Chapter 39 It's Not That Simple

Life is complicated. We are born from the universe but the universe wants to kill us with everything it has. Yet, life continues to thrive. By relying on each other, the cycle never ends. And all of this started with a tiny spark. —The Wandering Philosopher

Hax stood on his feet and stretched his body. He blocked his mouth with his hand as he yawned. How long had he been asleep for? More importantly, how was the power armor doing.

He immediately looked to the side. The Humongous printer churned out armor after armor before they rolled out of the output tray. A dozen manufacturing bots and a squad of muscled men helped lifting these armor to the side so another one could be printed. The muscled men apparently had wore the Weler-150.

They finally traded their pride for strength. Before, they would refuse to wear the mechanical arms because they think their muscle was enough. Now, they smiled as they could lift the power armor by themselves.

"Hax! I can't believe it worked!" Gorre shouted and ran to him. "Those giant machines could really create armors. And they're quick too. I don't think any blacksmith in this kingdom could match the power of this machine."

"Good morning, Hax," Bodin greeted with Ratha following behind him. "Sorry for letting you sleep on the grass. We don't want to disturb your sleep."

"I'm fine. How much armor have been printed?"

"Currently we have forty armor in the storage, and as you can see, we'll keep on counting."

Gorre lit up. "A blacksmith needed days or even weeks to create a single set of armor. This machine doesn't even run for a day, and yet it already produced forty armor?! Hax, are you a god?"

"No, I'm an engineer."

"Engineer? What a terrible name. Since you are playing with science, then you should call yourself scientician."

Hax sighed. "Call me whatever you want." He then turned to Bodin. "Have any of our men tried to use the armor yet?"

"Well, we tried. But our men doesn't know how to get inside the armor. We don't want to break it so we avoid touching any parts."

"It cannot be called an armor if it breaks just by touching."

Bodin shrugged. "What can I say. We never see something like this before. Who knows what will happen if we touched something."

Hax forgot to put the instruction on how to use the armor. He should teach them soon.

"Do we have any blacksmith in our army?"

Bodin nodded. "We have, but they don't make weapons anymore."

"What do they make then?"

"Tools for farming, cooking, or for supporting a structure. The wall that is reinforced with iron is also made by them."

"Go call them here. Tell them that I want them to make a weapon."

Bodin raised his eyebrow. "They can only make swords. Their weapons are not comparable to yours."

"Just tell them to come here first. You'll know what I have in mind."

Bodin nodded and went out for his task. Ratha chose to stay.

"I'm useless," She said. "You can make all these things that help the norm tremendously. I have done nothing at all."

Hax looked at her, kneeled and grabbed her shoulders. "At least you know you're useless."

That made her eyes watery.

"I told you how to help your dad. The rest is up to you."

Ratha nodded and ran to the forge hall. She probably would study until she ran out of energy.

"I never saw someone talk like that to a child," Gorre said. "You know, we don't usually say: At least you know you're useless to children."

"She can take it," Hax said.

"No, she don't."

"Then I'll just tell the chef to make a cheesecake for her later."

Hax sat on a chair and drew something on the parchment.

"What are you drawing?"

"A sword."

"A sword? I'm not a blacksmith but that sword is too long for anyone to hold."

"Anyone?"

"Anyone except cultivators."

"Don't worry about it. My armor can use this sword perfectly."

"Hax, I brought the blacksmith," Bodin said as he came with a bunch of people/

Four men with a thick beards approached him and saluted. "Sir, we are at your service."

"There's only four of you?"

"I only brought the best," Bodin replied. "The rest are not very experienced."

Hax nodded. "What do you think of this sword?"

The four of them leaned on the table and studied the drawing.

"It's too long and too heavy, sir. I don't think any norm could hold this sword properly."

"The grip is too short too."

"And there is no handguard."

"It's very unbalanced, sir."

Hax raised his hand. "Can you make the heaviest sword possible with this length?"

The four of them looked at each other.

"It's possible if we have the materials."

"Is materials all you need?"

"Yes, sir."

"How heavy will this sword be?"

"We can make the sword as heavy as 100 KG, sir."

So they could scale weight in this world. That was reassuring.

"It's not enough."

"What about 130 KG, sir."

"Not enough."

The four of them turned silent for a moment. Hax waited on his chair. He eyed them one by one. Finally, one of them stepped forward. "Is 200 KG enough, sir?"

Hax smiled. "Perfect. How do you plan to make it?"

"To make this weapon we're going to need Blaucium, Edgeskin, and Oracle Silver, sir."

The four of them sweated.

"What's wrong?"

Bodin stepped in. "These materials are extremely rare and hard to obtain, making them very expensive."

"If that is the case then the sword must be a good one."

"Sir… The cost of each sword is enough to buy twelve magic bulls. Are you sure about this?"

