Longzang

Chapter 392 A Kind of Hand-to-Hand Combat
After embracing Li Zhi, Wei Yuan led his army back to Qingming. This time, he led his army on a long-distance raid, facing completely unfamiliar mountain people, but the results were unexpectedly good.

On the way back, Wei Yuan kept reviewing the entire battle.

Mount Emei is exactly 10,000 li away from Qingming, while Qingming's range is 300 li. This means that Wei Yuan's combat strength and Dao foundation have been enhanced within 15,000 li. With the blessing of the vast land, the warriors' firing rate has increased, and the barrage of bullets is continuous, resulting in unexpectedly good damage.

Recalling the unexpectedly powerful Immaculate Reincarnation technique against the young monk Honglian, Wei Yuan vaguely felt that he might have underestimated the power of continuous flying sword attacks. Just like when he first developed the Torrent Water Blade Technique, he hadn't expected it to be so powerful.

Ordinary muskets, once they create a continuous barrage, can be surprisingly lethal in open areas of the battlefield. Perhaps we should consider increasing their rate of fire.
The effectiveness of a gun on the battlefield depends on a variety of factors: rate of fire, handling, the power of the flying sword itself, production difficulty, and so on. Wei Yuan could easily think of dozens of factors to consider, which gave him a headache. But this was a major matter that had to be thought through carefully and could not be taken lightly.

However, Wei Yuan suddenly remembered that there were tens of thousands of mortals in the vast land of China. These people had retained some memories of their past lives and did not need to be re-educated. These people were idle all day long, so idle that they would bow down to anything offered to them and spend half a day bowing. There were so many immortal plants that were not enough for them to worship, so they even carved statues of gods to worship.

Since that's the case, why not invite them to study it together? Anyway, we're just playing a minor role, so it doesn't matter if we can't figure it out.

So Wei Yuan entered the vast land and rivers, transmitted his thoughts, and passed on the structure of the existing flying sword spear so that these mortals could try to improve it, while also letting them refer to Xu Wenwu's information.

After assigning the task, Wei Yuan put the matter out of his mind, since he didn't really expect these people to be able to come up with anything.

To date, firearms improvements have relied on two main approaches: first, drawing inspiration from Xu Wenwu's materials, and second, on Yu Zhizhuo's design and manufacturing.

As for ammunition, gunpowder is key. Without Sun Yu's improved gunpowder formula, muskets would remain useless. Just thinking about the new formula made Wei Yuan's heart ache. The new gunpowder was several times more expensive than the old one, and with the increased rate of fire, ammunition consumption surged during battle. Every time he heard a gunshot, Wei Yuan felt as if his immortal silver was burning.

Therefore, Wei Yuan has been demanding ransom more and more aggressively lately.

No sooner had the army returned to Qingming than Yu Zhizhuo sent someone to find Wei Yuan, asking him to come and help capture the spirit creature. Wei Yuan was also very curious about what kind of spirit creature Yu Zhizhuo was so eager to capture.

The traces of the spirit creature appeared in a new mineral vein in the northwest of the realm. This mineral vein was located four hundred miles northwest of the realm, already outside the realm's boundaries. Yu Zhizhuo explored along the earth's veins, probing more than a hundred miles in one go, and finally found the mineral vein.

According to Yu Zhizhuo, this vein contains a large amount of associated spiritual minerals, making it a top-grade vein with immeasurable value. He suggested building a city to defend it.

The mine is currently located in the Wuyu realm, a dangerous area frequented by Wu tribe members. To protect the exploration team, Wei Yuan specifically assigned two thousand elite warriors to Yu Zhizhuo's command. They repelled several small groups of Wu tribe members' harassment before finally establishing the mine.

When Wei Yuan arrived, Yu Zhizhuo was setting up an array, and he also brought Sun Yu and the old Taoist Chuhe over to help set it up.

The mine entrance is at the bottom of a small hill. After digging through the soil, you'll find red-spotted ore, and inside there are layers of ore with golden stripes.

"Uncle-Master Yu, what kind of spirit is it that warrants such a large-scale operation?" Wei Yuan asked.

"It's a ball of golden essence, but it looks like a ball of blue light. It can move within the ore vein, which is extremely rare. I've already set up an array to confine it to a certain area, but that area is still too large. It's difficult for just the few of us to capture it, and it has escaped several times. That's why I asked you for help."

Wei Yuan naturally agreed and followed Yu Zhizhuo down into the mine, where they guarded a spacious natural cave. Wei Yuan stood in the center of the cave, and as soon as Yu Zhizhuo left, he saw a ball of blue light emerge from the cave wall in front of him. A small ball of light peeked out, saw Wei Yuan, spat out a piece of ore, and then spat it out.

Wei Yuan casually grabbed the ore in his hand, and in a flash appeared in front of the blue light, grabbing it.

The blue light neither flinched nor dodged, and only when Wei Yuan's finger was about to touch it did it calmly escape, not forgetting to spit mud all over Wei Yuan's hand before leaving.

