While manufacturing was started for bullets and rifles, I worked on designing the new magazines and heavier barrels to use for mounted machine guns. Initially, I thought I'd just adapt the existing rifle design, but that didn't work very well during initial tests. The magazine couldn't be that much larger without causing jams due to how the spring system operates in the current design. Worse, the heat dissipation on the current design isn't great for sustained fire, making it likely that an operator could get burned.

So, for 43 days, I tinkered with designs, settling on a drum style magazine, where a wound heavy spring forces bullets out through a spiral pattern. The barrel also now has a shroud over it, and there is a more robust firing mechanism to take advantage of the fact it is a mounted machine gun. The drum magazine holds 80 rounds, which is a decent jump up from the 20 rounds of our standard rifles.

While there hasn't been an attack on our new port city on the mainland, the outbreak attacks have gotten more frequent, so we've withdrawn our ministers from the construction area preemptively. They've spent enough time on the ground anyway that they're able to keep working on designs without being put at risk. We'll need to settle on a name for the city at some point as well, but no one wants to do it until there is more than makeshift shelters built.

They're still busy excavating huge amounts of soil and bedrock to make enough space for ships of our size to properly dock. We've shipped a few small mana engines that are driving archimedian screws to keep the empty dock spaces empty of water that seeps in while they work. They brought rock samples back from the dwarven continent with them as well. The samples, while different from our rocks, were largely recognizable as igneous and metamorphic rocks derived from igneous rocks. Given their continent's shape and active vulcanism, I'm not surprised that it's comprised mainly of those two types.

It does mean, however, that we aren't going to be able to directly import limestone from the dwarves. I have wondered specifically about certain sedimentary rock formations like limestone and banded iron. I would expect a least some limestone to exist in some places, since there are diverse shelled sea creatures. Banded iron, however, could still be up in the air. From what I can tell, the dwarves don't utilize banded iron deposits, despite evidence of their high quality steel production. That said, they also don't produce vast amounts of their high quality steel either, and they keep their techniques relatively secret in their deep forges.

It's entirely possible that no banded iron formations exist, or that they only exist undersea or in much smaller amounts. The tectonics of the planet have a large role in what would happen to previous locations where banded iron could have deposited, and the existence of mana could even mean that early life never went through the same cycles that would cause deposits in the first place. If it doesn't exist, then our method of refining basalt might actually be one of the few bulk methods available that doesn't have a dependency on much rarer igneous deposits of iron rich minerals.

Construction has been halted on the large air liquefaction facility for some time now due to the more pressing construction projects for the war effort. While there haven't been many new mana crystal deposits in the mountain, there have been a few, and it has been enough to keep up with the demand of them to power tanks for now. We may want to finish that facility sooner rather than later, though, since I do want to start the process of growing another large mana crystal for installation on the next island. Demand for mana crystals is only going to go up if we keep integrating them into hybrid crystals, and at some point production will need to rely on regrowing them from scratch. It's also the method by which we can recycle broken crystals, so in the grand scheme of things it is quite important.

The demon breakout attacks have seemingly stopped. We haven't heard any news of any new attacks of those type in 45 days now. Most of the previous outbreak attacks have been driven back into the valleys they originated from as well. There is some speculation about exactly what that means for the overall demon tactic. Some have claimed they believe it was a last ditch effort, but I think that is probably overly optimistic. After all, there still hasn't been any attack originating from the valleys around the dwarven capitol.

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I'd say that the more accurate guess is that this is a sort of delay tactic. There were very few high level demons in the hordes that flooded out. In all likelihood, rather than continue to lose territory, they'd rather force the dwarves onto the defensive in places. They can't recoup those kinds of numbers instantly either. It does take time to summon thousands of goblins, even if you have multiple summoners. There is only so much mana to go around, except near the capitol and Par-Tor.

I've sent a letter to Kao on that exact information as well. I'd actually expect that, with Par-Tor, the demons should be sending more attacks out from that region, not less. They should be recovering mana quicker than normal there. From what anecdotal evidence about the mana levels we could gather, it seems like Par-Tor hasn't been destroyed either. It makes me feel like these other attacks are more of a distraction to keep the focus away from the area. Obviously, it could simply be self-preservation of whoever is in charge ordering that sort of tactic, but it doesn't change the fact that the number of demons that are attacking doesn't quite line up to what I'd expect, so Kao should focus additional efforts and defenses in that area, just in case.

In the meantime, we've been producing bullets and individual rifles, and have started training our army to use them. We're also in the process of building out the manufacturing facility for machine guns. The drum magazine manufacturing is already online, and the second bullet manufacturing facility, along with all the necessary support manufacturing is nearly completed. The drum magazines aren't produced that quickly compared to bullets, since they are easy to reuse and repair.

The lead azide we use as primer has had a few hiccups in transport and manufacturing since we first started using it as well. Perhaps thanks to the lessons we've learned over time with handling nitroglycerin, all of the accidents were pretty minor, and there haven't been any deaths, only minor injuries and some damage to machines or the loss of the occasional batch. Even though I was the one who devised the method of manufacturing, a lot of the stages almost seem like alchemy to me. The sodium metal intermediate, for instance, is sourced entirely from sea water, and the nitrogen atoms are sourced out of the air. I can only imagine how crazy all this must seem to everyone else.

The demons, for the most part, seem to just do the work without having much of an opinion on the process. Due to the nature of our country, there isn't exactly a rich cultural background to inform them on what is normal, nor have many of them lived under anything other than these sorts of repeated magical refining of one material from another. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them believe you can literally just make anything from anything else, which, to be fair to them, with magic might be possible.

Despite the fact that our mana engines are really only converting mana to heat, then heat to usable work, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the dwarves just see this as another form of magic. Though I also remember that Zeb once pointed out I have a blind spot for magic. To some degree, or possibly entirely, magic seems to follow rules, and thus should also fall under science. I've merely skipped us forward along other scientific branches far more than magic is because I have knowledge of those areas. Magic is a new frontier. Perhaps that sort of mindset of what I'm doing is magic is more true than I give it credence.

I've been reminded in the past that myself, and perhaps Tiberius, are outliers in seeing magic as non-ordinary. I should maybe look at it more like electromagnetism, a fundamental force with useful applications, rather than a standalone entity. If I think of it that way, does that make Tiberius a Nikola Tesla figure? I think it's probably best not to dwell on that sort of thought process for too long. Nikola Tesla wasn't as obsessed with weapons as Tiberius is either. Perhaps he's closer in mindset to what a few of the Manhattan project scientists felt during their tenure developing nuclear weapons.

This line of thought is definitely something I should consider diving deeper into once the war is over. It has made me consider that, once I can finally get that academy built that I've wanted, I should have an exceptionally large wing dedicated to magic studies. Compared to the other branches of science, it is by far the furthest behind in established knowledge, despite how extensively utilized it is. It reminds me, to a degree, of how poorly understood biology was for most of earth's history, despite the fact humans are biological creatures.

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