"Bodin, how is our finance?"

"Let's just say that we are filthy rich right now. Ever since I started selling the weapons to other kingdoms, money have been flooding our fortress."

"You already sold the weapons to other kingdoms?"

"Of course! I always wanted to trade to other kingdoms, but there is no route to take and a lot of dangerous beast are prowling around."

"But now you can do that since we have the guns?"

"Yes! With just a few squad of soldiers, we can protect the convoy from beast and bandits. It's our primary source of income."

"I didn't know about this."

"I wanted to surprise you."

"It does surprised me. So how much power armor and sword can we make without hurting our financial stability?"

"We can afford to make ten thousand power armor and swords. The materials needed for the armor was very expensive, though it almost couldn't compare to the 3d printer. If not for a mysterious group sending the materials to us, our army might have gone bankrupt already."

"Someone send the material to us?

"Yes. I don't know who they are and they don't answer when I asked."

"I see." Hax turned to the blacksmiths. "You hear him. Don't worry about money."

"Yes, sir."

"You can leave now. Bodin will take care of the materials for you."

"Bodin, sit down with me first. I bet you have a lot to tell me about our army."

Bodin sat down and glanced at Gorre who was circling the printer. "Is that the guy?"

"Yes, that's the plastic guy. Now, tell me what I need to know."

"It's not that I keep a secret from you, Hax. I just want you to focus on your work. And looking at the power armor, BC-75, and the Weler-150, I think it has been good so far."

"I want to know the status of our army."

"Our finance is good. We have more than enough manpower. Resources are abundance, and everyone is happy and motivated."

"And we're still recruiting, correct?"

"Correct. I have to strictly screen for other positions except doctors and soldiers just like you asked. We got more than a thousand applications every day"

Hax nodded. "Good. We're going to need every soldier we have if the plan goes wrong. The time window for the attack is too short. At most we can only get 1,500 power suit before we attack the sect."

"I understand. But why don't we screen doctors and soldiers?"

"We will need those two the most."

Bodin shook his head. "The moment a cultivator throw something at us, we'll already be dead. It doesn't matter how many doctors we have."

Hax smiled. "When our fellow friend is wounded on the way back to base, do you have the heart to tell them that there's no use returning to base because we don't have enough doctors."

"I… I don't think I do."

"Then how would you think the soldiers feel when they saw their comrades lay on their arms, badly wounded. But they know that as long as they return home, they will be saved. They know that we will protect them and take care of them as long as they return."

"They will feel relieved."

"Yes. Preventing unnecessary death is a must if we want our soldiers to fight with all they have."

Bodin nodded. "You're right. I don't know much about this stuff. That said, how do you know all this thing? I never got the chance to ask, but who are you really?"

"I don't know myself," Hax said. "The moment I open my eyes, I was already in that plain. A few moments later, I see your carriage being pulled by a magic bull."

"It's actually a pair of magic bulls."

"Don't mind the details," Hax said. "Anyway, it would be nice if you can find more people like Gorre. His skills helped me tremendously in reducing the cost and weight of our firearms. If we can recruit more people like him, I'm sure we will have a better time."

Bodin nodded. "I will leave now. There's so much things to do. Just tell someone or Ratha to look for me if you need anything. Or you can use one of those messenger birds if you want to."

"Sure. Go get busy."

After the conversation, Hax approached the 3d printer and watched how the machine perfectly printed each parts and rolled them out. The printer was currently outside the forge hall. There was no way to get it inside, so Hax had to tell someone to build a structure around it later.

Though, he kinda like it that the printer was in open space. There's soft grass. Fresh air, and he could watch the printer at work while sitting down and enjoying an orange juice or spiky eels.

But that decision was not very wise.

Other than protecting it from nature, placing the printer inside a building made it harder for anyone to sabotage it. If a cultivator sneaked in and destroyed the printer, the production would halt and that would be a terrible outcome for the army.

The Rebellion Army would rely on this armor for now. He didn't know when he would make better armor or weapons.

"The armor needs some variety," Gorre said. "Add some colors to it."

"There's no use in doing that. Color doesn't affect performance."

"But it affects identity," Gorre said. "You have the Man Hunter and The Black Wolves, right. Let them paint their own armor. I'm sure they will appreciate it. Not to mention the army have a lot of creative artists."

Hax nodded. "I'm planning to attack without the Black Wolves since I can't wait for them to return. So all the power armor will be for the Man Hunter, at least for now."

"Nice. I can't wait what those artists will come up with. Their drawings are so beautiful. If you let them design the power armor from the start, It would look amazing."

Hax smiled. Creativity alone wasn't enough to design the power armor. Even with a deep understanding in physics, mechanics, and machinery, Hax still had a lot of trouble designing it. It just showed the difficulty in creating it.

"It's not that simple."