Wei Yuan was furious! He had never seen such an arrogant spirit creature before!
But when he looked down, he saw a crystal-clear gem in his right hand, inside which a small immortal mountain was floating. Although Wei Yuan didn't know what it was, he could tell at a glance that it was no ordinary spiritual material; it must be very expensive, extremely expensive, incredibly expensive!
The mud on his left hand was brimming with spiritual energy, containing golden particles that resembled spirit gold or primordial copper—in short, rare spiritual materials.

After being spat on twice by the spirit creature, Wei Yuan suddenly gained several thousand taels of immortal silver. In an instant, Wei Yuan's resentment vanished, and he felt that its arrogance was quite justified. Wei Yuan suspected that there might be another reason why Sun Yu and the old Taoist Chuhe had been unable to capture this spirit creature for so long.

Suddenly, a stone fell from above and hit Wei Yuan on the head. Wei Yuan caught it, and his wealth increased by a thousand taels of silver.

After several exchanges, Wei Yuan discovered that this spirit creature was incredibly fast. Even if his hand fell into its palm, no matter how it changed or suddenly accelerated, it could easily escape and humiliate Wei Yuan in the process.

Although Wei Yuan welcomed the humiliation, it wasn't good to keep missing it. So Wei Yuan perked up, and when the spirit reappeared, the surrounding world suddenly turned black and white, and everything became grainy.

The spirit creature cried out in surprise and tried to burrow into the rock wall, but was bounced out. It seemed to have hit the wall quite hard, and staggered backward, dropping countless spiritual materials and precious ores along the way. The clinking and clattering almost made Wei Yuan lose his composure and bend down to pick them up.

Fortunately, Wei Yuan still knew what was important. Activating the Yin-Yang Realm once would grant three streams of celestial fortune, far more valuable than spiritual materials and ore. He brought his hand down and grabbed the spiritual object. At this moment, Wei Yuan's fingertips were covered in blue icy energy, freezing the spiritual object into a block of ice crystal.

Upon returning to the ground, Wei Yuan handed the spiritual object to Yu Zhizhuo. This spiritual object appeared to have no physical form, yet it possessed innate spirituality.

Yu Zhizhuo was overjoyed and carefully sealed it away. Then he let out a long breath and said to Wei Yuan, "Nephew, you've really helped me a lot!"

"What's the use of this thing?" Not only Wei Yuan, but Sun Yu and Master Chuhe were also very curious. They had been trying to catch this little thing for three whole days, and their wealth had increased by nearly 100,000 immortal silver, but they still hadn't succeeded.

Yu Zhizhuo didn't hold back, saying, "With this, one can slightly adjust the properties of materials within a certain range. This adjustment itself isn't very valuable, but by comparing the differences before and after the adjustment, one can quickly grasp the properties of the material. Some immortal materials may only have a small piece in the whole world, making it extremely difficult to study their properties. With this treasure, this matter can be easily solved. This is a priceless treasure for refining artifacts."

With this item, my path to enlightenment is now unobstructed. I only need to accumulate more knowledge about the properties of matter to break through this barrier. If I can advance further in the future, it can even serve as the foundation for my celestial realm.

Everyone was moved. However, this item only has special uses for master craftsmen like Yu Zhizhuo; for others who don't craft weapons, its value is greatly reduced.

Yu Zhizhu bowed to Wei Yuan and said, "This is a debt of gratitude for my attainment of enlightenment; I cannot express my thanks enough!"

Returning to Qingming, Wei Yuan was in a very good mood. If Yu Zhizhu could achieve Dharma Aspect, the strength and foundation of the realm would surely rise to another level. Moreover, judging from the meaning of his words, with this ball of golden essence, the future of Yujing was promising.

Back at his residence, Wei Yuan had just pushed open the courtyard gate when a wisp of sword energy was pressed against the back of his head, followed by a clear and pleasant voice: "Such a big mouth, but not much skill!"

Wei Yuan remained calm and said indifferently, "If you have the guts, put down your sword and let's fight hand-to-hand."

"Who's going to fight you hand-to-hand!" The man behind him kicked Wei Yuan to the ground, stomped on him, and said coldly, "If this were a life-or-death battle, you'd be dead by now!"

With his legs so weak... Wei Yuan quickly cleared away any inappropriate thoughts.

Recently, the mortals in the Dao Foundation have been praying daily with extremely absurd content. After hearing so much of it, Wei Yuan's thoughts inevitably became somewhat strange. Wei Yuan felt that he needed to properly discipline these mortals.

"If this were truly a life-or-death battle, you would surely be the one to die. What, without the immortal sword and spiritual treasures, you can't fight anymore?"

"Nonsense! Do I need external help?"

Wei Yuan sneered: "Don't you need it? I don't think your physical body is anything special. Where did you steal that body-forging technique from?"

(End of this chapter)