Longzang

Chapter 847 Weapon Spirit
Dozens of missiles appeared once again in Liu Lan's pupils, her beautiful dark silver vertical pupils almost spitting fire. The archer shamans were all on high alert, but they were all somewhat listless and lacked spirit, showing little will to fight.

The bugle sounded in the military camp, and the Wu tribe warriors rushed out of the barracks and stood in various open spaces, holding heavy shields. Everyone stood at roughly the same distance, so that from the sky, there were no places that were too dense or too sparse.

The missile roared in, accelerated, and then evaded most of the intercepting heavy arrows with agile maneuvers. It rushed over the military camp and then dropped a large number of short cones, just like before.

Soldiers on the ground fell in droves, their heavy shields offering only meager protection; only a lucky few escaped being pierced by bullets. Fortunately, the soldiers were widely dispersed, so although the casualties appeared devastating, they were actually only a few thousand.

"Aaaaaah!!!" Liu Lan's roar echoed for miles, even attracting attention from beyond the heavens. The issue wasn't the number of casualties, but rather the profound humiliation and defeat Liu Lan felt in the face of uninterceptable missiles.

He stared at the corpses strewn across the ground, his anger raging. But his fury was futile; it couldn't stop the missiles, nor could it halt the collapse in morale.

For the past ten days or so, Liu Lan has been subjected to a missile barrage every day. As a result, the army's progress has been extremely slow, and morale is low. They are still two hundred miles away from Qing Ming's official defensive line and have not yet entered the attack range.

Liu Lan has figured it out: each of these missile warheads contains a somewhat intelligent guinea pig.

Guinea pigs are sharp-witted, quick-reacting, and naturally timid. Through training, they have learned how to maneuver missiles to avoid danger, and will instinctively dodge at the sight of the Great Shaman's heavy arrows.

Compared to guinea pigs, the heavy arrows of the Wu tribe are slower, so their interception effect is quite poor; they might not be able to stop even one out of ten. Moreover, the guinea pigs are clearly trained and know to shoot towards crowded places, tall or densely packed buildings, and altars.

Seeing Liu Lan's fury, one of his trusted men said, "My lord, please calm down. These missiles are certainly limited in number and won't last long."

Liu Lan was quite disgusted by this kind of empty and meaningless consolation, and said angrily, "These low-level spirit beasts can reproduce hundreds of times a year, so they can have as many as they want."

The confidant hurriedly explained, "My lord, I wasn't talking about guinea pigs, but the incoming rockets. I've already examined them; these rockets are exquisitely crafted, with each component fitting together perfectly. Only a master craftsman could make them. Even a skilled craftsman working himself to the bone would probably take ten days or half a month to build just one."

Wei Yuan has already fired nearly a thousand rounds; his stockpile must be depleted. We can acquire such powerful weapons of war by exchanging ordinary soldiers for these weapons; it's actually quite a bargain.”

Liu Lan nodded slowly, finding the idea quite reasonable, and her mood finally improved. Then, she suddenly burst into laughter. Her subordinate was somewhat puzzled, but naturally had to ask, "Why is Your Excellency laughing?"

Liu Lan said, "Everyone around thinks Wei Yuan is so powerful, but in my opinion, he's nothing special! Short-sighted and lacking in strategy! Hmph, if it were me, I would definitely hide these weapons and keep them a secret. When our army attacks, we'll unleash them all at once and focus our attack on the altar!"

Now Wei Yuan is wasting resources like this, killing some ordinary soldiers. What good does it do for the overall situation?

The subordinate then realized what was happening and was completely convinced, praising, "Sir, your military strategy is divine, far surpassing those ugly men!"

Liu Lan nodded slightly, quite pleased with herself.

In the Qingming Weapon Forging Workshop, Yu Zhizhuo stood beside Wei Yuan, looking dissatisfied. Pointing to the mountain of bullets in front of him, he said, "Take them away or fire them out, in short, get these things out of here! The warehouse is completely full now. The three large warehouses that were just completed last time are already full again after only ten days!"
What's that old thief hoeing the fields doing? Why is loading a bullet so slowly? He can't even load a thousand a day?

