"Uh... General Lawrence," Chris said, looking somewhat embarrassed at Berman's lifeless body on the ground. He continued, "I suppose your loyalty isn't worth much..."

General Lawrence burst into laughter, as if he had just heard the funniest joke. After he stopped laughing, he spoke, "Every person on my ship can vouch for this – as long as you treat the people of Portcross well, we will fight for you, to the death!"

"That sounds promising," Chris nodded. "I'll do my best."

"In that case, I'm at your service," Lawrence replied nonchalantly.

Glancing at the densely packed cavalry behind Chris, Lawrence approached Chris's horse with a touch of verbosity, saying, "Defeating Main and taking over Meen City means you have to pay a tribute of a thousand gold coins to Ensael, but I believe if you can afford two thousand, you can manage three thousand."

"Your analysis makes sense," Chris acknowledged. "I have a way to get three thousand gold coins."

"Now that you're the owner of three castles, you must fulfill your responsibility – paying taxes to Portcross," Lawrence said, then turned to the direction of the sailboat and shouted loudly, "Alright, everyone, disembark! Portcross is saved!"

Chris was taken aback by Lawrence's straightforwardness.

"In fact, I'm curious," Lawrence turned back, shifting away from the topic of taxes. "How did you manage to defeat Ensael swiftly and almost simultaneously conquer Meen City?"

"Vaglon and I split our forces; it's not that hard to understand," Chris replied with a smile.

"What I can't comprehend is how you, with just 600 men and not heavy cavalry, managed to win against 2000," Lawrence shook his head. "I want to see your new weapons. Maybe I can help make your navy more respectable. But I need to inspect your troops to ensure they are as reliable as you claim."

Chris lured him, "Would you like to see my new weapons? Perhaps I can make your navy more respectable. However, I want to examine your forces carefully to ensure they are as reliable as you say."

Lawrence, after contemplating for a moment, accepted Chris's offer, "Alright, take me to see. If you can fulfill your promise to Portcross, my life is yours."

Chris didn't say a word but pulled on the reins, heading out of the city. He had no intention of concealing the power of his artillery; it was impossible to keep it a secret. News of the battles in the Eastern Forest and Portcross would soon spread far and wide, making his weaponry known to all.

His true ace in the hole wasn't these cannons or even more advanced modern weapons. What truly made him powerful was the great modern industrial system that had begun to rise in Ceris.

So, Chris didn't mind showing Lawrence his artillery unit, fully intending to tame this sea dragon to serve him loyally. At this point, Lawrence had no idea just how potent what he was about to witness truly was.

...

"Clank! Clank!" Inside a wooden shed, a massive steel beast lay across the center, making deafening noises while driving a massive iron shaft in rotation.

"As long as we feed it coal... this contraption can keep running like this forever! It's more miraculous than magic!" Smith, the craftsman, said with tears of excitement. A month ago, he was just a blacksmith, and now he was a great craftsman who had helped create a marvel.

For those unable to practice magic, who could only live in lands devoid of magical essence and never witness the glory of magic, Lord Irelian Chris had shown them that even without magic, ordinary people could harness a more potent power.

"Add coal! Add coal!" Smith stood beside the advanced steam engine, loudly commanding his apprentices.

In response, two apprentices carried shovels, adding more coal to the combustion chamber, raising the temperature of the steam engine.

Examining the pressure gauge, Smith nodded in satisfaction. The machine's internal pressure was entirely within the design limits, and its output met the firing requirements.

This steam engine was connected to 20 weaving machines already set up. In theory, as long as these looms were connected to the power unit, they could keep working continuously.

"Begin the test!" Smith commanded the dozens of female workers nearby who, following their training, activated the devices, linking the weaving machines to the steam engine's power.

The first weaving machine started to work frantically, and finished fabrics rolled down into a groove below, automatically wound into rolls.

The same thing happened with the second, then the third, and the fourth weaving machine. Soon, all 60 weaving machines in the factory were operating without a hitch.

Meanwhile, the boiler's pressure remained stable, and all pressure gauges fluctuated slightly within their normal range.

As expected, these female workers could manually operate these weaving machines, as long as they followed the process, they could complete the entire production process.

A well-trained female worker could manage three such weaving machines, and the production speed of these three weaving machines was ten times that of the primitive looms.

From this day onward, every household could afford inexpensive fabric, provided there were sufficient raw materials. Ceris City's textile factory could even supply enough fabric for the entire world!

This production speed was a crushing blow to the previous fabric manufacturing process. Even more terrifying, as production speed increased, fabric production costs began to plummet.

What previously required 1,000 people to produce could now be made by only 20, saving a significant amount of production costs. This would effectively disrupt the primitive fabric production ecosystem.

More frighteningly, with steam engines, factories like this could expand indefinitely, allowing workers unfamiliar with textiles to join in, making textile production even easier and more widespread.

Soon, children and the elderly would join the production line. The fragile primitive material production model would evaporate like a snowflake in the sun, leaving nothing behind.

"The second and third steam engines have been put into use in the blacksmith's workshop, and there are ten more in the production process. I heard that three of them are specifically for making new weapons," Smith handed a signed report to another engineer standing beside him.

The supervising engineer signed his name on it and nodded, saying, "The steel mill in Ceris City is almost at its limit, and we need new iron ore to support our production."

"The nearest iron mine is in Toubu, which is actually quite close to us," Smith seemed anxious to expand his business and suggested, "We've been buying their ore lately, but the prices are just too high."

"Can't be helped," the other engineer, well-informed about current affairs, shook his head and expressed his displeasure. "The Lord went to personally conquer Portcross. If he doesn't return victorious, we won't have the resources or time to go to Toubu."

Pausing, he added, "With that in mind, we need to hurry up in the mechanical plant and increase the number of machine tools to produce more cannons."

"That's exactly what I'm thinking, but we need time," Smith said helplessly. "Our current production speed is already the fastest we can achieve."

Industrialization couldn't be achieved overnight. Although Ceris City had many skilled blacksmiths and foundry workers, they could only complete their tasks bit by bit.

Automated machine tools were still impossible to produce, and the parts of the steam engine were still manufactured manually with a high waste rate and uncertain precision. Therefore, the current steam engines were large and had relatively low power.

The scrap rate of the parts remained high, and most machine tools had to be operated manually.

Because complete industrial technology was available, with detailed formulas and accurate processing time data that didn't require experimentation, Chris was not pushing technological development in this world but rather dragging it forward.

Since magic was present in this world, alchemy was widespread, and the world was quick to accept Chris's unconventional ideas. Almost no one questioned the source of his technology; they believed he was divinely inspired.

From a technical perspective, Chris was not pushing the development of science and technology in this world; he was dragging it forward. The constraint was no longer the pace of technological accumulation and development but the serious lack of production capacity and talent.