The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

The man's sword trembled slightly in mid-air, but quickly drew an arc, executing a kasaya slash, a diagonal cut, slashing down from the side.

Zhang Chang'an decisively chose to advance instead of retreat.

The blade grazed his left shoulder, slicing off a piece of clothing. But in the same instant, Zhang Chang'an leaned forward, his right hand wielding the steam-powered longsword, the force emanating from his waist, his entire back suddenly releasing like a taut bow.

A flicker of surprise crossed the man's eyes. He dodged sharply to the side, but the blade still grazed his ribs. Blood splattered, tracing a dark arc in the moonlight.

"[Yagyu Jubei, a swordsman serving under the Shogunate's Imperial Guard. Successor of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu swordsmanship...]"

After the formal confrontation began, this person's information was gradually revealed before them.

However, Jubei quickly regained his balance, gripping his sword with both hands, the tips slightly lowered, assuming a new stance. He resembled an enraged beast, extremely ferocious.

"The Monkey Returns—"

He let out a low shout, crouched down like a monkey, and suddenly leaped forward, the blade slashing upwards from below.

This is the second of the three styles of Shinkage-ryu Sarutobi, which uses the rise and fall of the body to create visual illusions and conceal the attack.

But Zhang Chang'an narrowed his eyes, his powerful aura instantly determining the true relative distance and the blade's trajectory. His steam-powered longsword arrived in a flash: "Clang!"

The two swords clashed, sparks flying. Using the recoil, the man twisted his body and thrust out his third sword, aiming for Zhang Chang'an's ribs from the side.

Zhang Chang'an took a slight breath, and the hydraulic system of the exoskeleton immediately emitted a deep hum. He took a half step forward with his left foot, and as he turned around, the blade was already behind him.

Su Qin, carrying his sword, instantly blocked the attack. When he turned back, the steam-powered longsword in his hand, wrapped around his head, had already moved to the other side, and he slashed down fiercely!

The man raised his knife to block.

With a loud "clang!", the man staggered back half a step, his hand going numb. His eyes widened in shock.

"Yagyu Jubei, Rank: [Miscellaneous Rank: 79.63%]"

Zhang Chang'an finally saw through this person's abilities.

He is indeed a decent warrior with some skill, and his level is probably similar to that of Boss Chen at his peak. However, his equipment is poor, and he doesn't have any steam-powered mechanical assistance.

In terms of physical strength and skills alone, he is no match for Zhang Chang'an.

"Bang!" Relying on the prompting from the Eye of Death, Zhang Chang'an decisively drew his gun and killed a samurai who was preparing to launch a sneak attack.

Turning around again, Zhang Chang'an's properly activated Death Eye had already slowed down the movements of the person in front of him considerably.

"Drink!" He exerted force with his hand, steam swirling around him, the blade flashing rapidly, the trails of light instantly connecting in a continuous barrage: "Clang clang clang..."

In the blink of an eye, three slashes had already been made.

"Clang!" The long sword in the samurai's hand was quickly knocked out of his hand, because Zhang Chang'an had struck his hand, and a huge gash was also cut open on his shoulder.

After that stab, he fell backward and crashed heavily to the ground.

Zhang Chang'an decisively followed up and stabbed the man in the head with a backhand.

"Pfft!" As Zhang Chang'an swung his sword, he raised it again. The number of warriors around him had decreased significantly, and none of them dared to make a move.

The guy in front of them appeared like a ghost. He burst into their convoy under the moonlight and took down their swordsmanship instructor in no time. Now he didn't even have to breathe.

During the standoff with them, Zhang Chang'an turned and walked towards one of the carriages: "Bang!" He kicked open the carriage door.

Several wooden crates were piled up in the carriage, sealed with the shogunate's seals. He cleaved the seals open with a single stroke and lifted the crate lids.

Under the faint light streaming in from outside the car window, rows of neat glass tubes gleamed with a cold, eerie glow.

The tube wall is thin and uniform, and is almost transparent under moonlight, with only the edges reflecting a faint refracted light.

This is top-quality stuff, much better than the batch he got before, and it was exactly what he was looking for on this trip.

This afternoon, having pieced together a simple structure for the sludge remover, he decisively chose to conduct a simple test in the workshop.

However, the result was far from ideal. Japanese manufacturing standards were indeed poor back then, falling short of the description in the book. As a glass tube, it didn't withstand much internal and external pressure difference and burst open immediately, perfectly matching people's initial stereotypes about glass.

He therefore needs to find better parts, and in addition, the fuel problem is also giving him a headache.

Blue agate—this should have been the least troublesome thing for him in the entire treatment device.

Although it's a bit expensive, you can buy it easily based on the family tree.

However, when Zhang Chang'an placed these precious items together with the oil sludge scraped off the local machines, they did not react to each other at all.

It's like mixing water and oil; you look at each other, but neither of you pays any attention to the other.

Zhang Chang'an paused for a moment, then took out some more blue agate and tried it on his own exoskeleton equipment, which was using London oil, before confirming the problem.

The problem was that the variety was incorrect.

London uses whales from the Atlantic Ocean, while Japan uses whales from the Pacific Ocean. They may not even be the same species.

Although both are products that do not exist in reality, they are incompatible with each other.

"Damn it... You're already extraordinary beings, why are you still doing reproductive isolation?" Zhang Chang'an cursed as he stuffed glass tubes into his clothes. "Can't you guys just cultivate into human form and break through this barrier? If you could, I wouldn't have to bother with all this."

The carriage and the glass tube wouldn't answer him; besides those, he also needed to get his hands on high-grade oil from Japan, which was far more difficult to obtain than London's blue agate.

That's how he found this place.

This convoy in front of us is certainly not simple either.

The spacetime rift in Japan may be a more serious problem, and the era is also special with a greater degree of distortion. The combat power level of the people there is generally higher than that in London. However, it is really rare to see someone like Jubei who has a cultivation level of more than 70%.

The reason they could send such people as guards was because what they were transporting was something specifically supplied to the Advanced Research Institute of the Steam Division.

Xiao Ju once chatted with Tie Zhou about this thing as gossip, and it was also mentioned briefly in her work log.

The Steam Engineering Division has its own special research facility in the mountains, and it seems that the best materials in all of Kyoto are supplied to them.

So he came, and it certainly didn't disappoint him.

"I just don't know if they'll have any good fuel... I'll go out and see if I have enough time. Since I'm already here, I'll check two more cars..."

He turned around and just peeked out of the carriage.

"Bang!"

Just then, a dull thud came from behind the car.

Then: "Hoo!"

Zhang Chang'an suddenly turned his head and saw the heavy wooden door fly out like a piece of paper, sweeping directly across his front.

If he hadn't been alert, it probably would have hit him directly.

"Bang!" The carriage door slammed down on the ground some distance away, kicking up a cloud of dust.

From the carriage whose door had been smashed open, a huge figure finally emerged...

Zhang Chang'an looked up in that direction, a sense of foreboding washing over him: "What...what's going on?"

That person was much taller than average, at least 1.9 meters tall. His broad shoulders almost blocked the entire carriage door.

In Japan, where Oda Nobunaga, who was only 1.7 meters tall, was considered a giant rarely seen in history, he could almost be adapted into an Attack on Titan.

But more importantly, this person was clearly wearing a complete set of Warring States period armor.