Just half-a-minute after the Great Elder had saturated the Thunder Spirit Silver plates with her Spirit Qi, the loading team called out, "Ready!"
Receiving this confirmation, Lucas somehow grinned even wider and called out, "Prepare to fire!"
"Preparing to fire!"
"Cable 1 attached!"
"Cable 2 attached!"
"Weapon is hot!"
"All personnel clear of the firing range!"
With everything apparently prepared, and everyone now in place, Lucas turned to Pauline and informed her, "We can’t show it to you directly, but if you use your Soul Sense, you should be able to get a good view of everything even from behind the walls."
Pursing her lips, Pauline nodded and did as Lucas advised, releasing her Soul Sense to encompass the cannon and all 50 or so metres of the archery targets which were downrange of its muzzle.
Once Lucas felt that the Great Elder’s Soul Sense was in place, he turned to Marco and asked, "Would you like to do the honours today?"
Rubbing his hands gleefully, Marco walked up to a big metal lever, grabbed hold of it tightly, and began shouting, "Firing in 3... 2... 1... FIRE!"
Marco threw the switch, completed the circuit, and *BOOM!!!~~~*
Everything happened so quickly that Pauline nearly missed it.
The instant Marco pulled the lever, she felt almost all of the resistance to her Spirit Qi from the Thunder Spirit Silver disappear.
At the same time, a deafening bang rang out, causing her ears to ring.
Simultaneously, Pauline, with her Soul Sense, ’saw’ a burst of sparks and flames get ejected from the mouth of the cannon, along with the oddly shaped metal rod.
The projectile flew out so fast the Pauline was barely able to track it; however, she definitely saw the destruction it left in its wake.
The slender metal rod with a sharp tip and stubby fins easily punched through 20 thick wooden target boards and smashed into the solid dirt wall behind them, causing an explosion of dust and debris.
It was such a shocking series of events that for a moment, Pauline forgot to stop channeling her Spirit Qi.
Only after cheers went up from the research team did she return to her senses and release the handles she was tightly gripping.
"A new record?"
"Nah, I think when the Marquess did it, it was still faster."
"I don’t know, we made some improvements after that, so I think it was faster this time."
"Who cares! It’s powerful enough as is!"
"Agreed!"
"Now if only we could stop it from..."
"Don’t! Don’t say it..."
"Haaaaa... why did you have to go and bring down the mood like that?"
"... sorry."
Intrigued by the conversation going on around her, Pauline was about to ask what was wrong when she noticed with her Soul Sense that the cannon which had just been fired had been severely deformed, even though it was literally bolted down to a solid frame.
In fact, the cannon wasn’t just warped or twisted, it looked like it was melting.
Scratch that, it was melting!
Turning to Lucas, Pauline asked, "I assume the complete destruction of the weapon is the ’teeny, tiny’ problem you were telling me about earlier, yes?"
"En," Lucas sighed, "Each time we fire the railgun, this is what happens."
"Railgun?" Pauline tilted her head.
"En, railgun," Lucas nodded, "The barrel of this cannon has two parallel conductive rails running down its length, and when we dump enough electri... when enough lightning is poured into them, it accelerates the metal slug to an incredible speed."
"Unfortunately, the rails have to be made of a rather soft metal, so the heat generated from firing the weapon almost instantly melts them, which in turn damages the barrel, making it unusable after a single shot."
Shaking his head in mild frustration, Lucas added, "Sometimes, the rails deform too much even before the slug leaves the barrel, resulting in it kinking and then exploding, hence all the protective walls and safety measures we’ve set up."
"I see," Pauline mused in an impressed tone, "Even with all those flaws, it’s still a magnificent weapon. The metal rod was fired so fast I almost missed it. Do you know how fast it was actually moving?"
"It’s just an estimate, but around 600 metres per second," Lucas replied casually.
"600 metres per second... that’s 50% faster than the Zilon Kingdom’s cannons; faster than I can fire an arrow even if I use all of my strength," Pauline muttered in awe.
At that speed, even if a Mid-Rank Spirit Adept was paying close attention and knew that a 1 kg metal slug was aiming at them, dodging an accurate shot after it was fired would be all but impossible within a 400 metres range.
They might be able to see the shot, and even react to it, but they simply wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to get out of the way.
If such a Cultivator wasn’t paying attention, then this ’railgun’ as Lucas called it would probably be a threat from well over a kilometre!
Walking out from behind the protective walls, Pauline, and the rest of the research crew, began examining the damage the slug had done, and the wreckage of the gun itself.
In a word, it was severe.
The gun was totally scrapped, probably needing to be melted down and reforged entirely. Most of the wires and clamps were also melted or smoking as well.
As for the wooden target boards, they were also blown apart in an uneven pattern, which would seem to indicate that the metal slug hadn’t fired perfectly straight and instead deviated mid-air.
When Pauline mentioned this, Lucas didn’t disagree, "Accuracy is another problem with this weapon, but that’s mostly tied to the poor barrel quality. Once we fix that, the accuracy will go up significantly."
"Do you have any ideas about how to fix the barrel problem?" Pauline followed up.
"Nope. Not at clue," Lucas replied with a shrug, "That’s an extremely difficult materials and manufacturing problem, one we probably won’t be solving anytime soon no matter how much time, money, and manpower we throw at it, which is why we shut down the project temporarily."
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