Infinite Sun in the East China Sea

Chapter 293 Living Armor
Ten minutes before the East Sea team arrived in "The Hobbit," Xu Feng tested hundreds of technological weapons on a group of wild beasts.

The results of these experiments indicate that the God's restrictions on technological weapons are subject to subjective judgment.

The most clearly defined and strictest restrictions are on bullet-type weapons. The vast majority of bullets are blocked by an invisible barrier before they hit the beasts of this world, regardless of whether the power source for firing the bullet is gunpowder, electromagnetic force, or high-pressure steam.

The shockwave and debris from the explosion would be similar; the debris from burying explosives in boulders would also be considered part of the damage from technological weapons. It is unrealistic to expect to bury nuclear bombs in the mountains or underground to create countless flying rocks and cause massive casualties to the monsters in this world.

If a weapon like a thermobaric weapon is used, which suffocates the target by consuming oxygen, the invisible defensive barrier will be even larger, enough to keep the target waiting for outside air to fill the oxygen-deficient area.

However, the definition of other types of technology-based attacks is somewhat vague.

Ordinary iron arrows dropped from thousands of meters in the air by aircraft can damage their targets—these arrows, weighing only about half a pound, are quite powerful under the influence of gravity; however, the same weapon, when deployed in large numbers as 'cluster arrows,' is considered a technological weapon.

Weapons such as thermal weapons, electric shock weapons, sonic weapons, and corrosive weapons are determined by their power source. Even if the effects are the same, similar attacks launched by extraordinary energy can be exempted from technology determination.

The power of weapons of the same type will also affect the judgment. Small flamethrowers can light cigarettes for characters or burn them, but if the power is increased to the point that it can burn people to death, the damage will be greatly reduced.

Poison weapons can be used against small targets, but they degrade rapidly when spread on a large scale on the battlefield.

Biological weapons such as bacteria and viruses can be used, but their toxicity will decrease significantly after they have multiplied more than three times within the organisms in the story world.

As for Xu Feng's belief that the main god is lenient in its judgment of technological weapons, it has almost no restrictions on engineering technology equipment. As long as the moral level of the reincarnators is low enough, they can use engineering machinery to dig up river embankments and use water as an army.

In addition, auxiliary technological items that alter the battlefield environment, such as smoke generators and artificial rain equipment, can also take effect, and characters in the story will be affected by that artificial weather.

After roughly testing out some of the rules by which the main god restricted technological weapons, Xu Feng developed 'living armor' to defend against technological weapons in this world.

Specifically, a cavity is created inside a sufficiently large organism, and the reincarnator stays in the cavity. The reincarnator's actions are controlled by connecting to the organism's nervous system through the 'parasitic blood' fused with the organism.

In theory, achieving this goal would require a large creature the size of an elephant, but Xu Feng possessed life-sustaining technology that allowed the target to survive with only its head intact. Therefore, the experiment was completed using only a horse.

A newcomer's head was hidden in a horse's belly, easily immune to most technological weapons thanks to the local horses.

Of course, hiding inside the horse's belly was just for experimentation.

Before the East American team arrives, Xu Feng will prepare some more powerful armor. There are already many extraordinary creatures in the world of The Hobbit. In this world with abundant spiritual energy chosen by the main god, the number and strength of monsters are even higher than in the original story.

Those extraordinary creatures with considerable strength are the suitable 'biological armor'.

In Xu Feng's mind, the best biological armor is—the fire dragon Smaug.

Once the enemy kills Smaug, both teams will return to the main universe simultaneously; this armor is virtually foolproof.

The premise is that his strength far exceeds that of Smaug.

If Smaug is too strong, then we should settle for other monsters that are reasonably powerful.

Ogres, or trolls, are a safety net. The world of The Hobbit has several different kinds of ogres. The three that appeared at the beginning of the movie were rock ogres, which would turn to stone if exposed to sunlight. Xu Feng didn't like these kinds of creatures with so many weaknesses. But there are also some ogres in this world that can tolerate sunlight. Those ogres that are huge and have extremely strong regenerative abilities can be quite good 'armor against technological damage'.

After Xiangzi discovered that the idea of ​​'biological armor' was feasible, he also put forward his own suggestions.

—The self-destruct strategy!

"We have 'bio-armor' that makes us immune to technological weapons. If another Reincarnation Squad gets close to us, we can use a super-powerful nuclear bomb at close range through the bio-armor. A typical Reincarnator would be in a very bad state if hit by a nuclear bomb at close range," Xiangzi said excitedly.

