blueteamnovel Chapter 446 Hunting the Undying King
Chapter 446 Hunting the Undying King
Chapter 446 Hunting the Undying King
The Black Pearl, the main warship of the previous generation of the navy, is 80 meters long, 20 meters wide, and has a draft of 6 meters. Its gun turret is 30 meters high and it can carry at least 500 combat personnel. It was the main warship of the Kingdom of Rune before the Ironclad Pritz entered service, second only to the flagship of some fleets.
This ship has a distinctive feature of this era, with smokestacks and sails standing side by side, and 18 cannons protruding from each side of the hull.
Because this ship was a transitional product between sailing ships and steam-powered ironclad warships, it carried a steam turbine as its main power source, and the black smoke billowing from the stern funnel was a sign that the ship was ready to set sail at any time.
"I heard you went to sea yesterday to conduct various tests. Is there a problem with the new steam turbine at the shipyard?"
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After meeting with the officers in various positions, Evan asked Grangeros, the engineer he had rescued from MI9.
"No problem, I know all the related equipment inside and out. I supervised the entire replacement process!"
Granger Ross was a shy-looking young man with freckles on his face, but his tone of voice carried a hint of despondency and a sense of dejection.
He was one of the few believers in the God of Steam and Machinery on this ship, a student of Archbishop Horamick of the Church of Steam and Machinery, and a Sequence 7 appraiser. At a young age, he was the deputy engineer of the Pritz Shipyard and participated in the design and construction of the ironclad "Pritz". His professional skills were beyond question.
Evan's ability to recruit him as his chief engineer was partly due to luck.
Granger Ross was born into a middle-class family in Backlund. He loved tinkering with machines and gears from a young age. After growing up, he was admitted to the Backlund Institute of Technology with excellent grades and was taken in as a student by Archbishop Horamik, who was the principal at the time.
After graduation, he went directly to work at the Pritzker Shipyard, where he participated in the design and demonstration of the "Pritz" ironclad warship. In just three years, he became an associate engineer, which can be described as having a promising future.
However, precisely because they are inexperienced in the ways of the world, yet hold a key position, they are easily targeted by others.
The agency targeting him was Intis's intelligence agency—the Eighth Bureau.
At that time, all countries had received news of the launch of the ironclad warship of the Kingdom of Rune. In order to obtain the relevant blueprints, the intelligence agencies of each country used all sorts of tricks, jumping around and doing everything they could.
At this time, an Intis spy who was lurking in Backlund thought that it would be more convenient to find people directly than to look for the heavily protected blueprints.
Because the Church of Steam and Machinery was also a legitimate church of Intis, the Eighth Bureau easily obtained the relevant list through some means and easily locked onto Granger Ross as their target.
Because Granger Ross, though inexperienced, might be simple-minded and stubborn, the Eighth Injunction worried that their attempt to win him over would ultimately backfire.
Therefore, after careful consideration, they decided to use their most proficient method: seduction through beauty.
After careful planning, they disguised a specially trained prostitute as a naive, kind-hearted young nobleman who had just arrived in Backlund from the countryside.
What follows is the old-fashioned tragic drama of "hero saves the beauty," "exchanging glances," "letters carried by wild geese," "separation by death," and "arranging marriage."
After finally winning the heart of his beloved, Granger Ross began to indulge in all sorts of irrational spending in order to please her, from his villa in the West End to his four-wheeled carriage, from his extravagant purchase of gifts to the expenses of wedding preparations.
Unrestrained spending quickly left Granger Ross heavily in debt and overwhelmed, forcing him to resort to dishonest means.
Granger Ross's status as a student of Archbishop Horamik was very useful; the corrupt group at Pritzker Shipyard loved to use people like him as scapegoats.
After he encountered financial difficulties, kind-hearted people immediately stepped forward to offer help.
At first, Granger Ross hesitated, but the weight of love eventually became overwhelming, and he fell into a quagmire.
