Translator: CinderTL
The morning mountain wind swept through the graystone walls of Mountain Throat Fortress as Derrick Heller stood at the camp gate.
He was still in his worn cavalry uniform, the shoulder insignia stained with dust from the Yellow Earth Plain. Derrick had just received orders from Alden Town, transferring him from cavalry battalion commander to Mountain Throat Fortress Garrison Commander. His mission was clear: command the garrison, protect the survey team, and control the terrain.
A survey team of sixty men stood in formation in the open space before the fortress. At their head was a young technician wearing round-framed glasses and carrying a brass instrument case on his back.
"Sir!" the technician saluted crisply. "Third Survey Team reporting for duty. We've been ordered to the front lines to conduct a topographical survey of the eastern Rocky Mountains."
Derrick nodded in acknowledgment, returning the salute, but his gaze was fixed on the equipment carried by the mule train behind them—these were no ordinary compasses and surveying rods, but precision instruments he had never seen before.
At Derrick's request, the survey team leader demonstrated and explained the equipment one by one on a platform in the center of the camp.
"This is a theodolite, designed by Mr. Nick Wood, a graduate of Weiss Academy, and manufactured by Wood Precision Instruments Company." He carefully opened the brass casing to reveal the intricate graduated dials and telescope within. "It can accurately measure horizontal and vertical angles. When used with a spirit level, it allows us to map latitude, longitude, and elevation in complex mountainous terrain with an error margin of less than three arcminutes."
Derrick leaned over the telescope, adjusting the focus knob. The distant mountain ridge snapped into sharp clarity, and he nodded repeatedly, impressed. "Excellent, excellent."
"And this," the technician pointed to a tripod-mounted copper disk, "is a plane table. We can directly map terrain in the field. Combined with a stadia rod, the error is less than half a meter per hundred meters."
He flipped open his notebook to reveal a freshly drawn partial map: contour lines layered in concentric circles, clearly delineating ridges, valleys, and slopes. "We use the Stadia Method for distance measurement—the telescope has crosshairs. By reading the interval between the upper and lower stadia hairs on the rod and multiplying by a fixed coefficient, we can determine the distance without needing to stretch a measuring tape."
Derrick marveled, "You can determine distances without measuring?"
"Yes." The technician produced a short copper tube. "This is a barometric altimeter. It measures altitude based on atmospheric pressure changes. With temperature correction, its accuracy is extremely high."
Finally, he unfurled a large map—a partial topographic map of the Rocky Mountains, densely packed with contour lines and labeled with slopes, vegetation, and water sources. "This preliminary map was completed by the outpost team in three days. Alden Town requires a 1:10,000 scale map for cannon range calculations and troop movement planning."
Derrick surveyed the instruments, their brass polished to a mirror sheen, gears meshing with meticulous precision. To the eye, they truly deserved the label "precision instruments."
His gaze returned to the theodolite, its brass surface engraved with a small inscription: the name of the manufacturing company.
He suddenly stiffened, turning to the survey team leader. "Did you just say... this instrument was made by Nick Wood? The Nick Wood personally commended by Lord Grayman during the Usurper War?"
"The very same," the technician replied, his voice tinged with reverence. "During the Usurper War, Mr. Wood was still a student at the Weiss Academy when he was temporarily conscripted to map terrain for the army. During that time, he devised a simplified rangefinding method using trigonometric functions and the Pythagorean theorem. By measuring the angle between the cannon position and the observation point, along with the baseline distance, one could calculate the target's range."
He pointed to an old wooden ruler lying beside the plane table, its surface densely marked with gradations. "This is his original 'artillery rangefinder.' Soldiers simply aligned the ruler with the target and a reference point, read the corresponding value from the table, and combined it with the cannon's elevation angle to estimate the firing range. Though crude and rudimentary, it undeniably improved the firing efficiency of our artillery."
"I remember now!" Derrick nodded slowly, the memory surfacing.
Back then, he hadn't yet served under Paul Grayman. As commander of the family cavalry, he had fought alongside Grayman, then still Earl of Alden, and snippets of information about Nick Wood had reached his ears.
At a gathering of lords, Paul had even personally brandished the ruler-like device, boasting, "This thing may lack a blade, but it can breach the sturdiest castles! That young man, Nick Wood, deserves immense credit!"
Derrick had dismissed it at the time, believing that victory on the battlefield depended on martial skill and courage. Mathematics? Merely a trivial pastime for idle nobles.
Of course, his views had long since been overturned during his extended service with the Northwest Legion.
Derrick had never met Nick Wood. Hearing the name again today, he was astonished that the young scholar who had once aided the artillery had founded a company and was now supplying precision instruments to the front lines.
"So it was him..." Derrick murmured, his fingers tracing the brass barrel of the theodolite. "From a simple wooden ruler to this entire chest of copper and iron instruments—he's turned mathematics into a weapon."
The survey team leader smiled. "Indeed. He and his classmate Jim co-founded Wood Precision Instruments Company, specializing in rangefinders, mapping equipment, and artillery calibration devices for the military. Nearly half of our survey team's instruments are manufactured by Wood Precision Instruments."
Derrick nodded, snapping out of his reverie. He turned to the survey team leader and said sternly, "Your safety is my sole responsibility. No matter where you survey, a patrol must accompany you. Dwarves have been sighted in this area. We'll halt operations rather than risk your lives."
In the following days, the sixty-member survey team established their base at Mountain Throat Fortress and divided into five groups, spreading across the eastern Rocky Mountains like a spiderweb.
Carrying theodolites, barometric altimeters, and drafting boards, they ventured deep into valleys, scaled rocky ridges, and traversed dense forests under the protection of Imperial Army soldiers.
Every mountain pass, stream, and steep slope was meticulously marked. Contour lines unfurled layer by layer on their maps, transforming previously uncharted and impassable terrain into detailed representations of climbable cliffs, landslide-prone scree slopes, and potential ambush points.
They even used the Stadia Method to calculate the slope and width of several hidden mountain paths, determining whether they were passable for cannons.
As the survey area expanded, the team ventured deeper into Dwarf Territory. Some groups had reached the rift zone less than five kilometers from the Stonemason Clan's Core Territory, camping in rocky caves and maintaining contact with the fortress via signal fires.
The Stonemason Clan could not possibly ignore the humans' actions.
One night, a thirty-man dwarf squad, concealed by thick fog, stealthily approached the third survey team's temporary camp. Wielding short axes and cloaked in rock-colored mantles, they intended to destroy the human "scouting party."
The dwarves killed the sentries on guard, but were immediately spotted by hidden sentinels. A gunshot shattered the night's silence.
Alerted Alden soldiers scrambled out of their tents and opened fire on the attackers. The dwarves charged with shields raised, but more than half were cut down within fifty meters. As the survivors closed in on the camp, the defending soldiers hurled grenades. Shrapnel tore through the air, leaving the remaining dwarves either dead or maimed, their screams echoing as they tumbled into the deep ravine.
(End of the Chapter)
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