Chapter 66: Big Surprises.

As soon as the men reached a suitable field in the wilds, they started to clear the surroundings and started to prepare for testing of the Ballista prototype.

When John watched all the commotion, he thought and said to Vlad and Tornwall, "I think we would need a permanent testing field for the future as it would be hectic to always travel such long distances and make our men do such a hectic job. This not only creates commotion but it could also jeopardize the classification of our important weapons. This also reveals the information on the current firepower of our weapons."

Hearing this Vlad also raised his own opinion, "Well its quite true but it would still need to be kept a secret when it comes for the testing of new weapons."

"However it would be more convenient to keep confidentiality if we have a testing ground.

And you can't forget the fact that the best you can do is to delay the relaying of information since most of the time, information is leaked one way or the other. "

Hearing this John gave his order, "Okay, it's decided, we will start the construction of our testing grounds as our next project. Tornwall next time you see Ryfon at the town, tell him to meet me at my Mansion later on."

Meanwhile, all the preparations for the testing had been prepared,

Head of the men, Lopez was handling all the procedures came to John, saluted him and made his report to John, "Sir all the preparations are complete. We are ready at moments notice to start our testing procedures."

After Hearing his confirmation, John then ordered him, "Good, We will immediately start. Give notice to all the men to be on their posts as we will start our testing procedures in 5 mins. Hurry up."

Lopez blew a horn which signaled all the men to be on their posts and keep guard. Hearing this horn, all the men started to head towards their designated posts.

For a while, everyone was tense as this was the first time for many people to test such a unique weapon.

John signaled Tornwall as he started to handle the Ballista.

"Fire!" Roared John.

Everyone was tense for this first shot of the Ballista, some thought, like always it would be a failure, some hoped for success and while some like John and Tornwall were fully convinced that it will definitely work.

After watching its first attack, everyone was shocked which included Vlad,

The first attack completely destroyed a big tree which was 550 meters away from them.

The second attack destroyed a small terrain 600 meters away from them which created a very deep hole inside.

Vlad thought after watching the first attack, 'So that's the reason why he wanted to keep the firepower of this weapon a secret, it seems I underestimated this weapon a lot. So it seems what Tornwall said was correct but this weapon alone would completely change how the wars would be fought in the future because of its firepower alone. The range of this weapon alone is a terrifying asset. I wonder how magicians would feel after the introduction of this weapon'

Watching the reaction of everyone, John and Tornwall showed a satisfied smile,

John was especially happy after watching Vlad's reaction from how intently Vlad was watching the newly made Ballista like a young boy who found his favorite toy.

Tornwall said when everyone thought it was all over, "Wait, wait, It's not all over, Let me show you all my biggest asset after I made this weapon, this is one of the reasons why I took 5 complete days to complete this project."

He took out a specialized arrow of the Ballista from one of the carriages. This arrow was imbued with various patterns, he then loaded that Arrow with the help of some men. He said proudly as he explained about the specialty of the arrow to everyone present over there,

"This is a specialized arrow which is imbued with fire and wind magic. this arrow will travel 1.5 times faster and with 1.3x more distance when it activates wind magic and I don't know the current statistics when it comes to the output of its firepower, we can only know after more tests.

The other specialty of this weapon is that it catches fire to the targets as soon as it hits them. So this weapon has more uses compared to normal long-range weapons. It has value in destroying high-value targets on a battlefield. Okay, that's it, you can fire it." Tornwall said proudly to everyone as he gave an opportunity to one of the men carrying the arrow.

That man was already excited when he watched the earlier performance of this weapon, This time when he got an opportunity to fire the weapon himself personally, he got pretty much excited,

As he heard the orders from Tornwall, he repeated the same procedures which Tornwall did previously as he excitedly fired the Ballista.

Boom!

The Ballista this time hit a top of a small hill 800 meters away, The terrain of the small hill was completely destroyed as the sound could be heard by all the nearby beasts as they scrambled to retreat in fear because of their instincts after watching the firepower of this weapon.

All the guards including Vlad were completely shocked after watching this scenario. They were very excited at the fact that they would be able to handle this weapon in the future.

"I wonder when we will be able to use this weapon in the future." Said one of the men escorting them.

***

Watching this even John was shocked as he didn't expect to see such firepower from the Ballista after a rune was imbued to the arrow.

This time Tornwall completely stole the show from everyone,

Tornwall thought proudly as he watched the Ballista doing its work, 'I hope I can be qualified to get alcohol personally created by Lord John this time around after this performance. hahaha.'

Tornwall grinned as he was quite pleased with himself as he laughed when he thought about the current performance.

"It seems this was even outside of your expectations, weren't they?" Vlad asked John when he saw his surprised reaction when Tornwall suddenly brought out a new trump card this time around.

John: "Yup, I was quite surprised this time around, I guess I will have to reward him this time for this unexpected performance, I didn't expect that incorporating runes would have this effect on this Ballista."

