Driven by immense wealth, every plan in Newhaven City advanced steadily and in good order.

The city’s population also continued to rise.

That year, Newhaven City’s total population surpassed one million five hundred thousand.

In a feudal age, this was an almost unbelievable number.

Yet with the support of Newhaven City’s terrifying industrial output, such a city had truly come into existence.

Another year passed.

Newhaven City expanded once again.

At the center of the inner city, towering buildings now pierced the clouds.

Many stood dozens of stories high, filling all who looked upon them with awe.

Two years passed.

After several rounds of expansion, the Wardens had grown to more than thirty thousand soldiers.

The force had to be divided into ten independent armies, known as the First Army through the Tenth Army.

Each army contained roughly three thousand soldiers.

The Artillery Army expanded to five thousand.

Three years passed.

After the thermal power plant was enlarged, Newhaven City gained an abundant supply of electricity.

The major factories finally released their full production capacity.

Newhaven City’s population surpassed three million.

Its scale now far exceeded that of any other great city in the world.

That same year, Newhaven completed the modernization of its entire military.

Automatic rifles became standard equipment for every soldier.

The Artillery Army was fully equipped with mortars, howitzers, cannons, and antiaircraft guns.

Its combat power rose across the board.

Five years passed.

Automobiles appeared in Newhaven City.

Caelum ordered the creation of three new military branches.

One was the Armored Army.

One was the Navy.

The last was the Air Force.

Newhaven now possessed forces on land, at sea, and in the sky.

The Armored Army had fifty tanks.

The Air Force currently possessed sixty propeller driven aircraft.

Every one of them was a bomber with a heavy payload capacity.

Since there were no real aerial opponents, there was no need to deploy fighter aircraft for the time being.

On the surface, Newhaven City appeared to support and manufacture all of this military equipment through its own strength.

In truth, it had built these forces by drawing heavily upon the wealth and resources of the Grand Concord Dynasty and Thalric.

Unfortunately, Newhaven remained only a single industrial city.

Even with a population of more than three million, its total scale and industrial limits were still fixed.

Its industrial network was incomplete.

Many parts and materials still had to be made by hand by workers and students from the academies.

That was why the number of tanks and bombers had remained low.

Perfecting the industrial network required dedicated production lines for every component and material.

That, in turn, required far more factories.

Newhaven City no longer had space for them.

As a city built around both industry and commerce, Newhaven was nearing saturation.

To solve the problem, the council held a series of discussions and decided to construct another city.

It would be a completely modern metropolis.

The new city would complement Newhaven in both industry and commerce, creating a more complete and specialized production network.

Its site was chosen not far from Newhaven City.

After discussion, the new city was named Rovaryn.

On the day construction began in Rovaryn, Caelum appeared inside Newhaven City’s shipyard.

The vast open grounds were filled with materials.

As Caelum activated the technology tree, a warship began to take shape.

[Vehicles and Ships Accelerated Production]

Large quantities of steel joined together under the influence of an invisible force.

A massive frame quickly formed.

Structures, armor, and countless other components assembled in succession.

Within only a few breaths, a colossal vessel slowly settled into the water inside the shipyard.

[Vehicles and Ships Production Complete]

It was a battleship.

In an age that believed in enormous ships and massive guns, battleships were undoubtedly the most powerful warships in existence.

They were the perfect embodiment of strength and authority.

Caelum named this armored battleship Thunder God.

The name suited its terrifying combat power.

Thunder God measured two hundred and seventy meters in length and thirty three meters in width.

Its armor averaged between twenty and thirty centimeters thick.

The frontal armor of its turrets exceeded forty centimeters.

In this age, it was practically indestructible.

For propulsion, Thunder God used eight heavy oil boilers and four steam boilers.

It could easily reach fifty kilometers per hour.

At full power, its speed could rise by another quarter.

Its maximum sailing range reached thirty thousand kilometers.

The battleship also carried an extremely advanced electrical control system.

The guns could be aimed and fired with simple controls, requiring little manpower.

At a glance, Thunder God seemed covered in gun barrels from bow to stern.

It had three main gun turrets.

Each carried three guns of four hundred and six millimeters.

There were also ten secondary turrets.

Each held two guns with a caliber of one hundred and twenty seven millimeters.

In addition, the battleship mounted dozens upon dozens of large caliber automatic cannons.

Thunder God looked like a steel porcupine.

Weapons covered nearly every part of its hull.

Its full crew could reach as many as two thousand people.

When such a steel giant sailed across the sea, it would be the embodiment of invincibility.

The sailing ships of this age could do nothing but tremble before it.

Building this single battleship had nearly emptied Newhaven City’s accumulated wealth from the past several years.

Even so, it was worth the cost.

Its existence alone meant control of the seas.

For the present, one battleship was enough.

Future warships could use cheaper designs.

Even with thinner armor, no weapon of the current age could penetrate them.

Even if their firepower were reduced by one or two levels, they would still crush every sailing navy in the world.

Once Thunder God was completed through accelerated production, another technology unlocked.

[Space and Rockets Unlocked]

Several years earlier, Caelum had already used accelerated production to create a wireless telegraph.

Now that rocket technology had been unlocked, further information technologies became available as well.

[Information and Radar Unlocked]

[Information and Satellites Unlocked]

[Information and Computers Unlocked]

Newhaven City had not yet developed any of these technologies independently.

Radar had arrived at the perfect time.

Caelum could install it aboard Thunder God.

[Information and Radar Accelerated Production]

[Information and Radar Production Complete]

Once development caught up with the technology tree, Newhaven City would not need much longer to enter a fully modern information society.

Caelum reviewed the entire technology tree.

All the branches unlocked so far converged at the next stage.

Nuclear fission stood before him like a towering mountain.

Once nuclear fission was achieved, Caelum would open the door to future technology.

Beyond it lay limitless energy and the vast promise of space.

He took out paper and began drafting a plan.

He called it Global Strategy.

The following month, during a meeting of the Newhaven Council, Caelum formally presented the Global Strategy.

Afterward, he intended to use Thunder God to begin a new age of maritime expansion.

Before he could do so, an unexpected development occurred.

A large and well equipped army crossed the endless mountain range in the west.

It entered this vast land.