The wounded soldier was quickly healed by Nana. She was very good at healing broken bones. After Roland ordered the First Army to return to the camp, there were only the Chief Knight, the witches and a few guards left.
With a gloomy face, he walked to the corpse and directed Carter to cut open the wound on his back.
The bloody hole was about a finger and a half deep. After cutting open the lead pellet, it was found that the wound was basically no different from that of an ordinary person.
"What do you think?" he asked Carter.
Carter also looked a little annoyed, probably because he did not expect to be fooled by a person who had never received sword training. "He only has strength and speed. If I didn't want to see how far he could go, I would have cut off his head with the first blow."
"What if the opponent was a Knight?"
"This..." Carter thought for a moment. "If it was the Duke's Knight, I probably could barely cope with it, but if it was the King's City Knight Regiment's Cold Wind Knight or the Steelheart Knight, I would be unable to resist."
Roland did not comment. Carter might be right if everyone fought with skills and swordsmanship, but if equipment was added, the situation would take a turn for the worse. If the prisoner was wearing heavy armor, an iron helmet, and a two-handed sword, he would definitely not be able to win easily.
Great power brought about many improvements — the ability to carry heavier armor and weapons, the ability to burst out faster, and the ability to fight longer. Roland felt that he had to correct his previous thoughts in Longsong Stronghold. Adrenaline? No, this thing was much more terrible than adrenaline. Hormones could at most stimulate the human body's potential, but the red pill had obviously made the prisoner break through his own limits. In particular, the speed and momentum he showed when he ran was almost comparable to a heavy cavalry.
The effect of the black pill was also amazing. The horizontal slashes and close-range gunshots that almost broke his ribs could not stop him. If it was an ordinary person, he would have long lost the ability to fight because of the pain.
A civilian with abnormal strength who was not afraid of pain was already so strong. What about a group of well-trained soldiers? Thinking of what the high priest said, Roland could not help but frown.
"Your Highness," Nightingale said, "look at his skin."
The skin of the prisoner's hand had become gray after the initial red color faded, and a lot of wrinkles appeared, like a snake shedding its skin. Roland poked it with the hilt of his sword and found that it was no longer solid muscle, but empty. After cutting it open, he found that all the subcutaneous fat had turned into mucus and the muscles had shrunk.
"This phenomenon is the same as after swallowing the God's Stone of Retaliation." She looked at the Prince. "The pill indeed contains stone components."
"But swallowing the stone alone won't have the effect of increasing strength," Roland thought. "How on earth did they make such an unscientific thing?"
The pill seemed to have strong side effects, and it was unclear whether the side effects were permanent or reversible. Roland was more inclined to the former. If it was the latter, this drug, which was similar to the combination of morphine and epinephrine, could be called a miracle drug of war. As long as it was taken in batches according to the recovery time, it would not be surprising if the Church used it to conquer the world.
Even if it only lasted for a short time and had side effects, it was enough to make him vigilant, Roland thought. "If the Church turns to support Timothy or Garcia, I may have to face an army of drug addicts."
What made him more uneasy was that the Church was willing to sell this thing. Didn't they consider that after the unification of Graycastle, the new King would use the pill to bite them? "Graycastle can recruit more cannon fodder than the new and old Holy Cities. If they fight, the Army of Judges will be consumed little by little.
"Unless... they have a stronger card in their hand and don't care about such a thing."
Roland sighed. He had planned to attack Longsong Stronghold to solve the problem of insufficient population and funds, and then focus on education, production and agriculture. He wanted to expand Border Town into a city in a short time. As for the research of weapons, he had to put it aside for the time being. But now it seemed that the construction of the army could not be put aside. The First Army had to expand, the production of flintlocks had to continue, and the research of new weapons had to be put on the agenda as soon as possible, such as the breech-loading gun and the fixed bullet.
The mechanical principle of the breech-loading gun was not difficult. The fixed bullet could be made of paper, or it could be made of copper.
The only thing Roland had no clue about was the primer for the fixed bullet. He only knew that it was called mercury fulminate. According to the literal meaning, the raw materials must be nitric acid and mercury. As for whether it needed to be mixed with other things, he could not remember at the moment. And in his impression, the production of this thing had high humidity and temperature requirements, so it was relatively dangerous. If he was not careful, his own fingers would explode into the sky. After thinking about it, he decided to spend a lot of money to recruit a group of alchemists. He would build a laboratory in the corner of the town and let them figure it out themselves.
*****
After dinner, Roland called Anna and Scroll into his office.
Now that Border Town's financial purse was full, he would soon invest half of his assets into compulsory education, which was a big waste of money and a slow return.
The industrial society needed quality workers with basic cultural qualities, not illiterates with brute force. If universal education was not in place, the demographic dividend would only become a burden to the population.
In view of this, he planned to take some time out every night to come out and give lessons. By the time Scroll mastered the basic knowledge of natural science, the town would almost be able to complete the first batch of literacy tasks.
Scroll would be the future education pioneer and all-around teacher, so Roland naturally had to teach her everything he had learned in his life. And asking Anna to come together was out of his preference.
Anna did not have the ability to remember everything she saw, but her desire for knowledge and her willingness to learn were the strongest among all the witches. He could often see her rummaging through his bookcase. After half a year, she had probably gone through all the few books he had. In addition, her speed of accepting new things and her logical thinking were also rare in this era.
After taking the elementary mathematics and physics textbooks that Scroll had transformed into, he began to talk about today's teaching content.
From the beginning of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to slightly more complex equation calculations, Anna's ability to understand was obviously better than Scroll's. When it came to physics, Scroll would almost always memorize everything Roland said, and then slowly understand it. And Anna could also ask a few questions from time to time.
For example, what did the elementary particles look like, why did the elementary particles make up different shapes, and so on …
Some of the questions Roland could answer, but some he could not answer himself.
For example, what was magic power?
He had to talk about the conjecture he had thought about before, saying that magic power might be a kind of energy, similar to electricity and heat, and that currently only witches could use it. He did not rule out the possibility that ordinary people would be able to store and use magic power in some way in the future.
Anna showed a thoughtful expression.
Time always flies when it comes to teaching women, especially those with outstanding bearing. Unknowingly, the candles had been changed twice, and the new one was about to end.
Suddenly, Roland heard a subtle sound. Nightingale was lying on the sofa and had unknowingly fallen asleep — perhaps such a lesson was like a lullaby to her. The fog was lifted, and her completely ungraceful sleeping posture was exposed in front of the three.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