Vlad: "Well, it's not like this usually since Tornwall is quite unique in himself as he himself dabbled a lot in runes as he was making weapons previously over the years and to improve them he studied a lot of those weapons which included runes. Normally it is quite hard to imbue these runes in bigger weapons like this time around."

John thought a bit and understood as he replied to Vlad: "Hmm... so that was the case when we saw its firepower, however, it still showed improvement in the quality of Ballista when we observed the earlier show. So, this will help me later on when things get tough, it has quite high value in its uniqueness."

Vlad smiled a bit and said to him, "That's true, and its quite likely that you will need those weapons in this coming winter. This winter would be quite cold and fearful for the North-frontier town from what I know."

John showed a mysterious smile as he said these words, "Maybe true, Maybe you could be wrong, I can tell you that everyone will experience changes from North-frontier spreading to the whole of Aelius Kingdom and across the boundaries."

Vlad was quite surprised after watching his confidence and ambitions from his previous words as he thought and seriously said to him, "Quite possible since you have this weapon, but I can tell you one thing in advance, as soon as you showcase the real firepower of this weapon in front of everyone. The royal family will watch you like hungry wolves as well as a potentially hostile force challenging the throne. You may have heard about the rumors of Lorr Family, right? Are you really ready for the consequences which you will face because of revealing such a weapon? You need to make preparations for potential bloodshed."

John smiled more mysteriously and said with confidence to him, "Well I have another option, that is to create another more terrifying weapon than the current one. This would also help me identify friends and foes. The very fact that you warn me already proves my instincts that you were different.

As for the royal family, I can always keep them under an illusion that I am in their control while I only provide them Ballistas even if I choose to reveal it. And I can always choose to release a weaker version of this Ballista."

When John said that he would create a more terrifying weapon, Vlad shivered as he heard this and his blood almost ran cold on the mention on something more terrifying than this when it came to the range or firepower.

Vlad came back to his senses and made a very satisfied smile he heard John say this and thought, 'I guess my instincts were right when I betted on this kid when I felt something different about him. This kid shows eyes that he is already confident enough to create more terrifying weapons.'

Vlad smiled and said to him, "As I thought, you were really baiting people in the room when you revealed this weapon, I guess you intended to score two goals with that one arrow when you fired that shot and revealed about this weapon at that meeting."

Vlad continued in a serious tone this time as he revealed one of the important secrets of big kingdoms and empires,

Vlad: "However I would still warn you to be more careful of the fate sorcerors of the kingdoms and not to underestimate the thrones just based on some factors, those guys have averted disasters for a lot of kingdoms whenever they faced big events. Even I almost got did in by their trap when they predicted my next assassination years ago and this is one of the reasons I am cautious and currently guarding Mistress instead of taking on high-risk targets."

Vlad said with a nostalgic smile as he said to him, Vlad was someone who always liked to go against the odds as he this to John, "However, since I have already made a bet on you I guess I will stick to it as it is unlike of me to go back on my word. And I would also like to see how you deal with those assholes. After that incident, they always got on my nerves as I had to plan more thoroughly later on. You having space magic as your main element would be quite useful against them." Vlad said with a satisfying tone as he thought about the miserable faces of those Fate sorcerors. Plus he also got the feeling that John would certainly screw them over later when he confronts them.

John laughed as he heard about Vlad's miseries of the past.

"When you said that you would create more terrifying weapons, do you plan to kill a dragon with it by making such terrifying weapons?"

John showed a confused expression when he heard about dragons for the first time and asked Vlad in return, "Dragons? Do they actually exist? From what I know, only the Royal family have dragon knights which they rarely use?"

"I guess you aren't planning about slaying dragons as you don't really know about Dragons. As for those dragon knights which you mentioned, they aren't really dragons but they are lesser dragons with little to no intelligence as they can be tamed this easily. However, those dragon knights of the kingdom's are quite strong. They were made with the very intention to create a balance between magicians, court officials and the Aristocrats."

Vlad sighed, however, there was still a smile on his face as he thought about today's events, 'I guess this would be an eventful and exhausting year. However, I guess it would be worth it.'

Vlad called his assistant, Dearil and immediately ordered him, "Make a gag order for everyone to keep this event as a classified project. Anyone even peeping a sound about it will be dealt with appropriate consequences as for the compensation for this gag order we will increase their wages."

Vlad then turned to John and seriously said to him, "You should make this gag order as well as it will be big deal if this information is leaked out early on." Dearil was the same red-haired guy who guarded the forge.

Dearil glared at John as both of them chatted happily. He was more pissed after he heard from Vlad that John already recognized him when he detected him earlier when he unconsciously leaked a bit of killing intent.

John smiled as he said to Vlad, "Well you don't need to worry. Before coming here and deploying my men at the forge, I had already informed them about the gag order and took my most trusted men when we were going to the testing of our weapons in the future."

"I very well understood the consequences of revealing this weapon for everyone to see. There would be a battle royale for it if they saw it in action first hand."