Early the next morning.
Sunlight filtered through the sparse trees, dappling the campsite.
Wu Liang was the first to wake up.
He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded, with people lying haphazardly in various positions.
Wu Liang gently moved Lolia aside and carefully stood up.
He stretched his body, letting out a comfortable yawn.
Before long, Ignis and the others also woke up one after another.
"Ouch... my waist..."
Suina was the first to walk out of the tent, rubbing her waist.
"Me too... I feel like my bones are about to break."
Sa Lan grimaced.
Akomann and Ignis were not in much better shape.
The two, usually full of vigor, now looked like eggplants hit by frost, completely wilted.
Everyone else was the same, walking with their legs clamped together.
"It seems you all were truly satisfied."
Wei Xian, holding little Wu Qi, walked out of the tent with Eliza.
Looking at the group of 'injured,' she couldn't help but tease them.
"Wei Xian, don't talk as if you don't feel the pain!"
Suina glared at her, annoyed.
"You slipped away quickly last night. Tonight, I'll take care of the child for you. Let's see how Wu Liang deals with you!"
Wei Xian's face flushed slightly, but she still puffed out her chest and said:
"I'm not afraid of him."
Eliza watched the women bicker, merely smiling and shaking her head.
She walked over to Wu Liang and handed him a clean towel to wipe his face.
"Last night... you were all too unrestrained."
She whispered, her eyes glistening.
"Once you have a child, I'll be unrestrained with you too!"
Wu Liang's words made Eliza's heart pound.
"You're annoying, always trying to tempt me... It's been so uncomfortable lately."
"Alright, just a few more months."
Wu Liang gently patted the back of her hand.
"Okay."
Eliza sighed in relief.
"When are we going back?"
"Tomorrow, we'll leave after breakfast tomorrow morning."
...After another night, Wei Xian indeed succumbed.
When she woke up, Suina teased her all morning.
Today's breakfast was Florgloria's meat stew and baked flatbread.
After eating their fill, the group set off on their return journey.
Upon returning to the Tribe, everyone went back to their respective duties.
The next day, Wu Liang arrived at the Military Workshop.
"Suina, I have something new for you."
Wu Liang found her.
"Something new?"
Amidst Suina's confusion, Wu Liang handed her a roll of blueprints.
The blueprint showed a slender weapon with a metal body, a wooden stock, and a long barrel.
It looked somewhat like an enlarged Alchemical Firearm, but its structure was far more complex and intricate.
"Is this... a firearm?"
Suina asked.
"I call it a rifle."
Wu Liang corrected her.
"The Black Rock Type 1 Service Rifle."
He pointed to several key parts on the blueprint and began to explain.
"Look here, the inside of the barrel is no longer smooth; it has several spiral grooves carved into it."
"I call this 'Rifling.'"
"Rifling?"
"That's right."
"When a bullet flies out of the muzzle, the Rifling causes it to spin at high speed."
"This makes its flight path very stable."
"It's like stones we throw; the faster they spin, the straighter and further they fly."
Suina's eyes grew brighter and brighter; she instantly understood the significance of Rifling.
Stability!
This meant higher accuracy and longer range!
"And here."
Wu Liang's finger moved to the middle of the gun body.
"This is the most crucial part of this gun; I call it the Bolt-Action Mechanism."
He meticulously explained the structure of the Bolt: the Bolt, Firing Pin, Extractor... "When firing, we just need to pull this Bolt Handle back to eject the spent casing."
"Then push it forward, and a new bullet will be fed into the chamber, while the Firing Pin is cocked."
"The entire process only takes one or two seconds."
"One or two seconds?!" Suina exclaimed in surprise.
She knew that after each shot from an Alchemical Firearm, gunpowder and a projectile had to be loaded from the muzzle and compacted with a ramrod.
"Even the most skilled marksman would need nearly half a minute.
Yet, the gun designed by Wu Liang could complete a firing preparation in just one or two seconds?
This was incredible!
"But how are the bullets and gunpowder loaded?"
Suina asked the crucial question.
"Good question."
Wu Liang gave her an approving look and took out another small blueprint.
It depicted a cylindrical object made of brass.
"I call it a Fixed Metallic Cartridge."
"We pre-package the gunpowder and bullet head in this brass casing."
"The bottom of the casing contains a primer to detonate the gunpowder."
"When we fire, the Firing Pin strikes the primer, igniting the gunpowder and propelling the bullet head out."
"And the Bolt's function is to complete the entire process of feeding a new bullet and ejecting the old casing."
Suina stared blankly at the rifle and bullet on the blueprint, filled with awe.
Rifling, Bolt, fixed cartridge... these three ingenious designs were interconnected, forming a perfect and efficient killing machine!
She could fully imagine how terrifying a soldier would become, wielding such a rifle.
He could accurately shoot enemies from three hundred, or even five hundred meters away.
He could unleash a dozen or even more bullets in a minute.
One hundred such soldiers could form a deadly line of fire that no heavily armored cavalry could breach!
"Liang, if such a gun can be mass-produced, it would truly be terrifying!"
Suina murmured.
Wu Liang's expression was calm.
"This is a weapon to protect our Tribe. It is terrifying to our enemies."
"But for our own people, it is a guarantee of safety."
He patted Suina's shoulder:
"This task is very arduous."
"It requires us to be able to produce qualified seamless steel pipes to manufacture barrels."
"So it requires our machine tools to process Bolt parts with extremely high precision."
"It also requires our Chemical Workshop to stably produce Fulminate of Mercury for primers and Smokeless Gunpowder for propellants."
"I'll take care of the propellant and Smokeless Gunpowder; you just focus on producing the parts."
"Suina, do you have the confidence to complete it?"
Suina took a deep breath, then nodded heavily.
"Don't worry, I will definitely build it for you in the shortest possible time!"
In the following days, Suina ate and slept in the Precision Workshop.
She led the Tribe's most skilled Artisans, working day and night to study the blueprints and manufacture every tiny part.
Manufacturing the barrel was the first challenge they encountered.
Carving uniform, precise spiral Rifling inside a hard steel pipe was unimaginable before.
Suina tried various methods and finally utilized the power of a steam engine lathe to design a Broaching process.
This involved a specialized Broach with spiral cutting edges.
Driven by the steam engine, it was pulled through the drilled barrel steel blank repeatedly.
Directly and forcefully scraping perfect Rifling onto the smooth inner wall.
This single technological breakthrough alone took them a full month.
Next was the manufacturing of the Bolt mechanism.
Locking Lugs, Extractors, Firing Pins, Springs... each part was small and complex, with strict requirements for material strength and toughness.
Under Suina's leadership, the Artisans repeatedly experimented, constantly scrapping and restarting.
They used the best Converter steel, undergoing hundreds of forging and quenching processes, to finally produce qualified parts that met the strength requirements.
Meanwhile, Wu Liang was busy in another workshop, developing fixed cartridges.