Chapter 342: Nagrand’s Autumn (Part 2)

For the remainder of the journey, Vaughn barely spoke. However, the young tauren accompanying him were still so astonished by the changes in Nagrand that they couldn’t help but express their amazement and chatter among themselves, much to the secret satisfaction of their houndman guide.

Most of the flatlands along the Icy Sea had already been converted into rice paddies. The towering stalks of rice had turned golden, their heavy, plump grains swaying enticingly in the wind.

From a distance, Vaughn could vaguely see that Nagrand had grown nearly three times larger than when the tauren had come to pledge allegiance the previous winter. A wooden wall encircled the small hill that housed Nagrand’s inner city, while the outer city was carefully planned to avoid river valleys and flood zones. Rows of workshops, warehouses, and trading posts lined a wide road stretching all the way to the lakeshore. At a simple wooden dock, massive cranes were unloading coal from boats.

Nearby, at the fishing port, mousekin were busy hauling fish from the boats and transporting them to a nearby workshop. There, the fish were beheaded, gutted, salted, and hung up to dry.

From some of the riverside buildings, thick black smoke billowed into the sky. At first, the tauren thought there was a fire, but after noticing that the locals remained calm, Vaughn asked the guide and learned that those were simply other workshops in operation.

On the wide roads, short mousekin drove carts pulled by bison and moose, moving goods back and forth with surprising orderliness. Vaughn quietly observed for a while before noticing that all traffic moved strictly on the right side of the road.

The young tauren were too dazzled by everything to notice, but Vaughn—who had once followed his clan elders on a secret visit to an elven-ruled city in his youth—couldn’t help but compare. Though he couldn’t pinpoint the exact differences, his impression of Nagrand far surpassed that of the city he had visited back then.

Unlike the inner city, the outer sections of Nagrand had no secondary wall. The tauren only realized they had entered the city when they stepped onto the stone-paved roads, and suddenly, the surroundings became bustling with activity.

Countless mousekin scurried back and forth, engaged in who-knows-what tasks. Whenever a priest passed by, they would slow down to bow respectfully before hastily resuming their work. It was only then that Vaughn noticed—nearly every mousekin wore a Xuanyuan holy emblem around their neck.

Apart from the city hall, which also served as the headquarters of the Icy Sea clans, the tallest buildings in Nagrand were the temples of the Xuanyuan Church. Vaughn could easily identify them by the towering holy emblems mounted on their rooftops. As they passed by, he could even hear the sound of melodious hymns drifting from within.

The tauren had no words to describe this scene. It was something entirely unprecedented in the Glacier Sea region—nothing like the legends or songs passed down among their people. Yet, despite its unfamiliarity, they couldn’t find anything about it to dislike.

Tauren preferred living in harmony with nature, but this novel experience didn’t repel them. In fact, compared to any place they had ever seen, Nagrand exuded a vitality and energy that was difficult to put into words.

“If you’re looking to buy or sell goods, head toward the lakeside market. It’s open every day. But if you wish to meet Lord Tagre… I mean, Lord Sidre, you’ll need to visit the city hall and speak with Lord Beck first. He’ll see if Lord Sidre is available,” the guide informed them, silently cursing his own slip of the tongue.

“Beck?”

Had this been any other clan, Vaughn would have seen it as a great insult if the leader did not personally welcome him and instead sent an unknown subordinate.

However, even setting aside the overwhelming power of Nagrand’s leadership, its sheer prosperity and scale had already made it clear to the tauren delegation that they were not on the same level as Nagrand’s rulers.

“Lord Sidre isn’t here?” Vaughn asked.

“I’m not sure. He’s always busy, flying around to handle various matters. It’s common for him to be away for days at a time.”

Vaughn felt a slight sense of disappointment, but just then, a muffled explosion suddenly echoed from behind a lone building near the lake.

He turned to look at the guide, who merely spread his hands innocently, signaling that he had no idea what was going on.

***

“Pfft! Pfft!”

The man Vaughn had hoped to meet was at that moment covered in soot, spitting out bits of metal and gunpowder residue.

“Ugh—too much powder again.”

Liuli and Ling cautiously peeked out from behind a thick wooden board. Seeing his disheveled state, Liuli couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

Wu Qingsong ignored her and instead picked up the ruptured gun barrel, carefully examining it to determine where things had gone wrong.

Nagrand had begun producing its own iron, but due to a lack of skilled craftsmen, both the quantity and quality were unreliable. The emergence of the new Calamity Gate had also disrupted their once-stable smuggling routes, forcing them to find new trading partners.

The iron pipes for gun barrels had been purchased at a high price from their new smuggling contacts, but since they couldn’t provide precise blueprints, they had only been able to place a general order for various pipe sizes. The results of these trials had been less than satisfactory.

The basic principles of firearms were simple, but transforming those principles into practical, efficient weapons was anything but.

Wu Qingsong had no interest in wasting time on matchlock muskets. He planned to skip directly to breech-loading, paper-cartridge flintlock smoothbore rifles. However, achieving a proper gas seal remained a challenge, and barrel quality was another major issue. The same powder charge might work fine in one barrel, but in another, it could lead to catastrophic failure.

But the biggest problem of all was the quality of the gunpowder itself.

As the ruler of a city with over a hundred thousand inhabitants, all it took was one command, and countless people would rush to fulfill his orders. Because of this, he had quickly amassed a large supply of crude saltpeter.

Extracting saltpeter wasn’t complicated. Once he described where it could be found, many mousekin had returned to their old burrows and gathered huge amounts from their waste disposal areas. When Wu Qingsong tested the material with fire, it indeed ignited, confirming its composition.

However, purifying it was another matter entirely.

Every batch of saltpeter contained various impurities, and their concentrations varied significantly.

As someone who had spent his youth reading novels without much critical thought, Wu Qingsong was now painfully aware of the truth behind the saying, “You only regret not studying when you actually need the knowledge.”

He knew saltpeter was some form of nitrate, but what exactly were the impurities? How should they be removed?

All he could do was dissolve it in water to filter out insoluble debris, but the resulting solution was an unsettling color—hardly reassuring as pure nitrate.

The same issue plagued the charcoal and sulfur. Their quality varied, but Wu Qingsong had no idea how to refine them.

Without proper purification, the inconsistency of the gunpowder meant that every batch had a different burn rate, making it impossible to achieve reliable performance.

So, he resorted to the simplest method—grinding each type of material as finely as possible using wooden mortars, then thoroughly mixing them to ensure uniformity.

While he couldn’t guarantee purity, he could at least ensure that each batch contained the same effective concentration of ingredients.

From there, it was a tedious process of experimenting with different ratios, igniting them, and observing the results. But when visual assessment proved insufficient, he had no choice but to conduct live-fire tests—repeatedly risking barrel explosions in pursuit of progress.

Since he couldn’t die, he figured he might as well push the limits.