Modern Weapons in the North.

 After helping Lan Montreal smoke out the refugees working in the royal palaces illegally , the guard Lucinda had been promoted to the rank of provincial general . Lan had installed her at the Northern mines to oversee his new project of siphoning funds from the Supreme Alliance that were secretly being used to develop new military weapons . With Vivian Marjorie's leadership , the project had gone on successfully for a month without flying over the radar . Henry Frere , who had previously worked as a head hunter , finding refugees work in the capital , was now the foreman . He used his people skills to find skilled labor for the project and guide the people according to Vivian's orders.

 The project had reached a major milestone , revolutionizing the limited use of shot guns in warfare . Lan had drawn multiple blue prints of the sub machine guns that were only developed later on in his time and sent them to Vivian , who in turn would lay out elaborate plans for their structural construction . The project had now finished manufacturing the very first sub machine gun and the team had insisted that Lan Montreal be there to watch the trial rounds .

 Because of this , Lan had cleared his weekend and made plans to arrive very early in the morning in Northern province . Lucinda and Vivian were there , waiting to receive him . They had covered their faces with Niqab scarfs that left only their eyes visible to filter the dusty air before inhaling it . Vivian looked right at home with it but Lucinda who also wore a military suit of armor stood out contrastingly.

 " Wear a scarf my prince , the air here is filled with dust and it might affect your health ," Lucinda greeted him , offering him a second Niqab she had specially saved for his arrival . Her gesture was a great relief to Lan , given how harsh the hot , windy and dry desert plains of the Northern plains were .

 " Follow me , I will take you to the testing facility ," Vivian offered after he had finished tying the robe around his face .

 The three walked into one of the many clustered caves that formed the former gold mining zone , closely flanked by the royal security detail meant to protect Lan from danger . 

 After taking several turns in the underground tunnels , the three reached a dead end with a metallic door erected to cover the full circumference of the tunnels width and height . Walking over to the door , Lucinda knocked twice , waited then did it again thrice changing the number of taps of each round .

 " We use the morse code you taught us as a form of security password ," Vivian explained Lucinda's actions to Lan as the door was opened from the inside and they walked in . The door let them into a make shift factory with multiple conveyor belts loaded with gun parts ready for assembling and multiple fire furnaces for the molding and refinement of the mined crude metals. Noisy hammers beat the parts into shape as the workers toiled in the smoky and humid atmosphere of this factory . Seeing this reminded Lan of the trade associations of his time created to fight for better working conditions for workers . 

 The three walked past this section and led by Vivian , entered into a quieter room filled with more security guards . On seeing Lucinda and Prince Lan arrive , the soldiers immediately stood at attention and saluted them .

 " They never do that when its just me ," Vivian scoffed as she came to a stop in front of a large glass screen that separated the new room they were in from a much smaller empty one with white walls . As Lan observed , a soldier walked into that white room holding the newly developed submachine gun and a training dummy in the other hand . After fixing the training dummy onto one of the walls , he took a few steps back and aimed the gun at it .

 " Submachine guns , as I call them , are way more advanced compared to the mainstream shot guns used by the militaries in warfare . They have the ability to shoot multiple bullets with just one trigger , giving us an edge in the battle field .When the trigger is pulled, the following things will happen. The gunpowder inside the gun ignites, creating high-pressure in the gases trapped inside .These gases propel the bullet forward while also pushing the heavy bolt backwards against a spring . The bolt movement extracts and ejects the spent cartridge and the magazine spring pushes the next bullet into place .This cycle repeats as long as the trigger remains pressed , allowing an Agreyan soldier to fire at multiple enemies consistently ," Lan started explaining how the gun worked in theory . His mentioning of these details still surprised Vivian , even though had already seen the blueprints for the model.

 She waved her hand at the soldier in the room to start using the gun, " Only one way to find out if it works. Our success will hinge on the gun being able to tear down the dummy from the wall in a single round,"

 Lan had no doubts and watched with satisfaction as the dummy fell off the wall barely a second after the soldier had started the gun . The shock on the two ladies with him after seeing the performance only added to his satisfaction.

 " If we use this gun in battle , no one in our entire continent will come close to our military might ," Lucinda exclaimed like someone who had just had their eyes opened. All along she had been harboring doubts concerning the project . This immediately changed when she saw the results with her own eyes .

 " I will start pumping more funds from my family to support the project prince Lan , " Vivian too couldn't contain herself . Now she could see Lan's vision with her own eyes and believed without a doubt that he could push it through . However Agar's concerns also started to to feel real , making her wonder whether she should in fact join the council the priestess had suggested.

Lan noticed the concern in Vivian.

 " Agar told you about me right ? I can see it in your eyes ," he casually said to Vivian ,attention still fixated on the soldier holding the gun . His silver grey eyes shone and glimmered in paired sync with the flash of the gun's muzzle as more rounds of ammunition started being fired off against a new dummy.