Over the last 44 days, I've been ensuring manufacturing processes have been going smoothly and working on designs for rifles. While I've worked on those designs, I've also been considering how military operations will probably need to be a little different than they were on earth. Again, individuals that are high level are still quite dangerous, regardless of the existence of guns. However, there are probably certain individuals that guns amplify their magic abilities. Individuals who have speed or dexterity enhancements are far more useful than those with increased strength or meteor shot.

In fact, I started going through various abilities that demons get to create a list from most to least useful. If I can get the design for rifles really nailed down, then I'll have to leave it up to the army minister to create a training regimen for low level demons in the military to go through to gain the best traits they can for being riflemen. Since the rifle provides the bulk of their offensive capabilities, the best traits either increase the effectiveness of using the rifle, such as improved dexterity and improved perception, or improve survivability, like heightened reflexes or thick hide.

Further than that though, a combination of types is important for forming combat squads. Not every individual is going to be able to have every relevant trait. Sure, we'll have some elite squads comprised of high level individuals with every relevant trait and then some, but most squads will need to be specialized. That means we'll essentially need multiple different boot camps to focus on creating certain individuals. For example, we may want each squad to have a spotter who has improved perception, a vanguard who has thick hide and heightened reflexes, and a gunner who has improved dexterity. All three kinds would also want improved endurance as well, so that they can carry all their equipment for long periods of time.

As I envision it, that would form the bare minimum of abilities before they can go out to go fight. If we're not at war, those military personnel can continue training to gain more relevant traits to further improve their capabilities. The fastest way to level is through live combat, which is why I feel that sending out bare minimum skilled troops is more effective than waiting for each individual to become high level. A year of non-combat can easily be offset by one or two battles against high level foes.

After 35 days, I have a working prototype automatic rifle. It isn't particularly fast, nor is it the most reliable, but it works. I'll have to spend some more time fine-tuning everything to improve reliability and stability, but the first step to all of that was actually making a working model.

In the mean time, a progress report came in from the mainland, they've been making good progress. Their biggest holdup is in constructing new defensive forts that utilize our artillery and rangefinders to keep control of territory they've claimed. The ever increasing number of tanks have allowed their offenses to advance quickly with minimal losses. The coast facing the inland sea is now completely under the dwarve's control, along with a decent portion of the ocean facing coast.

Kao has offered that we can begin building our port city within some of the recently captured territory, if we want to do so. The war is still ongoing, but he's confident that things should proceed smoothly moving forward. He also said that us having a new port city that we've designed from the bottom up will probably allow us to transfer goods more effectively to and from the mainland, compared to layout of Ostark, which was designed for smaller ships.

The difficulty for us will be in selecting a location. From what I can tell from maps, there aren't any great natural harbors, and the handful of major rivers on the ocean side already have cities. Now, those cities were abandoned, but we'd have to tear them down to build up how we want to, so it's not exactly a benefit either.

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Myself, Zeb, and two other ministers are going to go scout part of the coast for a good location to build. I'm thinking that building along a small river might suffice, as we should be able to excavate it from the coast to make a deep and wide channel from the ocean to build an artificial port while still providing us with the freshwater we'd potentially need to run a factory and provide cheap drinking water.

No matter where we choose, it's going to take a long time to actually establish the city, but the potential trade benefits are far greater than the construction losses that will occur on Kembora as a result of moving construction teams to the mainland.

Our round trip to and from the mainland looking for locations took 28 days. There were only so many places to choose from, as quite a few locations are too risky with the potential for leviathans in the area. We decided on a location not too far from the pass to the inland sea. A stream that is about triple the size of the stream that goes through Kembora City comes down from the nearby foothills and runs into the ocean.

We started the drafting process for where various buildings and constructions should go as well. Zeb has started drafting new building designs for housing demons and dwarves. Unlike on Kembora, quality stone for construction actually needs to be sourced from the nearby foothills, rather than as part of basement excavation, so we'll also require labor for transporting those goods.

Rather than rely on carts or trams, I'd like to work on a new system that will likely be far more valuable. I thought about the potential of creating trucks or cars, but it's not as appealing as making trains. The larger engines and greater cargo capacity can prove invaluable. To begin with, we'd only need to create a train system to go the handful of miles to the foothills and back, carrying workers and stone to and from the excavation zone.

However, if we can show the value of it, we can probably convince the other races to buy the technology and build the infrastructure around the rest of their territory. Long term, that would improve overall trade, and would allow our single port city to have access to a far larger market than it would otherwise.

Kembora is far too small and steep for trains to be worth it there. Trams with centralized power are better there, since the space is so small. Here though, you need a powered engine to travel across the vast distances of an entire continent. Of course, some of the more mountainous regions will be harder for the dwarves to hook up to the rail system as compared to the outer coasts. In fact, the humans will probably have an easier time connecting their rail systems. If the economics become worth it, they might even be able to build a bridge across the ten or so miles that spans the narrow point of the pass, connecting the two continents via rail.

While designing rifles is still on my priority list, I've pushed back further development of them in favor of designing a train and rail system. In essence, the first model engine I've designed utilizes the same sort of steam engine that the tanks use, except instead of having only one hybrid crystal embedded in it, it has three. I wasn't sure exactly how wide the rails and everything needed to be, so I designed them around the engine's overall size, and that resulted in the train engine itself being about 9 feet wide, with the track being 5.5 feet in the gap.

Thankfully, a lot of the work for designing these sorts of things has already been done due to our tram and cart work, but there is still some research to be completed related to railway development. Unlike the previous systems utilizing stone railways, we actually will need steel rails to accommodate the wear and tear that a full size train can cause. I've already spent 40 days on this project, and I expect I'll have to spend about that long again in developing the rail system and manufacturing necessary for all of this.

The good news, however, is that this is an excellent production chain for us to convert to once the war is over, and we no longer need to be producing as many tanks. I also don't see us introducing rifles into the current war unless necessary, so all of what I'm doing now is simply looking forward to after the war ends.

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