From a monarch's perspective, Zhou Xu's way of thinking was not necessarily the same as Qin Fen's as a researcher.
Obviously, Qin Fen was smart enough to know the answer from the very beginning.
Skipping steam engines entirely and taking advantage of the heat energy inherent to Fire Crystal Stones would solve most of the technical problems at their root and allow them to directly manufacture internal combustion engines. That was indeed very tempting.
But how much were the Fire Crystal Stones producing?
Leaving aside their reserves, the special mining environment meant that the miners could not work in the Fire Crystal Stone mines for long periods. As a result, their current output was simply impossible to increase.
Under these circumstances, they would be using their limited Fire Crystal Stones to develop internal combustion engines.
They could skip questions like "Can they successfully develop them?" and "How much funding and time will development require?" for now and simply assume that the Fire Crystal Stone internal combustion engine had already been successfully developed.
How many ships or vehicles could they make with it?
If this were an ordinary world, producing an armored vehicle in this era might allow it to run rampant across the battlefield.
But this was a magical world!
Under normal circumstances, the attacks of Hundred Refinements Realm martial artists might not pose much of a threat, but the Vajra Realm was another matter entirely.
As for Extraordinary Mages and Saint Realm Mages, they were even harder to judge. It depended on what kinds of True Word Spells they possessed.
Even if a Saint Realm Mage only knew Skeleton Soldier Control, he definitely would not be able to deal with an armored vehicle.
By comparison, if Zhou Xu invested all his limited Fire Crystal Stones into manufacturing Enchanted Weapons—