The morning mountain breeze swept across the grey stone walls of Mountain Throat Fortress as Derrick Heller stood before the camp gate.
He was still wearing his old cavalry uniform, his shoulder insignia still covered in dust from the Yellow Earth Plain. Derrick had just received orders from Lakeheart Town to transfer from cavalry battalion commander to Mountain Throat Fortress garrison commander, with a clear mission: to command the garrison, protect the surveying and mapping, and control the terrain.
A surveying team of sixty people was lined up in the open space in front of the fort, led by a young technician wearing round-framed glasses and carrying a brass instrument case.
"Sir!" The other party saluted, his voice clear and bright. "The third surveying team has been ordered to the front line to carry out a topographic survey mission in the Eastern Rocky Mountains."
Derrick nodded in return, but his gaze was firmly drawn to the objects carried by the mule caravan behind them—they were not ordinary compasses and measuring rods, but rather sophisticated instruments he had never seen before.
At his request, the surveying team leader demonstrated and explained the equipment he had brought to the 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." He carefully opened the brass casing, revealing the finely detailed dial and telescope inside. "It can accurately measure azimuth and elevation. When used with a level, it can map latitude, longitude and elevation in complex mountainous terrain with an error of no more than three arc minutes."
Derrick leaned over and peered through the binoculars, adjusting the knob. The outline of the distant mountain ridge instantly became clear, and he couldn't help but nod repeatedly, saying, "Not bad, not bad."
"And this," the technician pointed to a copper disc with a tripod, "a flatbed map instrument. We can draw topographic maps directly in the field. With the help of a stadia measuring rod, the error is less than half a meter per hundred meters."
He opened his notebook and showed a newly drawn partial sketch: contour lines circled in layers, and ridges, valleys, and slopes were clearly visible. "We use the stadia method to measure distance—there are engraved lines inside the telescope, and we read the distance between the upper and lower wires of the scale, multiply it by a fixed coefficient, and we can get the distance without pulling a rope."
Derrick exclaimed, "How can you know the distance without measuring?"
"Yes." The technician then took out a short copper tube. "As for this, it's a barometric altimeter. It uses the principle that atmospheric pressure changes with altitude to quickly determine altitude. When used with a temperature calibration meter, it has extremely high accuracy."
Finally, he unfolded a large map— a partial topographic map of the Rocky Mountains, densely covered with contour lines marking slopes, vegetation, and water sources. "This is the initial map completed by the outpost team in three days. Lakeheart Town requested that we draw a 1:10,000 scale map for Cannon firing range and marching route planning."
Derrick surveyed the instruments; the brass was polished to a mirror-like finish, and the gears meshed precisely. Visually, they certainly lived up to the term "precision instruments."
His gaze returned to the theodolite, its brass surface engraved with a line of small characters—the name of the manufacturing company.
He suddenly paused, then turned to look at the surveying team leader: "You just said... this instrument was made by Nick Wood? The Nick Wood who was personally praised by Lord Glaeman in the Usurper War?"
"It was him," the technician replied with respect. " During the Usurper War, Mr. Wood was still studying at the academy when he was temporarily conscripted into the army to survey maps. During that time, he used trigonometric functions and the Pythagorean theorem to derive a simple distance measurement method—by simply measuring the angle between the gun position and the observation point and the baseline distance, one could calculate the distance to the target."
He pointed to an old wooden ruler next to the flatbed plotter, covered with dense markings: "That was the original 'artillery rangefinder' he made. Soldiers could estimate the range by simply aiming at the target and reference point, looking up the readings in the table, and combining them with the Cannon elevation angle. Although it was very primitive and crude, it did indeed improve the firing efficiency of our army's artillery."
"I remember now!" Derrick nodded slowly, his memory returning.
At that time, he was not yet serving under Paul Greiman, but he was leading his family's cavalry in a joint operation with Lord Glaeman, who was then the Count of Arda. He had also heard some things about Nick Wood.
At the gathering of the lords, Paul even personally showed off the instrument that resembled a wooden ruler: "This thing, though it has no blade, can conquer even the strongest castles. That young man named Nick Wood did a great job!"
Derrick didn't think much of it at the time. On the battlefield, skill and courage were what mattered! As for mathematics? It was just a game for some decadent nobles who had nothing to do all day to pass the time.
Of course, as he spent more and more time in the Northwest Legion, he had long since refuted this view himself.
Derrick had never met Nick Wood before, and hearing the name again today, he was surprised that the young student who helped the artillery was now able to start a company and even send precision instruments to the front lines.
"So it was him…" he murmured, his fingertips lightly stroking the brass tube of the theodolite. "From a wooden ruler to this box full of bronze and iron instruments—he actually turned mathematics into a weapon."
The surveying team leader smiled and said, "Yes, he and his classmate Jim co-founded Wood Precision Instruments, which manufactures rangefinding, mapping, and artillery calibration equipment for the military. Nearly half of the instruments in our line surveying team are manufactured by Wood Precision Instruments."
Derrick nodded, ending his recollection, and looked at the surveying team leader, saying:
"Your safety is my sole responsibility," he said in a deep voice. "No matter where the survey goes, the patrol team must accompany you. There are dwarves around here, so we must stop work rather than take any risks."
In the days that followed, the sixty-person surveying team, based at Mountain Throat Fortress, split into five groups and spread out like a spider web toward the Eastern Rocky Mountains.
They carried theodolites, altimeters, and drawing boards in the Ausser Army. Under the protection of soldiers, they ventured deep into the valley, climbed the rocky ridge, and traversed the dense forest.
Every mountain pass, every stream, and every steep slope was precisely marked, and contour lines were laid out layer by layer on the map. Previously vague, impassable areas were refined into climbable sections, scree slopes, and potential ambush points.
They even used the sight distance method to calculate the slope and width of several hidden mountain paths to determine whether they were passable in Cannon.
As the surveying area expanded, the team ventured deeper into the dwarven territory. Some groups reached the rift valley less than five kilometers from the core territory of the Stonemason Clan, spending the night in caves and maintaining contact with the fortress using signal fires.
The Stonemason Clan certainly cannot stand idly by and do nothing about human behavior.
One night, a 30-man dwarf squad sneaked through the thick fog and raided the temporary camp of the Third Surveying Team. They were armed with short axes and wore rock-colored cloaks, intending to destroy the human "scout team".
The dwarves killed the sentries on guard duty, and were immediately discovered by the hidden sentries. A gunshot shattered the silence of the night.
The alarmed Ausser Army Soldiers immediately emerged from their tents and opened fire on the attackers. The dwarves charged with shields, but most of them were shot down within fifty meters. As the remaining dwarves approached the camp, the guards threw grenades. Shrapnel flew everywhere, and the dwarves were either killed or maimed, screaming as they rolled into the deep ditch.