—could directly penetrate the special protective energy of those Transcendents.

When that time came, it wouldn't just change the situation on the battlefield for ordinary Soldiers; it might even have a major impact on mid-to-high-end battlefields.

However, this was still just Gimel's vision and was in the preliminary testing stage. The difficulties involved were much, much harder than developing the flintlock rifle.

But having this idea was already a huge breakthrough. Lister did not hold back his praise for Gimel and the Forgemasters and Artisans.

Similarly, for their research achievements, Lister also gave them corresponding rewards.

After inspecting for a good while and test-firing the new flintlock rifle, Lister finally left the Weapon Development Department with a smile on his face.

Next, he inspected the Workshops, Cement Factory, and other important industrial departments. Under the recent development, they all showed significant improvements.

However, after finishing his inspection, Lister discovered a very realistic problem: the population of the Ironthorn Territory was still too small.

Currently, the entire population of the Ironthorn Territory had their own corresponding jobs. Trying to divert more people to those rapidly developing key industries was simply not feasible.

If he deliberately transferred people from certain sectors to those factory departments, the original industries would suffer greatly.

It could be said that the development of the entire Ironthorn Territory had reached its upper limit. To achieve further breakthroughs and development, the only way was to increase the population.

Unfortunately, since that batch of fleeing refugees arrived last time, no new refugees had appeared in the Ironthorn Territory.

Regarding this, Lister didn't know if those refugees felt the Ironthorn Territory was too remote and were unwilling to come, or if they had been taken in by other lords.

He was more inclined toward the latter because, normally, any fleeing refugees appearing in the various territories within the Pedan Kingdom would be directly captured by those lords.

After all, in the eyes of a lord, there was no difference between those refugees and Slaves. The only difference was that refugees had no recorded information.

This also gave some lords who lacked population a chance to get labor for free, and those refugees were completely unable to resist.

Although no refugee wanted to be a Slave, compared to a life of aimless wandering, being a Slave at least guaranteed a meal.

Since he couldn't wait for refugees, Lister thought of the Cole Family's Slave trade, but in the end, he felt it was too slow, and the Cole Family generally obtained Slaves from the Western Frontier Territory.

It might have been fine before, but after the issuance of the "new western frontier pioneer order," the lords in the Western Frontier Territory all desperately needed people.

This had led to a significant reduction in the Slave trade for the territories in the northwestern region of the kingdom.

It was almost impossible for the Cole Family to "snatch" so many Slaves from those lords.

Moreover, the Cole Family's current business focus was on selling those new goods, and they didn't have enough manpower to do these things. After thinking it over, Lister finally turned his gaze toward the Laborers who were currently rebuilding Ironthorn Town and laying roads.

Over a thousand Laborers sent by Viscount Connor; if they could all join the Ironthorn Territory, it would be a huge boost to the territory's development.

Originally, if they were free citizens, Lister wouldn't have entertained this idea, but most of the Laborers were Slaves and Serfs, making them legally tradable.

In other words, as long as Lister could offer the owners of these Slave Laborers a price that satisfied them, he could directly incorporate them into the Ironthorn Territory.

Anyway, he had gotten so much money for free a couple of days ago, so now was precisely the time when he didn't lack funds. Using this money for this purpose was also quite appropriate.

Thinking this far, Lister immediately rushed toward the magistrate's office area.