Wei Yuan smiled apologetically and patiently explained, "It's not easy for him either. Guinea pigs have short memories, so they have to be trained and used immediately, otherwise they'll forget everything after seven days. The newly selected disciple, Tianxin, isn't skilled in beast taming yet, so we have to have the veterans step in. Training five hundred a day is already the limit; any more and we can't handle it."

Yu Zhizhuo frowned and said, "What, are those guinea pig elders going to rebel?"

After the guinea pig population reached a certain level, some of them underwent inexplicable changes, becoming larger and more intelligent. Later, some even developed innate spirituality and innate Dao foundations. These spiritually gifted guinea pigs originally planned to lead their clan to dig through the medicinal garden and escape from Qingming, but they discovered cats on the ground, snakes underground, and a weasel would occasionally appear in the clan.

Then Master Chuhe noticed something amiss, so he gathered the guinea pigs together to form an elders council, appointing them as elders to manage all matters concerning the guinea pigs on his behalf.

As a result, the guinea pig elders were deeply grateful, feeling they had seen a beacon of hope for their lives and were enjoying the noble treatment of being born as humans. They no longer looked down on their still-foolish tribesmen and devoted themselves to disciplining them for the old Taoist priest, using exceptionally ruthless methods. The old Taoist priest's ability to train the guinea pigs to ride rockets in such a short time was largely due to these guinea pig elders.

Yu Zhizhuo knew all this, so he assumed that the problem lay with the guinea pig elders.

To everyone's surprise, Wei Yuan sighed and said, "Those elders are very determined, there's no problem. It's just that one of our trainers has gone mad."

Yu Zhizhu remained silent for a moment, then asked, "So what do we do now?"

"The Wu Clan is almost there anyway. Once they're in position, I'll launch all the rockets I can at once, and their frontline altars will definitely be destroyed."

Then Wei Yuan passed Yu Zhizhuo a document and said, "However, the results of the past few days show that rockets are not very reliable. They can hurt but not kill, and they don't hurt very much. They're just for show. We need to use some other methods."

Yu Zhizhuo took the information, read it carefully, and said, "It seems that if we can't strike the Great Archer Shaman, we won't really hurt the Shaman Clan. However, the gunpowder weapons we currently have are not powerful enough, and relying entirely on gunpowder to deal with the Great Shaman is still a bit lacking."

Wei Yuan asked, "With the current methods, at what distance can we pose a fatal threat to a Great Witch?" "I just designed a new weapon last month, perfect for the Dao Soldiers. By the way, your new spiritual treasure is almost finished; it only needs the final refinement of its spirit. Now that you're here, let's complete that step."

Wei Yuan followed Yu Zhizhuo towards the Hundred Industries Engineering Academy. The newly established headquarters of the Engineering Academy was located in the Forging Workshop, and none of the academicians had any objections.

Yu Zhizhuo has a whole room of laboratories in the Academy of Engineering, with more than two hundred assistants, and they are conducting more than one hundred research projects at the same time.

Wei Yuan followed Yu Zhizhuo into a heavily guarded laboratory, where eight cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage were intently manipulating the light spheres and handling tasks. Each of them could handle sixteen tasks simultaneously and appeared quite relaxed.

Wei Yuan glanced at it again before entering the next laboratory.

It must be said that the cultivators of Qingming have now become accustomed to using worldly affairs, and their skill level has greatly improved. Back then, before Cui Yu advanced to the Dharma Aspect stage, he struggled to handle sixteen tasks, but now, these eight cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage can easily manage sixteen tasks.

The number of tasks is a marker, actually representing the level of spirituality of the primordial spirit. The higher the spirituality, the greater the chance of advancing to the Dharma Body, and the easier it is to develop a higher-level Dharma Body. Currently, there are eight cultivators in Yu Zhizhuo's laboratory who can handle sixteen tasks each, and they are all very likely to break through to the Dharma Body, so it's no wonder that Wei Yuan took a second look.

