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A week later, Roland received two pieces of good news.
One was that Iron Axe had repelled the demons with the napalm and thereby held the demons back temporarily.
The commander-in-chief described the explosion of this new weapon in his letter in great detail. The blast was even more spectacular than the test. In fact, human beings had already used fire to repulse the demons back in the first Battle of Divine Will, where they had set the forest on fire at the rear. The massive wildfire raged for several days and dispersed the Red Mist in the sky, which, in the end, helped human beings gain a small victory.
The demons thus learned their lesson and destroyed the forests, meadows, and even farms to avoid future disruptions of the Red Mist. They also built small stone towers similar to outposts in the area covered in the Red Mist just in case. With sufficient Red Mist on the campsite, they could then keep fighting even when the rear was ablaze.
Without a doubt, Iron Axe and the General Staff were inspired by the previous battle and developed this plan.
The strength of napalm was its portability. It could burn in the thin air, and it was extremely hard to extinguish with water. Roland had not expected, however, that the fire would result in such a magnificent explosion in the whole city.
Roland wished that Summer could reconstruct the scene. If he could find out the reason why the explosion had occurred, he could possibly exterminate the demons using the napalm.
However, the Tusk City should have already been enveloped by the Red Mist again by now. It was almost impossible to get into the city for a second time.
Also, Roland’s heart ached at the fact that he had consumed more than 500 barrels of napalm all at once. It was not hard to produce fuels, as he would simply need to invest more manpower. However, the key to produce napalm was to mix the slimes of the rubber worms with animal blood, and only the Ministry of Agriculture could farm rubber worms.
Nevertheless, the refugees from this battle were most important to Roland. Roland heaped praises on Iron Axe in his letter and also sent another 100 barrels of napalm to the front.
The second piece of news was that the plant assembling the
Fire of Heaven
had finally assembled the first biplane.
Roland immediately visited the plant in person after receiving the news from Anna.
This brand new plant was built at the same time as the Aerial Academy. Compared to the steam engine plant built with slabs and bricks two to three years ago, this plant was designed for technologically demanding products. The steel frame provided the plant with a spacious area, which enabled workers to assemble and repair a dozen planes at a time. The plant was equipped with adequate illumination devices. The floor was tiled with polished slabs, and the whole plant looked phenomenal.
Even Tilly was impressed with it when she entered the plant.
Lay men might view it as a palace.
Roland also invested the best equipment and hired many elites for the operation of this plant. He had sent the most experienced managers and workers, and equipped the plant with the third generation machine tools powered by electricity to meet the production need. As such, the plant consumed most of the electricity in the industrial zone. Thanks to the Mystery Moon devices, otherwise he would have had to suspend the operation of all the other plants to keep this one running.
In a way, this new plant displayed all the technologies developed in Neverwinter over the past five years.
Barov had told Roland that Neverwinter residents took pride in working here.
When the new plant was in operation, each workstation would be responsible for assembling one part. The plane assembly would start from the first workstation to the last. Workers would start with the frame, and then wings, then parts, then skins, and finally to the testing stage.
However, the plant was far from ideal. There was only one
Fire of Heaven
waiting to be assembled at the workstation closest to the exit at present, and the other workstations were all empty.
Is everything OK? Did you have any problem?
Roland asked as he walked up to Anna.
I have tons of problems,
Anna answered while shaking her head.
I don’t know how many parts and materials workers had wasted before they successfully produced this plane.
Roland was amused at the resigned look on Anna’s face.
He had foreseen the difficulties when he had made the decision to create planes. It was practically impossible to learn about new materials and techniques in a short period of time, despite that he had tried his best to simplify the production.
For example, he had, specifically, created an assembly line to produce various drive rivets and break mandrel rivets for the single riveted joints on the plane. Compared to traditional double riveted joints, single riveted joints were much easier to assemble.
Roland had also numbered all the parts of the plane and drawn out every assembly step like those model assembly kits in his previous world. He had even installed user-friendly portsf or parts that could be easily mixed up to reduce the possibility of assembly errors as a result of carelessness.
Despite all his efforts, the workers only managed to produce one plane in the past half a month. Obviously, the assembly task was too hard for them to handle.
Do you need my help?
Tilly asked suddenly.
No, that’s fine…
Anna said while shrugging. She would only shrug and be less
lady-like
in front of a few people.
Roland asked me to supervise the workers, so I must solve the problems all by myself, no matter what they are, although I did want to give up a lot of times.
Tilly smiled and said,
So, you’re actually very happy, aren’t you? Finally, there’s one real plane.
Anna curled up her lips and replied,
I know you’d see through me.
If we have one plane, we’ll have a second. Once all the workers have learned about the assembly process, we’ll soon have more qualified planes,
Tilly said as she glanced at Roland.
If you could praise her now, that’d be even better.
I never expect him to praise me,
Anna said while twitching her lips.
Huh?
Roland was dumbfounded. What had just happened? Why did they suddenly switch the subject from the plane production to him?
Just then, a guard trotted to Roland and reported,
Your Majesty, the first ‘Fire of Heaven’ is ready. We can start the celebration ceremony anytime.
Roland thus rested his eyes again on the biplane and saw two logos on the light gray body, one the coat of arms of the royal family and the other a knight holding a spear while spreading out his arms. The whole plane looked extraordinary, but Roland felt that something was missing.
He pondered for a while and suddenly realized what had missed. Then he waved his hand and said,
Get the ribbon!
Soon, a bright red ribbon was tied to the plane, with a red ribbon flower attached to the propeller at the head of the jet.
Roland then nodded in satisfaction. Now, the
Fire of Heaven
was ready to meet its audience.
After that, he made a speech, cut the ribbon, and took a photograph with Anna, Tilly, and all the workers who had participated in the design and manufacture of the plane, as well as the brand new aircraft itself, which was now numbered 001 and parked behind them.
Now, look at me. One, two, three!
Soraya summoned the magic brush and recorded this historical moment.