Just as he was getting into trouble and Intis's Eighth Bureau obtained evidence to prepare for further action against him, the Lanius fraud case broke out in Tingen, which led to a naval corruption case involving the Ministry of Defense and Pulitzer Port, ultimately resulting in his arrest as a corrupt official.
Because Granger Ross himself was an extraordinary being and a student of Archbishop Horamick, the investigation into him was taken over by MI9 and attracted Evan's attention.
His original offense wasn't actually that serious; being involved could be considered his first offense. Given his teacher's influence and his own technical skills, he might even be let off lightly.
But Evan couldn't resist his growing interest and was determined to investigate him thoroughly.
But perseverance pays off. Under Evan's ulterior motives, the investigators also conducted a thorough investigation of him, eventually finding his fiancée and the Eighth Inttis.
Once Intis' Eighth Bureau is involved, this case is no longer a simple corruption case, but a very serious leak case.
Because of Evan's covert intervention, the investigation only escalated. Even though the fiancée had admitted that their plan had only completed the first phase—implementing Granger Ross's involvement—and hadn't yet begun the second phase, MI9 insisted that a large amount of top-secret information had been leaked to Intis during Granger Ross's contact with the fiancée. The MI9 personnel in charge of Intis were happy to pin the blame on him.
While there is no evidence that Granger Ross leaked those top-secret documents, there is also no evidence that he didn't.
So his case is stuck in limbo, hanging in the air. No matter who asks, the answer is always the same: still under investigation.
During this period, Archbishop Horamik did try his best to get him out, but unsurprisingly, he was rejected by the Church of Storms, the Church of the Goddess of Night, and the Augustus family.
Although they made the Church of Steam and Machinery the legitimate church of the Kingdom of Rune, they did not want it to interfere with core departments such as MI9.
Finally, Archbishop Horamik was forced into a corner and, with the guidance of a master at Evan's behest, found Robert, who was in charge of MI9.
Robert was a very shrewd man. He knew immediately that Evan was up to something, so he pretended to be in a difficult position, not daring to let go of someone whose problem wasn't clear.
However, just when Archbishop Horamik was about to give up, he immediately proposed a compromise: to let Granger Ross enlist and become an active-duty officer.
In this way, he could not only be released from prison immediately, but also be kept under Evan's watchful eye to prevent anything from happening to him and implicating the people protecting him.
After careful consideration, Archbishop Horamik agreed to the plan.
And so, Granger Ross happily enlisted in the army and became the chief engineer on a warship in Evan's new army.
Evan patted Grant Ross on the shoulder and said with a smile, "Don't look so gloomy. You're still young. You'll have girlfriends and such in the future. If you still can't forget her, just let Darkwell continue to mentor you!"
As he spoke, Evan couldn't help but laugh out loud, and his laughter immediately caused the others to laugh out loud as well.
Grant Ross glanced at everyone present, looked sadly at Evan, and had a look of utter despair on his face.
When Evan released him, he saw that Evan was depressed and it was affecting his work. After careful consideration, he told Darkwell about his situation and asked Darkwell to take him to experience the charm of various girls and help him get out of the pain of heartbreak in the shortest possible time.
The aftermath was that after Darkwell shouted it out over the loudspeaker, the entire unit knew that he had once worshipped a prostitute like a saint, been completely fooled by her, and even ended up in jail for it.
Since then, everyone who sees him makes fun of him, which makes him miserable now.
However, it was precisely this kind of joke that allowed him to quickly get rid of the pain of his broken first love, brought him closer to others, and integrated him into the new army.
Ultimately, Granger Roth is just a young man who hasn't seen much of the world. A few jokes are fine, but continuing to harp on his sore spots is going too far.
So Evan gestured for everyone to stop laughing before Granger Ross could finish speaking, and then looked around before saying, "It's only because the ironclad ships took up too much of the Navy's budget this year that they didn't have the money to give the Black Pearl a major overhaul. Otherwise, the Navy would never have given us that warship!"