Xu Feng smiled but did not offer any opinion.

A joke related to fighter jets flashed through his mind, but he ultimately refrained from saying it out of consideration for Xiangzi.

"East America will be arriving in 48 minutes, let's continue preparing."

In the hour before the East American team arrived, Xu Feng planned to make many preparations.

First, a 'sky eye' surveillance system needs to be deployed. Middle-earth is not suitable for deploying satellites; it can only create some cloud-like aerogel monitors that fly to the top of the troposphere. The range of observation of such a surveillance system is very limited, so it needs to be deployed over a large area.

In addition, he will randomly deploy some bionic ravens. These robotic birds are also part of the surveillance system, providing more detailed images.

Secondly, leave 'teleportation points' for the Imperial Arms Shangri-La in various regions of Middle-earth.

This space teleportation imperial artifact can only teleport to areas where a spatial imprint has been left. Xu Feng can use the Swallow Domain to leave an imprint hundreds of kilometers away, which allows him to instantly move hundreds of kilometers away in unfamiliar areas. Once a spatial imprint is left, he can move quickly around the globe, traveling from the easternmost to the westernmost point of a planet in just an instant.

As long as enough teleportation points are left, even if the East America team is far stronger than the East China Sea team, he can still play guerrilla warfare against the East America team.

In key locations like Lonely Mountain and the Orc Town in the Misty Mountains, it is essential to leave teleportation points to be ready to complete missions at any time.

Another aspect is hunting monsters. There are many monsters in the world of The Hobbit, but few are easy to find and inevitably have side quests. The Dark Lord Sauron and his Ringwraiths, the Balrog of Moria's Caverns, Smaug of Lonely Mountain... Xu Feng needs to at least confirm their strength. If they are not strong enough, then he should first get those side quests and reward points.

If you accumulate enough reward points, you don't need to worry about being eliminated due to negative points even if a few new players accidentally die.

Finally, we prepared the 'bio-armor'.

After quickly making arrangements within the mental energy chains, Xu Feng activated his Heavenly Eye, observing the surrounding hundreds of kilometers and carefully searching for monsters mentioned in the Lord of the Rings series. Xiangzi also used her mental energy to scan and assist him.

Soon, the two found the monster near Shire: the Ancient Tomb Corpse Demon.

This is a kind of evil spirit that attaches itself to corpses. They are minions of the Ringwraith Witch-king Angmar and are active in the ancient burial mounds not far east of the Shire. This monster is not mentioned in the Lord of the Rings movies, but in the original novel, Frodo and the other three hobbits encountered this monster shortly after leaving the Shire.

With Tom Bombardier's help, they defeated the Ancient Tomb Demon and obtained the trophy from the tomb where the Ancient Tomb Demon was located—the Kingdom of Kadolan Dagger.

The world of The Lord of the Rings has gone through the Age of the Great Lamp, the Age of the Two Trees, the First Age, and the Second Age. At this point, which is the time when The Hobbit takes place, it is the Third Age, 2941. After decades of the War of the Ring, it enters the Fourth Age.

At the end of the Second Age, after the fall of Númenóre, Aragorn's ancestors entered Middle-earth, establishing the kingdom of Arnor in the north of western Middle-earth and the kingdom of Gondor in the south.

Afterwards, the Kingdom of Arnor split into three kingdoms: Arsendan, Rudolf, and Kaldorran. In the middle of the Third Age, these three kingdoms were destroyed by the Kingdom of Angmar, founded by the Witch-king of Angmar, the leader of the Nazgûl. Afterwards, the remaining people of the Kingdom of Arsendan called themselves nomads, and Aragorn was the sixteenth chieftain of these nomads. Since the royal family of Gondor had died out, this Dúnedan ranger had the right to inherit the Kingdom of Gondor, which was of the same lineage.

The dagger that Frodo's four hobbits obtained from the tomb was made by the Kingdom of Cardolan during their fight against the Ringwraith Witch-king Angmar. It has the ability to harm the Ringwraiths and is fifteen centuries old.

While Éowyn, the princess of Rohan, did kill the Witch-king of Angmar partly because of her "I am not a man," it was the hobbit Merry who assisted her in doing so. He used a dagger from the Kingdom of Kaldoran to stab the Witch-king in the knee, breaking the Ringwraith's immortality.

In the original Lord of the Rings novels, when the Hobbit quartet and Aragorn were besieged by five Ringwraiths at Windrise, the Ringwraiths' retreat was also related to the Kaldorran dagger.

