Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 535 - 502 The Resistance of the Mages

With the new energy tower technology, Perfikot naturally expanded it throughout the Northern Territory.

The existing energy towers only needed to have new temperature control barriers added, which was simply welding a few cooling plates for modification, not a major project.

Producing these cooling plates inscribed with magic arrays was also very simple for factories; just make the molds and get the production line running, it’s not a troublesome task.

For really rudimentary conditions, you could assemble two flat steel plates, get a cooling copper pipe, coil the pipe, and weld it to the back of the steel plate — using iron pipe and iron board could work in a pinch too.

The only ones who might need to put in a bit more effort would be the mages, as drawing a magic array is a meticulous task, and they could only work manually. Extensive repetitive work was naturally unacceptable for mages who had always considered themselves superior.

However, after their first strike was met with half a Knight Order of Steam Knights thrown by Perfikot at their doors to directly intimidate them into resuming work, these mages were forced to pinch their noses and act like Palu.

Of course, one shouldn’t rely on the efficiency of mages, since manually drawing intricate magic arrays, even if you have a knife at their throats, won’t speed things up.

But for Perfikot, this wasn’t really an issue.

After meticulously studying the process of these mages drawing magic arrays, she realized it was actually a high-precision drawing task, without any additional requirement of maintaining magic infusion during the process.

Considering that magic power had already dwindled in this world, requiring mages to keep magic infusion throughout the drawing process meant that even if they were physically drained to husks, they wouldn’t meet the demands.

The key for these mages drawing magic arrays was using a special ink, which had good magic conductivity, allowing magic to flow smoothly into the array and enabling it to operate efficiently.

Thus, corresponding precision in drawing the magic array, the accuracy of strokes, and various details were required.

Otherwise, any errors or issues would lead to obstructed operations of the magic array or simply render it inert.

Furthermore, after completing a magic array, mages still had to apply protection, otherwise, how could ink that wipes away easily resist natural wear and erosion? Ink itself would gradually expire over time.

Of course, this was a relatively traditional approach.

When Perfikot got her hands on it, she naturally wanted to make improvements.

Considering the mages’ approach truly made it hard for Perfikot to accept their low work efficiency.

A single magic array required two to three mages to spend at least a week to complete the drawing and subsequent calibration before it reached a usable state, and even with magic protection, it required replacement within two to three years. This efficiency was far too low.

Especially when there were at least hundreds of energy towers throughout the Northern Territory, calculating four magic arrays per tower, it would take these mages at least eight to nine years to complete all the work.

But Perfikot didn’t have eight or nine years to let them drag on. The apocalypse was coming in eight or nine months, and it was unlikely these mages could complete the drawing of magic arrays for key cities in the Northern Territory and New Continent during this time.

While such a result wasn’t necessarily unacceptable, after seriously inquiring and understanding the situation, Perfikot expressed it was unacceptable.

If only maintaining temperature control barriers in several key cities, the current efficiency could barely meet the needs.

But Perfikot planned to modify all the energy towers in the Northern Territory, and subsequently build more, aiming for at least a thousand energy towers, which made the low work efficiency completely unsatisfactory to her.

Luckily, since drawing magic arrays didn’t require any special technology and only needed precision, Perfikot directly resorted to mechanical drafting.

Quite literally, mechanical drafting.

The Northern Territory possessed usable computer technology, which Perfikot employed not only to support mechanical logic for manufacturing robots and alchemy puppets but could also be applied to various production activities, including drawing magic arrays.

Moreover, the precision of mechanical drawing was far more trustworthy than humans. Unless there were program errors or mechanical failures, the likelihood of mechanical errors was much lower than that of humans.

Humans indeed could push the upper limits very high, but machines could set the lower limits high.

Therefore, when it came to large-scale mass production, machines were often more reliable than human labor and offered higher efficiency.

Confronted with Perfikot using an almost printing-like method to create magic arrays, the mages naturally felt highly insulted, refusing to cooperate with Perfikot even with a 75 mm cannon barrel pointed at them.

For no other reason, being threatened at sword-point still allowed them to feel dignified as masters of the core technology, with their status and position unaffected despite playing the role of Palu.

They still had a fundamental distinction from ordinary assembly line workers and civilians, and even common nobles were supposedly inferior to mages.

However, when Perfikot had the technology artificially transformed into something machines could replicate, their value and role became replaceable, transforming them from noble mages into dispensable societal rejects.

Such change in status and disparity was something the mages couldn’t accept in any way.

Thus, even facing the barrels of Steam Knights, they refused to cooperate.

Not only that, these mages posed a combat stance, hinting they might act at any disagreement.

Such a situation was unexpected for Perfikot, but she didn’t particularly care, or rather, what the mages considered resistance seemed to her more like child’s play.

If the mages truly sought to rebel, forcing her to accept their conditions, they should demonstrate a more determined resistance, like dismantling production factories or directly sending some titled mages to confront her, using force to compel her into negotiations.

Otherwise, the resistance shown under threats of cannon muzzles was nothing but a joke that could be easily crushed at any moment.

True, unwavering resistance and opposition don’t manifest like this.