MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith

Chapter 1556: The Road to Caplock (1)

”I don’t know...”

Pondering over Valyr’s suggestion while looking at the pile of materials the young man took out, Ryvrthe eventually responded to the question with an uncertain expression.

”Though the materials you brought out look like they could be used for that purpose, we don’t have the means to manipulate them into the desired shapes we need,” he said, causing the young man to smile in response.

Whoosh!

Taking out the items making up the portable workshop he used back when he explored the inheritance, Valyr looked at Ryvrthe once more before asking, ”Will this be enough?”

At those words, the man could only look back at him in stunned silence, confused towards the stark contrast between the young man’s preparedness and the suddenness of the suggestion.

After all, didn’t he just tell him that his conversation with Vlrvadh earlier was the cause behind the suggestion?

”Hmm...” Nevertheless, once he got over the surprise brought about by Valyr’s actions, Ryvrthe closely looked at the tools the young man brought out, gauging the feasibility of the idea in his mind.

In the end, the man looked at Valyr and shook his head, letting out a faint sigh as he said, ”Though it’s probably enough to work on modernizing your arquebus to a certain extent, the tools you brought out aren’t enough for us to work on an electric generator.”

”Is that so?” Valyr faintly nodded, not surprised that the man had said those words to him. ”What kind of tools would we need to have if we wanted to work on it?”

”Something that could achieve greater precision and consistency than what mere handiwork can achieve,” replied Ryvrthe, his demeanor now fully that of a sage. ”Of course, if you’re fine with the efficiency of the resulting generator being low, the tools we have on hand would be sufficient.”

”Greater precision and consistency, huh...?” Hearing those words come out of the man’s mouth, Valyr immediately knew that he already had a solution that would solve that problem.

However, since he had just brought up the thought of generating electricity on a whim, the young man decided to set the idea aside for the meantime, focusing on upgrading his arquebus for now.

”Let’s work on the arquebus for the meantime, then,” said Valyr, prompting Ryvrthe to nod as it was the more logical choice between the two.

Whoosh!

Taking out his arquebus from his spatial bracelet, the young man went ahead and arranged his tools according to how he laid out the portable workshop in the past.

Then, using a bit of his energy, he went ahead and placed the pile of materials he took out nearer to the workshop, only to then start a fire within the furnace.

Crackle... crackle...

Stoking the flames to reach a certain temperature he had in mind, Valyr placed the arquebus on the anvil as he looked at Ryvrthe. ”Although I’ve already thought about it before coming here, what do you think I should go with?”

”Wheellock or snaplock?”

While he was stocking up on materials back at the Blacksmith Guild, the young man gave his approach towards the empire’s request a bit more thought.

At first, he thought that making arquebuses based on the wheellock mechanism would be his answer to the requirement on the request.

However, as he refreshed his knowledge over the various firing mechanisms available during the Renaissance Age, he eventually realized that the wheellock mechanism... might just be the worst choice out of all of them.

As far as what he learned from the advancements he unlocked, there were four prominent firing mechanisms for firearms at the time.

In terms of when they were popularized, the earliest was the matchlock, only to then be followed up by wheellock, snaplock, and eventually, flintlock.

Of course, each of these firing mechanisms had the same goal, which was to light the gunpowder that would propel the bullet forward.

Then again, that’s where all their similarities stopped.

Just as the name implied, a matchlock mechanism utilized a flame to light up the gunpowder within the pan. On the other hand, a wheellock mechanism utilized the friction between a wheel and a piece of metal to generate sparks, which would in turn light the gunpowder.

As for the snaplock and the flintlock mechanism, they were quite similar in design, considering that both mechanisms utilized flint and steel to generate the sparks.

With that in mind, Valyr arranged the four firing mechanisms in terms of how easy they were to manufacture.

Unsurprisingly, the easiest one among them was the matchlock mechanism, only to be followed up by both the snaplock and the flintlock mechanism.

Naturally, that meant that the wheellock mechanism was the hardest among them to manufacture, especially after he considered that almost all of its parts were located inside the handle of the firearm itself.

Fortunately, just as he recalled this small debate he had back at the Blacksmith Guild, Ryvrthe gave him a quick answer to the question.

”Go with snaplock,” said the man, giving him a slightly confused look. ”Why would you go with wheellock if you know you could make a snaplock mechanism? It’s many times easier to create a snaplock firearm than a wheellock one.”

”What if I asked you to choose between snaplock or flintlock instead?” asked Valyr after that, curious as to what answer Ryvrthe would give him.

”As far as I remember, there’s not much of a difference between the two,” said Ryvrthe, rubbing his chin as he pondered over the question. ”However, if it’s based on how easy it is to modernize into using the percussion caps, then flintlock.”

”I see.”

After Valyr nodded at his words, the two went ahead and discussed how they would modify the arquebus the young man currently had to make use of a snaplock mechanism.

Though, after further discussion, both of them came to the agreement that it would be better for the arquebus to jump straight to a flintlock mechanism instead.

As they continued to reiterate the design of the modified arquebus over and over, Valyr went ahead and applied the knowledge he was learning from Ryvrthe on a snaplock firearm he was making from scratch, thinking it was good practice before actually tackling the empire’s request.

With that, he was able to familiarize himself with the various parts that made up the snaplock mechanism, as well as reduce the amount of mistakes he made during the forging process of the firearm.

In the end, it took two hours of continuous forging for Valyr to finally get the hang of it, eventually crafting a true snaplock firearm from scratch.