Buying Business and the World's Main Current

Toot!

Accompanied by a long whistle, a massive black steel warship suddenly appeared in plain sight amid the battlefield where the two sailing fleets were locked in chaotic combat.

Aside from its unexpectedly strange material,

the warship's most distinctive feature was the complete absence of the tall masts and huge sails that were standard on ships of this era. In their place stood towering smokestacks belching thick black smoke.

This was actually a Steam-Powered Ironclad Warship, a creation that had directly skipped over the Tulip technological tree!

"How could Atlan, an island nation with such a weak industrial foundation, suddenly produce a weapon of this level? And the steam engine wasn't even auxiliary power—it had gone all the way and removed all sail rigging?!"

Naturally, they were delighted to see two powerful neighboring countries at war. Evan and the other two were practically hoping they would beat each other's brains out, but this development had still caught them completely off guard.

They immediately turned back to inspect their own armories.

The result came as no surprise.

Including the prototype Full Heavy Battleship, the Armored Knight, Faletis had launched four new-style battleships over the past three years.

As Tulip's trump cards, they were all still intact, moored in secret naval ports.

The Garratt Duchy's three Full Heavy Battleships, led by the first Dreadnought-class Black Sea Pearl, were also all accounted for.

A Dreadnought-class Full Heavy Battleship cost around four hundred thousand Gold Lions, equivalent to the cost of ten first-rate Sailing Warships.

Even wealthy powers like Faletis and Garratt could only stockpile armaments at a rate of one ship per year for the time being.

Moreover, weapons were upgraded at an astonishing pace during the era of the Technological Big Bang. Evan and Weina had no intention of digging themselves a