Frodo's performance in the novel is far superior to that in the film. When the Witch-King of Angmar attacks him, he also attacks the Witch-King, and then tears the Witch-King's robes with the dagger—this tells the four Ringwraiths that they have the possibility of resistance.

Since Frodo had been wounded by the Ringwraiths' Mogul blade and was certain to die, the five Ringwraiths decided not to pursue him to the death. This was not a major mistake. Judging from the way the Witch-king of Angmar died later, if the battle had continued, with the cooperation of Aragorn and the four hobbits, even if the five would have died, some of the Ringwraiths might have been permanently eliminated.

Xu Feng sought out the Ancient Tomb Corpse Demon for two reasons: first, defeating the Ancient Tomb Corpse Demon might yield reward points; second, he wanted to obtain the Cardolan Dagger from the Ancient Tomb.

The location of the nine Ringwraiths is now quite certain—Dogurdu at the southern end of Mirkwood. Completely killing these nine Sauron minions will most likely unlock a side quest.

Although there are some differences between the movie and the original novel, and the Kaldoran Dagger may not exist, and although Xu Feng felt that he could crush those Ringwraiths even without the Kaldoran Dagger, in order to more reliably obtain those side quests, Xu Feng felt that wasting a couple of minutes searching for these items was not excessive.

The number of ancient tomb corpse demons was more than he had expected.

In order to verify the effectiveness of spirit-type attack abilities against evil spirits in the Lord of the Rings world by examining these ancient tomb corpses, Xu Feng located a group of ancient tomb corpses and then had Xiangzi, Mei, and Tifa form a team to attack those corpses.

"There's still nothing in the tomb of this ancient corpse demon." Mei said through the mental chains after killing a corpse demon. "Also, purification spells can be used against this kind of monster."

She has killed the Ancient Tomb Corpse Demon in four different ways.

Enchanted arrows, Murasame slashes, walking corpse dolls, and purification spells cast by the shrine maiden's spiritual power—these methods can easily defeat these monsters and earn reward points from them—each Tomb Corpse Demon is worth 20 reward points.

“I don’t have any here either…” Tifa shook her head in another ancient tomb.

She also tested three methods of attacking spirits.

At this moment, Xiangzi said with some joy, "I found two daggers with special runes engraved on them, but there are only two, not the four in the story; telekinesis is very effective against this kind of evil spirit."

Three minutes later.

The group, who had each searched more than a dozen graves, reunited.

After a thorough search, they found six unique short knives, along with hundreds of exquisite pieces of jewelry, some of which were adorned with runes and made of mithril.

Xu Feng first inspected the six short knives.

After examining them for a moment, he said, "The main runes on these knives are anti-demon runes targeting the undead. Their overall strength is roughly equivalent to a D-level weapon in the God Realm, which is better than nothing."

He then distributed the six daggers to the three men, and as for himself... he could imagine creating an even better one.

Xu Feng, who was in a great hurry, did not offer much commentary. After all the veterans and newcomers had arrived, they moved eastward again.

Arrangements were made along the way.

Hunting and killing their way through.

While passing through the ogre forest, Xu Feng tested the waters by killing five giant trolls that were over ten meters tall. He then shook his head and said, "Ordinary ogres are only worth 100 points. These guys, who are over ten meters tall, are clearly much stronger than the ancient tomb corpse demons and have a strong regeneration ability. Yet they are only worth 100 points. It's nighttime now, so it's not a good time to waste time on them."

The Troll Forest is very close to the Misty Mountains, and many trolls live in that sizable woodland.

If the God of War gave the East China Sea team enough time, Xu Feng wouldn't mind clearing out the forest a little and earning a thousand or two reward points. Unfortunately, he had too much to do in the next half hour.

In the next ten minutes or so, Xu Feng passed through Moria and Lonely Mountain, confirming the strength of Balrog and Smaug from a distance of tens of kilometers.

These two monsters were quite powerful, stronger than he had anticipated.

Especially the Flame Demon, that monster exuded an unfathomable aura. Xu Feng was confident that he could deal with it, but he felt it would take quite a while.

Smaug was much weaker than Balrog, and Xu Feng was certain that he could instantly kill this nearly 300-meter-long dragon.

However, unless he personally controls and suppresses the cells of this nearly 300-meter-long dragon, it is difficult for others to regard Smaug as 'biological armor'. Once they enter Smaug's body, they can easily be digested by this dragon.

However, not long after leaving Lonely Mountain, Xu Feng found another dragon, much smaller than Smaug, in the gray mountains north of Lonely Mountain—a cold dragon that did not breathe fire.

(End of this chapter)