After passing through another array, they entered Yu Zhizhuo's own laboratory. This place should be called the experimental area, with hundreds of parts displayed on the shelves, and a legendary anvil in the corner. This anvil is actually a top-tier spiritual treasure; skilled weapon-forging masters can hammer any desired part from it.

In the center of the laboratory, within a magic array, lay a long spear, slowly rotating with the array. Countless malevolent spirits, their diverse faces undulating within the array, all appearing to be in extreme agony. This array was also connected to countless smaller arrays, injecting vast amounts of malevolent energy and demonic power into it, intensifying the spirits' suffering.

This sight shocked even Wei Yuan: "What is going on?"

"I am infusing your new magical artifact with a spirit. The more pain these spirits are in, the more they will try to merge with each other in an attempt to alleviate their suffering. Of course, in reality, the pain will only increase, not decrease. After all, the pain they have been enduring is the pain that is most suitable for them, and they cannot bear the pain of others."

Wei Yuan was stunned, not expecting Yu Zhizhuo to say something so reasonable.

Yu Zhizhuo continued, "One advantage of a spirit born from numerous Yin spirits is its extremely high spirituality. The downside is that it can sometimes be irritable or even out of control, which requires the master to have exceptionally strong spiritual consciousness and Dharma form, otherwise it is easy to be devoured."

This was naturally not a problem for Wei Yuan; dozens of bronze figures had already been unearthed from the earthly realm.

Yu Zhizhuo said, "Now there's only one last step left, which is to infuse it with your essence and a bit of your divine sense. Of course, it would be best to add some luck as well. With the guidance of luck, the spirit of the artifact might be able to transform into whatever you desire, for example, a beautiful woman, hahaha!"

Wei Yuan grinned and said earnestly, "Uncle-Master, we from the Heavenly Crafts Hall shouldn't tell jokes anymore."

Yu Zhizhuo's laughter froze on his face, then he snorted heavily and said, "Nephew, we've heard of your reputation long ago. If you really manage to enlighten a princess of Ningguo later, you might not get away with it!"

Wei Yuan's face darkened, and he said urgently, "Uncle-Master! Be careful what you say!"

Yu Zhizhuo also realized that now was not the time to speak carelessly. The results of Qi Refining were extremely unpredictable, and anything could happen. If the spirit of the artifact were to emerge as a princess of Ningguo, things would become chaotic.

After this minor setback, Wei Yuan had a strong sense of foreboding and hesitated.

However, under Yu Zhizhuo's constant urging, Wei Yuan still flicked a drop of essence blood into the formation. Countless Yin spirits, like hyenas seeing flesh and blood, rushed in from all directions, vying to throw themselves into the essence blood.

Wei Yuan was still uneasy, so he decided to invest some more luck. This was a spiritual treasure he planned to use when he encountered Yu Jing, and Wei Yuan couldn't be stingy with it. At this moment, there was no luck from beyond the heavens; besides a massive amount of azure luck, he only had a little golden glazed luck left over from when the Red Lotus Bodhi underwent its tribulation.

Wei Yuan then poured all the remaining golden glazed fortune into the formation, but Yu Zhizhuo exclaimed in surprise, "How do you possess the Pure Land Glazed Fortune?"

Wei Yuan's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly asked, "Is there something wrong with this luck?"

“There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just extremely rare. Even the Palace Master’s collection only has a few dozen of them, which is less than what you’ve thrown in at once. I never thought that such luck could be used up so easily. I’m just… sighing.” Yu Zhizhu shook his head and sighed.

Wei Yuan's sense of unease grew stronger, and he saw a beautifully shaped bald head gradually emerge from where the evil spirits had gathered.

"As expected... could things get any worse..." Wei Yuan sighed inwardly.

Then he saw a pair of blue eyes slowly open.

(End of this chapter)