As a time-traveler from Earth, Roland is well aware of the huge advantages of automatic firearms over cold weapons, even in a fantasy world like Varess with supernatural powers, automatic firearms are indispensable in the future war mode. Now that the future development trend has been seen, the Far East should take precautions and try to create a new type of firearm with high quality and low price, preferably without or as little consumption as possible of magic crystals, and its performance is not much inferior to that of mainstream firearms.

Roland also knew that his requirements were somewhat difficult, and when he released the task of tackling key problems to the Military Technology Research Institute, which was still called the "Ordnance Institute" at that time, he put forward two design ideas by the way.

The first idea is to refer to the mainstream gunpowder weapons on the earth, and try to replace the effect of musket activators with the unique alchemical substances of Vares. The second idea is more offbeat, referring to a tributary of the history of firearms on Earth, which uses high-pressure gas cylinders as a firing device for guns.

In the world before Roland's crossing, gunpowder and firearms had evolved to the point of peak, and air guns were only hunting or racing items unrelated to military use in the eyes of earthlings in the 21st century, but in the eighteenth century, the Austrian air rifle, known as the "Spear of the Wind", was recognized as the most powerful and only military firearm that could fire continuously.

The first physical air gun was produced in 1580, and around 1600, the first air compressed air gun was born. The gun was made for King Henry IV of France, and since then air compressed air guns have dominated the development of large-caliber, high-power air guns. After nearly 200 years of hard work, by about 1800, airsoft manufacturing was quite elaborate and perfect, and the accuracy was comparable to that of gunpowder guns at that time. However, due to the constraints of the time, the cost of making a good air gun was often higher than that of making a high-quality musket, which not only required gunsmiths to have special skills, but also had a lot of time to manually manufacture complex valves, mechanisms and gas cylinders, so only the upper class could afford it. Because of this, very few ancient airsoft guns have been handed down and are little known.

According to the literature, the large-scale military use of airsoft guns took place in Austria in 1780. The airsoft gun that equipped the Austrian army was called indbuchse, which means "wind gun" in German. Designed and manufactured by the mechanic and gunsmith Bartholomgirandoni, the gun was also called the "Girandoniairrifle".

The Kiranduni air rifle was 1.2 meters long and weighed 4.5 kilograms, the same size and weight as the musket of the time, and the butt was equipped with a compressed air cylinder, which could be removed and unscrewed, and replaced with a real bottle. The gun fires 13 mm lead bullets, 20 lead bullets pressed into a tubular shuttle, which can be fired in bursts or continuously, and can penetrate an inch-thick plank within 100 meters. At that time, the air gun was significantly superior in functionality to the musket. First, air guns are not affected by the climate, unlike muskets that cannot be used in wet and rainy days; Second, the air gun does not produce smoke like a musket after shooting, so it has better concealment; In addition, the air gun can be fired continuously, and a good shooter can finish a shuttle in half a minute, which is absolutely incomparable to the musket at that time.

Of course, the Kiranduni air gun also has its shortcomings, and its biggest disadvantage is that it inflats the cylinder. It is said that a bottle of gas can effectively fire 30 buckshot bullets, and it takes about 1,500 shots with a pump to fill a bottle of gas. In addition, the production of gas cylinders was very difficult under the technical conditions of the time, and the maintenance of air guns was also troublesome.

The Kirandoni air rifle was retired after nearly 35 years of service, and for more than two centuries, large-caliber air rifles were mainly used for recreational hunting games and were very popular in Europe, especially in the upper class of Great Britain. Airsoft guns were beautifully crafted, with carved metal and jewels and gold ornaments on the barrels or cylinders. At that time, it was hard to imagine a well-dressed English gentleman who did not have a large-caliber air gun in his hand.

In "Sherlock Holmes", air rifles also make frequent appearances. There is a detective story about Sherlock Holmes, who learns that he is being tracked by a killer and makes a wax figure that resembles himself as a stand-in, and the killer mistakes the wax figure for Sherlock Holmes himself, snips at a room across the street with an air rifle, and knocks down the wax figure of Sherlock Holmes with a single shot.

Judging from the fact that the killer used the air gun as a sniper weapon in the story, the power of the air gun at that time was at least not much inferior to the musket, and there was enough lethality across the street, and there was no strong noise and eye-catching gunsmoke when shooting, which was undoubtedly the most suitable weapon for assassins who needed to act stealthily.

……

Roland himself is more optimistic about the first idea, after all, muskets are the mainstream of the history of firearms development on the earth, as for military air guns...... In retrospect, it's just a crooked tech tree, and it doesn't seem to be worth digging into.

However, the subsequent development was beyond his expectations, and after several years of study, Jack and Kafta resolutely abandoned the powder gun technology that had made a breakthrough, and instead adopted the second idea provided by Roland, and came up with a set of air rifle design at the end of 1623, and equipped it with a simple and practical inflatable device, which was the "wild duck fighting artifact" and "wind gun" mentioned by Roland in the "Fireside Chat".

Roland simply mentioned on the radio program that listeners outside the Far East, such as Palatina, were unfamiliar with the term air rifle, and only regarded it as a hunting tool, and did not care. It wasn't until many years later that people suddenly woke up to the impact that Roland had lightly mentioned on the traditional mode of warfare in the world of Vares......

Jack and Kafta had been tinkering with the "Spear of the Wind" for some years, and the reason why the breakthrough was delayed until the end of 1623 was due to the two basic research results of the "Kolas Laboratory".

The "Technological Breakthrough of the Wind Spear" first benefited from the new progress of "Star Alchemy". Even those who don't know about airsoft guns can imagine that the biggest difficulty with this firearm is the airtight technology. The main reason why military air guns on Earth were eliminated by muskets was that the sealing and storage of gas cylinders was too cumbersome and unsuitable for the battlefield environment.

Jack and Kafta also encountered the above dilemma in their R&D, and tried many materials, either with poor air tightness or easy to burst the cylinder, and there were always various leaks. It wasn't until Duvalin was studying the star and inadvertently configured a compound of star and carbon fiber that this problem was solved.

"Star-carbon synthetic plastic" has two major characteristics, the first is that it has excellent air tightness, even more than seamless welded cylinders, and can store high-pressure gas for a long time; The second feature is that for the manufacture of air guns, this plastic material has a magical "constant pressure" property.