Everyone present followed Evan's gaze to the spacious deck and nodded in deep agreement.
The Black Pearl is a Class A warship in the navy and has not been in service for long. Although its steam turbine was hit by the coastal defense guns of the Fusak Empire in the southern continent, the rest of its structure is intact. The navy would not have given up on it so easily if there were no other options.
Unfortunately, once the naval high command acquired the ironclad warships, they became completely captivated by their various capabilities and frantically poured all of the navy's budget into their construction, leaving no money to replace the steam turbines of the "Black Pearl".
Evan, who had been struggling to communicate with the Navy about the warship, immediately approached the Navy's top brass after hearing about this and offered to pay for the repairs of the "Black Pearl".
In this way, Evan wouldn't have to compete with the Navy for the limited production capacity of the Pritzker shipyard, and he could also acquire a capital warship, killing two birds with one stone.
What is a win-win situation for Evan is not so easy for the Navy to accept.
In their eyes, Evan's new army was just a pawn for the king to use against them, and the production capacity of the Pritz shipyard was originally theirs; there was no such thing as Evan building a new army.
So Evan was trading with them using things that were originally theirs, and since the "Black Pearl" was indeed in good condition and quite new, they immediately rejected Evan's offer.
In the end, Evan managed to get Edsack Augustus involved and, through Robert, put pressure on the Navy, finally securing the ship by offering to repair two more warships for the Navy.
But it was all worth it. With this warship, Evan was even confident that he could take on the weakest of the four kings, the Undead King, in a one-on-one fight.
Nast, the King of the Five Seas, is still a bit lacking, after all, he has a level 0 sealed artifact.
Ivan then conducted a general inspection of the entire warship. Although he had great confidence in Granger Ross's abilities, as the highest-ranking officer of the entire force, he still needed to have a clear understanding of the relevant situation.
Moreover, this process also provides him with a good opportunity to strengthen his communication with the warships.
For Evan, the city burdened with calamity, the connection extends beyond just people; it also includes the weapons and equipment they are connected with.
Because of a series of unexpected events, his previous plans for going to sea were disrupted, leaving him no time to familiarize himself with the warship beneath his feet. So now he's making the most of every minute he can.
After inspecting the entire warship, and with all the sailors and crew assembled on the deck, Evan stood on the lookout and delivered a speech to everyone on the way to sea.
Because Evan had built this army from scratch and handled everything himself, and because he had spent most of the three months of training with them, they were very familiar with each other and had formed a deep bond. So Evan simply said a few words to encourage everyone and announced the departure to sea!
After the crew took their positions, the bosun shouted "We're anchoring!" and everyone shouted in unison, "We're anchoring!" The deafening whistle blared through the sky, and thick black smoke billowed from the large funnel at the stern. Bathed in the setting sun, the massive warship slowly sailed away from the naval port, attracting the attention of people in the distant civilian port. They rushed to the shore, waving frantically and tipping their hats in salute to the "Black Pearl."
Evan looked down at the busy sailors coming and going on the ship, then turned to look at the two small warships following behind. Looking at the sea surface, which looked like molten gold in the fire under the setting sun, he felt an infinite passion rising in his heart.
Bernadette, Sharon, Klein, and Edwina Edwards huddled together, staring intently at a black card that was lurking in mid-air and spinning continuously.
Bernadette is currently amplifying the extraordinary properties inherent in the "Abyss" card, preparing to use this property to pinpoint the location of the Undead King, Agaritu.
Logically speaking, this was a good idea, but they didn't know that the ruins of the God War still contained traces left by the Bound God.
The "Demon" path and the "Prisoner" path are adjacent paths, which adds a lot of uncertainty to their original plan.
However, after several days of exploration, they all felt that they were getting close to the Death Call.
Bernadette gave Sharon a wink, and Sharon understood immediately. She gripped a scepter tightly in both hands, and the scepter emitted a light like the morning sun, enveloping the entire hull of the "Golden Dream"!